public itself. Matters were not helped by the fact that the only form of identification remaining to Zen was the small box of printed cards identifying him as Alfonso Zembla.
'But I'm here on official business!' he protested to the guard. 'They've been trying to get hold of me all night.
Let me phone through and they'll confirm it.'
As if bestowing an immense favour, the guard waved negligently at the internal phone at his elbow. Zen got through to the operator and was connected to Vice-Que store Piscopo's office. The deputy police chief was not available herself, but an underling confirmed that no one could be admitted to the official presence without suitable identification.
'But this is ridiculous!' spluttered Zen.
'It has perhaps escaped your attention that a new terrorist group is operating in this city and has already claimed three victims,' the voice replied icily. 'AH agencies are on triple-red alert as per a ministerial communique. There are no exceptions/ Under the patronizing gaze of the guard, Zen replaced the phone and retreated to the centre of the cavernous entrance hall to consider his next step. He had been very careful to have no contact whatsoever with the Questura since his arrival in Naples, and as a result there was no one in the building who knew him by sight and could vouch for him. He could get Caputo to come downtown, but that would leave no one to cover for him down at the port, and, besides, with the Questura on triple-red status following the Strade Pulite attacks, it was by no means certain that the mere word of an underling like Caputo would be enough to convince the authorities that Zen was indeed worthy of admission to the inner sanctum of power.
He was still debating these and other possibilities when a presence made itself felt at his elbow.
'Having problems, dutto?
The speaker was slim, slight and dapper, and might have been aged anywhere from forty to sixty. He was wearing an odd collection of items, each showing signs of long use and careful maintenance: an antique three-piece grey suit, a wrinkled white shirt buttoned tight at the collar, a green V-neck pullover and a camel-hair overcoat mottled by age or damp and worn unbuttoned. The man's hands were covered by white cotton gloves. The left carried an old but immaculately blocked felt hat, the right a small ivory case. One gloved finger flicked up the silver lid, revealing a stack of business cards. With a resigned sigh, Zen took one. The inscription, elegantly printed in relief, read 'Professore Gennaro Esposito: Magician, Astrologer, Clairvoyant'.
'I don't believe in magic,' said Zen.
The ivory box snapped shut and vanished.
'That's just to present myself/ Professor Esposito replied calmly. 'I've virtually retired from practice, anyway. The competition is fierce these days, and if you don't advertize on television no one takes you seriously. But that's neither here nor there. The question is, what can I do for you?'
Zen gave the man a sour look.
'Not a damn thing, unless you can magically spirit me up to the fourth floor.'
'To see whom?'
'The Questore's acting deputy. A certain Piscopo.'
The professorial eyes rolled impressively.
'Ah!'
Zen nodded.
'Impossible, even for retired magicians.'
A wave of the splayed gloves.
'We're in Naples, duttd. Everything is improbable, but nothing is impossible. Even the price is not exorbitant. I can offer you two options. The first, at thirty thousand, will take about an hour, give or take, depending who's on duty today. Or if you decide to go for the express service, I can have you there faster than you could walk up the stairs. That costs fifty thou, but it's worth the extra.'
Zen smiled wearily.
'I'm sure it is. Unfortunately I can't take advantage.
The reason I'm cooling my heels here in the first place is that my wallet just got stolen, along with my identification card and all the cash I had on me.'
The man studied Zen with renewed interest.
'You're a policeman, duttd? In that case, I can offer you the professional discount. Five per cent off the normal service fee, ten off the express.' 'I still haven't got it.'
'No problem.'
The gloved fingers darted out, grazed Zen's wrist and vanished again with his watch.
'With your permission, duttd, I'll keep this for security.'
The man turned away, melting into the crowds of people entering and leaving and queuing and jostling all around. Zen stood there, looking helplessly about him.
First his wallet, now his watch. It was time to leave while his shirt was still on his back. But he seemed powerless to move. Despite his sarcasm about the professor's magical powers, it was almost as if a spell had been cast upon him.
'This way, dutto?'
He turned round. Professor Esposito was beckoning to him from the checkpoint at the back of the hall where Zen had been refused entrance earlier. He made his way through the throng towards the impassive guard, who gave no sign of ever having seen him before. His guide led him to a set of three elevators and inserted a key into the right-hand one. The doors slid open.
'The Questore's private elevator,' Esposito whispered conspiratorially, ushering Zen inside. 'Goes direct to the top floor. Like I said, you'll be there quicker than climbing the stairs!'
La sorte incolpa 'No, that's not the problem. It's that you're unlucky.'
The speaker — a woman, judging by the pitch of her voice — was in police uniform. She was smoking a small cigar and wearing dark glasses. The large room was dim, the shutters closed.
'Anyone can be unlucky,' Zen replied.
Vice-Questore Piscopo rapped her cigar, unloading a neat package of ash into a steel ashtray on her desk.
'Once, yes,' she replied. 'Several times, even. But there is a logic in this, as in everything else. Occasions do not contradict the rule. Statistically, you have proved to be unlucky.'
She lifted a paper from the file in front of her.
There's a pattern here, dottore, which I recognized long before hearing of your latest problem — I refer to your allowing your wallet to be stolen. Apattern which none the less might have enabled me, in a certain sense, to predict it.'
A pause.
'In Milan, you wrongfully arrest a man for the Tondelli murder and twenty years later he tries to kill you after his release from prison. In Rome, you single-handedly 'solve' the Moro kidnapping, unfortunately too late to save the victim. Same thing two years later, in Perugia, with the Miletti family. In Sardinia, you concoct a convenient solution to the Burolo murders to satisfy your contacts at Palazzo Sisti — who then disappear from the political spectrum within a year or so. As if to demonstrate the degree of your incompetence, you then go on to make absurd allegations against a leading regional politician, now mayor of Venice and a close ally of our own minister. And now this.'
Zen said nothing. In the ten minutes since he had been admitted to the room, Vice-Questore Piscopo had said nothing relating to the case in hand. It had been, he now realized, a mistake to mention the theft of his wallet. He did so by way of excusing his failure to appear earlier, but it merely made him look incompetent and helpless, and confirmed the thesis which the authorities had apparently formulated as regards his record in general. When Piscopo finally got around to mentioning the incident of the night before, her interpretation was fully in accord with the line already established.
'On the basis of our investigation, we can rule out the possibility of a planned attack. The killers aboard the stolen municipal vehicle were unaware of the presence of the patrol car carrying your men until the traffic accident, in itself completely unpredictable, occurred.'
Zen gazed at the reflective lenses.
'Who were they?' he asked.
