The escurzionista is down in the Corta rounding up tourists. “Hey, Gallese. How goes it?”
“Okay, Sandro,” Ric lies. “Tell me: what do you call those water taxis that take tourists up to the beaches?”
“Taxi mare?” His eyes light up: at last, he can live up to his expectations and supply Ric with something he needs. “Why? You want to go to see the sights for the day?”
“Figured I would. If I’m to be hostage to Il Velaccino’s labours, I might as well play tourist for the day. Who should I ask?”
“Oh, many places,” he scratches his head, “but cheapest and best is my friend Luciano. He will drive you to Canneto in his pulmino and from there you will take his taxi mare to any one of the Spiaggia della Papesca as far as Porticello.”
“Where do I find him?”
“At the bottom of the Corso Vittorio, near the alimentari, there is a little box, a booth, with the sign Spiaggie Luciano. And–”
“I know how it goes, Sandro.” Ric slaps him gently on his shoulder, “Don’t worry, I’ll tell him you sent me.”
Of course, the girl at the ticket booth knows Sandro. She takes his money and directs him to a battered minibus parked on the down slope to the little harbour. A brace of tourists wait patiently in the shade of a wall.
After a few minutes, a middle-aged man wearing a seasoned tan and designer sunglasses waves them over to a dilapidated minibus. Beach towels cover the seats and the temperature inside the pulmino runs high enough to fry an egg.
They race around the Lunga in the direction of Monte Rosa, dodging and weaving through the pedestrians and scooters, and it is only when they are leaving the tunnel which opens into the bay at Canneto, that Ric thinks to ask the driver to let him out so that he can drop by Marcello’s yard.
A hoist cranes over the stern of the Mara and Marcello and a second man, Salvo, are in the process of shackling the engine to lift it out from beneath the floor of the cockpit.
“Buongiorno,” Marcello calls down. “As you can see, we are making progress.”
Salvo salutes and grins.
Ric climbs the ladder up to the deck. “I came to see if I could lend a hand, but you look to have all the help you need.”
The wiry Salvo, although he never says much if anything, grins again. He seems to understand what Ric is saying without, supposedly, speaking any English.
“Yes,” Marcello replies, “with Salvo’s assistance we will have the motor out by this afternoon and then we can begin to take it apart. I have ordered the new bearings and seal. Of course we will have to check the crankshaft; if it needs to be rebalanced, we can do this also. But,” Marcello says, chewing on his cigar stub, “let us hope this will not be necessary.”
They sit and discuss the likelihood of the extra work for a while.
Ric wonders how best to bring up the subject of the missing Beretta, but is again not sure how to do so without implying Marcello has taken it.
“You need something from me?” Marcello asks.
Apart from producing the Beretta and a certificate of seaworthiness for the Mara, there isn’t much anyone can do for Ric. “No, just something I’ve mislaid.” He looks long and hard at Salvo, but the wiry individual simply grins back.
“What thing is this? You said this to me yesterday; that you were looking for something you have lost.” Again Marcello’s expression is deadpan.
Ric thinks to come clean and tell him about how he tied up to an old pier near the pumice mines and heard what sounded to him like a man being strangled, about how the Beretta he had stowed in the Mara has mysteriously disappeared and about how he has just been questioned by a Commissario of Police, a man who doesn’t like coincidences. But, he decides not to. He is concerned that if he opens the can of worms he has been delivered, he will never get the lid back on.
Marcello smiles and says, “We are all looking for something, eh, my friend? Perhaps this is why you sail the Mara? Perhaps you are like Odisseo, looking for the way home? Well, we will soon have the Mara back in the water for you to continue your journey.”
And at the mention of the way home, Ric is taken with the notion that, like Odisseo, disaster seems to be following him around and that just possibly he is trying to get away from home, not to it.
“No, Marcello, just something I left on the Mara which I can’t seem to locate, that’s all.”
But in thinking of the events of the past few days and what his best course would be, Ric recalls again and all too clearly the screams from the shore the first morning he arrived in Lipari.
“Forget it, Marcello. I’m sure it’ll turn up sooner or later. Are you sure you don’t need a hand?”
“No, it is as I said: Salvo and I will have the engine out by this afternoon. Why don’t you come back tomorrow; we will have had a chance to examine the motor more closely by then.”