IM10 August Heat (2008) Read online

  Table of Contents

  A PENGUIN MYSTERY

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  NOTES

  Praise for Andrea Camilleri and the Montalbano series

  “The idiosyncratic Montalbano is totally endearing.”

  —The New York Times

  “Camilleri is as crafty and charming a writer as his protagonist is an investigator.”—The Washington Post

  “Like Mike Hammer or Sam Spade, Montalbano is the kind of guy who can’t stay out of trouble.... Still, deftly and lovingly translated by Stephen Sartarelli, Camilleri makes it abundantly clear that under the gruff, sardonic exterior our inspector has a heart of gold, and that any outbursts, fumbles, or threats are made only in the name of pursuing truth.”—The Nation

  “Once again, violence is muted, complications rule, politics roil, but humor . . . prevail[s] in the end. Italy is good to visit, even if only in print. And what better way to shorten a flight to Palermo than by gobbling this tasty snack along the way?”—Los Angeles Times

  “[Camilleri’s mysteries] offer quirky characters, crisp dialogue, bright storytelling—and Salvo Montalbano, one of the most engaging protagonists in detective fiction. . . . Montalbano is a delightful creation, an honest man on Sicily’s mean streets.”—USA Today

  “The Montalbano mysteries offer cose dolci to the world-lit lover hankering for a whodunit.”—The Village Voice

  “The reading of these little gems is fast and fun every step of the way.”—The New York Sun

  “Wittily translated from the savory Italian, Camilleri’s mysteries . . . feature the sardonic Inspector Salvo Montalbano, whose gustatory adventures are at least as much fun as his crime solving.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “In Sicily, where people do things as they please, Inspector Montalbano is a bona fide folk hero.”—The New York Times Book Review

  Also by Andrea Camilleri

  The Shape of Water

  The Terra-Cotta Dog

  The Snack Thief

  Voice of the Violin

  Excursion to Tindari

  The Smell of the Night

  Rounding the Mark

  The Patience of the Spider

  Paper Moon

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  visit our Web site at www.penguin.com.

  A PENGUIN MYSTERY

  AUGUST HEAT

  Andrea Camilleri is the author of many books, including his Montalbano series, which has been adapted for Italian television and translated into nine languages. He lives in Rome.

  Stephen Sartarelli is an award-winning translator and the author of three books of poetry, most recently The Open Vault.

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published in Penguin Books 2009

  Translation copyright © Stephen Sartarelli, 2009

  All rights reserved

  Originally published in Italian as La vampa d’agosto by Sellerio Editore, Palermo.

  Copyright © 2006 Sellerio Editore.

  Publisher’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product

  of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Camilleri, Andrea.

  [Vampa d’agosto. English]

  August heat / Andrea Camilleri; translated by Stephen Sartarelli.

  p. cm.—(A Penguin mystery original)

  eISBN : 978-1-440-69898-9

  I. Sartarelli, Stephen,—. II.Title.

  PQ4863.A3894V3613 2009

  853’.914—dc22 2008029438

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means

  without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only

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  1

  He was sleeping so soundly that not even cannon fire could have woken him.Well, maybe not cannon fire, but the ringing of the telephone, yes.

  Nowadays, if a man living in a civilized country (ha!) hears cannon blasts in his sleep, he will, of course, mistake them for thunderclaps, gun salutes on the feast day of the local patron saint, or furniture being moved by the slime-buckets living upstairs, and go right on sleeping soundly. But the ringing of the telephone, the triumphal march of the cell phone, or the doorbell, no: Those are all sounds of summons in response to which the civilized man (ha-ha!) has no choice but to surface from the depths of slumber and answer.

  And so Montalbano got up out of bed, glanced at the clock, looked over at the window, gathered that it was going to be a very hot day, and went into the dining room, where the telephone was ringing wildly.

  “Salvo! Where were you? I’ve been trying to call for half an hour!”

  “I’m sorry, Livia, I was in the shower, I couldn’t hear.”

  First lie of the day.

  Why did he say it? Because he was ashamed to tell Livia he was still asleep? Or because he didn’t want to embarrass her by telling her she’d woken him up? Who knows?

  “Did you go look at the house?”

  “Livia! It’s barely eight o’clock!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just so impatient to know if it’s all right . . .”

