The Dance of the Seagull

by Andrea Camilleri

  “It may be the wrong gate, but the Customs cop on duty, whose name is Sassu, was working the northern gate last night.”

  “Did he see anything?”

  “Come, you can talk to him yourself.”

  Sassu looked to be just over twenty, but he seemed to be a quick, intelligent kid.

  “The fishing boats start to come in just after midnight,” he said. “They unload, and then one part of the day’s haul is immediately warehoused; another part is loaded onto the refrigerator trucks, which then leave at once. There’s usually a lot of bustle until about three in the morning. Afterwards, there’s about an hour of calm. And it was just before four o’clock that I heard the shots.”

  “How many?” Montalbano asked him.

  “Two.”

  “Are you sure they were gunshots?”

  “Not at all. It might have been a motorbike backfiring. And, in fact, just a few minutes later a large motorcycle drove by. And that reassured me at the time.”

  “Was there a second rider in back?”

  “No.”

  “And you didn’t hear any cries or yells?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Were you able to tell where the shots were coming from?”

  This time Sassu seemed less certain.

  “It’s strange,” he said softly.

  “What’s strange?”

  “Now that I think about it . . . It couldn’t have been a motorcycle.”

  “Why not?”

  “There was an interval of a couple of seconds between the two shots. The first one sounded like it came from over by the slips, but the second one was a lot farther away, out past the second or third storehouse . . . If it was a motorbike, the two bursts should have come from the same spot.”

  “Did it sound like someone chasing someone else trying to run away and firing at him?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  They thanked the Customs officer.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” Augello observed darkly.

  “Let’s go for a little walk,” the inspector said.

  “Where to?”

  “To the area between the slips and the two storehouses.”

  There were about ten cold storage warehouses, all in a row on the outside part of the central wharf, which was a sort of arm jutting out right in the middle of the harbor. The trawlers would moor directly there, and once they’d unloaded their haul, they would go over to the inside part of the wharf, where they would dock at their respective berths and their crews would disembark and go home to sleep.

  Montalbano and Augello walked up and down the slipway as far as the second storehouse, eyes glued to the ground.

  The road was a mire of mud grooved with deep furrows left by truck tires. The storehouses were all closed except for the third one, which had a Ford Transit van in front of it with its doors open. Inside the van one could see electrical cables, quadrants, knobs, and valves. Perhaps the refrigeration system had failed and was being repaired. Despite the van, there wasn’t a living soul about.

  “Let’s go, we’re not going to find anything here,” said Mimì. “We’re wasting our time. We would have to dig through the mud to find any clues. Anyway, the stink in the air is starting to get to me. I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”

  To Montalbano, however, that smell not only was not a stink, he actually liked it. It was the product of a combination of algae, rotting fish, dilapidated cordage, seawater, and tar, with a light touch of diesel fuel thrown in. Delicious, indeed exquisite.

  At the very moment they’d given up hope and were about to go back to the office, Mimì saw something sparkle parallel to the slipway. It was an empty shell that hadn’t been buried in the mud because it had fallen onto a piece of rotten plank. He bent down, picked it up, and wiped it with his hand. It wasn’t the least bit rusted or damaged. Clearly it had been there for only a few hours, not days or months.

  “Now we know for certain that it wasn’t a motorcycle,” Montalbano concluded.

  “At a glance, I’d say a 7.65,” said Augello. Then he asked: “What should we do with this shell?”

  “Make soup.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Mimì, how do you expect that cartridge to help us? All it gives us is confirmation that a gun was fired. For the moment, it can’t tell us anything else.”

  After hesitating for a moment, Augello put it in his pocket.

  Montalbano, having stopped, made no sign of resuming his walking.

  He was thinking, head bent as he stared at his shoe tops. He had a cigarette between his lips but had forgotten to light it. Mimì stood there in silence. Then the inspector started talking, but more than talking to Augello, he was thinking out loud.

  “So they fired the first shot at Fazio—assuming it was Fazio—as he was going back towards the northern gate. Apparently he’d already finished doing whatever it was he had to do in the area of the storage houses and was now heading out of the port, but someone was waiting for him here and fired at him.”

  “But why would they wait till he was at the slipway?” Mimì asked. “It’s the most dangerous spot because it’s the closest to the gate where there’s always a Customs agent.”

  “They had no choice. Say they grabbed him and killed him in front of one of the storehouses. If they didn’t get rid of the body real fast, they would have been forced to leave it there. But once the corpse was discovered, we definitely would have searched the storehouses. Which they didn’t want. The slipway, on the other hand, is a no-man’s-land. Everyone who docks at this wharf is forced to pass that way. It would be like shooting him on the main street in town.”

  “At any rate, they didn’t get him with the first shot.”

  “Right. But then Fazio realizes he can’t keep running towards the gate. His path is barred by the guy who shot at him. So what does he do?”

