Game of Mirrors Read Online Free PDF

and it was this cop who made Lombardo file a report; otherwise the guy would have taken off without doing anything, not even about his broken car window.”
    “And have you ever seen his wife?”
    “Just once. And I certainly haven’t forgotten her.”
    Montalbano knew what he meant. And so he decided to tell him the whole story, from the moment he first saw Liliana looking under her car’s hood to the previous night and the ride he’d given her this morning.
    “So what do you think?” he asked in conclusion.
    “Chief, it could be revenge on the part of a jilted lover, as you say, or it could be just about anything else. With a woman like that, anything is possible. And it’s clear she knows who did it but has no intention whatsoever of reporting him.”
    He did not ask why Montalbano had become interested in the matter in the first place. But he had a puzzled look on his face.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “I’m sorry, Chief, but there’s something that doesn’t . . .”
    He trailed off, seeming confused.
    “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or not?”
    “What time do you think it was when you heard Signora Lombardo making love?”
    Montalbano thought about this for a minute.
    “Definitely between eleven and a quarter past. Why?”
    “I’m sure I’m mistaken,” said Fazio.
    “Well, tell me just the same.”
    “Remember how I just now said ‘the first time I saw Lombardo’? I said the ‘first time’ because there was a second time, too.”
    “And when was that?”
    “Yesterday evening we went to dinner at my sister-in-law’s place at eight, and we left at ten thirty. Since we live nearby, we walked. Well, on our way back, there was a drunk in the middle of the road, and a car had to slow down. It was a big sports car, and at the wheel was none other than Lombardo, or so I thought.”
    “What direction was he going in?”
    “Toward Marinella.”
    “Are you sure the car wasn’t a green Volvo?”
    “Come on, Chief, is that some kind of joke?”
    “But do you realize what you’re saying? No, it’s simply not possible that—”
    “Exactly. It was probably a mistake,” Fazio cut him off.
         
    “Chief, ’at’d be yer ’ousekipper Adilina onna line.”
    “Put her on. What is it, Adelì?”
    “Isspector, I gonna meck
arancini
tonite, an’ I wannata ask ya if ya do me the ’onor a comin’ a eat atta my place a tonite.”
    Montalbano felt a rush of happiness and unhappiness at once. Savoring Adelina’s arancini rice balls was a total experience, a pinnacle of existence. Once you’d tasted them, they remained forever etched in your memory like some sort of paradise lost. For this reason, the offer to return to the Garden of Eden for one evening was not something to be lightly dismissed.
    The inspector, however, had committed himself to going to Liliana’s for dinner and didn’t feel like canceling. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, since he didn’t have her cell phone number.
    “Adelì, thank you so much, but I can’t come.”
    “An’ why not? My boy Pasquali’s gonna come wit’ ’is wife anna my granson, Salvuzzo, cuz iss ’is birthday.”
    Montalbano was the godfather of Pasquale’s son, having held the child at his baptism.
    “Adelì, I can’t come because I’ve already been invited to dinner by my neighbor, the young woman who lives in the little house nearby . . .”
    “I know her! I talk a to her! Whatta goo’-lookin’ lady she is! Anna she’s nice anna polite too! Is ’er husban’ there too?”
    “No, he’s away on business.”
    “Then you bring ’er here! I tell ya f’ya own good! My arancini mecka miracles!” And she started laughing insinuatingly.
    Adelina couldn’t stand Livia, and the feeling was mutual. Whenever Livia came to stay with Montalbano for afew days, Adelina would disappear until the inspector was alone again. Therefore she would be delighted if he was unfaithful to her.
    “I don’t know how to reach her.”
    “Don’