Death at Sea: Montalbano's Early Cases

by Andrea Camilleri

  “You’re right!” said Fazio, slapping himself loudly on the forehead.

  “Now, say the signora takes down a number at random and manages to find out that the car belongs to someone named Michele Turrisi, and so she decides to send him a nice little blackmail letter, pretending that it’s Pamela who’s writing it. The problem is that Signora Insalaco’s an idiot and is making a huge mistake. She has no idea who she’s dealing with.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “I’m going to scare her out of her wits, so she knows how Pamela felt. But in a different way.”

  “What are you going to say to her?”

  “I’ll improvise, based on how she responds. Gimme her number.”

  He turned on the speakerphone, and as soon as the widow picked up, Montalbano started talking in a breathless, panting voice.

  “Signora Insalaco? Inspector Montalbano here.”

  “But I was just falling asleep!”

  “For heaven’s sake, don’t! Try to remain as awake as possible! For your own good! Did you hear about Pamela on television?”

  “I only use the TV to watch movies.”

  “So you didn’t hear? Well, signora, listen to me very carefully. I want you to do exactly what I tell you. Your very life may depend on it. Got that? Your life.”

  “My life? Oh, my God! What happened? Oh, dear God! Oh, my blessed little Jesus! But what happened?”

  “Pamela was kidnapped by a mafioso, a cold-blooded killer, named Michele Turrisi, who mistakenly believed that the girl was trying to blackmail him. Pamela managed to convince him it wasn’t true, so Turrisi let her go and she came to us. And she told us that Turrisi is now convinced that you wrote the letter of blackmail, Signora Insalaco, and he’s on his way to your house now to kill you.”

  “Oh, matre santa! He’s gonna kill me! Help! Help! Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, please save my soul! I’m gonna die!”

  “No, signora, don’t scream, don’t cry, just listen to me. Don’t open your door to anyone. Just pack a small suitcase with a few items and we’ll be at your place in fifteen minutes. We’ll take you somewhere safe.”

  “Oh, hurry, please! Oh, matruzza santa, help me!”

  “Oh, and be sure to bring the note that Turrisi wrote to Pamela. And try to calm down. Don’t worry, we’ll get there in time to protect you. But I repeat: Don’t open the door to anyone but me.”

  And he hung up.

  “Now comes the second act of the comedy. We have to pull up at the signora’s house at maximum speed with the sirens on full blast and come to a screeching halt. We’ll get out of the car brandishing our revolvers, and as soon as she opens the door, you’re going to grab her and put her in the car, while I get the suitcase and close the door.”

  “Where we gonna take her?”

  “To the station.”

  * * *

  The whole thing went a little differently, in that as soon as the widow opened the door and saw the inspector, she fainted from the stress. It took both of them to load her into the car. But even at the station she couldn’t stop crying desperately. Montalbano threw fuel on the fire by telling her about all of Turrisi’s wicked deeds, making them up as he went along, stuff straight out of a horror film.

  In the end, Rosalia Insalaco confessed that it was she who had written the letter.

  And she gave Montalbano the note that she’d found among Pamela’s papers and stolen.

  It said:

  To Pamela,

  In memory of the loving nights we spent together, I give you this necklace.

  Michele Turrisi

  The inspector put it in his pocket and said to Fazio:

  “Please take the signora into your office. I have to make a phone call.”

  He dialed a number at Montelusa Central Police.

  “Barresi? Montalbano here. Listen, if you could come over to my office, I’ll tell you who killed Ernesta Bianchi and why. It was a double mistake. No, I’m not joking. And try to hurry, ’cause I’m a little tired.”

  THE TRANSACTION

  1

  Montalbano was fed up. He couldn’t take it any longer. After glancing at his watch—it was almost twenty past five in the afternoon—he looked at Augello and Fazio, who were sitting in front of his desk, also feeling fed up.

  “Boys,” he said, “we’ve been talking about this question of night shifts for over two hours without arriving at any solution. But I have a great idea I want to propose.”

  He never had a chance to propose his great idea, however, because a bomb, surely thrown in through the open window, went off in the room, deafening them all.

  Or, more precisely, such was the terrible impression all three of them had. At any rate, Fazio fell out of his chair, Augello threw himself forward onto the floor, shielding his head with his hands, and the inspector found himself kneeling behind his desk.

  “Anyone hurt?” Montalbano asked a moment later.

  “Not me,” said Augello.

  “Me neither,” said Fazio.

  They fell silent.

  Because, as they were saying this, they all realized that it wasn’t a bomb that had made that frightening boom, but the door to Montalbano’s office, which, flung open, had crashed against the wall.

  And, indeed, in the doorway stood Catarella, who this time did not, however, “papologize” or “beck their parting,” but merely excused himself, saying his hand had slipped.

  He was red in the face and trembling all over, his eyes so goggled they looked like they were about to pop out of his head.

  “Th-th-they-sh-sh-shat-th-th-the-po-po-pope!” he said in a voice that came out very shrill, like one of the Flying Squad’s sirens.

  And he started weeping uncontrollably.

  None of the three, ears still ringing from the boom, understood a thing. But clearly something terrible had happened.

