“Shortly after sunrise this morning . . .”
For those who might not understand, a generic shot of a sunrise appeared.
“... our hero, Inspector Salvo Montalbano, went out for a nice long swim . . .”
A stretch of sea appeared, with some guy swimming far in the distance, tiny and unrecognizable.
“You’re probably thinking that not only is it no longer the season for swimming, but it’s not really the most appropriate time of day for it, either. But what are you going to do? That’s our hero for you. Maybe he felt the need to take a dip to dispel the strange ideas that are often swirling about in his brain. Swimming far offshore, he ran into the corpse of an unknown man. Instead of calling the authorities . . .”
“. . . with the cell phone installed in my dick,” Montalbano chimed in, enraged.
“... our inspector decided to tow the corpse to shore without anyone’s help, tying it to his leg with the bathing suit he was wearing. ‘I can do it all myself,’ that’s his motto. These maneuvers did not escape the attention of Signora Pina Bausan, who had been looking out to sea with a pair of binoculars.”
On-screen appeared the face of Signora Bausan, the lady who’d cracked his skull with an iron bar.
“Where are you from, signora?”
“My husband Angelo and I are both from Treviso.”
“Have you been in Sicily long?”
“We got here four days ago.”
“On vacation?”
“This is no vacation, believe me. I suffer from asthma, and my doctor told me that some sea air would do me good. My daughter Zina is married to a Sicilian who works in Treviso . . .” Here Signora Bausan interrupted her speech with a long, pained sigh, as if to lament the fate that had given her a Sicilian for a son-in-law. “... And she told me to come and stay here, at her husband’s house, which they use only one month out of the year, in the summer. So we came.”
The pained sigh was even longer this time. Life is so hard and dangerous on that savage island!
“Tell me, signora, why were you looking out to sea at that hour?”
“I get up early, and I have to do something, don’t I?”
“And you, Signor Bausan, do you always carry that weapon with you?”
“No, I don’t own any weapons. I borrowed that pistol from a cousin of mine. Since we were coming to Sicily, you understand . . .”
“So you think one should come to Sicily armed?”
“If there’s no rule of law down here, it seems logical, don’t you think?”
Ragonese’s purse-lipped face reappeared on the screen.
“And this gave rise to a huge misunderstanding. Believing—”
Montalbano turned it off. He felt enraged at Bausan, not for having shot at him, but for what he had said. He picked up the phone.
“H’lo, Cadarella?”
“Listen, you motherfucking sonofabitch—”
“Hey, Cad, dode you regogdize me? Id’s Modtadbado.”
“Ah, izzat you, Chief? You gotta cold?”
“No, Cad, I just like talking this way. Lebbe talk to Fadzio.”
“Straight away, Chief.”
Fazio’s voice came on the line: “What is it, Chief?”
“Fazio, what ever happedd to the ode mad’s pistol?”
“You mean Bausan’s? I gave it back to him.”
“Has he god a license for it?”
There was an embarrassed silence.
“I don’t know, Chief. In all that confusion, it slipped my mind.”
“All righd. I mead, it’s dot all righd. I wad you to go fide this mad, righd this middit, and see if his papers are id order. If they’re dot, you’re to edforce the law. We cad’t let sub sedile ode geezer go aroud shooding eddythig that booves.”
“Got it, Chief.”
Done. That would show Signor Bausan and his charming wife that, even in Sicily, there were a few laws. Just a few, but laws all the same. He was about to get back in bed when the phone rang.
“H’lo?”
“Salvo, darling, what’s wrong with your voice? Were you sleeping or are you sick?”
“The ladder.”
“I tried your office, but they said you were at home. Tell me what happened.”
“Whad do you wad me to say? It was like sub cobbedy routeed. I was daked and the guy shod ad me. Add zo I gaughd a gode.”
“You you you you—”
“Whad’s ‘youyouyouyou’ mead?”
“You . . . took off your clothes in front of the commissioner and he shot you?”
Montalbano balked.
“And why would I wad to take my clodes off id frod of the cobbissioder?”
“Because last night you said that this morning, come hell or high water, you were going to hand in your resignation!”
With his free hand, Montalbano slapped his forehead hard. His resignation! He’d forgotten all about it!
“Whad happedd, Livia, is, dis mordig, I was doig the dead mad’s float whed a dead mad—”
“Goodbye, Salvo,” Livia said testily. “I have to go to work. Call me when you can talk again.”
The only thing to do was to take another aspirin, get under the covers, and sweat like a hog.
Before entering the country of sleep, he began to review, quite involuntarily, his whole encounter with the corpse.
When he got to the point where he raised the body’s arm to slip his bathing suit over it, then wrapped the garment tightly around the wrist, the film in his brain stopped and then backed up, as on an editing table. Arm raised, bathing suit slipped over arm, bathing suit wrapped tight . . . Stop. Arm raised, bathing suit slipped over arm . . . Then sleep won out.
At six that evening he was on his feet. He’d slept like a baby and felt nearly recovered from his cold. He had to be patient, however, and stay home for the rest of the day.
He still felt tired, and he knew why. It was the combined effect of the treacherous night, the swim, the exertion of towing the corpse to land, the iron rod to the head, and, above all, the drop in tension from not having gone to see the commissioner. He locked himself in the bathroom, took an extremely long shower, shaved with great care, and got dressed as if to go to the office. But, calm and determined, he phoned the commissioner’s office instead.
“Hello? Inspector Montalbano here. I want to speak to the commissioner. It’s urgent.”
He had to wait a few seconds.
“Montalbano? This is Lattes. How are you? How’s the family?”
Good God, what a pain in the ass! This Dr. Lattes, informally known as “Caffè-Lattes,” was an avid reader of such publications as L’Avvenire and Famiglia Cristiana. He was convinced that any respectable man had to have a wife and children. And since, in his own way, he admired Montalbano, he simply couldn’t get it into his head that the inspector wasn’t married.
“They’re all fine, thanking the Lord,” said Montalbano.
By now he’d learned that invoking the Lord was the best way to achieve maximum cooperation on Lattes’s part.
“What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to confer with the commissioner.”
Confer! Montalbano felt a twinge of self-loathing. But when dealing with bureaucrats it was best to talk like them.
“The commissioner’s not in. He was summoned to Rome by (pause) His Excellency the Minister of Justice.”
The pause—Montalbano could see it clearly in his mind’s eye—had been prompted by Dr. Lattes’s respectful need to stand at attention when invoking His Excellency the Minister.
“Oh,” said Montalbano, feeling his body go limp. “Do you know how long he’ll be away?”
“Another two or three days, I think. Can I be of any help?”
“Thank you, Doctor, it’s all right. I can wait till he returns.”
E passeranno i giorni . . . ,he sang to himself angrily, slamming down the receiver. The minute he decided to hand in—or rather, to use the proper expression, to tender—his resignation, something arose to thwart his intention.