Cosi Fan Tutti Read online

  ‘This was Manlio’s office,’ Valeria said. ‘I don’t need the space, so I just left everything as it was, what was left of it. The Guardia di Finanza came and took everything away.’

  She turned and pointed to a large framed photograph mounted on the wall behind the desk.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  The picture showed a convivial group of men in what looked like a restaurant. There were ten or more of them, all men, all looking towards the camera, all smiling or laughing.

  ‘See that man in the centre?’ said Valeria, pointing with one fleshy heavily ringed finger. ‘The one sitting at the end of the table? That’s Orlando Pagano. Actually he’s a little heavier than I remembered, but don’t you think he looks like you?’

  Zen narrowed his eyes obediently. There was a certain resemblance, he supposed, although the man in the picture was both fleshier and swarthier than Zen himself.

  ‘Here’s Manlio,’ Valeria went on, pointing. ‘And this is the supposed victim of that Strade Pulite group, Ermanno Vallifuoco.’

  Vallifuoco was a complacently corpulent man with an expression of inscrutable serenity. Manlio Squillace was leaner and slighter, with a pencil moustache and gleaming eyes. Zen leant forward, scrutinizing the picture intently.

  An unearthly sound made itself heard next door, a long rising whine like some primitive lament.

  ‘The kettle!’ said Valeria, hurrying out. ‘Would you like some cake? I baked it myself, an old Ferrarese recipe.’

  Zen did not reply. He was still staring at the photograph, but not at the illustrious victim of terrorism or the late-lamented Signor Squillace. His attention was focused on a man who, judging by his distance from the head of the table, had been one of the less important guests, a minor character brought in to make up the numbers in this boisterous scene of underworld conviviality. He had been forced to look sharply back over his left shoulder in order to face the camera, and even so was partially obscured by his neighbour. But enough of his face was visible to leave no doubt in Zen’s mind that he was none other than the man who had knifed the Greek sailor a few days earlier and then mysteriously disappeared from his cell at the police station.

  Sogno o son desto?

  The chic austerity on display in the ‘public’ areas of the Squillace apartment was gleefully abandoned once past the door to the family’s own rooms, which sported an amazing range of high-tech, low-taste gadgets, gimmicks and gizmos ranging from novelty telephones to auto-flushing toilets, from remote-control light fixtures to a set of interactive operas on CD-ROM.

  So it came as no particular surprise to Zen, when he went to the bathroom early next morning, to find a miniaturized waterproof television set attached to a bracket in the shower cubicle. The idea struck him as both idiotic and irresistible – we may be half the men our fathers were, but they couldn’t watch TV in the shower – and he turned it on in the middle of the local news. What with the hiss of the water and the assorted noises associated with his ablutions, it was some time before he tuned in to the story which the gorgeously coiffed presenter was reading.

  ‘… approached the truck following the collision, when a group of men – estimates vary as to the exact number – leapt out and opened fire. The officer was killed instantly. The assailants then ran off into the neighbouring Forcella area, abandoning their vehicle. Another official travelling in the police car was unharmed, but in the confusion a prisoner they were transporting is thought to have escaped. A search was instituted, but so far all attempts to trace the authors of this savage crime have been unsuccessful. The victim has been named as Armando Bertolini, twenty-nine, resident in Fuorigrotta and married with one …’

  Valeria Squillace was assembling the coffee machine when the apparition occurred: a naked man, dripping wet, sprinting past the kitchen and down the hall. She dropped the caffetiera, spilling grounds all over the floor and hurting her foot quite badly. Even once the pain had subsided, she had no idea what to make of it. She wondered for a moment if the whole thing was a dream. But the splashes of soapy water on the parquet, not to mention the pain in her toes, were real enough.

  Back in Filomena’s bedroom, where he was sleeping, Zen searched frantically for the phone, which took the form of a pink plastic rabbit. Judging by the décor, it was very hard to believe that Filomena Squillace could possibly be old enough to give her mother any cause for concern. Every available surface was piled high with stuffed toys and brightly coloured knick-knacks decorated with cartoon animals and wide-eyed infants. The only hint of sexuality came in a series of posters featuring a variety of intense-looking young men struggling to look less wholesome than they actually were.

  Zen perched naked on the bed and pressed a series of buttons protruding from the rabbit’s chest and pressed the creature’s head to his ear. The number rang for a considerable time before being answered with a tentative ‘Sì?’.

  ‘Who’s this?’ demanded Zen into the grille on the rabbit’s stomach.

  ‘Who’s calling?’

  ‘Is this the port police?’

  ‘I think you have a wrong number.’

