Treasure Hunt (6 page)

“I’m sorry, but what ‘things’ are you talking about?”

“It’s just that . . . I don’t want to seem like someone taking advantage of . . . misfortune is always misfortune, for Heaven’s sake, and must be respected. There. But since . . . legally speaking, of course, the implication . . .”

He stopped, took a breath, then blurted out:

“Couldn’t they perhaps be considered dead?”

“Who?”

“My aunt and uncle, Gregorio and Caterina Palmisano.”

“They’re crazy, they’re not dead.”

“But they’re not in full possession of their faculties, and therefore . . .”

“Listen, Signor Cacazzone . . .” Montalbano said in exasperation, purposely getting the name wrong.

“Cavazzone.”

“Can we talk straight? You’ve come to me to ask me if there’s any chance you could inherit the possessions of your aunt and uncle, who, though still alive, could be declared not in full possession of their faculties. Is that right?”

“Well, in a certain sense . . .”

“No, Signor Cavazzone, that’s the only sense possible. And so my answer is that I don’t know the first thing about such matters. You should see a lawyer. Good day.”

He didn’t even hold out his hand. That old octogenarian with one foot in the grave, who wanted to scavenge the lives of a wretched pair of crazies, had deeply disturbed him.

The man stood up, more bewildered than when he’d come in.

“Good day,” he said.

And he left.

“They haven’t got any maps of Vigàta at city hall,” said Gallo, coming in. “And no street guides or aerial photographs, either.”

“So what have they got? Anything?”

“They have the new town planning design—six big sheets that cover the whole town—but since the plan hasn’t been fully approved yet, they’re not allowed to grant any public requisitioning of it.”

“You mean the public can’t request to see it?”

“No, Chief, they said ‘public requisitioning.’”

“And what does ‘public requisitioning’ mean?”

“Asking for a copy.”

Another word to add to his list.

“An’ you have to put in an explicit request for it, in writing and on the letterhead stationery of a qualified authority.”

“And what would be an example of such authority?”

“Well, you, for example.”

“All right, but qualified for what?”

“Maybe for being an authority.”

“All right, I’ll write you the request and you can take it in to them.”

“Chief, ’at’d be Signura Cirribicciò’s boy onna line.”

It must be Pasquale, Adelina’s son, a known ne’er-do-well and thief who spent most of his time going in and out of jail. Despite the fact that the inspector had arrested him several times, he was so fond of Montalbano that he had asked him to be his own son’s godfather, which had provoked a spat with Livia, who, with her northern mind-set, couldn’t grasp how a police inspector could have the son of an ex-convict as his godson.

“Okay, put him on.”

“Hello, Inspector, ’iss is Pasquale Cirrinciò.”

“What is it, Pasquà?”

“I wannitt a tell ya I took my mutha to the hospital.”

“Oh my God! What happened?”

“She got a big scare at yer house.”

“Why, what happened?”

“Well, she needed to git a broom, an’ when she open the closet door, two dead ladies fell on toppa her. At lease ’at’s what she tought, an’ she hadda fit.”

Matre santa
, the dolls! He’d forgotten to leave a note to warn Adelina!

“They’re not . . . They’re not dead ladies, they’re . . .”

“I know, Inspector. My mutha come runnin’ out the house screamin’ like a banshee an’ then she fainted. When she woke up, she call’ me onna cell phone. An’ so I raced over there to git ’er, but before takin’ ’er to the hospital, I went inside a have a look a’ wha’ was the story. Y’know what I mean? ’Cause if it was a coupla real dead bodies ya wannit a hide or sum’m, I coulda given ya a hand . . .”

“To do what?”

“What do you mean, to do what? To get the hassle offa ya hands. Get rid o’ the bodies. Iss pretty easy a do nowadays, wit’ acid.”

What the fuck was this kid thinking? That he was keeping two corpses at home, waiting for the right opportunity to get rid of them? Better change the subject, otherwise he would end up having to thank the guy for his generous offer of complicity in the concealment of two corpses.

“And how’s Adelina now?”

“She’s gotta fever of a hunnert ’n’ four. An’ she’s worried ’bout ya. She tol’ me to let ya know she coun’t cook nuthin’ for dinner for ya tonight.”

“All right, thanks for calling. Give your mother a hug for me and my best wishes.”

The youth didn’t respond, but was still on the line.

“Was there anything else, Pasquà?”

“Yessir, Inspector, if I could, I’d like a say sumthin’.”

“Go right ahead.”

“I jess wannit a say that, a man like you, livin’ all alone an’ all, an’ with yer girlfrien’ who don’t come see ya too often, well, I jess wannit a say iss logickal that . . .”

“Yes?”

“Iss logickal that every now ’n’ then ya got certain needs . . .”

“But I’ve already got your mother to help me out.”

“The kinda help I’s talkin’ ’bout my mama can’t give ya . . .”

“So what are you talking about, then?”

