IM5 Excursion to Tindari (2005)

by Andrea Camilleri

  “What’s good tonight, Calò?”

  “Looky here,” Calogero replied proudly, pointing to the refrigerated display case.

  Death strikes fish in the eyes, turning them milky. The eyes on these fish were bright and sparkly, like they were still swimming in water.

  “Grill me four bass.”

  “No first course?”

  “No. What have you got for appetizers?”

  “Purpiteddri that’ll melt in your mouth. You won’t need to use your teeth.”

  It was true. The baby octopi, tender in the extreme, dissolved in his mouth. With the bass, after sprinkling it with a few drops of “carter’s dressing”—olive oil seasoned with garlic and hot pepper—he took his time.

  The inspector had two ways to eat fish. The first, which he used reluctantly and only when he had little time, was to bone it, gather all the edible parts on his plate, and then set about eating them. The second, which gave him far more satisfaction, consisted of earning every single bite, removing the bones as he went along. It took longer, true, but that additional bit of time served to smooth the way, so to speak. As one was cleaning each already dressed bite, the brain would preactivate the senses of taste and smell so that one seemed to eat the fish twice.

  By the time he got up from the table, it was nine-thirty. He decided to take a stroll to the port. The truth of the matter was that he had no desire to see what he was expecting to see in Via Cavour. Some large trucks were being loaded onto the mail boat for Sampedusa. Few passengers, no tourists. It wasn’t the season yet. He dawdled for an hour or so, then made up his mind.

  Entering Nenè Sanfilippo’s apartment, he made sure the windows were well shuttered and let no light filter out, then went into the kitchen. Sanfilippo had, among other things, the essentials for making coffee, and Montalbano used the largest pot he could find, a four-cupper. As the coffee was boiling, he had a look around the apartment. Beside the computer, the one Catarella had worked on, was a shelf full of diskettes, CD-ROMS, CDs, and videocassettes. Catarella had put the computer disks in order and had stuck in a little piece of paper on which he’d written in block letters: DIRTY DISQUETTES. Porno stuff, therefore. Montalbano counted the videocassettes, thirty in all. Fifteen had been bought at a sex shop and had colorful labels and unambiguous titles; five had been recorded by Nenè himself and each given a different woman’s name: Laura, Renée, Paola, Giulia, and Samantha. The other ten were commercial movie cassettes, all strictly American, and all with titles promising sex and violence. He took out the cassettes with the women’s names and brought them into the bedroom, where Nenè Sanfilippo had an enormous television screen. The coffee was stale. He drank one cup, went back to the bedroom, took off his jacket and shoes, inserted the first cassette he came across, Samantha, stretched out on the bed, putting two pillows behind his head, and turned on the tape as he lit himself a cigarette.

  The set consisted of a double bed, the same one that Montalbano was lying on. The shot was a fixed-frame. The camera still sat in position on the chest of drawers in front of him, ready for another erotic take that would never happen. Higher up, directly above the bureau, were two small floodlights, properly aimed, that would be turned on at the appointed time. The specialty of this Samantha, a redhead barely five foot one, tended towards the acrobatic. She moved about so much and assumed positions so complex that she often ended up off-camera. Nenè Sanfilippo, in this sort of general review of the Kama Sutra, seemed perfectly at ease. The audio was terrible. The few words spoken could barely be heard. In compensation, the moans, grunts, sighs, and groans boomed forth at full volume, like television commercials. The entire viewing took forty-five minutes. Falling victim to a lethal boredom, the inspector put in the second cassette, Renée. It barely gave him time to notice that the set was exactly the same and that Renée was a girl of about twenty, very tall and very thin but with enormous tits, and in full possession of all her body hair. He didn’t feel like watching the whole tape, and the thought passed through his mind that he could use the fast-forward on the remote, stopping here and there to watch. It was only a fleeting thought, however, because no sooner did he see Nenè begin to penetrate Renée doggy-style than an irresistible wave of lethargy hit him in the head like a crowbar, forcing him to shut his eyes and plunging him irremediably into a leaden sleep. His last thought was that there is no better soporific than pornography.

