Cosi Fan Tutti

by Michael Dibdin

  He was, too, or at least in fifteen, which amounts to the same thing in Naples.

  ‘So how do you square all this private enterprise with the company?’ Zen enquired as they swept down the double bends of the boulevard towards the coast.

  ‘I don’t bother them, dottore, they don’t bother me. And the consumer benefits! Take the meter, for instance. If you call through the company, I need to show mileage on the meter consistent with the trip booked. Now the meter is a Northern invention, no doubt admirably suited to the conditions of life in that culture. Ma cca’ stamme a Napule, duttò! The meter can only measure straight lines, which in Naples is never the shortest distance between two points.’

  ‘It simply measures the length of a trip,’ Zen objected philosophically. ‘How can a given trip be any shorter with the meter turned off?’

  ‘Because nothing is given here, duttò, it’s fought over. Take this journey. There are a hundred and twenty-eight ways of getting from the Vomero to the port, not counting those which are seriously illegal. Now then, if I have the meter on, which one am I going to choose?’

  Zen shrugged.

  ‘I don’t really know the city yet.’

  ‘I know you don’t!’ Pasquale retorted triumphantly. ‘So you’d get taken the most direct, least intelligent, slowest route, down to the sea and then along the shore. You know how long that would take at this time of day? Half an hour minimum! But why should I care? As long as the meter’s running, I’m earning money.’

  Still talking non-stop, he drove casually through a red light and turned sharp left down an almost vertical alley paved with cobblestones.

  ‘But once we’ve agreed a price, it’s in my interest to get you to your destination as soon as possible. So instead of sitting in a traffic jam while the meter ticks, I’m using every trick in the book, racking my brains for short cuts and alternative solutions – in short, exploiting every last drop of my professional skill and experience, and all for you, duttò!’

  The cab shot out into a wider street. Pasquale wound down his window. In the distance, Zen could just hear the freakish ululations of an ambulance siren. Pasquale appeared to sniff the air briefly, then turned right down a narrow street.

  ‘Plus the firm’s switchboard is always busy,’ he continued as though without a pause. ‘It can take you ten, twenty minutes to get through sometimes. The boss won’t put anyone but his own nieces and cousins on that work, and there just aren’t enough of them when things get busy. Fortunately I happen to know someone with an interest in the mobile phone business who fixed me up with the equipment and hook-up, all at rates you wouldn’t believe! I’d have been a fool not to take advantage.’

  He negotiated another red light at the intersection of two traffic-clogged streets near the former royal palace. The sound of the siren was louder now.

  ‘Speaking of which, duttò, I can get you the same great deal if you’re interested. You’re in the police, right? I heard you telling those two whores so last night.’

  Zen glanced up at the man’s wary, intelligent eyes reflected in the rear-view mirror. The cab slowed to a crawl as the ambulance appeared in the traffic behind, its siren and lights forcing the cars to give way. The moment it passed, Pasquale accelerated savagely, darting into the slipstream of the speeding emergency vehicle.

  ‘I’m not really a policeman,’ Zen replied. ‘I just told those girls that to impress them.’

  ‘Whatever. You’ll still find it invaluable, both professionally and personally.’

  ‘Is this really a good idea?’ Zen asked as they thundered along, almost touching the rear bumper of the constantly swerving ambulance.

  ‘A good idea? At just a hundred and twenty for the instrument, brand new, Korean manufacture, with a five-year guarantee, plus access fees that are the lowest in the …’

  Zen started to say something, then broke off, horrified to discover that Pasquale was not looking at the road ahead, where the ambulance had just slammed on its brakes, but at his passenger.

  ‘Believe me, duttò, it’s not just a convenience but a necessity,’ the cabby exclaimed. ‘A regular life-saver!’

  Parla un linguaggio che non sappiamo

  This was the first time that Aurelio Zen had set foot in his nominal place of work at the weekend, when it seemed even more cavernous and deserted than usual, reduced to a purely symbolic status, a mere sign of the State’s vacuous omnipresence. It didn’t help that Zen felt himself to be an imposter of a particularly phoney and convoluted variety, someone reduced to impersonating himself. It was therefore a relief to see Giovan Battista Caputo swaggering along the corridor with his chilling grin, raptor’s eyes and quick, decisive movements.

  ‘The Questura just called again. I told them you’d gone to Rome for an urgent consultation with someone at the ministry and weren’t expected back until tonight.’

  Zen nodded and pushed open the door to his oppressively large and empty office.

  ‘And the prisoner?’

  ‘He finally opened his mouth.’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘But only to say that he doesn’t speak Italian.’

  ‘So what does he speak?’

  ‘English, so he claims.’

  Zen sighed massively as he hung up his coat and hat.

  ‘Get him up here,’ he told Caputo. ‘Also all his belongings, clothes, everything he had on him. And bring me the arresting officer’s report.’

  ‘It’s there on your desk, chief.’

  While he waited for Caputo to bring the prisoner up from the cells, Zen skimmed through the report. It was as impressively precise and detailed as a railway time-table, with every event timed to the nearest minute, every distance measured to the last fraction of a metre – and probably just about as reliable. The only features of interest were the fact that the Greek sailors had selected their victim because he was the first American they had come across who was about their fighting size, and that the man had been attacked while heading away from the dock area, apparently towards the main gate. The guard had been unable to say when he had arrived. With the aircraft carrier in port, American sailors had been coming and going all evening, and he had simply waved them through.

