Free The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri Page B

years earlier.
     
 
The previous July, when she had come to Vigàta to spend two weeks with him, Livia, upon hearing this story, became terrified.
    “Are you insane? One of these days that woman will take revenge and poison your soup!”
    “Take revenge for what?”
    “For having arrested her son!”
    “Is that my fault? Adelina’s well aware it’s not my fault if her son was stupid enough to get caught. I played fair, didn’t use any tricks or traps to arrest him. It was all on the up-and-up.”
    “I don’t give a damn about your contorted way of thinking. You have to get rid of her.”
    “But if I fire her, who’s going to keep house for me, do my laundry, iron my clothes, and make me dinner?”
    “You’ll find somebody else!”
    “There you’re wrong. I’ll never find a woman as good as Adelina.”
     
 
He was about to put the pasta water on the stove when the telephone rang.
    “I feel like crawling underground for waking you at this hour” was the introduction.
    “I wasn’t sleeping. Who is this?”
    “It’s Counselor Pietro Rizzo.”
    “Ah, Counselor Rizzo. My congratulations.”
    “For what? If it’s for the honor my party has just done me, you should probably offer me your condolences. Believe me, I accepted only out of a sense of undying loyalty to the ideals of the late Mr. Luparello. But to get back to my reason for calling: I need to see you, Inspector.”
    “Now?!”
    “Not now, of course, but bear in mind, in any case, that it is an improcrastinable matter.”
    “We could do it tomorrow morning, but isn’t the funeral tomorrow? You’ll be very busy, I imagine.”
    “Indeed. All afternoon as well. There will be some very important guests, you know, and of course they will linger awhile.”
    “So when?”
    “Actually, on second thought, I think we could do it tomorrow morning, but first thing. What time do you usually get to the office?”
    “Around eight.”
    “Eight o’clock would be fine with me. It won’t take but a few minutes.”
    “Listen, Counselor, precisely because you will have so little time tomorrow morning, could you perhaps tell me in advance what it’s about?”
    “Over the phone?”
    “Just a hint.”
    “All right. I have heard—though I don’t know how much truth there is in the rumor—that an object found by chance on the ground was turned over to you. I’ve been instructed to reclaim it.”
    Montalbano covered the receiver with one hand and literally exploded in a horselike whinny, a mighty guffaw. He had baited the Jacomuzzi hook with the necklace, and the trap had worked like a charm, catching the biggest fish he could ever have hoped for. But how did Jacomuzzi manage to let everyone know things he wasn’t supposed to let anyone know? Did he resort to lasers, to telepathy, to magical shamanistic practices? Montalbano heard Rizzo yelling on the line.
    “Hello? Hello? I can’t hear you! What happened, did we get cut off?”
    “No, excuse me, I dropped my pencil and was looking for it. I’ll see you tomorrow at eight.”
     
 
As soon as he heard the doorbell ring, he put the pasta in the water and went to the door.
    “So what’s for supper?” asked Zito as he entered.
    “Pasta with garlic and oil, and shrimp with oil and lemon.”
    “Excellent.”
    “Come into the kitchen and give me a hand.
    Meanwhile, my first question is: can you say ‘improcrastinable’?”
    “Have you gone soft in the head? You make me race all the way from Montelusa to ask me if I can say some word? Anyway, of course I can say it. No problem.”
    He tried to say it three or four times, with increasing obstinacy, but he couldn’t do it, getting more and more marble-mouthed with each try.
    “You have to be very adroit, very adroit,” said the inspector, thinking of Rizzo, and he wasn’t referring only to the lawyer’s adroitness in casually uttering tongue twisters.
    As they ate, they spoke of eating, as always happens in Italy. Zito, after reminiscing