More serious consequences of this loss soon became apparent. Without any tangible proof that Zen was who he said he was, the guard on duty at the rear of the entrance hall refused to admit him to the upper reaches of the building, which were strictly reserved for high-ranking servants of the Italian public and hence off bounds to the public itself. Matters were not helped by the fact that the only form of identification remaining to Zen was the small box of printed cards identifying him as Alfonso Zembla.
'But I'm here on official business!' he protested to the guard. 'They've been trying to get hold of me all night.
Let me phone through and they'll confirm it.'
As if bestowing an immense favour, the guard waved negligently at the internal phone at his elbow. Zen got through to the operator and was connected to Vice-Que store Piscopo's office. The deputy police chief was not available herself, but an underling confirmed that no one could be admitted to the official presence without suitable identification.
'But this is ridiculous!' spluttered Zen.
'It has perhaps escaped your attention that a new terrorist group is operating in this city and has already claimed three victims,' the voice replied icily. 'AH agencies are on triple-red alert as per a ministerial communique. There are no exceptions/ Under the patronizing gaze of the guard, Zen replaced the phone and retreated to the centre of the cavernous entrance hall to consider his next step. He had been very careful to have no contact whatsoever with the Questura since his arrival in Naples, and as a result there was no one in the building who knew him by sight and could vouch for him. He could get Caputo to come downtown, but that would leave no one to cover for him down at the port, and, besides, with the Questura on triple-red status following the Strade Pulite attacks, it was by no means certain that the mere word of an underling like Caputo would be enough to convince the authorities that Zen was indeed worthy of admission to the inner sanctum of power.
He was still debating these and other possibilities when a presence made itself felt at his elbow.
'Having problems, dutto?
The speaker was slim, slight and dapper, and might have been aged anywhere from forty to sixty. He was wearing an odd collection of items, each showing signs of long use and careful maintenance: an antique three-piece grey suit, a wrinkled white shirt buttoned tight at the collar, a green V-neck pullover and a camel-hair overcoat mottled by age or damp and worn unbuttoned. The man's hands were covered by white cotton gloves. The left carried an old but immaculately blocked felt hat, the right a small ivory case. One gloved finger flicked up the silver lid, revealing a stack of business cards. With a resigned sigh, Zen took one. The inscription, elegantly printed in relief, read 'Professore Gennaro Esposito: Magician, Astrologer, Clairvoyant'.
'I don't believe in magic,' said Zen.
The ivory box snapped shut and vanished.
'That's just to present myself/ Professor Esposito replied calmly. 'I've virtually retired from practice, anyway. The competition is fierce these days, and if you don't advertize on television no one takes you seriously. But that's neither here nor there. The question is, what can I do for you?'
Zen gave the man a sour look.
'Not a damn thing, unless you can magically spirit me up to the fourth floor.'
'To see whom?'
'The Questore's acting deputy. A certain Piscopo.'
The professorial eyes rolled impressively.
'Ah!'
Zen nodded.
'Impossible, even for retired magicians.'
A wave of the splayed gloves.
'We're in Naples, duttd. Everything is improbable, but nothing is impossible. Even the price is not exorbitant. I can offer you two options. The first, at thirty thousand, will take about an hour, give or take, depending who's on duty today. Or if you decide to go for the express service, I can have you there faster than you could walk up the stairs. That costs fifty thou, but it's worth the extra.'
Zen smiled wearily.
'I'm sure it is. Unfortunately I can't take advantage.
The reason I'm cooling my heels here in the first place is that my wallet just got stolen, along with my identification card and all the cash I had on me.'
The man studied Zen with renewed interest.
'You're a policeman, duttd? In that case, I can offer you the professional discount. Five per cent off the normal service fee, ten off the express.' "I still haven't got it.'
'No problem.'
The gloved fingers darted out, grazed Zen's wrist and vanished again with his watch.
'With your permission, duttd, I'll keep this for security.'
