The Snack Thief

by Andrea Camilleri

  “Frère?”

  The old woman’s eyes lit up.

  “Oui. Son frère Ahmed.”

  “Où est-il?”

  “Je ne sais pas,” said the woman, throwing up her hands.

  After this exchange straight out of a French conversation manual, Montalbano went back upstairs and grabbed the photo of the pregnant Karima with the blond man.

  “Son mari?”

  The old woman made a gesture of scorn.

  “Simplement le père de François. Un mauvais homme.” She’d met too many of them—bad men, that is—had the beautiful Karima, and was apparently still meeting them.

  “Je m’appelle Aisha,” the old woman said out of the blue.

  “Mon nom est Salvo,” said Montalbano.

  o o o

  He got in the car, found the pastry shop he’d caught a glimpse of on the way, bought twelve cannoli, and drove back to the house. Aisha had set a table under a tiny pergola behind the cottage, at the front of the garden. The countryside was deserted. Before doing anything else, Montalbano un-wrapped the pastry tray, and the old woman immediately ate two cannoli as an appetizer. Montalbano wasn’t too thrilled with the kubba, but the kebabs had a tart, herbal flavor that made them a little more sprightly, or so, at least, he defined them according to his imperfect use of adjectives.

  During the meal Aisha probably told him the story of her life, but she’d forgotten her French and was speaking only Arabic. Nevertheless, the inspector actively participated: when the old woman laughed, he laughed too; when she grew sad, he put on a face fit for a funeral.

  When supper was over, Aisha cleared the table, while Montalbano, at peace with himself and the world, smoked a cigarette. When the old woman returned, she was wearing a mysterious, conspiratorial expression. In her hand was a narrow, flat black box that probably once held a necklace or something similar. Aisha opened it, and inside was a savings-account passbook for the Banca Popolare di Montelusa.

  “Karima,” the old woman said, bringing her forefinger to her lips, meaning that this was a secret and should remain so.

  Montalbano took the booklet from the box and opened it.

  An even five hundred million lire.

  o o o

  The previous year—Signora Clementina Vasile Cozzo told him—she’d suffered a terrible spell of insomnia she could do nothing about. Luckily it lasted only a few months. She would spend most of the night watching television or listening to the radio. Reading, no. She couldn’t read for very long, because after a while her eyes would start to flutter.

  Once—it must have been around four in the morning, perhaps earlier—she heard the shouts of two drunkards quarrel-ing right under her window. She opened the curtain, just out of curiosity, and noticed that the light was on in Mr.

  Lapècora’s office. What could Mr. Lapècora be doing there at that hour of the night? But Mr. Lapècora was not there, in fact. Nobody was there; the front room of the office was empty. So Signora Vasile Cozzo concluded that somebody had left the light on. Suddenly, however, from the other room, which she knew existed but couldn’t see from her window, there emerged a young man who used to come to the office now and then, even when Lapècora wasn’t there.

  Stark naked, the man ran to the telephone, picked up the receiver, and started talking. Apparently the telephone had been ringing, though the signora hadn’t heard it. Moments later, Karima emerged, also from the back room, and also naked. She stood there listening to the young man, who was growing animated as he spoke. When the telephone call was over, the young man grabbed Karima and they went back into the other room to finish what they’d been doing when they were interrupted by the telephone. They later reappeared fully dressed, turned off the light, and left in the man’s large metallic gray car.

  Over the course of the previous year this scenario had repeated itself four or five times. For the most part they would stay there for hours not doing or saying anything. If he grabbed her by the arm and took her into the other room, it was only to pass the time. Sometimes he would write or read, and she would doze in the chair, head resting on the table, waiting for the phone to ring. Sometimes, after the call came in, the man would make a call or two himself.

  On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the woman, Karima, would clean the office—but what was there to clean, for Christ’s sake? And sometimes she would answer the phone, but she never passed the call on to Mr. Lapècora, even when he was right next to her. He would only sit there, listening to her talk, head down and looking at the floor, as if none of it was his concern, or as if he felt offended.

  In the opinion of Clementina Vasile Cozzo, the maid, the Tunisian girl, was a bad, evil woman.

  Not only did she do what she did with the dark young man, but now and then she would go and wheedle poor old Lapècora, who inevitably would give in, letting himself be led into the back room. One time, when Lapècora was sitting at the little secretarial table reading the newspaper, she kneeled in front of him, unzipped his trousers, and, still kneeling . . .

  At this point Signora Vasile Cozzo, blushing, interrupted her narrative.

  It was clear that Karima and the young man had keys to the office, whether they had been given them by Lapècora or had copies made themselves. It was also clear, even though there were no insomniac witnesses, that the night before Lapècora was murdered, Karima had spent a few hours in the victim’s home. This was proved by the scent of Volupté. Did she also own a set of keys to the flat, or had Lapècora himself let her in, taking advantage of the fact that his wife had taken a generous dose of sleeping pills? In any case, the whole thing seemed not to make sense. Why risk being caught in the act by Mrs. Lapècora when they could easily have met at the office? For the hell of it? Just to season an otherwise predictable relationship with the thrill of danger?

