progress whatsoever, he finally decided to do something completely uncharacteristic, something so foreign to his nature that he debated the wisdom of the move right up to the last minute, and only then went ahead because there was no alternative. He decided to tell them the truth.
Since he could hardly convene the entire corps for this purpose, he deliberately selected the most hostile and truculent of the officers under his command, Giovan Battista Caputo. Caputo was a wiry, energetic man in his early thirties with a prow-shaped face, a hook nose, a flamboyant black moustache and a mouthful of sharp white teeth which were exposed up to the gums when he flashed one of his infrequent, vaguely menacing smiles.
He looked like a composite of every gene pool which had ever flourished around the bay: Etruscan traders, Greek settlers, Roman playboys, Barbary pirates and Spanish imperialists. If he could win over Caputo, Zen reckoned, he would win the keys not only to his new command but to the city itself.
'You're all wondering what I'm doing here/ he declared when Caputo presented himself in his office.
'That's none of our business/ was the unyielding reply.
'I'm going to tell you anyway.' said Zen. 'Sit down.'
'I prefer to stand.'
'I don't give a damn what you prefer. I'm ordering you to sit down.'
Caputo obeyed stiffly.
'The answer to the question I just raised is very simple/ Zen went on. 'I requested a transfer.'
For all the effect of these words on Caputo, Zen might just as well not have spoken.
'You don't believe me/ Zen remarked.
'It's none of our business/ repeated Caputo stolidly.
'And it's easy to see why you don't/ continued Zen.
'Why should anyone request a transfer from the capital to a posting in a provincial city where he has no family, no friends and doesn't speak the dialect? And not even to the main Questura but to a dead-end job with the port detail?'
Caputo looked Zen in the eye for the first time, but still offered no comment. Zen took out his pack of Nazionali and offered one to his subordinate, who shook his head.
'The answer to this question is not so simple/ Zen said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. 'To use a classical allusion, I had to choose between Scylla and Charybdis. I had made enemies at the ministry, powerful enemies. I knew that they would not let me continue in my previous job, and I suspected that they might attempt to send me to a punishment posting. My only hope was to anticipate them by applying for such a move myself. I took a look at the positions vacant and chose this one. I'm the correct rank to command this detachment, and since it effectively constitutes a massive demotion from my former position with Criminalpol, my enemies could not intervene without revealing their hand. I had accepted defeat, but on my terms, not theirs.'
'Who are your enemies?' whispered Caputo, all attention now.
'Political.'
'On the right or the left?'
Zen smiled condescendingly.
'No one uses those words any more, Caputo. We're all in the centre nowadays. And my enemies are about as close to the centre as it's possible to be. In fact at the time of which I am speaking one of their number was the Minister of the Interior.'
Caputo's eyes widened.
'You mean…?'
'I do indeed.'
Caputo licked his lips nervously.
'Maybe I will have a cigarette after all/ he said.
Zen pushed the packet across the desk.
'That explains what I am doing here/ he said. 'It also explains my total lack of interest in any and all aspects of my job. This posting has been forced on me as the least of various evils on offer, but I do not feel the slightest degree of professional involvement or responsibility. I am sure that you and your colleagues are perfectly capable of carrying out your duties in a satisfactory manner, and my only wish is to leave you free to do so without interference or supervision. In short, just pretend I'm not here and carry on as you always have done. Do I make myself clear?'
Caputo flashed his shark's smile.
'Yes, sir.'
'The only thing that concerns me is that nothing occurs which might draw unwelcome attention to this detachment, and hence give my enemies an excuse to move me to the killing fields of Sicily or some God-forsaken hole up in the mountains. I'm sure I can count on your experience and discretion, Caputo, to ensure this does not happen.
As far as everything else is concerned, I leave matters entirely in your hands. In fact the less I know about it, the better pleased I shall be.'
Caputo nodded briskly and stood up.
'Will there be anything else, sir?'
Zen was about to shake his head when a thought struck him.
'Actually, I'd like a cappuccino scuro. Not too hot, lots of foam, no chocolate.'
He lay back, glancing at the clock on the wall. Less than five minutes later there was a knock at the door and a uniformed patrolman entered bearing a tray laden with a glass of mineral water, a selection of freshly baked pastries and the cappuccino.
Every morning after that, an identical tray appeared a few minutes after Zen's arrival at the office. For a while, that was all. Then, about three weeks after his conversation with Caputo, he came in one day to find a large cardboard box in the corner of the room. It proved to contain fifty cartons of Nazionali, 10,000 cigarettes in all. Zen removed three cartons and took them home, and stacked the rest in the empty drawers of his filing cabinet.
After that, things improved by leaps and bounds. He was greeted in respectful yet friendly fashion by every one he met, and his orders and requests were obeyed with alacrity, sometimes before he even realized that he had made them. He normally showed up at work each morning about eleven, unless he had something better to do, leaving again shortly before lunch. Today he was entertaining Valeria at home, so he planned to make no more than a token appearance before stopping by the market to shop for whatever took his fancy.
Cars and vans and lorries surged sluggishly along the partitioned channel supposedly reserved for the trams, but in practice used by all and sundry as a relief route from the traffic-clogged Via Cristoforo Colombo. Once in a while, the city's vigili would swoop down and start handing out fines, but such actions were sporadic and tokenistic, repressive blitzes by a colonial power which knew that the struggle against the local population was unwinnable but could not afford to concede this openly.
In the dock area behind Zen, the white Tirrenia line steamer which had arrived from Sardinia that morning was tied up on one side of the passenger terminal. On the other lay a sleek grey warship flying a flag he found familiar but which he couldn't identify. Farther back, in one of the outer docks, a huge aircraft carrier displayed the unmistakable emblem of the Stars and Stripes.
A dull ringing from the embedded rails announced the arrival of an elderly tram, swaying and nodding its way out of the tunnel burrowed under the Monte di Dio. Zen folded up his newspaper and waited patiently while it trundled through the massed traffic towards him, its bell jingling plaintively. Ten minutes later, the tram deposited him in Piazza del Carmino, outside one of the main entrances to the port area. Zen walked in through the open gates, nodding perfunctorily to the armed guard, who sketched a salute.
He crossed the concrete yard inside the gates and turned right towards the four-storey building which housed the detachment of the Polizia dello Stato responsible for law enforcement within the port area. Most of this enclave, as well as the neighbouring parts of the city centre, had been flattened by both Allied and German bombing during the war, but the police station had miraculously been spared. Thanks to its restrained proportions, sturdy design and traditional materials, it stood out as a model of old-world grace and charm amid the brutalities of the surrounding architecture.
The size of the building belied the modest number of personnel deployed there, having been constructed at a time when the port was much more active than it was now, after interminable labour disputes had diverted much trade south to Salerno. The ground and first floors were the only ones in official use, and the second used only as a
