Vendetta: An Aurelio Zen Mystery (13 page)

He reached behind him and depressed a lever on the intercom.

“Lino? Dottor Zen is just leaving.”

Once again, Zen felt the pale, cool touch of the young man’s hand.

“It really was most good of you to come, dottore. I trust that your work has not been … that’s to say, that no serious disruption will make itself felt in …”

The appearance of the stocky Lino rescued them both from these incoherent politenesses. Like a man in a dream, Zen walked back through the dim vastness of the room to the walnut door, which Lino closed behind them as softly as the lid of an expensive coffin.

“This way.”

“That’s very good,” Zen remarked as they set off along the corridor. “Have they trained you to say anything else?”

Lino turned round, looking tough.

“You want your fucking teeth kicked in?”

“That depends on whether you want to be turned into low-grade dog food. Because that’s what’s liable to happen to anyone round here who fails to treat me with the proper respect.”

“Bullshit!”

“On the contrary, chum. All I have to do is mention that I don’t like your face and by tomorrow you won’t
have
a face.”

Lino sneered.

“You’re crazy,” he said without total conviction.

“That’s not what
l’onorevole
thinks. Now beat it. I’ll find my own way out.”

For a moment Lino tried bravely to stare Zen out, but doubt had leaked into his eyes and he had to give up the attempt.

“Crazy!” he repeated, turning away with a contemptuous sniff.

Zen left the portal of Palazzo Sisti with a confident, unfaltering stride, a man with places to go to and people to see. The moment he was out of sight around the nearest corner, his manner changed out of all recognition. He might now have been taken for a member of one of the geriatric tourist groups that descended on Rome once the high season was over. So far from having an urgent goal in mind, he turned right and left at random, obeying impulses of which he wasn’t even aware and which in any case were of no importance. All that mattered was to let the tension seep slowly out of his body, draining out through the soles of his feet as they traversed the grimy undulating cobbles, scattering pigeons and sending the feral cats scuttling for cover under parked cars.

Eventually he emerged into an open space which he recognised with pleasure as Piazza Campo dei Fiori, almost Venetian in its intimacy and hence one of Zen’s favourite spots in Rome. The morning vegetable market created a gentle bustle of activity that was supremely restful. He made his way across the cobbles strewn with discarded leaves and stalks, past zinc bathtubs and buckets full of ashes from the wooden boxes burned earlier against the morning chill. Now the sun was high enough to flood most of the piazza with its light. The stall holders were still hard at work, washing and trimming salad greens under the communal tap. Elderly women in heavy dark overcoats with fur collars walked from stall to stall, looking doubtfully at the produce.

Zen walked over to a wine shop he knew, where he ordered a glass of
vino novello.
He leaned against the doorpost, smoking a cigarette and sipping the frothy young wine which had still been in the grapes when Oscar Burolo and his guests had been murdered. A gang of labourers working on a house nearby were shouting from one level of scaffolding to another in a dialect so dense that Zen could understand nothing except that God and the Virgin Mary were coming in for the usual steady stream of abuse. A neat, compact group of Japanese tourists passed by, accompanied by two burly Italian bodyguards. The female guide, clutching a furled pink umbrella, was giving a running commentary in which Zen was surprised to make out the name Giordano Bruno like a fish sighted underwater. She pointed with her umbrella to the centre of the square, where the statue of the philosopher stood on a plinth whose base was covered with the usual incomprehensible graffiti.

Nearby, an old woman bent double like a wooden doll hinged at the hips was feeding last night’s spaghetti to a gang of mangy cats. Zen thought nostalgically of the cats of his native city, carved and living, obscure or monumental, the countless avatars of the Lion of the Republic itself. In Venice, cats were the familiars of the city, as much a part of it as the stones and the water, but the cats of Rome were just vermin to be periodically exterminated, as hideously pitiful as concentration camp survivors. It somehow seemed typical of the gulf which separated the two cities. For while Zen liked Campo dei Fiori, he could never forget that the statue at its centre commemorated a philosopher who had been burnt alive on that spot at just about the time that the gracious and exquisite Palazzo Sisti was taking shape a few hundred metres away.

