IM10 August Heat (2008) (2 page)

The real estate agents in Vigàta laughed in his face.

“What, you think you can come in here on the sixteenth of July and find a house by the sea for the first of August? It was all rented out a long time ago!”

But they’d told him to leave his telephone number. If, by chance, somebody canceled at the last minute, they would let him know. And a miracle did happen, at the very moment he had given up hope.

“Hello, Inspector Montalbano? This is Aurora Real Estate. A nice little villa by the sea has been freed up, the sort of thing you were looking for. It’s at Marina di Montereale, in the Pizzo district. But you’d better come by in a hurry, because we’re about to close.”

He’d run out right in the middle of an interrogation and rushed to the agency. From the photos it looked exactly like what Livia wanted. So he’d arranged with Mr. Callara, the head of the agency, to come pick him up the following morning around nine o’clock to show the house, which was up by Montereale, less than six miles from Marinella.

Montalbano realized that six miles, on the road to Montereale, at the height of summer, could just as easily mean a five-minute drive as a two-hour drive, depending on traffic. Too bad. Livia and Laura would have to make do. It couldn’t be helped.

The following morning, as soon as he got in the car, Callara started talking and never stopped. He began with recent history, recounting how the house had been rented to a certain Jacolino, who was a clerk in Cremona and had made the required down payment. But just last night, this Jacolino had phoned the agency saying his wife’s mother had just had an accident, and so they couldn’t leave Cremona for the time being. And so the agency had called him, Montalbano, right away.

Next, Signor Callara delved into past history. That is, he told him, in full detail, how and why the house had been built. Some six years back, an old fellow of about seventy, who went by the name of Angelo Speciale—Monterealese by birth, but an emigrant to Germany, where he’d worked for the rest of his life—had decided to build himself this house, so he could come back to his hometown once and for all with his German wife. This German wife, whose name was Gudrun, was a widow with a twenty-year-old son called Ralf. Got that? Got it. Well, Angelo Speciale came down to Montereale in the company of his stepson Ralf and went around for a whole month looking for the right location. When he’d found it, and bought it, he went to see Michele Spitaleri, the developer, and had him draw up the plans. He waited over a year for the construction to be completed. Ralf stayed with him the whole time.

Then they went back to Germany to have all their furniture and other possessions shipped to Montereale. But a weird thing happened. Since this Angelo Speciale didn’t like to fly, they went by train. When they got to Köln station, however, Signor Speciale couldn’t find his stepson, who’d been traveling in the bunk over his. Ralf ’s suitcase was still in the compartment, but there was no trace of him. The night conductor said he hadn’t seen anyone leave the train at any of the prior stops. In short, Ralf had disappeared.

“Did they ever find him?”

“Would you believe it, Inspector? They never did! From that moment on, nobody ever heard from the kid again!”

“And did Signor Speciale ever move into the house?”

“That’s the best part! He never did! Poor Signor Speciale, he wasn’t back in Cologne a month when he fell down the stairs, hit his head, and died!”

“What about the twice-widowed Signora Gudrun? Did she come down here to live?”

“What was she going to do here, poor thing, without her husband or son? She called us three years ago and told us to rent out the house. And since then we’ve been renting it, but only in the summer.”

“Why not during the rest of the year?”

“It’s too isolated, Inspector.You’ll see for yourself.”

It was indeed isolated. One got there by turning off the provincial road onto an uphill dirt road that had only a rustic little cottage, another slightly less rustic cottage, and, at the end, the house. There were hardly any trees or vegetation at all.The whole area was parched by the sun. But the moment one arrived at the house, which was at the top of a great big sort of hill, the view suddenly changed. It was breathtaking. Below, extending in both directions, was a beach of golden sand, dotted here and there by a few scattered umbrellas; and in front, a clear, open, welcoming sea.The house, which was all on one floor, had two bedrooms, a big one with a double bed and a smaller one with single bed, a spacious living room with rectangular windows looking onto nothing but sea and sky, not to mention a television.The kitchen was sizeable and equipped with an enormous refrigerator. There were even two bathrooms. And a terrace that was priceless, perfect for open-air dining in the evening.