  The whole business had started about two weeks before, when he’d had to tell Livia that, contrary to plan, he would not be able to leave Vigàta for the first half of August because Mimì Augello had been forced to take his vacation earlier than expected due to complications with his in-laws. But the change had not produced the calamitous results he had feared. Livia was very fond
of Beba, Mimì’s wife, and of Mimì himself. She had complained a little, of course, but Montalbano thought that would be the end of it. He was wrong. Way off the mark, in fact. The following evening, Livia had called back with a surprise request.

  “I’m looking for a house, right away, two bedrooms with living room, by the sea, in your area.”

  “I don’t understand. Why can’t we just stay at my place in Marinella?”

  “You can be so stupid, Salvo, when you put your mind to it! I meant a house for Laura, her husband, and their little boy.”

  Laura was Livia’s dearest friend, the one to whom she confided her Joyful and not-so-Joyful Mysteries.

  “They’re coming here?”

  “Yes. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all. I think Laura and her husband are very nice, you know that. It’s just that . . .”

  “It’s just what?”

  Geez, what a pain!

  “I was hoping we could finally spend a little more time together, just the two of us, alone—”

  “Ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  A laugh rather like that of the witch in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “What’s so funny is that you know damn well the only one who’s going to be alone is me—me and nobody else—while you’re spending your days and maybe even your nights at the station working on the murder of the week!”

  “Come on, Livia, it’s August.With this kind of heat, even the killers wait until autumn down here.”

  “Is that some kind of joke? Am I supposed to laugh?”

  And thus began the long search for a house, with the help—inconclusive—of Catarella.

  “Chief, I tink I gotta place like you’s lookin for, out by Pezzodipane.”

  “But Pezzodipane’s six miles from the sea!”

  “Iss true, but to make up for it, there’s a artifishy lake.”

  Or:

  “Livia, I found a lovely little apartment in a sort of condo near—”

  “A little apartment? I think I told you clearly, I want a house.”

  “Well, an apartment’s a house, isn’t it? What is it, a tent?”

  “No, an apartment is not a house. It’s you Sicilians who confuse the matter by calling an apartment a house, whereas when I say house, I mean house. You want me to be more specific? I want you to find a freestanding, single-family residence.”

  The real estate agents in Vigàta laughed in his face.

  “What, you think you can come in here on the sixteenth of July and find a house by the sea for the first of August? It was all rented out a long time ago!”

  But they’d told him to leave his telephone number. If, by chance, somebody canceled at the last minute, they would let him know. And a miracle did happen, at the very moment he had given up hope.

  “Hello, Inspector Montalbano? This is Aurora Real Estate. A nice little villa by the sea has been freed up, the sort of thing you were looking for. It’s at Marina di Montereale, in the Pizzo district. But you’d better come by in a hurry, because we’re about to close.”

  He’d run out right in the middle of an interrogation and rushed to the agency. From the photos it looked exactly like what Livia wanted. So he’d arranged with Mr. Callara, the head of the agency, to come pick him up the following morning around nine o’clock to show the house, which was up by Montereale, less than six miles from Marinella.

  Montalbano realized that six miles, on the road to Montereale, at the height of summer, could just as easily mean a five-minute drive as a two-hour drive, depending on traffic. Too bad. Livia and Laura would have to make do. It couldn’t be helped.

  The following morning, as soon as he got in the car, Callara started talking and never stopped. He began with recent history, recounting how the house had been rented to a certain Jacolino, who was a clerk in Cremona and had made the required down payment. But just last night, this Jacolino had phoned the agency saying his wife’s mother had just had an accident, and so they couldn’t leave Cremona for the time being. And so the agency had called him, Montalbano, right away.

  Next, Signor Callara delved into past history. That is, he told him, in full detail, how and why the house had been built. Some six years back, an old fellow of about seventy, who went by the name of Angelo Speciale—Monterealese by birth, but an emigrant to Germany, where he’d worked for the rest of his life—had decided to build himself this house, so he could come back to his hometown once and for all with his German wife. This German wife, whose name was Gudrun, was a widow with a twenty-year-old son called Ralf. Got that? Got it. Well, Angelo Speciale came down to Montereale in the company of his stepson Ralf and went around for a whole month looking for the right location. When he’d found it, and bought it, he went to see Michele Spitaleri, the developer, and had him draw up the plans. He waited over a year for the construction to be completed. Ralf stayed with him the whole time.

