'Dottore!' breathed a hushed voice. 'What an honour.
What a pleasure. You're alone?'
'Alone.'
'You'll have to move your foot. I can't get the chain undone.'
'I just want to ask you a small favour, Fausto. Maybe I can do you one in return.'
'Just move your fucking foot!'
Zen did so. There was a metallic rattle and in a single movement the door opened, a hand pulled Zen inside and the door closed again.
'Please forgive my language, dottore. I'm a bit nervous at the moment.'
Fausto was a small, wiry man with the extreme skinniness that betrays an undernourished childhood. His face was marked by a scar which split his upper lip. He claimed that he'd got it in a knife fight, but Zen thought it was more likely the result of a bungled operation for a cleft palate.
In compensation for the rigours of his childhood, Fausto had survived the passing years with remarkably little sign of ageing. That he had survived at all was a minor miracle, given the number of men he had betrayed. The recruitment of Fausto Arcuti had led directly to one of the great successes of Zen's years at the Questura in Rome, the smashing of the kidnap and extortion ring organized by a playboy named Francesco Fortuzzi. Arcuti had worked from inside the gang, continuing to supply information right up until the last minute. Then, when the police swooped, he had been allowed a slip through the net along with various other minor figures who never realized that they owed their escape to the fact that Zen was covering Fausto's tracks. The long-term prospects for informers were bleak. Once a man had sold his soul to the authorities, they could always threaten to expose him if he refused to collaborate again, and the risks of such collaboration grew with every successful prosecution. Sooner or later the criminal milieu worked out where the leaks were coming from. Against all the odds, however, Arcuti had survived.
'Come in!' he said, leading Zen inside. 'What a pleasure! And so unexpected! Maria, bring us something to drink. You other kids, get the fuck out of here.'
The apartment consisted of two small, smelly rooms crudely lit by exposed high-wattage bulbs. Forlorn pieces of ill-assorted furniture stood scattered about like refugees in transit. The walls were bedecked with images of the Virgin, the Bleeding Heart of Jesus and various saints.
Over the television hung a large three-dimensional picture of the crucifixion. As you moved your head, Christ's eyes opened and closed and blood seeped from his wounds.
'Sit down, dottore, sit down!' Arcuti exclaimed, clearing the sofa of toys and clothes. 'Sorry about the mess. The wife's out at work all day, so we never seem to get things sorted out.'
The eldest girl carried in a bottle of amaro and two glasses.
'I'd prefer to take you out to the bar,' Arcuti said, pouring them each a drink, 'but the way things are…'
'I've just come from there,' Zen told him.
'I suppose you followed Mario?'
'If that's his name. The one with the Mickey Mouse ears.'
Arcuti nodded wearily.
'Half-smart, that's Mario. It's OK when they're clever and it's OK when they're stupid. It's the ones in between that kill you.'
'So what's the problem?' Zen murmured, sipping his drink.
Arcuti sighed.
'It's this Parrucci business. It's got us all spooked.'
'Parrucci?' Zen frowned. The name meant nothing to him.
'You probably haven't heard about it. There's no reason why you should have, he wasn't working for you. In fact he wasn't working for anyone, that's what makes it worse.
He'd given it all up years ago. Of course in this business you never really retire, but Parrucci had been out of it for so long he must have thought he was safe. No one even knew he'd been in the game until it happened.'
The informer drained his glass in a single gulp and poured himself another.
'We found out because of the way they did it. So we asked around, and it turned out that Parrucci had been one of the top informers up north, years ago. But he'd put all that behind him. Wanted to settle down and bring up his kids normally. That's why they picked him, I reckon.'
'How do you mean?'
'Well, if they knock off someone who's still active, it looks like a personal vendetta. People who are not involved don't take much notice. But something like this is a warning to everyone. Once you inform, you're marked for life. We'll come for you, even if it takes years. That's what they're saying.'
Zen lit a cigarette. He knew he was smoking too much, but this was not the time to worry about it.
'What did they do to him?' he asked.
Arcuti shook his head. 'I don't even want to think about it.'
He sat staring at the carpet for some time, balanced on the forward edge of the threadbare armchair. Then he grabbed a cigarette from the packet lying open beside him and lit up, glaring defiantly at Zen.
'You really want to know? All right, I'll tell you. In dialect, if a man is full of energy and drive, they say he has fire in his belly. That's a good thing, unless you have too much, unless you break the rules and start playing the game on your own account. What they used to do with traitors, down south, was to get a big iron cooking-pot and build a charcoal fire inside. Then they stretched the poor bastard out on his back, tied him up, set the pot on his stomach and then used the bellows until the metal got red-hot. Eventually the pot burnt its way down into the man's stomach under its own weight. It could take hours, depending on how much they used the bellows.'
'That's what they did to Parrucci?'
'Not exactly. That's the traditional method, but you know how it is these days, people can't be bothered.
Parrucci they kidnapped from his house and took him out to the country, out near Viterbo somewhere. They broke into a weekend cottage, stripped him naked, laid him out across the electric cooker with his wrists and ankles roped together, and then turned on the hot plates.'
'Jesus.'
Arcuti knocked back the second glass of amaro amid frantic puffs at his cigarette.
'Now do you see why I'm nervous, dottore? Because I could be the next name on the list!'
'How do you know there'll be any more?'
'Because no one's claimed responsibility. Usually when something like this happens, you find out who did it and why. They make damn sure you know! That's the whole point. But this time no one's saying anything. The only reason for that is that the job isn't finished yet.'
Zen glanced at his watch. To his dismay, he found that it was almost ten to six. At six o'clock Maria Grazia would leave to go home, and from then on Zen's mother would be alone in the apartment.
Fausto Arcuti had noticed his visitor's gesture.
'Anyway, that's enough of my problems. What can I do for you, dottore?'
'It's a question of borrowing a car for a few days, Fausto.'
'Any particular sort of car?'
'Something fairly classy, if you can. But the main thing is, it needs to be registered in Switzerland.'
'Actually registered?'
Zen corrected himself.
'It needs to have Swiss number plates.'
Arcuti drew the final puff of smoke from his cigarette and let it drown in the dregs of amaro.
'This car, how long do you want it for?'
'Let's say the inside of a week.'
'And afterwards, will it be, er, compromised in any way?'
Zen gave him a pained look.
'Fausto, if I wanted to do anything illegal, I'd use a police car.'
Arcuti conceded a thin smile.
'And how soon do you need it?'
'Tomorrow, ideally, but I don't suppose there's any chance of that.'
The informer shrugged.
