The Snack Thief

Translation copyright © Stephen Sartarelli, 2003

All rights reserved.

Originally published in Italian as Il ladro di merendine by Sellerio editore. © 1996

Sellerio editore via Siracusa 50 Palermo.

Publisher’s Note

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Camilleri, Andrea.

[Ladro di merendine. English]

The snack thief Andrea Camilleri ; translated by Stephen Sartarelli.p>

p. cm.

ISBN: 1-4362-7199-1

I. Sartarelli, Stephen, 1954– II. Title.

PQ4863.A3894L3313 2003

853'.914.dc21

2003041090

Set in Bembo

Designed by Jaye Zimet

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THE SNACK THIEF

01

He woke up in a bad way. The sheets, during the sweaty, restless sleep that had followed his wolfing down three pounds of sardines a beccafico the previous evening, had wound themselves tightly round his body, making him feel like a mummy. He got up, went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and guzzled half a bottle of cold water. As he was drinking, he glanced out the wide-open window. The dawn light promised a good day.

The sea was flat as a table, the sky clear and cloudless. Sensitive as he was to the weather, Montalbano felt reassured as to his mood in the hours to come. As it was still too early, he went back to bed and readied himself for two more hours of slumber, pulling the sheet over his head. He thought, as he always did before falling asleep, of Livia lying in her bed in Boccadasse, outside of Genoa. She was a soothing presence, propitious to any journey, long or short, “in country sleep,” as Dylan Thomas had put it in a poem he liked very much.

No sooner had the journey begun when it was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. Like a drill, the sound seemed to enter one ear and come out the other, boring through his brain.

“Hello!”

“Whoozis I’m speaking with?”

“Tell me first who you are.”

“This is Catarella.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Sorry, Chief, I din’t rec’nize your voice as yours. You mighta been sleeping.”

“I certainly might have, at five in the morning! Would you please tell me what the hell is the matter without busting my balls any further?”

“Somebody was killed in Mazara del Vallo.”

“What the fuck is that to me? I’m in Vigata.”

“But, Chief, the dead guy—”

Montalbano hung up and unplugged the phone. Before shutting his eyes he thought maybe his friend Valente, vice-commissioner of Mazara, was looking for him. He would call him later, from his office.

o o o

The shutter slammed hard against the wall. Montalbano sat bolt upright in bed, eyes agape with fright, convinced, in the haze of sleep still enveloping him, that he’d been shot at. In the twinkling of an eye, the weather had changed: a cold, humid wind was kicking up waves with a yellowish froth, the sky now entirely covered with clouds that threatened rain.