The Potter's Field (17 page)

“Camera Shipping Company. May I help you?”

“Davide Maraschi here. I'd like to speak to Mr. Camera.”

“Please hold.”

A recording of a song in keeping with the setting began: “O sole mio.”

“Could you please hold?” the woman cut in. “Mr. Camera is on another line.”

A new song: “Fenesta ca lucive.”

“Could you hold just a minute longer?”

New song: “Guapparia.”

The inspector liked Neapolitan songs, but he was starting to wish they would play some rock. Discouraged and worried he was going to have to sing along with the entire Piedigrotta repertoire, he was about to hang up when a man's voice cut in:

“Hello, this is Camera. What can I do for you?”

What the hell did he tell the secretary his name was? He remembered Davide, but not the surname, except for the fact that it ended in -
schi
.

“I'm Davide Verzaschi.”

“How may I help you?”

“I'll take only a few minutes of your time, as I can see you're very busy. You represent Stevenson and Guerra, correct?”

“Among others.”

“Good. Listen, I urgently need to get in touch with someone presently on board the
Ruy Barbosa
. Would you be so kind as to explain to me how I might go about this?”

“How do you intend to get in touch with this person?”

“I've ruled out carrier pigeons and smoke signals.”

“I don't understand,” said Camera.

Why did he always have to make wisecracks? The guy might hang up, and that would be the end of that.

“I don't know, in writing or by telephone.”

“If you have a satellite phone, you only have to dial the number.”

“I have, but nobody answers.”

“I see. Wait just a minute while I check the computer . . . Here we are. The
Ruy Barbosa
will be calling at the port of Lisbon in exactly eight days. So you can write a letter. I can even give you the address of the Portuguese representative and—”

“Isn't there a quicker way? I have some bad news to tell him. His aunt Adelaide has died; she was like a mother to him.”

The pause that followed meant that Mr. Camera was torn between duty and pity. And the latter won out.

“Look, I'll make an exception, given the gravity and urgency of the situation. I'll give you the cell phone number of the first mate, who is also the ship's purser. Write this down.”

So how was he going to wiggle out of this now? The first mate of the
Ruy Barbosa
was the person he was looking for! He couldn't think of a single way to get out of the predicament.

“The first mate,” Mr. Camera continued, “is named Couto Ribeiro, and his number is—”

What was the guy saying?

“I'm sorry, but isn't the first mate Giovanni Alfano?”

There was a sudden silence at the other end.

And Montalbano was seized by the same sense of panic that always came over him when the line got cut off as he was speaking over the telephone. It was as if he'd been rocketed into the icy loneliness of outer space. He started yelling desperately.

“Hello? Helllloooo?”

“No need to shout. Are you a relative of Alfano's?”

“No, we're friends, former schoolmates, and...”

“Where are you calling from?”

“From . . . from Brindisi.”

“So you're not in Vigàta.”

Elementary, my dear Watson.

“How long has it been since you last saw Alfano?” the man continued.

What the hell had got into Camera? What were all these questions? His tone was brusque, almost angry.

“Well . . . it's probably been a little over two months . . . He told me his next job would be aboard the
Ruy Barbosa
, as first mate. Which is why I'm surprised . . . What happened?”

“What happened is that he never showed up to board the ship. I had to look for a substitute at the very last minute, and it wasn't easy. Your friend got me into trouble, a great deal of trouble, in fact.”

“Have you heard from him since then?”

“Three days later he sent me a note saying he'd found something better. Listen, if you get a hold of him, tell him that Camera's going to kick his ass all the way to Sardinia if he sees him. So, what are we going to do, Mr....”

“Falaschi.”

“. . . are you going to take down Couto Ribeiro's number or not?”

“Please go ahead.”

“Oh, no you don't! Get smart with me, will you? First you must clarify something for me, my good Mr. Panaschi. If you knew Alfano was aboard the
Ruy Barbosa
, why didn't you contact him instead of me?”

Montalbano hung up.

The inspector's first thought was that Giovanni Alfano had bolted on the sly from the domestic hearth, to use an expression dear to Dr. Lattes. Sailing, sailing, day in, day out, putting into port after port, the guy must certainly have met another woman in some faraway town. Maybe a platinum Vikingess who smelled of soap and water, after tiring of dark, cinnamon-flavored Colombian flesh.

By now he was probably cruising blissfully through the fiords of the North Sea. With a fond farewell and best wishes. Who was ever going to track the guy down?

He'd planned his scheme pretty well, had Mr. Captain of the High Seas.

He'd failed to show up for embarkation, sent Camera a note with the bogus story that he'd found a better deal somewhere else, given his cell phone to a friend, saying that if his wife called he should pretend he's him, and asked him to send Dolores a phony postcard two months down the line. And so he'd gained a good leg up before his wife even realized he'd fled the coop and started her futile search.

What to do now?

Go at once to Via Guttuso 12, knock on the door, and inform the leopardess that she's become a widow, if only by forfeit?

