Cosi Fan Tutti - 5 (16 page)

Even in the bizarre gear they had brought with them

from that Stalinist hellhole, they were getting plenty of attention on the street. By the time Dario had taken them to the sweat-shop in Via Spagnoli and fixed them up with some of the fake designer duds they run up there, he

would need a cattle prod to keep the young studs at bay.

It also wouldn’t do them any harm to see the conditions in those airless bassi, where children, young women,

mothers and old crones stitched and sewed from morning

to night for piece rates that would make the plaster

Madonna on the wall weep tears of blood. If they took

exception to Dario’s proposition, once he finalized it, he could ever so gently remind them of the alternative.

But that was still some distance in the future. For now, all he wanted to do was to wean them away from the idea this Alfonso Zembla had given them that their long-term salvation lay with Gesualdo and Sabatino. The trick was to demonstrate that he was a much more important and

well-respected figure, and, given his actual reputation, this needed to be approached with some care. Which was

another good reason for choosing the pricey Caffe Greco, where it was extremely unlikely that they would run into anyone he knew - or that still more embarrassing class of people he did not know, or had forgotten, but who turned out to remember him only too well.

There was little risk of that sort of unpleasant encounter here. As he escorted the girls in, they caught sight of themselves reflected in the antique mirrors in their ornate

frames, and gasped. At one end of the marble bar an elegant gentleman in a superb suit of slightly old-fashioned

cut was holding forth to two younger underlings each

carrying about a million lire’s worth of tailoring themselves.

Carefully choosing a moment when none of the

trio was looking his way, Dario nodded respectfully.

‘Buon giorno, cummendatbl’ he murmured. ‘Comme

state? Sto’ bbuono, grazzie.’

He turned to his two charges with a confidential air.

‘One of the top men in the Regional Council. If Vitale

sneezes, half the city catches a cold. I would introduce you - he’s a great admirer of female beauty, even at his age - but I know those two with him and I can guess what they’re talking about. It’ll be all over the papers tomorrow, but for now discretion is the key word. No, don’t

stare!’

This to Libera, who was ogling one of the younger men

with a directness Dario attributed to her unspoilt innocence.

Who knows, he might actually have a couple of

virgins on his hands here! From everything you heard,

the Albanians had a code of behaviour which made the

Sicilians look frivolous. Libera’s ingenuous eye-contact certainly had a remarkable effect on the recipient of her attentions, who was now listening to the elderly buffer whoever the hell he might really be - with little better

than half an ear. Dario slipped a 5,000-lire note to a passing waiter.

‘Give that to the barman. The name’s De Spino. He’s to treat me like a regular, but with respect.’

The girls could hear this, but of course they understood the local dialect about as much as Dario did Albanian.

And the results were certainly gratifying.

‘Dottor De Spino!’ the barman called out as they

approached, his expression a perfect mime of deferential goodwill. ‘What a pleasure to see you again. And such

charming young ladies! What may I have the honour of

serving you?’

They ordered coffee in various forms, all minutely prescribed as to strength, quantity, heat, and presence and

abundance of milk and foam. This ritual took the best

part of a minute, following which De Spino broached the matter in hand.

‘Yes/ he mused, as though the idea had just occurred to him, “I could introduce you to so many people, people

who really count, moving in the top ranks of society.

Whereas those two lads upstairs … They’re pleasant

enough fellows, but frankly they wouldn’t be allowed

past the door in the sort of houses I’m talking about.’

“I thought they were friends of yours/ replied Iolanda

pertly.

Dario De Spino smiled in a wise, worldly, mildly self

deprecatory way.

‘A man like me has to mix with all manner of people/

he murmured, waggling his hand to illustrate the degree of social flexibility involved. ‘Many of them think that they are my friends. If I allow them to cultivate this illusion, it is because it suits my purposes.’

A shrug of vast condescension.

‘Gesualdo and Sabatino are useful to me in various

ways. They are of the people, you understand, the lower orders, and move naturally and widely in that milieu.

Then again, they are linked to one of the most powerful criminal clans in the city. That makes them extremely

helpful for facilitating… various enterprises.’

The effect on his listeners was all he could have wished.

‘You mean they’re gangsters?’ gasped Libera, openmouthed.

Dario gave a pained look, as if gently reproving her

crassness.

‘Everyone in Naples is more or less a gangster, my dear.

It’s a question of degree. So far as I know, neither Sabatino nor Gesualdo has been blooded…’

‘Blooded?’ repeated Iolanda with a look of alarm.

‘A technical term/ Dario returned, inspecting his fingernails.

“I mean that as far as I know they haven’t killed anyone yet. Not in the line of work, at least. Their private lives are, of course, another matter. But there is no question that they are intimately associated with various figures whose activities are - how shall I put it? - of considerable interest to the authorities.’

He smiled apologetically.

‘But enough about them! What interests me is you, and

your problems. The question is, where do we go from here?’

He did not have to spell out what ‘here’ meant. It was

clear from his companions’ disconsolate expressions that they appreciated the position only too well. Their

attempts, the night before, to make contact with the two young men recently installed upstairs had ended in the

most abject failure.

Libera made the initial approach, appearing at the door of the upper apartment to solicit Gesualdo’s assistance with a time-honoured line:

‘Excuse me, but our lights have gone out.’

Gesualdo summoned Sabatino, and the two men came

downstairs, located the fuse-box and threw the switch

which De Spino had deliberately tripped. Catching sight of their friend as the lights came on, they gasped.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ demanded Sabatino.

‘You’re not the only ones who have friends all over

town/ Dario responded, holding up his hands. ‘Let me

introduce you. This is Iolanda

‘And I’m Libera/ said the brunette. ‘So pleased to meet you. We’ve just arrived in Naples and we’re just desperate to find work.’

