The Terra-Cotta Dog (29 page)

 
 
“Is Signora Ingrid there? I know it's late, but I need to speak to her.”

“Signora no home. You say, I write.”

The Cardamones specialized in finding housekeepers in places where not even Tristan da Cunha would have dared set foot.

“Manau tupapau,”
said the inspector.

“No understand.”

He'd cited the title of a Gauguin painting. That eliminated Polynesia and environs from the housekeeper's possible land of origin.

“You ready write? Signora Ingrid phone Signor Montalbano when she come home.”

 
 
When Ingrid got to Marinella, wearing an evening dress with a slit all the way up to her ass, it was already past two in the morning. She hadn't batted an eyelash at the inspector's request to see her right away.

“Sorry, but I didn't have time to change. I was at the most boring party.”

“What's wrong? You don't look right to me. Is it simply because you were bored at the party?”

“No, your intuition's right. It's my father-in-law. He's started pestering me again. The other morning he pounced on me when I was still in bed. He wanted me right away. I convinced him to leave by threatening to scream.”

“Then we'll have to take care of it.”

“How?”

“We'll give him another massive dose.”

At Ingrid's questioning glance, he opened a desk drawer that had been locked, took out an envelope, and handed it to her. Ingrid, seeing the photos portraying her getting fucked by her father-in-law, first turned pale, then blushed.

“Did you take these?”

Montalbano weighed the pros and cons; if he told her it was a woman who took them, Ingrid might knife him then and there.

“Yeah, it was me.”

The Swedish woman's mighty slap thundered in his skull, but he was expecting it.

“I'd already sent three to your father-in-law. He got scared and stopped bothering you for a while. Now I'll send him another three.”

Ingrid sprang forward, her body pressing against Montalbano's, her lips forcing his open, her tongue seeking and caressing his. Montalbano felt his legs giving out, and luckily Ingrid withdrew.

“Calm down,” she said, “it's over. It was just to say thank you.”

On the backs of three photos personally chosen by Ingrid, Montalbano wrote: RESIGN FROM ALL YOUR POSTS, OR NEXT TIME YOU'LL BE ON TV.

“I'm going to keep the rest here,” said the inspector. “When you need them, let me know.”

“I hope it won't be for a long time.”

“I'll send them tomorrow morning, and then I'll make an anonymous phone call that'll give him a heart attack. Now listen, because I have a long story to tell you. And when I'm done, I'm going to ask you to lend me a hand.”

 
 
He got up at the crack of dawn, having been unable to sleep even a wink after Ingrid had left. He looked in the mirror: his face was a wreck, maybe even worse than after he'd been shot. He went to the hospital for a checkup, and they pronounced him perfect. The five medicines they'd been giving him were reduced to just one. Then he went to the Montelusa Savings Bank, where he kept the little money he was able to put aside. He asked to meet privately with the manager.

“I need ten million lire.”

“Do you need a loan, or have you got enough in your account?”

“I've got it.”

“I don't understand, then. What's the problem?”

“The problem is that it's for a police operation I want to pay for myself, without risking the State's money. If I go to the cashier now and ask for ten million in bills of one hundred thousand, it'll seem strange. That's why I need your help.”

Understanding, and proud to take part in a police operation, the manager bent over backwards for Montalbano.

 
 
Ingrid pulled her car up alongside the inspector's, right in front of the road sign indicating the superhighway for Palermo, just outside of Montelusa. Montalbano gave her a bulging envelope with the ten million lire inside, and she put it in her shoulder bag.

“Call me at home as soon as you're done. And be careful not to get your purse snatched.”

She smiled, waved him a kiss from her fingertips, and put her car in gear.

 
 
In Vigàta he got a new supply of cigarettes. On his way out of the tobacco shop, he noticed a big green poster with black lettering, freshly pasted up, inviting the townspeople to attend a cross-country motorbike race the following Sunday, starting at three in the afternoon, in the place called the “Crasticeddru flats.”

