“Yeah, like what?”
“Sleazeball cops,” replied Catarella, keeping his eyes lowered.
“Is that all?”
“No, sir. They also wrote ‘murderers.’ Sleazeballs and murderers.”
“Why you taking it so hard, Cat?”
Catarella looked like he was about to burst into tears.
“’Cause nobody in here’s no sleazeball or murderer, startin’ wit’ you, sir, and endin’ wit’ me, the smallest wheel on the cart.”
By way of consolation, Montalbano patted Catarella’s shoulder and headed towards his office. Catarella called him back.
“Oh, Chief! I almost forgot. They also wrote ‘goddamn cuckolds.’ ”
Imagine ever finding any obscene graffiti in Sicily without the word “cuckold” in it! The word was a guarantee of authenticity, a classic expression of so-called Sicilitude. The inspector had just sat down when Mimì Augello came in. He was cool as a cucumber, his face relaxed and serene.
“Any news?” he asked.
“Did you hear what they wrote on the wall last night?”
“Yeah, Fazio told me.”
“Doesn’t that seem like news to you?”
Mimì gave him a befuddled look.
“Are you joking or serious?”
“I’m serious.”
“Well, then, swear to me on a stack of Bibles. Do you think Livia cheats on you?”
This time it was Montalbano who gave Mimì a puzzled look.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“So you’re not a cuckold. And I don’t think Beba cheats on me, either. Okay, on to the next word: sleazeball. True, two or three women have called me a sleaze, I won’t deny it. But I bet nobody’s ever called you one, so that word doesn’t refer to you. Murderer, forget it. So what’s the problem?”
“Well, aren’t you the razor wit, with your Sunday crossword-puzzle logic!”
“Wait a second, Salvo. Is this somehow the first time we’ve been called bastards, sons of bitches, and murderers?”
“The difference is that this time, it’s true.”
“Ah, so that’s how you see it?”
“Yes, it is. Explain to me why we acted that way in Genoa, after years and years without any incidents of that sort.”
Mimì looked at him, eyelids drooping so low that they nearly covered his eyes, and said nothing.
“Oh, no you don’t!” said the inspector. “Answer me verbally, not with that little ‘cop stare’ of yours.”
“All right. But first I want to make something clear. I’m in no mood to pick any bones with you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I know what’s bugging you. The fact that all this happened under a government that you don’t trust and openly oppose. You figure the political leaders are up to their necks in this affair.”
“Excuse me, Mimì, but have you read the newspapers? Have you watched the TV news? They have all said, more or less clearly, that at the time, there were people in the command rooms in Genoa that had no business being there: ministers, members of parliament, all from the same party. The party that’s always calling for law and order. Their law and their order, mind you.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means that part of the police force, the most fragile part—even though they think they’re the strongest—felt protected. So they went wild. And this, in the best of cases.”
“Could there be any worse?”
“Of course. Maybe we were manipulated, like marionettes on a stage, by people who wanted to conduct a kind of test.”
“What kind of test?”
“Of how people would react to a show of force. How many favorably, how many unfavorably. Luckily it didn’t go too well for them.”
“Bah!” said Augello, unconvinced.
Montalbano decided to change the subject.
“How’s Beba doing?”
“Not too well. She’s having a difficult pregnancy. She can’t sit up much and has to lie down most of the time, but the doctor says it’s nothing to be worried about.”
After miles and miles of solitary walks along the jetty, hours and hours spent sitting on the rock of tears, contemplating the events in Genoa until his brain began to smoke; after eating what must have amounted to several hundred pounds of càlia e simenza; after countless nighttime phone conversations with Livia, the wound the inspector carried inside him was beginning at last to heal when he got wind of another brilliant police action, this time in Naples. A handful of cops had been arrested for forcibly removing some allegedly violent political activists from a hospital into which they’d been admitted. After bringing them to a barracks, the police treated them to a flurry of kicks and punches and a torrent of obscenities and insults. But what most upset Montalbano was the reaction of other policemen to the news of their colleagues’ arrest. Some chained themselves to the gate of the Central Police building in an act of solidarity; others organized demonstrations in the streets; the unions made some noise; and a deputy commissioner who in Genoa had kicked a demonstrator already on the ground was greeted as a hero when he came to Naples. The same politicians who’d been in Genoa for the G8 were behind this curious (though not so curious for Montalbano) semirevolt on the part of the forces of order against the judges who had issued the arrest warrants. And Montalbano couldn’t take it any more. This last, bitter morsel he just couldn’t swallow. One morning, as soon as he got to work, he called Dr. Lattes, chief of the Montelusa police commissioner’s cabinet. Half an hour later, Lattes informed him, through Catarella, that the commissioner could see him at twelve noon on the dot. The men at the station, who had learned to gauge their boss’s mood from the way he walked into the office each morning, realized at once that this was not a good day. And so, from the vantage point of Montalbano’s desk, the station seemed deserted that morning. No voices, no sounds whatsoever. Catarella was standing guard at the entrance door, and as soon as anyone came in, he opened his eyes wide, put his forefinger over his nose, and enjoined the intruder to silence.
“Ssssshhhh!”
All who entered the station acted like they were attending a wake.
Around ten o’clock, Mimì Augello, after knocking discreetly and being told to come in, entered the inspector’s office with a grim expression on his face. As soon as he saw him, Montalbano got worried.
“How’s Beba doing?”
“Fine. Can I sit down?”
“Of course.”
“Can I smoke?”
“Of course, but don’t let the minister see you.”
Augello fired up a cigarette, inhaled, and held the smoke in his lungs a long time.
“You can exhale now,” said Montalbano. “You have my permission.”
Mimì looked at him, confused.
“Yes,” the inspector continued, “this morning you seem Chinese to me. You ask my permission for every little thing. What’s wrong? Is it so hard to tell me what you want to tell me?”
“Yes,” Augello admitted. He put out his cigarette, got more comfortable in his chair, and began, “Salvo, you know I’ve always thought of you as my father—”
“Where’d you get that idea?”
“Where’d I get what idea?”
“That I’m your father. If it was your mother who told you, she’s a liar. I’m fifteen years older than you, and though I may have been precocious, at age fifteen I wasn’t—”
“Salvo, I didn’t say you were my father, I said I thought of you as a father.”
“And you got off on the wrong foot. Drop the father, son, and holy ghost shit. Just say what you have to say and get the hell out of my hair, ’cause today’s not a good day.”
“Why did you ask to see the commissioner?”
“Who told you that?”
“Catarella.”
“I’ll deal with him later.”
“No, you won’t. If anything, you’ll deal with me right now. I was the one who told Catarella to tell me if you contacted Bonetti-Alderighi, which I expected you would do sooner or later.”