Treasure Hunt (8 page)

“I hope so. I won’t ask you to put me up because I’ve got workmen coming to the house tomorrow morning at eight. Ciao. Luv ya.”

She kissed him lightly on the lips, went out, got in her car, and drove off.

Whereas around two o’clock Montalbano had started to feel sleepy, he now felt completely awake. He went and washed his face, then grabbed the envelope from before and sat back down on the veranda. This time his name wasn’t on it, but only the words:
Treasure Hunt
.

Before opening it, however, he tried to imagine what kind of man might organize this sort of game, and why. He knew from experience that if somebody asks you two questions in a row, it’s always best to answer the second one first, because the answer you give to the second question will help you in some way to answer the first.

Thus: Why this so-called treasure hunt? What interest did the guy have in organizing it? Any practical or economic interest was out of the question. Normally a treasure hunt involved the participation of a number of people, either as individuals or in groups, whereas here it seemed that there was one and only one contestant: him. And, in fact, the envelope containing the first note had borne his name. On top of that, the first line of the second stanza had called him out directly:

Tell me, my good Inspector . . .

And on top of this, hadn’t the walls of the hut been papered with photographs of him?

There could be no doubt, therefore, that this was more than a game: it was a personal challenge. Addressed not to Montalbano the man, but to Montalbano the cop.

Now who would challenge a cop? Either another cop, as in, say, a competition of skills to see who could solve a case first, or a person with a certain kind of mentality. Not necessarily a criminal mentality, to be sure, but certainly someone with his head not screwed on entirely straight, who wanted to show that he was better and smarter than the cop.

And who wanted to let the inspector know indirectly that, if he felt like it, he was capable of anything, because at any rate Montalbano would never be able to track him down because he wasn’t up to the task, was not on the same level of intelligence.

So one had to wonder whether such a man would continue to keep within the parameters of a game created just to pass the time, or, at a certain point, take it up a dangerous notch or two. Test the limits of the law, or even go beyond them.

QED: by answering the second question he had answered, in part, the first: who was this man?

The question, of course, did not presume it would receive a full answer, with first and last names.

It had to be put more precisely: What kind of man was this? In short, he had to create a profile of him.

And here he felt like laughing. He’d seen so many American movies where there was a psychologist working with the police who would draw up profiles of unknown murderers. And these movie psychologists were always brilliant. With a serial killer they’d never seen before they could manage to tell you how tall he was, his age, whether he was married or single, what bad things had happened to him when he was five, and whether he drank beer or Coca-Cola. And they were always right on target.

But it was best not to stray too far afield. It couldn’t be an old man he was dealing with, because an old man would not have known how to use the high-tech tools needed to make those photographs. It had to be someone between twenty and sixty years of age. In other words, half the country. Intelligent, proud, given to considering himself so much sharper and shrewder than others that he felt in some way able to win whatever sort of game he might wish to play. In other words, a dangerous man.

Wouldn’t it therefore be better to cut short the treasure hunt, instead of continuing the challenge? No, it would be a mistake. He would surely take the inspector’s withdrawal as an insult and probably avenge himself somehow. How? By doing something outrageous, something that would force Montalbano to keep playing. No, it was better not to take that chance.

He grabbed the envelope, opened it, and took out the note.

The usual little poem that made you want to throw up, which even an illiterate street minstrel would have felt too embarrassed to write.

I can see at this stuff you’re; an ace!

You quickly found the right place!

11-6-7  /  B-6-1-4-18  /  3-4  /  1-4-7-6-16-16-1-18-6-4-7  /  5-2-8-M-9-2-15

D-12-6-5-4-7  /  3-16-W-3-11-5  /  B-13-1-4-18  /  18-12-12-D  /  16-9-2-15!

1-2-3  /  6-3-X-1  /  16-6-3  /  14-16-12  /  8-16-6-1  /  
2-5-V-3  /  1-16  /  10-16-16-K  /  F-16-7,

9-1-6-6  /  B-3  /  19-3-6-9-V-3-7-3-19  /  7-9-18-2-1  /  
1-16  /  14-16-12-7  /  19-16-16-7.

The manner will surely surprise you,

but that’s our game, and it will continue.

Man, what a pain in the ass! What was this, the
Settimana Enigmistica
or something? A message in code? Reserved for the privileged few who could decipher it? And those first two lines of verse—if you could really call them that—displayed about the same level of poetic craft as that old television commercial where the robot says to the housewife:

Now that I know all your wishes,

do you mind if I do the dishes?

Montalbano still didn’t feel sleepy, despite all the wine and whisky he’d guzzled, and so he went into the bathroom, got undressed, washed himself, put his shirt back on and, still in his underpants, grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper, returned to the veranda, and sat back down.

If the author of the poem, for lack of a better term, kept to the general rules of puzzles, then each number repeated in the lines should correspond to one same letter, also repeated.

It was clear that all the vowels and consonants written in code should be contained in the two couplets not in code, that is, the first and the last.

He got down to work on the start of the poem. He wrote down the first line and underneath it, as a test, he wrote numbers in sequence, starting at 1, corresponding to the appearance of each new letter.

