The Snack Thief

But there wasn’t a soul to be seen. The man who’d driven it there was surely hiding somewhere nearby. Montalbano decided it was best to feign indifference. He stepped out of the car,whistling,reclosed the door,and saw somebody waiting for him. He hadn’t noticed him earlier because the man was standing on the far side of the car and was so small in stature that his head did not exceed the height of the car’s roof. Practically a midget, or not much more than one. Well dressed, and wearing small, gold-rimmed glasses.

“You’ve made me wait a long time,” the little man said, coming forward.

Montalbano, keys in hand, moved towards the front door.

The quasi-midget stepped in front of him, shaking a kind of identity card.

“My papers,” he said.

The inspector pushed aside the little hand holding the documents, opened the door, and went inside. The man followed behind him.

“I am Colonel Lohengrin Pera,” said the elf.

The inspector stopped dead in his tracks, as if someone had pressed the barrel of a gun between his shoulder blades.

He turned slowly around and looked the colonel up and down. His parents must have given him that name to compensate somehow for his stature and surname. Montalbano felt fascinated by the colonel’s little shoes, which he must surely have had made to measure; they wouldn’t even have fit in the “sottouomo” category, as the shoemakers called it—that is, for “sub-men.” And yet the services had enlisted him, so he must have been tall enough to make the grade. His eyes, however, behind the lenses, were lively, attentive, dangerous.

Montalbano felt certain he was looking at the brains behind the Moussa affair. He went into the kitchen, still followed by the colonel, put the mullets in tomato sauce that Adelina had made for him into the oven, and started setting the table, without once opening his mouth. On the table was a seven-hundred-page book he’d bought from a bookstall and had never opened. He’d been drawn by the title: The Metaphysics of Partial Being. He picked it up, stood on tiptoe, and put it on the shelf, pressing the button on the videocamera. As if somebody had said “roll ’em,” Colonel Lohengrin Pera sat down in the right chair.

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18

Montalbano took a good half hour to eat his mullets, either because he wanted to savor them as they deserved, or to give the colonel the impression that he didn’t give a flying fuck about what the man might have to say to him. He didn’t even offer him a glass of wine. He acted as if he were alone, to the point where he even once burped out loud. For his part, Lohengrin Pera, once he’d sat down, had stopped moving, limiting himself to staring at the inspector with beady, viperlike eyes. Only when Montalbano had downed a demitasse of espresso did the colonel begin to speak.

“You understand, of course, why I’ve come to see you.” The inspector stood up, went into the kitchen, placed the little cup in the sink, and returned.

“I’m playing aboveboard,” the colonel continued, after waiting for him to return. “It’s probably the best way, with you. That’s why I chose to come in that car, for which you twice requested information on the owner.” From his jacket pocket he withdrew two sheets of paper, which Montalbano recognized as the faxes he’d sent to Automobile Registration.

“Only you already knew who the car belonged to; your commissioner must certainly have told you its license number was cloaked. So, since you sent me these faxes anyway, it must mean their intention was more than simply to request information, however imprudently. I therefore became convinced—correct me if I’m wrong—that for your own reasons, you wanted us to come out into the open. So here I am: your wish has been granted.” “Would you excuse me a minute?” Montalbano asked.

Without waiting for an answer, he got up, went into the kitchen, and returned with a plate on which was a huge, hard piece of Sicilian cassata ice cream. The colonel settled in pa-tiently and waited for him to eat it.

“Please continue,” said the inspector. “I can’t eat it when it’s like this. It has to melt a little first.”

“Before we go any further,” resumed the colonel, who apparently had very strong nerves, “let me clarify something.

In your second fax, you mention the murder of a woman named Aisha. We had absolutely nothing to do with that death. It must surely have been an unfortunate accident. If she’d needed to be eliminated, we would have done so immediately.” “I don’t doubt it. I was well aware of that too.”

“So why did you state otherwise in your fax?”

“Just to turn up the heat.”

“Right. Have you read the writings and speeches of Mussolini?”

“He’s not one of my favorite authors.”

“In one of his last writings, Mussolini says that the people should be treated like a donkey, with a carrot and a stick.”

“Always so original, that Mussolini! You know something?”

“What?”

“My grandfather used to say the same thing. He was a peasant and, since he wasn’t Mussolini, he was referring only to the ass, the donkey, that is.”

“May I continue the metaphor?”

“By all means!”