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anymore! With that handful of Milanese judges who’ve decided to ruin politics, commerce, and industry, all at the same time!”
    â€œListen, the cavaliere merely gave a testimonial establishing the modus operandi of the thieves.”
    â€œI don’t give a shit what the cavaliere was establishing. He’s an old geezer who can’t even remember when he turned eighty. He’s so senile he’s liable to see a cat and say it’s an elephant. What was he doing out at that time of the night anyway?”
    â€œI don’t know, I’ll ask him. Shall we get back to the subject?”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œOnce it was loaded, at your supermarket, after at least two hours of labor, the truck leaves. It drives three or four miles, turns around, parks in the lot behind the gas station, and remains there until I find it. And, in your opinion, someone went through this whole elaborate setup, committed half a dozen crimes, risking years in jail, just so he, or you, could have a good laugh?”
    â€œInspector, we could stay here all day arguing, but I swear to you that I can’t imagine how it could have been anything but a joke.”
    Â 
 
In the refrigerator Montalbano found a plate of cold pasta with tomatoes, basil, and black passuluna olives that gave off an aroma to wake the dead, and a second course of fresh anchovies with onions and vinegar. Montalbano was in the habit of trusting entirely in the simple but zestful culinary imagination of Adelina, the housekeeper who came once a day to see to his needs, a mother of two irremediably delinquent sons, one of whom was still in jail, put there by Montalbano. And this day, too, she did not disappoint him. Every time he was about to open the oven or fridge, he still felt the same trepidation he used to feel as a little boy when, on the second of November, he would look for the wicker basket in which the dead had left their gifts during the night—a celebration now lost, obliterated by the banality of presents under the Christmas tree, obliterated like the memory of the dead themselves. The only ones who did not forget their dead, and who indeed tenaciously kept their memory burning, were the mafiosi; but the presents they sent in remembrance were certainly not little tin trains or marzipan fruits.
    Surprise, in short, was an indispensable spice in Adelina’s dishes.
    He took his two courses, a bottle of wine, and some bread to the table, turned on the television, and sat down to dinner. He loved to eat alone, relishing every bite in silence. This was yet another bond that tied him to Livia, who never opened her mouth when she ate. It occurred to him that in matters of taste he was closer to Maigret than to Pepe Carvalho, the protagonist of Montalbán’s novels, who stuffed himself with dishes that would have set a shark’s belly on fire.
    On the national television stations, an ill wind of malaise was blowing. The governing majority found itself split over a law that would deny early prison release to those who had eaten up half the country; the magistrates who had laid bare the dirty secrets of political corruption were resigning in protest; and there was a faint breeze of revolt animating the interviews with people in the street.
    He switched to the first of the two local TV stations. TeleVigàta was progovernment by congenital faith, whether the government was red, black, or sky blue. The news reporter made no mention of the capture of Tano the Greek, stating only that a few conscientious citizens had alerted the Vigàta police of a lively but mysterious shoot-out at dawn in the rural area known as “the Walnut,” and that investigators, after arriving promptly at the scene, had found nothing unusual. The newscaster for the Free Channel, Nicolò Zito, who did not hide his Communist sympathies, likewise failed to mention Tano’s arrest. Which seemed to indicate that the news, fortunately, had not leaked