Montalbano's First Case Read online

  The prospect of driving back with a stomach upset by a meal he wouldn’t have even fed to the dogs made his decision. As they went back to the town, he arranged things so that he and Mery would stumble upon the trattoria as if by chance.

  “Should we try this place?”

  As soon as he entered, he looked for the waiter.

  A quick glance was all they needed.

  “You’ve never seen me before,” said Montalbano’s eyes.

  “I’ve never seen you before,” the waiter’s eyes answered.

  After a heavenly meal, Montalbano took Mery to Castiglione, and suggested she try the pezzo duro.

  After her ice cream, Mery said she had to use the restroom.

  “I’ll wait for you outside,” said Montalbano.

  He stepped onto the sidewalk. The street was practically empty. In front of him stood city hall, with its little colonnade. Leaning on one of the columns, a traffic cop was talking to a couple of stray dogs. From the left-hand side a car was driving up slowly. All of a sudden a sports car came speeding out of nowhere. Right in front of Montalbano, the sports car swerved slightly and sideswiped the slower car as it passed. Both drivers stopped and got out. The one with the slower car was an elderly gentleman who wore glasses. The other was a tall youngster with a mustache. As the older gentleman was checking the damage to his car, the youngster put a hand on his shoulder and when the older man turned to look at him, the younger man punched him hard in the face. It all happened in a matter of seconds. As he fell to the ground, a fat man with a birthmark on his face got out of the sports car, grabbed the youngster, forced him back into the car, and a moment later they took off with a screech.

  Montalbano ran toward the old man, whose face was covered in blood and who couldn’t even speak. The blood was coming out of his nose and his mouth. Meanwhile, the traffic cop was walking toward them as slowly as he could. Montalbano sat the old man down in the passenger seat; clearly he was in no condition to drive.

  “Take him to the emergency room,” he told the cop.

  It looked like he was moving in slow motion.

  “Did you get the plates of the other car?” Montalbano asked him.

  “Yes,” the traffic cop said removing a pen and notepad from his pocket.

  He wrote down the number. Montalbano, who still remembered it clearly, noticed it was wrong.

  “The last two digits are wrong. I got a good look at them. It wasn’t fifty-eight—it was sixty-three.”

  The cop reluctantly corrected the plate number and started the car.

  “Wait a minute. Don’t you want to take down my information?” he asked.

  “Why would I need it?”

  “What do you mean, why? I’m a witness.”

  “Fine, fine. If you insist.”

  He wrote down Montalbano’s name and address as if they were offensive. After closing his notepad, he gave him the stinkeye and took off without saying a word.

  When Mery finally appeared on the sidewalk, the cop had just left to take the old man to the hospital.

  “I freshened up a bit,” Mery said without noticing a thing. “Shall we?”

  A month and half went by without any changes. From the Supreme Spheres came no messages regarding either promotions or transfers. Montalbano began to think it had been a big joke, that someone was laughing at his expense. Consequently, he was in a horrible mood; metaphorically speaking, he was kicking and snorting, like a horse assailed by horseflies.

  “Try to be reasonable,” Mery would plead, trying to calm him down, since she had become the main target of her friend’s bad temper. “Why would anyone want to mess with you like that?”

  “How do I know? Maybe you and your uncle Giovanni can tell me!”

  And it would always end in a big fight.

  Then, one fine morning, Chief Inspector Sanfilippo called Montalbano into his office and, with a smile that cut his face in two, finally gave him the answer from the Council of Gods: chief inspector of Vigata.

  Montalbano’s face first turned yellow, then changed to bright red, and finally became green. Sanfilippo was worried he was about to have a heart attack.

  “Montalbano, are you feeling all right? Have a seat!”

  He poured Montalbano a glass of water from a bottle he kept on his desk and handed it to him.

  “Drink this!”

  Montalbano obeyed. Judging from this reaction, Sanfilippo got the wrong the idea.

  “What’s wrong? You don’t like Vigata? I’ve been there, you know. It’s a beautiful little town—you’ll see, you’ll be happy there.”

