The Potter's Field by Andrea Camilleri Page A

imagination? How many times had things he’d imagined proved to be real?
    Let’s allow, then, that this imagining meant something. What could it mean that the body of the murder victim was found in a potter’s field? The Gospel said that the priests had bought the field to bury strangers in . . .
    Wait a second, Montalbà.
    Wasn’t it possible the victim was a “stranger”—in other words, a foreigner? Pasquano had found a bridge in his stomach, and this kind of bridge, according to Professor Lomascolo, was used by dentists in South America. So the stranger was probably from one of those countries—a Venezuelan or Argentinean . . . Or maybe Colombian. A Colombian with Mafia connections to boot . . .
    Aren’t you perhaps sailing too far out to sea, Montalbà?
    As he asked himself this question, a cold shudder ran through his body, followed at once by a great wave of heat. He felt his forehead. The fever was rising again. But he didn’t worry, because he was certain that this change was due not to influenza but to the ideas percolating in his brain.
    Better not push it, however. Better pause awhile and calm down. He realized his brain was overheating and ready to melt. He needed to seek distraction. How? The only solution was to watch television. So he turned it back on, but this time tuned in to the “Free Channel.”
    They were broadcasting a softcore porn film, the kind where the actors and actresses only pretend to fuck, usually in rather uncomfortable places like inside a wheelbarrow or while holding on to a gutter pipe, and they’re worse than the hardcore flicks, in which they actually fuck. He sat and watched it for ten minutes or so and, as always happened, with softcore as well as hardcore, it put him to sleep. And he slept just like that, head bent backwards, mouth open.

    He didn’t know how long he had slept, but when he woke up, in the place of the porn flick were four people around a small table talking about crimes that had never been solved. But even crimes that appear to have been solved—said a man with mustache and goatee à la D’Artagnan—all remain, in fact, unsolved. And he gave a sly smile and said nothing else. Since none of the other participants had understood a fucking thing of what they had just heard, another guy who was a professional criminologist (why do criminologists always have Mosesesque beards?) began to recount a crime committed in northern Italy, where a woman was murdered with mouse poison and then dismembered.
    The same word Pasquano had used. Dismembered.
    What, in fact, had the doctor said about this?
    That the body had been cut into a certain number of pieces. Yes, but how many?
    He shot to his feet, stunned and sweaty, his fever spiking a few degrees more. He ran to the telephone and dialed.
    It rang and rang a long time with no answer. All right, multiplication tables for—come off it! Multiplication tables?! If these guys didn’t pick up, he was going to do a Columbine! He was gonna get in the car and go shoot them all, one by one! Finally a man’s voice answered, sounding so drunk he could smell the guy’s breath over the telephone line.
    â€œH’lo? ’Ooziss?”
    â€œMontalbano here. I’d like to speak with Dr. Pasquano.”
    â€œM . . . morgue’s c . . . closed a’ nnight.”
    So he must be at home. A sleepy-sounding woman answered the phone. What the hell time was it?
    â€œMontalbano here. Is the doctor at home?”
    â€œNo, Inspector. He’s gone to the club.”
    â€œI’m sorry, signora, but have you got the telephone number?”
    Pasquano’s wife gave it to him, and he dialed it.
    â€œHello? Montalbano here.”
    â€œWhat the hell do I care?” said somebody, hanging up.
    He must have dialed wrong. All his fingers were trembling and hard to control.
    â€œMontalbano here. Is Dr. Pasquano there?”
    â€œI’ll go