The Terra-Cotta Dog (21 page)

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.

“Munafò, 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 Gegè die on the spot?”

“Didn't suffer at all. The volley took half his head off.”

The others came in, and there was an orgy of kisses and embraces.

 
 
Jacomuzzi and Dr. Pasquano came from Montelusa to see him.

“All the papers are talking about you,” said Jacomuzzi. He seemed moved but a little envious.

“I was truly sorry I didn't get to do your autopsy,” said Pasquano. “I'd really like to know how you're put together inside.”

 
 
“I was the first on the scene,” said Mimì Augello, “and when I saw you in that condition, in that situation, I got so scared I nearly shit my pants.”

“How did you find out?”

“There was an anonymous call to headquarters saying there'd been some shooting at the foot of the Scala dei Turchi. Galluzzo was on duty and phoned me right away. He also said something I didn't know. He said you were in the habit of meeting Gegè at the place where the shooting was heard.”

“He knew that?!”

“Apparently everybody knew! Half the town knew! So, anyway, I didn't even get dressed, I went right outside in my pajamas—”

Montalbano raised a tired hand, interrupting him.

“You sleep in pajamas?”

“Yes,” said Augello, confused. “Why?”

“Never mind. Go on.”

“As I was racing there in my car, I called an ambulance with my cell phone. Which was a good thing, because you were losing a lot of blood.”

“Thanks,” Montalbano said gratefully.

“What do you mean, ‘thanks'? Wouldn't you have done the same for me?”

Montalbano did a little rapid soul-searching and decided not to answer.

“Oh, I also wanted to mention something strange,” Augello continued. “The first thing you asked me, when you were still lying on the sand, groaning, was to remove the snails that were crawling on you. You were sort of delirious, so I said yes, I'd remove them, but there wasn't a single snail on you.”

Livia came and gave him a long hug, started crying, and lay down in the bed beside him as best she could.

“Stay like that,” said Montalbano.

He liked the scent of her hair as she rested her head on his chest.

“How did you find out?”

“From the radio. Actually, it was my cousin who heard the news. What a way to wake up!”

“What did you do?”

“First I called Alitalia and booked a flight to Palermo, then I called your office in Vigàta. They put Augello on, and he was very nice. He reassured me and even offered to come get me at the airport. He told me the whole story in the car.”

“Livia, how am I?”

“You're doing well, considering what happened.”

“Am I ruined forever?”

“What are you talking about?!”

“Will I have to eat bland food for the rest of my life?”

 
 
“But you leave me no choice,” the commissioner said, smiling.

“Why?”

“Because you've been going about things like a sheriff, or, if you prefer, like some kind of nocturnal avenger, and it's going to end up all over the television and newspapers.”

“That's not
my
fault.”

“No, it's not, but neither will it be my fault if I'm forced to promote you. You're just going to have to behave for a little while. Fortunately you won't be able to leave this place for another twenty days.”

“Twenty days?!”

“By the way, Undersecretary Licalzi's in Montelusa at the moment. He says he's here to sensitize public opinion to the struggle against the Mafia. He's made it known he intends to pay you a visit this afternoon.”

“I don't want to see him!” Montalbano shouted, upset.

The undersecretary was someone who had been up to his ears in sweetheart deals with the Mafia and was now recycling himself, as always with the Mafia's consent.

At that exact moment the head physician came in. Seeing there were six people in the room with Montalbano, he frowned.

“Don't take this the wrong way, but I beg you please to leave him alone. He needs to rest.”

They were starting to say their good-byes when the doctor said to the nurse, in a loud voice:

“And no more visitors for the rest of the day.”

“The undersecretary is supposed to leave this afternoon at five,” the commissioner whispered to Montalbano. “Unfortunately, I guess he won't be able to see you. Doctor's orders.”

They exchanged smiles.

A few days later they removed the IV from his arm and put a telephone on his bedside table. That same morning, he received a visit from Nicolò Zito, who came in like Santa Claus.

“I've brought you a TV, a VCR, and a cassette. I've even brought the newspaper articles that talk about you.”

“What's on the cassette?”

“I taped and spliced together all the idiocies that I, TeleVigàta, and all the other TV stations said about the incident.”

 
 
“Hello, Salvo? It's Mimì. How are you feeling today?”

“Better, thanks.”

“I'm calling to let you know they killed our friend Ingrassia.”

“I expected as much. When did it happen?”

“This morning. They shot him as he was driving into town. Two guys on a high-powered motorcycle. The officer who was tailing him couldn't do anything but try to give him first aid, but it was too late. Listen, Salvo, I'm coming to see you tomorrow morning. You're going to have to tell me, for the record, every detail of your shoot-out.”

 
 
He told Livia to put in the cassette. Not that he was so curious; it was just to pass the time. On TeleVigàta, Galluzzo's brother-in-law indulged in a fantasy worthy of a scriptwriter for films like
Raiders of the Lost Ark
. In his opinion, the shooting was a direct consequence of the discovery of the two mummified bodies in the cave. What terrible, indecipherable secret lay behind that distant crime? The newsman did not blush to recall, however briefly, the sad end to which the discoverers of the pharaohs' tombs had come, and likened this to the ambush of the inspector.

