Treasure Hunt
Page 1
Praise for Andrea Camilleri and the Montalbano Series
“Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano mysteries might sell like hotcakes in Europe, but these world-weary crime stories were unknown here until the oversight was corrected (in Stephen Sartarelli’s salty translation) by the welcome publication of The Shape of Water. . . . This savagely funny police procedural . . . prove[s] that sardonic laughter is a sound that translates ever so smoothly into English.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Hailing from the land of Umberto Eco and La Cosa Nostra, Montalbano can discuss a pointy-headed book like Western Attitudes Toward Death as unflinchingly as he can pore over crime-scene snuff photos. He throws together an extemporaneous lunch of shrimp with lemon wedges and oil as gracefully as he dodges advances from attractive women.”—Los Angeles Times
“[Camilleri’s mysteries] offer quirky characters, crisp dialogue, bright storytelling—and Salvo Montalbano, one of the most engaging protagonists in detective fiction. . . . Montalbano is a delightful creation, an honest man on Sicily’s mean streets.”—USA Today
“Camilleri is as crafty and charming a writer as his protagonist is an investigator.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“Like Mike Hammer or Sam Spade, Montalbano is the kind of guy who can’t stay out of trouble. . . . Still, deftly and lovingly translated by Stephen Sartarelli, Camilleri makes it abundantly clear that under the gruff, sardonic exterior our inspector has a heart of gold, and that any outbursts, fumbles, or threats are made only in the name of pursuing truth.”—The Nation
“Camilleri can do a character’s whole backstory in half a paragraph.”—The New Yorker
“Subtle, sardonic, and molto simpatico: Montalbano is the Latin re-creation of Philip Marlowe, working in a place that manages to be both more and less civilized than Chandler’s Los Angeles.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Wit and delicacy and the fast-cut timing of farce play across the surface . . . but what keeps it from frothing into mere intellectual charm is the persistent, often sexually bemused Montalbano, moving with ease along zigzags created for him, teasing out threads of discrepancy that unravel the whole.”—Houston Chronicle
“Sublime and darkly humorous . . . Camilleri balances his hero’s personal and professional challenges perfectly and leaves the reader eager for more.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The Montalbano mysteries offer cose dolci to the world-lit lover hankering for a whodunit.”—The Village Voice
“In Sicily, where people do things as they please, Inspector Salvo Montalbano is a bona fide folk hero.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“The books are full of sharp, precise characterizations and with subplots that make Montalbano endearingly human. . . . Like the antipasti that Montalbano contentedly consumes, the stories are light and easily consumed, leaving one eager for the next course.”
—New York Journal of Books
“The reading of these little gems is fast and fun every step of the way.”—The New York Sun
“This series is distinguished by Camilleri’s remarkable feel for tragicomedy, expertly mixing light and dark in the course of producing novels that are both comforting and disturbing.”—Booklist
PENGUIN BOOKS
Photo credit: Elvira Giorgianni
TREASURE HUNT
Andrea Camilleri, a bestseller in Italy and Germany, is the author of the popular and New York Times bestselling Inspector Montalbano series, as well as historical novels set in nineteenth-century Sicily. The Montalbano series has been translated into thirty-two languages and was adapted for Italian television. The Potter’s Field, the thirteenth book in the series, was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association’s International Dagger for the best crime novel translated into English. He lives in Italy.
Stephen Sartarelli is an award-winning translator and the author of three books of poetry.
Also by Andrea Camilleri
The Shape of Water
The Terra-Cotta Dog
The Snack Thief
Voice of the Violin
Excursion to Tindari
The Smell of the Night
Rounding the Mark
The Patience of the Spider
The Paper Moon
August Heat
The Wings of the Sphinx
The Track of Sand
The Potter’s Field
The Age of Doubt
The Dance of the Seagull
To request Penguin Readers Guides by mail (while supplies last), please call (800) 778-6425 or e-mail reading@us.penguin.com. To access Penguin Readers Guides online, visit our Web site at www.penguin.com.
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published in Penguin Books 2013
Copyright © Sellerio Editore, 2010
Translation copyright © Stephen Sartarelli, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this product may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Originally published in Italian as La caccia al tesoro by Sellerio Editore, Palermo.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Camilleri, Andrea.
[Caccia al tesoro. English]
Treasure hunt / Andrea Camilleri ; Translated by Stephen Sartarelli.
pages cm—(A Penguin mystery)
“Originally published in Italian as La caccia al tesoro by Sellerio Editore, Palermo.”
