of low-lifes like your friends, and they're willing to pay good money to ensure it doesn't happen. Now as luck would have it the flat below mine has been let to a couple of young ladies who have just arrived here and are desperate to — how shall I put it? — place themselves under the protection of someone who can help them get on in the world. And they're not too particular how.'
Dario nodded rapidly.
'You aim to fix them up with Gesualdo and Sabatino?'
'Exactly. The problem is that your friends know I'm in with the Squillaci, so they don't trust me. Which is where you come in. I need you to act as go-between, monitoring the situation, smoothing out any difficulties that may arise and generally doing your best to get our star-struck young lovers to fall head over heels for someone new. If you bring it off, the Squillace family will make it well worth your while.'
He paused as they came to a small square halfway down the steps, overlooking the sea. Navigation lights twinkled in the velvet immensity of the night.
'These neighbours of yours,' Dario began. 'Are they young? Pretty? Do they know how to turn it on?'
'They've got everything it takes to drive a man crazy.
But why don't you come and see for yourself? My house is just down there.'
Dario shrugged.
'Why not?'
They heard the music first. It reached up to them, sinuous and insinuating, rhythmic but unsettling, a long melisma skidding around between keys without ever settling down. It got ever louder as they approached, booming and bending off the high stone walls of the alley. Then the house itself came into view. The first floor was a blaze of lights, the shutters and windows thrown open and the strange, oriental music blaring out.
'Oh, ragazzeV Zen called loudly.
Two heads appeared simultaneously at the windows, a blonde to the right, a brunette to the left.
'Let me introduce Dario De Spino,' Zen continued. 'If anyone can fix you up, he can.'
A squeal of excitement from above.
'How wonderful!'
'What it is to have friends!'
Zen unlocked the front door. The note he had left earlier was no longer there.
'So what do you think?' he asked De Spino as they climbed the stairs.
'They're the oddest looking creatures I've ever seen!
And that accent! Where the hell are they from?'
'Albania.'
'Albania!'
'They left earlier this year. Paid someone a fortune to smuggle them over to Bari. But there was no work there, so they've come up to Naples to try their luck.'
'So how come they speak Italian?'
'Watching television. It was never effectively jammed, apparently'
He pushed open the door of the lower apartment.
Dario De Spino entered the room, staring wide-eyed at the two women who stood facing him. They were dressed in late-sixties outfits which no doubt represented the height of underground chic in Tirana: polyester tank tops, extremely short miniskirts and calf-length white boots. Their hair was long and straight, their make-up primitive but copious.
Zen rubbed his hands together and turned back to the doorway.
'Well, I'll leave you three to get acquainted.'
'I'm Libera,' said the brunette, advancing on Dario De Spino. 'And this is Iolanda. We're so pleased to meet you.
We've just arrived in the city, and we don't know a soul here.'
'If only we could get in touch with the right people,' sighed Iolanda. 'People with connections. It's hard for two girls all alone, with no friends or family to help…'
The voices faded as Zen walked upstairs to his own flat. The door was open and the lights on, but there was no sign of anyone home. Then he continued up the spiral staircase giving access to the roof extension and there they were, standing out on the terrace, smoking cigarettes and gazing up at the twinkling lights of a passing plane.
Given the delays considered normal at Capodichino, it might even be the one entrusted with the safety of their darling girls.
Che figure interessanti Twenty minutes later, as Aurelio Zen walked up the steps and down the street to the turn-of-the-century palazzo where Valeria Squillace lived, it was with a sense of a job, if not well done, at least well begun. Putting Dario De Spino on the payroll had definitely been an excellent inspiration, and the crucial negotiations with Gesualdo and Sabatino had gone much more smoothly than he had feared.
Initially the two men had seemed distinctly suspicious of 'Alfonso Zembla', and had asked a great many questions about his life, work, residence in Naples and relationship to the Squillace family. For all of ten minutes they had interrogated him like a couple of cops, while Zen fed them a mixed diet of innocuous facts, half-truths and outright lies. Yes, he was from the North, from Venice. He worked in the port of Naples as a customs inspector, and was distantly related to Valeria Squillace on her father's side.
As for this sudden interest in Orestina's and Filomena's private lives, he explained that he had become a sort of uncle to the two girls, who confessed things to him that they would not tell their mother. He understood the latter's doubts and anxieties about this double liaison, so unsuitable on the face of it, but considered them unfounded. That was why he was taking advantage of a combination of circumstances which had arisen to give Gesualdo and Sabatino a chance to redeem themselves in the eyes of the girls' mother.
As an act of charity, he explained, Signora Squillace had responded to an appeal on behalf of the Albanian refugees who were flocking to Italy, seeking work and a better future. The nuns who sponsored the appeal were housing and feeding many hundreds of these immigrants in their own facilities, but the demand exceeded their capacities and they had appealed for help to many of the city's wealthier families, including the Squillaci, who had responded positively to similar appeals in the past.
Zen hinted obliquely at some dark secret which Signora Squillace felt obliged to expiate by allowing some vacant rental property she owned to be occupied temporarily by deserving cases selected by the nuns. It was only after doing so that she had seen a newspaper report suggesting that some of these supposed 'refugees' were in fact criminals and prostitutes who had left Albania to escape justice, and who were continuing to carry on their trade in Italy.
Her anxieties had been alleviated to some extent by the knowledge that he, Alfonso Zembla, was on the premises to keep an eye on what was going on. Unfortunately an exceptional situation which had arisen at work meant that for some time he was going to have to spend a considerable amount of time away from home, starting tonight…
'What sort of situation?'
The question came from Gesualdo. The tone was dry, almost ironic, as though he already knew the answer. He really would have made an excellent interrogator, thought Zen.
'An undercover operation/ he replied. 'I can't say any more. It's all strictly hush-hush.'
Zen was gratified to see that the two men exchanged a significant glance. He had chosen his professional cover partly to explain his presence in the port area, if they should find out about it, but partly with a view to giving them a further incentive to comply with his request. Given their presumed line of work, the prospect of having an ally in the Customs might be expected to exercise a powerful appeal.
Now it was time to emphasize the other benefits which they stood to gain.
'What I want to be able to do is tell Valeria — Signora Squillace — that I've left the place in safe hands, and she has no reason to worry that it's being used as a whorehouse, or worse. So we kill two birds with one stone. I can concentrate on my job, while you two get the credit for defending the Squillace family property against the depredations of the Muslim hordes.'
'We can't just sit around here all the time,' Sabatino protested. 'We've got work to do, too.'
'That's no problem. The main thing is that you spend the night here, and check up on the situation whenever your other responsibilities permit. I take it that your families can spare you for a few days? That's all it'll take, just
