Lastly, the now familiar squad of exterminators arrived, sent by the mayor, who by this point had become a family friend. As Guido was overseeing operations, Laura, who still seemed upset, said to Livia under her breath:
“This house doesn’t like us.”
“Oh, come on. A house is a house. It doesn’t have likes and dislikes.”
“I’m telling you, this house doesn’t like us.”
“Oh, please.”
“This house is cursed!” Laura insisted, her eyes sparkling as if she had a fever.
“Please, Laura, don’t be silly. I realize your nerves are a little frayed, but—”
“You know, I’m beginning to reconsider all those films I’ve seen about haunted houses full of spirits that come up out of hell.”
“But that’s all make-believe!”
“I bet I’m right, just you wait and see.”
On the morning of the ninth day, it started raining hard. Livia and Laura went to the Montelusa museum, and Guido was invited by the mayor to visit a salt mine and brought Bruno along with him.That night it rained even harder.
On the morning of the tenth day, it kept coming down in buckets. Laura phoned Livia to tell her she and Guido were taking Bruno to the hospital, because one of the cuts on his foot was beginning to ooze pus. Livia decided to take advantage of the circumstances to put Salvo’s house in order. Late that evening the rain let up, and everyone was convinced that the following day would be clear and hot, a perfect day to spend on the beach.
2
Their prediction proved correct.The sea, no longer gray, had regained its usual color. The sand, being still wet, verged on light brown, but after two hours of sunlight it had turned back to gold. The water was perhaps a bit cool, but in that heat, which was already intense at seven in the morning, it would be warm as broth by midday.Which was the temperature Livia liked best. Whereas Montalbano couldn’t stand it. It made him feel like he was swimming in a hot pool at a spa, and after he came out, he would feel sluggish and drained.
Arriving at Pizzo at nine-thirty, Livia was pleased to learn that it had been a normal morning so far, with no cockroaches, mice, or spiders, nor had there been any new arrivals of, say, scorpions or vipers. Laura, Guido, and Bruno were ready to go down to the beach.
As they were heading out through the little gate on the terrace, they heard the telephone ring inside the house. Guido, who was an engineer for a company specializing in bridge-building and had been receiving phone calls over the past two days concerning a problem he’d tried to explain to Montalbano with zero success, said:
“You all go on ahead. I’ll join you in a minute.”
And he went into the house to answer the phone.
“I need to pee,” Laura said to Livia.
She went in, too. Livia followed behind. Because, for reasons unknown, the need to pee is contagious; all it takes is one person in a crowd needing to pee before everyone needs to. And so she went into the other bathroom.
When each had attended to his or her business, they met back up on the terrace. Guido locked the French doors as they filed out, closed the little gate behind them, grabbed the beach umbrella—which he, being the man, was obliged to carry—and they headed towards the little stone staircase that led down to the beach. Before they began their descent, however, Laura looked around and said:
“Where’s Bruno?”
“Maybe he started going down by himself,” said Livia.
“Oh my God, Bruno can’t make it down by himself! I always have to hold his hand!” Laura said, looking a little worried.
They leaned out and looked down. From their vantage, they could see some twenty or so steps before the staircase turned. No sign of Bruno.
“He can’t possibly have gone any farther down,” said Guido.
“Go down and look, for heaven’s sake! He may have fallen!” said Laura, who was beginning to get upset.
Guido rushed down the stairs with Laura’s and Livia’s eyes following him and disappeared around the turn. Not five minutes later, he reappeared round the curve.
“I went all the way down. He’s not there. Go back and check the house.We may have locked him inside,” he said in a high voice, panting hard.
“How will we do that?” said Laura.“You have the keys!”
Having hoped to spare himself the climb, Guido clambered up, cursing, opened the gate and then the French door. Then, all in chorus, they called:
“Bruno! Bruno!”
“That stupid kid is capable of lying hidden under a bed for a whole day just to spite us,” said Guido, who was beginning to lose patience.
