“Come in!”
Montalbano went in and the first thing he saw was an actual banner on the wall, repeating the admonition: “Smoking is strictly forbidden.”
Or you’ll have to answer to me, the president of the Republic seemed to be saying, staring sullenly from his portrait under the banner.
Under this was a high-backed armchair in which the director, Cavaliere Attilio Morasco, was sitting. In front of Cavaliere Morasco sprawled an enormous desk, entirely covered with papers. The director himself was a midget who looked like the late King Vittorio Emanuele III, with a crew-cut hairdo that gave him a head like Umberto I, and a handlebar mustache in the manner of the so-called “Gentleman King.” The inspector felt absolutely certain he must be in the presence of a descendant of the House of Savoy, a bastard, one of the many sired by the Gentleman King.
“Are you Piedmontese?” Montalbano blurted out, staring at him.
The other looked flabbergasted.
“No, why? I’m from Comitini.”
He might be from Comitini, Paternò, or Raffadali, it made no difference to Montalbano.
“You’re Inspector Montalbano, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Did Prosecutor Tommaseo phone you?”
“Yes,” the director admitted reluctantly. “But a phone call is a phone call. You know what I mean?”
“Yes, of course I know what you mean. For me, for example, a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”
Cavaliere Morasco was unimpressed by the inspector’s learned quotation of Gertrude Stein.
“I see that we agree,” he said.
“In what sense, may I ask?”
“In the sense that verba volant and scripta manent.”
“Could you explain?”
“Certainly. Prosecutor Tommaseo phoned me to tell me that you have authorization to conduct investigations concerning a postal passbook belonging to the late Alfonso Griffo. That’s fine, though I consider this, how shall I say, an advance notice. Until I receive a request and written authorization, I cannot allow you to violate the postal code of secrecy.”
These words so steamed the inspector that for a moment he was in danger of taking off through the ceiling.
“I’ll come back later.”
He started to rise. The director stopped him with a gesture.
“Wait. There may be a solution. Could I see some identification?”
The danger of takeoff increased. With one hand, Montalbano anchored himself to the chair he was sitting in, and with the other he held out his ID card.
The Savoy bastard examined it at great length.
“After the prosecutor’s call, I imagined you’d come running here. So I drafted a declaration, which you will sign, and which says that you relieve me of all responsibility in the matter.”
“I’m happy to relieve you,” said the inspector.
He signed the declaration without reading it and put his ID card back in his pocket. Cavaliere Morasco stood up.
“Wait for me here. This will take about ten minutes.”
Before going out, he turned around and pointed to the photo of the president of the Republic.
“Did you see?”
“Yes,” said Montalbano, confused. “It’s Ciampi.”
“I wasn’t referring to the president, but to what’s written above him. Smo-king is strict-ly for-bid-den. I mean it. Don’t take advantage of my absence.”
As soon as the man closed the door, Montalbano felt a violent need to smoke. But it was forbidden, and rightly so, since, as everyone knows, passive cigarette smoke kills millions, whereas smog, dioxin, and lead in gasoline do not. He got up, went downstairs to the ground floor, happened to see three employees smoking, went outside, plunked himself on the sidewalk, smoked three cigarettes in a row, went back inside—now there were four employees smoking—climbed the stairs, walked down the deserted corridor, opened the door to the director’s office without knocking, and entered. Cavaliere Morasco, sitting at his desk, looked at him disapprovingly, shaking his head. Montalbano regained his chair with the same guilty look he used to have when he arrived late to school.
“We have the printout,” the director solemnly declared.
“Could I see it?”
Before giving it to him, the cavaliere checked to make sure the inspector’s liberating signature was still there on his desk.
But the inspector didn’t understand a single thing on the printout, especially because the figure at the bottom seemed excessive.
“Could you explain this for me?” he asked, again with the tone he used to use in school.
The director leaned forward, practically stretching his entire body across the desk, and snatched the paper out of the inspector’s hands in irritation.
“Everything is perfectly clear!” he said. “From the printout one can see that the monthly pension of Mr. and Mrs. Griffo came to three million lire or, broken down individually, one million eight hundred thousand for him, and one million two hundred thousand for her. At the time of collection, Mr. Griffo would withdraw his own pension, in cash, for their monthly needs, and leave his wife’s pension on deposit. This was their standard procedure. With a few rare exceptions, naturally.”
“But even assuming they were extremely tight and thrifty,” the inspector said, thinking aloud, “it still doesn’t add up. I believe I saw that there were almost a hundred million in that passbook!”
“You saw correctly. To be precise, ninety-eight million three hundred thousand lire. But there’s nothing so unusual about that.”
“There isn’t?”
“No, because, without fail, on the first of each month for the last two years, Alfonso Griffo would deposit two million lire. Which makes a total of forty-eight million, added to their usual savings.”
“And where was he getting these two million per month?”
“Don’t ask me,” the director said, offended.
“Thank you,” said Montalbano, standing up. And he held out his hand.
The director stood up, walked around his desk, looked the inspector up and down, and shook his hand.
“Could I have the printout?” Montalbano asked.
“No,” the Savoy bastard replied drily.
The inspector left the office and, once out on the sidewalk, fired up a cigarette. He’d guessed right. They’d made off with the passbook because those forty-eight million lire were the symptom of the Griffos’ fatal illness.
After he’d been back at headquarters ten minutes, Catarella returned wearing the desolate expression of an earthquake victim. He had the photo in his hand and set it down on the desk.
“Even my trusty friend’s scanner couldn’t do it. If you want, I’ll take it to Cicco de Cicco, ‘cause that crimololog ical thing’s not happenin’ till tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Cat, but I’ll take it there myself.”
“Salvo, why on earth don’t you learn how to use a computer?” Livia had asked him one day, adding: “You have no idea how many problems you could solve with it!”
Well, here was one little problem the computer hadn’t been able to solve. It had only made him waste his time. He reminded himself to tell this to Livia, just to keep the polemic going.
He put the photo in his jacket pocket, left the station, and got in his car. He decided, however, to pass by Via Cavour before going to Montelusa.
“Mr. Griffo’s upstairs,” the concierge informed him.
When he opened the door, Davide Griffo was in shirtsleeves, scrub brush in hand. He was cleaning the apartment.
“It was getting too dusty.”
He showed the inspector into the dining room. On the table, in little piles, were the papers Montalbano had given him shortly before. Griffo intercepted his gaze.
“You were right, Inspector. The passbook’s not here. Did you want to tell me something?”
“Yes. I went to the post office and found out how much your parents had in that passbook account.”