The Track of Sand (10 page)

When they were about three hundred yards from Baron Piscopo’s villa, they were stopped by a man in brand-spanking-new livery who looked like he’d stepped out of a seventeenth century painting.The one thing that clashed with the whole picture was that the man had the face of someone who had just walked out of Sing-Sing after a thirty-year stint in the cooler.

“You can’t go any further in your car,” said the convict.

“Why not?”

“There’s no more room.”

“What are we supposed to do?” asked Ingrid.

“You can walk. Juss leave me the keys an’ I’ll park it m’self.”

“You made us arrive late,” Ingrid lamented, as she grabbed a sort of bag from the trunk.

“I did?”

“Yes. Always saying, ‘Slow down, slow down . . . ’”

Cars parked on both sides of the road, cars cluttering the vast patio. In front of the main entrance to the enormous, three-story villa with a turret on one side stood another guy in livery covered with golden squiggles. The majordomo? He looked to be at least ninety-nine years old and, indeed, was leaning on a sort of shepherd’s crook to keep from collapsing.

“Hello, Armando,” Ingrid greeted him.

“Hello, signora. Everyone’s outside,” said Armando in a voice as thin as a spiderweb.

“We’ll join them straightaway. Here, please take this,” she said, handing him the bag,“and put it in Signora Esterman’s room.”

Armando grabbed the near-weightless bag with one hand, but still it made him list to that side. Montalbano held him up.The man would list if so much as a fly landed on his shoulder.

They crossed a great hall rather like the lobby of some ten-star Victorian hotel, another huge room jam-packed with portraits of ancestors, and another room even bigger and jam-packed with suits of armor and featuring three French doors in a row, all open and giving onto a broad, tree-lined lane. So far, aside from the ex-con and the majordomo, they had not crossed paths with another living soul.

“Where is everybody?”

“They’re already there. Hurry.”

The lane continued straight for about fifty yards, then split into two lanes, one to the right and the other to the left.

The moment Ingrid took the lane on the left, which was enclosed by very tall hedges, Montalbano, following behind, was met by a noisy barrage of voices, cries, and laughter.

All at once he found himself on a lawn with small tables and chairs, big umbrellas, and chaises longues. There were even two very long tables with food and drinks and apposite waiters in white jackets. Off to one side was a little wooden cottage with a man standing in its rear window and a queue of people lined up in front of him.

There were at least three hundred men and women crowding the lawn, some sitting, some standing, some speaking or laughing in groups. Beyond the lawn, one could see the so-called hippodrome.

People were dressed as if it were Carnival, some in equestrian garb, others in top hats and coats and tails as if attending a reception by the Queen of England, others in jeans and turtlenecks, others in Tyrolean lederhosen and feather caps, others in forest-ranger uniforms (or so they appeared at least to the inspector), one guy in full Arab regalia, and others in shorts and flip-flops.Among the women there were some with hair so big you could have landed a helicopter on top of it, others in miniskirts up to their arm-pits, others in maxiskirts so long that anyone who came too close risked tripping up in them and breaking his neck, another in a bowler hat and nineteenth century riding costume, and a twentyish girl in skin-tight blue-jean short shorts which she could allow herself to wear thanks to the impressive hindquarters with which Mother Nature had endowed her.

When he had finished gawking, the inspector noticed that Ingrid was no longer at his side. He felt lost. He had an overwhelming desire to turn tail, walk back up the great lane, through the villa’s salons, slip back into Ingrid’s car, and—

“Ah, you must be Inspector Montalbano!” said a male voice.

He turned around. The voice belonged to a man of about forty, very thin and very long, wearing a khaki bush jacket, shorts, knee socks, colonial pith helmet, and a pair of binoculars around his neck. He also had a pipe in his mouth. Maybe he thought he was in India at the time of English rule. He held out a soft, sweaty hand that felt to the inspector like wet bread.

“What a pleasure! I am the Marchese Ugo Andrea di Villanella. Are you related to Lieutenant Colombo?”