  And then there was the matter of the three anonymous letters, unquestionably pieced together in that office. Why had Karima and the dark young man done it? To put Lapècora in a difficult bind? It didn’t tally. They had nothing to gain by it. On the contrary, they risked jeopardizing the availability of their telephone number and whatever it was the company had become.

  For a better understanding of all this, Montalbano would have to wait for Karima to return. Fazio was right: she must have slipped away to avoid answering dangerous questions and would come back on the sly. The inspector was positive that Aisha would keep the promise she’d made to him. In his unlikely French, he’d explained to her that Karima got mixed up with a nasty crowd, and that sooner or later that bad man and his friends would surely kill not only her but also François and Aisha herself. He had the impression he’d sufficiently convinced and frightened her.

  They agreed that as soon as Karima reappeared, the old woman would phone him; she had only to ask for Salvo and say only her name, Aisha. He left her the telephone numbers to his office and home, telling her to make sure she hid them well, as she had done with the passbook.

  Naturally the argument held water on one condition: that Karima was not the killer. But no matter how much he turned it over in his head, the inspector could not picture her with a knife in her hand.

  o o o

  He glanced at his watch by the flame of his lighter. Almost midnight. For more than two hours now he’d been sitting on the veranda, in darkness to avoid getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and sand flies, hashing and rehashing what he’d learned from Signora Clementina and Aisha.

  Yet he needed one further clarification. Could he possibly call Mrs. Vasile Cozzo at that hour? She had told him that every evening the housekeeper, after giving her dinner, would help her undress and put her in the wheelchair. But even if she was ready for bed, she didn’t turn in immediately; she would watch television late into the night. She could move from the wheelchair to the bed, and vice versa, by herself.

  “Signora, it’s unforgivable, I know.”

  “Not at all, Inspector, not at all! I was awake, watching a movie.”

  “Well, signora.
You told me the dark young man sometimes used to read or write. Do you know what it was he read? Or wrote? Could you tell?”

  “He used to read newspapers and letters. And he would write letters. But he didn’t use the typewriter that was there in the office. He’d bring his own, a portable. Anything else?”

  o o o

  “Hi, darling. Were you asleep? No? Are you sure? I’ll be at your place tomorrow around one in the afternoon. Don’t go out of your way for me, please. I’ll just come, and if you’re not there, I’ll wait. I have the keys, after all.”

  8 5

  h2> Apparently, in his sleep, one part of his brain had kept working on the Lapècora case. Around four o’clock in the morning, in fact, a memory came back to him, and he got up and started searching frantically among his books. Suddenly he remembered that he’d lent the book he was looking for to Augello, after his deputy had seen the film made from it on television. He’d now had it for six months and still hadn’t given it back. Montalbano got upset.

  “Hello, Mimì? Montalbano here.”

  “Ohmygod! What’s going on? What happened?”

  “Do you still have that novel by Le Carré entitled Call for the Dead? I’m sure I lent it to you.”

  “What the fuck?! It’s four in the morning!”

  “So what? I want it back.”

  “Salvo, I’m telling you this as a loving brother: why don’t you have yourself committed?”

  “I want it back immediately.”

  “But I was asleep! Calm down. I’ll bring it to the office in the morning. Otherwise I would have to put on my underwear, start looking, get dressed—”

  “I don’t give a shit.You’re going to look for it, find it, get in your car, even in your underwear, and bring it to me.” He dragged himself about the house for half an hour, doing pointless things like trying to understand the phone bill or reading the label on a bottle of mineral water. Then he heard a car screech to a halt, a dull thud against the door, and the car leaving. He opened the door: the book was on the ground, the lights of Augello’s car already far away. He had a mind to make an anonymous phone call to the carabinieri.

  Hello, this is a concerned citizen. There’s some madman driving around in his underwear . . .

  He let it drop. He started leafing through the novel.

  The story went exactly as he’d remembered it. Page 8:

  “Smiley, Maston speaking. You interviewed Samuel Arthur Fennan at the Foreign Office on Monday, am I right?”

  “Yes . . . yes I did.”

  “What was the case?”

  “Anonymous letter alleging Party membership at Ox-ford . . .”

  And there, on page 139, was the beginning of the conclusion that Smiley would arrive at in his report:

  “It was, however, possible that he had lost his heart for his work, and that his luncheon invitation to me was a first step to confession. With this in mind he might also have written the anonymous letter which could have been designed to put him in touch with the Department.” Following Smiley’s logic, it was therefore possible that Lapècora himself had written the anonymous letters exposing him. But if he was their author, why hadn’t he sent them to the police or carabinieri under some other pretext?

  No sooner had he formulated this question than he smiled at himself for being so naïve. In the hands of the police or carabinieri, an anonymous letter might have triggered an investigation and have led to far graver consequences for Lapècora. By sending them to his wife, Lapècora was hoping to provoke a reaction of the more domestic variety, but one that would nevertheless rescue him from a situation that was becoming either too dangerous or unbearable. He wanted to pull out, and those were cries for help. But his wife had taken them at face value, that is, as anonymous letters denouncing a tawdry, common liaison. Offended, she had not reacted, but only withdrawn into a scornful silence. And so Lapècora, in despair, had written to his son, this time without hiding behind a veil of anonymity. But the son, blinded by egotism and the fear of losing a few lire, fled to New York.

