sorrow over Francois? It was too late to ring her friend and get an up-date. He went and sat down on the veranda, and after a short while he decided that if he couldn’t get in touch with Livia within the next forty-eight hours, he would drop everything and everyone, grab a flight to Genoa, and spend at least one day with her.
The ringing of the telephone had him running in from the veranda. He was sure it was Livia calling him, finally.
‘Hello? Am I speaking to Inspector Montalbano?’
He’d heard that voice before, but couldn’t remember who it belonged to.
‘Yes. Who’s this?’
‘This is Ernesto Panzacchi.’
The echo had arrived.
‘What is it?’
Were they on familiar terms or not? At this point it didn’t matter.
‘I want to talk to you. In person. Should I come to your place?’
He had no desire to see Panzacchi in his house. ‘I’ll come to you. Where do you live?’ ‘At the Hotel Pirandello.’ Tm on my way.’
Panzacchi’s room at the hotel was as big as a ballroom. Aside from a king-size bed and an armoire, it had two armchairs, a large table with television and VCR on top, and a minibar.
“There hasn’t been time yet for my family to move down here.’
‘Excuse me, I have to take a piss.’ ‘Look, there’s nobody in the bathroom.’ ‘I really do need to piss.’
There was no trusting a snake like Panzacchi. When Montalbano returned from the bathroom, Panzacchi invited him to sit down in one of the armchairs. The captain of the Flying Squad was a stocky but elegant man with very pale blue eyes and a Tatar-style moustache.
‘Can I get you something?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Should we get right to the point?’ Panzacchi asked. ‘As you like.’
‘Well, a patrolman came to see me this evening, a certain Culicchia, I don’t know if you know him.’
“Personally, no, by name,, yes.’
‘He was literally terrified. Apparently two men from your station threatened him.’ Is that what he said?’ ‘That’s what I believe I understood.’ ‘You understood wrong.’ ‘Then you tell me.’
‘Listen, it’s late and I’m tired. I went into the Di Blasis’ house in Raffadali, looked around a little, and with very little effort found an ammunition box with a hand grenade and a pistol inside. I’ve got them in my safe now.’
‘Jesus Christ! You’ve got no authorization!’ said Panzacchi, standing up.
‘You’re going down the wrong road,’ Montalbano said calmly.
‘You’re concealing evidence!’
‘I said you’re on the wrong road. If we keep talking about authorization and going by the book, I’m going to get up, walk out of that door and leave you behind in the shit. Because that’s where you are, deep in shit’
Panzacchi hesitated a moment, weighed the pros and cons, and sat back down. He’d given it a shot, and the first round had gone badly for him.
‘You should even thank me,’
the inspector went on.
‘For what?’
‘For having taken the ammunition box out of the house. It was supposed to prove where Maurizio Di Blasi found his hand grenade, right? Except that forensics wouldn’t have found Di Blasi’s fingerprints in there even if their lives depended on it. And how would you have explained that? By saying Maurizio had worn gloves? Can you imagine the laughter!’
Panzacchi said nothing, his pale eyes looking straight into the inspector’s.
‘Shall I go on? Your first sin … actually, no, I don’t give a fuck about your sins, the first mistake you made was to hunt down Maurizio before being absolutely certain of his guilt. But you wanted to carry-out a “brilliant”
operation at all costs. Then what happened happened, and you breathed a real sigh of relief. Pretending you were saving one of your men who mistook a shoe for a weapon, you concocted the story of the hand grenade, and to make it more credible, you went and planted the ammo box in the Di Blasi house.’
‘That’s all talk. If you go and say those things to the commissioner, - rest assured he won’t believe a word of it. You’re spreading these rumours just to tarnish my reputation, to avenge yourself for the fact that the investigation was taken away from you and turned over to me.’
‘And what are you going to do about Culicchia?’
‘He’s coming with me to the Flying Squad offices tomorrow morning. I’ll pay the price he’s asking.’
‘And what if I take the weapons to Judge Tommaseo?’
‘Culicchia’ll say it was you who asked him for the key to the depository the other day. He’s ready to swear by it. Try to understand: he has to defend himself, and I suggested to him how to do this.’
‘So - I’ve lost?’
It looks that way.’
‘Does that VCR work?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could you play this tape?’
Montalbano took it out of his pocket and handed it to Panzacchi who didn’t ask any questions, but simply inserted the cassette. The images appeared, the captain of the Flying Squad watched them all the way through, then rewound the tape, extracted the cassette, and handed it to Montalbano. He sat down and lit a half-consumed Tuscan cigar.
‘That’s just the last part.
I’ve got the whole tape in the same safe as the weapons’ Montalbano lied. ‘How did you do it?’
Friends of Guttadauro, the lawyer, whom you know well’
‘This is a nasty development, totally unexpected.’
It’s a lot nastier than you can possibly imagine. It so happens you’re being squeezed between me and them.’
‘Allow me to say that their reasons I can understand perfectly well; it’s yours that don’t seem so clear to me, unless you’re motivated by feelings of revenge.’
‘Now you try. to understand
‘Look, Montalbano, all I wanted to do was protect the good name of my men. Can you imagine what would have happened if the press had discovered we killed a man who was defending himself with a shoe?’
Is that why you implicated Maurizio’s father, who had nothing to do with the case?’
‘With the case, no, but with my plan, yes. As for possible attempts at blackmail, I know how to defend myself.’
Tm sure you do. You can hold out, which isn’t a very nice way to live, but what about Culicchia and the other six who’ll be put under pressure every single day? How long will they hold out? All you need is for one to crack, and the whole story comes out. I’ll give you a very likely scenario: As soon as they get sick of your refusals, the mob is liable to give a public viewing of their tape or send it to a private TV
station that’ll jump at the scoop even if it means risking prison. And if that happens, the commissioner, gets fried too.’
‘What should I do?’
Montalbano looked at him in admiration for a moment, Panzacchi was a ruthless, unscrupulous player, but he knew how to lose.
‘You should disarm them, neutralize the weapon they’ve got in their hands.’ He couldn’t resist adding a malicious comment he immediately regretted. ‘This is not a shoe’ he said. ‘Talk about it, tonight, with the commissioner. Find a solution together. But I warn you: if you haven’t made a move by twelve tomorrow, I’ll make my own move, in my own way.’
He got up, opened the door, and went out.
‘I’ll make my own move, in my own way’ It had a nice ring to it. Just threatening enough. But what did it really mean? If, say, the captain of the Flying Squad were to get the commissioner on his side, and the latter in turn got Judge Tommaseo to join them, he, Montalbano, was as good as fucked. But was it possible that everyone in Montelusa had suddenly become dishonest? The antipathy a particular person might arouse is one thing; his character and integrity were another matter.
He returned to Marinella full of doubts and questions. Had he been right to talk that Way to Panzacchi? Would the commissioner accept that he wasn’t motivated by a desire for revenge? He dialled Livia’s number. As usual, no answer. He went to bed, but it took him two hours to fall asleep.
FOURTEEN
When he walked into the office, his nerves were so obviously frayed that his men judged it best to give him a wide berth.