How do leopardesses react when they learn their leopard has left them? Do they scratch? Do they bite? And what if, by chance, she started crying, threw herself into his arms, and wanted to be comforted?

No, it was a rather dangerous idea.

Perhaps it was best to phone her.

But aren't there certain things you just can't say over the telephone? Montalbano was certain that, once he got to the heart of the matter, he would get tongue-tied. No, it was safer to write her a note. And advise her, before filing a missing persons report, to talk to the people at
Missing
, the TV program where they look for, and often find, missing persons before the police even get started.

But wasn't it perhaps better to put it all off till tomorrow?

One day more or less wasn't going to make any difference. On the contrary. This way, Signora Dolores would actually gain an extra night of peace.

Till tomorrow, he concluded, till tomorrow.

He was about to leave his office and head home when Fazio came in. From the face he was wearing it was clear he had something big up his sleeve. He was about to open his mouth when he noticed the scratches on the inspector's forearms and changed expression.

“Wha'?? How'd you scratch yourself like that? Have you disinfected them?”

“I didn't scratch myself,” said Montalbano, annoyed, rolling down his shirtsleeves. “And there's no need to disinfect them.”

“So how'd you get them, then?”

“Geez, what a pain! I'll tell you later. Talk to me.”

“So. First of all, Pecorini didn't use any agency to rent out his house. I called them all. However, a certain Mr. Maiorca, owner of one of the agencies, when he heard me mention Pecorini over the telephone, said, ‘Who, the butcher?' ‘Do you know him?' I asked. And he said, ‘Yes.' So I went and talked to him in person.”

He pulled out a little piece of paper from which he was about to read something, but a homicidal glance from Montalbano stopped him dead.

“Okay, okay, Chief, no vital statistics. Just the bare essentials. The Pecorini of interest to us is a fifty-year-old from Vigàta, first name Arturo, who lived in Vigàta until two years ago and worked as a butcher. Then he moved to Catania, where he opened an enormous butcher shop at the port, near the customs house. Fits the bill, no?”

“Seems to. Is the summer house the only thing he kept in Vigàta?”

“No. He's got another house, in town, that had always been his main residence, in Via Pippo Rizzo.”

“Do you know where that street is?”

“Yeah, in that same rich neighborhood I said I didn't like. It runs parallel to Via Guttuso.”

“I see. And he only comes back here in the summer?”

“Who ever said that? He kept his butcher shop here and got his brother, named Ignazio, to look after it. And he comes here every Saturday to see how the business is going.”

Maybe—thought Montalbano—Mimì got to know the butcher from buying meat at his shop and found out, or already knew, that Pecorini had an empty house to rent. That might explain it.

“Did you also talk with your friend at the Antimafia Commission, Morici?”

“I did. We're meeting tomorrow morning at nine in a bar in Montelusa. Now will you tell me how you got those scratches?”

“Dolores Alfano did it.”

Fazio was taken aback.

“Is she as beautiful as they say?”

“Very beautiful.”

“She came here?”

“Yes.”

“Did she come to report the person who tried to run over her?”

“The subject never even came up.”

“Then what did she want?”

Montalbano had to explain the whole matter to him, including the disappearance of Giovanni Alfano.

“And how did she scratch you?”

A little embarrassed, Montalbano explained.

“Be careful, Chief. That lady bites.”

He had just finished savoring the
melanzane alla parmigiana
when Livia called.

“I've been on the phone for the last half hour with Beba. She's desperate and can't stop crying.”

“But why?”

“Because Mimì is treating her very badly. He screams and yells and it's not at all clear what he wants. This morning he made a terrible scene. Beba thinks these nighttime stakeouts are wearing him out.”

“Did you tell her they'll be over soon?”

“Yes, but in the meantime . . . poor Beba . . . But, tell me something, Salvo. Has Mimì done any stakeouts like these in the past?”

“Sure, dozens.”

“And he's never reacted this way before?”

“Never.”

“So, why is it that now . . . Bah! Couldn't it be that something else is going on in his life?”

An alarm bell went off in the inspector's head.

“Like what?”

“I dunno . . . maybe he's fallen in love with someone else . . . Mimì used to fall in love so easily . . . Maybe, between the exhaustion from his stakeouts and the uneasiness he feels around Beba...”

For heaven's sake, that idea wasn't supposed to even graze Livia's consciousness! It could compromise everything!

“I'm sorry, Livia, but when could he have met this other woman? He hasn't got the time for it. Think about it. At the moment, he spends his nights on stakeouts or at home, and during the day he's at the office...”

“You're right. But why suddenly all these stakeouts, and all on Mimì's shoulders?”

Shit! Livia was becoming dangerous. Guided by her feminine sense of smell, she was getting close to the truth. There were two ways to throw her off the scent: either start yelling like a madman that the rise in crime was not his fault, or else try to reason with her calmly. If he did the former, the conversation would end in a blowout, and Livia would simply harden her position; whereas, with the latter, maybe...