ritual of washing and grooming, as though to exorcize the malignant power of this encounter.
The three strangers who had crossed the cat's path came to a stop outside the house opposite. The shutters of the first floor windows were closed, but a faint light filtered out through the slats and occasional outbreaks of laughter punctuated the muted hush of the night. The top floor, by contrast, was perfectly dark and silent, the windows standing open to let the air flow in.
'This is the place.'
The cat paused in its obsessional licking as the speaker, a shorter, bulkier, older figure than the other two, stepped up to the door and pushed each of the two buttons mounted on the frame, the superscribed names illegible in the dark. Abell and a buzzer sounded distantly, cutting off a further burst of laughter inside. For a moment nothing happened, except perhaps some quiet, hair-raising modulation perceptible only to cats. Then the windows on the first floor were flung open and a man's head appeared.
'Yes?' he barked.
'We're looking for Aurelio Zen,' said a female voice from the darkness below.
'Who?'
The name was repeated by the other two in chorus.
Another head appeared at the window, a girl in her twenties with long hair and sharp, lively features.
'What's going on?' she asked her companion.
'There's no one here by that name/ he called down.
The three figures below consulted briefly in an inaudible mutter. Then the one who spoke first looked up at the window.
'ZEN, AURELIO' she said, pronouncing every syllable with exaggerated distinctness.
'You've got the wrong opera, grandma!' the girl above jeered.
'I am Aurelio Zen/ said a new voice.
Everyone looked up at the top floor of the house, where another young man, naked to the waist, had appeared at the window.
'That's not him!' exclaimed one of the women indignantly.
'If only!' added another.
'He was never that good-looking/ commented the third, 'even at that age.'
The man at the lower window leant out as far as he could, craning up towards the upper Storey.
'Oh, Gesua, what the hell are you playing at?'
The three figures below again consulted briefly.
'We're going now,' the one on the left announced.
'But we'll be back,' added her companion.
'What's that man doing in Aurelio's house?' asked the shorter one in the middle.
They moved away down the hill, still conferring in an undertone, and were soon lost to sight.
'Maybe we should have told them he's at the opera/ said Sabatino.
'How do you know where he is?' Libera asked.
Sabatino smiled in a superior way.
'Because a friend of ours is currently listening in to all his phone calls, my dear. There are already quite a few little mysteries about our Don Alfonsetto. This just makes one more.'
Gesualdo's voice drifted down from the upstairs window.
'Maybe we should have followed them, found out who they are.. / 'Well, if you've got nothing better to do, Gesua…'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'Are you alone up there?'
There was a pause. Sabatino and Libera exchanged glances.
Tolanda's here too/ Gesualdo finally replied, as though making an official declaration.
'Well, in that case/ said Sabatino languidly, 'I'd suggest you forget about volunteering for overtime work and take advantage of that fact, just as I'm about to with my companion/ With another of her rippling laughs, Libera pulled him inside and closed the window.
XXXI
Higher up the Vomero, on Via Cimarosa, the streets were more brightly lit and there were still a few people about.
Nevertheless, Pasquale circled the lugubrious palazzo which was his passengers' destination for so long that they finally grew restless.
'There's no point in trying to bump up the fare, since the meter's not even running/ Valeria Squillace remarked tartly. She had not taken to Pasquale, whom she regarded as low class and over-familiar.
'Pasca and I have an informal arrangement/ Aurelio Zen intervened in a diplomatic tone. 'The fare is calculated on a sliding scale agreed in advance and payable within a mutually acceptable period subject to financing and handling costs where applicable, right Pasca? So why the hell don't you take us straight home?'
'And those thugs, duttb?' demanded Pasquale. 'The two we had to shake this afternoon?'
Zen frowned. He had already forgotten them.
'They followed us from outside this very building/ the cabby reminded him. 'Once they lost us at the hotel, they'll most likely have come back to wait. They must have found out you're staying here.'
'You've been watching too many movies, Pasca.'
'Never, duttbl My wife took me to the cinema once, back in the fifties. I couldn't sleep for weeks afterwards. Even now I have nightmares about it.'
He continued to weave his way down side-streets and alleys, peering attentively into the cars parked higgledy piggledy to either side. Unable to find any excuse for further delay, he finally drew up outside the door. Zen got out and held the door open for Valeria.
'Goodnight, Pasca.'
The driver rooted around in his pocket and handed Zen a small battered oval box of what appeared to be silver.
'What's this?' asked Zen.
Pasquale shrugged.
'Keep it on you at all times. Don't even go to bed without it, understand? As long as you have it with you, you'll be all right/ Zen smiled broadly, but there was no question that Pasquale was absolutely serious.
'Are you coming, Alfonso?' Valeria demanded pointedly.
Zen put the box in his pocket.
'Thanks/ he said.
The taxi pulled away, leaving Zen standing on the kerb with a sense of dread which had nothing to do with Pasquale's imaginary assassins. The feeling was accentuated when he turned to find Valeria Squillace smiling at him in a way that needed no translation. But there was nothing for it but to follow her inside. In the cavernous entrance hall, a host of plaster statuary he had not noticed before leered down at him: prancing putti, writhing Hercules, ample Junos whose last scrap of drapery was about to slip off their heavily engorged nipples.
'What a fabulous evening!' Valeria enthused. 'And those seats, Aurelio! They must have cost a fortune/ The tickets provided gratis by Giovan Battista Caputo had proved to be the best in the house, right in the centre of the dress circle. Zen smiled and shrugged.
'An experience like that is priceless/ he replied, even though he had personally found the opera to be poor stuff, thin and old-fashioned, with weak orchestration and no big tunes.
The elevator clacked to a halt behind them. Zen opened the metal concertina gate and the glass-plated doors, ushered Valeria inside and activated the machinery into jerky life by dropping a fifty-lire coin in the slot. While the elevator rose in its wrought-iron cage, like a vertical coffin, towards the ceiling bedecked with writhing nudes,