  Thanks to Smiley, it all made sense. He went back to sleep.

  o o o

  Commendatore Baldassare Marzachì, director of the Vigàta post office, was notorious for being a presumptuous imbecile.

  And he didn’t fail to live up to his reputation this time, either.

  “I cannot grant your request.”

  “And why not, if I may ask?”

  “Because you don’t have a judge’s authorization.”

  “And why should I need that? Any other employee of your office would have given me the information I asked for.

  It’s of no consequence whatsoever.”

  “That’s your opinion. Had they given you this information, my employees would have committed a punishable in-fraction.”

  “Commendatore, let’s be reasonable. I am merely asking you for the name of the postman who services the neighborhood in which Salita Granet is located. Nothing more.”

  “And I’m not going to tell you, okay? Supposing I did tell you, what would you do?”

  “I would ask the postman a few questions.”

  “See? You want to violate the postal code of secrecy.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  An utter nitwit. Which isn’t so easy to find these days, now that nitwits disguise themselves as intelligent people.

  The inspector decided to resort to a bit of high drama that would annihilate his adversary. Without warning, he let his body fall backwards, shoulders planted firmly against the back of the chair, and began shaking his hands and legs, trying desperately to open his shirt collar.

  “Oh God,” he gasped.

  “Oh God!” echoed Commendator Marzachì, standing up and rushing to the inspector. “Are you ill?”

  “Please help me,” wheezed Montalbano.

  The post office manager bent down, tried to loosen the inspector’s collar, and at that moment Montalbano started shouting.

  “Let me go! For God’s sake, let me go!”

  All at once he grabbed Marzachì’s hands, and as the commendatore was instinctively struggling to break free, he held them up around his own neck.

  “What are you doing?” muttered Marzachì, totally confused, not understanding what was happening. Montalbano yelled again.

  “Let me go! How dare you!” he bawled, still clutching the commendatore’s hands.

  The door flew open, and two terrorized postal employees appeared, a man and a woman, who unmistakably saw their boss trying to strangle the inspector.

  “Get out of here!” Montalbano yelled at the two. “Out!

  It’s nothing! Everything’s fine!”

  The employees withdrew, closing the door behind them.

  Montalbano calmly readjusted his collar and glared at Marzachì, who, as soon as he’d released him, had backed up against a wall.

  “You’re fucked, Marzachì. They saw you, those two. And since they hate you like the rest of your staff, I’m sure they’d be happy to testify. Assaulting a police officer. What shall we do? Do you want to be reported or not?” “Why do you want to ruin me?”

  “Because I hold you responsible.”

  “For what, for God’s sake?”

  “For the worst things imaginable. For letters that take two months to go from one part of Vigàta to another, for packages that arrive torn apart with half the contents missing—and you talk to me of the postal code of secrecy, which you can stick straight up your ass—for books that I wait and wait for and that never come . . . You’re a piece of shit that dresses up in dignity to cover this cesspool. Is that enough?” “Yes,” said Marzachì, shattered.

  o o o

  “Yes, of course he used to receive mail. Not a lot, but some.

  There was one company outside of Italy that used to write to him, but nobody else, really.”

  “Where were they from?”

  “I never noticed. But the stamps were foreign. I can tell you what the company was called, th
ough, because its name was on the envelope. Aslanidis was the name. I remember it because my dad, rest his soul, who’d fought in Greece, met a girl from those parts whose name was Galatea Aslanidis. Used to talk about her all the time.” “Did the envelopes say what this company sold?”

  “Yes. Dattes, they said. Dates.”

  o o o

  “Thanks for coming so quickly,” said Signora Antonietta Palmisano, lately become the widow Lapècora, as soon as she opened the door for Montalbano.

  “Why? Did you want to see me?”

  “Yes. Didn’t they tell you I called your office?”

  “I haven’t been there yet today. I came here on my own.”

  “Then it’s a case of kleptomania,” the woman concluded.

  For a moment the inspector felt confused; then he understood that she’d intended to say “clairvoyance.” One of these days I’ll introduce her to Catarella, he thought, then I’ll transcribe the dialogue. Better than Ionesco!

  “What did you want to see me about, signora?” Antonietta Palmisano Lapècora mischievously wagged a small forefinger.

  “No, no, no. You have to talk first, since you thought to come on your own.”

  “Signora, I would like you to show me exactly what you did the other morning when you were getting ready to go out to see your sister.”

  The widow was dumbfounded, opening and closing her mouth.

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Are you asking me to put on my nightgown?” said Signora Antonietta, blushing.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Well, let me think. I got out of bed as soon as the alarm went off. Then I took—”

  “No, signora, perhaps I didn’t make myself clear enough.

  I don’t want you to tell me what you did, I want you to show me. Let’s go in the other room.”

  They went into the bedroom. The armoire was wide open, a suitcase full of women’s dresses on the bed. On one of the bedside tables was a red alarm clock.

  “Do you sleep on this side of the bed?” asked Montalbano.