The Shape of Water (8 page)

“Stop!” Montalbano shouted.

The man froze; he had thought he was alone. In a couple of bounds Montalbano reached him, grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket, lifted him up bodily, and carried him to safety.

“What were you trying to do, kill yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because my wife is cheating on me.”

This was the last thing Montalbano expected to hear. The man had surely passed his eightieth year.

“How old is your wife?”

“Let’s say eighty. I’m eighty-two.”

An absurd conversation in an absurd situation, and the inspector didn’t feel like continuing it. Taking the man by the arm, he forced him to walk toward town. At this point, just to make everything even crazier, the man introduced himself.

“I am Giosuè Contino, if I may. I used to teach elementary school. Who are you? If, of course, you wish to tell me.”

“My name is Salvo Montalbano. I’m police inspector for the town of Vigàta.”

“Oh, really? Then you came at just the right time.

You yourself can tell my slut of a wife she’d better stop cuckolding me with Agatino De Francesco or one of these days I’m going to do something crazy.”

“And who’s this De Francesco?”

“He used to be the mailman. He’s younger than I am, seventy-six years old, and he has a pension that’s one and a half times the size of mine.”

“Do you know this to be a fact, or are you just suspicious?”

“I’m absolutely certain it’s the gospel truth. Every afternoon God sends our way, rain or shine, this De Francesco comes and has a coffee at the café right under my house.”

“So what?”

“How long do
you
take to drink a cup of coffee?”

For a minute Montalbano went along with the old schoolmaster’s quiet madness.

“That depends. If I’m standing—”

“What’s that got to do with it? When you’re sitting!”

“Well, it depends on whether I have an appointment and have to wait, or if I only want to pass the time.”

“No, my friend, that man sits there only to eye my wife, who eyes him back, and they never waste an opportunity to do so.”

They had arrived back in town.

“Where do you live, Mr. Contino?”

“At the end of the
corso
, on Piazza Dante.”

“Let’s take a back street, I think that’s better.” Montalbano didn’t want the sodden, shivering old man to arouse the townspeople’s curiosity and questions.

“Coming upstairs with me? Would you like a coffee?” he asked the inspector while extracting the front-door keys from his pocket.

“No, thanks. Just dry yourself off and change your clothes.”

That same evening he had gone to speak with De Francesco, the ex-mailman, a tiny, unpleasant old man who reacted quite harshly to the inspector’s advice, screaming in his face.

“I’ll take my coffee wherever and whenever I like! What, is it illegal to go sit at the café under that arteriosclerotic Contino’s balcony? You surprise me, sir. You’re supposed to represent the law, and instead you come and tell me these things!”

 
 
“It’s all over,” said the municipal policeman keeping curious bystanders away from the front door on Piazza Dante. At the entrance to the apartment stood Sergeant Fazio, who threw his arms up in distress. The rooms were in perfect order, sparkling clean. Master Contino was lying in an armchair, a small bloodstain over his heart. The revolver was on the floor, next to the armchair, an ancient Smith & Wesson five-shooter that must have dated back at least to the time of Buffalo Bill but unfortunately still worked. His wife was lying on the bed, she, too, with a bloodstain over her heart, her hands clasped around a rosary. She must have been praying before agreeing to let her husband kill her. Montalbano thought again of the commissioner, who this time was right: here death had indeed found its dignity.

 
 
Nervous and surly, Montalbano gave the sergeant his instructions and left him there to wait for the judge. He felt, aside from a sudden melancholy, a subtle remorse: if only he had intervened more wisely with the schoolmaster, if only he had alerted Contino’s friends and doctor in time . . .

 
 
He took a long walk along the wharf and along the eastern jetty, his favorite. His spirits slightly revived, he returned to the office. There he found Fazio beside himself.

“What is it? What’s happened? Hasn’t the judge come yet?”

“No, he came, and they’ve already taken the bodies away.”

“So what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is that while half the town was watching Contino shoot his gun, some bastards went into action and cleaned out two apartments top to bottom. I’ve already sent four of our men. I was waiting for you to show up so I could go join them.”

