Free The Brewer of Preston by Andrea Camilleri Page B

moment Ninì Prestìa, who hadn’t taken his eyes off the Roman since they had all gathered there, spoke up for the first time.
    â€œWell,
I’m
certainly not going to ask you
how
, since I don’t give a shit
how
you got it.”
    The young man gave him a confused look, surprised by the violence in those words.
    â€œI didn’t quite understand,” he said.
    â€œMay I ask a question that has nothing to do with anything you’ve been saying?”
    Traquandi’s eyes narrowed to two slits. Realizing he had better be on his guard, he automatically responded in Roman dialect.
    â€œIf it’s got nothing to do with anything, why ask it?”
    â€œBecause I feel like it.”
    â€œWell, then, go ahead.”
    â€œThere are four of us here, not counting you, sitting around this table. Pippino Mazzaglia, me, Cosimo Bellofiore, and Decu Garzìa. If you were to find out, let’s say, that one of us was planning to report you to the police, what’s the first thing you would do?”
    â€œI’d shoot him in the mouth,” Traquandi said without hesitation.
    â€œWithout even asking why?”
    â€œWhat the hell do I care why? That’s his damn business. But, pardon my asking, why did you want to know?”
    â€œNever mind; it doesn’t matter.”

    Pippino Mazzaglia felt a surge of heat in his chest so strong and intense that it brought tears to his eyes. There was Ninì Prestìa, forever his true friend, the person with whom he could always wear his heart on his sleeve, who had shared with him more than thirty years of fear, persecution, escapes, ambushes, prison, and rare moments of joy. He remembered the touch of Ninì’s warm hand on his own as the Bourbon judges read out the sentence and cut the roots out from under their youth, cancelling all the books they might read, words they might say, women they might love, children they might caress. And now Ninì had expressed the same feelings as his about the young Roman, as if he had said them out loud. Mazzaglia looked at his friend, keeping his eyes half closed so as not to let any tears show. Ninì had grown old, his hair white, his eye slightly milky. In a flash he realized he was, in a way, looking at himself in the mirror. And so he grew angry, and took Prestìa’s side.
    â€œPlease bear with us another minute, Signor Traquandi, because I myself would like to ask you something, since you seem to know everything.”
    The Roman outsider took his hands out of his satchel, laid them on the table, and, without a word, assumed the position of someone ready to listen. But he did it with condescension, and Mazzaglia’s antipathy towards him increased.
    â€œWhat I want to ask you is not simply a waste of time, as you might be inclined to think. Ever since this whole business over
The Brewer of Preston
began, I’ve been losing sleep asking myself why the prefect of Montelusa got it in his head to inaugurate the Vigàta theatre with an opera that nobody wanted. I found out there’s no monetary interest involved, that the composer is not a relative of his, and that he’s not sleeping with one of the sopranos. So why, then, did he do it? In order to get the results he wanted, he forced two of the theatre’s administrative councils to resign until he found the right sheep to go baaahhh in tempo at the wave of his baton. Why?”
    â€œI couldn’t care less why.”
    â€œNo, I’m sorry, but if this whole business is supposed to provide us with a pretext for staging a demonstration of protest, surely we need to know the real motives of our adversary.”
    â€œIn that case, I say the prefect wanted to make a show of his own power, and, indirectly, to demonstrate how powerful the government he represents is.”
    â€œThat’s too easy.”
    â€œYou see? If you keep asking yourself why this and why that, you end up immobilized and unable to act.