“I’m not going to make it back tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the station.”

“All right, Chief.”

“Did you talk to Alfano’s friend?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you anything interesting?”

“Yes.”

It must be really interesting, if the words had to be dragged out of Fazio’s mouth. Whenever he had something decisive to tell him about a case, he only revealed it in dribs and drabs.

“What did he say?”

“He said that what got Arturo Pecorini to move so suddenly out of Vigàta was the Sinagras.”

Montalbano balked.

“The Sinagras?!”

“Yes indeed, Chief. Don Balduccio himself.”

“And what was the reason?”

“Rumors were starting to circulate in town about an affair between the butcher and Signora Dolores. So Don Balduccio sent word to Pecorini that it was best if he had a change of scene.”

“I see.”

“By the way, Chief, Prosecutor Tommaseo was looking for you.”

“Do you know what he wanted?”

“He talked with Catarella, so go figure. From what I could gather, he said a colleague of his from Reggio had called about a disappearance. He complained that he didn’t know anything about the case. He wants to be filled in. I think Tommaseo’s colleague was referring to our very own Giovanni Alfano.”

“I think so, too. I’ll go and talk to him tomorrow.”

The inspector got out of bed, took a shower, changed clothes, and went to the front desk in the bar. Signor Sudano didn’t want to be paid (“It’s low season, after all”).

He got in the car and left.

When he got to Villa San Giovanni it was already past ten. He headed for the same trattoria where he had eaten at midday. And he wasn’t disappointed the fourth time, either.

At one o’clock in the morning he was back in Sicily.

He traveled the road between Messina and Catania under a sort of rough copy of the Great Flood. The windshield wipers were helpless to wipe away the heavens’ waters. He stopped at the Autogrill service areas at Barracca, Calatabiano, and Aci Sant’Antonio, more to fill up on courage than on coffee. When all was said and done, it had taken him three hours to drive a distance that would have taken an hour and a half in normal weather. But once he’d left Catania behind and got on the autostrada for Enna, the deluge not only stopped suddenly, but the stars came out. Taking the Mulinello bypass, he headed in the direction of Nicosia. Half an hour later, he saw on the right a sign indicating the way to Mascalippa. He took that road, a dilapidated mess that here and there still preserved a faded memory of asphalt. As he entered Mascalippa, there wasn’t a living soul in the streets. He stopped in the town square, which was exactly the same as he had left it so many years before, got out of the car, and fired up a cigarette. The cold penetrated straight to the bones, and the air smelled of grass and straw. A dog approached him, then stopped short a few steps away, wagging its tail in friendship.

“Come here, Argo,” said Montalbano.

The dog looked at him, turned around, and sauntered off.

“Argo!” he called again.

But the dog vanished around a corner. It was right. It knew it wasn’t Argo. The idiot was him, pretending to be Ulysses. He finished his cigarette, got back in his car, and began the journey home to Vigàta.

“Ahh Chief Chief! Yest’day Proseccotor Gommaseo called ’n’ said—”

“I know already, Fazio told me. Is he in his office?”

“Who? Gommaseo?”

“No, Fazio.”

“Yessir.”

“Send him to me at once.”

Lots of newly arrived mail, gobs of it, covered the whole desktop. He sat down and pushed the envelopes to the far edges to create a bit of space in front of him—not for writing anything, but for resting his elbows.

Fazio came in.

“Close the door, sit down, and tell me the story of Balduccio Sinagra and Pecorini again, in fuller detail.”

“Chief, you told me to talk to Giovanni Alfano’s third friend, remember? Well, it was this friend, whose name is Franco Di Gregorio, and who seems like a decent man, who told me the whole story.”

“But the other two didn’t even mention it to me.”

“They didn’t want to talk about it.”

“And why not?”

“If you’ll let me tell it my way, I’ll get to that.”

“All right, go on.”

“Let’s just say that over two years ago, this fifty-year-old butcher falls head over heels for Dolores Alfano, who used to buy her meat from him. But he doesn’t go about it under cover, on the sly—nosirree, he starts sending her a bouquet of roses every morning, buys her gifts, sweets, and even fancy things, plants himself outside her home, waiting for her to come out so he can follow behind her . . . In short, the whole town finds out about it.”

“Is he married?”

“No, he’s not.”

“But doesn’t he know that Dolores is Alfano’s wife, and that Alfano is Balduccio’s protégé?”

“He does, he does.”

“Then he’s a fool!”

“No, Chief, he’s not a fool. He’s a cocky, violent man. The kind who says he’s not afraid of anything or anyone.”

“A blowhard?”

“No, sir. Arturo Pecorini is a man who doesn’t kid around. He’s a thug. When he was barely twenty years old he was arrested for murder, then acquitted for lack of evidence. Five years later, another acquittal for attempted murder. After that there are no more serious offenses, aside from a few brawls, since he is a bully, after all. When friends tell him he should be more careful with this Dolores stuff, he replies that he doesn’t give a shit about the Sinagras. He says, let ’em try and they’ll see.”

