'How much did the airplane cost you?'
...
He slept splendidly, as gods pleased with their handiwork are said to sleep. He'd done everything possible, and even something impossible. Now there was nothing to do but wait for an answer. The message had been sent out, in such a way as to allow somebody to decipher the code, as Alcide Maraventano would say. The first phone call came in at seven in the morning. It was Luciano Acquasanta of Il Mezzogiorno, who wanted to corroborate one of his opinions.
'Was it not possible the two young people were sacrificed in the course of some Satanic rite?'
'Why not?' said Montalbano, polite and open to anything.
The second call came fifteen minutes later. It was Stefania Quattrini, from the magazine Essere Donna. Her theory was that Mario was caught making love to Lisetta by another, jealous woman, we know what sailors are like, who did away with both of them. She probably then skipped the country, but on her deathbed confided in her daughter, who in turn told her own daughter of the grandmother's crime. This girl, to make good in some way, had gone to Palermo, she spoke with a foreign accent, didn't she? and arranged the whole business with the airplane.
'Why not?' said Montalbano, polite and open to anything.
Cosimo Zappal of the weekly magazine Vivere! communicated his hypothesis to Montalbano at 7:25. Lisetta and Mario, drunk on love and youth, were in the habit of strolling through the countryside hand in hand, naked as Adam and Eve. Surprised one unlucky day by a contingent of retreating German soldiers, also drunk, but on fear and ferocity, they were raped and murdered. On his deathbed, one of the Germans...And here this version linked up curiously with Stefania Quattrinis.
'Why not?' said Montalbano, polite and open to anything.
At eight, Fazio knocked on the door and brought him all the dailies available in Vig, as he'd been ordered to do the night before. The inspector leafed through them while repeatedly answering the phone. All of them, with greater or lesser degrees of emphasis, reported the story. The headline that most amused him was the one in the Corriere, which read:
Adelina was amazed to find him at home and not out, as was usually the case.
'Adelina, I'm going to be staying home for a few days. I'm waiting for an important phone call, so I want you to make my siege comfortable.'
'I didn't unnastand a word you said.'
Montalbano then explained that her task was to alleviate his voluntary seclusion by putting a little extra imagination in her lunch and dinner dishes.
Around ten, Livia called.
'What's going on? Your phone is always busy!'
'I'm sorry. It's just that I've been getting all these calls in reference to'
'I know what they're in reference to. I saw you on TV. You were so unselfconscious and glib, you didn't seem yourself. It's obvious you're better off when I'm not around.'
He rang Fazio at headquarters and asked him to bring all mail home to him and to buy an extension cord for the phone. The mail, he added, should be brought to him at home each day, as soon as it arrived. And Fazio should pass the word on: anyone who asked for him at the office must be given his private number by the switchboard operator, with no questions asked.
Less than an hour passed before Fazio arrived with two unimportant postcards and the extension cord.
'What's new at the office?'
'What's new? Nothing. You're the one who attracts the big stuff. Inspector Augello only gets the little shit: purse snatchings, petty theft, a mugging here and there.'
'I attract the big stuff ? What's that supposed to mean?'
'It means what I said. My wife, for instance, is scared of rats. Well, I swear, she draws them to her like a magnet. Wherever she goes, the rats soon arrive.'
For forty-eight hours he'd been like a dog on a chain. His field of action was only as large as the extension cord would allow, and therefore he could neither walk on the beach nor go out for a run. He carried the phone with him everywhere, even when he went to the bathroom, and every now and then the mania took hold of him, after twenty-four hours he would pick up the receiver and bring it to his ear to see if it was working. On the morning of the third day a thought came into his mind:
This was followed by another, closely related thought:
On the morning of the fourth day, filthy and bristly, wearing slippers and the same shirt since the first day, he gave Adelina a fright.
'Maria santissima, signuri! Whata happen to you? Are you sick?'
'Yes.'
'Why don you call a doctor?'
'It's not the sort of thing for a doctor.'
...
He was a very great tenor, acclaimed in all the world. That evening he was to sing at the Cairo Opera, at the old theater, which hadn't yet burned down, though he knew well that it would soon be devoured by flames. He'd asked an attendant to inform him the moment Signor Gege sat down in his box, the fifth from the right on the