  He woke up with a start, unable to understand whether he’d been roused by a screaming Renée in the throes of an earth-shaking orgasm or by the violent kicking at the front door as the doorbell rang without interruption. What was happening? Groggy with sleep, he got up, turned off the tape, and, heading towards the door to open up just as he was—disheveled, in shirtsleeves, trousers falling down (but when had he unfastened them to get more comfortable?), barefoot—he heard a voice he did not immediately recognize shout:

  “Open up! Police!”

  This completed his confusion. Wasn’t he the police?

  He opened the door, to his horror. The first thing he saw was Mimi Augello in proper firing position (knees bent, ass slightly protruding, arms extended, both hands wrapped around the butt of the pistol), behind him the widow Concetta Lo Mascolo (née Burgio), and behind her a throng of people crammed onto the landing and both staircases, above and below. At a single glance he recognized the entire Crucillà family (the father Stefano, retired, in a nightshirt, his wife in a terry cloth bathrobe, the daughter Samanta—this one without the h—in a provocative long sweater); Mr. Mistretta in underpants and Guinea-T with, inexplicably, his misshapen black tote bag in hand; and Pasqualino De Dominicis, the child arsonist, between his poppy in pajamas and his mommy Gina in a baby-doll nightie that was as gauzy as it was outdated.

  At the sight of the inspector, two phenomena occurred: time stopped and everyone turned to stone. The widow Concetta Lo Mascolo (née Burgio) took advantage of this to improvise a dramatic monologue that was part didactic, part explanatory.

  “Madonna mia, Madonna mia, what a terrible fright! I’d just drifted off to sleep when all of sudden I thought I was hearing the same symphony I heard when the dear departed was alive! The slut going ah ah ah ah, with him making like a pig! Exactly like before! What! A ghost comes back to his house and brings his slut back with him? An’ he starts—excuse my language—he starts fucking like he’s still alive? It chilled my bones, I tell you! Scared to death, I was! So I called the cops. The last thing I could’ve imagined was that it was Mr. Inspector, come to do his personal business right here! The last thing!”

  The conclusion reached by the widow Concetta Lo Mascolo (née Burgio), which was shared by all present, rested on ironclad logic. Montalbano, already lost at sea, hadn’t the strength to react. He stood in the doorway, in shock. It was Mimi Augello who finally reacted. Putting his gun back in his holster, he pushed the inspector violently back inside the apartment with one hand and at the same time started yelling so loudly that the tenants began to flee at once.

  “That’s enough! Go back to bed! Move it! There’s nothing to see here!”

  Then, closing the door behind him, dark-faced, he came towards the inspector.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, bringing a woman in here! Tell her to come out, so we can think of a way to get her out of the building without triggering another insurrection.”

  Montalbano didn’t answer, but went into the bedroom, followed by Mimi.

  “Is she hiding in the bathroom?” asked Augello.

  The inspector turned the tape back on, lowering the volume.

  “There’s the girl,” he said.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. Augello gawked at the television screen, then suddenly collapsed into a chair.

  “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”

  Montalbano pushed the freeze-frame button.

  “Mimi, the fact of the matter is that we took on the Sanfilippo and Griffo murders, you and I both, without getting involved, neglecting certain things
that needed to be done. Maybe we’ve got too many other things on our minds to think clearly. We’re more concerned with our personal lives than with the investigations. End of story. We’re starting over. Did you ever ask yourself why Sanfilippo stored the correspondence with his lover on his computer?”

  “No, but since he was in that line of work, computers, that is ...”

  “Have you ever received any love letters, Mimi?”

  “Sure.”

  “And what did you do with them?”

  “I kept some and got rid of the rest.”

  “Why?”

