The Snack Thief

The telephone rang.

“Chief ? It’s His Honor Judge Lo Bianco. He says he wants to speak personally with you.”

“Put him on.”

A couple of weeks earlier, Judge Lo Bianco had sent the inspector a complimentary copy of the first tome, all seven hundred pages, of a work to which he’d been devoting himself for years: The Life and Exploits of Rinaldo and Antonio Lo Bianco, Masters of Jurisprudence at the University of Girgenti at the Time of King Martin the Younger (1402–1409). He’d got it in his head that these Lo Biancos were his ancestors. Montalbano had leafed through the book one sleepless night.

“Hey, Cat, are you going to put the judge on the line or not?”

“The fact is, Chief, I can’t put him on the line, seeing as he’s already here personally in person.”

Cursing, Montalbano rushed to the door, showed the judge into his office, and expressed his apologies. He already felt guilty towards the judge for having phoned him only once about the Lapecora murder, after which he’d completely forgotten he existed. No doubt he’d come to give him a tongue-lashing.

“Just a quick hello, my dear Inspector. Thought I’d drop in, since I was passing by on my way to see my mother who’s staying with friends at Durrueli. Let’s give it a try, I said to myself. And I was lucky: here you are.” And what the hell do you want from me? Montalbano said to himself. Given the solicitous glance the judge cast his way, it didn’t take him long to figure it out.

“You know, Judge, lately I’ve been losing sleep.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“I spend the nights reading your book. It’s more gripping than a mystery novel, and so rich in detail.” A lethal bore: dates upon dates, names upon names. By comparison, the railroad schedule book had more surprises and plot twists.

He remembered one episode recounted by the judge in which Antonio Lo Bianco, on his way to Castrogiovanni on a diplomatic mission, fell from his horse and broke a leg. To this insignificant event the judge devoted twenty- two mania-cally detailed pages. To show he’d actually read the book, Montalbano foolishly quoted from it.

And so Judge Lo Bianco engaged him for two hours, adding other details as useless as they were minute. When he finally said good-bye, the inspector felt a headache coming on.

“Oh and, listen, dear boy, don’t forget to keep me posted on the Lacapra case.”

o o o

When he got to Marinella, neither Livia nor Francois were there. They were down by the water, Livia in her bathing suit and the boy in his underpants. They’d built an enormous sand castle and were laughing and talking. In French, of course, which Livia spoke as well as Italian. Along with English. Not to mention German, truth be told. The house ignoramus was he, who barely knew three or four words of French he’d learned in school.

He set the table, then looked in the fridge and found the pasta ’ncasciata and veal roulade from the day before.

He put them in the oven at low heat, then quickly got undressed, put on his swimsuit, and joined the other two.

The first things he noticed were a little bucket, a shovel, a sand-sifter, and some molds in the shapes of fish and stars.

He, of course, didn’t have such things about the house, and Livia certainly hadn’t bought them, since it was Sunday.

And there wasn’t a soul on the beach aside from the three of them.

“What are those?”

“What are what?”

“The shovel, the bucket—”

“Augello brought them this morning. He’s so sweet!

They belong to his little nephew, who last year . . .” He didn’t want to hear any more. He dived into the sea, infuriated.

When they returned to the house, Livia noticed the cardboard tray full of pastries.

“Why did you buy those? Don’t you know that sweets are bad for children?”

“Yes I do, it’s your friend Augello who doesn’t know it.

He bought them. And now you’re going to eat them, you and Francois.”

“While we’re at it, your friend Ingrid called, the Swedish woman.”

Thrust, parry, counterthrust. And what was the meaning of that “while we’re at it”?

Those two liked each other, that was clear. It had started the previous year, when Mimi had driven Livia around in his car for an entire day. And now they were picking up where they’d left off. What did they do when he wasn’t there? Trade cute little glances, smiles, compliments?

They began eating, with Livia and Francois murmuring to each other from time to time, enclosed inside an invisible bubble of complicity from which Montalbano was utterly excluded. The delicious meal, however, prevented him from getting as angry as he would have liked.

“Excellent, this brusciuluni,” he said.

“What did you call it?”