“Congratulations!” was the commissioner’s reply. “So, Miss Livia . . . I can’t wait to tell my wife, she’ll be so happy.
But I don’t understand how this would prevent you from coming. Ah, I get it: the event is imminent.” Flummoxed by his superior’s misapprehension, Montalbano recklessly proceeded to entangle himself in a long, tor-tuous, stammering explanation that jumbled together murder victims and children’s snacks,Volupté perfume and the Mulone printing works. The commissioner gave up.
“All right, all right, you can explain it all later. Listen, when is Miss Livia leaving?”
“Tonight.”
“So we won’t have the pleasure of meeting her. Too bad.
It’ll have to wait till next time. Tell you what, Montalbano: when you think you’ll have a couple of free hours, give me a ring.”
Before going out, he went to take a last look at Livia and François, who were still asleep. Who would ever break their embrace? He frowned, gripped by a dark premonition.
o o o
The inspector was astonished to find everything in Lapècora’s office exactly as he had left it. Not one sheet of paper out of place, not a single clip where he hadn’t seen it last time. Laganà had understood.
“It wasn’t a search, Inspector. There was no need to turn the place upside down.”
“So, what can you tell me?”
“Well, the business was founded by Aurelio Lapècora in 1965. He’d worked as a clerk before that. The business was involved in importing tropical fruit and had a warehouse in Via Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, near the port, equipped with cold-storage rooms. They exported cereals, chickpeas, fava beans, pistachios, things of that sort. The volume of business was decent, at least until the second half of the eighties. Then things went steadily downhill. To make a long story short, in January of 1990, Lapècora was forced to liquidate, but it was all aboveboard. He even sold the warehouse and made a tidy profit. His papers are all on file. An orderly man, this Lapècora. If I’d had to do an inspection here, I wouldn’t have found anything wrong. Four years later, also in January, he obtained authorization to reopen the business, which was still incorporated. But he never bought another depository or warehouse, nothing whatsoever. And you know what?” “I think I already know. You found no trace of any business transaction from 1994 to the present.”
“Right. If Lapècora only wanted to come and spend a few hours at the office—I’m referring to what I saw in the next room—what need was there to reconstitute the business?” “Find any recent mail?”
“No, sir. All the mail’s at least four years old.” Montalbano picked up a yellowed envelope that had been lying on the desk and showed it to the sergeant.
“Did you find any envelopes like this, but new, with the words ‘Import-Export’ in the return address?”
“Not a single one.”
“Listen, Sergeant. Last month a local print shop sent Lapècora a package of stationery at this office. Since you found no trace of it, do you think it’s possible the whole stock got used up in four weeks?” “I wouldn’t think so. Even when things were going well, he couldn’t have written that many letters.”
“Did you find any letters from a foreign firm called Aslanidis, which exports dates?”
“Nothing.”
“And yet, according to the mailman, some were delivered here.”
“Did you search Lapècora’s home, Inspector?”
“Yes. There’s nothing related to his new business there.
You want to know something else? According to a very reli-able witness, on certain nights, when Lapècora wasn’t here, this place was buzzing with activity.”
He proceeded to tell him about Karima and the dark young man posing as a nephew, who used to make and receive phone calls and write letters, but only on his own portable typewriter.
“I get it,” said Laganà. “Don’t you?”
“I do, but I’d like to hear your idea first.”
“The business was a cover, a front, the receiving end of some kind of illegal trafficking. It certainly wasn’t used to import dates.”
“I agree,” said Montalbano. “And when they killed Lapècora, or the night before, they came here and got rid of everything.”
o o o
He dropped in at headquarters. Catarella was at the switchboard, working on a crossword puzzle.
“Tell me something, Cat. How long does it take you to solve a puzzle?”
“Ah, they’re hard, Chief, really hard. I been workin’ on this one for a month and I still can’t get it.”
“Any news?”
“Nothing serious, Chief. Somebody arsoned Sebastiano Lo Monaco’s parking garage by setting fire to it. The firemen went and put it out. Five motor vehicles got roasted. Then somebody shot at somebody by the name of Filippo Quaran-tino but they missed and got the window of the house where Mrs. Saveria Pizzuto lives and she got so scared she had to go to the merchancy room. Then there was another fire, an arson fire for sure. But just little shit, Chief, kid stuff, nothin’
important.”
“Who’s in the office?”
“Nobody, Chief. They’re all out taking care of these things.”
Montalbano went into his office. On the desk was a package wrapped in the paper of the Pipitone pastry shop.
He opened it: cannoli, cream puffs, torroncini.
“Catarella!”
“At your orders, Chief.”
“Who put these pastries here?”
“Inspector Augello did. He says he bought ’em for the little boy from last night.”
How thoughtful and attentive to abandoned children Mr. Mimì Augello had suddenly become! Was he hoping for another glance from Livia?
The telephone rang.
“Chief ? It’s His Honor Judge Lo Bianco. He says he wants to speak personally with you.”
“Put him on.”
A couple of weeks earlier, Judge Lo Bianco had sent the inspector a complimentary copy of the first tome, all seven hundred pages, of a work to which he’d been devoting himself for years: The Life and Exploits of Rinaldo and Antonio Lo Bianco, Masters of Jurisprudence at the University of Girgenti at the Time of King Martin the Younger (1402–1409). He’d got it in his head that these Lo Biancos were his ancestors. Montalbano had leafed through the book one sleepless night.
“Hey, Cat, are you going to put the judge on the line or not?”
“The fact is, Chief, I can’t put him on the line, seeing as he’s already here personally in person.”
Cursing, Montalbano rushed to the door, showed the judge into his office, and expressed his apologies. He already felt guilty towards the judge for having phoned him only once about the Lapècora murder, after which he’d completely forgotten he existed. No doubt he’d come to give him a tongue-lashing.
“Just a quick hello, my dear Inspector. Thought I’d drop in, since I was passing by on my way to see my mother who’s staying with friends at Durrueli. Let’s give it a try, I said to myself. And I was lucky: here you are.” And what the hell do you want from me? Montalbano said to himself. Given the solicitous glance the judge cast his way, it didn’t take him long to figure it out.
“You know, Judge, lately I’ve been losing sleep.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“I spend the nights reading your book. It’s more gripping than a mystery novel, and so rich in detail.” A lethal bore: dates upon dates, names upon names. By comparison, the railroad schedule book had more surprises and plot twists.
He remembered one episode recounted by the judge in which Antonio Lo Bianco, on his way to Castrogiovanni on a diplomatic mission, fell from his horse and broke a leg. To this insignificant event the judge devoted twenty-two mania-cally detailed pages. To show he’d actually read the book, Montalbano foolishly quoted from it.
And so Judge Lo Bianco engaged him for two hours, adding other details as useless as they were minute. When he finally said good-bye, the inspector felt a headache coming on.