“All right, go. I’ll be here.”

He decided it was time to play his ace: the trap he had in mind couldn’t fail. He reached for the phone.

“Jacomuzzi?”

“What, goddammit! What’s the rush? I still don’t have any report on your necklace. It’s too early.”

“I’m well aware you couldn’t possibly tell me anything yet, I realize that.”

“So what do you want?”

“To advise you to maintain total secrecy. The story behind that necklace is not as simple as it may appear. It could lead to unexpected developments.”

“You insult me! If you tell me not to talk about something, I won’t talk about it, even if the heavens fall!”

 
 
“Mr. Luparello? I’m so sorry I couldn’t come today. It simply wasn’t possible, you must believe me. Please extend my apologies to your mother.”

“Just a minute, Inspector.”

Montalbano waited patiently.

“Inspector? Mama says tomorrow at the same hour, if that’s all right with you.”

It was all right with him, and he confirmed the appointment.

8

He returned home tired, intending to go straight to bed, but almost mechanically—it was sort of a tic—he turned on the television. The Tele Vigàta anchorman, after talking about the event of the day, a shoot-out between petty mafiosi on the outskirts of Miletta a few hours earlier, announced that the provincial secretariat of the party to which Luparello belonged (actually, used to belong) had convened in Montelusa. It was a highly unusual meeting, one that in less turbulent times than these would have been held, out of due respect for the deceased, at least thirty days after his passing; but things being what they were, the troubling situation called for quick, lucid decisions. And so a new provincial secretary had been elected, unanimously: Dr. Angelo Cardamone, chief osteologist at Montelusa Hospital, a man who had always fought with Luparello from within the party, but fairly and courageously and always out in the open. This clash of ideas—the newsman continued—could be simplified in the following terms: Engineer Luparello was in favor of maintaining the four-party governing coalition while allowing the introduction of pristine new forces untrammeled by politics (read: not yet subpoenaed for questioning), whereas the osteologist tended to favor a dialogue, however cautious and clear-eyed, with the left. The newly elected secretary had been receiving telegrams and telephone calls of congratulation, even from the opposition. Cardamone, who in an interview appeared moved but determined, declared that he would commit himself to the best of his abilities not to betray his predecessor’s hallowed memory, and concluded by asserting that he would devote “his diligent labor and knowledge” to the now-renovated party.

“Thank God he’ll devote it to the party,” Inspector Montalbano couldn’t help but exclaim, since Dr. Cardamone’s knowledge, surgically speaking, had left more people hobbled than a violent earthquake usually does.

The newsman’s next words made the inspector prick up his ears. To enable Cardamone to follow his own path without losing sight of the principles and people that represented the very best of Luparello’s political endeavors, the members of the secretariat had besought Counselor Pietro Rizzo, the engineer’s spiritual heir, to work alongside the new secretary. After some understandable resistance, given the onerous tasks that came with the unexpected appointment, Rizzo had let himself be persuaded to accept. In his interview with Tele Vigàta, Rizzo, also deeply moved, declared that he had no choice but to assume this weighty burden if he was to remain faithful to the memory of his mentor and friend, whose watchword was always and only: “to serve.”

Montalbano reacted with surprise. How could this new secretary so blithely swallow having to work, with official sanction, alongside the man who had been his principal adversary’s most loyal right-hand man? His surprise was short-lived, however, and proved naive once the inspector had given the matter a moment’s rational thought. Indeed that party had always distinguished itself by its innate inclination for compromise, for finding the middle path. It was possible that Cardamone didn’t yet have enough clout to go it alone and felt the need for extra support.

He changed the channel. On the Free Channel, the voice of the leftist opposition, there was Nicolò Zito, the most influential of their editorialists, explaining how in Sicily, and in the province of Montelusa in particular, mutatis mutandis—or
zara zabara
, to say it in Sicilian—things never budged, even when there was a storm on the horizon. He quoted, with obvious facility, the prince of Salina’s famous statement about changing everything in order to change nothing and concluded that Luparello and Cardamone were two sides of the same coin, the alloy that coin was made of being none other than Counselor Rizzo.