“The carabinieri lieutenant from Fiacca? No, I’m—”

“Ha ha! I wasn’t talking about a lieutenant of the carabinieri, but the Colombo you see on TV, you know, the one in the trench coat whose wife you never see . . .”

Was this guy a cretin or simply trying to make an ass out of the inspector?

“No, actually I’m Inspector Maigret’s twin brother,” Montalbano replied gruffly.

The marchese looked disappointed.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know him.”

And he walked away. Decidedly a cretin, and slightly loopy into the bargain.

Another man came forward, dressed as a gardener, in dirty overalls that smelled bad and a shovel in his hand.

“You seem new here,” he said.

“Yes, it’s the first time I—”

“Who’d you bet on?”

“Actually, I haven’t yet—”

“You want some advice? Bet on Beatrice della Bicocca.”

“I don’t—”

“Do you know her table of rates?”

“No.”

“Let me recite it for you:
Cough up a thousand in euros / and a kiss on the forehead is yours./A clean five thou without tips / and she’ll give you a kiss on the lips. / But find ten grand to shell out; / and you’ll find her tongue in your mouth
.”

The man bowed and walked away.

What kind of fucking loony bin had he stumbled into? And wasn’t this Beatrice della Bicocca playing unfair?

“Salvo, come!”

At last he spotted Ingrid, who was waving her arms as she called him. He headed towards her.

“Inspector Montalbano; the master of the house, Baron Piscopo di San Militello.”

A tall, thin man, the baron was dressed exactly like someone the inspector had seen leading a fox hunt in a movie. Except that the actor in the movie was wearing a red jacket, while the baron’s was green.

“Welcome, Inspector,” said the baron, extending his hand.

“Thank you,” said Montalbano, shaking it.

“Are you enjoying yourself, Inspector?”

“Quite.”

“I’m glad.”

The baron looked at him, smiling, then clapped his hands loudly.The inspector felt confused.What was he supposed to do? Should he clap his hands, too? Maybe it was a sign these people used on such occasions to express happiness. So he clapped his hands loudly. The baron gave him a puzzled look, and Ingrid started laughing. At that moment a servant in livery handed the baron a coiled horn. So that was why the baron clapped his hands! To call the manservant! As Montalbano was blushing for making a fool of himself, the baron brought the horn to his lips and blew. The blast was so loud that it sounded like the “charge” signal for the cavalry. As his head was about three inches away from the horn, it left Montalbano’s ears ringing.

All fell suddenly silent.The baron passed the horn back to the manservant and took the microphone the other was handing to him.

“
Mesdames et messieurs!
A moment of attention, please! I hereby inform you that the betting booth will close in ten minutes, after which it will no longer be possible to make any wagers!”

“Please excuse us, Barone,” said Ingrid, grabbing Montalbano by the hand and dragging him behind her.

“Where are we going?”

“To place our bets.”

“But I don’t even know who’s racing!”

“Look, there are two favorites. Benedetta di Santo Stefano and Rachele, even though she’s not racing her own horse.”

“What’s this Benedetta like?”

“She’s a midget with a mustache. You want to be kissed by her? Now don’t be silly; you must bet on Rachele, like me.”

“And what is Beatrice della Bicocca like?”

Ingrid stopped dead in her tracks, in disbelief.

“Do you know her?”

“No. I only wanted to know—”

“She’s a slut. At this very moment she’s probably fucking some stableboy. She always does, before she races.”

“Why?”

“Because she says she can feel the horse better afterwards. You know how Formula 1 drivers feel with their buttocks how well the car is performing? Beatrice can feel how well the horse is performing with her—”

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

They filled out their checks at a small, unoccupied table.

“You wait for me here,” said Ingrid.

“No, please. I’ll go,” said Montalbano.

“Look, there’s a queue. If I go, they’ll let me cut in front of the others.”

Not knowing what to do, he approached one of the buffet tables. All that there had been to eat had been dispatched. Nobles, perhaps, but famished as a tribe from Burundi after a drought.