  “Because some were important and—‘ ”

  “Stop right there. They were ‘important,’ you say. Important because of their contents, of course, but also because of the way they were written: the handwriting, the mistakes, the words crossed out, the capital letters, the paragraph breaks, the color of the paper, the address on the envelope ... In short, when you looked at that letter you could easily call to mind the person who had written it. True or not?”

  “True.”

  “But if you copy it onto a computer, that letter loses all value—well, maybe not all value, but most of it. It also loses its value as evidence.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You can’t very well have the handwriting analyzed, can you? But, anyway, having printed copies of letters in the computer is still better than nothing.”

  “I don’t follow, sorry.”

  “Let’s assume Sanfilippo’s liaison is a dangerous one, not in the same sense as Laclos, of course, but—”

  “Who’s this Laclos?”

  “Never mind. I mean dangerous in the sense where, if discovered, it could mean trouble, or death. Nenè Sanfilippo may have said to himself that, if we’re caught, it might save our lives if I can produce the original correspondence. In short, he copies the letters onto the computer and then leaves the sheaf of originals in some obvious place, ready for an exchange.”

  “Which never took place, since the originals have disappeared and he was killed just the same.”

  “Right. But I’m convinced of one thing, and that is, that Sanfilippo, though he knew he was courting danger by getting involved with this woman, underestimated the danger itself. I have the impression—it’s just an impression, mind you—that we’re dealing with more than some jealous husband’s revenge. But to continue, I said to myself if Sanfilippo is depriving himself of the suggestive possibilities of a handwritten letter, is it possible he didn’t keep at least a photograph or some kind of image of his mistress? And that’s when I thought of the videocassettes.”

  “And so you came here to look at them.”

  “Yes, but I forgot that the minute I start watching a porno movie, I fall asleep. I was looking at the ones he recorded himself, in this room, with different women. But I don’t think he would be so stupid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that he must have taken some precautions to prevent others from immediately discovering who she is.”

  “Salvo, maybe it’s because it’s late, but—”

  “Mimi, there are thirty cassettes here, and they all need to be looked at.”

  “All of them?!”

  “Yes, and I’ll explain why. There are three different kinds of cassettes here. Five recorded by Sanfilippo, documenting his exploits with five different women. Fifteen are porno cassettes he bought somewhere. And ten are home videos of American movies. As I said, they must all be looked at.”

  “I still haven’t understood why we need to waste all this time. You can’t record anything on commercially sold cassettes, whether they’re normal films or porno.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You can.You need only tinker with the cassette a certain way. Nicolò explained it to me once. Sanfilippo may have resorted to this method, you see. He takes the tape of some film, say, Cleopatra, he lets it run for fifteen minutes, then he stops it and begins recording whatever it is he wants to record over it. And what happens next? When an outsider puts the tape in the VCR, he thinks he’s watching Cleopatra, so he stops it, takes it out, and puts in another. Whereas that tape contained the very thing they were looking for. Is that clear now?”

  “Clear enough,” said Mimì. “Or enough to convince me to look at all the tapes. Even using the fast-forward, it’s still going to be a long haul.”

  “You’ll have to grin and bear it,” was Montalbano’s comment.

  He slipped on his shoes, tied the laces, and put on his jacket.

  “Why are you getting dressed?” asked Augello.

  “Because I’m going home. And you’re staying here. Besides, you have an idea who the woman might be.You’re the only person who would recognize her. If you find her on one of these tapes, and I’m sure you will, call me at once, no matter the hour. Have fun.”

  He left the room, with Mimì unable to open his mouth.

  As he was going down the stairs, he heard doors carefully opening on different floors: the tenants of Via Cavour 44 had stayed up waiting for the fiery woman who’d had sex with the inspector to come out. They would lose a night’s sleep.

  On the streets there wasn’t a soul. A cat came out from a building and gave him a meow of greeting. Montalbano reciprocated with a “Ciao, how are you?” The cat took a liking to him and followed him for two blocks. Then it turned back. The night air was beginning to dispel his somnolence. His car was parked in front of headquarters. A shaft of light filtered out from under the closed front door. He rang the bell, and Catarella came and opened up.