ISBN 978-0-14-312262-3
ISBN 978-0-698-13628-1 (eBook)
I. Sartarelli, Stephen, 1954—translator. II. Title.
PQ4863.A3894C33313 2013
853'.914—dc23 2013016834
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
About the Author
Also by Andrea Camilleri
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Author’s Note
Notes
1
That Gregorio Palmisano and his sister Caterina had been churchy people since childhood was known all over town. They never missed a single morning or evening service, not a single Holy Mass or evening’s Vespers, and sometimes they even went to church for no reason other than the fact that they felt like it. For the Palmisanos, the faint scent of incense and candle wax lingering in the air after the Mass was better than the smell of ragù to a man who hadn’t eaten for ten days.
Always kneeling in the first pew, they didn’t bow their heads when praying, but held them h
igh, eyes open wide. But they weren’t looking at the great crucifix over the main altar or the Blessed Virgin in sorrow at its feet. No, they never once, not even for a second, took their eyes off the priest, and they watched his every move: the way he turned the pages of the Gospel, the way he gave his benediction, the way he raised his arms when he said Dominus vobiscum and then concluded with Ite, missa est.
The truth of the matter was that they would have both liked to be priests themselves, to wear surplices, stoles, and vestments, to open the little door of the tabernacle, hold the silver chalice in their hands, administer Holy Communion to the faithful. Both of them, Caterina, too.
In fact when, as a little girl, she told her mother, Matilde, what she wanted to do when she grew up, her mamma firmly corrected her:
“You mean a nun,” she said.
“No, Mamma, a priest.”
“What? And why do you want to be a priest but not a nun?” Signura Matilde asked with a laugh.
“Because the priest gets to say Mass, and the nuns don’t.”
In the end they were both forced to work for their father, who was a wholesaler of foodstuffs, which he kept crammed in three large warehouses, one right next to the other.
After their parents died, Gregorio and Caterina changed merchandise, and instead of pasta, cans of tomato preserves, and salted stockfish, they started selling antiques. It was Gregorio’s job to go around to the oldest churches in the neighboring towns and the half-dilapidated palazzi of nobles once rich and now starving. One of their three warehouses was chock-full of crucifixes, ranging from the kind you hang from your neck on a chain to the life-size variety. There were even three or four naked crosses, huge, heavy replicas of the original, designed for being carried on the shoulder of a penitent during Holy Week processions, as Roman centurions scourged him.
When he turned seventy (she was sixty-eight at the time), they sold the three warehouses, but they’d taken a certain quantity of objects one night to their home on the top floor of a building next to city hall. It was a big apartment with six spacious rooms and a terrace, which the two never used, too big for a brother and sister who had never wanted to marry and who didn’t even have any nephews or nieces.
Their religious obsession increased with the reality of no longer having anything to do. They went out only to go to church, always side by side, walking fast, heads down, never returning greetings, only to race back home afterwards and lock themselves in, shutters always closed, as if they were eternally in mourning.
The grocery shopping was done by a woman who used to clean the warehouses for them, but they never allowed her into their apartment. In the morning the woman would find a small piece of paper tacked to the door, on which Caterina had written everything she needed, and the money necessary under the doormat.
When she returned, she would set the shopping bags down on the floor, knock on the door, and call out, before leaving:
“The groceries!”
They didn’t own a television, and when they were still antiques dealers, nobody had ever seen them reading a book or a newspaper, but only the breviary, the way priests do.
After about ten years of this, something changed. The Palmisanos stopped going outside, stopped going to church, and never looked out from their balcony, not even when the procession of the town’s patron saint went by.
Their only contact, oral or written, with the outside world was with the woman who did the shopping for them.
One morning the people of Vigàta noticed that between the first and second balconies of the Palmisanos’ flat, they had hung a large white banner with the words, written in large block letters:
SINNERS, REPENT!
A week later, between the second and third balconies, another banner appeared:
SINNERS, WE WILL PUNISH YOU!
The following week a third one materialized, but this time it covered the entire terrace balustrade and was the largest of all:
WE WILL MAKE YOU PAY FOR YOUR SINS WITH YOUR LIFE!!!
Once he saw the third banner, Montalbano got worried.
“Don’t make me laugh!” Mimì Augello said to him. “They’re a couple of senile old dotards who happen to be religious fanatics!”
“Bah!”
“What makes you so concerned?”
“The exclamation points. There are suddenly three, where before there was one.”
“So?”
“It may be a sign that they’re giving the sinners a deadline, and this is the last warning.”
“But who would these sinners happen to be?”
“We’re all sinners, Mimì. Have you forgotten? Do you know whether Gregorio Palmisano has a firearms license?”
“I’ll go and check.”
He returned almost immediately, slightly frowning.
“Yes, he’s got a license all right. He requested it when he was dealing antiques and it was granted. A revolver. But he also declared two hunting rifles and a pistol that used to belong to his father.”
