Angelica's Smile by Andrea Camilleri Page B

mastermind of the burglary ring, and was about to kill him.
    Jesus Christ! He was going to look so bad in front of all those people!
    He woke up in a sweat, his heart chugging wildly.

    The phone rang shortly after eight.
    He cursed the saints.
    His secret intention had been to stay in bed until nine, so Adelina could bring him coffee in bed.
    “Hello?” he said rudely into the receiver.
    “
Matre santa
, Chief! I canna help it, bu’ ’ere’s been anutter buggery! If you wan’, I c’n call back in a half a hour,” Catarella whined.
    “What’s done is done, Cat. Tell me about it.”
    “The signura Angelica Cosulicchio call juss now.”
    Cosulicchio? Cosulich! Angelica Cosulich was number fourteen on the list.
    QED.
    “Where’s she live?”
    “On Via Cavurro, nummer fitteen.”
    But that was the same street as the Peritores!
    “Have you told Fazio?”
    “’E’s toined off.”
    “All right, call the lady back and tell her I’m on my way.”

    The building Signora Cosulich lived in was shaped like an ice-cream cone.
    Including the little bits of hazelnut sprinkled on top.
    “Cosulich?” he asked the doorman.
    “Which?”
    Good God, he couldn’t bear to have another spat with a doorman. He felt like turning on his heel and leaving, but he overcame the impulse.
    “Cosulich.”
    “I got that the first time; I’m not deaf. But there are two Cosuliches here. Angelica and Tripolina.”
    He wanted to say Tripolina, just so he could meet a woman with such a strange name.
    “Angelica.”
    “Top floor.”
    The elevator was superfast, practically punching him in the stomach as he soared up to the penthouse—that is, to the level of the whipped cream that usually crowns the ice cream cone.
    There was only one door on the entire, enormous, crescent-shaped landing, and the inspector rang the doorbell.
    “Who is it?” a woman’s voice asked moments later from inside the door.
    “Inspector Montalbano.”
    The door opened, and three things happened to the inspector, in the following order:
    First, his vision clouded over slightly; second, his legs began to give out; and third, he was suddenly quite out of breath.
    Because not only was Signora Cosulich a stunningly natural beauty of about thirty, without a hint of makeup, a rarity in this day of face-painted savages, but also . . .
    Was it real, or was it all just his imagination?
    Signora Cosulich looked exactly like, was the spitting image of, the figure of Angelica inAriosto’s
Orlando Furioso
, or at least the way he’d imagined her and pined for her, in the flesh, when, at age sixteen, he looked in secret at the illustrations by Gustave Doré, which his aunt had forbidden him to see.
    It was inconceivable, a true miracle.
    This knight, who now approached, at first glance
    Had recognized, though from afar, the one
    Who with angelic beauty unsurpassed
    In amorous enchantment held him fast
.
    Angelica, oh Angelica!
    He had fallen wildly in love with her, and lost a great deal of sleep almost every night, imagining that he was doing lewd things with her that he would never have had the courage to mention even to his closest friend.
    Ah, how often he had imagined himself as Medoro, the shepherd Angelica had fallen in love with, driving poor Orlando so furiously mad!
    He would picture to himself, sighing and trembling, the scene in the cave, where she lay naked on the straw, with a fire burning, as it rained outside and the sheep called in the distance, saying
baaa baaaa
 . . .
    More than a month that happy pair content
    Remained and of their joy gave every proof.
    No further than his face her glances went.
    For his love she could not have enough.
    Unceasingly she hung upon his side,
    Yet her desire was never satisfied.
    “Please come in,” said Angelica Cosulich.
    The light fog clouding his eyes lifted, and only then did Montalbano notice that she was wearing a formfitting white blouse.
    Like milky curds but freshly heaped within
    Their plaited moulds,