  “What is it, Chief? You a need anyting?”

  “Were you asleep?”

  Just inside the entrance was the switchboard and a tiny room with a cot, where whoever was on duty could lie down.

  “No sir, Chief, I was figgerin’ out a crassword puzzle.”

  “The one you’ve been working on for two months?”

  Catarella beamed proudly.

  “No, Chief, that one I already figgered out. I started a bran new one.”

  Montalbano went into his office. There was a packet on his desk, which he opened. Inside were the photos of the excursion to Tindari.

  He began looking at them. They all showed smiling faces, de rigueur on these sorts of outings. Faces he now knew after seeing them at the station. The only people not smiling were the Griffos, of whom there were only two photos. In the first, the husband’s head was half-turned around, to look out the rear window of the coach. The wife, on the other hand, was staring at the camera with a blank look on her face. In the second photo, she was leaning her head forward and one couldn’t see her expression, while he was staring straight ahead, with no light in his eyes.

  Montalbano looked at the first snapshot again. Then he started searching through his drawers, with increasing frenzy as he realized he couldn’t find what he was looking for.

  “Catarella!”

  Catarella came running.

  “Have you got a magnifying glass?”

  “The kind that makes things look all biglike?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Fazio maybe’s got one in ‘is desk.”

  He came back holding the glass triumphantly in the air.

  “Got it, Chief.”

  The car photographed through the rear window, practically glued to the back of the bus, was a Fiat Punto. Like one of Nenè Sanfilippo’s cars. The license plate was visible, but Montalbano was unable to make out the letters and numbers, not even with the help of the magnifying glass. There was probably no point getting one’s hopes up. How many Fiat Puntos were there driving around Italy?

  He slipped the photo in his jacket pocket, said good-bye to Catarella, and got in his car. He felt like he needed a good night’s sleep.

  11

  He slept hardly at all, three meager hours of twisting and turning in bed, with the sheet wrapped around him as on a mummy. From time to time he would turn on the light and study the photo, which he’d put on the nightstand, as if some mir
acle might occur and suddenly make his eyesight so keen as to let him decipher the license number of the Punto following behind the bus. He knew by sense of smell, like a hunting dog pointing at a shrub of sorghum, that therein lay the key that would open the right door. The ring of the phone at six was like a liberation. It had to be Mimi. He picked up the receiver.

  “Did I wake you, Chief?”

  It was Fazio, not Mimi.

  “No, Fazio, don’t worry about it. Did you go to confession?”

  “Yes I did. And he gave me the usual penance, five Hail Marys and three Our Fathers.”

  “Was anything decided?”

  “Yessir. It’s confirmed. It’s gonna happen at nightfall. So, we’re supposed to go—”

  “Wait, don’t talk about it over the phone. Go and get some sleep. I’ll see you at the office around eleven.”

  He thought of Mimì losing sleep watching Nenè Sanfilippo’s home videos. It was better for him to stop and also go home to get a few hours’ sleep. The business that awaited them at nightfall wasn’t to be taken lightly. They all needed to be in the best shape possible. Fine, but he didn’t have Nenè Sanfilippo’s phone number. Christ, calling Catarella and trying to get it from him—since the number was surely lying about somewhere at the station—was out of the question. Fazio must know it. He was heading home and the inspector could reach him on his cell phone. Fine, except that he didn’t have Fazio’s cell phone number. As for Sanfilippo’s number being in the phone book, hah! He opened the directory listlessly, and just as listlessly began searching for the number. It was there. But why, when looking for a number, does one always start from the premise that it’s not in the phone book? Mimi answered on the third ring.

  “Who’s this?”

  Mimì had answered in a low, cautious voice. Apparently he’d been thinking that the only person who might call would be a friend of Sanfilippo. Treacherously, Montalbano egged him on. He was brilliant at changing the sound of his voice, and assumed the tone of a belligerent punk.