exterminated.
It somehow seemed typical of the gulf which separated the two cities. For while Zen liked Campo dei Fiori, he could never forget that the statue at its centre commemorated a philosopher who was burnt alive on that spot at about the same time that the gracious and exquisite Palazzo Sisti was taking shape a few hundred metres away.
As he took his empty glass back inside, Zen found himself drawn to the scene at the bar. One of the labourers, wearing dusty blue overalls and a hat made from newspaper like an inverted toy boat, was knocking back a glass of the local white wine. Further along, two businessmen stood talking in low voices. On the bar before them were their empty glasses, a saucer filled with nuts and cocktail biscuits, two folded newspapers and a removable in-car cassette player.
Zen turned away. That was what had attracted his attention. But why? Nothing was more normal. No one left a cassette deck in their car any more, unless they wanted to have the windows smashed in and the unit stolen.
It wasn't until Zen stepped into the band of shadow cast by the houses on the other side of the piazza that the point of the incident suddenly became clear to him. He had seen a cassette player in a parked car recently, in a brand-new luxury car parked in a secluded street late at night. Such negligence, coupled with the scratches and dents in the bodywork and the use of the floor as an ashtray, suggested a possibility that really should have occurred to him long before. Still, better late than never, he thought.
Or.were there cases where that reassuring formula didn't hold, where late was just too late, and there were no second chances?
Back at the Ministry, Zen phoned the Questura and asked whether Professor Lusetti's red Alfa Romeo appeared on their list of stolen vehicles. Thanks to the recent computerization of this department, he had his answer within seconds. The car in question had been reported stolen ten days earlier.
He put the receiver down, then lifted it again and dialled another number. After some time the ringing tone was replaced by a robotic voice. 'Thank you for calling Paragon Security Consultants. The office is closed for lunch until three o'clock. If you wish to leave a message, please speak now.'
'It's Aurelio, Gilberto. I was hoping to…'
'Aurelio! How are things?'
Zen stared at the receiver as thought it had stung him.
'But… I thought that was a recorded message.'
'That's what I wanted you to think. At least, not you, but any of the five thousand people I don't want to speak to at this moment.'
'Why don't you get a real answering machine?'
'I have, but I can't use it just at the moment. One of my competitors has found a way to fake the electronic tone I can send down the line to have it play back the recorded messages to a distant phone. The result is that he downloaded a hundred million lire's worth of business, as well as making me look an idiot. Anyway, what can I do for you?'
'Well, I was hoping we could have a talk. I don't suppose you're free for lunch?'
'Today? Actually that's a bit… well, I don't know.
Come to think of it, that might work quite well. Yes!
Listen, I'll see you at Licio's. Do you know where it is?'
'I'll find it.'
Zen pressed the rest down to get a dialling tone, then rang his home and asked Maria Grazia if everything was all right.
'Everything's fine now,' she assured him. 'But this morning! Madonr.a, I was terrified!'
Zen tightened his grip on the receiver. 'What happened?'
'It was frightful, awful! The signora didn't notice anything, thanks be to God, but I was looking straight at the window when it happened!'
'When what happened?'
'Why, this man suddenly appeared!'
'Where?'
'At the window.'
Zen took a deep breath. 'All right, now listen. I want you to describe him to me as carefully as you can. All right?.What did he look like?'
Maria Grazia made a reflective noise. 'Well, let's see. He was young. Dark, quite tall. Handsome! Twenty years ago, maybe, I'd have…'
'What did he do?'
'Do? Nothing! He just disappeared. I went over and had a look. Sure enough, there he was, in one of those cages.
He was trying to mend it but he couldn't. In the end they had to take it off the wall and put up a new one.'
'A new what, for the love of Christ?'
Stunned by this blasphemy, the housekeeper murmured, 'Why, the streetlamp! The one that was forever turning itself on and off. But when I saw him floating there in mid-air I got such a shock! I didn't know what to think!
It looked like an apparition, only I don't know if you can have apparitions of men. It always seems to be women, doesn't it? One of my cousins claimed she saw Santa Rita once, but it turned out she made it all up. She'd got the idea from an article in Gente about these little girls who…'
Zen repeated his earlier instructions about keeping the front door bolted and not leaving his mother alone, and hung up.
On his way downstairs, he met Giorgio De Angelis coming up. The Calabrian looked morose.
'Anything the matter?' Zen asked him.
De Angelis glanced quickly up and down the stairs, then gripped Zen's arm impulsively. 'If you're into anything you shouldn't be, get out fast!'
He let go of Zen's arm and continued on his way.
'What do you mean?' Zen called after him.
De Angelis just kept on walking. Zen hurried up the steps after him.
'Why did you say that?' he demanded breathlessly.
The Calabrian paused, allowing him to catch him up.
'What's going on?' Zen demanded.
De Angelis shook his head slowly. 'I don't know, Aurelio. I don't want to know. But whatever it is, stop doing it, or don't start.'
'What are you talking about?'
De Angelis looked again up and down the stairs.
'Fabri came to see me this morning. He advised me to keep away from you. When I asked why, he said that you were being measured for the drop.'
The two men looked at one another in silence.
'Thank you,' Zen murmured almost inaudibly.
De Angelis nodded fractionally. Then he continued up the steps while Zen turned to begin the long walk down.
I never used to dream. Like saying, I never used to go mad. The others do it every night, jerking and tossing, sweating like pigs, groaning and crying out. 'I had a ter~ible dream last night! I dreamt I'd killed someone and they were coming to arrest me, they'd guessed where I was hiding! It was horrible, so real!'
You'd think that might teach them something about this world of theirs that also seems 'so real'!
Then one night it happened to me. In the dream I was like the others, living in the light, fearing the dark. I had done something wrong, I never knew whaf, killed someone perhaps. As a punishment, they locked me up in the darkness. Not my darkness, gentle and consoling, but a cold dank airless pit, a narrow tube of stone like a dry well. The executioner was my father. He rammed me down, arms bound to rny sides, and capped the tomb with huge blocks of masonry. I lay tightly wedged, the stones pressing in on me from every side. In front of my eyes was a
