Zen took out the silver box Pasquale had given him and examined it in the yellowing light of the ceiling bulb. He pressed a catch on the side and the lid yawned open.
Inside was a wad of cotton wool stained with some dark brown substance. It smelt musty and vaguely sweet, like rotten meat.
'What's that?' demanded Valeria, wrinkling her nose.
'Some fake saint's relic, I suppose. Your new acquaintance is just the type to believe in nonsense like that/ Zen shrugged and put the box away as the elevator came to a stop at the fourth floor.
'Are you hungry?' asked Valeria, unlocking the front door. 'There's some parmigiana di melanzane I can heat up.'
Zen shook his head.
'I had some pizza earlier, thanks. I wouldn't mind a glass of something, though…'
Valeria opened a hatch in the fitted unit which covered the end wall, revealing a selection of bottles.
'Help yourself. This one is particularly good. One of my cousins makes it with fruit from his country estate. If you'll excuse me for a moment, I want to call the girls/ Zen opened the elegantly asymmetrical decanter she indicated. The contents were as clear as the container, and keenly perfumed with cherries. He poured a small quantity into one of the hollowed knobs of crystal on the shelf above.
'Signorina Orestina Squillace, please/ Valeria said into the phone in heavily accented English. 'Squillace. I don't understand. Room 302. What? That's impossible! Please check again. Really? Are you sure?'
She hung up and turned to Zen.
'The hotel says they've checked out/ 'What? Where have they gone?'
Valeria massaged her fingers nervously.
'They didn't say. Of course they may just have moved to another hotel, or maybe taken off on a trip somewhere, but it's strange they didn't phone and tell me. My God, I hope they're all right! Maybe we should never have sent them off in the first place. If anything happens to them, I'll never forgive myself/ His earlier scruples forgotten, Zen came over and took her hand comfortingly.
'They may have phoned while we were at the opera.
Try not to worry. I'm sure they'll be all right/ She sighed and squeezed his hand. Their eyes met. Zen swiftly knocked back the rest of the cherry liqueur.
'Superb!' he said, disengaging his hand from hers.
'Have some more/
'I will.And then come and sit down with me.'
She dimmed the lights and put on some music.
'Recognize this?' she asked with a flirtatious glance.
'Verdi?'
Valeria laughed girlishly.
'It's what we heard this evening, silly! The seduction scene in the second act/ Zen filled the liqueur glass right to the brink, drank half of it and topped it up again. Glass in hand, he began circling the room as though searching for the exit.
'Come and sit down/ Valeria told him. 'You're making me nervous, prowling about like that. Besides, I'm still worried about the girls. Do something to distract me.'
With a sense of impending but inevitable doom, Zen went to sit beside her on the sofa, his own sensation one of panic. Despite his age and experience, there were some situations he had never been able to handle gracefully.
Turning down an offer like this was one.
'You've been smoking/ Valeria remarked, drawing closer to him.
'Just the odd one.'
'Have you got some on you?'
'You want me to throw them away?'
'I want you to give me one.'
He looked at her in amazement.
'But you told me you didn't smoke! You told me…'
She smiled charmingly.
'That was just a test, to see if I had any power over you.
As a matter of fact I used to smoke like a chimney. It was Manlio who made me give it up. He said it was unattractive in a woman. But Manlio's dead, and I'm in a mood to do something silly/ Zen passed her his packet of Nazionali.
'Nothing fancy, I'm afraid,' he said apologetically.
'I don't need anything fancy. Just plain, simple pleasures.
If it's a little rough, that's fine too.'
When Zen held out his lighter she grasped his hand, although the flame was perfectly steady. Replacing the lighter in his pocket, his fingers touched the mysterious silver box which Pasquale had insisted on lending him.
Zen rubbed the smooth metal fervently. It was going to take a miracle to get him out of this one.
Valeria leant forward so that her left breast pushed negligently against Zen's jacket, which immediately began to emit the rising sequence of electronic chirps whose origin and meaning he had by now learned to recognize.
The disturbing effect of midsummer night, to say nothing of the full moon, may have caused confusion to humans and even cats, but out at Capodichino the planes, thanks to their more advanced equipment, kept right on landing and taking off. Which was good news for Concetta Biancarosa Ausilia Olimpia Immacolata Scarlatti in Higgins, who had picked up a fare to the airport shortly after the conference at the pizzeria broke up.
Now she was cruising the arrivals hall, watching for likely prospects among the passengers on an international flight which, according to the board, had just landed. If she had taken her turn in the rank outside, it would have made more sense to drive straight back into town without a fare, but Immacolata was not born yesterday nor yet the day before, and knew how to take care of herself in more ways than one, to say nothing of putting her linguistic talents to good use.
Taking up a position near the automatic doors through which incoming passengers re-enter the real world, she assumed the long-suffering aspect of a Neapolitan matriarch awaiting the arrival of relatives on a flight already delayed for hours if not days. Her hunched stance, grimly stolid expression and air of defiant endurance made her as invisible as the official notices on the wall which no one ever read. 'Eh, 'a nonna,' everyone thought, and looked away Which was just as well, because if she had been spotted touting and reported to the Camorra clan which regulated cab traffic at the airport, and took a cut of the resulting trade, the consequences were likely to have been extremely limiting both socially and professionally Naples was a challenging city for those confined to a wheelchair.
Passengers from the flight she had noticed had started emerging in dribs and drabs, but so far none of them looked suitable for her purposes, and Immacolata had learned to wait for exactly the right client before moving in. She couldn't risk making her pitch more than once, so it had to stick. Her patience was rewarded in the form of two young women pushing a trolley laden with expensive suitcases and looking about them with an air of slight trepidation.
One of them was more or less conventionally dressed, although with that fatal lack of focus of which the English seemed to make a virtue. Her companion's appearance represented another aspect of those alien cultural codes which, even after almost ten years, Immacolata had been forced to admit that she would never crack. Taller and sparer, she had cropped black hair, with two silver rings in her pierced nostril and a tattoo of some fabulous reptile on her throat. Her jeans had holes torn or cut at the knees, above which she wore a man's shirt left open to her evidently unsupported breasts and a black leather jacket sporting an aggressive quantity of zippering and other metal accoutrements.
Not, at first sight, what Immacolata was looking for.
But a quick check of the women's shoes — always the key — revealed that between them the couple were carrying upwards of three quarters of a million lire underfoot.
Their hesitant demeanour made it equally obvious that they were not expecting anyone to meet them. Perfect.