“I like it,” said the inspector. “How much is it?”

“Well, Inspector, normally we don’t rent a house like this for only two weeks, but since it’s for you . . .”

He spat out a figure that was like a billy-club to the head. But Montalbano didn’t feel a thing.After all, Laura was plenty rich and could pay her part to alleviate the poverty of southern Italy.

“I like it,” he repeated.

“Naturally, there will be some additional expenses—”

“Naturally, there
won’t
be any additional expenses,” said Montalbano, who didn’t want to be taken for a fool.

“Okay, okay.”

“How do you go down to the beach?”

“Well, you go through the little gate on the terrace, then walk about ten yards to a small stone staircase that leads down to the beach.There are fifty steps.”

“Could you give me about half an hour?”

Callara looked befuddled.

“If you keep it to half an hour . . .” he said.

From the moment he’d seen it, Montalbano wanted to dive into that sea, which seemed to be beckoning him, and go for a long swim. He swam in his underpants.

When he returned, the sun had already dried him off during the time it took him to climb the fifty steps.

 

 

 

On the morning of the first of August, Montalbano went to Palermo’s Punta Raisi airport to meet Livia, Laura, and her son, Bruno, a little boy of three. Guido, Laura’s husband, would come later by train, bringing a car and their baggage across the Strait. Bruno was one of those little children incapable of sitting still for two consecutive minutes. Laura and Guido were a little concerned because the boy still didn’t talk and communicated only by gestures. He didn’t even like to draw or scribble, like other children his age; to make up for it, however, he was a master at busting the cojones of all creation.

They went to Marinella, where Adelina had prepared lunch for the whole gang. But Montalbano’s housekeeper was already gone when they arrived, and Montalbano knew he wouldn’t see her again for the remainder of Livia’s fifteen days at Marinella.Adelina had a deep antipathy towards Livia, and the feeling was mutual.

Guido stumbled in around one o’clock. They ate, and immediately afterward, Montalbano got into his car with Livia to lead the way for Guido, in his car with his family. When Laura saw the house, she got so excited she hugged and kissed Montalbano. Bruno, too, gestured as if he wanted to be hugged by the inspector. But as soon as Montalbano raised him to his face, the boy spit the candy he was sucking into the inspector’s eye.

They all agreed that the following morning, Livia would come to see Laura in Salvo’s car, since he could get a ride to work in a squad car, and she would stay the whole day.That evening, when he got off work, Montalbano would have somebody drive him to Pizzo, and together they would decide where to go out to eat.

This seemed to the inspector an excellent solution, since it would allow him to feast on whatever he liked best at lunchtime, at Enzo’s trattoria.

 

 

 

The troubles at the beachside house in Pizzo began on the morning of the third day. When she went to see her friend, Livia found the whole place turned upside down: clothes pulled out of the armoire and piled onto the chairs on the terrace, mattresses pushed up under the windows of the bedrooms, kitchen utensils strewn across the ground in the parking area in front of the entrance. Bruno, naked, with a garden hose in hand, was doing his best to soak all the clothes, mattresses, and sheets. He also tried to soak Livia the moment he saw her, but she, knowing him well, stepped out of the way. Laura was lying on a deck chair next to the low wall of the terrace, a wet rag over her forehead.

“What on earth is going on?”

“Have you been inside the house?”

“No.”

“Look inside from the terrace, but be careful not to go in.”

Livia went in through the little terrace gate, and looked into the living room.

The first thing she noticed was that the floor had turned almost black.

The second thing she noticed was that the floor was alive; that is, it was moving in all directions. After which she didn’t notice anything else, having understood what it was she had seen. She only screamed and ran off the terrace.

“They’re cockroaches! Thousands of them!”

“This morning, at the crack of dawn,” Laura said with great effort, as if lacking even the breath to go on living, “I got up to get a drink of water, and I saw them. But there weren’t so many of them yet . . . So I woke up Guido, and we tried to salvage whatever we could, but we quickly gave up. They kept coming up out of a crack in the living room floor . . .”

