'Like none of your fucking business.'
'Oh, those things…'
Two blocks later, the Jaguar's precipitate progress ended in the constipated streets feeding into Piazza Garibaldi and the souks around the main railway station.
'Who set it up?' demanded Gesualdo. 'That Alfonso Zembla, I suppose.'
Sabatino waved negligently, the lordly dispenser of privileged information.
'He's got nothing to do with it. Apparently it's all their mother's doing. Her idea is that the girls are just in love with the idea of being in love for the first time, and that if they spend a few weeks away they'll forget all about us.
But it seems to have worked the other way round…'
A pause.
'… at least as far as Filomena's concerned. She said she's missing me so much she couldn't sleep all night.'
With a wary eye out for policemen, Gesualdo attached the flashing blue light to the roof and started to inch through the blockade.
'And what about you?' he asked aggressively. 'Did you tell your faithful Penelope about us moving into a house with two Albanian sex bombs who're willing, quote, to do anything to get ahead, unquote?'
Sabatino shrugged.
'Well, no…'
'Why not?'
'She wouldn't understand. You know how women are.'
Gesualdo shook his head.
'On the contrary.'
They rounded the piazza and entered the squalid streets behind the station.
'Odd that Orestina didn't trust you,' murmured Sabatino as though to himself.
'Still odder that you didn't trust Filomena,' Gesualdo shot back.
'It's not a question of trust! I've done nothing to be ashamed of.'
'So far.'
Sabatino gave his partner a look.
'What's that supposed to mean?'
Gesualdo brought the Jaguar to a halt at the kerb.
'Well, now we know that the whole thing's just a trick…' he sniffed.
'What difference does that make?'
There was no answer.
'So is this it?' asked Sabatino at length.
Gesualdo opened the car door.
'This,' he said, 'is it.'
They crossed the street and entered one of a few remaining tenements which had survived both the war and the subsequent reconstruction. A steep internal staircase led to a dingy but spotlessly clean landing with an open window overlooking a small courtyard. Behind one of the two doors which opened off it, a child was crying insistently. Gesualdo rapped at the stout wood panelling.
'Who is it?' a woman called out.
Gesualdo cleared his throat respectfully.
'Good morning, signora. Excuse the disturbance. I'm a friend of Roberto.'
He glanced at Sabatino before adding, 'It's about a car.'
Dove sia nessun lo sa On the bench in the cavernous entrance hall of the police station, a laurel wreath the size of a tractor tyre rested against a wall mottled by dust which had collected in the pockmarked plaster. Red ribbons and the Italian flag flanked a grainy snapshot of Armando Bertolini as a raw recruit in uniform. The card below read: 'To Our Fallen Colleague, More in Sorrow Than in Anger, the Officers and Men of the Port Detachment'.
The building was completely silent and seemingly deserted. Zen walked upstairs, bellowing Caputo's name. His voice echoed hollowly. Then running footsteps sounded above, and the slight but virile figure of his subordinate appeared on the landing.
'What's going on?' demanded Zen, puffing slightly with the exertion of climbing the stairs. 'This place is as dead as some country railway station in Calabria.'
Caputo mimed deference tempered by grief.
'Most of them have taken the day off, chief. In the circumstances, it seemed only natural. Everyone's shocked by what happened to poor Armando. Even upstairs has closed.'
'What are you talking about?' Zen wheezed, having attained the landing. 'I've been given to understand that the upper floor of this building is disused.'
Caputo nodded.
'But today it's even more disused.'
'They've shut the whorehouse? Jesus!'
'As a mark of respect, dottore. It's only for one night, mind you, and Monday is always slim pickings.'
'I'm glad to hear that a spirit of pragmatism still prevails, Caputo.'
He led the way down the corridor to his office. When the door had shut behind them, he turned and looked his subordinate in the eye.
'Now then, what really happened?'
Caputo opened his mouth, closed it again, and shrugged.
'Like I told you on the phone, chief, we were driving along quietly, minding our own business and looking for a suitable opportunity to let Pastorelli pretend to escape…'
'No, I mean what really happened?' 'I already told you, chief! These guys in the refuse truck jumped out and gunned down Bertolini before any of us could…'
'You're not listening, Caputo!'
Zen's face was a mask glowing with obscure passions.
'For the last time, what really happened?'
Caputo's eyes were fixed hypnotically on Zen's.
'Really?' he murmured, as though breaking a taboo by uttering the name of a divinity.
A pause, a shrug.
'The talk is that it was probably a hit team from one of the clans using a municipal vehicle as cover. When the accident occurred, they realized the operation might be jeopardized and decided to take the initiative. Either that or they just panicked. That's all I could find out. No one seems to know anything for sure. It's odd.'
Zen continued to hold Caputo's gaze for a long while in silence. Then he turned away abruptly.
'And the stabbing case?'
Immediately Caputo perked up.
'We've got movement on that one, chief! The Americans got back to me. They've identified the person whose fingerprints appeared on that cassette.'
'Excellent! Who is he? I need to speak to him immediately/ 'His name's John Viviani. But there's a problem.'
'A problem?'
Caputo's grin erupted and vanished with equal suddenness.
'His ship sailed last night.'
'Ah.'
'But the real problem is that this Viviani isn't aboard.'
'So where is he?'
'No one knows.'
It took Zen five minutes more to get the whole story.
Ensign John Viviani, a junior officer on the aircraft carrier, had been granted shore leave the previous day with orders to return to his vessel by three in the afternoon.