“Now, don’ take offince or nuthin’, but if ya wanna nice-lookin’ girl, alls ya gotta do is gimme a ring an’ I’ll fine one for ya, instead o’ usin’ them dolls, ya know? A nice-looking Russian or Romanian girl, or Moltavian, whatever ya like best. Blond, black, anyting ya want. Guaranteed clean and healthy. An’ free o’ charge, since it’s you. Y’unnastan’ what I’m sayin’? Ya want me to look into it?”

Dumbfounded, now that he grasped what Pasquale was offering, Montalbano was speechless. He couldn’t even manage to open his mouth.

“Hello, Inspector? Can ya hear me?”

He hung up the receiver. That was all he needed! And now who was going to convince Adelina and her son that he wasn’t sleeping with inflatable dolls?! He sat there for a good five minutes, unable to do anything except curse.

Gallo returned about half an hour later.

“All taken care of.”

“So where are the papers?”

“They have to photocopy them.”

“And does it take so long?”

“Chief, don’t you know what people working in government offices are like? They wanted to give me them tomorrow, but I managed to persuade them to have them ready by four o’clock this afternoon. But they want ten euros. Six just for the copying, and four for the rush.”

“Here you go.”

Fucking treasure hunt.

And in the meantime he had to shell out ten euros. The mysterious riddler would have to be patient. He might even have to wait till tomorrow.

Montalbano dawdled about the office until lunchtime. By the time he went out he was dying of boredom.

How was it possible that there weren’t any more serious robberies, shootouts, or attempted murders? Had they all become saints?

At Enzo’s he stuffed his guts, partly because he had a good appetite despite the eggplant parmesan of the night before, partly because he wanted to make it up to Enzo for disappointing him the last time. A full battery of antipasti, in the sense that he had a sampling of every antipasto on the menu,
spaghetti alle vongole veraci
(and truly
veraci
), and five striped surmullet (and truly striped).

It occurred to him that Enzo, in the kitchen, had no imagination. He always made the same dishes. But the ingredients were always extremely fresh and Enzo could cook like a god. Montalbano liked a little imagination in the kitchen, but only in the hands of a culinary artist. Otherwise it was best to remain within the bounds of normality.

And this time he had to take his walk along the jetty, all the way to the lighthouse. He sat down on the flat rock and stayed about twenty minutes, relishing the smell of algae and
lippo
, that sort of aromatic green slime that covered the waterline of the rock and teemed with tiny little sea animals. Then he went back to the office.

Shortly after four o’clock, Gallo brought him the photocopies of the town planning scheme. Six enormous sheets, rolled up and numbered.

No, he couldn’t bring them home to Marinella. He already had the two dolls there. All that paper would only add to the confusion.

Taking a quick look around his office he calculated that if he moved the two armchairs and small sofa out of the way, he could create enough space to lay the six sheets out on the floor, lining them up in sequence, according to their numbering.

He pushed the furniture to the walls, unrolled the first sheet, and spread it out on the floor.

And immediately the problems started, because the goddamn sheet of paper didn’t want to stay in place and simply rolled itself back up. And so he grabbed the magnifying glass that was on the desk, three different instruction manuals, the penal code, two boxes of paper clips, a box of pens—in short, everything that might serve as a paperweight but didn’t take up too much space—and after some fifteen minutes of cursing the saints, he had managed to spread the sheets out in the proper order, holding them down with a variety of strategically placed objects.

But the whole turned out to be too big for him to look at while standing over it. So he grabbed a chair and climbed up on it.

Then he took the poem out of his pocket.

But how was it that Mimì Augello always happened to come in at moments like this?

“What movie is playing tonight?
Superman
?
Spider-Man
?
007: From Vigàta with Love
? Or is this going to be a speech to the nation?” he asked.

Montalbano didn’t answer, and Mimì left, shaking his head.

Surely,
thought the inspector,
he’s convinced I’m getting more senile with each day that goes by. Why doesn’t he just worry about himself? He’s the one who’s forced to wear glasses, even though he’s a lot younger . . .

The first quatrain of the poem served no purpose. The directions didn’t start until the second stanza, with the words:
where does the street become tight
.

He got down from the chair, grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper, then climbed back up.

But he couldn’t see much. The sun had shifted and there wasn’t much light coming in through the window anymore.

He got down again, turned on the overhead light as well as the desk lamp, which he shone on the papers. Then he climbed back up on the chair. The desk lamp wasn’t aimed properly.

He got down, positioned it better, then climbed back up. The telephone rang.

He got down, cursing and laughing, feeling as if he were in a Beckett play.

“Ahh Chief, Chief! Ahh Chief!”

Usually Catarella reserved this Greek-choral exordium for telephone calls from the commissioner, the supreme deity, when Zeus manifested himself from Olympus.

“What is it?”

And indeed.

“’At’d be the C’mishner ’izzoner ’oo wants a talk t’yiz immidiotly!”

“Put him on.”

“Montalbano? What is this business?”

“What business, Mr. Commissioner?”

“Dr. Arquà has sent me a detailed report.”

He said he’d do it, and he did it, the motherfucking bastard. Let’s pretend to know nothing about it.