‘We’ll do anything rather than have to go back to Albania/

wailed Iolanda. ‘Anything!’

‘These two know all sorts of people/ De Spino put in.

‘Right, lads? I’m sure they’d be only too happy to give you a leg up on the situation, so to speak.’

But Gesualdo and Sabatino had not seemed at all happy.

On the contrary, they had been brusque to the point of

rudeness, and immediately retreated upstairs again after making it very clear that they wanted nothing whatever to do with the tenants of the lower flat or their problems.

‘I’ve got quite enough on my plate as it is!’ said Gesualdo when De Spino came to plead for his charges. ‘It may

be difficult for you to appreciate, Dario, but some of us have work to do. On top of which, as I thought I made

clear to you in the car, I’m feeling emotionally shattered at the moment.’

‘Besides/ said Sabatino, ‘how would it look for us to

get hooked up with a couple of single women, however

innocently, on the very day our ‘nnammurate left town?’

In vain Dario De Spino had tried to persuade them that

their scruples were ridiculous in the new Italy of the

nineties, when the tired old ideas of life as a perpetual guerilla war between the sexes were at last being broken down.

‘Why don’t you take them under your wing?’ Gesualdo

had retorted. ‘You know as many people as we do,

and your reputation certainly can’t suffer from hanging out with a couple of illegal immigrants with legs up to here.’

As a matter of fact, Dario had already decided that he

was going to do just that, but in his own good time. First he wanted to collect the commission which the Squillace family were offering if he managed to get Gesualdo and

Sabatino off their backs, which in turn involved getting Libera and Iolanda on to theirs. The question was how.

‘They’re so cold!’ complained Libera, producing a cigarette from her bag and looking around helplessly. The

young man she had been eyeing earlier immediately

sprinted over with an outstretched lighter. He seemed

inclined to linger, but De Spino gave him a look which

soon sent him back to his companions.

‘The other Italian boys we’ve met have been all over

us/ Iolanda commented. ‘But those two …’

A light suddenly appeared in Libera’s eyes.

‘They’re not… how do you say? .. .faggots, are they?’

‘They’re as normal as you or 1/ Dario assured them

blandly. ‘They’re just distracted by their personal and professional responsibilities. The problem is how to get their attention.’

Iolanda finished her coffee and set the cup down with a bang.

“I think we should try killing ourselves/ she said.

Passi subito!

In retrospect, there were plenty of clues to what was

about to happen, but, as so often, Zen did not spot them until it was too late.

To avoid awakening the suspicions of Pasquale - who

knew him as Alfonso Zembla, a humble employee of the

port authority - he had asked to be dropped outside the Central Post Office and then walked around the corner

into Piazza Matteoti. Like so many streets and squares in Naples, this piazza has been renamed more than once,

most recently to celebrate the most famous victim of the Fascist era. In this case the renaming also constituted a symbolic act of restitution, for the square in question is the one which Matteoti’s opponents had chosen as the

heart of their administration, and is lined with monumental buildings erected to serve the needs and proclaim

the might of the new Italy.

Similar structures are to be found all over the South, even in quite small and seemingly insignificant towns. Elsewhere, Mussolini appeared above all a dramatically

unique figure, unlike anyone who had preceded him on the political stage. Whether you supported or opposed him,

his novelty was undeniable. But to Southerners he was a familiar figure, a capo who ran the toughest mob in town and ruthlessly disposed of anyone who got in his way; a man who demanded and commanded respect, fear and

grudging admiration. Those who supported him would be

protected, those who did not would be destroyed.

This was a code all Southerners had imprinted in their

genes, and after decades of fine talk and patronizing neglect from the proponents of liberal democracy, it was a

relief to have someone finally cut through all the bullshit and tell it the way it was, the way they knew it always had been and always would be. And they were rewarded, for

the Duce kept his side of the bargain. In return for the overwhelming support they received south of Rome, the black

shirts extirpated every other species of banditry which had plagued the area for centuries, capital investment

flowed south, jobs were created, and the secular temples of the new regime began to rise. Police stations received particular attention. The Polizia dello Stato was the creation of Mussolini, who was always suspicious of the loyalty of the Carabinieri with their royalist, elitist traditions.

When it came to constructing a suitable headquarters for the Fascist police chief, named after the ancient Roman quaestor, no expense had been spared. In Naples, the result was a building resembling a monstrous enlargement of

one of the granite blocks from some aqueduct or amphitheatre.

This trick of perspective may have been partly responsible for Zen’s failure to spot the clues until it was too late.

Riveted by this spectacle of petrified power, he failed to take proper notice of various persons in his immediate

vicinity. The beggar, for example, his left arm picturesquely drooping inside his shirt, his haggard and

unshaven face piteously appealing to the Christian

instincts of the passers-by Or the street kids, the scugnizze, swarming all over the wide pavement in a continually shifting envelope of ordered chaos. And to one side, at the street corner, a skinny male in his late teens revving the motor of a scooter and scanning the scene with apparent idleness, as though awaiting the arrival of a friend or lover.

Such were the individual elements, but it was only in

retrospect that Zen was able to describe the way in which they meshed together, and to identify the purpose of the machinery or the signal which set it in motion.

Everything happened very quickly. First a sudden manoeuvre of the scugnizzi blocked his path with their boisterous, high-spirited chase game. While he waited for them to

disperse, the beggar closed in, beseeching charity with some long incoherent narrative. Zen had barely started to reach for his wallet when both he and the beggar were

surrounded anew by the street kids, none of them more

than twelve years old, settling around them like a flock of starlings, uttering weird high-pitched yelps. Something flew over Zen’s head, away towards the man seated on