The Snack Thief (5 page)

He might have got a phone call.

A clear point in the widows favor.

Did your husband still have many business relationships?

Business? He shut down the business years ago.

So why did he keep going regularly to the office?

Whenever I asked him, hed say he went to watch the
flies. Thats what hed say.

Would you say that after your husband came home
from the office yesterday, nothing out of the ordinary happened?

Nothing. At least till nine oclock in the evening.

What happened at nine oclock in the evening?

I took two Tavors. And I slept so soundly that the building
could have collapsed on top of me and I still wouldnt
have woken up.

So if Mr. Lapra had received a phone call or visitor
after nine oclock, you wouldnt have known.

Of course not.

Did your husband have any enemies?

No.

Are you sure?

Yes.

Any friends?

One. Cavaliere Pandolfo. They used to phone each
other on Tuesdays and then go and chat at the Cafflbanese.

Have you any suspicions as to who might have

She interrupted him.

Suspicions, no. Certainty, yes.

Montalbano leapt out of the armchair. Galluzzo said
Shit! but in a soft voice.

And who would that be?

Who would that be, Inspector? His mistress, thats who.
Her names Karima, with a K. Shes Tunisian. They used to
meet at the office, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The
slut would go there pretending she was the cleaning
woman.

4

The first Sunday of the previous year had fallen on the fifth,
the widow said, and that fateful date remained forever etched
in her mind.

Anyway, upon coming out of church, where shed attended
Holy Mass at midday, she was approached by Signora
Collura, who owned a furniture store.

Signora, tell your husband that the item he was waiting
for arrived yesterday.

What item?

The sofa bed.

Signora Antonietta thanked her and went home with a
drill boring a hole in her head. What did her husband need a
sofa bed for? Although her curiosity was eating her alive, she
said nothing to Arelio. To make a long story short, that piece
of furniture never arrived at their home. Two Sundays later,
Signora Antonietta approached the furniture lady.

You know, the color of the sofa bed clashes with the
shade of the wall.

A shot in the dark, but right on target.

Im sorry, maam, but he told me he wanted dark green,
the same as the wallpaper.

The back room of the office was dark green. So thats
where he had the sofa bed delivered, the shameless pig!

On the thirtieth of June that same yearthis date, too,
forever etched in her memoryshe got her first anonymous
letter. She had received three in all, between June and September.

Could I see them? Montalbano asked.

I burned them. I dont keep filth.

The three anonymous notes, written with letters cut out
from newspapers in keeping with the finest tradition, all said
the same thing:Your husband Arelio is seeing a Tunisian jade
named Karima, known by all to be a whore, three times a
week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The woman went
there either in the morning or afternoon on those days. Occasionally
she would buy cleaning supplies at a shop on the
same street, but everyone knew she was meeting Signor Arelio
to do lewd things.

Were you ever able to...verify any of this? the inspector
asked tactfully.

Do you mean did I ever spy on them to see when the
trollop was going in and out of my husbands office?

Well, that too.

I dont stoop to such things, the woman said proudly.
But I managed just the same. A soiled handkerchief.

Lipstick?

No, the widow said with some effort, turning slightly
red in the face.

And a pair of underpants, she added after a pause,
turning even redder.

When Montalbano and Galluzzo got to Salita Granet, the
three shops on that short, sloping street were already closed.
Number 28 was a small building, the ground floor raised
three steps up from street level, with two more floors above
that. To the side of the main door were three nameplates. The
first said: aurelio lapra, import-export, ground floor;
the second: orazio cannatello, notary; the third: angelo
bellino, business consultant, top floor. Using the keys
Montalbano had taken from Lapras study, they went inside.
The front room was a proper office, with a big
nineteenth-century desk made of black mahogany, a small
secretarial table with a 1940s Olivetti typewriter on it, and
four large metal bookcases overflowing with old files. On the
desk was a functioning telephone. There were five chairs in
the office, but one was broken and overturned in the corner.
In the back room ...The back room, with its now familiar
dark green walls, seemed not to belong to the same apartment.
It was sparkling clean, with a large sofa bed, television,
telephone extension, stereo system, cocktail trolley with a variety
of liqueurs, mini-fridge, and a horrendous female nude,
buttocks to the wind, over the couch. Next to the sofa was a
small end table with a faux art nouveau lamp on top, its
drawer stuffed with condoms of every kind.

