Before answering, the lance corporal gave Montalbano one last violent shake.
“I caught these three brawling on the beach. One of ’em had a jackknife. And this one here claims he’s—”
“Did he give you his name and address?”
“No.”
“Let go of him at once and show him into my office.”
The corporal looked at his superior in confusion.
“But . . .”
“I gave you an order, Corporal!” the lieutenant said sharply, cutting him off and leaving the room.
Montalbano congratulated the man in his mind. The lieutenant was saving them all from ridicule. He and the inspector knew each other from way back.
As they were walking down the corridor, the bewildered corporal turned to Montalbano and asked him in a soft voice:
“Seriously, though, are you really a police inspector?”
“Not on your life!” Montalbano reassured him.
After everything had been cleared up and the lieutenant had given his apologies, which took about ten minutes, Montalbano left the carabinieri compound.
He had no choice but to go home and change clothes. In the scuffle he’d not only gotten sand inside his private parts, but had also torn his shirt in the process and lost two buttons from his sports coat.
The best thing to do was to go to the station, which was barely a fifteen-minute walk away, and have somebody give him a ride home to Marinella.
He headed off.
But he felt pain in his left eye and right ear, and at some point he stopped in front of a shop window to look at himself.
He’d taken a hard punch square in the eye, and the skin around it was now starting to turn blue. On his ear he could clearly see the imprints of two teeth.
As soon as Catarella saw him, he let out a yell that didn’t seem human so much as the cry of an injured animal. Then he let loose with an avalanche of questions.
“Wha’ happened, Chief? Salt witta deathly weppin? Or a salt witta reggler weppin? Was ya hambushed? Eh? Wha’ happened? A car crash? A splosion? A fire wit’ crimminal intint?”
“Calm down, Cat,” the inspector interrupted him. “I just fell. Any news here?”
“Nah, Chief. Oh, but a jinnelman come by ’iss mornin’ wantin’ a talk t’yiz poissonally in poisson.”
“Did he tell you his name?”
“Yessir, ’e did. Alfredo Pitruzzo.”
He didn’t know anyone by the name of Pitruzzo.
“Is Gallo in?”
“Yessir.”
“Tell him I want him to give me a ride home. I’ll wait for him in the parking lot.”
* * *
Pulling up to the house, he noticed another car parked alongside his own. He said good-bye to Gallo, opened the front door, and went inside. Hearing him come in, Adelina came out of the kitchen, looked at him, and started yelling, just like Catarella.
“Matre santa, wha’ happen a you? Eh? Wha’ happen? My Gah, whatta mornin’! Whatta terrible mornin’!”
What was Adelina talking about? Why was she saying these things? What was so terrible about the morning? What could have happened?
“What do you mean, Adelì?”
“Isspector, when I come inna this a mornin’, the whole a house a was empty, abannonned, you wasn’t here anna French a door was open. A criminal coulda come in anna steal everytin’. An’ when I was inna kitchen, I heard a someone come in fro’ the veranda. I tought it was you an’ so I come out anna look. Bu’ it wasn’t you, it was a man an’ ’e was a lookin’ aroun’. I was sure ’e was a burglar an’ so I grabba fryin’ pan an’ I come a back out. Anna since ’e had ’is back a to me I whack ’im inna head witta big a fryin’ pan, an’ I knock ’im out! An’ so I tied ’is hands an’ feet witta rope, an’ I gag ’im an’ I put ’im inna broom a closet.”
“But are you sure he was a burglar?”
“’Ow should I know? Bu’ sommabuddy ’oo comes inna sommabuddy ellis’s ’ouse . . .”
“But why didn’t you call me at the police station after you knocked him out?”
“’Cause first I ’adda take a care o’ the pasta ’ncasciata.”
Montalbano appreciated her answer and went and opened the door to the broom closet. The man was crouching and looked at him with terrified eyes.
At first Montalbano was convinced the man couldn’t be a burglar. He looked about sixty years old and was well-dressed and well-groomed. The inspector helped him to his feet, and after he removed the gag, the man immediately shouted:
“Help!”
“I’m Inspector Montalbano, police!”
The man seemed not to have heard.
“Help!” he shouted even louder than the first time.
And now he started shaking all over.
“He . . . he . . . help! He . . . he . . . help!”
The man no longer knew what he was saying, and there was no way to get him to pipe down. Montalbano made a snap decision and put the gag back on him.
Adelina, meanwhile, had come running from the kitchen and was standing beside the inspector.
The man’s eyes were so bugged out with fear that they looked as if they might at any moment pop right out of their sockets. Since he was clearly too terrified to think straight, it would have been a mistake to untie him.
“Give me a hand,” the inspector said to Adelina. “I’ll grab him by the shoulders, and you grab his feet.”
“Where are we taking him?”
“We’re going to put him in the armchair in front of the television.”
