Free The Age of Doubt by Andrea Camilleri Page A

her mind, and so he picked up the receiver.
    “Hello?”
    “Ah, Inspector Montalbano, what luck to find you in your office! Did you just get back?”
    “This very moment.”
    It was that humongous pain in the ass Dr. Lattes, called
Lattes e mieles
, chief of the commissioner’s cabinet, who, among other things, was convinced that Montalbano was married with children.
    “Well, my friend, the commissioner has gone and left me with the task of contacting you.”
    “What can I do for you, Doctor?”
    “We urgently need to do a complete review of documents lost during that sort of flood that damaged your offices the other day.”
    “I see.”
    “Would you have an hour or so, or perhaps an hour and a half, to devote to this?”
    “When?”
    “Right now. It’s something we could even do over the phone. You need only have a list of the lost documents at hand. Let’s start by doing a summary check, which will later serve as . . .”
    Montalbano felt lost. He would have to cancel the dinner engagement with Laura!
    No, he would not submit to this revenge of the bureaucracy.
    But how? How would he ever wriggle out of this?
    Perhaps only a good improvised performance could save him. He would do the tragic-actor thing, and he got off to a flying start.
    “No! No! Alas! Woe is me! I don’t have the time!” he said in a despairing voice.
    It made an immediate impression on Lattes.
    “Good God, Inspector! What’s wrong?”
    “I just now got a call from my wife!”
    “And?”
    “She phoned me from the hospital, alas!”
    “But what happened?”
    “It’s my youngest, little Gianfrancesco. He’s very sick and I must immediately—”
    Dr. Lattes didn’t hesitate for a second.
    “For heaven’s sake, Montalbano! Go, and hurry! I shall pray to the Blessed Virgin for your little . . . What did you say his name was?”
    Montalbano couldn’t remember. He blurted out the first name that came to mind.
    “Gianantonio.”
    “But didn’t you say Gianfrancesco?”
    “You see? I can’t even think straight! Gianantonio is the oldest, and he’s fine, thank God!”
    “Go! Go! Don’t waste any more time! And good luck! And tomorrow I want a full report, don’t forget.”

    Montalbano was off like a rocket to Montereale.
    But after barely a mile and a half, the car stalled. There wasn’t a drop of gasoline left in the tank. Fortunately there was a filling station a couple of hundred yards up the road.
    He got out of the car, grabbed a jerry can from the trunk, ran to the gas station, filled up the can, paid, ran back to the car, poured in the gas, started up the car, stopped at the station again, filled up the tank, and drove off—cursing the saints all the while.
    When he got to the restaurant, all sweaty and out of breath, Laura was already sitting at a table, nervously waiting for him.
    “Five minutes more and I would have left,” she said, cold as a slab of ice.
    Owing perhaps to the ordeal he had gone through to get there more or less on time, her words had the immediate effect of seriously pissing him off. He was unable to control himself, and out of his mouth came a declaration he would never have thought himself capable of.
    “Well, then I’ll just leave myself.”
    And he turned his back, went out of the restaurant, got in his car, and drove home to Marinella.

    He wanted nothing more than to get into the shower and stay there for as long as it took to wash away his agitation.
    Twenty minutes later, as he was drying himself off, he thought again with a cooler head about what he had done, and realized he’d committed an act of colossal stupidity. Because he absolutely needed Laura’s help if he was going to get anywhere in the investigation. Indeed, the only way Mimì Augello could come into contact with La Giovannini was through Laura.
    That was what happened when you mixed personal matters with work.
    He decided he would call her first thing in the morning and apologize.
    He no longer felt hungry.