How old was the guy? Galluzzo asked.

Sixty-three.

Jesus! said the policeman, giving a whistle of admiration.

The bathroom, like the back room, was dark green and

glistening, equipped with built-in blow-dryer, bathtub with
shower-hose extension, and full-length mirror.

They returned to the front room, rummaged through the
desks drawers, opened a few of the files. The most recent
correspondence was more than three years old.

They heard some footsteps upstairs, in the office of the notary,
Cannatello. The notary wasnt in, they were told by the
secretary, a reed-thin thirtyish young man with a disconsolate
expression. He said the late Mr. Lapra used to come to the
office just to pass the time. On the days when he was there, a
good-looking Tunisian girl would come to do the cleaning.
Oh, and, he almost forgot, over the last few months Mr. Lapra
had received fairly frequent visits from a nephew, or at least
thats how Mr. Lapra introduced him the one time the three
had met at the front door. He was about thirty, tall, dark, well-
dressed, and he drove a metallic gray BMW. He must have spent
a lot of time abroad, this nephew, because he spoke with an odd
sort of accent. No, he couldnt remember anything about the
BMWs license plate, hadnt paid any notice.

Suddenly the thin young man assumed the expression of
somebody looking at the ruins of his home after an earthquake.
He said he had a precise opinion about this crime.

And what would that be? asked Montalbano.

It could only have been the usual young lowlife looking
for money to feed his drug habit.

They went back downstairs, where Montalbano called
Mrs. Lapra from the office phone.

Excuse me, but why didnt you tell me you have a nephew?

Because we dont.

Lets go back to the office, Montalbano said when they
were just around the corner from headquarters. Galluzzo
didnt dare ask why. In the bathroom of the dark green
room, the inspector buried his nose in the towel, breathed
deeply, then started riffling through the little cupboard beside
the sink. He found a small bottle of perfume, brand-name
Voluptand handed it to Galluzzo.

Here, put some of this on.

Where?

Up your ass, came the inevitable reply.

Galluzzo dabbed a drop of Voluptn his cheek, and
Montalbano stuck his nose next to it and inhaled. That was
it: the very same scent, the color of burnt straw, that hed
smelled in Lapras study. Wanting to be absolutely certain,
he repeated the gesture.

Galluzzo smiled.

Uh, Chief, if anybody saw us...who knows what
theyd think?

The inspector didnt answer, but walked over to the
phone.

Hello, signora? Sorry to disturb you again. Did your
husband use any kind of perfume or cologne? No? Okay,
thanks.

Galluzzo came into Montalbanos office.
Lapras Beretta was registered on the eighth of De

cember of last year. Since he didnt have a license to carry a
gun, he was only allowed to keep it at home.
Something, the inspector thought, must have been trou

bling him around that time, if he decided to buy a gun.
What are we going to do with the pistol?
Well keep it here. Listen, Gallre are the keys to

the office. I want you to go there early tomorrow morning,
let yourself in, and wait there. Try not to let anyone see you.
If the Tunisian girl hasnt found out what happened, she
should show up tomorrow according to schedule, since its
Friday.

Galluzzo grimaced.
Its unlikely she hasnt heard.
Why? Who would have told her?
It looked to the inspector as if Galluzzo was desperately

trying to back out.
I dont know...Word gets out...
Ah, and I dont suppose you said anything to your

brother-in-law the reporter? Because if you did
Inspector, I swear, I havent told him anything.
Montalbano believed him. Galluzzo wasnt the type to

tell a bold-faced lie.
Well, youre going to Lapras office anyway.

Montalbano? This is Jacomuzzi. I wanted to notify you of
our test results.
Oh God, Jacomit a second, my heart is racing.
God, what excitement! ...There, Im a little calmer now.