“And where’s Guido now?”

“He went to Montereale. He called the mayor, who was very nice. He should be back at any moment.”

“Why didn’t he call Salvo?”

“He said he couldn’t bring himself to call the police over an invasion of cockroaches.”

Guido pulled up some fifteen minutes later, followed by a car from the mayor’s office carrying four exterminators armed with poison canisters and brooms.

Livia took Laura and Bruno back to Marinella with her, while Guido stayed behind to coordinate the disinfestation and clean up the house. Around four o’clock in the afternoon, he too showed up at Marinella.

“They were coming straight up out of that crack in the floor. We sprayed two whole canisters down there, then cemented it up.”

“There wouldn’t happen to be any more of those cracks, would there?” Laura asked, seeming not very convinced.

“Don’t worry, we looked everywhere very carefully,” said Guido, settling the matter.“It won’t happen again.We can go back home without fear.”

“Who knows why they all came out like that . . .” Livia cut in.

“One of the exterminators explained that the house must have shifted imperceptibly during the night, causing the floor to crack. And the cockroaches, which were living underground, came up because they were attracted by the smell of food or by our presence. It’s hard to say.”

 

 

 

On the fifth day came the second invasion. Not of cockroaches, this time, but of little rodents. Laura, when she got up that morning, saw some fifteen of them, tiny little things, even sort of pretty. But they fled out the French doors to the terrace at high speed as soon as she moved. She found another two in the kitchen, munching away at some bread crumbs. Unlike most women, Laura was not deathly afraid of mice. Guido called the mayor again, drove into Montereale, and came back with two mousetraps, a quarter pound of sharp cheese, and a red cat, pleasant and patient—so patient, in fact, that he didn’t take offense when little Bruno immediately tried to gouge out one of his eyes.

“How can this be? First cockroaches climb up out of the floor, and now mice?” Livia asked Montalbano right after they got into bed.

With Livia lying naked next to him, Montalbano didn’t feel like talking about rodents.

“Well, the house hadn’t been lived in for a whole year . . .” was his vague reply.

“It probably should have been swept, scoured, and disinfected before Laura and her family moved in . . .” Livia concluded.

“I could use some of that myself,” Montalbano cut in.

“Some of what?” asked Livia, confused.

“A good scouring.”

And he kissed her.

 

 

 

On the eighth day came the third invasion. Again it was Laura, the first to get up, who noticed. She saw one out of the corner of her eye, jumped straight into the air, and, without knowing how, landed on top of the kitchen table, on her feet, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Then, when she felt it was safe enough, she slowly opened her eyes again, and, trembling and sweaty, looked down at the floor.

Where, in fact, some thirty spiders were blithely strolling along, as in a representative parade of the species: One was short and hairy, another had only a ball-like head on very long, wiry legs, a third was reddish and big as a crab, a fourth was the spitting image of the dreaded black widow . . .

Laura, who was unfazed by cockroaches and unafraid of mice, did, on the other hand, fly into convulsions the moment she saw a spider. She suffered from what is called arachnophobia.

And so, with her hair standing straight on end, she let out an earsplitting scream and then fainted, plummeting from the table and onto the floor.

In her fall she hit her head, which began at once to bleed.

Woken up with a start, Guido bolted out of bed and rushed to his wife’s rescue. But he didn’t notice that Ruggero—that was the cat’s name—was racing out of the kitchen, terrorized first by Laura’s scream and then by the thud of her fall.

The upshot was that Guido suddenly found himself flying parallel to the ground until his head collided like a bumper with the refrigerator.

When Livia arrived at the usual hour to go for a swim with her friends, she walked into what looked like a field hospital.

Laura and Guido both had their heads wrapped in bandages, whereas Bruno’s foot was all taped up, since, when he’d got out of bed he’d knocked a glass of water off the night table, shattering it to pieces, and then walked over the slivers of glass. Nonplussed, Livia noticed that even Ruggero the cat was limping slightly, as a result of his collision with Guido.