“Would you like something?” a waiter asked him.

“Yes, a J&B, neat.”

“There’s no more whisky, sir.”

He absolutely had to drink something if he was ever going to revive.

“Then a Cognac.”

“The Cognac’s finished, too.”

“Have you any alcohol left?”

“No, sir. All that’s left is orangeade and Coca-Cola.”

“An orangeade,” he said, sinking into depression before he’d even had a sip.

Ingrid came running up with two receipts in her hand, as the baron sounded the second cavalry charge.

“Come, let’s go. The baron is calling us all to the hippodrome.”

And she handed him his receipt.

The hippodrome was small and rather simple. It consisted of a large, circular track surrounded on either side by a low fence of interwoven branches.

There were also two wooden turrets with nobody in them yet.The starting gates, of which there were six, stood in a row behind the track, still empty. Guests were allowed to stand around the track.

“Let’s stay here,” said Ingrid. “We’re near the finishing post.”

They leaned against the fence. A short distance away, there was a white stripe on the ground, which must have been the finish line. Just above it, on the inside of the track, stood one of the turrets, probably reserved for the judges of the race.

Atop the other turret, the Baron Piscopo suddenly appeared, microphone in hand.

“Your attention, please! The line judges, Conte Emanuele della Tenaglia, Colonel Rolando Romeres, and the Marchese Severino di San Severino, are invited to take their places in the turret!”

Easier said than done. One reached the platform of the turret by way of a small, rather cramped wooden staircase. Considering that the youngest of the three, the marchese, weighed at least two hundred and seventy pounds, that the colonel was about eighty and had the shakes, and that the count had a stiff left leg, the fifteen minutes it took them to get to the top must have been some kind of record.

“Once it took them forty-five minutes to get up there,” said Ingrid.

“Is it always the same three?”

“Yes. By tradition.”

“Your attention, please! Will the competing ladies please go with their horses to their assigned starting cages!”

“How are the cages assigned?” asked Montalbano.

“They draw lots.”

“How come there’s no sign of Lo Duca?”

“He’s probably with Rachele. The horse she’s racing today is one of his.”

“Do you know which cage she’s got?”

“The first one, the one closest to the inside track.”

“And it could not have been otherwise!” commented a guy who had overheard their conversation, as he was standing just to the left of Montalbano.

The inspector turned to face him.The man was about fifty and sweaty, and had a head so bald and shiny that it hurt the eyes to look at it.

“What do you mean to say?”

“Exactly what I said. With Guido Costa in charge of it, they have the gall to call it a lottery!” said the sweaty man, indignant, before walking away.

“Have you any idea what he was talking about?” he asked Ingrid.

“Of course! The usual nasty gossip! Since Guido is in charge of the lots, the man was claiming that the lottery was rigged in Rachele’s favor.”

“So this Guido would be—”

“Yes.”

So, in that social circle, it was well known that there was something between the two.

“How many laps do they run?”

“Five.”

“Your attention, please! As of this moment, the starter may give the starting signal whenever he sees fit.”

Less than a minute passed before a pistol shot rang out.

“And they’re off !”

Montalbano was expecting the baron to act as the announcer and narrate the race, but Piscopo di Militello fell silent, set down the microphone, and picked up a pair of binoculars.

At the end of the first lap, Rachele was in third place.

“Who are the two in the lead?”

“Benedetta and Beatrice.”

“Think Rachele will make it?”

“It’s hard to say.With a horse she doesn’t know . . .”

Then they heard a great roar, and on the far side of the track there was a great commotion and a lot of people running.

“Beatrice has fallen,” said Ingrid. Then she added, maliciously, “Maybe she didn’t put herself in the right condition to feel the horse properly.”

“
Mesdames et messieurs!
I inform you that rider Beatrice della Bicocca has fallen from her horse, but luckily with no untoward consequences whatsoever.”

After the second lap, Benedetta was still in the lead, though followed closely by a rider the inspector didn’t recognize.

“Who’s she?” he asked.