They searched for him all through the house, under the beds, inside the armoire, on top of the armoire, under the armoire, in the broom closet. Nothing doing.At a certain point, Livia said:
“But there’s no sign of Ruggero, either . . .”
It was true. The cat, who was always getting tangled between one’s feet—as Guido knew all too well—seemed to have disappeared, too.
“Usually he comes when we call him, or at least he meows. Let’s try calling him,” Guido suggested.
It was a logical idea. Since the kid couldn’t talk, the only one who could respond in some way was the cat.
“Ruggero! Ruggero!”
No feline response.
“So Bruno must be outside,” Laura surmised.
They all went out and searched around the house, even checking inside the two parked cars. Nothing.
“Bruno! Ruggero! Bruno! Ruggero!”
“Maybe he went walking down the little road that leads to the main one,” Livia suggested.
Laura’s reaction was immediate:
“But if he got that far . . . oh God, the traffic on that road is so awful!”
So Guido got into the car and drove very slowly down the dirt path leading to the main road, searching left and right. When he reached the end, he turned around and noticed that in front of the rustic cottage there now was a peasant of about fifty, poorly dressed, a dirty beret on his head, staring at the ground so intently that he seemed to be counting the ants.
Guido stopped and stuck his head out the window.
“Excuse me . . .”
“Eh?” said the man, raising his head and batting his eyelids like someone who had just woken up.
“Did you by any chance see a little boy pass this way?”
“Who?”
“A little three-year-old boy.”
“Why?”
What kind of a question was that?
wondered Guido, whose nerves by this point were on edge. But he answered:
“Because we can’t find him.”
“Ohh no!” said the fifty-year-old man, looking suddenly concerned and turning three-quarters away, towards his house.
Guido balked.
“What’s that supposed to mean: ‘Ohh no’?”
“ ‘Ohh no’ means ‘ohh no,’ no? I never seen this little kid and anyhow I don’t know nothing about ’im and I don’t wanna know nothing ’bout none o’ this business,” he said firmly, then went into the house and closed the door behind him.
“Oh, no you don’t! Hey, you!” said Guido, enraged. “That’s no way to talk to people! Where are your manners?”
Spoiling for a fight and needing to let off some steam, he got out of the car, went and knocked on the door, even started kicking it. But it was hopeless. The door remained closed. Cursing to himself, he got back in the car, drove off, and passed by the other house, the one that looked a bit more decent. As it seemed empty, he continued back to their house.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
Laura threw herself into Livia’s arms and started crying.
“See? Didn’t I tell you this house was cursed?”
“Calm down, Laura, for heaven’s sake!” her husband shouted.
The only result this obtained was to make Laura cry even harder.
“What can we do?” Livia asked.
Guido made up his mind.
“I’m going to call Emilio, the mayor.”
“Why the mayor?”
“I’ll have him send the usual squad. Or maybe some patrolmen. The more of us there are, the better. Don’t you think?”
“Wait.Wouldn’t it be better to call Salvo?”
“Maybe you’re right.”
Twenty minutes later, Salvo pulled up in a squad car driven by Gallo, who had raced there as if he was at Indianapolis.
Stepping out of the car, the inspector looked a bit haggard, pale, and aggrieved, but that was how he always looked after a ride with Gallo.
Livia, Guido, and Laura then proceeded to tell him what had happened, all at the same time, so that what little Montalbano was able to understand he grasped only by concentrating very hard. Then they stopped and waited for his answer—which was sure to be decisive—with the same expectation as pilgrims seeking grace from Our Lady of Lourdes.
“Could I have a glass of water?” was his anxiously awaited reply.
He needed to collect himself, either because of the tremendous heat or to recover from Gallo’s prowess behind the wheel. While Guido went to get the water, the two women stared at him in disappointment.
“Where do you think he could be?” asked Livia.
“How should I know, Livia? I’m not a magician! Now we’ll see what we can do. But stay calm, you two.All this agitation distracts me.”
Guido handed him the water, and Montalbano drank it down.
