Vendetta

who you are and why you're doing it, otherwise what kind of revenge is it? 'So I swore that you and Parrucci would be different. I certainly got my money's worth out of him, but you were ~ore difficult. Once this terrorist scare started after I shot gertolini it seemed too risky to try and kidnap someone ~m the Ministry. They would have cracked down hard. I gad no intention of getting caught. I've done twenty years for a murder I didn't commit, so they owe me this one free!'

He leant back in his chair with a blissful smile.

'Ah, but I never imagined anything like this! To sit here like two old friends, chatting at a table, and tell you that I'm going to kill you, and you knowing it's true, that you're going to die! And all the time those two old bastards over there are discussing the price of sheep's milk or some fucking thing, and the barman's cleaning the coffee machine, and the television's blatting away next door, and the ice-cream freezer in the corner is humming. And you're going to die! I'm going to kill you, while all this is going on! And it'll still go on, once you're dead. Because you're not needed, Zen. None of us are. Have you ever thought about that? I have. I spent twenty years thinking about it. Twenty years, locked up for a murder I didn't even do!'

Spadola squeezed the last puff of acrid smoke from his cigar and threw that butt on the floor.

'You want to know who killed Tondelli? His cousin, that's who. It was over a woman, a bar-room scuffle. Once he was dead, the Tondellis saw a way to use it against me, and paid that cunt Parrucci to perjure himself. You bastards did the rest. But even supposing I had killed him, so what? People die all the time, one way or another. It doesn't make a fucking bit of difference to anything.

'That's what you can't admit, you others. That's what scares you shitless. And so you make little rules and regulations, like at school, and anyone who breaks them has to stand in the corner with a dunce's cap on. What a load of bullshit! The truth of it is that you're the first to break the rules, to cheat and lie and perjure yourselves to get a lousy rise, a better job or a fatter pension! You're the ones who ought to be punished! And believe it or not, my friend, that's what's going to happen, just this once. Take it in, Zen! You're going to die. Soon. Today. And I'm telling you this, warning you, and you know it's true, and yet therc '~ absolutely nothing whatsoever that you can do about it'.

Not a single fucking thing.'

Spadola put his fingers to his lips and blew a kiss up into the air like a connoisseur appreciating a fine wine.

'This is the ultimate! I've never felt anything like it. It makes up for everything. Well, no, let's not exaggerate.

Nothing could make up for what I've been through. But it it's any consolation, you've made me a very happy man today. You destroyed my life, it's true, but you have also given me this moment. My mother, may she rest in peace used to say that I was destined to great sorrows and great joys. And she was right. She was so right.'

He broke off, biting his lip, tears welled up in his eyes.

'I suppose it's no use telling you that I had nothing to do with the evidence against you being faked,' Zen said dully.

Spadola rocked violently back and forth in his chair as though seized by an involuntary spasm.

'I don't believe it! This is too much! It's too good to be true!' He panted for breath. 'Do you remember what you said that morning at the farm near Melzo? I told you I was innocent. I told you I hadn't done it. I knew I'd been betrayed, and that made it all the harder to bear. If I'd really knifed that fucking southerner you'd never have got a word out of me, but knowing it was all a fix I thought I'd go crazy. And do you know what you said, when I screamed my innocence in your face? You said, 'Yes, well you would say that, wouldn't you?' And you looked at me in that sly way you educated people have when you're feeling pleased with yourselves. Of course you had nothiny, to do with it, dottore! Just like this what's-his-name, th politician in this murder case you're investigating. He didn't have anything to do with it either, did he? People like you never do have anything to do with it!'

'I don't mean that I didn't plant the knife myself. I mean I dign'g even know that it had been plan‹ed. It was done witgoup my knowledge, behind my back.'

Then you're an incompetent bastard. It was your case, your responsibility! I've spent twenty years of my life, the only one I'll ever have, shut up in a stinking damp cell witg parely room to turn around, locked up for hours in tpe freezing-cold darkness…'

He broke off, shuddering uncontrollably, his cheeks glistening wet.

'Qo on, take a good look! I'm not ashamed of my tears!

Why should I be? They're pearls of suffering, my suffering.

I should make you lick them up, one by one, before I blow your evil head off!'

'Cut the crap, Spadola!' Zen exploded. '- ven if you didn't do the Tondelli job, you were guilty as hell of at least four other murders. What about Ugo Trocchio and his brother? You had them killed and you know it. We knew it, everyone knew it. We couldn't prove it because people were too scared to talk. And so it went on, until some of my colleagues decided that it was time you were taken out of circulation. Since they couldn't do it straight, they did it crooked. As I say, I didn't know. If I had known, I would have tried to stop it. But the fact remains that you earned that twenty-year sentence several times over.'

'That's not the point!' Spadola shouted, so loudly that the men at the bar turned to stare at him. 'Christ Almighty, if everyone who broke the law in this country was sent to prison, who'd be left to guard them? We'd need a whole new set of politicians, for a start! But it doesn't work that way, does it? It's a game! And I was good! I was fucking brilliant! You couldn't pin a damn thing on me. I had you beat inside out. So you moved the goal posts!'

'That's part of the game too.'

Spadola drained off his beer and stood up.

'Maybe. But the game stops here, Zen. What happens now is real.'

His voice was perfectly calm again. He stood staring down at Zen.

'I know what you're thinking. You think I'm crazy, telling you what I'm going to do, warning you, giving you a chance to escape. There's no way I can get away with that's what you're thinking, isn't it? Not in broad daylight in the middle of this village. Well, we'll see. Maybe you're right. I agree that that's a possibility. Maybe you're cleverer than me. Maybe you'll figure out a way to save your skin, this time around. That doesn't worry me. I'll get you in the end, whatever happens. And meanwhile that slim hope is part of your punishment, Zen, just like I was tormented with talk of appeals and parole that never came to anything.'

He put on his overcoat. 'You've probably noticed that your car's not working. I removed the distributor and cut the leads. Just to save you time, I'll tell you that the phone box is out of order now, too. As for the locals, I doubt it' they'd tell you the time by the clock on the wall. I showed them the paper, you see, told them who you are. Oddly enough, they didn't seem terribly surprised. Between the two of us, I think they must have sussed you out already.

'So I'll see you later, dottore. I can't say when exactly.

That's part of the punishment too. It could be in a few minutes. I might suddenly get the urge. Or it might not be until late tonight. It all depends on my mood, how I'm feeling. I'll know when the moment has come. I'll sense it.

Don't worry about the pain. It'll be quick and clean, I promise. Nothing fancy, like with Parrucci. I really had it in for him in a big way. They used to call him 'the nightingale', didn't they? Because of how beautifully he sang, I suppose. He turned out to be more of a screamer, though, in the end. I had to take a walk, I couldn't handle it myself.

He was tougher than he looked, though. When I got back an hour or so later he was still whimpering, what was left I had to finish him off with a pistol. Sickening, reagg. Well, I'm off for a piss.' pe walked across the restaurant area and disappeared through a door marked 'Toilets'.

'Let me use your phone!' Zen told the proprietor. 'That man is an ex-criminal. He has threatened to kill me. I'm a pice-Questore at the Ministry of the Interior. If you don't pelp, you'll be an accessory to murder.'

The proprietor gazed at him stonily.

'But your name is Reto Gurtner. I've seen your papers.

You're a Swiss businessman, from Zurich.'

'My name is Aurelio Zen! I'm a high-ranking official!'

'Prove it.'

'Let me use the phone! Quickly, before he comes back!'

'There's no phone here.'