Supper was light, yet cooked, in every regard, with a touch the Lord grants only very rarely to the Chosen. But Montalbano did not thank the commissioner’s wife; he merely looked at her with the eyes of a stray dog awarded a caress. The two men then retired to the study to chat. For Montalbano the commissioner’s dinner invitation had been like a life preserver thrown to a man drowning not in a stormy sea, but in the flat, unrippled calm of boredom.

  The first thing they discussed was Catania, and they concurred that informing the Catania police of their investigation of Brancato had led, as its first result, to the elimination of the very same Brancato.

  “We’re like a sieve,” the commissioner said bitterly. “We can’t take one step without our enemies’ knowing about it. Brancato had Ingrassia killed because he was getting too nervous, but when the people pulling the strings learned that we had Brancato in our sights, they took care of him as well. And so the trail we were so painstakingly following was conveniently obliterated.”

  He was gloomy. The idea that moles were planted everywhere offended him; it embittered him more than a betrayal by a family member.

  Then, after a long pause during which Montalbano did not open his mouth, the commissioner asked:

  “How’s your investigation of the Crasticeddru murders coming along?”

  From the commissioner’s tone of voice, Montalbano could tell that his superior viewed this investigation as mere recreation for the inspector, a pastime he was being allowed to pursue before he returned to more serious matters.

  “I’ve managed to find out the man’s name, too,” he said, feeling vindicated in the eyes of the commissioner, who gave a start, astonished and now interested.

  “You are extraordinary! Tell me how.”

  Montalbano told him everything, even mentioning the theatrics he’d performed for De Dominicis, and the commissioner was quite amused. The inspector concluded with an admission of failure of sorts. It made no sense to continue the search, he said, since, among other things, nobody could prove that Lillo Rizzitano wasn’t dead.

  “All the same,” the commissioner said after a moment’s reflection, “if somebody really wants to disappear, it can be done. How many cases have we seen where people apparently vanish into thin air and then, suddenly, there they are? I don’t want to cite Pirandello, but let’s take Sciascia at least. Have you read the little book about the disappearance of Majorana, the physicist?”

  “Of course.”

  “I am convinced, as was Sciascia himself, that in the end Majorana wanted to disappear, and succeeded. He did not commit suicide. He was too religious.”

  “I agree.”

  “And what about that very recent case of the Roman university professor who stepped out of his home one day and was never seen again? Everybody looked for him—police, carabinieri, even his students, who loved him. It was a planned disappearance, and he also succeeded.”

  “True,” Montalbano concurred. Then he thought about what they were saying and looked at his superior. “It sounds to me as if you’re encouraging me to continue the investigation, though on an another occasion you reproached me for getting too involved in this case.”

  “So what? Now you’re convalescing, whereas the other time you were on the job. There’s quite a difference, I think,” the commissioner replied.

  He returned home and paced from room to room. After his meeting with the surveyor, he had decided to screw the whole investigation, convinced that Rizzitano was good and dead. Now the commissioner had gone and resurrected him, so to speak. Didn’t the early Christians use the word dormitio to mean death? It was quite possible Rizzitano had put himself “in sleep,” as the Freemasons used to say. Fine, but if that was the case, Montalbano would have to find a way to bring him out of the deep well in which he was hiding. That would require something big, something that would make a lot of noise, something the newspapers and television stations all over Italy would talk about. He had to unleash a bombshell. But what? He needed to forget about logic and dream up something fantastic.

  It was eleven o’clock, too early to turn in. He lay down on the bed, fully dressed, and read Pylon.

  “At midnight last night the search for the body of Roger Shumann, racing pilot who plunged into the lake on Saturday p.m., was finally abandoned by a threeplace biplane of about eighty horsepower which managed to fly out over the water and return without falling to pieces and dropping a wreath of flowers into the water approximately three quarters of a mile away from the spot where Shumann’s body is generally supposed to be. . . .”

  There were only a few lines left until the end of the novel, but the inspector sat up in bed with a wild look in his eyes.

  “It’s insane,” he said, “but I’m going to do it.”

  “Is Signora Ingrid there? I know it’s late, but I need to speak to her.”

  “Signora no home. You say, I write.”

  The Cardamones specialized in finding housekeepers in places where not even Tristan da Cunha would have dared set foot.

  “Manau tupapau,” said the inspector.

  “No understand.”

  He’d cited the title of a Gauguin painting. That eliminated Polynesia and environs from the housekeeper’s possible land of origin.

  “You ready write? Signora Ingrid phone Signor Montalbano when she come home.”

  When Ingrid got to Marinella, wearing an evening dress with a slit all the way up to her ass, it was already past two in the morning. She hadn’t batted an eyelash at the inspector’s request to see her right away.

  “Sorry, but I didn’t have time to change. I was at the most boring party.”

  “What’s wrong? You don’t look right to me. Is it simply because you were bored at the party?”

  “No, your intuition’s right. It’s my father-in-law. He’s started pestering me again. The other morning he pounced on me when I was still in bed. He wanted me right away. I convinced him to leave by threatening to scream.”

  “Then we’ll have to take care of it.”

