'What?'
'Why not? There's no way Filomena will ever find out.
It's as if it never happened/ Gesualdo looked at him for some time in silence, then sniffed loudly.
'Well, that's your business.'
The street door opened and a young man appeared. All conversation immediately ceased. The intruder walked to the centre of the room, looking about him in a pleasant, dopey way.
'Vino?' he said tentatively, waving a 50,000-lire note.
The drunk perked up at once.
'You want to drink?' he said in English. 'Maybe eat something? Sit down! Later I tell you of the war. Oh, Guglie! Addb cazzo staje? Puortace 'n'ato litro 'e chellu bbuono, pecche cca ce sta 'n'amico mije ca e arrivate mo' dalVAmerica ca se sta murenne 'e setel'
XXVI
Dario was at a loss. This was doubly disturbing for a man who prided himself on always knowing what was what and who was behind it, even on those rare occasions when he himself wasn't directly or indirectly involved. But now not only could he not get hold of either Gesualdo or Sabatino, but he was beginning to have an uneasy sense that everything that had been happening was merely a diversion designed to distract attention from the real action, which was taking place somewhere else entirely. In short he sensed that he, Dario De Spino, was in this case no better off than the hapless fauna on whom he was accustomed to prey, people dumb enough to think that they knew what was going on because they followed the news.
His two friends had not returned his calls, and the only person he had been able to trace who had any information on their whereabouts was Ciro Soglione, amateur of big bikes, busty blondes and other people's wallets. And even Ciro was conspicuously unhelpful, merely saying that he had met Gesualdo briefly in Forcella that afternoon and that the latter had 'tried to get heavy'.
'I soon put a stop to that,' Ciro continued airily. 'Gesualdo's a good guy, we all know that, but if you haven't got respect out here on the streets, you haven't got anything, right? I showed him he couldn't push me around, then when he backed off I eased up and told him not to worry so much. 'Oh, Gesua,' I said, 'you've got to learn to relax, kid!' But it was no good, he was too pissed off. What's the deal? Is his girl screwing around on him or something?
Some guys come on so fucking tough, you know, but they let women push them around! I don't get it/ In the time he had known them, Dario had learned that it was not unusual for Gesualdo and Sabatino to drop out of circulation for hours or even days at a time. He had always assumed that this had to do with their work, into which he was careful not to pry. There were things you could discuss and others you couldn't. Dario respected their privacy and expected them to do the same in return.
Plus he got the impression that the stuff they were working on was way out of his league. There were occasions when it was better even for Dario De Spino not to know what was going on, still less who was behind it.
But it was something the thief had said just before they parted which worried Dario most — or rather what he had not said. Swivelling around on the saddle of his motorbike, Ciro had smiled in a knowing way and called out, 'How about those Strade Pulite guys, eh?' Like it was a football team or something.
And that was all, except for the valedictory roar of the bike. Dario had walked away deep in thought. What was the purpose of that teasing reference to the 'Clean Streets' group? It must have something to do with Gesualdo, otherwise Ciro would have clarified it. Instead he had deliberately left it hanging there, vague but suggestive, right after their discussion about their mutual acquaintance.
That could only mean one thing: he was implying that Gesualdo was linked in some way to the terrorists who had 'disappeared' three prominent local figures, with two of whom Dario had had professional dealings.
And if Gesualdo was involved, then Sabatino must be too.
Once again Dario De Spino asked himself just how well he really knew these two young men. Not that there had ever seemed anything very much to know. They had always seemed absolutely typical young middle-man- agement hoodlums, perhaps a trifle smarter and more reserved than some, but in no way exceptional. If they had been, Dario wouldn't have had anything to do with them. They were affable and efficient in exactly the sort of way you'd expect of people who knew the sort of people they said they knew and worked for the class of operation they let it be understood that they worked for.
Tough, it went without saying, and no doubt capable of ruthless viciousness if the circumstances called for it, but basically just a couple of average Neapolitan lads trying to get on in life and make a decent living. Certainly not terrorists! The whole idea was ridiculous. The South might have its problems, but ideological fanaticism had never been one of them. People down here were too smart to waste their time trying to change the world. They came to terms with life as best they could, each in his own way.
History had taught them what happened to anyone who failed to do so.
Nevertheless it remained, this feeling which Dario couldn't explain but had learned to trust, an almost physical sense that all was not what it seemed. He plunged into the pullulating life of the Forcella market area, greeted friends and enemies alike, ate a pizza and drank a beer, made various deals on a cargo of microwave cookers and CD players due to fall overboard from a freighter shortly, scored three complimentary tickets for Sunday's big game, appreciated a variety of passing bums and biceps, picked up some cheap Gucci forgeries which would delight and impress the Albanians, and discussed some possibilities for their long-term placement in positions offering them security and assorted fringe benefits and Dario a reasonable consideration up-front plus a percentage of the resulting action.
All of this took several hours, at the end of which his feeling was still in place, a stabbing internal pain of the kind you initially dismiss as just a passing twinge but which ends up looking like a symptom of something more serious. Dario distractedly caressed the red horn-shaped amulet dangling from a gold chain around his neck, an antidote against the evil eye. In view of the proposals he had just discussed, he was understandably reluctant to give up on the two girls and the very lucrative returns, both immediate and deferred, which they represented.
On the other hand, he was well aware that ragazze and ragazzi were not to be separated, particularly in this case.
And where the latter were concerned, everything he believed in and depended on for his everyday and long term survival was telling him to get the hell out at the earliest possible opportunity without leaving a forwarding address. On yet another hand — how many hands you needed in this business! — he didn't have a single scrap of evidence to suggest that anything whatever was wrong.
In short, Dario was facing a dilemma familiar to every Neapolitan: reason was telling him one thing, instinct another. The resulting struggle was short, painful and despite a lifetime's training and the tradition of centuries — obscurely humiliating, but the outcome was never in any real doubt.
XXVII
Like so many things in Naples, the so-called Metropolitana wasn't quite what its name suggested. True, a purpose built underground railway was now under construction — and had been for as long as most people could remember.
One fine day it might even open, but meanwhile the name was attached, like a fake designer label, to a stretch of the national railway network which happened to run between the western and eastern suburbs of the city through one of the more recent portions of the complex and only partly charted system of tunnels, reservoirs and