As they were carrying him like a sack of potatoes, the inspector worked out a version of events in hopes of making the best of a bad situation. After they’d sat the man down, Montalbano asked him:
“If I have her bring you a glass of water, do you promise not to scream for help?”
The man shook his head up and down to say yes. As Montalbano was removing the gag, Adelina returned with a glass of water and had him drink it, a few small sips at a time. The inspector did not put the gag back on him.
After a few minutes had passed, the man seemed to have calmed down and was no longer shaking. Montalbano pulled up a chair and sat down in front of him.
“If you don’t feel up to talking, just answer me with gestures. Do you recognize me? I’m Inspector Montalbano of Vigàta Police.”
The man nodded yes.
“So how can you think that I, who don’t even know you, would want to do you any harm? What reason would I have to do that?”
The man just looked at him as though unsure.
2
So the inspector started speaking in the most persuasive tone of voice he could muster.
“I think it must all have been an unfortunate coincidence. This morning, due to a series of unexpected circumstances, I had to go to the carabinieri station and didn’t have time to close and lock my French door. Apparently someone saw that there was no one at home and came into the house to steal something. As luck would have it, though, a few minutes later, you came in, too. At which point the burglar—we’ll call him that even though he didn’t have the time to steal anything—struck you, tied you up and gagged you, and put you in the closet. But then Adelina, my housekeeper, came in, and so the burglar was forced to run away empty-handed. I’m sure that’s exactly how it all went. Do you believe me?”
“Yes, I believe you,” the poor man said in a faint voice.
Montalbano then bent down to untie the rope around his ankles, after which he freed the man’s hands.
With some effort, the man stood up. But he still hadn’t fully recovered his sense of balance.
“If I may,” he said. “My name is . . .”
Then all at once he fell back onto the armchair, shaking all over and as pale as a corpse.
“Are you u
nwell?”
“I feel dizzy and have a really bad pain here, where I was hit.”
And he brought his hand to a spot just under the back of his head at the nape of the neck. Adelina ran into the kitchen and returned with some ice cubes wrapped in a piece of cloth, which she had him put on the aching spot. The man moaned softly in pain.
Montalbano got very worried. Adelina was a strong, robust woman, and it was possible that her blow with the frying pan had caused the man some internal injury.
“Please remain seated and don’t move,” he said to the man.
And he ran off and phoned the police station.
“Cat, is Gallo there?”
“Yeah, ’e’s onna premisses, Chief.”
“Tell him to come back to my place.”
He hung up and turned his attention back to the man.
“I’ll have you taken to the emergency room.”
“I wanted to tell you . . .”
“Please don’t talk . . . don’t make any effort at all.”
“But it’s important for me to . . .”
“Whatever you wanted to tell me you can tell me this afternoon at the station, all right?”
Five minutes later the doorbell rang.
Spurred by the inspector’s urgency, Gallo, who always loved to drive as though every country road was the track at Indianapolis, had practically flown there.
* * *
As Montalbano stood blissfully under the warm, long-awaited water of the shower, he started thinking about that morning of mix-ups.
He’d mistaken the more dangerous man, the one with a knife, for the weaker one; the carabinieri had mistaken him for a brawler; and Adelina had mistaken an honest man for a thief.
And since trouble always comes in fours—he thought, coining a new phrase—he became absolutely certain that very, very early that morning, he had killed an innocent fly, mistaking it for the guilty one.
Before leaving the house, he looked at himself in the mirror, as was his habit. He had a dark circle around one eye, just like a clown at the circus, and a swollen ear.
No matter. He wasn’t exactly trying out for a beauty contest.
* * *
“Did Gallo ever come back?” he asked Catarella upon entering the station.
“Yessir, Chief, ’e got back jess now. How d’ya feel?”
“Great.”
“Can ya tell me sum’n, Chief?”
“Sure.”
“Seein’ as how ya got a black eye ’n’ all, wha’ss the woild look like tru’ that eye? Is it all black?”
“How d’ya guess, Cat? Now, tell Gallo to come to my office.”
Gallo appeared at once.
“How’d things go at the emergency room?”
“Fine, Chief. All they found was a large contusion, so they gave him some painkillers and I drove him home. He told me to tell you he’ll be coming by here around four this afternoon.”
Gallo had just left when Mimì Augello came in.
He took one look at the inspector, smiled, then assumed a serious expression, made the sign of the cross, brought his hands together in prayer, bent at the knee, pretending to genuflect, and raised his eyes to the heavens.
“What’s this little comedy routine for?”
“I was saying a prayer of thanksgiving for whoever it was that gave you a black eye.”
“Stop being a wise guy and sit down.”
At that moment Fazio came in without knocking. He was frowning and looked upset.
“Chief, sorry to ask, but was it the carabinieri who put you in that state?”
Montalbano felt mortified.
How on earth had the story already spread all over town? The gossip and laughter couldn’t be very far behind. And if the news ever reached the commissioner’s ears . . .
“I don’t believe it! You were arrested and beaten up by the carabinieri?” Augello asked angrily, springing to his feet.
