“Gimme a cigarette,” said Montalbano.
“I stopped smoking.”
The inspector looked at him, flabbergasted.
“Did your doctor forbid it?”
“No, it was my own decision.”
“I see. Have you switched to cocaine?”
“What’s this bullshit you’re saying?”
“It’s not bullshit, Mimì. Nowadays they’re passing very severe laws against smoking, practically persecuting smokers and copying the Americans yet again. But at the same time there’s more and more tolerance shown for cocaine addicts. After all, everybody uses the stuff, undersecretaries, politicians, businessmen . . . The fact is that if you smoke a cigarette, the guy next to you can accuse you of poisoning him with secondhand smoke, whereas there’s no such thing as secondhand cocaine. In short, cocaine causes less social damage than smoking. How many lines do you snort a day, Mimì?”
“Got your dander up today, I guess. Letting off steam?”
“A little.”
What the hell was happening? Catarella getting names right, Mimì turning virtuous . . . Inside the microcosm that was the Vigàta Police headquarters, something was changing, and this too was a sign that it was time to go.
“I have to go to a meeting at the commissioner’s this afternoon. I also asked to speak with the commissioner in private afterwards. I’m turning in my resignation. You’re the only one who knows. If the commissioner accepts it, I’ll tell everyone this evening.”
“Do whatever you want,” Mimì said rudely, getting up and heading to the door.
Then he stopped and turned around.
“For your information, I stopped smoking because it could hurt Beba and the baby on the way. As for resigning, you’re probably right to leave. You’ve lost your spark, your muscle tone, your irony, your mental agility, and even your meanness.”
“Fuck you, Mimì, and get me Catarella!” the inspector yelled as Mimì left.
Two seconds were all it took for Catarella to materialize.
“Your orders, Chief.”
“See if Torretta has a soft pack of red Multifilters and a lighter.
Catarella seemed unfazed by the request. He disappeared, then reappeared with the cigarettes and lighter. The inspector gave him the money and went out wondering if the Torretta Emporium had any socks, as he would soon be needing some. Once he hit the street, he felt like having a proper cup of espresso. In the café next to the station, the television, as usual, was on. It was twelve-thirty, time for the TeleVigàta midday news. Anchorwoman Carla Rosso’s talking head appeared, running through the news items in an order of importance based on the audience’s preferences. First she reported on a drama of jealousy run amok, with an eighty-year-old man stabbing his seventy-year-old wife to death. Then came the violent crash of a tractor-trailer and a car with three passengers, all dead; an armed robbery at a branch of the Credito di Montelusa; an old tub with a hundred or so refugees spotted out at sea; and another case of piracy on the roads, where an immigrant boy, whom the authorities were unable to identify, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver.
Montalbano drank his coffee alone and undisturbed, paid, said goodbye, went outside, lit a cigarette, smoked it, stamped it out in the doorway of the station, greeted Catarella, went into his office, and sat down, when all of a sudden the café’s television appeared on the wall before him, with Carla Rosso’s talking head silently opening and closing its mouth as her words echoed inside the inspector’s head:
“An immigrant boy, whom the authorities were unable to identify . . .”
All at once he found himself back on his feet, hurriedly retracing his last steps, almost without knowing why. Or rather, he did know why, but didn’t want to admit it: the rational side of his brain was rejecting what his irrational side was telling him to do at that moment—that is, to obey an absurd presentiment.
“Did you forget something?” asked the barman, seeing the inspector rush in.
He didn’t even answer. They’d changed the channel. There was some sitcom on, and you could see the “Free Channel” logo in the corner.
“Turn it back to TeleVigàta, immediately!” the inspector said in a voice so cold and deep that the barman turned pale as he dashed to the set.
He’d arrived in time. The news was considered so unimportant that there weren’t even any images accompanying the report. Carla Rosso said that early that morning, a peasant on his way to work in his field had seen an unidentified car knock down a small, non-European boy. The man had phoned for help, but the boy was dead on arrival at Montechiaro Hospital. After which Carla Rosso, a smile slicing her face in two, wished everyone a good lunch and disappeared.
A kind of fight broke out inside the inspector’s body, pitting his legs, which wanted to leave in a hurry, against his brain, which insisted on a normal, easy gait. Apparently they reached a compromise, and as a result, as he headed back to the station, Montalbano looked like one of those mechanical dolls whose spring is beginning to unwind, making it lurch forward in fits and starts, first fast, then slow, then fast again.
He stopped in the doorway and yelled:
“Mimì! Mimì!”
“Somebody performing La Bohème today?” inquired Augello when he appeared.
“Listen closely. I can’t go to that meeting at the commissioner’s. You go. The papers you need to show him are on my desk.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. And give him my apologies. Tell him I’ll talk to him another time about that personal matter.”
“What excuse should I give him?”
“One of those excuses you’re so good at inventing when you don’t come in to work.”
“Want to tell me where you’re going?”
“No.”
Concerned, Augello lingered in the doorway and watched him leave.
Provided that the tires—by now smooth as a baby’s bottom—held the road, that the fuel tank didn’t spring an irreparable leak, that the motor could bear a speed greater than fifty miles per hour, and that there wouldn’t be much traffic, Montalbano figured he could make it to Montechiaro Hospital in an hour and a half.
At a certain point, as he was racing along full-throttle, in danger of crashing into a tree or another car—since he’d never in his life been a good driver—he felt utterly ridiculous. On what basis in fact was he doing what he was doing? There must be hundreds of little black boys in Sicily. What made him think the little kid run over by the car was the same one he’d taken by the hand on the wharf a few nights before? Of one thing, however, he was certain: to ease his conscience, he absolutely had to see that boy, otherwise the doubt would keep stewing inside him, tormenting him. If it happened not to be the same boy, so much the better.
It would mean that the family reunion, as Riguccio called it, had been a success.
At Montechiaro Hospital, the staff let Montalbano talk to one Dr. Quarantino, an affable, courteous young man.
“Inspector, when the boy got here he was already dead. I think he must have died upon impact. Which was very, very violent. So violent it broke his back.”
Montalbano felt something like a cold wind envelop him.
“He was hit in the back, you say?”
“Yes. The boy was probably standing at the side of the road when a car came up at high speed behind him and skidded out of control,” Dr. Quarantino hypothesized.
“Do you know who brought him here?”
“Yes. One of our ambulances, which was summoned by the Road Police after they rushed to the scene.”
“The Montechiaro Road Police?”
“Yes.”
He finally made up his mind to ask the question he hadn’t had the strength to ask thus far.