I   c a n    s e e   a t    t h i s    s t u f f      y o u ’r e    a n    a c e

1  /  2 3 4  /  5 6 6  /  3 7  /  7 8 1 5  /  5 7 9 10 10  /  
11 12 9 13 6  /  3 4  /  3 2 6

Since the first line of the second couplet contained four groups of numbers separated by slashes, this must mean that the line was made up of four words. He then copied out the second line of the first couplet and assigned the proper numbers.

Then he copied the first four groups of numbers in the first line of the second couplet, and under them wrote out the corresponding vowels or consonants, based on the numeration he had just established.

11 6 7  /  B 6 1 4 18  /  3 4   /  1 4 7 6 16 16 1 18 6 4 7

Y e t  /   B e i n g   /   a n   /   i n t e l l i g e n t

He’d hit the nail on the head on the first try! Decoded, the two lines read as follows:

Yet being an intelligent schmuck

doesn’t always bring good luck!

Now he took the first two groups of numbers of the third couplet and copied them down.

1-2-3  /  6-3-X-1

Under them he wrote the corresponding vowels and consonants, which yielded:

I c a    e a x i

Which didn’t mean a goddamn thing, not even in Chinese or Greenlandian. But then he suddenly thought:

“Wanna bet the code of the third couplet can be found in the last two lines in clear, and I have to renumber every vowel and consonant starting with 1?”

He gave it a try. And it proved to be the right approach.

The next . . .

This time, too, he’d guessed right. He continued:

The next one you won’t have to look for,

It’ll be delivered right to your door.

Having deciphered the message in full, he felt a little disappointed.

He’d wasted a lot of time trying to come up with a profile of the man who wanted to take him on this treasure hunt, and the portrait that had emerged gave reason for concern. But the riddles, cryptograms, and puzzles the person had come up with were totally pedestrian, real beginners’ stuff. Did he make them that way on purpose, because he considered the inspector incapable of solving more complex problems? Or was it because that was the level of their creator himself?

Whatever the case, since he had no choice but to wait for the guy to get back in touch, Montalbano got up, closed the French door, and went to bed.

He was awakened by the telephone. It was nine
A.M
.

“Hello, Inspector? Pasquale here. Wha’ss wrong, din’tcha like the girl I sent ya? Tell me azackly whatcha din’t like about ’er, an’ I’ll sendja ’nother t’night.”

Montalbano immediately remembered his embarrassment with Ingrid and felt like chewing the kid out, but he controlled himself. After all, in his own way, the guy was trying to do him a favor.

“But Pasquà, what the hell were you thinking?”

“Din’t you want a girl?”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Ya said it y’self, Inspector!”

“I did?! I didn’t say anything over the phone! I just hung up!”

Pasquale paused for a moment, and then exclaimed:

“That’s when the mistake was made!”

“What mistake?”

“My mistake, Inspector. I thought that, since you din’t say nothin’, you was okay wit’ it. An’ then you confirmed it when you called my house.”

“I confirmed it?”

“Yessir, you did. My wife tol’ me you said you urgently needed those things we was talkin’ ’bout. So I thought you meant the girls.”

Want to bet this would end up with Montalbano apologizing? Perhaps it was best to change the subject.

“How’s your mother doing?”

“The fever’s gone down. But then she got all these little red spots. The doctor said iss from gettin’ so scared, but then they’ll go away.”

“All right, then, I’ll be going now.”

“So what am I s’posta do ’bout this?”

“About what?”

“About this stuff with the girls. Do you still need one or are you all set with the dolls?”

Montalbano saw red.

“Listen, Pasquà, I’m going to tell you once and for all. Mind your own fucking business! Got that?”

“Whatever you say, sir,” said the youth, slightly offended.

The inspector couldn’t very well go on keeping those goddamned dolls in his house. They were liable to create more trouble yet.

But where to put them? He thought about this for a moment and at a certain point became convinced he’d found the solution. It was so perfect, he was amazed he hadn’t thought of it earlier.

He would bury them in the sand, digging a grave for them beside the veranda.

He opened the closet, grabbed a shovel, went out on the beach, chose the spot, looked around to see if anyone was walking by, and then started digging.

It wasn’t easy, because the sand, being dry and very fine, kept sliding back down and refilling the hole. After fifteen minutes of this, Montalbano took off his shirt.

It took him an hour of hard labor, but in the end he’d managed to dig a hole the right size. But he was dead tired. He must have drunk more than half a gallon of water.

He went and pulled the first doll out from under the bed, but when he was about to go through the French door, he froze and cursed the saints. A mere ten or so yards away, just opposite the veranda, there was now a family, father, mother, and two small children, who’d just got out of their car. They were setting up a large umbrella.

There was nothing to be done. They looked like they intended to stay for a while.

He carried the doll into the entrance hall, went and got the other one and put it beside her, gave himself a thorough washing, got dressed, went outside, got in the car, and backed it up as close as he could to the front door, so that he could load the dolls into it without anyone noticing. If anyone spotted him from afar, they might start yelling that he was trying to hide dead bodies in his trunk.

