Game of Mirrors (19 page)

Then a burst of machine-gun fire came suddenly from the dining room. Too high, but Montalbano realized he was lost. The man with the machine gun took a step forward and let fly another burst. Montalbano raised his pistol and . . .

A sharp, clean shot rang out behind him. The machine gun fell to the floor, and the man who a second before had Montalbano’s fate in his hands did the same without a cry.

“Turì! Turì!” the second man called.

There was no reply. Montalbano distinctly heard his hurried footsteps. The man was running away. The inspector turned around and shone the flashlight. Adriano Lombardo was smiling and holding a precision rifle.

“Put the weapon down.”

“Of course.”

Outside, meanwhile, they heard cries of “Stop! Police!” and a few gunshots.

“Where was it?”

“I kept it hidden in that room. There are some removable bricks under the bed.”

Montalbano had a flash.

“Was it you who fired at your wife when she was in the car with me?”

“Yes, but she wasn’t my wife. She was just someone I’d brought along who I thought might be useful to me. But I would never have killed her. I’m an excellent marksman.”

“So why did you shoot at her?”

“To win your support against the Sinagras, Inspector. And by the way, it was I who told Liliana to try to seduce you. I was sure you would suspect Nicotra and act accordingly, getting him out of my way. Instead you did nothing. Why?”

“I’ll tell you some other time,” said Montalbano.

They heard Mimì calling from the beach.

“Salvo! You can come out now.”

They went out. By the light of the flashlights, Montalbano noticed that Mimì was completely drenched. A short distance away, two uniformed cops were restraining someone.

“We nabbed him. He said you killed his friend.”

“I didn’t. The man standing here, Adriano Lombardo, did. Why’d you guys get here so late?”

“The outboard motor on the dinghy broke down. We rowed for a while, then dove into the water and swam.”

Fazio meanwhile had shown up with two other policemen.

“Mimì, take Lombardo into custody as well and put him in a holding cell. We’ll talk about what to do with him tomorrow. You, Fazio, had better report that I was in a firefight with one person killed. Then confiscate the computers and printers and take them to headquarters. I’m going home to bed. I feel a little tired.”

He arrived at the station at eight thirty the next morning. He felt rested despite the fact that he had slept barely three hours.

“Fazio, I’ve got less than ten minutes. I have to be at Montelusa Prison at nine to talk with Tallarita. Bring me Lombardo and leave me alone with him.”

Lombardo looked as if he hadn’t gotten any sleep on the wooden plank in the holding cell. His clothes were in order. He just had a bit of stubble on his face.

“In a few minutes Inspector Fazio will escort you to the public prosecutor. I unfortunately have another engagement. But I hope to be able to come by midmorning. If you have any important revelations to make, please wait for me to get there. Do you have a lawyer?”

“No, but I want revenge on the Cuffaros. I have a lot to say about them.”

“I imagined you would. I’ll tell Augello to find you a good lawyer.”

“Why are you so interested in me?”

“Because you saved my life. Which I’ll tell the prosecutor. And also because . . .”

He stopped in time. But Lombardo smiled at him and finished his thought.

“Because you owe it to Liliana?”

Montalbano didn’t reply.

He showed up at the prison gate ten minutes late. The chief guard told him to wait and started talking in a low voice into the telephone.

Then he called another guard and ordered him to escort the inspector to the prison warden.

What was this? He didn’t have any time to waste.

“Look, I’m supposed to be having a consultation with—”

“I know, but the warden arranged it this way.”

He knew this warden. His name was Luparelli and he was a perfectly respectable man though a pain in the ass when it came to protocol.

Montalbano found him agitated and in a bad mood.

“You won’t be able to talk to Tallarita.”

“Why not?”

“Something very serious happened. This morning in
the showers he slit Nicotra’s throat with a knife. Nobody knows how he got the weapon.”

“Did he kill him?”

“Yes. You see, yesterday he watched Ragonese’s report on television, which went into all the gory details of his son’s death, and so he avenged him. Afterwards, with the knife still in his hand, and threatening everybody around him, he started yelling that he wanted the Narcotics squad and he intended to turn state’s witness. And so I called them, and they came and took him away.”

He’d come all that way for nothing. But he’d achieved the result he wanted just the same. He’d planned to tell Tallarita about the terrible death his son had suffered, to trigger a reaction. But Ragonese had spared him the effort.

Leaving the prison, he got in his car and headed for the office of the public prosecutor, Tommaseo.

Where Lombardo was ready to take the Cuffaros to town.

It was a fine day
indeed.

Unlike many other novels in the Montalbano series, this one did not originate from one or several news items. It’s completely made up. I can therefore say with all the more conviction that all the character names, situations, and occurrences have no connection with actual events. Such things could occur, of course, and actually did, in the summer of 2010, after I’d written the novel. But that’s another matter.

It was said that the Piedmontese were false and polite
:
The Italians have a popular saying, according to which
Il
Piemontese è falso e cortese
.

The military cops were responding
:
The carabinieri are a national police force and technically a branch of the military.

“Nuttata persa e figlia fìmmina”
:
A Sicilian expression that means “a lot of effort but nothing to show for it.” The literal meaning is “a night wasted, and it’s a girl,” reflecting the culture’s premium on male children.

the ACI
:
The Automobile Club d’Italia.

Buridan’s ass
:
The dilemma, named after medieval French philosopher Jean Buridan (ca. 1300–ca. 1360), whereby a donkey, standing equidistant from a pail of water on one side and a bale of hay on the other, must die of hunger and thirst because it lacks the rational capacity to choose the one or the other.

sartù di riso alla calabrisa
:
A variant on a Neapolitan dish,
sartù di riso alla calabrese
belongs to the southern Italian tradition of
pasta al forno
, except that it uses rice instead. Like those baked pasta dishes, it features a great variety of ingredients, including pork, beef, peas, meatballs, eggs, sorpressata, tomato sauce, provolone cheese, pecorino cheese, bread crumbs, onions, and so on. When it is finished, it is removed from the casserole and looks rather like a large cake of rice. In Calabria it is often served as the main course on Fat Tuesday, at the start of Lent.

A proxy vendetta
:
The Italian term is
vendetta trasversale
. In Mafia language, this means taking revenge against somebody by attacking his family or friends.

cornuto
:
Italian for “cuckold.”

“He was goat-tied”
:
The Sicilian term is
incaprettato
(containing the word for goat,
capra
), and it refers to a particularly cruel method of execution used by the Mafia, where the victim is placed facedown, and then a rope (or in this case, a light chain) is looped around his neck and then tied to his feet, which are raised behind his back, as in hog-tying. Fatigue eventually forces him to lower his feet, strangling him in the process.

at the station for the temples
:
The fictional city of Montelusa is modeled after the real Sicilian city of Agrigento, outside of which stands the famous Valley of the Temples, a major archaeological site of Sicilian Greek architecture. There are seven temples, all in the Doric style, mostly from the fifth century BC.

pasta alla carrettiera
:
A simple dish of pasta with a spicy tomato sauce containing a great deal of garlic, hot pepper, and parsley.

Notes by Stephen Sartarelli

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