“Awfully good. He had almost a billion lire in Treasury bonds, and he also owned his flat and office.”
o o o
The three afternoon clients on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays lived in Villaseta, all widowers or bachelors getting on in years. The price was the same as in Vigàta. The extra granted Martino Zaccarìa, greengrocer, consisted of having her kiss the soles of his feet; with Luigi Pignataro, retired middle-school headmaster, Karima would play blindman’s buff. The headmaster would strip her naked, blindfold her, then go and hide somewhere. Karima would then look for him and find him, after which she would sit down in a chair, take the principal in her lap, and suckle him. When Montalbano asked Calogero Pipitone, an expert agronomist, what his extras were, the man looked at him, dumbfounded.
“What do you think they were, Inspector? Me on top and her on the bottom.”
Montalbano felt like embracing him.
o o o
Since on Mondays,Wednesdays, and Fridays Karima was employed full-time at Lapècora’s, there wouldn’t be any more clients. Oddly enough, Karima rested on Sundays, not Fridays. Apparently she’d adapted to local customs. Montalbano was curious to know how much she earned per month; but since he was hopeless with numbers, he opened the door to his office and asked in a loud voice: “Anybody got a calculator?”
“Me, Chief.”
Catarella came in and pulled a calculator not much bigger than a calling card out of his pocket.
“What do you calculate on that, Cat?”
“The days,” was his enigmatic reply.
“Come back for it in a little bit.”
“I should warrant you the machine works by ammuttuna.”
“What do you mean?”
Catarella mistakenly thought his superior didn’t understand the last word. He stepped toward the door and called out:
“How you say ammuttuna in Italian?”
“Shove,” somebody translated.
“And how am I supposed to shove this calculator?”
“Same way you shove a watch when it don’t run.” Anyway, figuring Lapècora separately, Karima earned one million two hundred thousand per month as a housekeeper, to which was added another million two hundred thousand for extras. At the very least, for full-time service, Lapècora slipped her another million. Which comes to three million four hundred thousand lire monthly, tax-free. Forty-four million two hundred thousand annually.
Karima, from what they could gather, had been working in the area for at least four years, so that made one hundred seventy-six million eight hundred thousand lire.
What about the other three hundred twenty-four million that was in the bank book? Where had that come from?
The calculator had worked fine; there was no need of ammuttuna.
o o o
A burst of applause rang out from the other rooms. What was going on? He opened his door and discovered that the man of the hour was Mimì Augello. He started foaming at the mouth.
“Knock it off ! Clowns!”
They looked at him in shock and horror. Only Fazio attempted to explain the situation.
“Maybe you don’t know, Chief, but Inspector Augello—”
“I already know! The commissioner called me personally, demanding an explanation. Mr. Augello, of his own initiative, without my authorization—as I made certain to emphasize to the commissioner—went on TV and spoke a pile of bullshit!” “Uh, if I may,” Augello ventured.
“No, you may not! You told a pack of lies!”
“I did it to protect all of us here, who—”
“You can’t defend yourself by lying to someone who spoke the truth!”
And he went back into his office, slamming the door behind him. Montalbano, man of ironclad morals, was in a murderous rage at the sight of Augello basking in applause.
o o o
“May I come in?” asked Fazio, opening the door and cau-tiously sticking his head inside. “Father Jannuzzo’s here and wants to talk to you.”
“Let him in.”
Don Alfio Jannuzzo, who never dressed like a priest, was well known in Vigàta for his charitable initiatives. A tall, ro-bust man, he was about forty years old.
“I like to cycle,” he began.
“I don’t,” said Montalbano, terrified at the thought that the priest might want him to participate in some sort of charity race.
“I saw that woman’s photo on television.” The two things seemed in no way connected, and the inspector began to feel uncomfortable. Might this mean that Karima did work on Sundays after all, and that her client was none other than Don Jannuzzo?
“Last Thursday, around nine o’clock in the morning, give or take fifteen minutes, I was near Villaseta, cycling down from Montelusa to Vigàta. On the other side of the road, a car was stopped.” “Do you remember the make?”
“Yes, it was a BMW, metallic gray in color.” Montalbano pricked up his ears.
“A man and a woman were inside the car. It looked like they were kissing, but when I passed right beside them, the woman broke free sort of violently, then looked at me and opened her mouth as if to say something. But the man pulled her back by force and embraced her again. I didn’t like the look of it.” “Why?”
“Because it wasn’t just a lovers’ quarrel. The woman’s eyes, when she looked at me, were full of fear. It seemed as if she was asking for help.”
“And what did you do?”
“Nothing, because the car left almost immediately. But when I saw the photograph on television today, I knew it was the woman I’d seen in the car, I could swear to it. I’m very good with faces, Inspector, and when I see a face, even for only a second, it’s forever etched in my memory.” Fahrid, pseudo-nephew of Lapècora, and Karima.
“I’m very grateful to you, Father . . .”
The priest raised a hand to stop him.
“I haven’t finished yet. I took down the license-plate number. As I said, I didn’t like what I’d seen.”
“Do you have the number with you?”
“Of course.”
From his pocket he extracted a notebook page neatly folded in four and held it out to the inspector.
“It’s written down here.”
Montalbano took it between two fingers, delicately, as one does with the wings of a butterfly.
am 237 gw.
o o o
In American movies, the policeman had only to tell somebody the license-plate number, and in less than two minutes, he would know the owner’s name, how many children he had, the color of his hair, and the number of hairs on his ass.
In Italy, things were different. One time they made Montalbano wait twenty-eight days, in the course of which the owner of the vehicle (as they later wrote to him) was goat-tied and burnt to a crisp. By the time the answer arrived, it had all come to nothing.
His only choice was to turn to the commissioner, who by now had perhaps ended his meeting with the prefect.
“Montalbano here, Commissioner.”
“I just got back in the office. What is it?”
“I’m calling about that woman who was kidnapped—”
“What woman who was kidnapped?”
“You know, Karima.”
“Who’s that?”
To his horror he realized he was talking to the wind. He hadn’t yet said an intelligible word to the commissioner about the case.
“Mr. Commissioner, I’m simply mortified—”
“Never mind. What did you want?”
“I need to have a license-plate number traced as quickly as possible, and I want the owner’s name and address.”
“Give me the number.”
“am 237 gw.”
“I’ll have something for you by tomorrow morning.” 1 7 1
0p>
13
“I set a place for you in the kitchen. The dining room table is being used. We’ve already eaten.”
He wasn’t blind. He couldn’t help but see that the table was covered by a giant jigsaw puzzle of the Statue of Liberty, practically life-size.
“And you know what, Salvo? It took him only two hours to solve it.”