"Fuck me to kingdom come," she said.
When did she become so vulgar? he wondered, bewildered.
As he was about to enter her, he saw the dog a few steps away, a white dog with its pink tongue sticking out, growling menacingly, teeth bared, a string of slobber dribbling from its mouth. When did it get there?
"What are you doing? Has it gone soft again?"
"Theres a dog."
"What the hell do you care? Give it to me."
At that exact moment the dog sprang into the air and he froze, terrified. The dog landed a few inches from his head, turned stiff, its color lightly fading, then lay down, its front legs extended, hind legs folded. It became fake, turned into terra-cotta. It was the dog in the cave, the one guarding the dead couple.
Then all at once the sky, trees, and grass disappeared, walls of rock formed around them and overhead, and in horror he realized that the dead couple in the cave were not two strangers, but Livia and himself.
He awoke from the nightmare breathless and sweating, and immediately in his mind he begged Livias forgiveness for having imagined her as so obscene in the dream. But what was the meaning of that dog? And those disgusting snails slithering all over the place?
That dog had to have a meaning, he was sure of it.
Before going to the office, he stopped at a kiosk and bought Sicily's two newspapers. Both of them prominently featured the story of the bodies found in the cave; as for the discovery of the weapons, they had prominently forgotten about that. The paper published in Palermo was certain that it had been a love suicide, whereas the one published in Catania was also open to the possibility of murder, while not, of course, discounting suicide, and indeed its headline read: double suicide or dual homicide? implying some vague, mysterious distinction between double and dual. On the other hand, no matter what the issue, this newspaper customarily never took a position. Whether the subject was a war or an earthquake, it always liked to play both sides of the fence, and for this had gained a reputation as an independent, freethinking daily. Neither of the two dwelt on the jug, the bowl, or the terra-cotta dog.
The instant Montalbano appeared in the doorway, Catarella asked him what he should say to the hundreds of journalists who were certain to phone, wanting to speak with the inspector.
"Tell them I've gone on a mission."
"What, you've become a missionary?" quipped the policeman, lightning-quick, chuckling noisily to himself. Montalbano concluded that he'd been right, the previous evening, to unplug the telephone before going to bed.
13
"Dr. Pasquano? Montalbano here. Just wondering if there's any news."
"Yes, there certainly is. My wife has a cold and my granddaughter lost a baby tooth."
"Are you angry, Doctor?"
"I certainly am!"
"With whom?"
"You ask me if there's any news! Well, let me ask you how you can have the gall to ask me anything at nine oclock in the morning! What do you think, that I've just spent the night opening up those two corpses bellies like some kind of vulture? I happen to sleep at night! And, at the moment, I'm working on that guy who drowned around Torre Spaccata. Who didn't drown at all, since before being tossed into the sea he'd been stabbed three times in the chest."
"Shall we make a bet, Doctor?"
"On what?"
"On whether or not you spent the night with those two corpses."
"All right, all right. You win."
"What did you find out?"
"Right now I can't tell you much; I still have to look at a few other things. One sure thing is that they were killed by gunshot wounds. He to the head, she to the heart. You couldn't see the womans wound because his hand was covering it. A textbook execution, while they were sleeping."
"Inside the cave?"
"I don't think so. They were probably already dead when they were brought there, then were rearranged, still naked and all."
"Have you managed to establish their ages?"
"I wouldn't want to be wrong, but I'd say they were young, very young."
"And when did the crime take place, in your opinion?"
"I could venture a guess, which you can take with a pinch of salt. About fifty years ago, more or less."
...
"I'm not here for anyone. No phone calls for the next fifteen minutes," Montalbano told Catarella. Then he locked the door to his office, returned to his desk, and sat down. Mim Augello was also sitting there, but stiff as a poker, bolt upright.
"Who goes first?" asked Montalbano.
"I do," said Augello, "since it was I who asked to talk to you. Because I think it's time I said something."
"Well, I'm here to listen."
"Could you please tell me what I've done to you?"
"You? To me? Nothing at all. Why do you ask?"
"Because I feel like I've become a stranger in this place. You don't tell me what you're doing, you keep me at a distance, and I feel insulted. For example, was it right, in your opinion, to keep me in the dark about Tano the Greek? I'm not Jacomuzzi, who shouts these things from the rooftops. I can keep a secret. I didn't find out what happened at my own police station until I heard it at the press conference. Does that seem like the right way to treat someone who's your second-in-command until proved otherwise?"
"But do you realize how sensitive this matter was?"
"It's precisely because I realize it that I'm so pissed off. Because it must mean that for you, I'm not the right person for sensitive matters."
"I've never thought that."
"You've never thought it, but you've always done just that. Like with the weapons, which I found out about by accident."
"Come on, Mim. I was overwhelmed by the pressure and anxiety. It didn't occur to me to inform you."
"That's bullshit, Salvo. Thats not the real story."
"Oh, yeah? What's the real story?"
"I'll tell you. You've created a police station in your own image and likeness. Fazio, German, Galluzzo, take anyone you want, they're all just limbs that obey one single head: yours. They never contradict you, never ask questions: they just follow orders.There are two foreign bodies here: Catarella and me. Catarella, because he's too stupid, and me"
"Because you're too intelligent."
"See? That's not what I was going to say. You make me out to be arrogant, which I'm not, and you do it maliciously."
Montalbano looked at him, stood up, put his hands in his pockets, circled round the chair in which Augello was sitting, then stopped.
"It wasn't malicious, Mim. You really are intelligent."
"If you seriously believe that, then why do you cut me out? I could be at least as useful to you as the others."
"That's just it, Mim. Not as useful, but more so. I'm speaking to you quite frankly, since you're making me think seriously about my attitude towards you. And maybe this is what bothers me most."
"So, just to please you, I ought to dumb myself down a little?"
"Listen, if you want to have it out with me, let's go. That's not what I meant. The fact is that over the course of time, I've realized I'm sort of a solitary hunter. I'm sorry if that sounds idiotic, maybe it's not the right term. Because I do like to go hunting with others, but I want to be the only one to organize the hunt. That's the one necessary precondition for making my brain function properly. An intelligent observation made by someone else merely upsets me, it throws me off, sometimes for a whole day, and can even prevent me from following my own train of thought."
"I get it," said Augello. "Actually, I got it some time ago, but I wanted to hear you say it yourself. So Im telling you now, without any hostility or hard feelings: I'm going to write to the commissioner today and request a transfer."
Montalbano looked him over, drew near, and leaned forward, putting his hands on Augellos shoulders.