  Then they went back to Germany to have all their furniture and other possessions shipped to Montereale. But a weird thing happened. Since this Angelo Speciale didn’t like to fly, they went by train. When they got to Köln station, however, Signor Speciale couldn’t find his stepson, who’d been traveling in the bunk over his. Ralf ’s suitcase was still in the compartment, but there was no trace of him. The night conductor said he hadn’t seen anyone leave the train at any of the prior stops. In short, Ralf had disappeared.

  “Did they ever find him?”

  “Would you believe it, Inspector? They never did! From that moment on, nobody ever heard from the kid again!”

  “And did Signor Speciale ever move into the house?”

  “That’s the best part! He never did! Poor Signor Speciale, he wasn’t back in Cologne a month when he fell down the stairs, hit his head, and died!”

  “What about the twice-widowed Signora Gudrun? Did she come down here to live?”

  “What was she going to do here, poor thing, without her husband or son? She called us three years ago and told us to rent out the house. And since then we’ve been renting it, but only in the summer.”

  “Why not during the rest of the year?”

  “It’s too isolated, Inspector.You’ll see for yourself.”

  It was indeed isolated. One got there by turning off the provincial road onto an uphill dirt road that had only a rustic little cottage, another slightly less rustic cottage, and, at the end, the house. There were hardly any trees or vegetation at all.The whole area was parched by the sun. But the moment one arrived at the house, which was at the top of a great big sort of hill, the view suddenly changed. It was breathtaking. Below, extending in both directions, was a beach of golden sand, dotted here and there by a few scattered umbrellas; and in front, a clear, open, welcoming sea.The house, which was all on one floor, had two bedrooms, a big one with a double bed and a smaller one with single bed, a spacious living room with rectangular windows looking onto nothing but sea and sky, not to mention a television.The kitchen was sizeable and equipped with an enormous refrigerator. There were even two bathrooms. And a terrace that was priceless, perfect for open-air dining in the evening.

  “I like it,” said the inspector. “How much is it?”

  “Well, Inspector, normally we don’t rent a house like this for only two weeks, but since it’s for you . . .”

  He spat out a figure that was like a billy-club to the head. But Montalbano didn’t feel a thing.After all, Laura was plenty rich and could pay her part to alleviate the poverty of southern Italy.

  “I like it,” he repeated.

  “Naturally, there will be some additional expenses—”

  “Naturally, there won’t be any additional expenses,” said Montalbano, who didn’t want to be taken for a fool.

  “Okay, okay.”

  “How do you go down to the beach?”

  “Well, you go through the little gate on the terrace, then walk about ten yards to a small stone staircase that leads down to the beach.There are fifty steps.”

  �
��Could you give me about half an hour?”

  Callara looked befuddled.

  “If you keep it to half an hour . . .” he said.

  From the moment he’d seen it, Montalbano wanted to dive into that sea, which seemed to be beckoning him, and go for a long swim. He swam in his underpants.

  When he returned, the sun had already dried him off during the time it took him to climb the fifty steps.

  On the morning of the first of August, Montalbano went to Palermo’s Punta Raisi airport to meet Livia, Laura, and her son, Bruno, a little boy of three. Guido, Laura’s husband, would come later by train, bringing a car and their baggage across the Strait. Bruno was one of those little children incapable of sitting still for two consecutive minutes. Laura and Guido were a little concerned because the boy still didn’t talk and communicated only by gestures. He didn’t even like to draw or scribble, like other children his age; to make up for it, however, he was a master at busting the cojones of all creation.

  They went to Marinella, where Adelina had prepared lunch for the whole gang. But Montalbano’s housekeeper was already gone when they arrived, and Montalbano knew he wouldn’t see her again for the remainder of Livia’s fifteen days at Marinella.Adelina had a deep antipathy towards Livia, and the feeling was mutual.

  Guido stumbled in around one o’clock. They ate, and immediately afterward, Montalbano got into his car with Livia to lead the way for Guido, in his car with his family. When Laura saw the house, she got so excited she hugged and kissed Montalbano. Bruno, too, gestured as if he wanted to be hugged by the inspector. But as soon as Montalbano raised him to his face, the boy spit the candy he was sucking into the inspector’s eye.

  They all agreed that the following morning, Livia would come to see Laura in Salvo’s car, since he could get a ride to work in a squad car, and she would stay the whole day.That evening, when he got off work, Montalbano would have somebody drive him to Pizzo, and together they would decide where to go out to eat.