“Maybe you’re right. I’ll ring him on his cell phone.”
Galluzzo answered immediately.
“Gallù, I wanted to tell you that the chief has figured—Oh, yeah? Okay, stay on the alert.”
He turned off his phone and turned towards the inspector.
“Galluzzo had already figured out that the three guys on that boat were only pretending to be fishing and were really keeping your house under surveillance.”
“But where is Galluzzo hiding?”
“Chief, you know the house that’s been under construction for ten years, directly across the road from yours? Well, he’s on the second floor.”
“And where are you taking me?”
“Didn’t we say we were gonna go visit the temples?”
Before taking the panoramic road to the temples—which could only be traveled on foot, though they, being policemen, were allowed to go by car—Montalbano asked Fazio to stop, went into a bar-bookshop, and bought a guide.
“Are you serious? You really want to do the tour?”
No, he wasn’t serious, not really. But the fact was that, although he had been there many times, every time he went back he always forgot the period of construction, the dimensions, the number of columns . . .
“Let’s go up to the top,” said the inspector, “and we’ll visit each temple as we make our way down.”
Once at the top, they parked the car and climbed to the uppermost temple on foot.
The construction of the temple of Juno Lucina dates from 450 BC. It measures 41 meters in length and 19.55 in width, and used to have 34 columns . . .
They looked at it carefully, then got back in the car.They drove a few meters, pulled up and parked, then walked uphill to the second temple.
The Temple of Concord is dated 450 BC. It is 42.1 meters long, 19.7 meters wide and originally had 34 columns, each 6.83 meters high.
They looked at this, too, then got back in the car and did as before.
The Temple of Hercules is the most ancient. It dates from 520 BC. Measuring 73.4 meters in length and . . .
They looked at this one in detail.
“Are we gonna visit the other temples?”
“No,” said Montalbano, who was already feeling fed up with archaeology.“What the hell is Galluzzo up to? It’s been almost an hour.”
“If he hasn’t called, it means he—”
“Ring ’im.”
“No, Chief. What if he’s close to your house and his phone starts ringing?”
“Then call Catarella and let me talk to him.”
Fazio complied.
“Any news, Cat?”
“Nossir, Chief. But the lady Esther Man called. She axed if you could call ’er.”
Montalbano and Fazio spent another half hour pacing back and forth in front of the temple.
The inspector was growing more and more nervous. Fazio tried to distract him.
“Chief, why is the Temple of Concord almost intact but the others aren’t?”
“Because there was an emperor, Theodosius, who ordered that all the pagan temples and sanctuaries should be destroyed, except for those that were being converted into Christian churches. And since the Temple of Concord became a Christian church, it was left standing.A fine example of tolerance. Just like today.”
After this brief cultural digression, the inspector returned at once to the matter at hand.
“Wanna bet those three guys in the boat were real fishermen? Listen, let’s go to the bar and sit down.”
This proved impossible. All the tables were occupied by English, German, French, and especially Japanese tourists, who were taking snapshots of anything they could think of, including a pebble that had found its way into one of their shoes.The inspector started cursing the saints.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, agitated.
“Where we gonna go?”
“We’ll go scratch our balls in—”
At that moment, Fazio’s cell phone rang.
“It’s Galluzzo,” he said, bringing the little phone to his ear.
“Okay, we’ll be right there,” he immediately said.
“What did he say?”
“He said we have to go immediately to your house.”
“He didn’t say anything else?”
“No, sir.”
They drove back to Marinella at a speed that even Schumacher at a Formula 1 Grand Prix rarely achieved, but without flashing lights or siren. When they arrived, they found the front door open.
They raced inside.
In the dining room, one half of the French door was dangling from its hinges.
Galluzzo, pale as death, was sitting on the sofa. He had drunk a glass of water and was holding the empty glass in his hand. He stood up as soon as he saw them.
“Are you all right?” Montalbano asked him, looking him straight in the eye.
“Yessir, but I got really scared.”
“Why?”
“One of the two shot at me three times, but missed.”
“Really? And what did you do?”
“I fired back.And I think I hit the one who hadn’t shot. But the other guy, the one with the weapon, grabbed him and dragged him all the way to the road, where there was a car waiting for them.”
“Feel up to telling us the whole story from the start?”
“Sure, I’m okay now.”
“Would you like a little whisky?”
“That would be nice, Chief !”
Montalbano took the glass from his hand, poured him a generous serving, and gave it to him. Fazio, who had gone out onto the veranda, came back inside with a dark look on his face.
“After you two left, they waited half an hour before coming to shore,” Galluzzo began.
“They wanted to be sure we had really left,” said Fazio.
“But, once ashore, they hung around the boat for a long time, looking every which way. Then, after about an hour, two of ’em took a couple of big jerry cans out of the boat and started coming towards the house.”
“What about the third guy?” asked Montalbano.
“The third guy, on the other hand, started taking the boat out to sea again. So I ran out of my cover and took up a position behind the left corner of the house. When I looked around the corner, one of the guys, who was holding a crowbar in his hand, had just finished prying the French door off its hinges.Then they went inside. As I was trying to figure out what to do, the two guys came back out on the veranda. I’m sure they were coming to get the jerry cans. I decided I couldn’t waste any more time. So I jumped out, pointed my gun at them, and said:
“‘Stop! Police!’
“Ah, Chief! In a flash, one of the two, the bigger guy, pulls out a gun and fires at me. I took cover behind the corner of the house. Then I saw that they were running away towards the parking area in front of the house, so I ran after them.And the big guy shot at me again. So I shot back and the other guy, who was running beside him, started staggering like he was drunk and fell to his knees.Then the big guy pulled him up with one arm and fired a third shot at me.When they got as far as the road, there was a car there with its doors open, and they sped away.”
“So,” Montalbano observed, “it was already planned that they would escape by land.”
“Excuse me,” Fazio said to Galluzzo, “but why didn’t you keep running after them?”
“Because my pistol jammed,” Galluzzo replied.
He took it out of his pocket and handed it to Fazio.
“Take it to Weapons with my sincere thanks. If those guys had realized I couldn’t shoot anymore, I wouldn’t be here telling you what happened.”
Montalbano made as if to go out on the veranda.
“I already checked, Chief,” said Fazio. “There are two twenty-liter jerry cans full of gasoline. They were gonna burn down your house.”
Now that was serious news.
“So, Chief, how should I proceed?” asked Galluzzo.
“About what?”
“About the two shots I fired. If the guys at Weapons ask me—”
“Tell ’em you had to shoot a rabid dog and the gun jammed.”
“Just what, exactly, are your intentions, Chief ?” asked Fazio.