Free IM10 August Heat (2008) by Andrea Camilleri Page B

told him.
    “Go on.”
    “But I’ve already told you everything I know! We found him dead on Monday morning. He fell from the scaffolding on the third floor. He’d climbed over the protective railing, drunk as a skunk. It was an accident, I tell you!”
    “For now, we’ll stop here.”
    “So I can go now?”
    “In just a minute. Were you there when the work was completed?”
    Dipasquale balked.
    “But the construction in Montelusa’s still not finished!”
    “I’m talking about the house at Pizzo.”
    “But didn’t you say you called me in to talk about the Arab?”
    “I just changed my mind. Is that all right with you?”
    “Do I have any choice?”
    “You know, of course, that a whole floor was built illegally at Pizzo?”
    Dipasquale looked neither surprised nor concerned.
    “Of course I know. But I was just following orders.”
    “Do you know what the word ‘accomplice’ means?”
    “Yeah, I know.”
    “Then tell me.”
    “Well, there’s accomplice and accomplice.To call helping somebody build an illegal floor on a house an accomplice is like calling a pinprick a fatal injury.”
    He even knew how to debate, did the foreman.
    “Did you stay at Pizzo until the work was completed?”
    “No, Mr. Spitaleri transferred me to Fela four days before, ’cause they were just finishing setting up another construction site there. But everything was just about done at Pizzo.We only had to seal off the illegal floor and cover it up with sand. That was easy work, there wasn’t no need of supervisors. I remember I hired two masons, but I forget their names. Like I said to Spitaleri, you can find those names by looking—”
    “Yes, Spitaleri went to look for them. Listen, do you know if Mr. Speciale stayed until the work was finished?”
    “He was there as long as I was there.And that crazy stepson of his was there, too, that German kid.”
    “Why did you call him crazy?”
    “Because he was.”
    “What did he do that was so unusual?”
    “He could stand on ’is head for an hour straight with his feet in the air. An’ he used to get down on all fours and eat grass like a sheep.”
    “Is that all?”
    “When nature called, he would drop his pants and do it right in front of everybody without feeling embarrassed.”
    “But nowadays there are a lot of people like him, no? They call themselves nature-lovers, with good reason, I guess . . . All things considered, it doesn’t seem to me like this German was so crazy.”
    “Wait. One day he went down to the beach, it was summertime and there were people there, and he got it in his head to strip down bare-naked and start chasing a girl wit’ ’is dick hanging out and all.”
    “So what happened?”
    “It turned out a couple of young guys who was there grabbed him and busted his head.”
    Maybe Ralf had got it in his head to pretend he was Mallarmé’s faun. But what the foreman was saying was very interesting.
    “Do you know of any other episodes like this one?”
    “Yes. They told me he did the same thing with another young girl he met on the path that leads from the provincial road to Pizzo.”
    “What did he do?”
    “Soon as he saw her, he took off all his clothes and started chasing her.”
    “And how did the girl get away?”
    “Well, just then Mr. Spitaleri drove by in his car.”
    Just the right man at the right moment! A whole slew of clichés came into Montalbano’s head: from the frying pan into the fire, between a rock and a hard place . . . He felt irked at himself for having such obvious thoughts.
    “Listen, I suppose Mr. Speciale knew about his stepson’s exploits?”
    “Oh, yeah!”
    “And what did he say about it?”
    “Nothing. He would start laughing. He said the kid had his moments in Germany, too, but was harmless. All he wanted to do to the girls was kiss ’em, that’s what Mr. Speciale told us. But what I want to know is this: Why’d the blessed kid need to take off all his clothes if all he wanted to do is kiss