The Shape of Water

“So nothing.”

They turned back toward Vigata, but after a few steps Pino stopped Saro.

“Rizzo, the lawyer,” he said.

“I’m not going to call that guy. He gives me the creeps. I don’t even know him.”

“I don’t either, but I’m going to call him anyway.”

Pino got the number from the operator. Though it was still only seven forty-five, Rizzo answered after the first ring.

“Mr. Rizzo?”

“Yes?”

“Excuse me for bothering you at this hour, Mr.

Rizzo, but . . . we found Mr. Luparello, you see, and . . . well, he looks dead.”

There was a pause. Then Rizzo spoke.

“So why are you telling me this?”

Pino was stunned. He was ready for anything, except that bizarre response.

“But . . . aren’t you his best friend? We thought it was only right—”

“I appreciate it. But you must do your duty first.

Good day.”

Saro had been listening to the conversation, his cheek pressed against Pino’s. They looked at each other, nonplussed. Rizzo acted as if they’d told him they’d just found some nameless cadaver.

“Shit! He was his friend, wasn’t he?” Saro burst out.

“What do we know? Maybe they had a fight,”

said Pino to reassure him.

“So what do we do now?”

“We go and do our duty, like the lawyer said,”

concluded Pino.

They headed toward town, to police headquarters.

The thought of going to the carabinieri didn’t even cross their minds, since they were under the command of a Milanese lieutenant. The Vigata police inspector, on the other hand, was from Catania, a certain Salvo Montalbano, who, when he wanted to get to the bottom of something, he did.

2

“Again.”

“No,” said Livia, still staring at him, her eyes more luminous from the amorous tension.

“Please.”

“No, I said no.”

I always like being forced a little, he remembered her whispering once in his ear; and so, aroused, he tried slipping his knee between her closed thighs as he gripped her wrists roughly and spread her arms until she looked as though crucified.

They eyed each other a moment, panting, when suddenly she surrendered.

“Yes,” she said. “Now.”

At that exact moment the phone rang. Without even opening his eyes, Montalbano reached out with his arm to grab not the telephone so much as the fluttering shreds of the dream now inexorably vanishing.

“Hello!” he shouted angrily at the intruder.

“Inspector, we’ve got a client.” He recognized Sergeant Fazio’s voice; the other sergeant, Tortorella, was still in the hospital with the nasty bullet he’d taken in the belly from some would-be mafioso who was actually just a pathetic two-bit jerk-off. In their jargon a “client” meant a death they should look into.

“Who is it?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“How was he killed?”

“We don’t know. Actually, we don’t even know if he was killed.”

“I don’t get it, Sergeant. You woke me up to tell me you don’t know a goddamn thing?”

Montalbano breathed deeply to dispel his pointless anger, which Fazio tolerated with the patience of a saint.

“Who found him?” he continued.