“A report on what, sir?”

“On your request for the Forensic Department’s intervention.”

“Ah, yes.”

“According to Dr. Arquà, you either wanted to play a silly joke on him, his team, Dr. Tommaseo, and Dr. Pasquano . . .”

Jesus, so many doctors! More than in a hospital!

“. . . or you are no longer able to tell the difference between a dead body and an inflatable doll.”

Montalbano decided he needed to summon legalese-bureaucratese to the rescue again
immidiotly
, as Catarella would say.

“Whereas, concerning the second part of the report drafted and just now submitted to you by Dr. Arquà, wherein I am apprised of being the object, not of any circumstantiated impugnment, but of a base and gratuitous insinuation that nevertheless proves prejudicial in my regard, I intend to avail myself of the right to a defense accorded me by august institutional authority in the face of the abovementioned—”

“Listen, it’s just a matter of—”

“Please let me finish.”

Dry and brusque, like someone who has suffered an offense to his dignity and honor.

“As concerns instead the first part, wherein the aforementioned doctor ascribes the occurrence in question to some carnivalesque impulse on my part, I find myself in the position, my better sense notwithstanding, of being forced to inform the cognizant jurisdictional authority of its easily demonstrated personal, incontrovertible accountability in the matter.”

“
Its
meaning whose, excuse me?”

“
Its
meaning yours, Mr. Commissioner.”

“Mine?!”

“Yessir, yours. With all due and unmitigated respect, sir, I would call to your attention that in accepting the Arquà report for perscrutation and then demanding an explanation of me, you effectively impugn me for what is a prejudicially foregone conclusion on your part, and in so doing endorse the hypothesis that I am a person capable of such silly jokes, thereby junking, in a single stroke, a distinguished, exemplary career spanning more than two decades and achieved through sacrifice and absolute devotion to work—”

“Good God, Montalbano!”

“—through hardship and honesty, with never a scam, never a kickback, irrespective of the contingency, notwithstanding the failure to securitize the—”

“Montalbano, stop it! I didn’t mean in any way to offend you!”

Now it was time to pull out the cracking voice, on the verge of tears.

“And yet you did! Perhaps without meaning to, but you did! And I am so pained, so aggrieved that—”

“Listen, Montalbano, hear me out. I really had no idea it would upset you so. Let’s drop the whole thing for now. Next time we have a chance, we can talk about it again, okay? But calmly, without getting excited, all right?”

“Thank you, Mr. Commissioner.”

He congratulated himself. He’d put on a good performance, extricating himself without wasting too much time. He called Catarella.

“I’m not here for anyone,” he told him.

And he climbed back up on the chair and started to study the sheets, sector by sector, taking notes.

After half an hour or so, it turned out that sixty percent of the streets in Vigàta narrowed at some point of their course. But there were only three that did so in an especially emphatic way. He wrote down their names and then proceeded to the second clue, the one that said that the street turned
into a wheel
.

How the hell could a street turn into a wheel?

Unless it meant that at that point there was a bus terminus that he was supposed to take. He reexamined the three streets.

Then he suddenly noticed that one of them, Via Garibaldi, to be precise, after narrowing towards the end like the trousers men used to wear, merged into a roundabout.

That must be the wheel the poem was talking about!

Then, after circling the roundabout, there was a street, Via dei Mille, which climbed up the hill where there was a cemetery halfway up the slope, and then continued through the newly built districts north of the town. He was sure he’d found it.

He looked at his watch: five-thirty. Therefore he had all the time in the world. Then he cursed the saints, remembering that he wouldn’t be getting his car back from the mechanic’s until the following morning. But there was no harm in trying.

“Montalbano here. I was wondering whether my car—”

“In about half an hour you can come an’ pick ’er up, Inspector.”

Who was the patron saint of auto mechanics? He didn’t know. So, just to be sure, he thanked them all.

He went out and told Catarella he was leaving and wouldn’t be back that evening.

“But tomorrow inna mornin’ you’ll be back, Chief?”

“Not to worry, Cat. See you tomorrow.”

Christ, if he were ever to die, Catarella was liable to die, too, of sadness, as sometimes happened with certain dogs. And would Livia die of sadness if he were gone?

“
Shall we turn the question around? If Livia passed away, would you die of sadness?
” Montalbano Two asked obnoxiously.

He preferred not to answer.

Forty-five minutes later, he was taking the roundabout and coming out onto Via dei Mille.

Passing the cemetery, he continued driving uphill between two unending walls of concrete, gray tenement houses rather like a cross between a Mexican high-security prison and a bunker-style loony bin for stark raving mad murderers conceived in some stark raving mad murderer’s nightmare. For some reason it was called low-income housing.

According to those architectural geniuses, working-class people were supposed live in homes where the moment you stuck the key in the door and went inside for the first time, the walls began to crumble before your eyes like underground frescoes when the air and light come in.

Small rooms so dark you had to keep the lights turned on at all times and it felt like northern Sweden in winter. The architects’ single great achievement was that they had actually managed to cancel out the Sicilian sun.