She smiled.
“I feel pretty ridiculous when I do that routine. But then ... There’s one passenger who’s almost always there, Cavaliere Mistretta, who’s forced his wife to buy three full sets. Get it? He’s in love with me! You can’t imagine the looks his wife gives me. Anyway, to each buyer we give a complimentary talking watch, the kind the vù cumprà sell for ten thousand lire apiece. But all passengers get a free ballpoint pen with the company name, Sirio, written on it. Well, the Griffos didn’t even want the pen.”
The fish arrived and, once again, silence reigned.
“Would you like some fruit? Coffee?” Montalbano asked when, sadly, all that was left of the bass were the bones and the heads.
“No,” said Beatrice, “I like to keep that aftertaste of the sea.”
Not just a twin, but a Siamese twin.
“Anyway, Inspector, the whole time I was giving my sales talk, I kept looking over at the Griffos. They just sat there, stock-still, only he turned around a few times to look back through the rear window. As if he was afraid some car might be following the bus.”
“Or the opposite,” said the inspector. “To make sure that some car was still following the bus.”
“Maybe. They didn’t eat with us in Tindari. When we all got off the bus, they remained seated. When we got back on, they were still there. On the drive back they didn’t once get out, not even when we stopped for caffellatte. Of one thing I’m certain, however: it was Mr. Griffo who asked that we stop at the café-trattoria Paradiso. We were almost home, and the driver wanted to keep going. But he protested. And in the end almost everybody got out. I stayed inside. Then the driver honked the horn, the passengers reboarded, and the bus left.”
“Are you sure the Griffos also got back on?”
“I can’t say for certain. During the stop, I started listening to music on my Walkman, so I was wearing headphones. And my eyes were closed. In the end I dozed off. I didn’t reopen my eyes till we were back in Vigàta and most of the passengers had already got off the bus.”
“So it’s possible the Griffos were already walking back home.”
Beatrice opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again.
“Go on,” the inspector said. “Whatever it is, even if it seems silly to you, might be of use to me.”
“Okay. When the company employee went into the bus to take away the samples, I gave him a hand. As I was pulling the first of the big boxes toward me, I leaned one hand on the seat where Mr. Griffo should have been sitting just a few minutes before. Well, it was cold. If you ask me, those two did not get back on the bus after the stop at the café Paradiso.”
6
Calogero brought the bill, Montalbano paid, Beatrice stood up, and the inspector did likewise, though with a twinge of regret. The girl was a veritable wonder of nature, but there was nothing to be done. It ended there.
“Let me give you a lift,” said Montalbano.
“I’ve got my own car,” replied Beatrice.
At that very moment, Mimi Augello walked in. Seeing Montalbano, he headed straight for him, then all at once stopped dead in his tracks, eyes agape. It was as though the angel of popular legend had passed, the one that says “Amen,” and everyone remains exactly as they were, frozen. Apparently he had brought Beatrice into focus. He suddenly turned around and made as if to leave.
“Were you looking for me?” the inspector asked, stopping him.
“Yes.”
“So why were you leaving?”
“I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“What do you mean, disturb me! Come, Mimi. Miss Dileo, this is my right-hand man, Deputy Inspector Augello. This young woman traveled with the Griffos last Sunday and has told me some interesting things.”
Mimì knew only that the Griffos had disappeared, but was entirely ignorant of the investigation. In any case he was unable to open his mouth, his eyes still fixed on the girl.
It was at that moment that the Devil, the one with a capital D, materialized beside Montalbano. Invisible to all present except the inspector, he was wearing his traditional costume: hairy skin, cloven feet, pointed tail, short horns. The inspector felt his fiery, sulfurous breath burn his left ear.
“Let them get to know each other better,” the Devil ordered him.
Montalbano bowed to His Will.
“Have you got another five minutes?” he asked Beatrice with a smile.
“Sure. I’m free all afternoon.”
“And you, Mimi, have you eaten?”
“Uh ... n-no, not yet.”
“Then sit down in my place and order something while the young lady tells you what she told me about the Griffos. I, unfortunately, have an urgent matter to attend to. See you later at the office, Mimi. And thank you again, Miss Dileo.”
Beatrice sat back down. Mimì lowered himself into his chair, as stiff as if he was wearing a suit of armor. He still couldn’t grasp how this gift of God had fallen to him, but the topper was the fact that Montalbano had been so unusually nice to him.
The inspector, meanwhile, left the trattoria humming to himself. He had planted a seed. If the ground was fertile (and he had no doubt as to the fertility of Mimì’s ground), that seed would grow. Which meant good-bye Rebecca, or whatever the hell her name was, good-bye transfer request.
“Excuse me, Inspector, but don’t you think you’re being a bit of a stinker?” asked the indignant voice of Montalbano’s conscience.
“Jeez, what a pain in the ass!” was his reply.
In front of the Caffe Caviglione stood its owner, Arturo, leaning against the doorjamb and basking in the sun. He was dressed like a beggar, in stained, threadbare jacket and trousers, despite the four to five billion lire he’d made loan- sharking. A skinflint from a legendary family of skinflints. He once showed the inspector an old sign, yellowed and covered with fly shit, that his grandfather used to display in the café at the start of the century: “Anyone sitting at a table must also drink a glass of water. And a glass of water costs two cents.”
“Have a coffee, Inspector?”
They went inside.
“A coffee for the inspector!” Arturo ordered the barman as he dropped into the register the coins Montalbano had extracted from his pocket. The day Arturo decided to offer a few scraps of brioche free of charge would be the day the world witnessed a cataclysm to delight Nostradamus.
“What is it, Artù?”
“I wanted to talk to you about this Griffo business. I know them. In the summer, every Sunday evening, they sit down at a table, always by themselves, and order two pieces of ice-cream cake: cassata for him and hazelnut with cream for her. I saw them that morning.”
“What morning?”
“The morning they left for Tindari. The bus terminus is just down the street, in the piazza. I open at six, give or take a few minutes. Well, the Griffos were already here that morning, standing in front of the closed shutters. And the bus wasn’t supposed to leave until seven! Go figure!”
“Did they have anything to drink or eat?”
“They each had a hot brioche the baker brought to me about ten minutes later. The bus pulled in at six-thirty. The driver, whose name is Filippu, came in and ordered a coffee. Mr. Griffo went up to him and asked if they could board the bus. Filippu said yes, and they left without even saying good-bye. What were they afraid of, missing the bus?”
“Is that everything?”
“Well, yes.”
“Listen, Artù. That kid that was killed, did you know him?”
“Nenè Sanfilippo? Until a couple of years ago he used to come in regularly to shoot pool. Then he started showing up a lot less. Only at night.”
“What do you mean, at night?”
“I close at one A.M., Inspector. He’d come in sometimes and buy a few bottles of whisky, gin, that kind of thing. He’d pull up in his car, and there’d almost always be a girl inside.”