He could never have hoped for such a coincidence. Perhaps the labyrinth had been moved to pity and was opening another path for him?

24

The “Crasticeddru flats,” which stretched out behind the rocky spur, weren't close to being flat, not even in dreams. But the vales, jags, and marshes made it an ideal place for a cross-country motorcycle race. The weather that day was a definite foretaste of summer, and people didn't wait for three o'clock to go out to the flats. Actually, they began to gather in the morning—grandmothers, grandfathers, tots, and teens and everyone else determined not so much to watch a race, as to enjoy a day in the country.

That morning, Montalbano phoned Nicolò Zito.

“Are you coming to the cross-country motorbike race this afternoon?”

“Me? Why should I? We've sent one of our sports reporters and a cameraman over there.”

“Actually, I was suggesting that we go together, the two of us,just for fun.”

 
 
They got to the flats around 3:30, but there was no sign the race would be starting any time soon. There already was, however, a deafening racket, produced mostly by fifty or so motorcycles being tested and revved up, and by loudspeakers blasting raucous music.

“Since when are you interested in sports?” Zito asked in amazement.

“Now and then I get the urge.”

Although they were outside, they had to shout to converse. As a result, when a little touring airplane trailing its publicity banner appeared high in the sky over the ridge of the Crasticeddru, few in the crowd noticed, since the noise of the plane—which is what usually makes people look up—couldn't reach their ears. The pilot must have noticed he would never get their attention in this fashion since, after flying three tight circles round the crest of the Crasticeddru, he headed straight for the flats and the crowd, going into an elegant dive and flying extremely low over everyone's head. He practically forced people to read his banner and then to follow it with their eyes as he pulled up slightly, flew over the ridge three more times, descended to the point of almost touching the ground in front of the cave's gaping entrance, and then dropped a shower of rose petals from the aircraft. The crowd fell silent. They were all thinking of the two young lovers found dead in the Crasticeddru as the small plane turned round and came back, skimming the ground, this time dropping countless little strips of paper. It then headed westward toward the horizon and disappeared. And while the banner had aroused a lot of curiosity—since it wasn't advertising a soft drink or a furniture factory, but displayed only the two names Lisetta and Mario—and the rain of rose-petals had given the crowd a kind of thrill, the words on the strips of paper, all identical, set them all guessing, sending them on a lively merry-go-round of speculation and conjecture. What indeed was the meaning of: LISETTA AND MARIO ANNOUNCE THEIR REAWAKENING? It couldn't be a wedding or christening announcement. So what was it? Amid the swirl of questions, only one thing seemed certain: that the plane, the petals, the pieces of paper, and the banner had something to do with the dead lovers found in the Crasticeddru.

Then the races began, and the people watched and amused themselves. Nicolò Zito, upon seeing the rose petals fall from the plane, had told Montalbano not to move from where he stood and then had disappeared into the crowd.

He returned fifteen minutes later, followed by a Free Channel cameraman.

“Will you grant me an interview?”

“Of course.”

This unexpected compliance on Montalbano's part convinced the newsman in his suspicion, which was that the inspector was involved up to his neck in this business with the airplane.

“Just a few minutes ago, during the preliminaries for the cross-country motorcycle race currently taking place here in Vigàta, we were all witness to an extraordinary event. A small advertising airplane . . .” And here he followed with a description of what had just occurred. “Since, by a fortunate coincidence, we have Inspector Salvo Montalbano here with us among the crowd, we would like to ask him a few questions. In your opinion, Inspector, who are Lisetta and Mario?”

“I could dodge the question,” the inspector said bluntly, “and say I don't know anything about this and that it might be the work of some newlyweds who wished to celebrate their marriage in an original way. But I would be contradicted by what is written on that piece of paper, which speaks not of marriage but of reawakening. I shall therefore answer honestly and say that Lisetta and Mario were the names of the two young people found murdered inside the cave of the Crasticeddru, that spur of rock right here in front of us.”

