Vendetta az-2

by Michael Dibdin

  Instead of making a detour to the traffic lights on Via Ostiense, Zen walked straight out into the vehicles convero ng on the piazza from every direction. Maybe that was where the starlings got the idea, he thought. Maybe their frenzied swarming was just an attempt to imitate the behaviour patterns of the dominant life-form. But tonight the traffic didn't bother him. He was as invulnerable to accidents as a prisoner under sentence of death. Respecting his doomed self-assurance, the traffic flowed around him, casting him ashore on the far side of the piazza, at the foot of the marble pyramid.

  The most direct route to where he was going lay through Porta San Paolo and along Via Marmorata. But now that he was nearly there Zen's fears about being followed revived, so instead of the busy main road he took the smaller and quieter street flanked by the city walls on one side and dull apartment blocks on the other. Apart from a few prostitutes setting up their pitches in the strip of grass and shrubs between the street and the wall, there was no one about. He turned right through the arches opened in the wall, then left, circling the bulky mound which gave its name to the Testaccio district. At the base of the hill stood a line of squat, formless, jerry-built huts, guarded by savage dogs. Here metal was worked and spray-painted, engines mended, bodywork repaired, serial numbers altered. During Zen's time at the Questura this had been one of the most important areas in the city for recycling stolen vehicles.

  The other main business of the district had been killin8, but that had ceased with the closure of the slaughterhouse complex that lay between the Testaccio hill and the river.

  Any killing that went on now was related to the part-time activities of some of the inhabitants, of which the trade in second-hand cars was only the most notable example. As for the abattoir, it was now a mecca for aspirant yuppies like Vincenzo Fabri, who thronged to the former killingfloors in their Mercedes and B M Ws to acquire the art of sitting on a horse. Opposite, a few exclusive night-clubs had sprung up to attract those of the city's gilded youth who liked to go slumming in safety.

  Skirting the ox-blood-red walls of the slaughterhouse, Zen walked on into the grid of streets beyond. Although no more lovely than the suburb where Tania and her husband lived, Testaccio was quite different. It had a history, for one thing: two thousand years of it, dating back to the time when the area was the port of Rome and the hill in its midst had gradually been built up from fragments of amphorae broken in transit or handling. The four-square, turn-of-the-century tenements which now lined the streets were merely the latest expression of its essentially gritty, no-nonsense character. The merest change in the economic climate would be enough to sweep away the outer suburbs as though they had never existed, but the Testaccio quarter would be there for ever, lodged in Rome's throat like a bone.

  Night had fallen. The street was sparsely lit by lamps suspended on cables strung across from one apartmentblock to another. Rows of jalousies painted a dull institutional green punctuated the expanses of bare walling. In an area where cars were a medium of exchange rather than a symbol of disposable income, it was still possible to park in an orderly fashion at an angle to the kerb, leaving the pavements free for pedestrians. Zen walked steadily along, neither hurrying nor loitering, showing no particular interest in his surroundings. This was enemy territory, and he had particular reasons for not wanting to draw attention to himself. After crossing two streets running at right angles, he caught sight of his destination, a block of shops and businesses comprising a butcher's, a barber's, a grocery and a paint wholesaler's. Between the barber's and the butcher's lay the Rally Bar.

  It was years since Zen had set foot there, but as soon as he walked in he saw that nothing had changed. The walls and the high ceiling were painted in the same terminal shade of brown and decorated with large photographs of motorracing scenes and the Juventus football team, and posters illustrating the various ice-creams available from the freezer at the end of the bar. Two bare neon strips suspended by chains from the ceiling dispensed a frigid, even glare reflected back by the indestructible slabs of highly polished aggregate on the floor. Above the bar hung a tear-off calendar distributed by an automobile spare-parts company, featuring a colour photograph of a peacock, along with framed permits from the city council, a price list, a notice declaring the establishment's legal closing day as Wednesday, advertisements for various brands of amaro and beer, and a drawing of a tramp inscribed 'He always gave discounts and credit to everyone'.