He realized too late, halfway to his destination, that the car in front of him was braking for a roadblock of the carabinieri up ahead. And so he was forced to stop suddenly. As a result, the car behind him slammed hard into his, and the trunk popped open. The woman driving got out in a huff, infuriated, caught a glimpse of what was in it, let out a long howl that sounded exactly like a ferryboat siren, and then fell lengthwise to the ground, unconscious.

Upon seeing the woman collapse like an empty sack, the carabinieri, having no idea what this was about, started running to the two cars with their weapons drawn and shouting to everyone not to move.

In the twinkling of an eye Montalbano, who had sprained his neck in the whiplash, as they call it, was forced to get out of the car with his hands raised.

“The woman didn’t—” he began.

“Silence!”

A carabinieri corporal, who’d bent down to have a look inside the trunk, came towards the inspector, giving him dirty looks.

Meanwhile two motorists had succeeded in rousing the unconscious woman. Who, the moment she came to, leapt to her feet, pointed a finger at Montalbano, and started wailing hysterically:

“Murderer! Murderer!”

The inspector didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but he was certainly sweating bullets. Meanwhile an endless line of cars had formed behind them, and the number of onlookers getting out of their cars and running up to see what was happening was growing at the rate of five or six per second, at a rough guess.

“Listen, I can explain . . .” he said, turning towards the corporal.

The young officer raised a hand, enjoining him to remain silent.

“You’re coming with us,” he said.

“What for?”

“Trafficking pornographic materials.”

“I’d like to explain. . . .”

“You can explain at the station!”

That was all he needed.

To be hauled into carabinieri headquarters and there, once they discovered who he was, to become the miserable butt of their jokes, to the great delight of them all . . . No, this had to be avoided at all costs. It was better to try to resolve the matter at once, even if it meant lowering himself to the now ridiculous statement, “You don’t know who I am.”

“Listen, I’m a chief inspector of police.”

“And I’m the pope!”

“Can I get my papers?”

“Yes, but move very slowly.”

By the time he got to the office his hair was standing on end from rage and a sprained neck, and his hands were trembling.

“Jeezis, Chief! Wha’ happened?” Catarella asked in alarm.

“Nothing, I had a little accident. Get Fazio for me.”

“Chief, what happened?” Fazio repeated upon seeing him.

“Nothing, some stupid woman bumped me from behind and the carabinieri nearly arrested me.”

And he told him the whole story.

“Why don’t you go have your neck looked at?”

“Later, later. This bullshit was all I needed! Listen, the two inflatable dolls are in my trunk. Have Palmisano’s doll taken back to their house using the same chest as before. Then put the other one back in that chest and leave it in the garage for me.”

“Okay, I’ll get on that right away.”

At last he was rid of those two big pains in the ass.

But he was mistaken.

Those two big pains in the ass would continue to plague him from afar. Not even King Tut’s mummy was so jinxed! Half an hour or so later, in fact, he could no longer stand the pain in his neck, but among other things was in no condition to get behind the wheel of his car. And so he had Mimì Augello take him to the emergency room at Montelusa Hospital.

As a result, about an hour later he came out with a big white collar around his neck, the kind that completely immobilize it and make you look exactly like Frankenstein when you walk.

He returned to headquarters and spent a good fifteen minutes holed up in his office with the door closed, cursing the saints.

He didn’t feel like going to Enzo’s for lunch with that contraption around his neck. And anyway, would he even be able to eat and drink normally without dirtying his shirt and the tablecloth like a three-month-old baby or a drooling, senile geezer? He had better do a solo test at home first.

At that moment Catarella called him.

“’At’d be summon onna phone wannin’ a talk t’yiz poissonally in poisson.”

“Someone on behalf of another?”

Catarella didn’t get the joke.

“No, iss not a half a poisson but a whole one, summon callin’ for yer frenn the Sweetish lady, Signura Sciosciostrommi.”

It must be the young guy Ingrid had mentioned to him.

“Put him on.”

“Inspector Montalbano.”

“Yes?”

“My name is Arturo Pennisi, I hope I’m not disturbing you. Ingrid said to call around this time.”

“Would you like to meet me?”

“Yes.”

“Have you got a car?”

“Yes.”

“Would you prefer my house or my office?”

“Whatever’s most convenient for you.”

“Then come to the station this evening around seven. All right?”

“Excellent. Thank you so much, you’re very kind.”

He sounded like a nice, polite kid, this Arturo.

Since he knew what there was in the fridge from his last check—that is, next to nothing—before leaving town he stopped at a grocer’s that was closing and bought fresh bread, black olives, tuna, salami, and prosciutto. When he got home, he set the table on the veranda and then sat down to eat.

The collar kept his head raised and didn’t allow him to look down, which meant that he couldn’t see the plate in front of him. He had to push it about a foot forward, and the problem was solved. The same went for his glass. If he wanted to fill it, he had to do so with arms extended. The third thing he realized was that he couldn’t open his mouth very wide.

But these obstacles were not so great that they would prevent him from eating in public. After clearing the table, he went and lay down to catch up on the sleep he’d lost the previous night. But he had trouble finding the right position for his head. When he woke up at four o’clock, he phoned the office. There was no news, and so he took it easy.