“But what does all this mean?”

“I can't really say. You'd have to ask whoever it was that organized the airplane stunt.”

“How were you able to identify the two?”

“By chance.”

“Could you tell us their last names?”

“No. I could, but I won't. I can disclose that she was a young woman from these parts, and he was a sailor from the North. I should add that the person who wanted, in such manifest fashion, to remind us of their rediscovery—which this person calls ‘reawakening'—forgot about the dog, which, poor thing, also had a name: he was called Kytmyr, and was an Arab dog.”

“But why would the murderer have wanted to stage such a scene?”

“Wait a second. Who ever said that the murderer and the person behind this spectacle are one and the same? I, for one, don't believe they are.”

“I've got to run and edit the report,” said Nicolò Zito, giving Montalbano a strange look.

Soon the crews from TeleVigàta, the RAI regional news, and the other private stations arrived. Montalbano answered all their questions politely and with, for him, unnatural ease.

 
 
Prey to violent hunger pangs, he stuffed himself with seafood appetizers at the Trattoria San Calogero and then raced home, turned on the television, and tuned into the Free Channel. In his report on the mysterious airplane, Nicolò Zito piled it on thick, pumping up the story in every way possible. What crowned it all, however, was not his own interview, which was aired in its entirety, but another interview—which Montalbano hadn't expected—with the manager of the Publi-2000 agency of Palermo, which Zito had tracked down easily, since it was the only advertising agency in western Sicily that had an airplane available for publicity.

The manager, still visibly excited, recounted that a beautiful young woman—“Jesus, what a woman! She looked unreal, she really did, like a model in a magazine. Jesus, was she beautiful!”—an obvious foreigner because she spoke bad Italian—“Did I say bad? I'm wrong, actually, on her lips our words were like honey”—no, he couldn't be sure as to her nationality, maybe German or English—had come to the agency four days earlier—“God! An apparition!”—and had asked about the plane. She'd explained in great detail what she wanted written on the banner and the strips of paper. Yes, the rose petals were also her doing. And, oh yes, as for the place, was she ever particular! Very precise. Then the pilot, on his own, the manager explained, had a brilliant idea: instead of releasing the pieces of paper at random along the coastal road, he thought it would be better to drop them on a large crowd that had gathered to watch a race. The lady—“For the love of God, let's stop talking about her or my wife will kill me!”—paid in advance, cash, and had the invoice made out to a certain Rosemarie Antwerpen at a Brussels address. He had asked nothing more of the lovely stranger—“God!”—but then, why should he have? She certainly wasn't asking them to drop a bomb! And she was so beautiful! And refined! And polite! And what a smile! A dream.

Montalbano relished it all. He had advised Ingrid: “You must make yourself even more beautiful than usual. That way, when they see you, they won't know what's what anymore.”

TeleVigàta went wild with the story of the mysterious beauty, calling her “Nefertiti resurrected” and cooking up a fanciful story intertwining the pyramids with the Crasticeddru; but it was clear they were following the lead set by Nicolò Zito's story on their competitor's news program. Even the regional RAI news gave the matter extensive coverage.

Montalbano was getting the uproar, the commotion, the resonance he had sought. His idea had turned out to be right.

 
 
“Montalbano? It's the commissioner. I just heard about the airplane. Congratulations. A stroke of genius.”

“The credit goes to you. It was you who told me to carry on, remember? I'm trying to flush our man out. If he doesn't turn up reasonably soon, it means he's no longer among us.”

“Good luck. Keep me posted. Oh, it was you, of course, who paid for the plane?”

“Of course. I'm counting on my promised bonus.”

 
 
“Inspector? This is Headmaster Burgio. My wife and I are speechless with admiration. What an idea.”

“Let's hope for the best.”

“Don't forget, Inspector: if Lillo should turn up, please let us know.”