The man turned away, melting into the crowds of people entering and leaving and queuing and jostling all around. Zen stood there, looking helplessly about him.
First his wallet, now his watch. It was time to leave while his shirt was still on his back. But he seemed powerless to move. Despite his sarcasm about the professor's magical powers, it was almost as if a spell had been cast upon him.
'This way, dutto?"
He turned round. Professor Esposito was beckoning to him from the checkpoint at the back of the hall where Zen had been refused entrance earlier. He made his way through the throng towards the impassive guard, who gave no sign of ever having seen him before. His guide led him to a set of three elevators and inserted a key into the right-hand one. The doors slid open.
'The Questore's private elevator,' Esposito whispered conspiratorially, ushering Zen inside. 'Goes direct to the top floor. Like I said, you'll be there quicker than climbing the stairs!'
La sorte incolpa 'No, that's not the problem. It's that you're unlucky.'
The speaker — a woman, judging by the pitch of her voice — was in police uniform. She was smoking a small cigar and wearing dark glasses. The large room was dim, the shutters closed.
'Anyone can be unlucky,' Zen replied.
Vice-Questore Piscopo rapped her cigar, unloading a neat package of ash into a steel ashtray on her desk.
'Once, yes,' she replied. 'Several times, even. But there is a logic in this, as in everything else. Occasions do not contradict the rule. Statistically, you have proved to be unlucky.'
She lifted a paper from the file in front of her.
There's a pattern here, dottore, which I recognized long before hearing of your latest problem — I refer to your allowing your wallet to be stolen. Apattern which none the less might have enabled me, in a certain sense, to predict it.'
A pause.
'In Milan, you wrongfully arrest a man for the Tondelli murder and twenty years later he tries to kill you after his release from prison. In Rome, you single-handedly "solve" the Moro kidnapping, unfortunately too late to save the victim. Same thing two years later, in Perugia, with the Miletti family. In Sardinia, you concoct a convenient solution to the Burolo murders to satisfy your contacts at Palazzo Sisti — who then disappear from the political spectrum within a year or so. As if to demonstrate the degree of your incompetence, you then go on to make absurd allegations against a leading regional politician, now mayor of Venice and a close ally of our own minister. And now this.'
Zen said nothing. In the ten minutes since he had been admitted to the room, Vice-Questore Piscopo had said nothing relating to the case in hand. It had been, he now realized, a mistake to mention the theft of his wallet. He did so by way of excusing his failure to appear earlier, but it merely made him look incompetent and helpless, and confirmed the thesis which the authorities had apparently formulated as regards his record in general. When Piscopo finally got around to mentioning the incident of the night before, her interpretation was fully in accord with the line already established.
'On the basis of our investigation, we can rule out the possibility of a planned attack. The killers aboard the stolen municipal vehicle were unaware of the presence of the patrol car carrying your men until the traffic accident, in itself completely unpredictable, occurred.'
Zen gazed at the reflective lenses.
'Who were they?' he asked.
'The gunmen?'
Another gesture indicating that this case had already been filed away in a capacious category labelled weird STUFF THAT HAPPENS WHEN AURELIO ZEN IS AROUND.
'According to witnesses, there were anywhere from four to eight men aboard the refuse truck. All were dressed in blue overalls, like regular municipal employees, but we have questioned all the personnel concerned with this work and are satisfied that they are not involved. The truck itself went missing from the municipal depot two months ago.'
The Questore's deputy puffed on her cigar.
'Which leaves the question of what your men were doing there in the first place.'
Zen felt himself stiffen up. The woman's uniform, an unusual affectation in one of so elevated a rank, left him feeling as naked as he had been when Valeria came into the room that morning.
'Three days ago,' he began laboriously, 'a stabbing occurred in the port…' "I am only too aware of that, dottorel We have been subjected to the most insistent pressure for a solution ever since.'