“And why didn’t Dolores go to the carabinieri the way she did with the other lovesick suitor?”

Fazio grinned.

“Di Gregorio says she didn’t do anything because she actually liked the butcher. A lot, in fact.”

“Were they lovers?”

“Nobody can say for certain. But bear in mind that the butcher lived, and still lives, barely twenty yards away from the Alfanos. At night they could do as they pleased; the roads around there have hardly any traffic in the daytime, so imagine at night. But then the story reached Don Balduccio’s ears, and he wasn’t at all pleased to hear that the butcher was cuckolding a relative of his, a young man he was particularly fond of.”

“What did he do?”

“The first thing he did was call Dolores.”

“What did he say to her?”

“Nobody knows. But Di Gregorio says you can imagine. And he’s right. In fact, four days later, Dolores left for Colombia, telling everyone she was going to see her mother, who was unwell.”

“And what about Pecorini?”

“Chief, I’m going to preface this the same way Di Gregorio did for me: This is all only gossip, conjecture, surmise.”

“Let’s hear it anyway.”

“Pecorini, when he was twenty, raped a seventeen-year-old girl, the daughter of very poor parents. Pecorini’s father paid the girl’s family off, and in return they didn’t report it. But the girl got pregnant. And brought a little boy into the world. Who was called Arturo, like his father, and Manzella, like his mother. And, as these things go, Pecorini became fond of his unrecognized son, helped him to study, get his diploma, and find a job. He’s thirty years old now, with a degree in accounting, married and with a three-year-old little boy, Carmelo.”

“Come on, Fazio! What is this, the Bible?”

“We’re almost there, Chief. One day, when the kid was playing outside the front door of their building, he disappeared.”

“What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?”

“Disappeared, Chief. Vanished. Twenty-four hours later, Arturo Pecorini shut down his butcher shop and left for Catania.”

“And what about the kid?”

“Thirty-six hours later, he was found playing outside the front door of his building.”

“And what’d he say?”

“He said a nice old gentleman, a grandfatherly sort, asked him if he wanted to go for a ride and took him in his car to a beautiful house with lots of toys inside. Three days later he left him in the same place where he’d picked him up.”

“That’s Balduccio’s style, all right. The old man wanted to carry out the operation himself. Then what happened?”

“Pecorini got the drift of Balduccio’s signals and moved out. And so Dolores was allowed to return. But Giovanni Alfano’s friends were approached by some of the Sinagra family’s men, and they were all given the same advice: that they shouldn’t mention this business about the butcher to Giovanni when he returned, because Don Balduccio didn’t want him to get upset.”

“But the last time you told me that nowadays Pecorini can come back to town every so often.”

“Yes, he comes for two days a week, Saturday and Sunday. A short while after he moved to Catania, he reopened his butcher shop here and put his brother in charge of it. They say he’s completely over Dolores now.”

“All right, then, thanks.”

“Chief, would you explain to me how you knew that the butcher had had an affair with Dolores Alfano?”

“But I didn’t know!”

“Oh, no? Then how come you immediately started asking me for information about Pecorini? Even before Dolores first came to the station!”

He couldn’t tell him the real reason—that is, that the butcher owned the house where Mimì was performing gymnastics with Dolores.

“Maybe one day I’ll tell you, or you’ll figure it out yourself. Do you know if Inspector Augello is in his office?”

“Yes, he is. Shall I go get him for you?”

“Yes. And come back with him.”

Fazio went out. Montalbano leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and took two or three deep breaths, as if about to dive underwater. The scene he had in mind had to come out perfectly, without one word too many or too few. He heard them approaching. He kept his eyes closed. He looked rapt in meditation.

“Mimì, come in and sit down. Fazio, go tell Catarella I don’t want to be disturbed for any reason, then come back.”

He still had his eyes closed and Mimì said nothing. He heard Fazio’s footsteps returning.

“Come in, lock the door behind you, and sit down.”

At last he opened his eyes. It had been several days since he last saw Mimì. Augello’s face was sallow and unshaven, his eyes hollow, his clothes wrinkled. He sat on the edge of the chair and kept the heel of his right foot raised, nervously shaking his leg. He seemed tight as a rope that might snap at any moment. Fazio, for his part, looked worried.

“Lately,” Montalbano began, “the air we’ve been breathing in this department hasn’t been very good.”

“I’d like to explain—”

“Mimì, you’ll talk when I say you can. Most probably the responsibility for what has been happening is largely my own. I—and I’m the first to realize this—no longer have the energy and confidence that used to have you all following my lead, no matter what. We had become more than a team; we were a single body. But then the head of this body stopped working so well, and the whole body started feeling the effects. As the saying goes, a fish always starts to rot at the head.”