  Montalbano went back to that beautiful little town—as the chief inspector called it—four days later. This time he was there in an official capacity, to introduce himself to his colleague Locascio, whom he was going to relieve. The police station was located in a decent building, a three-story house at the beginning of the main drag for those coming from Montereale, or at the end of it for those coming from Montelusa—the county capital, home to the prefecture, the police headquarters, and the courthouse. Locascio, who lived on the third floor with his wife, in the chief inspector’s apartment, immediately told him that they were going to repaint it before they left.

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why? Aren’t you going to live there?”

  “No.”

  Locascio misunderstood.

  “I see, you don’t like anyone keeping tabs on you, huh? You’re lucky, you still get some action at night!” he said, poking him in the ribs with his elbow.

  The day Montalbano officially took over, Locascio introduced him to all of his men, one by one. There was one detective a bit older than the others whom Montalbano liked at first sight; his last name was Fazio.

  He was going to take his time to find the right place to live.

  In the meantime, he rented a bungalow from a hotel a couple of miles out of town. The books and the few things he owned were in storage in Mascalippa and could wait there for a while.

  3

  Two days after arriving in Vigata, Montalbano got in his car and drove to Montelusa to introduce himself to the police chief, whose last name was Alabìso. The soothsayers predicted that one day, as soon as the ministry deemed it appropriate, he would be given the boot: he had been the head of the political squad (which still existed, although every now and then it would change its name) and by now he knew too much. To top it all off, he was known for his inflexible character and his unwillingness to compromise. Sometimes men endowed with good qualities, when put in certain positions, became unfit for duty because of those same qualities—especially when seen through the eyes of people who lacked those qualities, but were involved in politics nonetheless. Alabìso was considered unfit because he wouldn’t give anyone special treatment.

  The chief saw Montalbano immediately, shook his hand, and asked him to sit down. But he looked a little distracted; every so often he would stop in the middle of his sentences and stare at Montalbano. All of sudden he said, “Let me ask you a question. Haven’t we met before?”

  “Yes," Montalbano answered.

  “Right! I thought I’d seen you before! Did we meet on the job?”

  “Yes, you could say that.”

  “When was that?”

  “About seventeen years ago.”

  The chief looked at him, surprised.

  “But at that time you were just a boy!”

  “Not exactly. I was eighteen.”

  The chief grew defensive. He was getting suspicious.

  “Was it in ’68?” he guessed.

  “Yes.”

  “Was it in Palermo?”

  “Yes.”

  “Back then I was chief inspector.”

  “And I was a university student.”

  They looked at each other in silence.

  “What did I do to you?” the chief asked.

  “You kicked me in the ass. So hard you tore a hole in my pants.”

  “Oh. And what did you do?”
/>
  “I managed to punch you in the face.”

  “Did I arrest you?”

  “No. There was a brief struggle but I managed to escape.”

  At this point the chief said something unbelievable, so softly that Montalbano didn’t think he had heard him right.

  “The good old days!” he said with a sigh.

  Montalbano was the first to burst out laughing; the chief followed shortly thereafter. Then they found themselves hugging in the middle of the room.

  After that they got back to business. They spoke especially about the turf war between the Cuffaro and Sinagra families, which had caused at least two deaths on each side each year. According to the chief, each family had its own saint in paradise.

  “I’m sorry, what paradise?”

  “A political paradise.”

  “Are they two representatives from different parties?”

  “No, they belong to the same majority party and even to the same group. You see, Montalbano, it’s a theory I have. But it’s been difficult to prove.”

  “And it’s because of this theory that they want to fuck you over,” Montalbano thought.

  “Maybe it’s completely unfounded. Who knows?” the chief continued. “But there are certain coincidences that … might be worth looking into.”

  “Sorry, but have you spoken about this to my predecessor?”

  “No.”

  There was no explanation.

  “Then why are you telling me?”

  “Chief Inspector Sanfilippo is a dear friend of mine. He told me what I needed to know about you.”