  Montalbano went up to him, put his arm on his shoulder, and spoke paternally to him.

  “Come on, Cat, get ahold of yourself.”

  Meanwhile Fazio brought a glass of water, and Montalbano made Catarella drink it. It seemed to calm him down.

  “Sit down,” Fazio said to him, indicating his chair.

  Catarella shook his head in refusal. He would never sit in Montalbano’s presence.

  “Speak slowly and tell us what happened,” said Augello.

  “They shot the pope,” said Catarella.

  He said it quite clearly. It was the others who didn’t understand or couldn’t believe what they’d heard.

  “What did you say?!” asked Montalbano.

  “They shot the pope,” Catarella repeated.

  The others remained spellbound for a few seconds. The pope couldn’t possibly have been shot. It was inconceivable, and their brains, in fact, were refusing to accept the news.

  “But where did you hear it?” the inspector asked.

  “Onna radio.”

  Without saying a word, all three raced into Augello’s office, where there was a television set. Augello turned it on. A reporter was saying that John Paul II, while standing up in his automobile, greeting the faithful in St. Peter’s Square, had been struck by two shots from a revolver, one in the left hand and the other in his intestine. The latter injury was very serious. The pope had been taken to the Gemelli hospital. The gunman had tried to escape but was stopped by the crowd. He was a Turk of twenty-three by the name of Mehmet Ali Agca and belonged to a dangerous nationalist group called the Grey Wolves.

  They remained glued to the TV set until half past seven, hoping to find out more. But they didn’t learn anything else, other than the fact that the pope was teetering between life and death.

  “Do you understand any of this?” Fazio asked Montalbano.

  “Not a thing. But it’s starting to look like a bad year. Between the Maf
ia, the P2, the Sindona case, the negotiations with the Camorra in Naples over the liberation of Ciro Cirillo, and now this Turk shooting the pope . . .”

  “Maybe it’s the KGB getting even for all the chaos in Poland,” Augello ventured.

  “Anything’s possible,” said Montalbano.

  * * *

  Driving through town on his way to Marinella, he noticed that there were very few people on the streets, no doubt all at home in front of their television sets. When he got home, he realized he wasn’t hungry.

  Montalbano was not a man of the church. In fact, he considered himself an agnostic and generally didn’t like priests. Still, this whole affair seemed rather ugly and upset him. And, truth be told, he felt scared. Because he was unable to understand what kind of motives anyone could have for wanting to assassinate the pope.

  Was somebody trying to trigger a religious war? Was it the act of a lone madman? Or was it an international plot, the aims and possible consequences of which remained unknown?

  He went and looked for a portable radio, small but powerful, which he’d bought a year earlier. It picked up stuff from all over the world. Taking it out onto the veranda, he turned it on. There wasn’t a single station that wasn’t talking about the attack, and even if the report was in Ostrogothic, at a certain point he would hear the word “pope” or the pope’s name. But there was no news on the Vatican Radio. They were praying.

  He spent some two hours in this fashion. Then he got up, went into the kitchen, made himself a salami sandwich, and went back out onto the veranda to eat it.

  He kept listening to the radio until Livia called him just before midnight.

  “Have you heard the awful news?”

  “Of course.”

  “What do you think?”

  “No idea.”

  “Listen, I wanted to confirm that I’ll be arriving on the four o’clock flight tomorrow.”

  “I’ll come and pick you up at the airport.”

  “No, why bother? There’s a perfectly decent bus service. But if you want, you can come and pick me up in Montelusa. The bus gets in at six-thirty.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there.”

  They talked a little while longer, exchanged kisses over the phone, and wished each other good night. When he got into bed, Montalbano set the alarm for six.

  * * *

  The first thing he did when he woke up was to turn on the radio, and he learned that the operation on the pope had gone well. Feeling relieved, he went and opened the French door to the veranda. The day promised to be friendly, the sea was smooth as a mirror, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. He went into the kitchen and made coffee, drank down a mugful, smoked a cigarette on the veranda, then shut himself in the bathroom.

  When he came back out, he was surprised to find Adelina standing in front of him.

  “Why so early?”

  “Since I wenna the early Mass to pray f’the pope, I decided a come anna givva the house a nice-a goo’ cleanup.”

  “Good idea, because Livia’s coming this evening to stay for a few days.”

  “Ah . . .” said Adelina.

  She turned her back to him and went into the kitchen. Montalbano stood there, speechless. Clearly she was not pleased that Livia was coming. But why? What had happened between the two women? He decided that the matter should be cleared up at once. But when he went into the kitchen, Adelina didn’t give him any time to open his mouth.

  “Isspector, I’m a-sorry, bu’ less-a spick-a clearly. I’m a-no’ gonna come ’ere onna days whenna young-a lady’s ’ere.”

  “But why not?”

  “’Cause iss-a betta tha’ way.”

  “But did something happen?”

  “Nuttin’ an’ everytin’.”

  “Care to explain?”