“Listen, tomorrow I want you to ask Fazio what church they used to go to, and then go and talk to the parish priest.”
“But the guy’s sworn to the secrecy of the confessional!”
“And you’re not going to ask him to reveal any secrets; you only need to find out just how far gone he thinks they are, and whether he thinks their madness is dangerous or not. In the meantime I’ll phone the mayor.”
“What for?”
“I want him to send a municipal cop to the Palmisanos’ place to take down those banners.”
Officer Landolina of the Municipal Police showed up at the Palmisano home at seven in the evening. Since the Palermo soccer match was coming on TV right after the evening news, he wanted to take care of things early, go back home, eat, and settle into his armchair.
He knocked on the door, but nobody answered. Since Landolina, a stubborn but scrupulous man, didn’t want to waste any time, he not only continued knocking as hard as he could, with his clenched fist, but also started kicking the door until the voice of an elderly man called out:
“Who is it?”
“Police! Open the door!”
“No.”
“Open the door right now!”
“Go away, Officer, if you know what’s good for you!”
“Don’t you threaten me! Open up!”
Gregorio stopped threatening him and simply fired his revolver once through the door.
The bullet grazed Landolina’s head, whereupon he turned tail and ran.
After descending the stairs and going out into the main street, the officer saw people fleeing in every direction amidst cries and laments, curses and prayers. From two separate balconies, Gregorio and Caterina had started firing rifles at passersby below.
Thus began the siege of the Palmisanos’ little fortress by the forces of order—that is, by Montalbano, Augello, Fazio, Gallo, and Galluzzo. The crowd of onlookers was large but kept at a distance by municipal cops. After an hour of this, the newspapermen and television crews also showed up.
By ten o’clock that evening, seeing that not even their priest, equipped with a bullhorn, could persuade his two elderly parishioners to surrender, Montalbano came to the conclusion that they would have to storm the tiny stronghold. He sent Fazio out to determine how they might reach the terrace, whether from the roof or from some neighboring apartment. After an hour of careful reconnaissance, Fazio returned to say that it was hopeless: there was no way to reach the roof from any of the other apartments or to approach the Palmisanos’ terrace.
The inspector then rang Catarella from his cell phone.
“Call the Montelusa fire department at once—”
“Izz ’ere a fire, Chief?”
“Let me finish! And tell them to come here at once with a ladder that can reach six stories high.”
“So there’s a fire onna six floor?”
“There isn’t any fire!”
“So why’s you want the fire department?” Catarella asked with i
mplacable logic.
Cursing the saints, the inspector hung up, dialed the fire department himself, identified himself, and explained what he wanted.
“Right away?” the switchboard operator asked.
“Of course!”
“The problem is that the two vehicles equipped with ladders are occupied at the moment. They could probably be in Vigàta in about an hour. As for the searchlight, there’s no problem. I’ll send the crew right away.”
Right away meant another hour wasted.
Every so often the Palmisanos would fire a few shots with their rifles and pistols, just to stay sharp. At last the searchlight arrived, got into position, and cast its beam. The entire façade of the building was bathed in a harsh blue light.
“Thank you, Inspector!” the television cameramen cried out.
It looked exactly as if they were shooting a film.
The ladder, however, didn’t arrive until after one o’clock in the morning, and was promptly extended until it touched the balustrade covered by the banner.
“All right, I’m going up,” said Montalbano. “Fazio, you come up behind me. And Mimì, you go inside with Gallo and Galluzzo and wait outside their door. While I’m keeping them busy on the terrace, I want you to try to force their door and get inside.”
No sooner had the inspector set his foot down on the first rung than Gregorio suddenly appeared from behind the banner and fired his pistol. And then disappeared. Montalbano ran for cover in a building entrance and said to Fazio:
“I think it’s better if I go up alone. You stay behind on the ground and start firing to give me some cover.”
As soon as Fazio fired his first shot, tearing a hole in the banner, the inspector climbed the first rung. He was gripping the ladder with only his left hand, since he had his revolver in his right.
He continued climbing cautiously. He’d reached the height of the fifth floor when suddenly, despite Fazio’s gunfire, Gregorio Palmisano reappeared and fired a shot from his revolver that barely missed the inspector.
Montalbano instinctively ducked his head between his shoulders, and in so doing he caught sight of the street below. All at once a cold sweat drenched him from head to toe and he began to feel so dizzy he was in danger of falling. A surge of vomit rose up from the pit of his stomach. He realized that he was in the throes of vertigo, something he’d never experienced before. And now, no doubt with the onset of old age, it suddenly appeared at the worst possible moment.