‘Oh. Yes. But listen…’
‘Just a moment!’
There was a noise in the background and Cristiana greeted someone who had come into the agency.
‘The boss,’ she explained in an undertone to Zen.
‘Shall I call you back?’
‘That’s all right. Now you were enquiring about seat availability over the weekend period, I believe?’
Zen grinned broadly, his fit of pique forgotten.
‘It wasn’t so much seats I was thinking of…’
‘That’s simply the formula we use at booking stage,’ Cristiana returned crisply. ‘You would of course be upgraded automatically at check-in.’
‘Sounds good. When are you free?’
‘Let me just check the computer… The earliest slot would appear to be tomorrow afternoon.’
‘What time?’
‘The flight leaves at… Ah, we can drop the charade. La signora has gone to powder her butt. Where were we?’
‘When are you free tomorrow?’
‘I’ve promised to take Mamma shopping in the morning, and we’re having people to lunch. Say between two and three?’
Zen sighed.
‘That seems like a long way off.’
‘It’s the best I can do.’
He pulled himself together.
‘Of course. I just can’t wait to see you again.’
‘Till tomorrow.’
She hung up. Zen relinquished the receiver more gradually, loath to slip back into the mental miasma he could already feel rising to claim him.
The next thing of which he was distinctly aware was the arrival of Aldo Valentini, a cigar between his lips and an air of infinite self-satisfaction on his glowing features.
‘Ah, the pleasures of food!’ the Ferrarese exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘What is sex compared to a great lunch? Am I glad Gavagnin took that Sfriso case away from me! What’s up with our Enzo anyway? I just passed him on the stairs and he looked through me as though I were a ghost.’
‘A well-fed ghost, evidently,’ commented Zen, who had eaten nothing but a mass-produced pastry during his trip to the mainland.
‘You have no idea, Aurelio! Those lads at the Gritti really know their stuff, I can tell you.’
Zen looked suitably envious.
‘The Gritti Palace? Did you win the pools?’
Valentini smiled.
‘In a manner of speaking.’
He flopped down in a chair and put his feet up on Zen’s desk.
‘I have just seen the new, clean, honest, dynamic Italy of the nineties, Aurelio, and it works! In fact it works just like the old one.’
He puffed on his cigar a moment.
‘The only difference is that the payment’s in kind these days. The way things are, no one can afford to leave a paper trail. Even cash is getting too risky now that the banks are starting to co-operate with the judges. You can’t draw a thousand lire from your account without ending up on a database, but in a few hours the meal I just consumed will be just a glorious memory and another gob of sewage in some pozzo nero.’
‘I see. Who was your host?’
‘A local citizen who has an interest in the outcome, or the lack of it, of a case I’m presently working on.’
Zen frowned.
‘You could have been seen together.’
‘So what? In order to express the nature of his interest in greater detail, the citizen in question proposed that we meet for lunch. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Management are always going on about the need to forge closer links with the general public and thus promote a softer, more caring image of the force.’
Zen yawned.
‘I think I’d better go home and get some sleep. I’ve got to work this evening.’
‘How’s the Zulian business coming along?’ demanded Valentini, heading for his cubicle.
‘Well, I haven’t been offered any free lunches so far.’
Valentini laughed.
‘On the other hand,’ Zen continued as he headed for the door, ‘I have a feeling that things might be about to get interesting in other ways.’
*
‘Three tens.’
‘King and queen beats that.’
‘And ace wins.’
‘Shit.’
The four figures sat huddled around a low table. The flame of a wax nightlight flickered in the tangled currents of their breath, thickly visible in the unheated air. The only sounds were the flutter of the cards being shuffled and dealt, and the soft patter of wavelets against the hull. Once more the players bent forward, trying to make out what kind of hands they were holding without tilting their cards too far towards the light and the eyes of the others.
‘Chief?’
‘I’ll take two.’
‘Discard.’
‘Pass.’
‘Oh shit!’
‘There’s a lady present, Martufo.’
‘And the worst of it is she keeps winning.’
For a few minutes there was only the slap of cards on the table.
‘I’m out,’ called a man’s voice.
‘ Dottore?’
‘Me too.’
‘Nunziata?’
‘Three jacks.’
‘Not again!’
‘I always said it was a mistake letting women join the force,’ commented a man with a strong Southern accent.
The speaker yawned loudly.
‘Christ, but it’s cold!’ someone else remarked.
‘Keep your voice down,’ murmured the tallest figure, opening the curtain over the cabin window a crack and looking out.
‘What time is it, anyway?’ demanded the man on his left.
‘Just gone ten,’ said a woman’s voice.
A pulsing orange light suddenly appeared in the corner of the confined space. The tall man reached over and threw a switch.
‘Yes?’
‘Contact,’ said a tinny voice.
‘How many?’
‘Two.’
‘Don’t let them spot you.’
