The Terra-Cotta Dog (8 page)

“Not a word from anyone.”

“That's odd.”

“Why?”

“Because the best part of any practical joke is enjoying it afterward with the person it was played on. Well, if you do hear from anybody, please let me know. Good day.”

“Good day,” muttered Ingrassia, standing up. He was dripping wet, his trousers sticking to his bottom.

Fazio showed up all decked out in a shiny new uniform.

“I'm here,” he said.

“And the pope is in Rome.”

“I know, Inspector, I know: today is not your day.”

He started to leave but stopped in the doorway.

“Inspector Augello called, said he had a terrible toothache. He says he's not coming unless he has to.”

“Listen, do you have any idea where the wreck of Cavaliere Misuraca's Fiat ended up?”

“It's still here, in our garage. If you ask me, it's just envy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Inspector Augello's toothache. It's just a bout of envy.”

“Who's he envious of?”

“You. Because it's your press conference and not his. And he's probably also pissed off because you wouldn't tell him who you'd arrested.”

“Would you do me a favor?”

“All right, all right, I'm going.”

When Fazio had closed the door well, Montalbano dialed a number. The voice of the woman who answered sounded like a parody of an African in a dubbed film.

“Hallo? Who dare? Who you callin' dare?”

Where did the Cardamones find these housekeepers?

“Is Signora Ingrid there?”

“Ya, but who callin?”

“This is Salvo Montalbano.”

“You wait dare.”

Ingrid's voice, on the other hand, was the very same as the voice the Italian dubber had given to Greta Garbo, who was herself Swedish.

“Ciao, Salvo. How are you? Long time no see.”

“I need your help, Ingrid. Are you free tonight?”

“Actually, no. But if it's really important I can drop everything.”

“It's important.”

“Tell me where and when.”

“Nine o'clock tonight, at the Marinella Bar.”

 
 
For Montalbano, the press conference proved, as of course he knew it would, to be a long, painful embarrassment. Anti-Mafia Vice-Commissioner De Dominicis came from Palermo and sat on the Montelusa police commissioner's right. Imperious gestures and angry glances prevailed upon Montalbano, who had wanted to remain in the audience, to sit on his superior's left. Behind him, standing, were Fazio, Germanà, Gallo, and Galluzzo. The commissioner spoke first and began by naming the man they had arrested, the number one of the number twos: Gaetano Bennici, known as “Tano the Greek,” wanted for multiple murders and long a fugitive from justice. It was a literal bombshell. The journalists, who were there in great numbers—there were even four TV cameras—jumped out of their chairs and started talking to one another, making such a racket that the commissioner had difficulty reestablishing silence. He stated that credit for the arrest went to Inspector Montalbano who, with the assistance of his men—and here he named and introduced them one by one—had been able to exploit a golden opportunity with skill and courage. Then De Dominicis spoke, explaining Tano the Greek's role within his criminal organization, certainly a prominent one, though not of the utmost prominence. As the Anti-Mafia Vice-Commissioner sat back down, Montalbano realized he was being thrown to the dogs.

The questions came in rapid-fire bursts, worse than a Kalishnikov. Had there been a gunfight? Was Tano alone? Were any law enforcement personnel injured? What did Tano say when they handcuffed him? Had he been sleeping or awake? Was there a woman with him? A dog? Was it true he took drugs? How many murders had he committed? How was he dressed? Was he naked? Was it true he rooted for the Milan soccer team? Did he have a photo of Ornella Muti on his person? Could the inspector explain a little better the golden opportunity the commissioner had alluded to?

Montalbano struggled to answer the questions as best he could, seeming to understand less and less what he was saying.

And just to make things even harder, there were the adoring eyes of Corporal Anna Ferrara, staring at him from the crowd.

Nicolò Zito, newsman from the Free Channel and a true friend, tried to rescue him from the quicksand in which he was drowning.

“Inspector, with your permission,” said Zito. “You said you met Tano on your way back from Fiacca, where you'd been invited to eat a
tabisca
with friends. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“What is a
tabisca
?”

They'd eaten
tabisca
many times together. Zito was simply tossing him a life preserver. Montalbano seized it. Suddenly confident and precise, the inspector went into a detailed description of that extraordinary, multiflavored pizza.

7

In the alternately desperate, stammering, hesitant, bewildered, flabbergasted, lost but always wild-eyed man framed pitilessly in the foreground by the Free Channel's videocamera, Montalbano scarcely recognized himself under the storm of questions from vile snake-in-the-grass journalists. And the part where he'd explained how
tabisca
was made—the part in which he came off best—had been cut out. Maybe it wasn't strictly in keeping with the principal subject, the capture of Tano the Greek.

The eggplant Parmesan his housekeeper had left for him in the oven suddenly tasted flavorless. But that was impossible, it couldn't be right. It must have been some sort of psychological effect from seeing himself look like such a stupid shit on television.

All at once he felt like crying, like throwing himself down on his bed and wrapping himself up in the sheet like a mummy.

 
 
“Inspector Montalbano? This is Luciano Acquasanta from the newspaper
Il Mezzogiorno.
Would you be so kind as to grant me an interview?”

“No.”

“I won't waste your time, I promise.”

“No.”

 
 
“Is this Inspector Montalbano? Spingardi here, Attilio Spingardi, from the RAI office in Palermo. We're putting together a roundtable to discuss—”

“No.”

“At least let me finish!”

“No.”

 
 
“Darling? It's Livia. How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Why?”

“I just saw you on TV.”

“Oh, Christ! You mean they showed that all over Italy?”

“I think so. But it was very brief, you know.”

“Could you hear what I was saying?”

“No, one could only hear the commentator speaking. But I could clearly see your face, and that's what got me worried. You were yellow as a lemon.”

