commissioner had whetted an appetite that hadn’t existed before he picked up the phone. Maybe it was the desire for a kind of compensation. He’d once read that in antiquity, after a plague epidemic had ended, people would eat and fuck like there was no tomorrow. But could he really liken Bonetti-Alderighi to a plague epidemic? Well, maybe not the plague, but cholera, yes, sort of.
Opening the refrigerator, he felt as if he was looking at a great discovery, some sort of vast treasure buried by pirates. Adelina had gone overboard cooking for him. The works: eggplant parmesan, pasta and sausage, caponata, eggplant dumplings,
caciocavallo di Ragusa
, and passuluna olives. Apparently there wasn’t any fresh fish at the market. He set the table on the veranda, and as the eggplant parmesan and pasta were warming up, he drank two glasses of cold white wine to Fazio’s health. When he got up to phone Livia, a good three hours had passed since he’d first sat down.
He slept badly.
As he was about to leave for Fiacca at eight-thirty the following morning, it occurred to him that at his normal cruising speed, as Livia so irritatingly called it, by the time he got to the hospital, Fazio was liable to be already discharged. So he called the police station.
“Ahh, what izzit, Chief? Ahh? Wha’ happened?” asked Catarella, immediately alarmed.
“Nothing’s happened, Cat. Calm down. I just want you to tell Gallo to come and pick me up in Marinella and take me to Fiacca.”
“Straightaways, Chief.”
But the truth of the matter was that he just didn’t feel like driving. He was too agitated. His curiosity to know what Fazio had to tell him was eating him alive. It had come over him the moment he’d lain down in bed and hadn’t left him since. Indeed he’d spent practically the whole night forming hypotheses and conjectures, all without the slightest foundation.
About ten minutes later he heard the siren of the squad car approaching at high speed. Imagine Gallo missing a chance to race around with the siren on!
He always watched Gallo closely when sitting beside him during drives where they had to get somewhere fast. Gallo at the wheel seemed loose and relaxed; he was an excellent driver, and clearly it gave him a great deal of pleasure. At certain moments, perhaps without realizing it, he would start murmuring the words to a little children’s song:
La beddra Betta / cu ’na quasetta
. . . And so Montalbano realized that when at the wheel of a wildly speeding car, Gallo lost at least thirty years of age and became a little kid again.
“Did you have your own little car with pedals when you were a kid?” the inspector asked him as they were leaving for Fiacca.
Gallo gave him a confused look.
“Why do you ask?”
“I dunno, just to make conversation.”
“No, sir, I never did. I always wanted one, but my father couldn’t ever afford to buy me one.”
Maybe that was why . . . But then he suddenly felt embarrassed at the thought that had come into his mind. Which was that Gallo’s passion for driving fast was a compensation for what he’d missed as a child. American movie stuff, like when they tell you that someone became a bank robber because his father had denied him a pizza when he was five.
In his younger days, such thoughts would never even have grazed the surface of his mind. Apparently with age, even the brain slackens, like the muscles and skin . . . His eye fell on the speedometer: 170 kilometers per hour.
“Don’t you think you’re going a little fast?”
“Want me to slow down?”
He was about to say yes, but he wanted to get there and talk to Fazio as soon as possible.
“No, but be careful. I don’t want to end up in a body cast in the bed next to Fazio’s.”
The inspector was in the habit of getting lost in hospitals. And to think that he did everything possible to avoid the problem. Not only would he get precise instructions upon entering as to which elevator to take,
Opening the refrigerator, he felt as if he was looking at a great discovery, some sort of vast treasure buried by pirates. Adelina had gone overboard cooking for him. The works: eggplant parmesan, pasta and sausage, caponata, eggplant dumplings,
caciocavallo di Ragusa
, and passuluna olives. Apparently there wasn’t any fresh fish at the market. He set the table on the veranda, and as the eggplant parmesan and pasta were warming up, he drank two glasses of cold white wine to Fazio’s health. When he got up to phone Livia, a good three hours had passed since he’d first sat down.
He slept badly.
As he was about to leave for Fiacca at eight-thirty the following morning, it occurred to him that at his normal cruising speed, as Livia so irritatingly called it, by the time he got to the hospital, Fazio was liable to be already discharged. So he called the police station.
“Ahh, what izzit, Chief? Ahh? Wha’ happened?” asked Catarella, immediately alarmed.
“Nothing’s happened, Cat. Calm down. I just want you to tell Gallo to come and pick me up in Marinella and take me to Fiacca.”
“Straightaways, Chief.”
But the truth of the matter was that he just didn’t feel like driving. He was too agitated. His curiosity to know what Fazio had to tell him was eating him alive. It had come over him the moment he’d lain down in bed and hadn’t left him since. Indeed he’d spent practically the whole night forming hypotheses and conjectures, all without the slightest foundation.
About ten minutes later he heard the siren of the squad car approaching at high speed. Imagine Gallo missing a chance to race around with the siren on!
He always watched Gallo closely when sitting beside him during drives where they had to get somewhere fast. Gallo at the wheel seemed loose and relaxed; he was an excellent driver, and clearly it gave him a great deal of pleasure. At certain moments, perhaps without realizing it, he would start murmuring the words to a little children’s song:
La beddra Betta / cu ’na quasetta
. . . And so Montalbano realized that when at the wheel of a wildly speeding car, Gallo lost at least thirty years of age and became a little kid again.
“Did you have your own little car with pedals when you were a kid?” the inspector asked him as they were leaving for Fiacca.
Gallo gave him a confused look.
“Why do you ask?”
“I dunno, just to make conversation.”
“No, sir, I never did. I always wanted one, but my father couldn’t ever afford to buy me one.”
Maybe that was why . . . But then he suddenly felt embarrassed at the thought that had come into his mind. Which was that Gallo’s passion for driving fast was a compensation for what he’d missed as a child. American movie stuff, like when they tell you that someone became a bank robber because his father had denied him a pizza when he was five.
In his younger days, such thoughts would never even have grazed the surface of his mind. Apparently with age, even the brain slackens, like the muscles and skin . . . His eye fell on the speedometer: 170 kilometers per hour.
“Don’t you think you’re going a little fast?”
“Want me to slow down?”
He was about to say yes, but he wanted to get there and talk to Fazio as soon as possible.
“No, but be careful. I don’t want to end up in a body cast in the bed next to Fazio’s.”
The inspector was in the habit of getting lost in hospitals. And to think that he did everything possible to avoid the problem. Not only would he get precise instructions upon entering as to which elevator to take,
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