  “What does he do?”

  “He turns tail and runs straight back the way he came, that is, towards the storehouses.”

  “But that’s even worse!”

  “Why?”

  “Because the road that passes in front of the storehouses ends at the sea! There’s no access to the wharf. Therefore he wouldn’t have been able to escape his pursuer. There was no way out. He ran straight into his own trap.”

  “But he knew exactly what the situation was at that moment, whereas we don’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe there were some storehouses still open where he could ask for help. The fact is, as the Customs officer told us, they fired a second shot at him when he’d reached the second or third storehouse. And the fact that he didn’t hear any other shots is a bad sign.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that that second shot may have wounded or killed him.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Augello cried out.

  “But it’s also possible that Fazio, seeing there was no way out, put his hands up and let them capture him.”

  “Listen, what if we requested a search warrant for the storage houses?” Augello proposed.

  “A waste of time.”

  “Why on earth?!”

  “If they killed him, they certainly wouldn’t have kept the body. And even if he’s wounded or captured, they couldn’t keep him in a cold storage facility for more than a couple of hours, or he’d turn stiffer than a stockfish.”

  “Okay, but if he’s dead, where’d they put the body?”

  “I think I have an idea. Want to hear it?”

  “Of course.”

  “In the sea, Mimì. Well ballasted.”

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  “It’s just an idea, Mimì, no need to get upset. Try to think. If they did in
fact kill him, throwing him into the sea was the easiest and safest thing to do. I’m convinced there was no way they could hide the body in one of the storehouses. Even if most of the heavy work was already done at that hour, there had to be a few people still about. It would have been too risky. Trust me, we should stop thinking about it.”

  “All right.”

  “Tell you what. Call the commissioner. Tell him half the story. Actually, no. Don’t tell him anything about Fazio. Tell him we need to recover a weapon that fell into the water. Get him to send you two frogmen.”

  “Sorry, but what if he asks me whose weapon it is?”

  “Tell him it’s mine.”

  “And how did it end up in the water?”

  “Through a hole in the back pocket of my trousers.”

  “And what if he says not to bother? That it’s not worth going to all the trouble?”

  “Tell him it’ll be his responsibility.”

  “What’ll be his responsibility?”

  “Explain to him that when my gun fell out, there were a lot of people around. And that if one of them felt like getting wet, they might recover the weapon and use it.”

  Mimì Augello took a few steps away and started talking on his cell phone. It was a long call, then Mimì started shaking his head and walking back towards Montalbano. He held out the phone to him.

  “He wants to talk to you,” he said.

  “Montalbano! What the hell is going on?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Commissioner, it’s all because of this hole in—”

  “This is sheer lunacy! These things only happen to you! A hole! And what if the weapon had fallen onto a crowded street and gone off?”

  “I never keep it loaded, sir.”

  “Look, Montalbano, I can’t request two frogmen for something so silly as this!”

  “If you prefer, I can jump into the sea myself. I can stay underwater for a very long time, you know.”

  “Montalbano, every time I talk to you it’s an ordeal! Give me Augello again.”

  Mimì talked for another five minutes, then signed off and said to Montalbano:

  “I managed to persuade him.”

  The inspector’s hunch turned out to be wrong.

  By the time the sun started to set, the two frogmen, who’d worked for three straight hours, hadn’t found a thing.

  Or, more precisely, they’d found everything but the kitchen sink, even a baby buggy and a suitcase full of jars of tomato sauce. Luckily, however, no dead body.

  “So much the better,” said Montalbano.

  Meanwhile, a few dozen people had gathered in the general vicinity and were craning their necks, looking on, talking, laughing, asking questions out loud that nobody answered. Montalbano felt only contempt for them.

  Then a man approached him and said he was the owner of one of the cold storage houses.

  “Sorry to bother you, Inspector. But I need to know what we’re supposed to do.”

  “What you’re supposed to do about what?”

  “About the fishing boats.”

  “But there isn’t a single one here.”

  “In about two hours they’re going to start coming in.”

  “So?”

  “With the frogmen working right in front of the warehouses, they won’t be able to dock and unload.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll be done in fifteen minutes.”

  “Mind telling us what you’re looking for?” the man asked in dialect. It put them on common ground.

  “Sure. My watch. It fell in the water this morning.”

  “They said you dropped your gun in the water.”

  “I was wrong. I always get the two confused.”

  4

  When Mimì and the inspector straggled back to the station, it was almost nine P.M. Neither had found the time to eat anything. Or, more precisely, they could have taken an hour or so to eat something, had they wanted, but the truth was that neither of them had felt like it.

  “Did Fazio ever show up, by any chance?” he asked Catarella.

  “Nossir, Chief.”

  They went into Montalbano’s office.

