Judge Surra by Andrea Camilleri, Joseph Farrell Read Free Book Online Page B

with white cream and flecked on the sides with tiny pieces of candied fruit.
    He could not resist and went in. The tables were all taken. When they set eyes on him, the company fell silent for a moment, but then the conversation struck up again.
    â€œWhat are those cakes called?” he said to a waiter behind the counter.
    â€œ
Cannoli
, Excellency.”
    Could they possibly have recognised him already?
    â€œI’ll have one.”
    He ate it standing at the bar. Madonna! It was really good.
    â€œI’ll have another.”
    He went over to the till to pay, but the cashier waved him away. “It’s been paid for.”
    â€œPaid for? By whom?” The judge could not conceal his disbelief.
    â€œBy Don Nené Lonero.”
    The judge turned and looked around the room. At one table four men were seated, one with a beret and two with hats. A stocky fifty-year-old man, with fair skin and reddish hair, rose to his feet, removed his hat and said: “Accept it as a gesture of welcome.”
    Without replying, the judge turned back to the cashier and stared him straight in the face. The cashier felt a cold quiver run down his spine. What eyes that man had! Blue and ice-cold, like the sky on a winter’s morning. Then, without another word, Surra placed a large coin in front of him. The cashier, head bowed, gave him his change. The judge moved slowly over to the table where Don Nené was still on his feet, glowering at the snub. Inside the caffè, there fell a silence that could have been cut with a knife.
    â€œAre you Emanuele Lonero?”
    â€œI am.”
    â€œI’d like to take advantage of this opportunity,” the judge said, with a courteous smile.
    â€œTo do what?” Don Nené asked.
    â€œBe patient one moment.”
    He took the anonymous letter from his pocket, opened it out, took his glasses from his waistcoat pocket, calmly put them on and finally spoke in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear: “I do not know who each of you is, and I have no wish to know, but it appears that you have unlawfully taken the records of the hearings of proceedings against Milioto, Savastano, Curreli and Costantino. Be good enough to return them to the court within the next twenty-four hours.”
    He replaced the letter in his pocket, took off his glasses, returned them to his waistcoat, turned his back on Don Nené, who stood rooted to the spot, and went out.
    He understood immediately that he had committed a bad mistake.
    He should have taken only one
cannolo
, not two. If he went to lie down straightaway, with his stomach bloated by the ricotta, he would never get to sleep. There was nothing for it but to walk about for at least an hour.
    The third time he came back up the
corso
, two well-dressed men coming towards him changed direction slightly so that one of them almost brushed against him.
    It was at that point that the judge heard a voice say almost in a whisper, “Bravo! You deserve respect.”
    He stopped in his tracks, astounded. Had someone really said to him – Bravo! Why? What had he done? He could find no explanation. Perhaps eating two
cannoli
one after the other was a proof of virility in these parts? It would be no easy feat to understand them, these Sicilians.

2
    HE WAS AWAKENED AT SIX BY AN EAR-SPLITTING YELL FROM THE street below. He jumped out of bed, threw open the window and looked down. The shout came from a peasant holding under his arm a basket filled with eggs. The yell rang out once more. In the house opposite, a woman leant over a balcony ringed with flowers and lowered down a basket attached to a length of rope. The peasant picked out the cash inside, replaced it with four eggs and continued on his way. The judge was about to close the window again when a doleful female howl sounded along the street. He turned back to see an aged woman dressed in rags selling vegetables. What made them wail in that way when advertising their wares?
    He