  “How?”

  “We’ll give him another massive dose.”

  At Ingrid’s questioning glance, he opened a desk drawer that had been locked, took out an envelope, and handed it to her. Ingrid, seeing the photos portraying her getting fucked by her father-in-law, first turned pale, then blushed.

  “Did you take these?”

  Montalbano weighed the pros and cons; if he told her it was a woman who took them, Ingrid might knife him then and there.

  “Yeah, it was me.”

  The Swedish woman’s mighty slap thundered in his skull, but he was expecting it.

  “I’d already sent three to your father-in-law. He got scared and stopped bothering you for a while. Now I’ll send him another three.”

  Ingrid sprang forward, her body pressing against Montalbano’s, her lips forcing his open, her tongue seeking and caressing his. Montalbano felt his legs giving out, and luckily Ingrid withdrew.

  “Calm down,” she said, “it’s over. It was just to say thank you.”

  On the backs of three photos personally chosen by Ingrid, Montalbano wrote: RESIGN FROM ALL YOUR POSTS, OR NEXT TIME YOU’LL BE ON TV.

  “I’m going to keep the rest here,” said the inspector. “When you need them, let me know.”

  “I hope it won’t be for a long time.”

  “I’ll send them tomorrow morning, and then I’ll make an anonymous phone call that’ll give him a heart attack. Now listen, because I have a long story to tell you. And when I’m done, I’m going to ask you to lend me a hand.”

  He got up at the crack of dawn, having been unable to sleep even a wink after Ingrid had left. He looked in the mirror: his face was a wreck, maybe even worse than after he’d been shot. He went to the hospital for a checkup, and they pronounced him perfect. The five medicines they’d been giving him were reduced to just one. Then he went to the Montelusa Savings Bank, where he kept the little money he was able to put aside. He asked to meet privately with the manager.

  “I need ten million lire.”

  “Do you need a loan, or have you got enough in your account?”

  “I’ve got it.”

  “I don’t understand, then. What’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that it’s for a police operation I want to pay for myself, without risking the State’s money. If I go to the cashier now and ask for ten million in bills of one hundred thousand, it’ll seem strange. That’s why I need your help.”

  Understanding, and proud to take part in a police operation, the manager bent over backwards for Montalbano.

  Ingrid pulled her car up alongside the inspector’s, right in front of the road sign indicating the superhighway for Palermo, just outside of Montelusa. Montalbano gave her a bulging envelope with the ten million lire inside, and she put it in her shoulder bag.

  “Call me at home as soon as you’re done. And be careful not to get your purse snatched.”

  She smiled, waved him a kiss from her fingertips, and put her car in gear.

  In Vigàta he got a new supply of cigarettes. On his way out of the tobacco shop, he noticed a big green poster with black lettering, freshly pasted up, inviting the townspeople to attend a cross-country motorbike race the following Sunday, starting at three in the afternoon, in the place called the “Crasticeddru flats.”

  He could never have hoped for such a coincidence. Perhaps the labyrinth had been moved to pity and was opening another path for him?

  24

  The “Crasticeddru flats,” which stretched out behind the rocky spur, weren’t close to being flat, not even in dreams. But the vales, jags, and marshes made it an ideal place for a cross-country motorcycle race. The weather that day was a definite foretaste of summer, and people didn’t wait for three o’clock to go out to the flats. Actually, they began to gather in the morning—grandmothers, grandfathers, tots, and teens and everyone else determined not so much to watch a race, as to enjoy a day in the country.

  That morning, Montalbano phoned Nicolò Zito.

  “Are you coming to the cross-country motorbike race this afternoon?”

  “Me? Why should I? We’ve sent one of our sports reporters and a cameraman over there.”

  “Actually, I was suggesting that we go together, the two of us,just for fun.”

  They got to the flats around 3:30, but there was no sign the race would be starting any time soon. There already was, however, a deafening racket, produced mostly by fifty or so motorcycles being tested and revved up, and by loudspeakers blasting raucous music.

  “Since when are you interested in sports?” Zito asked in amazement.

  “Now and then I get the urge.”

  Although they were outside, they had to shout to converse. As a result, when a little touring airplane trailing its publicity banner appeared high in the sky over the ridge of the Crasticeddru, few in the crowd noticed, since the noise of the plane—which is what usually makes people look up—couldn’t reach their ears. The pilot must have noticed he would never get their attention in this fashion since, after flying three tight circles round the crest of the Crasticeddru, he headed straight for the flats and the crowd, going into an elegant dive and flying extremely low over everyone’s head. He practically forced people to read his banner and then to follow it with their eyes as he pulled up slightly, flew over the ridge three more times, descended to the point of almost touching the ground in front of the cave’s gaping entrance, and then dropped a shower of rose petals from the aircraft. The crowd fell silent. They were all thinking of the two young lovers found dead in the Crasticeddru as the small plane turned round and came back, skimming the ground, this time dropping countless little strips of paper. It then headed westward toward the horizon and disappeared. And while the banner had aroused a lot of curiosity—since it wasn’t advertising a soft drink or a furniture factory, but displayed only the two names Lisetta and Mario—and the rain of rose-petals had given the crowd a kind of thrill, the words on the strips of paper, all identical, set them all guessing, sending them on a lively merry-go-round of speculation and conjecture. What indeed was the meaning of: LISETTA AND MARIO ANNOUNCE THEIR REAWAKENING? It couldn’t be a wedding or christening announcement. So what was it? Amid the swirl of questions, only one thing seemed certain: that the plane, the petals, the pieces of paper, and the banner had something to do with the dead lovers found in the Crasticeddru.