  Every morning he left the hotel to go to the police station and had to drive, after a series of curves, down a straight road that ran parallel to the beach, long and deep. The area was called Marinella. There were three or four houses built right on the sand, far apart from one another. Nothing too pretentious: All of them were one story high. All of them had huge tanks on their roofs, to store water. Two of them had their tanks on the sides of a sort of terrace that served as both the roof and the solarium of the house, accessed through an external staircase made of stone. Each house also had a small back patio where, in the evening, one could sit down to eat and look out at the sea.

  Every time Montalbano drove by, he left a piece of his heart there: If he managed to set foot in one of those houses he would never come out again. Mother Mary, what a dream! Waking up early in the morning and taking a walk by the sea! And maybe, weather permitting, going for a long swim!

  Montalbano hated barbershops. When he was forced to go because his hair had grown down to his shoulders, he was in a foul mood.

  “Where can I get my haircut?” he asked Fazio one morning, with the tone of someone inquiring about the closest funeral home.

  “The best for you would be Totò Nicotra’s place.””

  “What do you mean, ‘the best for me’? Let’s get one thing straight, Fazio. I’ll never go to a place crowded with mirrors and gold leaf, a luxurious place, I’m looking for …”

  “… a discrete place, a bit old-fashioned,” Fazio finished his sentence.

  “Precisely,” Montalbano confirmed, looking at him, rather impressed.

  “That’s why I suggested Totò Nicotra’s.”

  Fazio was a real cop: All he needed was a bit of information and he could tell who a person was inside and out.

  When he arrived at Nicotra’s shop, there were no other clients. The barber was a man over sixty, quiet, and somewhat melancholic. He didn’t speak until he was halfway done with the haircut. Then he finally asked, “How do you like it here in Vigata, Chief Inspector?”

  By now everyone knew him. And so, chatting, he discovered that one of those houses in Marinella was vacant, since Nicotra’s son, Pippino, had married an American girl in New York, who had also found him a good job there.

  “But I’m sure he’ll come back for the summer to spend his vacations here!”

  “No. He already told me he’s spending this summer in Miami. And good-bye, my dear son! I even had it repainted and cleaned from top to bottom, all for nothing!”

  “Well, you can always live there yourself.”

  “In Miami?”

  “No, I meant in the house.”

  “I don’t care much for the sea breeze. My wife’s from Vicari, you know where that is?”

  “Yeah, it’s high up.”

  “Exactly, my wife has a house there. Every now and then we go for a visit.”

  Montalbano felt his heart fill with hope. He closed his eyes and leapt headfirst. “Would your son consider renting it to me for the year?”

  “What does my son have to do with it? He gave me the keys and told me to do whatever I wanted with the house.”

  “Mery, I’ve got news for you. I found a place!”

  “Downtown?”

  “No, a bit farther out. A house with bedrooms—kitchen and bath. It’s on the beach in Marinella, a few yards from the sea. It also has a solarium and a little patio out back where you can eat in the evening. It’s a thing of beauty.”

  “Did you already move in?”

  “No, I will the day after tomorrow. I called Mascalippa to tell them to send me my things.”

  “I want to see you.”

  “I want to see you, too.”

  “Listen, I could come by Vigata next Saturday in the afternoon. And I could leave for Catania Sunday evening. What do you think? Can I stay with you?”

  The following day was Thursday. The weather was great and that made him happy. As he entered his office in the police station, he saw a sort of postcard on his table that was addressed to him from the Montelusa courthouse. It was postmarked two weeks earlier. It had taken it two weeks to cover the six miles between Vigata and Montelusa. He had been summoned for the following Monday at nine. Suddenly, he wasn’t happy anymore. He didn’t like dealing with judges and lawyers. What the hell did they want with him? The postcard didn’t say anything other than that he had to go to the court’s third section.

  “Fazio!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  He handed him the summons. Fazio read it and then he gave the chief inspector a puzzled look.