“Just chill out, boys,” said the inspector. “Don’t go jumping to conclusions, because there really is no reason to be declaring war on the carabinieri. I can explain everything.”
And he told them the whole story, down to the fine details. When he’d finished, he asked Fazio:
“And how did you find out?”
“Marshal Verruso, who’s an acquaintance, told me in strictest confidence.”
Montalbano heaved a big sigh of relief. That meant the story would remain confidential.
“Any new developments?”
“At my end of things, there was just a stolen car whose owner didn’t realize it was gone until he got back from abroad,” said Augello.
“I, on the other hand, have an interesting story to tell,” said Fazio.
“Let’s hear it.”
“Late last night, after the rest of you had already gone home, a man showed up here, a certain Agostino Smerca, to report something that had happened to his daughter, Manuela.”
“And what was that?” Augello asked impatiently.
“This Manuela, who’s a rather attractive woman of thirty—Smerca showed me a photo of her—lives with her father, who’s a widower, in a small house a bit off the beaten track. She’s a teller at the Banco Siculo and gets off work at six-thirty every evening. Since she doesn’t like to drive, she takes the circle line and then has to walk for another ten minutes to get home. About a week ago—actually, five days ago, to be exact—after getting off the bus, she was walking along the road, which is almost always deserted, when she saw a car stopped with its hood raised and a man looking inside at the motor. Just after she walked past it, she felt the barrel of a gun pointed into her back, scaring her nearly out of her wits, and heard a man say: ‘Don’t scream or I’ll kill you.’ Then she felt him press something over her nose and mouth, which turned out to be a handkerchief or gauze pad soaked in chloroform, after which the poor woman passed out.”
“So why did this Smerca wait all this time to report the incident?” asked Augello.
“Because his daughter didn’t want him to. She didn’t like the idea of everyone in town talking about her.”
“Was she raped?”
“No.”
“Robbed?”
“No.”
“So what’d the guy kidnap her for?”
“Well, that’s just it. In fact he didn’t do anything at all to her. Nothing. The woman woke up again an hour and a half later, out in the open countryside. Her purse was right beside her, and when she opened it, nothing was missing. So she tried to get her bearings, realized where she was, and called a cab from her cell phone. And there you have it.”
“Maybe he’d mixed her up with someone else,” said Augello.
Hearing mention of another mix-up, Montalbano, who’d been silent up to that point, gave a start. Not another mix-up! One more on the same day, and he just might lose his mind. He wanted to say something, but then thought better of it and remained silent.
“I guess it could have been any number of other things,” Augello continued. “What’s this Smerca do for a living?”
“He’s a businessman. A textile wholesaler.”
“There you go. Maybe he missed a payment to the protection racket. They were sending him a warning.”
“Mimì,” said Montalbano, finally entering the discussion, “if this was a Mafia case, you can be sure Smerca wouldn’t have come and reported it to us. He would have worked it out on his own.”
“That’s also true,” Augello agreed. “And what if the girl just made the whole thing up?”
“Why would she do that?”
“Maybe as an excuse, to explain to her father why she was getting home late . . .”
“Come on! A woman of thirty, in this day and age?”
“And what do you think?”
“At the moment I don�
��t think anything. But I do smell something fishy. The whole thing doesn’t make any sense. I’d like to talk to this girl in person—but just her, without her father around.”
“If you want, I’ll ring her and tell her to come by this afternoon. What time would be best for you?” asked Fazio.
“I’ve got an appointment at four. But it shouldn’t take long. Five would be fine.”
* * *
Entering the trattoria, he immediately noticed that Enzo, the owner, didn’t seem his usual jolly self. He looked rather taciturn. Since Montalbano considered him a friend, he asked him:
“Is anything wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Feel like talking about it?”
“If you would be good enough to give me fifteen minutes of your time after you’re done eating, I’ll tell you everything.”
“Just tell me now.”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Because eating, like sex, wants no worries.”
In the face of such ancient wisdom, Montalbano could only submit.
In fact, he had himself a feast, just to spite the carabiniere corporal who had arrested him.
When he had finished, Enzo took him into a windowless closet next to the kitchen and closed the door. They sat down in two half-collapsed wicker chairs.
“What I’m about to tell you took place six nights ago, but my brother Giovanni just told me about it yesterday afternoon. Giovanni has a thirty-year-old daughter, Michela. She’s a level-headed girl and works at the Banca di Credito.”
Montalbano had a sudden intuition.
“Was she by any chance kidnapped and released shortly afterwards perfectly safe and sound?”
Enzo looked at him in amazement.
“She certainly was. But how did you—”
“Another very similar incident occurred the very next day. I would like to talk to this niece of yours.”
“My niece is right here. I called her after you said you could give me a bit of your time.”
“Go and get her.”
Enzo went out and returned with a good-looking brunette with a serious air about her. He introduced them to each other.
The Overnight Kidnapper Page 2