  The three men talking in low voices at the bar fell silent as Zen entered. He walked up to them, pushing against their silent stares as though into a strong wind.

  'A glass of beer.'

  The barman, gaunt and lantern-jawed, plucked a bottle of beer from the fridge, levered the cap off the bottle and dumped half the beer into a glass still dripping from the draining-board. The glass was thick and scored with scratches. At the bottom, a few centimetres of beer lay inaccessible beneath a layer of bubbles as thick and white as shaving-foam.

  The barman picked up a copy of the Gazzetta dello Sport.

  The other customers gazed up over their empty coffee cups at the bottles of half-drunk spirits and cordials stacked on the glass shelving. Above the bar, in pride of place, stood a clock whose dial consisted of a china plate painted with a list showing the amount of time the proprietor was allegedly prepared to spend on tax collectors, rich aged relatives, door-to-door salesmen, sexy housewives and the like. Plain-clothes policemen on unofficial business were not mentioned.

  Zen carefully poured the rest of the beer into the glass, dousing the bubbles. He drank half of it and then lit a cigarette.

  'Fausto been in tonight?'

  The second hand described an almost complete revolution of the china plate before the barman swivelled smoothly to face Zen, as though his feet were on castors.

  'What?'

  Zen looked him in the eye. He said nothing. Eventually the barman turned away again and picked up his newspaper. The second hand on the clock moved from 'mothers-in-law' through 'the blonde next door' and back to its starting place.

  'This beer tastes like piss,' Zen said.

  The pink newspaper slowly descended.

  'And what do you expect me to do about it?' the barman demanded menacingly.

  'Give me another one.'

  The barman rocked backwards and forwards on his feet for a moment. Then he snapped open the heavy wooden door of the fridge, fished out another bottle, decapitated it and banged it down on the zinc counter. Zen took the bottle and his glass and sat down at one of the three small round metal tables covered in blue and red plastic wickerwork.

  As if they had been waiting for this, the other two customers suddenly came to life. One of them fed some coins into the video-game machine, which responded with a deafening burst of electronic screams and shots. The other man strode over to Zen's table. He had slicked-back dark hair and ears that stood out from his skull like a pair of gesturing hands. There was a large soggy bruise on his forehead, his nose was broken, and his cheek had recently been slit from top to bottom. Wary of the fearful things that had happened to the rest of his face, the man's eyes cowered in deep, heavy-lidded sockets.

  'All right if I sit down?' he asked, doing so.

  On the video screen, a gaunt grim detective in a trenchcoat stalked a nocturnal city street. Menacing figures wielding guns appeared at windows or popped out from behind walls. If the detective shot them accurately they collapsed in a pool of blood and a number of points was added to the score, but if he missed then there was a female scream and a glimpse of the busty half-naked victim.

  'I couldn't help overhearing what you said,' Zen's new companion remarked.

  Zen stubbed out his cigarette in a smoked-glass ashtray printed with the name, address and telephone number of a wholesale meat supplier. All home-killed produce, read the slogan. Bulk orders our speciality. hobbled downstairs past Zen. As soon as she had gone, he walked down to the landing and knocked on the door in an authoritative way.

  There w
as a scurry of steps inside. 'Who is it?' piped a childish voice.

  'Gas Board. We've got a suspected leak to the building, got to check all the apartments.'

  The door opened a crack, secured by a chain. There seemed to be no one there.

  'Let me see your identification.'

  Looking much lower down the opening, Zen finally spotted a small face and two eyes fixed unblinkingly on him. He got his police identity card out and dropped it through the centimetre-wide crack.

  'Show this to your father.'

  The eyes regarded him doubtfully. The girl couldn't have been more than about seven or eight years old. She tried to shut the door, but Zen had planted his foot in it.

  The child turned away, the card held like something dangerous or disgusting between her index finger and thumb. After some time an even younger girl appeared, keeping well away from the door but watching Zen with an air of fascination.