Please notify me, as you put it in your peerless bureaucratese.

Aside from the fact that youre an incurable asshole, the
cigarette butt was a common stub of Nazionale without filter;
there was nothing abnormal in the dust we collected
from the floor of the elevator, and as for the little piece of
wood

It was only a kitchen match.
Exactly.
Im speechless, breathlessin fact, I think Im about to

have a heart attack! Youve delivered the murderer to me!
Go fuck yourself, Montalbano.
Itd still be better than listening to you. What did he

have in his pockets?
A handkerchief and a set of keys.
And what can you tell me about the knife?
A kitchen knife, very used. Between the blade and the

handle we found a fish scale.
Didnt you pursue that any further? Was it a mullet scale

or a cod scale? Keep investigating, dont leave me hanging!
What is wrong with you anyway?
Jacomy to use your brains a little. If we were in the

Sahara desert and you came to me and said youd found a fish
scale on a knife that had been used to kill a tourist, then the
thing might, I say might, mean something. But what the fuck
could it possibly mean in a town like Vig, where out of
twenty thousand inhabitants, nineteenthousandninehundredandseventy
eat fish all the time?

And why dont the other thirty? asked Jacomuzzi,
stunned and curious.

Because theyre newborn babies.

Hello? Montalbano here. Could I please speak with Dr.

Pasquano?

Please hold.

He had just enough time to start singing: E te lo vojo d
che sato io...

Hello, Inspector? The doctors very sorry, but hes performing
an autopsy on the two men found goat-tied in
Costabianca. But he said to tell you that as far as your murder
victim is concerned, the man was bursting with health and
would have lived to be a hundred if somebody hadnt killed
him first. A single stab wound, dealt with a firm hand. The
incident occurred between seven and eight oclock this
morning. Dyou need anything else?

In the fridge he found some pasta with broccoli, which he
put in the oven to warm up. As a second course, Adelina had
made him some roulades of tuna. Figuring hed had a light
lunch, he felt obliged to eat everything. Then he turned on
the television and tuned in to the Free Channel, a good local
station where his red-haired, Red-sympathizing friend
Nicolto worked. Zito was commenting on the killing of
the Tunisian aboard the Santopadre as the camera zoomed in

on the bullet-riddled wheelhouse and on a dark stain in the
wood that was probably blood. All of a sudden Jacomuzzi appeared,
kneeling down and looking at something through a
magnifying glass.

Buffoon! Montalbano shouted, then switched the
channel to TeleVig, the station where Galluzzos brother-
in-law Prestworked. Here, too, Jacomuzzi made an appearance,
except that he was no longer on the fishing boat; now
he was pretending to take fingerprints inside the elevator
where Lapra had been murdered. Montalbano cursed the
saints, stood up, threw a book against the wall. That was why
Galluzzo had been so reticent! He knew that the news had
spread but didnt have the courage to tell him. Without a
doubt it was Jacomuzzi whod notified the journalists, so he
could show off as usual. He couldnt live without it. The
mans exhibitionism reached heights comparable only to
what one might find in a mediocre actor or some writer with
print runs of a hundred and fifty copies.

Now Pippo Ragonese, the stations political commentator,
appeared on the screen. He wanted to talk, he said, about
the cowardly Tunisian attack on one of our motor trawlers
that had been peacefully fishing in our own territorial waters,
which was the same as saying on the sacred soil of our
homeland. It wasnt literally soil, of course, being the sea, but
it was still our homeland. A less fainthearted government
than the current one in the hands of the extreme left would
certainly have reacted more severely to a provocation that

Montalbano turned off the television.

The agitation he felt at Jacomuzzis brilliant move showed
no signs of passing. Sitting on the small veranda that gave
onto the beach and staring at the sea in the moonlight, he
smoked three cigarettes in a row. Maybe Livias voice
would calm him down enough so he could go to bed and
fall asleep.

Hi, Livia. How are you?
So-so.
Ive had a rough day.
Oh, really?
What the hell was wrong with Livia? Then he remem