Taking his empty glass back inside, Zen found himself drawn to the scene at the bar. One of the labourers, dressed in dusty blue overalls and a hat made from newspaper like an inverted toy boat, was knocking back a glass of the local white wine. Further along, two businessmen stood talking in low voices. On the bar before them stood their empty glasses, a saucer filled with nuts and cocktail biscuits, two folded newspapers, and a removable automobile cassette player.

Zen turned away. That was what had attracted his attention. But why? Nothing was more normal. No one left a cassette deck in their car any more. It was asking to have the windows smashed and the unit stolen.

It wasn’t until Zen stepped into the band of shadow cast by the houses on the other side of the piazza that the point of the incident suddenly became clear to him. He
had
seen a cassette player in a parked car recently, in a brand-new luxury car parked in a secluded street late at night. Such negligence, coupled with the scratches and dents in the bodywork and the use of the floor as an ashtray, suggested a possibility that really should have occurred to him long before. Still, better late than never, he thought.

Or were there cases where that reassuring formula didn’t hold, where late was just too late, and there were no second chances?

Back at the Ministry, Zen phoned the Questura and asked whether Professor Lusetti’s red Alfa Romeo appeared on their list of stolen vehicles. Thanks to the recent computerisation of this department he had his answer within seconds. The car in question had been reported stolen ten days earlier.

He put the receiver down, then lifted it again and dialled another number. After some time the ringing tone was replaced by a robotic voice.

“Thank you for calling Paragon Security Consultants. The office is closed for lunch until three o’clock. If you wish to leave a message, please speak now.”

“It’s Aurelio, Gilberto. I was hoping to—”

“Aurelio! How are things?”

Zen stared at the receiver as though it had stung him.

“But … I thought that was a recorded message.”

“That’s what I wanted you to think. At least, not you, but any of the five thousand people I don’t want to speak to at this moment.”

“Why don’t you get a real answering machine?”

“I have, but I can’t use it just at the moment. One of my competitors has found a way to fake the electronic tone I can send down the line to have it play back the recorded messages to a distant phone. The result is that he downloaded a hundred million lire’s worth of business as well as making me look like an idiot. Anyway, what can I do for you?”

“Well, I was hoping we could have a talk. I don’t suppose you’re free for lunch?”

“Today? Actually that’s a bit … Well, I don’t know. Come to think of it, that might work quite well. Yes! Listen, I’ll see you at Licio’s. Do you know where it is?”

“I’ll find it.”

Zen pressed down the receiver rest to get a dial tone, then rang his home and asked Maria Grazia if everything was all right.

“Everything’s fine now,” she assured him. “But this morning! Madonna, I was terrified!”

Zen tightened his grip on the receiver.

“What happened?”

“It was frightful, awful! The signor didn’t notice anything, thanks be to God, but I was looking straight at the window when it happened!”

“When
what
happened?”

“Why, this man suddenly appeared!”

“Where?”

“At the window.”

Zen took a deep breath.

“All right, now listen. I want you to describe him to me as carefully as you can. All right? What did he look like?”

Maria Grazia made a reflective noise. “Well, let’s see. He was young. Dark, quite tall. Handsome! Twenty years ago, maybe, I’d have—”

“What did he do?”

“Do? Nothing! He just disappeared. I went over and had a look. Sure enough, there he was, in one of those cages. He was trying to fix it but he couldn’t. In the end they had to take it off the wall and put up a new one.”

“A new
what,
for the love of Christ?”

Stunned by this blasphemy, the housekeeper murmured, “Why, the streetlamp! The one that was forever turning itself on and off. But when I saw him floating there in midair I got such a shock! I didn’t know what to think! It looked like an apparition, only I don’t know if you can have apparitions of men. It always seems to be women, doesn’t it? One of my cousins claimed she saw Santa Rita once, but it turned out she made it all up. She’d got the idea from an article in
Gente
about these little girls who …”

Zen repeated his earlier instructions about keeping the front door bolted and not leaving his mother alone, then hung up.

On his way downstairs, he met Giorgio De Angelis coming up. The Calabrian looked morose.

“Anything the matter?” Zen asked him.

De Angelis glanced quickly up and down the stairs, then gripped Zen’s arm impulsively.

“If you’re into anything you shouldn’t be, get out fast!”

He let go of Zen’s arm and continued on his way.

“What do you mean?” Zen called after him.