“It was even in color?”

“Of course it was in color. You kept putting your hand over your eyes and rubbing your forehead.”

“I had a headache and the lights were bothering me.”

“Are you better now?”

“Yes.”

“Inspector Montalbano? My name is Stefania Quattrini, from the magazine
Essere Donna.
We'd like to do a telephone interview with you. Could you remain on the line?”

“No.”

“It'll only take a few seconds.”

“No.”

 
 
“Do I have the honor of actually speaking with the famous Inspector Montalbano who holds press conferences?”

“Don't break my balls.”

“No, don't worry about your balls, we won't break them. It's your ass we're after.”

“Who is this?”

“It's your death, that's who.You're not gonna wiggle out of this one so easy, you lousy fucking actor. Who'd you think you were fooling with that little song and dance you put on with your pal Tano? You're gonna pay for trying to fuck with us.”

“Hello? Hello?”

 
 
The line had gone dead. But Montalbano didn't have a chance to take in those threatening words and mull them over, because he realized that the insistent noise he'd been hearing for some time amid the flurry of phone calls was the doorbell ringing. For some reason he was convinced it must be a journalist more clever than the rest who'd decided to show up at his house. Exasperated, he ran to the entrance and without opening, yelled:

“Who the hell is it?”

“It's the commissioner.”

What could
he
want from him, at home, at that hour, without even having called to alert him? He released the bolt with a swat of the hand and yanked the door wide open.

“Hello, come on in, make yourself comfortable,” he said, standing aside to let him in.

“We haven't got any time. Get yourself in order, I'll wait for you in the car.”

He turned around and walked away. Passing in front of the large mirror on the armoire, Montalbano realized what the commissioner had meant by “Get yourself in order.” He was completely naked.

 
 
The car had none of the usual police markings; it looked, rather, like a rental car. At the wheel, in civilian clothing, was an officer from the Montelusa station whom he knew. As soon as he sat down, the commissioner began to speak.

“I apologize for not calling beforehand, but your phone was always busy.”

“I know.”

The commissioner could have cut into the line, of course, but that wasn't in keeping with his polite, gentlemanly way of doing things. Montalbano didn't explain why the telephone had given him no peace. It didn't matter. His boss was gloomier than he'd ever seen him before, face drawn, mouth half-twisted in a kind of grimace.

 
 
After they'd been driving on the highway to Palermo for some forty-five minutes with the driver going full tilt, Montalbano started looking out on that part of his island's landscape which charmed him most.

“You like it? Really?” an astonished Livia had asked him once, a few years earlier, when he brought her to this area.

Arid hills like giant tumuli, covered only by a yellow stubble of dry grass and abandoned by the hand of man after sudden failures owing to drought, extreme heat, or more simply to the weariness of a battle lost from the outset, were interrupted here and there by a gray of rocky peaks rising absurdly out of nothing or perhaps fallen from above, stalactites or stalagmites of the deep, open-air cave that is Sicily. The few houses one saw, all single-story, domed structures, cubes of dry stone, stood askew, as if by chance alone they'd survived the violent bucking of an earth that didn't want them on its back. Still there was the rare spot of green, not of trees or cultivation, but of agaves, sword grass, buckthorn, and sorghum, beleaguered and dusty, they too on the verge of surrender.

As if he had been waiting for the appropriate scenery, the commissioner finally began to speak, though Montalbano realized the words were addressed not to him but to the commissioner himself, in a kind of painful, furious monologue.

“Why did they do it? Who decided to decide? If an investigation were held—an impossibile conjecture—it would turn out that either nobody took the first step, or they were acting on orders from above. So let's see who these superiors who gave the orders are. The head of the Anti-Mafia Commission would deny all knowledge, as would the minister of the interior and the prime minister, the head of state. Which leaves the pope, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and God the Father, in that order. All would cry in outrage: How could anyone think it was
they
who gave the order? That leaves only the Devil, notorious for being the cause of all evil. He's the guilty one! Satan! . . . Anyway, to make a long story short, they decided to transfer him to another prison.”

“Tano?” Montalbano ventured to ask. The commissioner didn't even answer.

“Why? We'll never know, that much is certain. And while we were holding our press conference, they were putting him in an ordinary car with two plainclothesmen as escort—ah! how clever!—so as not to attract attention, of course! And so, when the requisite high-powered motorcycle appeared from an alley with two men aboard, rendered utterly unrecognizable by their helmets . . . Final tally: two policemen dead, Tano in the hospital, on death's doorstep. And there you have it.”

Montalbano absorbed it all, thinking cynically that if only they'd killed Tano a few hours earlier, he would have been spared the torture of the press conference. He started asking questions only because he sensed that the commissioner had calmed down a little after his outburst.

“But how did they know—”

The commissioner slammed the seat in front of him, making the driver start and the car veer slightly.

“What do you think, Montalbano? A mole, no? That's what's driving me so crazy!”

The inspector let a minute or two pass before asking another question.

“Where do we come in?”

“He wants to talk to you. He knows he's dying, and wants to tell you something.”

“I see. So why did you go to all this trouble? I could have gone by myself.”

“I came along to prevent any snags or delays. In their sublime intelligence, these guys are capable of denying you access to him.”

 
 
In front of the hospital gate there was an armored car, as well as some ten guards scattered about the yard, submachine guns in hand.

“Idiots,” said the commissioner.

They passed through at least five checkpoints, growing more irritated each time, then finally reached the ward where Tano's room was. All other patients had been cleared out, transferred elsewhere amid curses and obscenities. At each end of the corridor were four armed policemen, plus two outside the door of the room Tano was obviously in. The commissioner showed them his pass.