IM11 The Wings of the Sphinx (2009) Read Free

provincial road to the dump there rose a big cloud that looked just like a tornado.
    “ Matre santa , the press!” exclaimed the inspector.
    Obviously somebody from the commissioner’s office had spilled the beans.
    “I’ll see you guys at the office,” he said, racing towards his car.
    “I’m going back down,” said Augello.

    The real reason he hadn’t gone down into the dump was that he didn’t want to see what he would have had to see. Augello had said the corpse was of a girl barely more than twenty years old. It used to be that he felt afraid of dying people, while the dead made no impression on him. Now, however, and for the past few years, he could no longer bear the sight of people cut down in their youth. Something inside him utterly rebelled against what he considered an act against nature, a sort of ultimate sacrilege, even if the young victim had been a crook or a murderer in turn. To say nothing of children! The moment the evening news displayed the mangled bodies of little children, killed by war, famine, or disease, he would turn off the television at once . . .
    “It’s your frustrated paternal instinct,” was Livia’s conclusion, stated with a good dose of malice, after he had confided this problem to her.
    “I have never heard of frustrated paternal instincts, only frustrated maternal instincts,” he had retorted.
    “Well, if it’s not frustrated paternal instincts,” Livia insisted, “maybe it means you have a grandfather complex.”
    “How can I have a grandfather complex if I’ve never been a father?”
    “What’s that got to do with it? Ever heard of an hysterical pregnancy?”
    “It’s when a woman has all the signs of being pregnant but isn’t.”
    “Right. And you’re having an hysterical grandfatherhood.”
    Naturally the argument had ended in a nasty squabble.

    From the front doorway of the police station the inspector heard Catarella speaking frantically.
    “No, Mr. C’mishner, sir, the inspector can’t come to the phone ’cause he in’t bibiquitous. He’s at the Sarsetto in so much as—Hullo? Hullo? Whaddhe do, hang up? Hallo?”
    He saw Montalbano.
    “Ahhh Chief Chief! ’At was the c’mishner!”
    “What’d he want?”
    “He din’t say, Chief. He said only as how he wanted a talk to you rilly emergently.”
    “Okay. I’ll call him later.”
    On his desk was a mountain of papers to be signed. His heart sank at the sight. It really wasn’t his day. He turned heel and passed by Catarella’s closet.
    “I’ll be right back. I’m going to have a coffee.”
    After the coffee, he smoked a cigarette and went for a short walk. Then he returned to his office and called the commissioner.
    “Montalbano here. Your orders, sir.”
    “Don’t make me laugh!”
    “Why, what did I do?”
    “You said: ‘Your orders, sir’!”
    “So? What was I supposed to say?”
    “It’s not what you say that matters, it’s what you do. I give the orders, you can be sure of that, but I can’t—I don’t dare—imagine what you do with them!”
    “Mr. Commissioner, sir, I would never allow myself to do what you think I do with them.”
    “Let’s drop it, Montalbano, it’s better that way. What ever happened with that Piccolo business?”
    Montalbano was befuddled. What piccolo business? He didn’t know of any piccolo makers in Vigàta.
    “Uh, Mr. Commissioner, I don’t know of any musical-instrument makers in—”
    “For God’s sake, Montalbano! What are you talking about? Giulio Piccolo is a person, not an instrument; he’s retired, seventy years old, and . . . Listen, Montalbano, listen very carefully to what I’m about to say, and you can take this as an ultimatum: I demand a thorough, written report on the matter by tomorrow morning.”
    He hung up. Surely the file on this Giulio Piccolo, about whom he couldn’t remember a single thing, must be buried somewhere in that mountain of paper in front of him. Did he have the courage to set his hand to it?