Cosi Fan Tutti - 5 (28 page)

Taking up a position near the automatic doors through

which incoming passengers re-enter the real world, she

assumed the long-suffering aspect of a Neapolitan matriarch awaiting the arrival of relatives on a flight already

delayed for hours if not days. Her hunched stance, grimly stolid expression and air of defiant endurance made her as invisible as the official notices on the wall which no one ever read. ‘Eh, ‘a nonna,’ everyone thought, and looked away Which was just as well, because if she had been spotted touting and reported to the Camorra clan which regulated cab traffic at the airport, and took a cut of the

resulting trade, the consequences were likely to have been extremely limiting both socially and professionally Naples was a challenging city for those confined to a wheelchair.

Passengers from the flight she had noticed had started

emerging in dribs and drabs, but so far none of them

looked suitable for her purposes, and Immacolata had

learned to wait for exactly the right client before moving in. She couldn’t risk making her pitch more than once, so it had to stick. Her patience was rewarded in the form of two young women pushing a trolley laden with expensive

suitcases and looking about them with an air of slight trepidation.

One of them was more or less conventionally

dressed, although with that fatal lack of focus of which the English seemed to make a virtue. Her companion’s

appearance represented another aspect of those alien cultural codes which, even after almost ten years, Immacolata

had been forced to admit that she would never crack. Taller and sparer, she had cropped black hair, with two silver rings in her pierced nostril and a tattoo of some fabulous reptile on her throat. Her jeans had holes torn or cut at the knees, above which she wore a man’s shirt left open to her evidently unsupported breasts and a black leather jacket sporting an aggressive quantity of zippering and other

metal accoutrements.

Not, at first sight, what Immacolata was looking for.

But a quick check of the women’s shoes - always the key - revealed that between them the couple were carrying

upwards of three quarters of a million lire underfoot.

Their hesitant demeanour made it equally obvious that

they were not expecting anyone to meet them. Perfect.

Immacolata fell in behind them and then casually drew

alongside, as though she were just another weary traveller heading for the exit.

‘Excuse me, ladies!’ she whispered in the tones of one

born well within hearing of Bow Bells. The two women

stopped and looked at her in astonishment.

‘ You’ll be wanting a ride into town, I dare say/ taunacolata continued rapidly, urging them on towards the

door. ‘Perhaps somewhere to stay, too. A race cosy residential hotel, safe and clean but not too pricey, know

what I mean? I know just the place. Put yourself in Auntie Imma’s hands, my dears. I’ll see you right!

The women consulted briefly in a silent glance. Then

the taller one turned back to Immacolata with an amused smile. ,

‘That’s good. These is our baggages.

Oh bella improwisata!

And when they finally made it to the top of the steps,

guess what? The car was gone.

Of course, everyone knew that parking your car on the

street in Naples was just asking for trouble, to such an extent that some insurance companies refused to offer coverage at any price. This was all the more true in the case of a luxury import, which was no doubt why Don Ermanno

had had his Jaguar equipped with a variety of anti-theft devices, including special locks and two alarm systems.

Nevertheless, it was gone. This was particularly galling for Gesualdo and Sabatino, who were used to getting a

measure of respect from the trash who pulled these kind of jobs, and even more because this unexpected lack of

mobility was going to make it difficult if not impossible to carry out the assignment for which they had reluctantly torn themselves away from the embraces of their respective conquests and rushed at full speed up the darkened

alleyway of the Scalini del Petraio as though through infinitely thin, tenuous layers of black satin.

It was Gesualdo who had taken the call, rolling naked

out of bed and fumbling amongst his clothes until he

located the phone.

‘We just had a hit,’ a voice said.

‘Which line?’

‘Zembla.’

‘Give me play-back.’

A scratchy silence intervened, then a new set of voices came on the line.

‘… remember that we spoke earlier today. I’m now in a position to offer you the information I mentioned then.’ ‘Regarding what?’

‘Regarding the present whereabouts of Attilio Abate,

Luca Delia Ragione and Ermanno Vallifuoco.’

There was a long silence.

‘Why should I care about that?’

A faint laugh, like an exhalation of air bellying out the curtains and making the candles flicker.

“I think we both know the answer to that, Don Orlando.

Excuse me. Signor Zembla, I mean.’

Another silence.

‘Well, I’m listening/

‘As I have already had occasion to remark, these

phones are notoriously insecure. In the circumstances, I hope you will not object to a personal meeting. If you will leave the building in which Signor Squillace’s apartment is situated and proceed north on foot towards Piazza

degli Artisti, I will make contact at some suitable point.’

‘It’s very late…’

‘Later than you think, perhaps. That’s why this information is so vital and so sensitive.’

The recording dissolved in a haze of crackles, then

Gesualdo’s caller came back on the line.

‘That’s it,’ he said.

‘Caller’s number?’

‘Phone box at a service station on the motorway.’

‘Time?’

‘Six and a half minutes ago. You’d better get moving.’

And so they had, although Sabatino had been decidedly

reluctant. He had been having a very pleasant time

with Libera, who was both compliant and inventive, with some interesting moves he hadn’t come across before.

Just because Gesualdo’s partner had proved to be less

forthcoming seemed at first no reason to drag him,

Sabatino, out on a wild goose chase at that time at night.

But Gesualdo rapidly made it clear that they had no

choice. Not only was Alfonso Zembla not what he

seemed, but it now appeared that his alternative identity as ‘Aurelio Zen’ was, as they had suspected, also a fake. It was only on hearing the anonymous caller address him as Don Orlando that Gesualdo realized that the avuncular,

mild-mannered, slightly ineffectual individual who had

insinuated himself into their lives bore a striking resemblance to Don Orlando Pagano, head of one of the leading

clans in the city, who had recently disappeared from circulation.

