“What the hell do you think, Cat? A toot of your trumpet ? A toot of your tenor sax? Honk the goddamn horn!”
“The horn don’ work, Chief.”
“Well, I guess that means we’ll have to wait here till dark.”
He fired up a cigarette. By the time he’d finished it, Catarella had made up his mind.
“Chief, I’m gonna go look for ’em m’self. Seeing as how their Jeep’s right here, maybe it means they’re maybe right here, inna ’sinnity.”
“Take my raincoat.”
“Nah, Chief, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Cuz a raincoat’s civillan ’n’ I’m in uniform.”
“But who’s gonna see you here?”
“Chief, a uniform’s always a uniform.”
He opened the door, got out, gasped “Ah,” and vanished. He disappeared so quickly, in fact, that Montalbano feared he might have fallen into a ditch full of water and was now drowning. He quickly got out of the car himself, and in the twinkling of an eye found himself sliding ass to the ground down a muddy slope some thirty feet long at the bottom of which sat Catarella, looking like a sculpture made out of fresh clay.
“I mussa parked the Jeep right aside the edge wittout realizin’ it, Chief.”
“I figured that, Cat. So, how are we going to climb out of here now?”
“Look, Chief, see ’at little path over there, over onna left? I’m gonna go ’ave a look-see, ’n’ you c’n follow me, but be real careful, cuz iss all slip’ry ’n’ all.”
About fifty yards on, the path turned to the right. The heavy rain made it impossible to see even a short distance ahead. Suddenly Montalbano heard someone calling from above.
“Chief ! We’re over here!”
He looked up. Fazio was standing atop a sort of elevation, reachable via three huge steps cut directly into the rock face. He was sheltered under an enormous red-and-yellow umbrella of the kind shepherds use. Where on earth had he found it? To climb the three steps, Montalbano had to have Catarella push him from behind and Fazio pull him up by the hand.
The elevation turned out to be a tiny, level clearing in front of the entrance to a cave that one could enter. Once inside, the inspector was wonderstruck.
It was warm in the cave. A fire was burning inside a circle of rocks. A carter’s oil lamp hung from the vault and gave off sufficient light. Mimi and a man of about sixty with a pipe in his mouth were each sitting on a stool made of tree branches and playing cards on a little table between them, also made of branches. Every so often, taking turns, they took a sip from a flask of wine on the ground. A pastoral scene. Especially as there was no hint of the corpse anywhere. The sixtyish man greeted the inspector; Mimi did not. In fact, for the past month or so, Augello had been at odds with all of creation.
“The dead body was discovered by that man playing cards with Inspector Augello,” said Fazio, gesturing towards the man. “His name’s Pasquale Ajena, and this is his land. He comes here every day. And he’s equipped the cave so that he can eat here, rest here, or just sit here and look out at the landscape.”
“May I humbly ask where the hell the body is?”
“Apparently, it’s about fifty yards further down.”
“
“Yes. According to Mr. Ajena, the spot is practically unreachable, unless it stops raining.”
“But this isn’t going to stop before evening, if we’re lucky!”
“There’ll be a break in the clouds in about an hour,” Ajena cut in. “Guaranteed, with a twist of lemon on it. And then it’ll start raining again.”
“So what are we supposed to do here till then?”
“Have you eaten this morning?” Ajena asked him.
“No.”
“Would you like a little fresh tumazzo with a slice of wheat bread made yesterday?”
Montalbano’s heart opened and let in a gentle breeze of contentment.
“I don’t mind if I do.”
Ajena got up, opened a spacious haversack that was hanging from a nail, pulled out a loaf of bread, a whole tumazzo cheese, and another flask of wine. Pushing aside the playing cards, he set them all down on the little table. Then he extracted a knife from his pocket, a kind of jackknife, which he opened and laid down beside the bread.
“Help yourselves,” he said.
“Could you tell me at least how you found the body?” asked Montalbano, mouth full of bread and cheese.
“No, come on!” Mimi Augello burst out. “First, he has to finish the game. I haven’t been able to win a single one so far!”
Mimi lost that one
