Instead, he’d gone. Thus committing an act of insubordination. Now if he went to Mozzamore and told him that the dead man had been identified, the commissioner could accuse him of insubordination or worse…
“But aren’t you ashamed to be pulling out such lame excuses?” the voice of his conscience reproached him. “The truth of the matter is that you’re such an egotist, such a selfish wretch that you don’t want to share anything with anyone…”
“Would you just let me think for a second?” Montalbano replied.
To report or not to report. That was the question.
In the end, his conscience won out. He walked around the building, entered through the main door, and asked where Inspector Muzzamore’s office was.
“You mean Mazzamore?” the person at the reception desk, who knew Montalbano, corrected him. “It’s right next door to Dr. Lattes’s office.”
Alas. Alas, alack, and wailaway. He had to proceed with extreme caution.
Instead of taking the elevator, he climbed the stairs. When he’d reached the right floor, he stopped. There was a whole corridor to cross. He stuck his head out and saw none other than Lattes, standing right in the middle of the hallway, talking to someone.
No, he just couldn’t go on any longer with this farce about the nonexistent little boy who died.
He turned tail and left. He would give Mazzamore a ring. But later, whenever he happened to. There was no hurry.
“Pretty good excuse you came up with there!” his conscience needled him.
He told his conscience where to go, to the same place he probably too often sent it. Actually, there was no “probably” about it.
“Ahh Chief Chief! Ahh Chief!”
Montalbano knew what this plaintive litany meant.
“Did the commissioner call?”
“Yessir, ’e did, jess now, by tiliphone.”
“What did he want?”
“’E said as how ya gotta go rilly rilly emergently t’ see ’im, ’im being Mr. C’mishner hisself.”
Utterly and totally out of the question! No way could he risk running into Lattes. At the very least he would be forced to thank him for the funerary pillow.
“Tell Fazio to come to my office at once. And, by the way, did you find anything about Kimberley Process?”
“Yessir, I did, Chief, I’ll prinn it up straightaways.”
Going into his office, the inspector noticed that one of the flowers that had come detached from the wreath when he’d knocked it to the floor had remained there. He bent down, picked it up, and threw it out the window. He didn’t want to see anything that might remind him of the dream he’d had of his own funeral.
“What is it, Chief?” asked Fazio, coming in.
“You have to do me a favor. I want you to call the commissioner.”
Fazio looked puzzled.
“Me?!”
“Why not? Do you find it offensive? Embarrassing?”
“No, Chief, but…”
“No buts. I want you to tell him a lie.”
“About what?”
“He wants to see me right now, but for reasons of my own, I really can’t go there just now.”
“And what am I supposed to tell him?”
“Tell him that as I was driving to work somebody bumped into me, and you had to take me to the emergency room and then home.”
“Would you like to tell me, in case he asks, exactly what happened to you in the accident? Was it serious or minor?”
“Since I’ve already given him some other bullshit, just tell him I reinjured the same ankle I’d already sprained.”
“And how did you get this sprain?”
“The same way I got bumped into.”
“I see.”
“And now I’d better get on home fast, in case he phones me there.”
“All right,” said Fazio, turning to leave the room.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to my office to make the call.”
“Can’t you just do it here?”
“No, sir. I’m a better liar when I’m alone.”
Fazio returned less than five minutes later.
“Wha’d he say?”
“He said you’ve been having too many accidents lately and had better start taking better care of yourself.”
“Didn’t he believe it?”
“I don’t think so. Chief, I think you’d better go home right away. He’s definitely going to call.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Yes. He said you’re going to have to resume the investigation because Inspector Mazzamore is too busy with another case.”
“And you’re telling me this now?”
“When was I supposed to tell you?”
“It should have been the first thing!”
They stood there for a moment in silence, staring at each other.
“I’m not convinced,” said Montalbano.
“Me neither. But it’s not the first time he’s given you back a case he’d taken away from you.”
“I’m still not convinced. At any rate, I wanted to tell you that the body in the dinghy’s been identified. His real name was Jean-Pierre David, and the French police had been keeping an eye on him.”
“Why was that?”
“Apparently he was involved in diamond trafficking.”
Fazio’s eyes narrowed to little slits.
“Ah, so the guys from the Ace of Hearts…?”
“Are up to their necks in this. Cross my heart and hope to die. We have to figure out a way to set them up. And we’ve got to do it quickly, because they could leave at any moment. Oh, and one more thing.”
“Tell me.”
“I want you and Gallo to be ready. This afternoon, around five o’clock, there’s something we have to do.”
“What’s it involve?”
“We’ll probably have to arrest Mimì.”
Fazio opened his mouth and then closed it again. And he turned red in the face, and then pale as a ghost. He collapsed into a chair.
“Wh… Why?” he asked in a faint voice.
“I’ll explain later.”
At that moment Catarella came in with a few sheets of paper in his hand.
“I prinnit it all up, Chief.”
Montalbano folded them and put them in his jacket pocket.
“See you later,” he said.
And he headed back home.
But how was it that the telephone had now acquired the fine habit of starting to ring just as he was coming through the door? Since he’d given up hope that it was Laura trying to reach him, he took his time.
He went and opened the French door to the veranda, then went into the kitchen.
Since he would, of necessity, have to eat at home, he wanted to see what Adelina had made for him. He opened the oven.
And what a discovery it was. Pasta ’ncasciata and mullet alla livornese.
The telephone, which in the meanwhile had stopped ringing, started again. This time he went and picked up.
It was the c’mishner.
“Montalbano, how are you feeling?”
Just as Fazio had predicted, the goddamn sonofabitch wanted to verify whether he had actually had an accident. And Montalbano was ready to oblige him. He began:
“Well, the crash wasn’t-”
“I wasn’t talking about that,” the commissioner cut him off sharply.
Oh no? Then what did he want to talk about? Maybe it was best to keep quiet and see where the guy was headed.
“I was referring to your mental health, which I’m very worried about.”
What was this? Was he telling him he thought he was going insane? How dare he?
“Listen, Mr. Commissioner, sir, I can put up with a lot, but I will not tolerate any comments about my mental-”