Compared to the Oscar Burolos of the world, Fabri was a third-rater, of course. He wasn't interested in the real thing: power, influence, prestige. All he wanted were the trinkets and trappings, the toys and the bangles. But he wanted them so badly. Zen, who no longer wanted anything very much except Tania Biacis, didn't know whether to envy or despise Fabri for the childlike voracity of his desires.
'Giorgio!' Fabri called softly, beckor,ing to De Angelis.
His expression was one of amused complicity, as though he wanted to share a secret with the only man in the world who could really appreciate it.
At the same moment, the phone on Zen's desk began to warble.
'Yes?'
'Is this, ah… that's to say, am I speaking to, ah, Dottor Aurelio Zen?'
Fabri, who had ignored Zen's presence until now, was staring at him insistently whilst he murmured something in De Angelis's ear.
'Speaking.'
'Ah, this is, ah… that's to say I'm calling from, ah, Palazzo Sisti.'
The voice paused significantly. Zen grunted neutrally.
He knew that he had heard of Palazzo Sisti, but he had no idea in what context.
'There's been some, ah… interest in the possibility of seeing whether it might be feasible to arrange…'
The rest of the sentence was lost on Zen as Tania Biacis suddenly appeared beside him, saying something which was garbled by the obscure formulations of his caller. Zen covered the mouthpiece of the phone with one hand.
'Sorry?'
'Immediately,' Tania said emphatically, as though she had already said it once too often. She looked tired and drawn and there were dark rings under her eyes.
'Are you all right?' Zen asked her.
'Me? What have I got to do with it?'
The phrase was delivered like a slap in the face. From the uncovered earpiece of the phone, the caller's voice squawked on like a radio programme no one is listening to.
'So you'll see to that, will you?' Tania insisted.
'See to what?'
'The video tape! They were extremely unpleasant about it. I said you'd call them back within the hour. I don't see why I should have to deal with it. It's got nothing whatever to do with me!'
She turned angrily away, pushing past De Angelis, who was on his way back to his desk. He looked gJum and preoccupied, his former high spirits quite doused. Fabri had disappeared again.
Zen uncovered the phone. 'I'm sor.y. I was interrupted.'
'So that's agreed, is it?' the voice said. It was a question in form only.
'Well…'
'I'll expect you in about twenty minutes.'
The line went dead.
Zen thought briefly about calling Archives, but what was the point? It was obvious what had happened. Fabri had told them that the tape of the Burolo killings was blank and they were urgently trying to contact Zen to find out what had happened to the original. This was no doubt the news that he had been gleefully passing on to De Angelis.
But how had Fabri found out so quickly that Zen had been t'he previous borrower? Presumably Archives must have told him. Unless, of course…
Unless it had been the video tape, and not a wallet or pocket-book, that had been the thief's target all along. It would have been a simple matter for Fabri to find some pickpocket who would have been only too glad to do a favour for such an influential man. Once the tape was in his hands, Fabri had put in an urgent request for the tape at Archives, ensuring that Zen was officially compromised. Now he would no doubt sell the original to the highest bidder, thus making himself a small fortune and at the same time creating a scandal which might well lead to criminal charges being brought against his enemy. It was a masterpiece of unscrupulousness against which Zen was absolutely defenceless.
As he emerged from the portals of the Ministry and made his way down the steps and through the steel barrier under the eye of the armed sentries, Zen wondered if he was letting his imagination run away with him. In the warm hazy sunlight the whole thing suddenly seemed a bit far-fetched. He lit a cigarette as he waited for the taxi he had ordered. He had decided against using an official car, since the caller had left him in some doubt as to whether or not this was an official visit. In fact, he had left him in doubt about almost everything, including his name. The only thing Zen knew for certain was that the call had come from Palazzo Sisti. The significance of this was still obscure to Zen, but the name was evidently familiar enough to the taxi driver, who switched on his meter without requesting further directions.
They drove down the shallow valley between the Viminale and Quirinale hills, leaving behind the broad utilitarian boulevards of the nineteenth-century suburbs, across Piazza Venezia and into the cramped, crooked intestines of the ancient centre. Zen stared blankly out of the window, lost in troubled thoughts. Whatever the truth about the video tape, there was still the other threat hanging over him. The form of the message he had received the night before had been disturbing enough, but its content was even more so. According to Signora Bertolini, her husband had 'received threats' before his death.
'There were tokens, signs,' she h d said. 'For example an envelope pushed through our letter-box with nothing inside but a lot of tiny little metal balls, like caviare, only hard.'
It was no doubt symptomatic of their respective lifestyles that the contents of the envelope had made Zen think of cake decorations and Signora Bertolini of caviare, but there was little doubt that they had been the same.
And a few days after receiving his 'message', Judge Giulio Bertolini had been killed by just such little metal balls, fired at high velocity from a shotgun.
Zen had no intention of letting his imagination run away with him to the extent of supposing that there was any direct connection between the two events. What he did suspect was that someone, probably Vincenzo Fabri, was trying to put the wind up him, to knock him off balance so that he would be too agitated to think clearly and perceive the real nature of the threat to him. No doubt Fabri's thief had first attempted to enter Zen's flat to steal the video, and, having been foiled by the blocked emergency exit, had picked Zen's pocket in the bus queue the following morning. Then Fabri had seen the newscast in which the judge's widow spoke about the envelope, and with typical opportunism had seen a way to further ensure the success of his scheme, by keeping Zen preoccupied with false alarms on another front.
The taxi wound slowly through the back streets just north of the Tiber, finally drawing up in a small piazza. By the standards of its period, Palazzo Sisti was modest in scale, but it made up for this by a wealth of architectural detail. The Sisti clan had clearly known their place in the complex hierarchy of sixteenth-century Roman society, but had wished to demonstrate that despite this their taste and distinction was no whit inferior to that of the Farnese or Barberini families. But neither their taste nor their modesty had availed them anything in the long run, and today their creation could well have been just another white elephant that had been divided up into flats and offices, if it had not been for the two armed Carabinieri sitting in their jeep on the other side of the piazza and the large white banner stretched across the faqade of the building, bearing the slogan A FAIRER ALTERNATIVE and the initials of one of the smaller political parties which made up the government's majority in parliament.
Zen nodded slowly. Of course, that was where he had heard the name before. 'Palazzo Sisti' was used by newscasters to refer to the party leadership, just as 'Piazza del Gesu' indicated the Christian Democrats. This particular party had been much in the news recently, the reason being that prominent among its leaders was a certain exMinister of Public Works who was rumoured to have enjoyed a close and mutually profitable relationship with Oscar Burolo, prior to the latter's untimely demise.