“Could you please tell me what we’re doing out here in the sun?” he asked. “Getting sunstroke? Let’s go inside. You come too, Gallo.”
Gallo got out of the car and they all obediently followed the inspector.
But, for whatever reason, the minute they were in the living room, Laura’s nerves gave out again. First she let out a shrill wail that sounded like a fire truck’s siren, then started weeping uncontrollably. She’d had a sudden revelation.
“He’s been kidnapped!”
“Try to be reasonable, Laura,” said Guido, trying to call her back to her senses.
“But who would have kidnapped him?” Livia asked.
“How should I know? Gypsies! Albanians! Bedouins! I can feel that my poor little boy has been kidnapped!”
Montalbano had a wicked thought. If someone had in fact kidnapped a holy terror like Bruno, they would surely return him by the end of the day. Instead, he asked Laura:
“And why do you think they also kidnapped Ruggero?”
Gallo jumped out of his chair. He knew that one child had disappeared because the inspector had told him so; but after getting there he’d remained in the car and hadn’t heard any of the things the others had told Montalbano. And now it came out that two were missing? He looked questioningly at his superior.
“Don’t worry, he’s a cat.”
The idea of the cat had a miraculous effect. Laura seemed to calm down a little. Montalbano was opening his mouth to say what they needed to do when Livia tensed in her chair, goggled her eyes, and said in a flat voice:
“Oh my God, oh my God . . .”
They all looked at her, then turned their eyes in the direction she was looking.
In the living room doorway sat Ruggero the cat, calm and serene, licking his chops.
Laura let out another sirenlike wail and started screaming again.
“Can’t you see that it’s true? The cat is here and Bruno is not! He’s been kidnapped! He’s been kidnapped!”
Then she fainted.
Guido and Montalbano picked her up, carried her into the bedroom, and laid her down on the bed. Livia busied herself making cold compresses for Laura’s forehead and put a bottle of vinegar under her nose. Nothing doing. Laura wouldn’t open her eyes.
Her face was all gray, her jaw clenched, and she was drenched in a cold sweat.
“Take her into Montereale to see a doctor,” Montalbano said to Guido. “You, Livia, go with them.”
Having laid Laura down on the backseat of the car with her head on Livia’s lap, Guido shot away at a speed that had even Gallo looking on in admiration. The inspector and Gallo then returned to the living room.
“Now that they’re out of our hair,” Montalbano said to him,“let’s try to do something sensible. And the first sensible thing would be to put on our bathing suits. Otherwise, in this heat, we’ll never manage to think clearly.”
“I haven’t got mine with me, Chief.”
“Me neither. But Guido’s got three or four.”
They found them and put them on. Luckily they were elastic; otherwise the inspector would have needed suspenders and Gallo would have been charged with indecent exposure.
“Now, here’s what we’ll do.About ten yards past the little gate, there’s a stone staircase that leads down to the beach. It’s the only place, based on what I could gather from their confused story, where they didn’t look closely, I think. I want you to go all the way down, but stop at every step. The kid may have fallen and rolled into some crevice in the rock.”
“And what are you going to do, Chief ?”
“I’m going to make friends with the cat.”
Gallo looked at him dumbfounded, and went out.
“Ruggero!” the inspector called. “What a fine kitty you are! Ruggero!”
The cat rolled onto his back with his paws in the air. Montalbano tickled his belly.
“Prrrrrr . . .”
said Ruggero.
“What do you say we go see what’s in the fridge?” the inspector asked him, heading towards the kitchen.
Ruggero, who seemed not to object to the suggestion, followed him, and as Montalbano opened the refrigerator and pulled out two fresh anchovies, the cat rubbed against his legs, lightly butting his head.
The inspector took a paper plate, put the anchovies on it, set it down on the floor, waited for the cat to finish eating, then went outside onto the terrace. Ruggero, as he’d expected, came following after him. He headed towards the staircase, in time to see Gallo’s head appear.
“Absolutely nothing, Chief. I could swear that the kid didn’t go down these stairs.”