The Scent of the Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

lift, he ran to his car, turned on the ignition, and drove off, cursing the saints. He'd completely forgotten that Mimì was supposed to tell the commissioner he'd got a couple of stitches in his forehead. His only choice was to return to Vigaia and have a pharmacist friend put a bandage on him.
     
    THREE
     
     
     
    He returned to Montelusa Central with a broad gauze bandage wrapped around his head, making him look like a Vietnam War survivor. In the waiting room outside the commissioner's office, he ran into the latter's cabinet chief, Dr Lattes, whom everybody called 'Caffe-Lattes' for his cloying manner. Lattes noticed — he could hardly have done otherwise — the enormous bandage.
    ‘ What happened to you?'
    'A minor car accident. Nothing serious.'
    'Thank the Lord!'
    ‘I already have, thanks.'
    'And how's the family, dear Inspector? Everyone all right? ’ Everybody and his dog knew that Montalbano was an orphan, unmarried, and with no secret children out of wedlock, either. And yet, without fail, Lattes always asked him the same exact question. And the inspector, with similar obstinacy, never disappointed him.
    'They're all fine, thank the Lord. How are yours?'
    ‘Fine, fine, thank the heavens’ said Lattes, pleased that Montalbano had afforded him the chance to add a little variation to the theme. 'So,' he continued, what pleasant task brings you this way?'
    What? Hadn't the commissioner told the chief of his cabinet that he'd been summoned to see him? Was it such a secret matter?
    'Commissioner Bonetti-Alderighi phoned me, said he wanted to see me.'
    'O h, really?' Lattes marvelled. ‘I’l l tell the commissioner at once that you're here.'
    He knocked discreetly on the commissioner's door, went inside, closed the door behind him. A moment later the door opened and Lattes reappeared, his face transformed and no longer smiling.
    'You can go in now,' he said.
    Walking past him, Montalbano tried to look him in the eye but was unable to. The cabinet chief was keeping his head down. Shit. It must really be serious. But what had he done wrong? He went in. Lattes closed the door behind him, and to Montalbano it seemed as if the lid of a coffin had just been lowered over him.
    The commissioner, who whenever he received Montalbano mounted a stage-set for the occasion, had resorted this time to lighting effects similar to those one might see in a black-and-white film by Fritz Lang. The shutters were tightly closed, the shades all pulled down except one, letting a thin ray of sun, filter through, the purpose of which was to slice the ro om in two. The only source of ill umination was a low, mushroom-shaped table lamp, which shed its light on the papers spread out over the commissioner's desk but kept his face entirely in darkness. Based on the decor, Montalbano became convinced that he was about to be subjected to an interrogation somewhere between the kind once carried out by the Holy Inquisition and the kind in fashion with the SS. 'Come in.'
    The inspector stepped forward. In front of the desk were two chairs, but he did not sit down, and in any case the commissioner had not invited him to do so. Montalbano did not greet his superior, and neither did Bonetti-Alderighi, for his part, greet him. The commissioner kept reading the papers he had before him.
    A good five minutes passed. The inspector then decided to counterattack. If he did not take the initiative, Bonetti-Alderighi was liable to leave him standing there in the dark, literally and figuratively, for several hours. He slipped a hand into his jacket pocket, extracted a packet of cigarettes, took one out, put it between his lips, and fired up his lighter. The commissioner leapt out of his chair, the little flame having had the same effect as the blast of a lu para.
    ‘ What are you doing?!' he cried, looking up in terror from his papers.
    ‘I’m lighting a cigarette.'
    ‘ Put that thing out at once! Smoking is strictly forbidden here!'
    Without a word, the