  Then the races began, and the people watched and amused themselves. Nicolò Zito, upon seeing the rose petals fall from the plane, had told Montalbano not to move from where he stood and then had disappeared into the crowd.

  He returned fifteen minutes later, followed by a Free Channel cameraman.

  “Will you grant me an interview?”

  “Of course.”

  This unexpected compliance on Montalbano’s part convinced the newsman in his suspicion, which was that the inspector was involved up to his neck in this business with the airplane.

  “Just a few minutes ago, during the preliminaries for the cross-country motorcycle race currently taking place here in Vigàta, we were all witness to an extraordinary event. A small advertising airplane . . .” And here he followed with a description of what had just occurred. “Since, by a fortunate coincidence, we have Inspector Salvo Montalbano here with us among the crowd, we would like to ask him a few questions. In your opinion, Inspector, who are Lisetta and Mario?”

  “I could dodge the question,” the inspector said bluntly, “and say I don’t know anything about this and that it might be the work of some newlyweds who wished to celebrate their marriage in an original way. But I would be contradicted by what is written on that piece of paper, which speaks not of marriage but of reawakening. I shall therefore answer honestly and say that Lisetta and Mario were the names of the two young people found murdered inside the cave of the Crasticeddru, that spur of rock right here in front of us.”

  “But what does all this mean?”

  “I can’t really say. You’d have to ask whoever it was that organized the airplane stunt.”

  “How were you able to identify the two?”

  “By chance.”

  “Could you tell us their last names?”

  “No. I could, but I won’t. I can disclose that she was a young woman from these parts, and he was a sailor from the North. I should add that the person who wanted, in such manifest fashion, to remind us of their rediscovery—which this person calls ‘reawakening’—forgot about the dog, which, poor thing, also had a name: he was called Kytmyr, and was an Arab dog.”

  “But why would the murderer have wanted to stage such a scene?”

  “Wait a second. Who ever said that the murderer and the person behind this spectacle are one and the same? I, for one, don’t believe they are.”

  “I’ve got to run and edit the report,” said Nicolò Zito, giving Montalbano a strange look.

  Soon the crews from TeleVigàta, the RAI regional news, and the other private stations arrived. Montalbano answered all their questions politely and with, for him, unnatural ease.

  Prey to violent hunger pangs, he stuffed himself with seafood appetizers at the Trattoria San Calogero and then raced home, turned on the television, and tuned into the Free Channel. In his report on the mysterious airplane, Nicolò Zito piled it on thick, pumping up the story in every way possible. What crowned it all, however, was not his own interview, which was aired in its entirety, but another interview—which Montalbano hadn’t expected—with the manager of the Publi-2000 agency of Palermo, which Zito had tracked down easily, since it was the only advertising agency in western Sicily that had an airplane available for publicity.

  The manager, still visibly excited, recounted that a beautiful young woman—“Jesus, what a woman! She looked unreal, she really did, like a model in a magazine. Jesus, was she beautiful!”—an obvious foreigner because she spoke bad Italian—“Did I say bad? I’m wrong, actually, on her lips our words were like honey”—no, he couldn’t be sure as to her nationality, maybe German or English—had come to the agency four days earlier—“God! An apparition!”—and had asked about the plane. She’d explained in great detail what she wanted written on the banner and the strips of paper. Yes, the rose petals were also her doing. And, oh yes, as for the place, was she ever particular! Very precise. Then the pilot, on his own, the manager explained, had a brilliant idea: instead of releasing the pieces of paper at random along the coastal road, he thought it would be better to drop them on a large crowd that had gathered to watch a race. The lady—“For the love of God, let’s stop talking about her or my wife will kill me!”—paid in advance, cash, and had the invoice made out to a certain Rosemarie Antwerpen at a Brussels address. He had asked nothing more of the lovely stranger—“God!”—but then, why should he have? She certainly wasn’t asking them to drop a bomb! And she was so beautiful! And refined! And polite! And what a smile! A dream.

  Montalbano relished it all. He had advised Ingrid: “You must make yourself even more beautiful than usual. That way, when they see you, they won’t know what’s what anymore.”

  TeleVigàta went wild with the story of the mysterious beauty, calling her “Nefertiti resurrected” and cooking up a fanciful story intertwining the pyramids with the Crasticeddru; but it was clear they were following the lead set by Nicolò Zito’s story on their competitor’s news program. Even the regional RAI news gave the matter extensive coverage.

  Montalbano was getting the uproar, the commotion, the resonance he had sought. His idea had turned out to be right.

  “Montalbano? It’s the commissioner. I just heard about the airplane. Congratulations. A stroke of genius.”