Ciro swallowed hard.
'Last night over cards, Emiddio 'o Curtiello said that it was Don Gaetano — may God preserve him! — who had given the nod to the whole thing in the first place.'
He stepped back with the look of a gambler who has placed his bet and awaits the verdict of the wheel. Gesualdo looked at him levelly for some time. Then he smiled slowly and nodded.
'Get the money to us by Friday,' he said.
'Friday? Gesu, can't you make it Sunday at least, Gesua.'
A thought seemed to strike him. He reached into his pocket and produced a laminated card which he handed over.
'Here, I lifted this this morning, right outside the Questura!'
Catching the look in Gesualdo's eye, he added hastily, 'The mark had no money to speak of, but this is the genuine article all right. Not one of those cheap fakes they're turning out in Aversa.'
Gesualdo glanced contemptuously at the card in Ciro's hand, and suddenly became very still. He seized it and scrutinized the writing and the picture carefully.
'Keep it as a token of goodwill!' Ciro told him, eager to regain the initiative. 'All you need to do is change the photo and you're an honorary Vice-Questore. Eh, Gesua?
Well, I must be going. Ciaol'
Before Gesualdo could react, he jumped on to his motorbike and roared off. Sabatino, who had arrived a few minutes earlier and had been watching the encounter from a bar on the other side of the street, came over to join his partner.
'I trust you put the fear of God into him,' he said lightly.
Without replying, Gesualdo handed the plastic card to Sabatino, who looked at it with an expression of total shock.
'Holy shit!' he murmured.
XXIV
Aurelio Zen strolled along Via Chiaia over the saddle between the Monte di Dio and the lower slopes of the Vomero, and continued up the gentle slope of elegant Via Filangieri. He walked slowly, taking in the myriad dramas and comedies unfolding all around him, a guarded smile on his lips, compact and self-contained.
As the street veered to the left, becoming Via dei Mille, he paused to inspect the watch which Professor Esposito had returned to him. He had already done this several times, in an attempt to determine whether or not the watch was really his. Even after another inspection, he remained in some doubt about this. The make, style and general appearance were apparently identical, yet the watch somehow felt different from the one he had worn for so many years, and which had previously belonged to his father. Of course, this might be just the effect of the cleaning and repair which the professor's friend had effected, free of charge.
An elegant young couple brushed past him, one to either side, each speaking animatedly into a mobile phone. Maybe they're talking to each other, he thought, the ultimate yuppie relationship. Well, now he too could play these games.
'Valeria? Aurelio Zen.'
'Who?'
'Alfonso Zembla, I mean.'
'What's all that noise?'
'I'm just passing a stall selling bootleg cassettes. Wait a moment… Hello? Hello?'
'Hello?'
'Ah, there you are. I'm calling from my new mobile phone. The city's full of dead spaces, I'm finding.'
'It's lucky you rang, Alfonso. I just got a call from someone who wants to get in touch with you.'
'Was it my mother?'
'Pardon?'
'My mother. She's gone missing.'
'No, this was a man. He didn't leave a name, but he's going to call back later.' 'I went to see a mago and asked him where she was. He told me the Three Furies were on my trail.'
'Furies?'
'He stuck his finger in my navel and had a vision of the Erinyes. Do you know about them? Female divinities who punish crimes against close relations. Obviously the professor has a classical turn of mind. The other missing person I asked about he located in Hades.'
'Have you got a fever, Alfonso?'
'I'm fine. You haven't forgotten that we're going to the opera this evening, have you?'
'Of course I haven't. If you're not back here in time, I'll meet you at the San Carlo.'
'Right. And listen, if anyone calls for me, just give them the number of my mobile. Have you got a pen?'
'Even if it's your mother?'
'There's no escaping the Furies, the professor says.'
In Piazza Amadeo, close to the lower terminus of the other funicular railway up the Vomero, he entered a cafe and ordered a beer. His plan was to drop by the house on Scalini del Petraio and find out whether his hired professionals had managed to make any impression on the Squillace girls' innamorati.
It's Gesualdo who is going to be the problem, he thought. Sabatino looked like someone who could be talked into almost anything, certainly into bed, but his partner had that sanctimonious facade which conceals a mass of unresolved doubts, conflicts and ambiguities.
The way he carried on, you'd think he'd invented love after everyone had been satisfied with shoddy imitations for the preceding thousand years.
But what if Zen blundered in just as Iolanda or Libera he could never remember which was which — was successfully putting the moves on this paragon of rectitude?
That could ruin everything, and give Gesualdo the excuse he needed to bail out. Perhaps he should phone De Spino and check the lie of the land first. It might have been he who called him at Valeria's. No, that couldn't be right. De Spino didn't know that he was staying there. No one knew, in fact. Except that someone evidently did.
Another unsolved mystery, thought Zen, paying the bill and walking out into the honking, revving crush of vehicles in the piazza. How was it that everything became so complicated here? A week earlier, his life had been as he had always wanted it: calm, pleasant and predictable.
And now even the smallest details seemed uncertain, as though subjected to the same bradyism as parts of the city itself, an imperceptible but continual seismic motion which undermined the strongest foundations and rendered every structure unstable.
He was lining up for a ticket in the dismal grotto which formed the lower terminus of the Funicolare di Chiaia, his transit pass having gone missing along with the other contents of his wallet, when an irritating electronic bleeping started somewhere close by. Very close. In fact, it seemed to be coming from him. He stared wildly down at his body, as though it might have turned into the steel limbs and greased joints of a robot.
'Eh, signore, do us all a favour!' said the elderly woman in front of him in the queue. 'If you aren't going to answer, kindly turn it off. In my opinion, those damn things have ruined civilized life. You can't go out to eat or even to the opera these days without hearing them. Once upon a time it was considered ill-bred even to answer the phone if you were talking to someone, but now…'
Zen apologized sheepishly while digging out the phone.
'Yes?' he barked aggressively, by way of over-compensation.
'Pasquale, dutto. Where are you?'
'On my way home. Well, what used to be…'
'Whereabouts exactly?'