  “Have a seat, Mimì. Let’s brainstorm for another five minutes. Shall I send for some coffee?”

  “Good idea.”

  Montalbano picked up the phone.

  “Cat, could you go get us a couple of coffees at the bar? Thanks.”

  They eyed each other.

  “You first,” said Mimì.

  “By this point it’s clear they’ve got Fazio. Whether dead or alive is another question.”

  “Well, he wasn’t in the sea, at any rate.”

  “But that still doesn’t mean we know he’s alive.”

  “Agreed. But if they got him with the second shot, the one fired around the storehouses, where’d they put him?”

  “Mimì, we’re unable to come up with an answer for one simple reason. Namely, we don’t know what happens when the trawlers come in, how much time they take to unload, at what time they leave the storehouses to go to their berths, how long the refrigerator trucks stay there before leaving with their cargoes of fish . . . To put it simply, what sort of activity is there around there at that time of the night?”

  “The Customs officer said he’d heard the shots just before four A.M., and that between three and four o’clock, everything had been quiet.”

  “Fine, but what does ‘quiet’ mean? That there wasn’t a soul around? That’s not possible; there must still be some people about, even at that hour. In fact, the Customs agent said he saw a motorcycle drive past after he’d heard the two shots. So there must still have been somebody there.”

  The door flew suddenly open and crashed against the wall. Mimì and the inspector both leapt out of their chairs. Augello cursed under his breath. Catarella appeared, holding a little tray with both hands, his right foot still in midair.

  “Sorry ’bout that, ’spectors, I kinda miscaliculated the strinth o’ my kick.”

  He set the tray down on the desk.

  “Listen, Cat, did anyone call for Fazio today?” the inspector asked him.

  Catarella thrust a hand into his pocket and pulled out his little black notebook. Licking the tip of his index finger, he started skimming through it.

  Mimì gawked at him in astonishment.

  “Less see. Blank an’ Loccicciro called.”

  “But not the others?”

  “Sarravacchio came poissonally in poisson.”

  “So the only one who didn’t call for him was Manzella.”

  “’Ass azackly azack, Chief.”

  “I haven’t understood a fucking thing,” said Augello as Catarella was leaving.

  The coffee was good. And the inspector told him about Manzella’s phone calls.

  “So,” said Mimì, “in your opinion, Manzella didn’t call today because he knows exactly what happened to Fazio.”

  “It’s fairly likely.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “You’re going to go home to Beba and the kid.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I’m going to rest a little right here and then go back to the wharf to see how the fishing business operates.”

  He was leaving the room when the phone rang.

  “Chief? ’At’d be the newsman Zito onna line.”

  “Put ’im on . . . Ciao, Nicolò, how are you doing? Haven’t heard from you for a while. How’s the wife?”

  “Fine, thanks. Listen, are you going to be at the office a little longer?”

  “Actually, no, I was just about to go out.”

  “Home?”

  “No. Why do you want to know?”

  “No reason, just to m
ake conversation.”

  “No, Nicolò, you’re not being straight with me. What is it?”

  “I just wanted to know something. Tell you what. If you’re in a hurry, put Fazio on. I’ll ask him.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Did he go home?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “All right, I’ll try calling him anyway.”

  “No!”

  Damn, he’d said it too loudly!

  When Zito replied, he seemed to falter.

  “Sorry, but what—”

  “Look, Nicolò. The fact is that his wife . . . isn’t feeling so good and he’s really worried . . . You know?”

  “I understand. All right, good night.”

  Had Nicolò Zito actually swallowed the whopper he’d just fed him?

  Whatever the case, that phone call from his friend and Free Channel newsman had seemed a little strange to him, no doubt about it.

  When he got to the wharf, a few trawlers were already moored in front of the storehouses and unloading their hauls. The floodlights for illuminating the area of activity were all turned on. One could see, in the distance, at the mouth of the harbor, the navigation lights of the other trawlers coming in.

  A veritable babble of shouts, curses, and commands could be heard above the din of the boats’ diesel motors, the trucks’ engines, and the continual rumble of the freezers.

  In the small spaces between one storehouse and the next, which were narrow alleyways of sorts, the inspector discovered a great hubbub of makeshift fish stands, with crates of fish being sold by the crew members of the trawlers themselves. And it wasn’t the rejects they were selling, but the share due each member of each boat. The buyers, after a sort of tug-of-war of bargaining, would then load the crates onto scooters or three-wheeled Ape pickups and drive off. They must have been restaurant owners or employees, who were thus assured not only of having fresh fish, but of paying half of what they would have paid at the town market.

  Montalbano remembered the trawler owner who had come to the station. What was his name? Ah, yes, Rizzica. He had to be around there somewhere.

  He stopped a municipal police officer he saw carrying a crate of fish. It had to have been the guy’s payoff for closing an eye to the makeshift market in the alleyway.