  “Wha’ss t’asplain? We jess donna get along. She never like-a nuttin’ I do. Iss never good enow. First issa bedsheet ’a’ss no’ tight enow, ’enn issa bat’robe a’ss no’ inna righ’ place, ’enn iss a li’l bitta dust behine a TV . . . An’ fuhgettabou’ my cookin’! ’Ere’s always too mucha salt, too li’l oil, anna so on . . . An’ she herself donno even how ta cook a egg!”

  On this last point, she was right.

  “All right, now that you’ve got that off your chest . . .” Montalbano began.

  “Now I gettit offa my chest iss no’ gonna change-a nuttin’,” Adelina said, interrupting him. “Iffa you like, I canna senn my cousin ’Gnazia for as long as a young-a lady’s’ere.”

  “Does she cook as well as you?”

  “Isspector, nobody cooka like-a me!”

  Montalbano thought it over for a moment.

  “Let’s do this. Send your cousin ’Gnazia just to clean the house.”

  “An’ what about eatin’?”

  “This morning you can make some cold dishes for us to eat in the evening. After all, Livia won’t be staying for more than three days.”

  “An’ what abou’ lunch?”

  “I’ll take her out to a trattoria.”

  “Okay,” said Adelina. “I can do that.”

  At that moment the telephone rang. Montalbano went and picked up.

  “Beckin’ yer partin’ f’callin’ so oily inna mornin’,” said Catarella.

  “Something happen?”

  “Wha’ happen izzat ’ere was a boiglery.”

  “Did you inform Augello and Fazio?”

  “Yessir, ’ey’re already onna scene.”

  “Well, then, in that case . . .”

  “Nah, nah, Chief, ya don’ wanna take it too easy. Inso-much as how that Fazio juss called sayin’ as how i’ ’d be better if you was onna scene, too.”

  What?! His two detectives couldn’t handle a simple burglary on their own? Montalbano huffed, but he couldn’t very well back down.

  “What’s the address?”

  “Via del Corso, stree’ nummer toity-eight.”

  He ran into Adelina in the hallway. She was on her way out.

  “Where are you going?”

  “If I gotta cooka fuh tree days I’s best a-go shoppin’.”

  “I’ll give you a lift.”

  In the car, Adelina started talking about Livia again.

  “Isspector, sir, you gotta ’scuse me for talkin’ like I do, but I din’t wanna talk about it wit’ the young lady, so . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it, Adelí. The less we talk about it, the better.”

  * * *

  Driving down the Corso, he realized something he hadn’t noticed before. Which was that a grocery store and a wine shop had disappeared and been replaced by two banks. Was there really so much money in town that they needed to open two new bank branches?

  Then, as if it had been scripted, number 38, Via del Corso, corresponded to one of the banks that hadn’t been there before. A fancy sign, with neon tubes that lit up at night, announced that this was the Farmers’ Bank of Montelusa.

  He got out of the car. The rolling shutter was pulled almost down to the ground and showed no signs of having been forced. He tried to raise it, made an extra effort, but wasn’t able. He rang the doorbell, which was on the wall under a plaque that also bore the bank’s name.

  Moments later a man’s voice asked:

  “Who is it?”

  “Inspector Montalbano, police.”

  “I’ll come and open up.”

  In a flash the shutter rose halfway. It must have functioned electrically. Montalbano bent down and passed under it.

  In front of him he found a heavy armored door that worked by number combination, to be keyed in on a telephone-style touchpad. The door was open just enough to allow a person to enter.

  They protected themselves well, at this bank.

  There to receive him was an emaciated man of about fifty, all dressed in blac
k and wearing a melancholy expression. He would have fit in better at a funeral home.

  “Hello, I’m ragioniere Cascino. Downright shameful, don’t you think?”

  What was so shameful? The burglary? Did he have such a lofty conception of banking that to be robbed was shameful? Why not just call it sacrilege?

  Montalbano gave him a questioning look, and ragioniere Cascino felt pressed to explain.

  “I was referring to the fact that the burglars showed no respect for the Holy Father, who just . . . Ah, never mind. Please, come in.”

  Montalbano went in.

  2

  Montalbano remembered that up until a couple of months ago the place had been a fancy barber shop called Today’s Man. Outside there had been a display window with photos featuring a number of different male hairdos that had won prizes in hairstyling competitions. He’d never gone in, because at the time the sickly-sweet smell wafting out onto the sidewalk had sufficed to convince him there was no point.

  The bank had tried to transform the interior into something a little less frivolous, but hadn’t really succeeded, because the result now looked exactly like one of those government lottery offices of days past. Apparently this was some kind of third-tier bank.

  Behind a wooden partition wall sat two cashiers at their stations. One of them, a young man, was watching a fly in the air, while the other, an elderly man, looked asleep. A third workstation, which must have belonged to the man who’d let him in, was vacant.

  “Please follow me,” ragioniere Cascino invited him in a tone of voice somewhere between that of a butler and an official guide.

  Montalbano felt like he was visiting Windsor Castle.

  The barber’s large salon in the back had been turned into two smallish rooms. Over one of the doors was a little plaque with the word MANAGER. It was made of copper but was so bright it looked like solid gold. There was no sign on the other door, but to make up for this the door was made not of wood but some kind of heavy metal. And was more heavily armored than the entrance door. And it had, in fact, two combination dials with numbers on them.