Then, already in the hospital, someone in a white smock:
'He's lost too much blood.'
After that, nothing. He tried to look around. The room was clean and white. There was a large window, the daylight pouring through. He couldn't move; his arms were stuck full of IVs. His side didn't hurt anymore, however; it felt instead like a dead part of his body. He tried to move his legs but couldn't. He slipped slowly away into sleep.
He awoke again towards what must have been evening, since the lights were on. He closed his eyes at once when he saw that there were people in the room. He didn't feel like talking. Then, out of curiosity, he raised his eyelids just enough to see a little. Livia was there, sitting beside the bed in the only metal chair; behind her, standing, was Anna. On the other side of the bed, also standing, was Ingrid. Livia's eyes were wet with tears, Anna was crying without restraint, and Ingrid was pale, her face drawn.
He closed his eyes and escaped into sleep.
...
At 6:30 on what he thought was the next morning, two nurses washed him and changed his medication. At seven the chief physician appeared, accompanied by five assistants, all of them in white smocks. The chief physician examined the chart appended at the foot of the bed, pulled the sheet aside, and began to touch him on his injured side.
'Seems to be coming along very nicely,' he declared. 'The operation was a complete success.'
Operation? What operation was he talking about? Ah, maybe to remove the bullet that had wounded him. But it's not often a machine-gun bullet stays inside the body instead of slicing right through it. He would have liked to ask questions, demand explanations, but the words wouldn't come out. The doctor, however, seeing his eyes, guessed what questions the inspector was formulating.
'We had to perform an emergency operation on you. The bullet passed through your colon.'
Colon? And what the hell was his colon doing in his side? The colon had nothing to do with ones sides, it was supposed to be in the belly. But if it had to do with the belly, did this mean, and here he gave such a start that the doctors noticed that from this moment on, for the rest of his life, he could eat only mush?
...mush? Montalbano finally managed to mutter, the horror of that prospect reactivating his vocal cords.
'What did he say?' the chief physician asked, turning to his assistants.
'I think he said brush,' said one.
'No, no, he said ambush,' interjected another.
They left arguing over the question.
...
At 8:30 the door opened and Catarella appeared.
'Chief, how goes it? How you feeling?'
If there was one person in the entire world with whom Montalbano felt dialogue was useless, it was Catarella. He didn't answer, but merely moved his head as if to say that things were a little less bad.
'I'm on guard here, over you, I mean. This hospital's a revolving door, people come, people go, back and forth and back and forth. Somebody could maybe come in immotivated with bad intentions, trying to finish the job they didn't finish. You know what I mean?'
The inspector knew exactly what he meant.
'Know what, Chief ? I gave blood for the transfusal.'
And he went back on guard against the badly immotivated. Montalbano thought bitterly of the dark years that lay ahead of him, surviving on Catarella's blood and eating semolina mush.
...
The first in the long series of kisses he would receive over the course of the day were from Fazio.
'Did you know, Chief, that you shoot like a god? You got one guy in the throat with a single shot, and you wounded the other.'
'I also wounded the other guy?'
'You certainly did. We don't know in what part of the body, but you wounded him all right. It was Jacomuzzi who noticed a red puddle about ten yards from the cars. Blood.'
'Have you identified the one who died?'
'Of course.'
He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.
'Muna first name Gerlando, born in Montelusa on the sixth of September, 1971, unmarried, resident of Montelusa, Via Crispi 43, no distinguishing features.'
He still hasn't given up his Records Office fetish, thought Montalbano.
'And how did he stand with the law?'
'Not a thing. Clean record.' Fazio put the sheet of paper back in his pocket. 'For a job like that, they get half a million lire maximum.'
He paused. He obviously had something to say but didn't have the courage to say it. Montalbano decided to help him out.
'Did Gege on the spot?'