Montalbano laughed so hard he felt a stab of pain in his side. Next appeared the face of Pippo Ragonese, the same station's political commentator, a former Communist, former Christian Democrat, and now a representative of the Renewal Party. Mincing no words, Ragonese asked himself: What was Montalbano doing in that place with a pimp and drug dealer who was rumored to be his friend? Were such associations consistent with the rigorous moral standards that every public servant should abide by? Times have changed, the commentator noted sternly; thanks to the new government, an atmosphere of renewal was shaking up the country, and we must all march in step. The old attitudes, the old collusions, must end, once and for all.

Montalbano felt another stab of pain in his side, from rage this time, and he cried out. Livia got up at once and turned off the video.

“You're getting upset over what that asshole says?”

 
 
After half an hour of insistence and entreaties, Livia gave in and turned the video back on. Nicolò Zito's commentary was affectionate, indignant, and rational. Affectionate towards his friend, the inspector, to whom he sent his sincerest good wishes; indignant because, despite all the politicians' promises, the Mafia had a free hand across the island; and rational because it connected Tano the Greek's arrest with the discovery of the weapons. As the man responsible for these two powerful blows against organized crime, Salvo Montalbano had become a dangerous adversary, one who must be liquidated at all costs. Zito ridiculed the conjecture that the ambush might be an act of revenge for desecrating the dead. With what money would the assassins have been paid? With the obsolete coins that were found in the bowl?

The picture then switched back to the TeleVigàta newsman, who was now interviewing Alcide Maraventano, presented to the viewing public as a “specialist in the occult.” The defrocked priest was wearing a cassock sewn with multicolored patches and sucking from a baby bottle. In response to a series of insistent questions intended to make him acknowledge a possible connection between the ambush of the inspector and the supposed desecration, Maraventano, like a masterly, consummate actor, both did and did not acknowledge the possibility, leaving everyone in nebulous suspense.

Zito's cassette concluded with the logo of Ragonese's editorial segment. But then an unknown newsman appeared, saying that his colleague was prevented from airing his commentary that evening because he'd been the victim of a brutal assault. A group of hoodlums, still unidentified, had roughed him up and robbed him the night before, as he was returning home from his job at TeleVigàta. The newsman then launched into a violent attack on the police, accusing them of no longer being able to guarantee the safety of the citizenry.

“Why did Zito want you to see that report, which has nothing to do with you?” naïvely asked Livia, who was from the North and didn't understand certain insinuations.

 
 
Augello interrogated him, and Tortorella took it all down. He explained that he'd been schoolmates and friends with Gegè, and that their friendship had endured over the years, even though they found themselves on opposite sides of the barricade. He had them write in the report that Gegè, that evening, had asked to see him, but they'd managed to exchange only a few words, barely more than a greeting.

“He started to mention the weapons traffic, said he'd heard talk of something that might interest me, but he didn't get a chance to tell me what it was.”

Augello pretended to believe this, and Montalbano went on to recount the various stages of the gunfight.

“Now it's your turn to tell me,” he said to Mimì.

“First sign the statement,” said Augello.

Montalbano signed, and Tortorella said good-bye and headed back to headquarters. There wasn't much to tell, said Augello. Ingrassia's car was overtaken by the motorcycle; the guy in back turned around, opened fire, and that was that. Ingrassia's car ended up in a ditch.

“They were pruning a dead branch,” Montalbano commented. Then, with a touch of melancholy because he felt left out of the game: “What do you think you'll do?”

“The people in Catania, whom I've informed, promised not to let Brancato get away.”

“We can always hope.”

Augello didn't realize it, but by informing his colleagues in Catania, he may have signed Brancato's death warrant.

“So who was it?” Montalbano asked bluntly after a pause.

“Who was what?”

“Take a look at this.”

He pressed the remote and showed him the segment reporting the news of the assault on Ragonese. Mimì played the part of someone in the dark to perfection.

“You're asking me? Anyway, it doesn't concern us; Ragonese lives in Montelusa.”

“You're such an innocent, Mimì! Here, bite my pinky.”

And he held out his little finger to him, as one does to teething babies.

18

After a week, the visits, embraces, phone calls, and congratulations gave way to loneliness and boredom. He had persuaded Livia to go back to her cousin in Milan; there was no point in wasting her holidays. The planned trip to Cairo, for the moment, was out of the question. They agreed that Livia would fly back down as soon as Montalbano got out of the hospital. Only then would she decide how and where to spend her two remaining weeks of vacation.

And little by little, the uproar surrounding the inspector and what had happened likewise died down to a mere echo, before disappearing entirely. Every day, however, Augello or Fazio would come to keep him company. But they didn't stay long, just enough to tell him the latest news and the state of certain investigations.

Every morning when he opened his eyes, Montalbano made a point of devoting his thoughts and speculations to the dead couple of the Crasticeddru. He wondered when he would again have the chance to be alone, in precious silence, with no disturbance of any kind, so he could develop a sustained line of reasoning from which he might receive a flash, a spark. He needed to take advantage of this situation, he would say to himself, and he'd begin to replay the whole affair in his mind with the speed of a galloping horse. Soon, however, he would find himself moving at a lazy trot, then at a walk, and finally a kind of torpor would ever-so-slowly overwhelm him, body and mind.