Vendetta

He looked up as the thin man in the beige overcoat walked in. Instead of going up to the bar, he headed for the table where Zen was sitting.

'Good morning, dottore.'

Zen stared at him.

'You don't recognize me?' the man asked.

He seemed disappointed. Zen inspected him more carefully. He was about forty years old, with the soft, pallid look of those who work indoors. At first sight he had seemed tall, but Zen now realized that this was due to the man's extreme thinness, and to the fact that Zen had by now adjusted to the Sardinian norm. As far as he knew, he had never seen him before in his life.

'Why should I?' he retorted crossly.

The man drew up a chair and sat down.

'Why indeed? It's like at school, isn't it? The pupils all remember their teacher, even years later, but you can't expect the teacher to recall all the thousands of kids who pave passed through their hands at one time or other. But I still recognize you, dottore. I knew you right away. You haven't aged very much. Or perhaps you were already old, even then.'

He took out a packet of the domestic toscani cigars and broke one in half, replacing one end in the packet and putting the other between his lips.

'Have you got a light?'

Zen automatically handed over his lighter. He felt as though all this was happening to someone else, someone who perhaps understood what was going on. Certainly he didn't.

The man lit the cigar with great care, rotating it constantly, never letting the flame touch the tobacco. When it was glowing satisfactorily, he slipped the lighter into his pocket.

'But that's mine!' Zen protested, like a child whose toy has been taken away.

'You won't be needing it any more. I'll keep it as a souvenir.'

He stood up and took his coat off, draping it over a chair, then walked over to the bar and rapped on the chrome surface with his knuckles.

'Eh, service!'

The proprietor emerged from the back room, scowling furiously.

'Give me a glass of beer. Something decent, not any of your local crap.'

Shorn of his coat, the man's extreme thinness was even more apparent. It gave him a disturbing two- dimensional appearance, as though when he turned sideways he might disappear altogether.

The proprietor banged a bottle and a glass down on the counter.

'3,ooo lire.'

The thin man threw a banknote down negligently.

'There's five. Have a drink on me. Maybe it'll cheer you up.'

He carried the bottle and glass back to the table ang proceeded to pour the beer as carefully as he had lit the cigar, tilting the glass and the bottle towards each other so that only a slight head formed.

'Miserable fuckers, these Sardinians,' he commented to Zen. 'Forgive me if I don't shake hands. Someone once told me that it's bad luck, and I certainly don't need any more of that. Strange, though, you not remembering my face. Maybe the name means something. Vasco Spadola.'

Time passed, a lot perhaps, or a little. The thin man sat and smoked and sipped his beer until Zen finally found his voice.

'How did you know where I was?'

It was a stupid question. But perhaps all questions were stupid at this point.

Spadola picked up his overcoat, patted the pockets and pulled out the previous day's edition of La Nazione, which he tossed on the table.

'I read about it in the paper.'

Zen turned the newspaper round. Half-way down the page was a photograph of himself he barely recognized. It must have been taken years ago, dug out of the newspaper's morgue. He thought he looked callow and cocksure, ridiculously self-important. Beneath the photograph was an article headed NEW EVIDENCE IN BUROLO AFFAIR?' Zen skimmed the text.

'According to sources close to the family of Renato Favelloni, accused of plotting the murders at the Villa Burolo, dramatic new evidence has recently come to light in this case resulting in the re-opening of a line of esggation previously regarded as closed. A senior of the Ministry's elite Criminalpol squad, ViceQuestore Aurelio Zen, is being sent to Sardinia to assess ang coordinate developments at the scene. Further announcements are expected shortly.'

Zen put the paper down. Of course. He should have guessed that Palazzo Sisti would take care to publicize his imminent trip to the area in order to ensure that the 'dramatic new evidence' he fabricated got proper attention from the judiciary.

'Shame I missed you in Rome,' Spadola told him.

'Giuliano spent over a week setting the whole thing up, watching your apartment, picking the locks, leaving those little messages to soften you up. By that Friday we were all set to go. I didn't know you'd sussed the car, though.

Giuliano was always a bit careless about things like that.

Same with that tape he took instead of your wallet. It comes of being an eldest son, I reckon, mamma's favourite. You think you can get away with anything.'

He paused to draw on his cigar.

'When the cops rolled up I had to beat it out the back way.

I was lucky to get away, carrying the gun and all. I had to dump it in a rubbish skip and come back for it later. All that effort gone to waste, and what was worse, they'd got Giuliano. I knew he wouldn't have the balls to hold out once they got to work on him. I reckoned I'd have to lie low for months, waiting for you to get fed up being shepherded about by a minder or holed up in some safe-house. I certainly didn't expect to be sitting chatting to you in a cafe two days later!'

He broke out in gleeful laughter.

'Even when I read the report in the paper, I never expected it to be this easy! I thought you would be staying in some barracks somewhere, guarded day and night, escorted around in bulletproof limousines. Still, I had to come.

You never know your luck, I thought. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine anything like this!'

The door of the bar swung open to admit Tommaso and another elderly man. They greeted the proprietor loudly and shot nervous glances at Zen and Spadola.

Zen ground out his cigarette.

'All right, so you've found me. What now?'

Spadola released a breath of cigar smoke into the air above Zen's head.

'What now? Why, I'm going to kill you, of course!'

He took a gulp of beer.

'That's why I didn't want to shake hands. One of the people I met in prison used to be a soldier for the Parioio family in Naples. You worked there once, didn't you?

Gianni Ferrazzi. Does the name ring a bell? It might have been after your time. Anyway, this lad had twenty or thirty hits to his credit, he couldn't remember himself exactly how many, and everything went fine until he shook hands with the victim before doing the job. He hadn't meant to, he knew it was bad luck, but they were introduced, the man stuck out his paw, what was he supposed to do? It would have looked suspicious if he'd refused. He still went ahead and made the hit, though, even though he knew he'd go down for it. That's what I call real professionalism.

'To be honest, I thought that it would be a bit like that with you. Impersonal, I mean, anonymous, like a paid hit.

That's the way it was with Bertolini, unfortunately. I just hadn't thought the thing through, that first time. The bastard never even knew why he died. I had enough to cope with, what with his driver pulling a gun and his wife screaming her head off from the house. I realized afterwards that I wanted a lot more than that, otherwise I might just as well hire it out and save myself the trouble. I mean the victim's got to understand, he's got to know