marriage. In short, you get a chance to prove your mother wrong, and at her expense!'
There was a silence.
'How much?' asked Orestina.
Zen gave her an ingenuous smile.
'Pardon me?'
'You have just admitted that your interest in this is purely mercenary. So how much are we talking about?'
Zen twirled his left hand in the air.
'A hundred thousand? I forget exactly. The money isn't really important. I just suggested it to add a certain piquancy to the whole experience.'
Orestina nodded.
'I see. Well, let's see if we can't make this 'experience' still more piquant for you, Dottor Zembla. I propose a side bet for the same amount between the three of us. If you win, we will pay you fifty thousand each in addition to the hundred from mamma. If you lose, Filomena and I split the pot, a hundred thousand lire each. What do you say?'
Aurelio Zen frowned and appeared to struggle for a moment. Then he thrust out his arm, grasped Orestina's delicate but surprisingly muscular hand, and shook it vigorously.
'What will you do with your winnings?' he demanded.
Filomena clapped her hands together, her face beaming with anticipated pleasure.
'I'll take Sabatino out for an evening on the town!' she cried enthusiastically 'We'll go to a movie and then have dinner somewhere and dance the night away I'll make it an evening we'll never forget, not even when we're your age, Don Alfonsetto!'
Zen turned to the older sister.
'And you, signorina?' 'I shall add it to my savings/ she replied coolly 'You're good with money/ Zen commented. 'Like your father.'
11
'Leave our father out of this!' snapped Orestina.
She scooped up the remaining pastry, which her sister had been eyeing, wrapped it in a paper napkin and slid it into her bag.
'And now we must be going, or we'll be late for our classes.'
Aurelio Zen laid a hand on both their sleeves.
'Mind, don't tell your boyfriends! Otherwise the deal's off.'
'I don't need to tell Gesualdo/ Orestina replied scornfully.
'Exactly!'
Filomena chimed in. 'Sabatino already knows whatever I'm going to say to him. We're so perfectly attuned. It's almost mystical, the rapport we have/ Aurelio Zen stood looking at the two sisters, so different, so similar, so confident, so vulnerable. For a moment he felt a slight sense of regret, almost of guilt, at what he was doing. Then he shook his head, paid the bill, took them each by the arm and led them out into the bright wash of sunlight overlaying the town and the bay beyond.
III
By contrast with the balmy, expansive warmth of the street, the funicular station was dark and cavernous, the air cool, a faint draught edged with the smell of mould and oil. A pair of young rats chased one another playfully about between the rails. The cables were already in operation, slithering over the runners like silvery serpents. A few moments later the train appeared in the gloom below, inching up the hillside and slowing to a gentle, pneumatic halt alongside the steeply pitched platform.
Zen boarded the middle carriage, its floor stepped like a stairway, and opened his copy of II Mattino. The headlines had a distinctly second-hand air, following up on stories which had made their debut earlier in the week: the controversy over future plans for the site of the steel plant at Bagnoli, the initiative by the mayor to retain various measures hastily instituted to clean up the city in time to host the Gj conference, the disappearance of a former minister in the regional government who was under investigation for alleged association with organized crime.
The morning rush hour was long over and the train was almost empty, conveying mostly students and a few elderly women heading for the shopping streets around Via Toledo. In theory, Zen should have been at work over an hour and a half ago, but he did not appear at all concerned by this fact. Once again, his hand strayed to his pocket, as though he had mislaid something. It was now two weeks, three days and ten hours since he had smoked his last cigarette, but old habits die hard. The craving for nicotine had passed surprisingly quickly, but at certain ritualistic moments of the day — over a coffee, when reading the paper — he found himself reaching for the ghostly pack of Nazionali he could still hear calling out to him faintly.
Halfway down the hill, the train shunted on to a loop to pass its opposite number on the way up. On the sprayed concrete walling of the tunnel, Zen made out the slogan strade pulite — 'Clean Streets' — crudely daubed in black paint. It sounded like an allusion to the 'Clean Hands' investigation into institutionalized corruption which had brought down the political class that had governed Italy since the war. But it was hard to see what 'Clean Streets' could mean, particularly on emerging from the funicular's lower terminus into the filthy, teeming, chaotic alleys of the Tavoliere district, where the morning market was in full swing.
Zen walked down to the grim bulk of the Castel Nuovo, crossed the wide boulevard which ran along the seafront and waited at the tram stop opposite. It was theoretically possible to take a bus from his home to the port, changing in Piazza Municipio, but given the vagaries of the city's public transport system Zen preferred to use the funicular and trams and walk the rest. Bus stops in Naples were purely notional markers which could be, and frequently were, moved without warning, and which in any case provided no guarantee that a given service would ever appear. But if a track existed, Zen reasoned, sooner or later something was bound to come along it.
And he was in no hurry. Quite the contrary! For the first time in his career, Aurelio Zen was his own boss, to the extent anyone ever could be in the police force. If he came in late and left early, or even failed to show up at all, the only way he could be found out was if one of his own staff snitched on him. And he had been at great pains to ensure that they had a vested interest in making sure that this never occurred.
One of the first effects of Zen's posting to Naples, predating his actual arrival, had been the hasty closure of various profitable and long-established business enterprises operating from the police station inside the port area, much to the distress of all involved. This painful decision had been reluctantly taken after an emergency meeting of the management and staff. This was the first time that anyone could remember an outsider being appointed to command the harbour detail. And not just any outsider, but a former operative of the illustrious Criminalpol, who worked directly out of the ministry in Rome!
For such a high-flyer to be transferred to a lowly, routine job in the South could mean only one thing, they all agreed. A clean-up had been ordered, and this Zen — his name didn't even sound Italian — had been selected to enforce it with ruthless efficiency. The only mystery was why their modest little scam had been singled out in this way when, as everyone knew, there was so much serious, big-time abuse going on. But perhaps that was precisely the point, someone suggested. The men at the ministry didn't dare touch the big names, to whom they were too closely linked and indebted, so they were making a show of doing something by sending one of their hatchet men to pick on low-level activities in which they took no direct interest.
Zen's first job had been to convince his new colleagues that this was not the case. It proved to be one of the toughest assignments he had ever faced. After holding out for over three weeks, during which time he had made no
