IM7 Rounding the Mark (2006)

by Andrea Camilleri

  “I want to know how you arrived at this conclusion,” Mimì insisted coldly.

  Apparently he was finding the news hard to swallow.

  “I didn’t arrive at it myself. My friend Ingrid did.”

  And he told them the whole story. When he had finished speaking, Mimì put his head in his hands and shook it at intervals.

  “Jesus . . . Jesus . . .” he said softly.

  “Why are you so surprised, Mimì?”

  “I’m not so surprised by the thing in itself, but by the fact that we were breaking our heads over it when Catarella had come to the right conclusion long before.”

  “Then you’ve never understood just who Catarella is,” said the inspector.

  “I guess not. Who is he?”

  “Catarella’s a little kid, a child inside a grown man’s body. And so he reasons like someone barely seven years old.”

  “So?”

  “What I mean is that Catarella has the kinds of fantasies, brainstorms, and bright ideas a little kid does. And being a little kid, he says what he’s thinking, he doesn’t hold back. And often he’s right on the mark. Because reality, when seen through our eyes, is one thing, but when seen through a child’s eyes, it’s something else.”

  “So, to conclude, what are we going to do?” Fazio cut in.

  “That’s what I’m asking you,” said Montalbano.

  “Chief, I’d like to say something, if Inspector Augello doesn’t mind. I want to say that this whole business is not so simple. As things now stand, this murder victim—call him D’Iunio or Errera, it makes no difference—has never been officially declared a murder victim, either by the police or the courts. He’s still considered dead by accidental drowning. So my question is: on what grounds do we open a case file and continue the investigation?”

  The inspector thought about this a moment.

  “We use the old anonymous phone call trick,” he decided.

  Augello and Fazio looked at him questioningly.

  “It always works. Don’t worry, I’ve used it before.”

  He took out the photo of Errera with a mustache and handed it to Fazio.

  “Take this immediately to the Free Channel. I want you to hand it to Nicolò Zito in person. Tell him I need an urgent phone call in this morning’s newscast. He should say that Ernesto D’Iunio’s family are distraught because they’ve had no news of him in over two months. Now go.”

  Without a peep, Fazio got up and left. Montalbano looked keenly at Augello, as if he’d just noticed at that moment that Mimì was sitting right in front of him. Augello, who knew that look, began to squirm in his chair.

  “Salvo, what the hell are you cooking up?”

  “How’s Beba?”

  Mimì gave him a dismayed look.

  “You already asked me that, Salvo. She’s better.”

  “So she’s able to make a phone call.”

  “Of course. To whom?”

  “To the public prosecutor, Tommaseo.”

  “And what’s she supposed to say to him?”

  “I want her to perform a little drama. Half an hour after Zito broadcasts the photograph on TV, I want Beba to make an anonymous call to Prosecutor Tommaseo and to tell him, in an hysterical voice, that she’s seen the man in the photo. She recognizes him perfectly, there is no doubt in her mind.”

  “What? Where?” asked Mimì, annoyed and obviously not keen on getting Beba mixed up in the case.

  “Okay, she has to tell him that about two months ago, when she was sitting in her car in Spigonella, she saw the guy in the photo being badly beaten up by two men. At a certain point the guy managed to break free and started coming toward Beba’s car, when he was caught again by the other two and dragged away.”

  “And what was Beba doing in her car?”

  “Lewd things with a man.”

  “Come on! Beba will never say anything like that! And I don’t like it either!”

  “And yet it’s essential! You know what Tommaseo’s like, don’t you? Tommaseo lives for these sex stories. It’s just the bait we need for him, and he’ll bite, just you wait and see. In fact, if Beba can make up a few particularly sordid details—”

  “Have you gone insane?”

  “Just some little thing . . .”

  “Salvo, you’re sick in the head!”

  “Why are you getting angry? I just meant any old bullshit, like saying that they couldn’t intervene because they were both naked—”

  “Okay, okay. Then what?”

  “Then, when Tommaseo calls you, you say—”

  “Excuse me, but why would Tommaseo call me instead of you?”

  “Because I won’t be in this afternoon. I want you to tell him that we already have a lead, have got the missing-person report in hand, and we need a blank search warrant.”

  “Blank?!”

  “Yes indeed. Because I know where this house in Spigonella is, but I don’t know who it belongs to or if anyone’s still living there. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Crystal clear,” Mimì said sullenly.

  “Ah, and one more thing. Get him to give you authorization to bug the phone line of one Gaetano Marzilla, who lives at Via Francesco Crispi 18, Montelusa. The sooner we listen in, the better.”

  “What’s Marzilla got to do with any of this?”

  “Mimì, Marzilla’s got nothing to do with this investigation. But he may be useful to me for something I have in mind. So I’ll answer your question with a cliché that’ll make you happy: I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone.”

  “But—”

  “Mimì, if you persist, I’m going to take the stone intended for those birds and—”

  “Okay, okay, I get the drift.”

  Fazio shuffled back to the office less than an hour later.

  “It’s all taken care of. Zito’s going to broadcast the photo and the phone call on the two o’clock news. He sends regards.”

  And he headed for the door.