Zen nodded, as though she had acknowledged a shared bond.
'Yesterday the prisoner — who was still unidentified and who refused to make a statement of any sort — complained of severe abdominal pains. I summoned a doctor…'
'You were on duty?'
The question was laden with ironic emphasis.
'Naturally. The gravity of the case clearly demanded that I set aside all other matters and devote myself to finding a solution without regard to personal comfort or to bureaucratic norms.'
'And yet we have been trying without success to contact you for over forty-eight hours now. Your subordinates certainly did a masterly job of covering for you, but I must say that we all had the impression that you took a distinctly — how shall I say? — relaxed view of your duties.'
'Unfortunately my home telephone line is temporarily out of action,' Zen replied. "I called SIP, but you know what it's like trying to get any emergency work done at the weekend.'
'So the prisoner complained of abdominal pains and you summoned a doctor.'
'Exactly'
'A police doctor?'
Zen hesitated fractionally.
"There was none available. And since it was clear that the prisoner was in considerable pain, and given the importance of this case, I summoned a civilian doctor who was able to come immediately. He confirmed that the prisoner was suffering from gastro-intestinal complications and required urgent medical attention. He signed a medical report to this effect, a copy of which I will forward in due course. I immediately authorized the release of the prisoner into the custody of two of my most experienced officers, with orders to convey him to hospital and remain at his bedside until the necessary medical intervention had been completed. It was while they were carrying out these duties that the attack took place.'
Vice-Questore Piscopo nodded and smoked, smoked and nodded.
'So not only do we still know nothing about the principal suspect and material witness in a case with enormous international repercussions, but the individual himself has escaped from custody'
She opened her hands in mock appeal.
'What would you call that, dottore, if not bad luck?'
'A carefully planned and ruthlessly executed ambush,'
Zen replied, 'designed specifically to free the prisoner before he could be made to talk.'
Piscopo snorted contemptuously.
'Why would anyone bother to set up an ambush for some knife-wielding thug?'
Now it was Zen's turn to express ironic surprise.
"I didn't realize that you had succeeded in identifying him, dottoressa. And if he has a criminal record, as you suggest, it is very odd that we have received no positive response to our request for fingerprint and photographic identification.'
'Of course I haven't identified him. I was merely…'
'There is however another possibility,' Zen went on, 'which would explain both the ambush and the lack of documentation.'
'And what might that be?'
'This man isn't a lone wharf rat, as everyone has assumed, but a close associate of one of the most powerful clans of organized crime in the city.'
There was a long silence, during which Piscopo's glasses seemingly became even more opaque.
'Which?'
The word was as hard as a jagged chip chiselled off a block of marble.
'Ermanno Vallifuoco,' Zen replied.
The policewoman pulled at her cigar and discharged a dense cloud of blue smoke.
'Ermanno Vallifuoco has been taken out of circulation.'
'Yes, I read about that.'
A silence. Vlce-Questore Piscopo scrunched up the print-out of Zen's career and tossed it into a metal waste basket.
'In a way, you're a pair,' she declared. 'Ermanno Vallifuoco represented the old Naples, just as you, Dottor Zen, represent the old Italy.'
'And have I too been "taken out of circulation"?'
The mouth beneath the dark glasses did not smile.
'Less effectively, unfortunately'
XVII
Le cose che hanfatto
'She said that?'
'Those were her very words.'
'And you believe her?'
A shrug.
'Then why hasn't Orestina said anything about it to me?'
'Filomena said they'd sworn not to tell us,' Sabatino explained. 'She just blurted it out while we were talking this morning. She sounded a bit exhausted and emotional — apparently they'd been up most of the night — and she said she couldn't lie to me.'
Gesualdo, who was driving, made an unnecessarily vicious left turn.
'Oh, she couldn't, eh?'
Sabatino glanced at his partner in surprise.
'What's wrong with that?'
