not.”
“Shall we see how the tape came out?” Montalbano asked politely.
“What tape?” said Lohengrin Pera, confused.
Montalbano went over to the bookcase, stood up on tiptoe, took out the videocamera, and showed it to the colonel.
“Jesus!” said the colonel, collapsing in a chair. He was sweating.
“Montalbano, for your own good, I implore you . . .” But the man was a snake, and he behaved like a snake. As he appeared to be begging the inspector not to do anything stupid, his hand had moved ever so slightly and was now within reach of the cell phone. Fully aware that he would never make it out of there alone, he wanted to call for rein-forcements. Montalbano let him get another centimeter closer to the phone, then sprang. With one hand he sent the cell phone flying from the table, with the other he struck the colonel hard in the face. Lohengrin Pera flew all the way across the room, eyeglasses falling, then slammed against the far wall back first, and slid to the ground. Montalbano slowly drew near and, as he’d seen done in a movie about Nazis, crushed the colonel’s little glasses with his heel.
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And while he was at it, he went for broke, pounding the cell phone violently into the ground with his heel until he’d half-pulverized it.
He finished the job with a hammer he kept in his tool drawer. Then he approached the colonel, who was still on the floor, groaning feebly. As soon as he saw the inspector in front of him, Lohengrin Pera shielded his face with his forearms, as children do.
“Enough, for pity’s sake,” he implored.
What kind of man was he? A punch in the face and a trickle of blood from his split lip, and he’s reduced to this?
Montalbano grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket, lifted him up, and sat him down. With a trembling hand, Lohengrin Pera wiped away the blood with his embroidered postage stamp, closed his eyes, and appeared to faint.
“It’s just that . . . blood . . . I can’t stand the sight of it,” he muttered.
“Yours or other people’s?” Montalbano inquired.
He went into the kitchen, grabbed a half-full bottle of whisky and a glass, and set these in front of the colonel.
“I’m a teetotaler.”
Montalbano felt a little calmer now, having let off some steam.
If the colonel, he thought, wanted to phone for help, then the people who were supposed to come to his rescue must certainly be in the neighborhood, just a few minutes’
drive from the house. That was the real danger. He heard the doorbell ring.
“Chief ? It’s me, Fazio.”
He opened the door halfway.
“Listen, Fazio, I have to finish talking to that person I mentioned. Wait in the car. I’ll call you when I need you.
But be careful: there may be some people in the area who are up to no good. Stop anyone you see approaching the house.” He shut the door and sat back down in front of Lohengrin Pera, who seemed lost in dejection.
“Now try to understand me, because soon you won’t be able to understand anything anymore.”
“What do you intend to do to me?” asked the colonel, turning pale.
“No blood, don’t worry. I’ve got you in the palm of my hand, I hope you realize that. You were foolish enough to blab the whole story in front of a videocamera. If I have the tape aired on TV, it’s going to kick up such a fucking row on the international scene that you’ll be selling chickpea sandwiches on a street corner before it’s all over. If, on the other hand, you let Karima’s body be found and block my promotion—and make no mistake, the two things go hand in hand—I give you my word of honor that I’ll destroy the tape.
You have no choice but to trust me. Have I made myself clear?”
Lohengrin Pera nodded his little head “yes,” and at that moment the inspector realized that the knife had disappeared from the table. The colonel must have seized it when he was talking to Fazio.
“Tell me something,” said Montalbano. “Are there such things, that you know of, as poisonous worms?” Pera gave him a questioning look.
“For your own good, put down the knife you’re holding inside your jacket.”
Without a word, the colonel obeyed and set the knife down on the table. Montalbano opened the whisky bottle, filled the glass to the brim, and held it out to Lohengrin Pera, who recoiled with a grimace of disgust.
“I’ve already told you I’m a teetotaler.”
“Drink.”
“I can’t, believe me.”
Squeezing the colonel’s cheeks with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, Montalbano forced him to open his mouth.