“But, Salvo—”

“I still haven’t given you permission to speak, Mimì . . . It’s therefore natural that some part of this body should refuse to decay with the rest. I’m referring to you, Mimì. But before saying what I feel I must say to you, I contest your assertion that I have never wanted to grant you any autonomy, any leeway for making your own decisions. Stop, no talking. On the contary, as Fazio can attest, I have been trying, especially lately, to unload practically every investigation on you, precisely because I felt, and feel, that I’m no longer the man I used to be. And if that hasn’t been the case as often as I would have liked, it’s because of your family obligations, Mimì. I’ve taken on certain investigations to leave you more time to devote to your family. And now you ask me, in writing, to assign you the case of the critaru murder. Are you getting ready to take over for me, Mimì?”

“May I speak?”

“Only to answer my question.”

“The situation is not what you think.”

“Then you don’t need to explain anything else to me. I think what I say will be enough for you. You don’t need a written reply. Okay.”

“What do you mean, ‘okay’?”

“The Scorpio case is yours, Inspector Callahan.”

Mimì gave him a bewildered look. He hadn’t understood Montalbano’s cinematic allusion. Fazio did, however, and immediately turned red in the face.

“You mean you’re passing it off ?”

“Exactly.”

Mimì finally caught on.

“You’re giving me the case?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? You’re not going to regret it later on?”

“I’m not going to regret it.”

“And you won’t interfere in the investigation?”

“No.”

“I’ll have complete freedom of action?”

“Of course.”

“And what do you want in exchange?”

“Mimì, we’re not at the market. All I want is for you to respect the rules.”

“Meaning?”

“That, before taking any step whatsoever—arrests, press conferences, public declarations—you will inform me first.”

“And what if you tell me not to do it?”

“I won’t. You can be sure of it. I only want to be informed daily on the developments of the case.”

“All right, then. Thanks.”

Mimì stood up and held out his hand to him. Montalbano took it and squeezed it rather tight. Mimì couldn’t resist any longer.

“May I embrace you?” he asked.

“Of course.”

They embraced. Mimì’s eyes were moist.

“This morning I phoned Dr. Lattes,” said the inspector. “Today is Wednesday, and this evening I’m leaving for Boccadasse to see Livia. I’ll be away until Sunday. So you have to replace me in every respect, Mimì. Fazio will now go into your office and explain to you how far we’ve got on the case. And he’ll put himself at your disposal. As soon as you can, call Tommaseo and bring him up to speed on everything. Fazio’ll be with you in three minutes.”

Mimì went out looking so happy, he seemed he might start dancing at any moment.

“He looked like he was about to kiss your hand,” Fazio said disparagingly. “And now, would you please explain to me why you had this brilliant idea?”

“Because I’m tired.”

“Come on, you can’t be that tired. I don’t believe it.”

“Well, then, it’s because I can’t stand this investigation any longer.”

“Oh, yeah? When did you reach your breaking point? Yesterday at Gioia Tauro?”

“Well, then, it’s because Mimì deserves it.”

“No, sir, Mimì does not deserve it.”

“Fazio, can we put a little distance back between the two of us? I decided to do this because I felt like it. And I don’t feel like discussing it any longer.”

“Look, Chief, that guy’s going to send the department to hell in a handbasket. He’s not right in the head. I don’t know what’s got into Inspector Augello. And this is a delicate matter, with the Mafia smack-dab in the middle. I don’t want to work with Inspector Augello.”

“Fazio, it’s not a question of what you want or don’t want. It’s an order.”

Fazio stood up, pale as a corpse and stiff as a broomstick.

“Yes, sir.”

“Wait. Try to understand. It’s precisely because it’s such a delicate matter, as you said, that I want you working alongside Augello.”

“Chief, if the guy takes off like a rocket, I’m certainly not going to be able to stop him.”

“If you alert me in time, I’ll step in.”

“But you’ll be in Boccadasse!”

“I don’t think anything will happen in these next three days. In any case I’ll bring along my cell phone. And don’t you have Livia’s home phone number?”

“Excuse me, but what’s going on?”

“Where?”

“Here. Why is there all this traffic?”

“You call this traffic?” asked the policeman, surprised.

Which meant that this was perfectly normal. By the grace of God he came at last within view of the arcades of the port district. He asked where customs was, and as he was heading there, he drove slowly past three sparkling display windows full of meat, exhibited the way jewels used to be at Bulgari’s. A big, lit-up sign said: PECORINI—THE MEAT KING. Finding a legal parking space was, of course, a fantasy, and so he stopped the car inside a sort of great open doorway with its door unhinged and got out.

At Pecorini’s, the similarity with the former display windows at Bulgari’s was heightened by the prices accompanying the different cuts of meat.

As he entered the butcher shop he felt as if he were entering the reception room of a first-class beauty salon. Sofas, armchairs, little tables. As there was a group of people at the very elegant counter, he sat down in an armchair, and at once a girl of about eighteen appeared dressed as a chambermaid, in starched cap and apron.

“Would you like a coffee?”

“No, thank you. There are too many people. I’ll come back later.”

As he stood up, the man at the cash register looked up and eyed him.

In a flash, Montalbano was sure of two things: one, that the man was Arturo Pecorini, and two, that Pecorini had recognized him, because he had frozen in the act of giving change to a customer. Perhaps he had seen the inspector on television.