De Angelis just kept on walking. Zen hurried up the steps after him.

“Why did you say that?” he demanded breathlessly.

The Calabrian paused, allowing him to catch him up.

“What’s going on?” Zen demanded.

De Angelis shook his head slowly.

“I don’t know, Aurelio. I don’t want to know. But whatever it is, stop doing it, or don’t start.”

“What are you talking about?”

De Angelis again looked up and down the stairs.

“Fabri came to see me this morning. He advised me to keep away from you. When I asked why, he said that you were being measured for the drop.”

The two men looked at one another in silence.

“Thank you,” Zen murmured almost inaudibly.

De Angelis nodded fractionally. Then he continued up the steps while Zen turned to begin the long walk down.

I never used to dream. Like saying, I never used to go mad. The others do it every night, jerking and tossing, sweating like pigs, groaning and crying out. “I had a terrible dream last night! I dreamt I’d killed someone and they were coming to arrest me and they’d guessed where I was hiding! It was horrible, so real!” You’d think that might teach them something about this world of theirs that also seems “so real!”

Then one night it happened to me. In the dream I was like the others, living in the light, fearing the dark. I had done something wrong, I never knew what, killed someone perhaps. As a punishment, they locked me up in the darkness. Not my darkness, gentle and consoling, but a cold dank airless pit, a narrow tube of stone like a dry well. The executioner was my father. He rammed me down, arms bound to my sides, and capped the tomb with huge blocks of masonry. I lay tightly wedged, the stones pressing in on me from every side. In front of my eyes was a chink through which I could just see the outside world where people passed by about their business, unaware of my terrible plight. Air seeped in through the hole, but not enough, not enough air! I was slowly suffocating, smothered beneath that intolerable dead weight of rock. I screamed and screamed, but no sound penetrated to the people outside. They passed by, smiling and nodding and chatting to each other, just as though nothing was happening!

It was only a dream, of course.

THURSDAY: 1340–1655

“S
O WHAT’S THE PROBLEM
, A
URELIO
? A little trip to Sardinia, all expenses paid. I should be so lucky! But once you’re in business for yourself you learn that the boss works harder than …”

“I’ve already explained the problem, Gilberto! Christ, what’s the matter with you today?”

It was the question that Zen had been asking himself ever since arriving at the restaurant. Finding his friend free for lunch at such short notice had seemed a stroke of luck which might help Zen gain control of the avalanche of events which had overrun his life.

Gilberto Nieddu, an excolleague who now ran an industrial counterespionage firm, was the person Zen was closest to. Serious, determined, and utterly reliable, there was an air of strength and density about him, as though all his volatility had been distilled away. Whatever he did, he did in earnest. Zen hadn’t, of course, expected Gilberto to produce instant solutions, but he had counted on him to listen attentively and then bring a calm, objective view to bear on the problems. As a Sardinian himself, his advice and knowledge might make all the difference.

But Gilberto was not his usual self today. Distracted and preoccupied, continually glancing over his shoulder, he paid little attention to Zen’s account of his visit to Palazzo Sisti and its implications.

“Relax, Aurelio! Enjoy yourself. I’ll bet you haven’t been here that often, eh?”

This was true enough. In fact Zen had never been to Licio’s, a legendary name among Roman luxury restaurants. The entrance was in a small street near the Pantheon. You could easily pass by without noticing it. Apart from a discreet brass plate beside the door, there was no indication of the nature of the business carried on there. No menu was displayed, no exaggerated claims made for the quality of the cooking or the cellar.

Inside you were met by Licio himself, a eunuchlike figure whose expression of transcendental serenity never varied. It was only once you were seated that the unique attraction of Licio’s became clear. Thanks to the disposition of the tables in widely separated niches concealed from each other by painted screens and potted plants, you had the illusion that your party was the only group there. The prices at Licio’s were roughly double the going rate for the class of cuisine on offer, but this was only logical since there were only half as many tables. In any case, the clientele came almost exclusively from the business and political worlds, and they were happy to pay whatever Licio wished to ask in return for the privilege of being able to discuss sensitive matters in a normal tone of voice with no risk of being either overheard or deafened by their neighbours. Hence the place’s unique cachet: you went to other restaurants to see and be seen; at Licio’s you paid more to pass unnoticed.