'Where?'
'At the window.'
Zen took a deep breath. 'All right, now listen. I want you to describe him to me as carefully as you can. All right?.What did he look like?'
Maria Grazia made a reflective noise. 'Well, let's see. He was young. Dark, quite tall. Handsome! Twenty years ago, maybe, I'd have…'
'What did he do?'
'Do? Nothing! He just disappeared. I went over and had a look. Sure enough, there he was, in one of those cages.
He was trying to mend it but he couldn't. In the end they had to take it off the wall and put up a new one.'
'A new what, for the love of Christ?'
Stunned by this blasphemy, the housekeeper murmured, 'Why, the streetlamp! The one that was forever turning itself on and off. But when I saw him floating there in mid-air I got such a shock! I didn't know what to think!
It looked like an apparition, only I don't know if you can have apparitions of men. It always seems to be women, doesn't it? One of my cousins claimed she saw Santa Rita once, but it turned out she made it all up. She'd got the idea from an article in Gente about these little girls who…'
Zen repeated his earlier instructions about keeping the front door bolted and not leaving his mother alone, and hung up.
On his way downstairs, he met Giorgio De Angelis coming up. The Calabrian looked morose.
'Anything the matter?' Zen asked him.
De Angelis glanced quickly up and down the stairs, then gripped Zen's arm impulsively. 'If you're into anything you shouldn't be, get out fast!'
He let go of Zen's arm and continued on his way.
'What do you mean?' Zen called after him.
De Angelis just kept on walking. Zen hurried up the steps after him.
'Why did you say that?' he demanded breathlessly.
The Calabrian paused, allowing him to catch him up.
'What's going on?' Zen demanded.
De Angelis shook his head slowly. 'I don't know, Aurelio. I don't want to know. But whatever it is, stop doing it, or don't start.'
'What are you talking about?'
De Angelis looked again up and down the stairs.
'Fabri came to see me this morning. He advised me to keep away from you. When I asked why, he said that you were being measured for the drop.'
The two men looked at one another in silence.
'Thank you,' Zen murmured almost inaudibly.
De Angelis nodded fractionally. Then he continued up the steps while Zen turned to begin the long walk down.
I never used to dream. Like saying, I never used to go mad. The others do it every night, jerking and tossing, sweating like pigs, groaning and crying out. 'I had a ter~ible dream last night! I dreamt I'd killed someone and they were coming to arrest me, they'd guessed where I was hiding! It was horrible, so real!'
You'd think that might teach them something about this world of theirs that also seems 'so real'!
Then one night it happened to me. In the dream I was like the others, living in the light, fearing the dark. I had done something wrong, I never knew whaf, killed someone perhaps. As a punishment, they locked me up in the darkness. Not my darkness, gentle and consoling, but a cold dank airless pit, a narrow tube of stone like a dry well. The executioner was my father. He rammed me down, arms bound to rny sides, and capped the tomb with huge blocks of masonry. I lay tightly wedged, the stones pressing in on me from every side. In front of my eyes was a chink through which I could just see the outside world where people passed by about their business, unaware of my terrible plight. Air seeped in through the hole, but not enough, not enough air! I was slowly suffocating, smothered beneath that intolerable dead weight of rock. I screamed and screamed, but no sound penetrated to the people outside. They passed by, smiling and nodding and hatting to each other, just as though nothing was happening!
It was only a dream, of course.
Thursday, 13.40 – 16.55
'So what's the problem, Aurelio? A little trip to Sardinia, all expenses paid. I should be so lucky! But once you're in business for yourself you learn that the boss works harder than…'
'I've already explained the problem, Gilberto! Christ, what's the matter with you today?'
It was the question that Zen had been asking himself ever since arriving at the restaurant. Finding his friend free for lunch at such short notice had seemed a stroke of luck which might help Zen gain control of the avalanche of events which had overrun his life.
Gilberto Nieddu, an ex-colleague who now ran an industrial counter-espionage firm, was the person Zen was closest to. Serious, determined and utterly reliable, there was an air of strength and density about him, as though all his volatility had been distilled away. Whatever he did, he did in earnest. Zen hadn't of course expected Gilberto to produce instant solutions, but he had counted on him to listen attentively and then bring a calm, objective view to bear on the problems. As a Sardinian himself, his advice and knowledge might make all the difference.
But Gilberto was not his usual self today. Distracted and preoccupied, continually glancing over his shoulder, he paid little attention to Zen's account of his visit to Palazzo Sisti and its implications.
'Relax, Aurelio! Enjoy yourself. I'll bet you haven't been here that often, eh?'
This was true enough. In fact Zen had never been to Licio's, a legendary name among Roman luxury restaurants. The entrance was in a small street near the Pantheon. You could easily pass by without noticing it.
Apart from a discreet brass plate beside the door, there was no indication of the nature of the business carried on there.
No menu was displayed, no exaggerated claims made for the quality of the cooking or the cellar.
Inside you were met by Licio himself, a eunuch-like figure whose expression of transcendental serenity never varied. It was only once you were seated that the unique attraction of Licio's became clear, for thanks to the position of the tables, in widely-separated niches concealed from each other by painted screens and potted plants, you had the illusinn of being the only people there. The prices at Licio's were roughly double the going rate for the class of cuisine on offer, but this was only logical since there were only half as many tables. In any case, the clientele came almost evclusively from the business and political worlds, and was happy to pay whatever Licio wished to ask in return for the privilege of being able to discuss sensitive matters in a normal tone of voice with no risk ofbeing either overheard or deafened by the neighbours. Hence the place's unique cachet: you went to other restaurants to see and be seen; at Licio's you paid more to pass unnoticed.
On the rare occasions when Zen spent this kind of money on a meal he went to places where the food, rather than the ambience, was the attraction, so Gilberto Nieddu's remark had been accurate enough. That didn't make Zen feel any happier about the slightly patronizing tone in which it had been made. Matters were not improved when Gilberto patted his arm familiarly and whispered, 'Don't worry! This one's on me.'
Zen made a final attempt to get his friend to appreciate the gravity of the situation.
'Look, I'll spell it out for you. They're asking me to frame someone. Do you understand? I'm to go to Sardinia and fake some bit of evidence, come up with a surprise witness, anything. They don't care what I do or how I do it as long as it gets the charges against Favelloni withdrawn, or at least puts the trial dates back several months.'
Gilberto nodded vaguely. He was still glancing compulsively around the restaurant.
'This could be your big chance, Aurelio,' he murmured, checking his watch yet again.
Zen stared at him with a fixed intensity that was a reproach.
'Gilberto, we are talking here about sending an innocent person to prison for twenty years, to say nothing of allowing a man who has gunned down four people in cold blood to walk free. Quite apart from the moral aspect, that is seriously illegal.'