  “Wait.”

  Fazio stopped, certain the inspector was going to say something else to him. But Montalbano said nothing. He only looked him up and down. Fazio, who knew him well, pulled up a chair. The inspector kept eyeing him. Fazio, however, was well aware that he wasn’t really looking at him; he had his eyes on him, yes, but probably didn’t see him because his mind was God-knows-where. And indeed, Montalbano was wondering whether he shouldn’t perhaps ask Fazio to lend him a hand. But if he were to tell him the whole story of the African boy, how would Fazio react? Might he not reply that, in his opinion, this was all a figment of the inspector’s imagination and had no basis in fact? On the other hand, by singing only half the Mass, Montalbano might be able to get some information without revealing too much.

  “Listen, Fazio, do you know if there are any illegal immigrants working under the table in our area?”

  Fazio didn’t seem surprised by the question.

  “There certainly are a lot of them everywhere, but right here, in our area, no.”

  “Where are they, then?”

  “Wherever there are greenhouses, vineyards, tomato fields, orange groves . . . Up north they work in industry, but around here, where there isn’t any industry, they work in agriculture.”

  The discussion was turning too general. Montalbano decided to narrow the field.

  “What towns in our province would offer such possibilities for illegal workers?”

  “To be honest, Chief, I couldn’t really give you a complete list. Why are you interested?”

  This was the question he feared most.

  “Uh . . . I was just wondering, that’s all . . .”

  Fazio stood up, went to the door, closed it, and sat back down.

  “Chief,” he said, “would you be so kind as to tell me everything that’s on your mind?”

  Montalbano opened up, telling him every last thing, from the ill-fated evening on the wharf to his last meeting with Marzilla.

  “There are quite a few greenhouses in M
ontechiaro,” said Fazio, “with a hundred or so illegals working there. Maybe that’s where the kid ran away from. The place where the car ran him down is only about five kilometers away.”

  “Could you look into it?” the inspector ventured. “But without telling anyone here at the station.”

  “I can try,” said Fazio.

  “You got something in mind?”

  “Well . . . I could try drawing up a list of people renting out houses—no, not houses, I mean stables, cellars, sewers!—to illegals. They cram them in, ten at a time, in crawl spaces without windows! They do it under the table and charge them thousands. But maybe I could come up with something. Once I’ve got a list, I’ll ask around if any of these illegals was recently joined by his wife . . . It’s not going to be easy, I can tell you straight away.”

  “I know. I’m very grateful for your help.”

  But Fazio didn’t get up from his chair.

  “What about tonight?” he asked.

  The inspector immediately understood but assumed an angelic expression.

  “What do you mean?” he said.

  “Where’s Marzilla going to pick up that guy at ten-thirty?”

  Montalbano told him.

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “Me? What am I supposed to do? Nothing.”

  “Chief, you wouldn’t be cooking up some brilliant scheme now, would you?”

  “No, no, don’t worry!”

  “Bah!” said Fazio, getting up.

  In front of the door, he stopped and turned around.

  “Look, Chief, if you want, I’m free tonight and—”

  “Jeez, what a pain! You’re obsessed!”

  “As if I didn’t know you,” Fazio muttered, opening the door and going out.

  “Turn on the television, quick!” he ordered Enzo as soon as he entered the trattoria.

  The restaurateur looked at him in astonishment.

  “What is this? Every time you come in and it’s on, you want it turned off, and now that you find it off, you want it on?”

  “You can turn the sound off,” Montalbano conceded.

  Nicolò Zito kept his promise. At a certain point in the newscast (a collision between two tractor-trailors, a collapsed house, a man with his head split open for reasons that were unclear, a car on fire, a baby buggy overturned in the middle of the street, a woman tearing her hair out, a workman who fell from a scaffold, a man shot in a bar), the photo of Errera with the mustache appeared. Which meant all clear for Beba’s little drama sketch. Meanwhile, all those images on the screen had the effect of spoiling his appetite. Before going back to the office, he went on a consolatory walk to the lighthouse.

  The door crashed, the plaster fell, Montalbano jumped, Catarella appeared. Ritual over.

  “What the fuck! One of these days you’re going to bring down the whole building!”

  “I beck y’ partin and fuggiveness, Chief, but when I’m ousside y’ door, I git ixcited and my hand slips.”

  “What makes you so excited?”

  “Everyting ’bout you, Chief.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Pontius Pilate’s ’ere.”

  “Send him in. And hold all calls.”

  “Even from the c’mishner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even from Miss Livia?”

  “Cat, I’m not here for anyone, can you get that through your head or do I have to do it for you?”

  “Got it, Chief.”

  14

  Montalbano stood up to welcome the journalist and stopped halfway, dumbstruck. What appeared in the doorway had first looked to him like a gigantic, walking bouquet of irises. In reality, it turned out to be a man of about fifty, dressed entirely in shades of blue-violet, a kind of round little pipsqueak, with round face, round belly, round eyes, round glasses, round smile. The only thing not round was his mouth; the lips were so big and red that they looked fake, as though painted. The man could certainly have had great success as a clown in a circus. He shot forward like a top and held his hand out to the inspector, who, in order to shake it, had to stretch forward lengthwise, belly resting on the desktop.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” he said.