'And those little bitches bought into it?' yelled Gesualdo over an excruciatingly loud and dissonant blast of his horn at the mental incompetent at the wheel of the car ahead, who had very nearly caused an accident by suddenly stopping, without the slightest warning, at a stop light.
'For them, it meant a free trip to London,' Sabatino remarked in a conciliatory tone. 'Besides, Filomena said they knew they could trust us, so it didn't make any difference anyway.'
'Strunze 'e mmerdal Chi t' 'a date 'a patente?'
This to the driver in front, who was still blocking the street, even though the light had changed to green several nanoseconds earlier.
'So Orestina didn't mention this to you?' asked Sabatino.
Cutting out in front of an oncoming bus, the red Jaguar roared past the offending vehicle.
'We talked about other things,' Gesualdo replied combatitively. 'Like what?'
'Like none of your fucking business.'
'Oh, those things…'
Two blocks later, the Jaguar's precipitate progress ended in the constipated streets feeding into Piazza Garibaldi and the souks around the main railway station.
'Who set it up?' demanded Gesualdo. 'That Alfonso Zembla, I suppose.'
Sabatino waved negligently, the lordly dispenser of privileged information.
'He's got nothing to do with it. Apparently it's all their mother's doing. Her idea is that the girls are just in love with the idea of being in love for the first time, and that if they spend a few weeks away they'll forget all about us.
But it seems to have worked the other way round…'
A pause.
'… at least as far as Filomena's concerned. She said she's missing me so much she couldn't sleep all night.'
With a wary eye out for policemen, Gesualdo attached the flashing blue light to the roof and started to inch through the blockade.
'And what about you?' he asked aggressively. 'Did you tell your faithful Penelope about us moving into a house with two Albanian sex bombs who're willing, quote, to do anything to get ahead, unquote?'
Sabatino shrugged.
'Well, no…'
'Why not?'
'She wouldn't understand. You know how women are.'<
br />
Gesualdo shook his head.
'On the contrary.'
They rounded the piazza and entered the squalid streets behind the station.
'Odd that Orestina didn't trust you,' murmured Sabatino as though to himself.
'Still odder that you didn't trust Filomena,' Gesualdo shot back.
'It's not a question of trust! I've done nothing to be ashamed of.'
'So far.'
Sabatino gave his partner a look.
'What's that supposed to mean?'
Gesualdo brought the Jaguar to a halt at the kerb.
'Well, now we know that the whole thing's just a trick…' he sniffed.
'What difference does that make?'
There was no answer.
'So is this it?' asked Sabatino at length.
Gesualdo opened the car door.
'This,' he said, 'is it.'
They crossed the street and entered one of a few remaining tenements which had survived both the war and the subsequent reconstruction. A steep internal staircase led to a dingy but spotlessly clean landing with an open window overlooking a small courtyard. Behind one of the two doors which opened off it, a child was crying insistently. Gesualdo rapped at the stout wood panelling.
'Who is it?' a woman called out.
Gesualdo cleared his throat respectfully.
'Good morning, signora. Excuse the disturbance. I'm a friend of Roberto.'
He glanced at Sabatino before adding, 'It's about a car.'
Dove sia nessun lo sa On the bench in the cavernous entrance hall of the police station, a laurel wreath the size of a tractor tyre rested against a wall mottled by dust which had collected in the pockmarked plaster. Red ribbons and the Italian flag flanked a grainy snapshot of Armando Bertolini as a raw recruit in uniform. The card below read: 'To Our Fallen Colleague, More in Sorrow Than in Anger, the Officers and Men of the Port Detachment'.
The building was completely silent and seemingly deserted. Zen walked upstairs, bellowing Caputo's name. His voice echoed hollowly. Then running footsteps sounded above, and the slight but virile figure of his subordinate appeared on the landing.
'What's going on?' demanded Zen, puffing slightly with the exertion of climbing the stairs. 'This place is as dead as some country railway station in Calabria.'
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