'The gunmen?'
Another gesture indicating that this case had already been filed away in a capacious category labelled weird STUFF THAT HAPPENS WHEN AURELIO ZEN IS AROUND.
'According to witnesses, there were anywhere from four to eight men aboard the refuse truck. All were dressed in blue overalls, like regular municipal employees, but we have questioned all the personnel concerned with this work and are satisfied that they are not involved. The truck itself went missing from the municipal depot two months ago.'
The Questore's deputy puffed on her cigar.
'Which leaves the question of what your men were doing there in the first place.'
Zen felt himself stiffen up. The woman's uniform, an unusual affectation in one of so elevated a rank, left him feeling as naked as he had been when Valeria came into the room that morning.
'Three days ago,' he began laboriously, 'a stabbing occurred in the port…' 'I am only too aware of that, dottorel We have been subjected to the most insistent pressure for a solution ever since.'
Zen nodded, as though she had acknowledged a shared bond.
'Yesterday the prisoner — who was still unidentified and who refused to make a statement of any sort — complained of severe abdominal pains. I summoned a doctor…'
'You were on duty?'
The question was laden with ironic emphasis.
'Naturally. The gravity of the case clearly demanded that I set aside all other matters and devote myself to finding a solution without regard to personal comfort or to bureaucratic norms.'
'And yet we have been trying without success to contact you for over forty-eight hours now. Your subordinates certainly did a masterly job of covering for you, but I must say that we all had the impression that you took a distinctly — how shall I say? — relaxed view of your duties.'
'Unfortunately my home telephone line is temporarily out of action,' Zen replied. 'I called SIP, but you know what it's like trying to get any emergency work done at the weekend.'
'So the prisoner complained of abdominal pains and you summoned a doctor.'
'Exactly'
'A police doctor?'
Zen hesitated fractionally.
'There was none available. And since it was clear that the prisoner was in considerable pain, and given the importance of this case, I summoned a civilian doctor who was able to come immediately. He confirmed that the prisoner was suffering from gastro-intestinal complications and required urgent medical attention. He signed a medical report to this effect, a copy of which I will forward in due course. I immediately authorized the release of the prisoner into the custody of two of my most experienced officers, with orders to convey him to hospital and remain at his bedside until the necessary medical intervention had been completed. It was while they were carrying out these duties that the attack took place.'
Vice-Questore Piscopo nodded and smoked, smoked and nodded.
'So not only do we still know nothing about the principal suspect and material witness in a case with enormous international repercussions, but the individual himself has escaped from custody'
She opened her hands in mock appeal.
'What would you call that, dottore, if not bad luck?'
'A carefully planned and ruthlessly executed ambush,'
Zen replied, 'designed specifically to free the prisoner before he could be made to talk.'
Piscopo snorted contemptuously.
'Why would anyone bother to set up an ambush for some knife-wielding thug?'
Now it was Zen's turn to express ironic surprise.
'I didn't realize that you had succeeded in identifying him, dottoressa. And if he has a criminal record, as you suggest, it is very odd that we have received no positive response to our request for fingerprint and photographic identification.'
'Of course I haven't identified him. I was merely…'
'There is however another possibility,' Zen went on, 'which would explain both the ambush and the lack of documentation.'
'And what might that be?'
'This man isn't a lone wharf rat, as everyone has assumed, but a close associate of one of the most powerful clans of organized crime in the city.'
There was a long silence, during which Piscopo's glasses seemingly became even more opaque.
'Which?'
The word was as hard as a jagged chip chiselled off a block of marble.
'Ermanno Vallifuoco,' Zen replied.
The policewoman pulled at her cigar and discharged a dense cloud of blue smoke.
'Ermanno Vallifuoco has been taken out of circulation.'
'Yes, I read about that.'
A silence. Vlce-Questore Piscopo scrunched up the print-out of Zen's career and tossed it into a metal waste basket.
'In a way, you're a pair,' she declared. 'Ermanno Vallifuoco represented the old Naples, just as you, Dottor Zen, represent the old Italy.'
'And have I too been 'taken out of circulation'?'
The mouth beneath the dark glasses did not smile.
'Less effectively, unfortunately'
XVII
'She said that?'
'Those were her very words.'
'And you believe her?'
A shrug.
'Then why hasn't Orestina said anything about it to me?'
'Filomena said they'd sworn not to tell us,' Sabatino explained. 'She just blurted it out while we were talking this morning. She sounded a bit exhausted and emotional — apparently they'd been up most of the night — and she said she couldn't lie to me.'
Gesualdo, who was driving, made an unnecessarily vicious left turn.
'Oh, she couldn't, eh?'
Sabatino glanced at his partner in surprise.
'What's wrong with that?'
'And those little bitches bought into it?' yelled Gesualdo over an excruciatingly loud and dissonant blast of his horn at the mental incompetent at the wheel of the car ahead, who had very nearly caused an accident by suddenly stopping, without the slightest warning, at a stop light.
'For them, it meant a free trip to London,' Sabatino remarked in a conciliatory tone. 'Besides, Filomena said they knew they could trust us, so it didn't make any difference anyway.'
'Strunze 'e mmerdal Chi t' 'a date 'a patente?'
This to the driver in front, who was still blocking the street, even though the light had changed to green several nanoseconds earlier.
'So Orestina didn't mention this to you?' asked Sabatino.
Cutting out in front of an oncoming bus, the red Jaguar roared past the offending vehicle.
'We talked about other things,' Gesualdo replied combatitively. 'Like what?'