  Zen smiled at her.

  'Hello, there.'

  'Have you come to kill my daddy?' she asked brightly.

  Before Zen could reply, the child was shooed away by a man's voice.

  'Good evening, Fausto,' called Zen. 'It's been a long time.'

  A figure scarcely larger than the children's appeared round the rim of the door.

  'Dottore!' breathed a hushed voice. 'What an honour.

  What a pleasure. You're alone?'

  'Alone.'

  'You'll have to move your foot. I can't get the chain undone.'

  'I just want to ask you a small favour, Fausto. Maybe I can do you one in return.'

  'Just move your fucking foot!'

  Zen did so. There was a metallic rattle and in a single movement the door opened, a hand pulled Zen inside and the door closed again.

  'Please forgive my language, dottore. I'm a bit nervous at the moment.'

  Fausto was a small, wiry man with the extreme skinniness that betrays an undernourished childhood. His face was marked by a scar which split his upper lip. He claimed that he'd got it in a knife fight, but Zen thought it was more likely the result of a bungled operation for a cleft palate.

  In compensation for the rigours of his childhood, Fausto had survived the passing years with remarkably little sign of ageing. That he had survived at all was a minor miracle, given the number of men he had betrayed. The recruitment of Fausto Arcuti had led directly to one of the great successes of Zen's years at the Questura in Rome, the smashing of the kidnap and extortion ring organized by a playboy named Francesco Fortuzzi. Arcuti had worked from inside the gang, continuing to supply information right up until the last minute. Then, when the police swooped, he had been allowed a slip through the net along with various other minor figures who never realized that they owed their escape to the fact that Zen was covering Fausto's tracks. The long-term prospects for informers were bleak. Once a man had sold his soul to the authorities, they could always threaten to expose him if he refused to collaborate again, and the risks of such collaboration grew with every successful prosecution. Sooner or later the criminal milieu worked out where the leaks were coming from. Against all the odds, however, Arcuti had survived.

  'Come in!' he said, leading Zen inside. 'What a pleasure! And so unexpected! Maria, bring us something to drink. You other kids, get the fuck out of here.'

  The apartment consisted of two small, smelly rooms crudely lit by exposed high-wattage bulbs. Forlorn pieces of ill-assorted furniture stood scattered about like refugees in transit. The walls were bedecked with images of the Virgin, the Bleeding Heart of Jesus and various saints.

  Over the television hung a large three-dimensional picture of the crucifixion. As you moved your head, Christ's eyes opened and closed and blood seeped from his wounds.

  'Sit down, dottore, sit down!' Arcuti exclaimed, clearing the sofa of toys and clothes. 'Sorry about the mess. The wife's out at work all day, so we never seem to get things sorted out.'

  The eldest girl carried in a bottle of amaro and two glasses.

  'I'd prefer to take you out to the bar,' Arcuti said, pouring them each a drink, 'but the way things are…'

  'I've just come from there,' Zen told him.

  'I suppose you followed Mario?'

  'If that's his name. The one with the Mickey Mouse ears.'

  Arcuti nodded wearily.

  'Half-smart, that's Mario. It's OK when they're clever and it's OK when they're stupid. It's the ones in between that kill you.'

  'So what's the problem?' Zen murmured, sipping his drink.

  Arcuti sighed.

  'It's this Parrucci business. It's got us all spooked.'

  'Parrucci?' Zen frowned. The name meant nothing to him.

  'You probably haven't heard about it. There's no reason why you should have, he wasn't working for you. In fact he wasn't working for anyone, that's what makes it worse.

  He'd given it all up years ago. Of course in this business you never really retire, but Parrucci had been out of it for so long he must have thought he was safe. No one even knew he'd been in the game until it happened.'

  The informer drained his glass in a single gulp and poured himself another.

  'We found out because of the way they did it. So we asked around, and it turned out that Parrucci had been one of the top informers up north, years ago. But he'd put all that behind him. Wanted to settle down and bring up his kids normally. That's why they picked him, I reckon.'