Montalbano rushed to the phone, dialed the Free Channel’s number, and asked for Zito. There was a bond of common sympathy, almost friendship, between him and the newsman.

“What can I do for you, Inspector?”

“I want to see you.”

“My dear friend, I’m leaving for Palermo tomorrow morning and will be away for at least a week. How about if I come by to see you in half an hour? And fix me something to eat. I’m starving.”

A dish of pasta with garlic and oil could be served up without any problem. He opened the refrigerator: Adelina had prepared a hefty dish of boiled shrimp, enough for four. Adelina was the mother of a pair of repeat offenders, the younger of whom was still in prison, having been arrested by Montalbano himself three years earlier.

 
 
The previous July, when she had come to Vigàta to spend two weeks with him, Livia, upon hearing this story, became terrified.

“Are you insane? One of these days that woman will take revenge and poison your soup!”

“Take revenge for what?”

“For having arrested her son!”

“Is that my fault? Adelina’s well aware it’s not my fault if her son was stupid enough to get caught. I played fair, didn’t use any tricks or traps to arrest him. It was all on the up-and-up.”

“I don’t give a damn about your contorted way of thinking. You have to get rid of her.”

“But if I fire her, who’s going to keep house for me, do my laundry, iron my clothes, and make me dinner?”

“You’ll find somebody else!”

“There you’re wrong. I’ll never find a woman as good as Adelina.”

 
 
He was about to put the pasta water on the stove when the telephone rang.

“I feel like crawling underground for waking you at this hour” was the introduction.

“I wasn’t sleeping. Who is this?”

“It’s Counselor Pietro Rizzo.”

“Ah, Counselor Rizzo. My congratulations.”

“For what? If it’s for the honor my party has just done me, you should probably offer me your condolences. Believe me, I accepted only out of a sense of undying loyalty to the ideals of the late Mr. Luparello. But to get back to my reason for calling: I need to see you, Inspector.”

“Now?!”

“Not now, of course, but bear in mind, in any case, that it is an improcrastinable matter.”

“We could do it tomorrow morning, but isn’t the funeral tomorrow? You’ll be very busy, I imagine.”

“Indeed. All afternoon as well. There will be some very important guests, you know, and of course they will linger awhile.”

“So when?”

“Actually, on second thought, I think we could do it tomorrow morning, but first thing. What time do you usually get to the office?”

“Around eight.”

“Eight o’clock would be fine with me. It won’t take but a few minutes.”

“Listen, Counselor, precisely because you will have so little time tomorrow morning, could you perhaps tell me in advance what it’s about?”

“Over the phone?”

“Just a hint.”

“All right. I have heard—though I don’t know how much truth there is in the rumor—that an object found by chance on the ground was turned over to you. I’ve been instructed to reclaim it.”

Montalbano covered the receiver with one hand and literally exploded in a horselike whinny, a mighty guffaw. He had baited the Jacomuzzi hook with the necklace, and the trap had worked like a charm, catching the biggest fish he could ever have hoped for. But how did Jacomuzzi manage to let everyone know things he wasn’t supposed to let anyone know? Did he resort to lasers, to telepathy, to magical shamanistic practices? Montalbano heard Rizzo yelling on the line.

“Hello? Hello? I can’t hear you! What happened, did we get cut off?”

“No, excuse me, I dropped my pencil and was looking for it. I’ll see you tomorrow at eight.”

 
 
As soon as he heard the doorbell ring, he put the pasta in the water and went to the door.

“So what’s for supper?” asked Zito as he entered.

“Pasta with garlic and oil, and shrimp with oil and lemon.”

“Excellent.”

“Come into the kitchen and give me a hand.

Meanwhile, my first question is: can you say ‘improcrastinable’?”

“Have you gone soft in the head? You make me race all the way from Montelusa to ask me if I can say some word? Anyway, of course I can say it. No problem.”