  That was quite possible, given the fact that the keys were cutely disguised as buttons on the bunny’s outfit. Zen muttered an apology and was about to hang up when the voice at the other end said, ‘Is that you, dottore?’

  ‘This is Aurelio Zen. Who’s speaking?’

  ‘Oh, thank God! This is Caputo.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you answer properly?’

  ‘I thought it might be the Questura. They’ve been after you all night.’

  There was a faint knock at the door, but Zen did not register it.

  ‘When did this happen?’ he demanded.

  ‘Last evening, while we were driving Pas … the prisoner to the hospital. We got in a fender-bender with this rubbish truck. Bertolini went to give them hell and suddenly these guys jump out and riddle him with bullets. I put in a call for backup …’

  ‘And Pastorelli?’

  ‘He ran off. I haven’t heard from him.’

  The door opened and Valeria Squillace appeared with a cup of coffee.

  ‘OK, listen, Caputo,’ Zen said. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. Until then, the arrangements we made yesterday still stand. Got that?’

  Valeria stood looking on with a small, fixed smile. Perhaps he’s some sort of nudist, she was thinking, although he didn’t seem the type.

  ‘Don’t go into any details,’ Zen continued. ‘Refer all supplementary questions to me.’

  He put the rabbit back on the bedside table and turned to Valeria. It was only then that he realized that he was naked.

  ‘I haven’t had time to get dressed,’ he explained apologetically. ‘One of my men was killed in a gunfight last night. I’m rather shaken up.’

  Valeria set the coffee down on a dresser just inside the door. She was wearing a thick ivory-coloured towel robe. Judging by the expanse of shoulder, leg and upper chest visible, she wasn’t wearing anything else.

  ‘How horrible,’ she said with the same fixed smile.

  Zen didn’t bother making any belated attempts to cover his genitals, but naturally Valeria studiously avoided looking anywhere in that direction. Nevertheless, she somehow got the impression that one particular item was rather more prominent than it had been when she first came into the room. Whether or not this was in fact the case, the mere idea was enough to produce a spectacular blush which served to emphasize the contrast between her body and the garment loosely wrapped around it, secured by a single twist of belt. This only made matters worse, and the next time she didn’t look there was no further doubt.

  They were saved by the telephone, which began chirping and beeping and ringing and buzzing from its various locations all over the house. Valeria’s rictus vanished along with her blush. She turned briskly away, closing the door behind her. With an effort, Zen pulled himself together and started to get dressed.

  When he emerged, ten minutes later, the salon w
as filled with sunlight streaming in through the open doorway leading to the balcony. Valeria, now also decently clad, leaned over the railing. A light breeze ruffled her hair.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, as he appeared. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Very well, thank you,’ he replied, taking her cue that this was to be their first meeting that morning.

  ‘That was Orestina. Apparently their evening ended better than it began. They met some people who invited them to something called a “rave”. I’m not sure what that is, exactly, but they seem to have had a good time.’

  From the balcony, there was a magnificent view extending right over the city to the coastline near Pompeii and the brooding mass of Vesuvius. From the gardens and terraces below, a heady mixture of scents awakened by the sunlight rose up to envelop them. In the middle distance, Zen could clearly see the cranes and warehouses at the port. And that grey block, slightly to the left, was the Questura.

  ‘Well, I’m glad someone is,’ he said resignedly.

  Cara semplicità, quanto mi piaci

  The Greco, at the foot of Via Chiaia, seemed to Dario De Spino the right sort of venue for his purposes. Its slightly faded gran caffè elegance, the sense of tradition and history, the waiters in their starched uniforms, to say nothing of the view of the former Royal Palace and of the San Carlo opera house – all this was calculated to impress the pants off these two babes who’d grown up in some mosquito-ridden hovel in Hoxha’s Albania. They’d think they’d died and gone to heaven!

  Not that Dario was interested in removing their pants himself, although he had been known to dip into the other side of the gender pool from time to time, both by way of demonstrating his versatility and confirming that he was better off where he was. But his resources in that respect were already overstretched, what with Mohammed out at Portici – a thirty-minute commute each way, on top of everything else – and the demands of social life here in town. With his extensive range of business interests, it was essential to remain on good terms with a large number of people, many of whom could get distinctly snippy if he didn’t make a pass at them every so often.

  No, Dario’s interest in the albanesi was, he would have been the first to admit, purely professional. And from that point of view, the outing had already been a success. Even in the bizarre gear they had brought with them from that Stalinist hell-hole, 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 Caffè 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, cummendatò!’ 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, open-mouthed.

  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.