  'How do you mean?'

  'Well, if they knock off someone who's still active, it looks like a personal vendetta. People who are not involved don't take much notice. But something like this is a warning to everyone. Once you inform, you're marked for life. We'll come for you, even if it takes years. That's what they're saying.'

  Zen lit a cigarette. He knew he was smoking too much, but this was not the time to worry about it.

  'What did they do to him?' he asked.

  Arcuti shook his head. 'I don't even want to think about it.'

  He sat staring at the carpet for some time, balanced on the forward edge of the threadbare armchair. Then he grabbed a cigarette from the packet lying open beside him and lit up, glaring defiantly at Zen.

  'You really want to know? All right, I'll tell you. In dialect, if a man is full of energy and drive, they say he has fire in his belly. That's a good thing, unless you have too much, unless you break the rules and start playing the game on your own account. What they used to do with traitors, down south, was to get a big iron cooking-pot and build a charcoal fire inside. Then they stretched the poor bastard out on his back, tied him up, set the pot on his stomach and then used the bellows until the metal got red-hot. Eventually the pot burnt its way down into the man's stomach under its own weight. It could take hours, depending on how much they used the bellows.'

  'That's what they did to Parrucci?'

  'Not exactly. That's the traditional method, but you know how it is these days, people can't be bothered.

  Parrucci they kidnapped from his house and took him out to the country, out near Viterbo somewhere. They broke into a weekend cottage, stripped him naked, laid him out across the electric cooker with his wrists and ankles roped together, and then turned on the hot plates.'

  'Jesus.'

  Arcuti knocked back the second glass of amaro amid frantic puffs at his cigarette.

  'Now do you see why I'm nervous, dottore? Because I could be the next name on the list!'

  'How do you know there'll be any more?'

  'Because no one's claimed responsibility. Usually when something like this happens, you find out who did it and why. They make damn sure you know! That's the whole point. But this time no one's saying anything. The only reason for that is that the job isn't finished yet.'

  Zen glanced at his watch. To his dismay, he found that it was almost ten to six. At six o'clock Maria Grazia would leave to go home, and from then on Zen's mother would be alone in the apartment.

  Fausto Arcuti had noticed his visitor's gesture.

  'Anyway, that's enough of m
y problems. What can I do for you, dottore?'

  'It's a question of borrowing a car for a few days, Fausto.'

  'Any particular sort of car?'

  'Something fairly classy, if you can. But the main thing is, it needs to be registered in Switzerland.'

  'Actually registered?'

  Zen corrected himself.

  'It needs to have Swiss number plates.'

  Arcuti drew the final puff of smoke from his cigarette and let it drown in the dregs of amaro.

  'This car, how long do you want it for?'

  'Let's say the inside of a week.'

  'And afterwards, will it be, er, compromised in any way?'

  Zen gave him a pained look.

  'Fausto, if I wanted to do anything illegal, I'd use a police car.'

  Arcuti conceded a thin smile.

  'And how soon do you need it?'

  'Tomorrow, ideally, but I don't suppose there's any chance of that.'

  The informer shrugged.

  'Why ever not, dottore? You're doing business with the Italy that works! I may be shut up in this lousy, rotten, stinking hole, but I still have my contacts.'

  He produced the piece of paper Zen had given the man called Mario.

  'I can contact you at this number?'

  'In the evening. During the day I'm at the Ministry.'

  'Which department?'

  'Criminalpol.'

  Arcuti whistled.

  'Congratulations! Well, if I have any luck I'll phone you in the morning. I won't give any name. I'll just say that I wanted to confirm our lunch date. There'll be a message for you at the bar here.'

  'Thanks, Fausto. In return, I'll see what I can do to shed some light on this Parrucci business.'

  'I'd appreciate it, dottore. It's not just for me, though that's not exactly the way I'd choose to go. But the girls, it's wrong for them to have to grow up like this.'