  “Could you see what this is all about?”

  “Certainly.”

  He showed up a few hours later.

  “Sir, you visited Vigata before officially transferring here, is that right?”

  “Yes,” Montalbano admitted.

  “And you witnessed a fight between two drivers, didn’t you?”

  Right! He had completely forgotten about it!

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve been summoned to testify.”

  “Jeez, what a pain in the ass!”

  “Sir, clearly you’re an upstanding citizen. And upstanding citizens who testify usually get themselves pains in the ass. At least that’s what happens around here.”

  Was Fazio pulling his leg?

  “And so you think it’d be best not to testify?”

  “Sir, what kind of question is that? As a policeman, I’d tell you that it’s your duty to testify. As a citizen, I’d say that it’s always a pain in the ass.”

  He paused for a moment.

  “And sometimes one pain in the ass leads to another.”

  “But to be honest, it was nothing serious! It was just a car accident, and a bully broke an old man’s nose …”

  Fazio raised his hand to interrupt him.

  “I know the whole story—the traffic cop told me all about it.”

  “The one who took down the plates?”

  “Yes, sir. He told me he wrote down the wrong number and that you corrected him.”

  “So what?”

  “If it weren’t for you being here in Vigata for the second time, and the fact that everyone knows you’re a police inspector, that wrong number would have been written down correctly.”

  Montalbano gave him a stunned look.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Sir, the traffic cop
says that writing down the wrong number was the right thing to do.”

  Montalbano was about to lose his temper.

  “Fazio, you’re speaking in riddles. Could you please explain yourself?”

  Fazio answered with another question.

  “Can I close the door?”

  “Close it,” Montalbano agreed, a bit confused.

  Fazio closed the door and sat on one of the chairs in front of the desk.

  “As he was driving the old man to the emergency room, the traffic cop tried to dissuade him from pressing charges. But the old man, who lives in Caltanissetta, had already made up his mind.”

  “Excuse me, Fazio. This traffic cop, is he a Franciscan friar by any chance? One of those who seeks universal peace?”

  “He seeks peace all right, but not the eternal kind.”

  “Fazio, we don’t know each other very well. But if you haven’t explained everything to me in the next three minutes as clearly as you can, I’ll pick you up and kick your ass out of this office. Then you can report me to whomever you want—the union, the chief, the pope!”

  Calmly, Fazio put one hand in his pocket, took out a piece of paper folded four times, unfolded it, smoothed it out, and read: “Giuseppe Cusumano of Salvatore and Maria Cuffaro, born in Vigata, October eighteenth …”

  Montalbano interrupted him.

  “Who is he?”

  “The one who threw the punch.”

  “And what do I care about his birth certificate?”

  “Sir, his mother, Maria Cuffaro, is the younger sister of Don Lillino Cuffaro, and Giuseppe is the favorite grandchild of Don Sisìno Cuffaro. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly.”

  Now he understood everything. The traffic cop was scared of taking action against a young member of a mafia family like the Cuffaros, and so he had deliberately written down the wrong number. That way no one could have identified the aggressor.

  “All right, thanks, you’re dismissed,” he told Fazio in a dry tone.

  Friday morning he packed his bags—three of them, and big ones at that—loaded them into the car, paid his hotel bill, and left for his new house in Marinella. He couldn’t believe it. The previous evening, the barber, Nicotra, had given him the keys; he didn’t resist the temptation of stopping by, on his way to the hotel where he was going to sleep for the last time. The house was decently furnished; it didn’t have any of the heavy pieces of furniture like those in the The Leopard or in the houses of the Arab Emirates; everything was in good taste. The phone had already been connected—they must have sped things up in consideration of him being the chief inspector. The fridge was empty but in working order. They had installed a new propane tank. The patio, big enough to fit a bench, two chairs, and a small table, could be accessed directly from the dining room, through a set of French doors. Three steps led from the patio to the beach. Montalbano sat on the bench for about an hour enjoying the sea breeze. He would have been happy to sleep right where he was.