His voice was all wrong for a Neapolitan, but

Don Orlando had spent several years in exile near Verona as a guest of the government, and could probably fake a creditable Northern accent.

As if this was not enough, the caller had explicitly

promised ‘vital and sensitive’ information concerning the present whereabouts of the three supposed victims of the Strode Pulite group. If there were a grain of truth in this, it might represent a potentially fatal breach of security

within this mysterious organization. And the whole conversation was preserved on tape, along with Gioacchino’s

injunction to ‘get going’. They would not be forgiven if they let such a chance slip.

The first stage had been bad enough: the hurried dressing, the garbled explanations, the mad dash up those

steps through the black drapery of the night. Even with all the time they put in at the gym, Gesualdo and Sabatino

were soon gasping for breath. And then the discovery that some son of a whore - some half-smart low-life with no

connections, some small-time self-starter who couldn’t

even get a job with a recognized team - had ripped off

their car, reducing them to the expedient of walking, running, stumbling and crawling up another half-mile or

more of this terrible Via Crucis, tormented not only by the physical stress but even more by the fear that it was all in vain, that by the time they got there it would be too late.

At length they emerged, panting and sweating, on the

blessedly straight and flat expanses of Via Cimarosa.

There was no one in sight, no unusual activity, no sign of anything of interest. They walked down the street past a succession of turn-of-the-century apartment blocks, the street doors securely locked, the shuttered windows

above dark. Somewhere in the distance a deep, businesslike motor roared along a street lower down the hill.

Then Sabatino pulled Gesualdo sharply into an adjacent

doorway. A figure, tall, dark and spare, had appeared in the entrance of a building some distance ahead. The man paused briefly, looking about, then stepped out on to the pavement and walked off at a steady pace, heading north.

Al concertato loco

By contrast, Aurelio Zen was in the best of humours. The phone call he had just received effectively killed two

birds with one stone. Not only had it got him off the hook with Valeria Squillace, romantically speaking, but if his anonymous informant was telling anything like the truth - and what interest could he have in doing otherwise? Zen might well be in a position to hand the Questura not

only the information he had extracted from John Viviani concerning the Marotta stabbing, but also a substantial bonus in the form of a major breakthrough in the terrorist case currently occupying national attention. After a coup like that, he could return to his former state of absentee indolence without the slightest risk of any reprisals.

He proceeded briskly along the deserted street, dodging the prows of the cars parked at all angles across the

pavement. One of these was wedged so tightly against

the wall of the adjacent building that he was forced to turn back and go around the other end. It was then that he noticed the two men fifty feet or so farther back. He

paused for a moment, then continued on his way with a

little more urgency in his stride. At the next corner he turned left and crossed the block halfway down, glancing casually behind him as though checking for traffic.

The men were still there.

He remembered Pasquale’s warning, which he had so

thoughtlessly dismissed, his mind on other problems.

This pair looked very much like the ones who had followed the taxi from the house that morning, young and

trim, wearing the casually tough uniform of their type.

Reaching the corner, he turned right and started to run, making as little noise as possible. The streets were empty, the windows dark, and his pursuers had cut off his route back to the only door open to him.

At the next corner he looked round again. One of the

men was in sight, but the other had disappeared, having probably circled back around the block to cut off his

escape in that direction. The fact that they were no longer making any attempt to disguise their intentions made it chillingly clear what these must be.

But then, just when all seemed lost, fate lent a hand in the form of a garbage truck on its nightly rounds. The

moment he saw it, Zen realized that the deep growl of its motor had been audible for some time. Several of the

crew, dressed in blue overalls, were walking alongside

their vehicle. What a stroke of luck! Even the most ruthless of killers would hardly dare attempt anything before

so many witnesses. Zen walked confidently towards the

oncoming truck, his arm raised in greeting.

Cose note, cose note!

If there had been anyone about in Via Bernini on the night in question, this was what they would have seen.

As the man in the overcoat and hat approached, his arm

raised in greeting, the orange truck slowed down and its crew surrounded him. He turned and pointed back the

way he had come, as though indicating the presence of

something or someone, although there was no one in sight.

At the same moment, the workman standing behind him

took something from one of the many pockets of his overalls and swept it through the air as though swatting a fly.

Simultaneously, although without any obvious sense

of cause and effect, the man in the overcoat tumbled forward, very much as though he had tripped on the raised

edge of one of the black paving slabs - always a hazard, even in this relatively well-to-do area of the city. Luckily the other workman, now level with the rear of the still moving truck, managed to catch the falling man, thus

preventing him from doing himself any serious injury.

The other workman now tossed aside his implement,

which struck the paving stones with a sharp metallic ring, and bent to grasp the victim’s feet. Without a word, the two men lifted him clear of the ground, holding him suspended limply in mid-air by his shoulders and calves. By

now the truck, in its inexorable progress, had passed them.

With a preliminary swing they heaved the inert body up

and over the tail-gate, where it disappeared from view.

While the first workman retrieved his discarded

wrench, the second pressed a green button protruding

from a box mounted on the rear of the truck. With a loud roaring noise, the massive ram began to descend. The top and sides were dirty and dull, but the curved blade had been polished by constant abrasion to an attractive silvery sheen. The ram moved steadily down into the body

of the truck, the racket of its powerful machinery completely obliterating any sounds which might otherwise