  The bouquet of irises sat down. Montalbano couldn’t believe his nostrils. The man even smelled like the flower. Cursing to himself, the inspector got ready to waste an hour of his time. Or maybe less. Surely he could think up some excuse to get rid of the guy. In fact, it was best to lay the groundwork immediately.

  “I’m very sorry, Mr. Pilate.”

  “Spàlato.”

  Blasted Catarella!

  “... Mr. Spàlato, you’ve caught me on an impossibly busy day. I’ve got very little time—”

  The journalist raised a plump little hand, which to the inspector’s surprise was not violet, but pink.

  “I understand perfectly. I’ll take up very little of your time. I wanted to begin with a question—”

  “No, let me ask a question first: why and about what did you wish to talk to me?”

  “Well, Inspector, a few nights ago I happened to be on the landing wharf at the port when two navy patrol boats were unloading some illegal immigrants and . . . I caught sight of you there.”

  “Oh, so that’s why?”

  “Yes. And I asked myself if there was any chance that a famous detective like you—”

  The man was mistaken. The first mention of praise and flattery always put Montalbano on his guard. He closed up like a sea urchin and became a ball of thorns.

  “Look, I was there entirely by chance. A question of eyeglasses.”

  “Eyeglasses?” the other said in astonishment. But then he gave a sly little smile. “I get it. You’re trying to throw me off the trail!”

  Montalbano stood up.

  “I told you the truth and you didn’t believe it. I think it would be a waste of my time and yours to proceed any further. Good day.”

  The bouquet of irises stood up, looking suddenly wilted. With his little hand he shook the inspector’s, which was held out to him.

  “Good day,” he sighed, shuffling towards the door.

  All of a sudden Montalbano felt sorry for him.

  “Listen, if you’re interested in the immigration problem, I can arrange for you to meet a colleague of mine who—”

  “You mean Commissioner Riguccio? Thanks, but I’ve already spoken to him. He only sees the larger problem of illegal immigration and nothing else.”

  “Why, is there some smaller problem we should be seeing inside a problem so large?”

  “Yes, if one is willing to see it.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “The trafficking of immigrant children,” said Fonso Spàlato, opening the door and going out.

  Exactly the way it happens in cartoons, two of the journalist’s words—“trafficking” and “children”—materialized in black, as though printed in midair, the rest of the room and everything in it having disappeared inside a kind of milky light, and after one millionth of a second the two words became intertwined, turning into two snakes that scuffled, fused, changed color, then metamorphosed into a luminous globe from which a kind of lightning rod shot forth and struck Montalbano between the eyes.

  “Jesus Christ!” he cried out, grabbing hold of the desk.

  In less than a second, all the scattered pieces of the puzzle swimming around in his head fell into place, fitting perfectly together. Then all went back to normal, and everything resumed its usual shape and color. What did not return to normal was the inspector himself, because he couldn’t move and his mouth stubbornly refused to open and call the journalist back. At last he managed to grab the telephone.

  “Stop that journalist!” he shouted hoarsely at Catarella.

  As he was sitting back down, wiping the sweat from his brow, he heard pandemonium break out on the street below. Somebody (it must have been Catarella) was yelling:

  “Stop, Pontius Pilate!”

  So
mebody else (it must have been the journalist) said:

  “What have I done? Let go of me!”

  A third person (obviously some asshole passing by) took advantage of the situation to cry out:

  “Down with the police!”

  At last the door to the inspector’s office flew open with a crash so loud that it visibly terrified the journalist who had just then appeared reluctantly in the doorway, pushed from behind by Catarella.

  “Nabbed him, Chief!”

  “What is going on? I don’t understand—”

  “My apologies, Mr. Spàlato. An unfortunate misunderstanding. Please sit down.”

  As Spàlato, more confused than convinced, came back in, the inspector brusquely commanded Catarella:

  “Go away and shut the door!”

  The iris bouquet collapsed in the chair, visibly withered. The inspector felt like spraying a little water on him to perk him up. But perhaps it was best to get right to the point that interested him, and make as though nothing had happened.

  “You were talking about a certain traffic . . .”

  Heri dicebamus. It worked like a charm. It didn’t even occur to Spàlato to demand an explanation for the absurd treatment he just been subjected to. In fresh bloom, he began.

  “You know nothing about it, Inspector?”

  “Nothing, I assure you. I would be very grateful if—”

  “Just last year—these are the official figures—no less than fifteen thousand minors unaccompanied by an adult relation were tracked down in Italy.”

  “Are you telling me they came over by themselves?”

  “So it would seem. Of these minors, we can omit, at the very least, more than half.”

  “Why?”

  “Because in the meantime they’ve come of age. Okay, nearly four thousand—a pretty high percentage, no?—came from Albania, the others from Romania, the former Yugoslavia, and Moldavia. To this number we must add some fifteen hundred from Morocco, and more still from Algeria, Turkey, Iraq, Bangladesh, and other countries. Getting a clear picture?”

  “Quite. Their ages?”

  “Right away.”

  He took a small sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket, reviewed it, then put it back in his pocket.