  Zen looked up as Caputo led in the prisoner. Although on the short side, he was anything but puny in appearance. His limbs were muscular, his belly firm and his chest robust. His copper-coloured skin was covered with black hair everywhere except for his head, which was impressively bald. He was wearing handcuffs, underpants, a vest and nothing else. Caputo pushed him unceremoniously into a chair facing Zen and dumped a black plastic sack on the desk. Zen gazed at the prisoner, who was apparently studying the plasterwork with great attention.

  ‘I’m told you don’t understand Italian,’ he said, watching the man’s eyes.

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Spik only Ingleesh,’ the prisoner replied at length, still giving his full attention to a patch of wall just to the right of one of the room’s three windows.

  Zen heaved another enormous sigh. Like all Italians, he had been protected from any bruising contact with spoken English thanks to a law – passed originally by the Fascists but, like so many of their laws, never subsequently rescinded – which required all films and other material shown publicly to be dubbed into Italian. On the other hand, he had the advantage of having spent much time at the home of Ellen, his clandestine American girlfriend for some years.

  ‘Oh, yes, I’m the great pretender,’ he said, ‘adrift in a world of my own. I seem to be what I’m not, you see. Too real is this feeling of make-believe …’

  ‘Only spik Ingleesh.’

  Caputo stood looking on wide-eyed at this novel interrogation, obviously impressed by his superior’s unsuspected linguistic skills. Zen leapt to his feet and came around the desk, towering over the prisoner.

  ‘I wonder, wonder who, who wrote the book of love?’ he demanded. ‘Who wrote the book of love?’

  ‘Only Ingleesh.’


  ‘Who was that man? I’d like to shake his hand. He made my babay fall in love with me.’

  It was amazing how much he could remember from those rowdy, drunken parties which Ellen used to give at the beginning of July for her expatriate friends. A shame he couldn’t let rip here. His pleasing light baritone voice had been much admired at the time. How Americans loved to laugh!

  ‘Ingleesh only spik.’

  Zen turned sulkily on his heel like an artiste disappointed with his reception.

  ‘Take him away!’ he told Caputo.

  As the prisoner was led to the door, Zen ripped open the sack of personal belongings and let the contents fall out on the desk. The clothes consisted of a pair of black shoes, a light blue shirt and the US naval uniform. There was also a leather wallet, a scattering of coins, a set of keys, the knife – a vicious item with a long retractable blade sharpened to a razor edge – and a light rectangular slab of grey plastic moulded into slots and grooves, rather like an outsize cassette tape, with a strip of metal contacts mounted on a card inside a recess.

  ‘I take it all this has been dusted?’ he called after Caputo, who turned in the doorway.

  ‘Apart from the suspect’s own, we found a number of extraneous prints. We’re running the files for them now, but we won’t hear before next week.’

  Zen nodded vaguely, but he was looking not at Caputo but at the prisoner. His head was turned back towards the desk in the room he was just leaving, and his glowing black eyes were fixed on one item with an intensity which seemed capable of melting the plastic.

  While Caputo returned the man to his cell, Zen examined the clothing piece by piece. The uniform was strongly made and neatly cut. To his eyes it looked very much like the real thing, apart from the absence of any labels or other identifying marks. The shirt and shoes, on the other hand, were both of Italian manufacture. The soles of the latter were stamped GUCCI.

  ‘Fake,’ commented Caputo, coming back in. ‘Look at the position of the logo and check the sloppy stitching at the heel. You can buy them in Piazza Garibaldi for thirty thousand a pair. I can get you twenty,’ he added automatically.

  Zen held up the grey plastic cassette.

  ‘Were any of the extraneous prints on this?’ he asked.

  Caputo walked over and picked up the sheaf of pages forming the report Zen had skimmed earlier. He turned a few pages.

  ‘There’s a partial thumb on one side, and a nice fore-finger and obscured second digit on the other.’

  Using the edge of the cassette, Zen rapped out the rhythm of one of the songs he had quoted earlier on the desktop.

  ‘All right, Caputo, I need you to do three things. One, take this uniform over to our American allies. I’m pretty sure it’s fake too, but we need to make sure.’

  He held up the cassette.

  ‘Two, try and find out how we can go about comparing the extraneous prints with those of the crew of that air-craft carrier. Their prints must all be on file somewhere for identification purposes. Make it clear we don’t suspect anyone, and it’s purely for purposes of elimination.’

  ‘And the third?’ asked Caputo, frowning at the prospect of these onerous duties which were going to cut into his weekend.

  Zen smiled.

  ‘Ah, that’s more amusing. I want you to get together a team of men to harass the prisoner round the clock, twenty-four hours a day.’

  Caputo coughed nervously.

  ‘Forgive me saying so, chief, but I don’t think we’ll get anywhere that way with this son of a bitch. He’s as tough as they come. To break him we’d have to use the most extreme methods, and that’s bound to leave scarring and internal injuries, to say nothing of the risk of the guy dying on you.’

  Zen pursed his lips judiciously.

  ‘I don’t think we quite understand one another, Caputo. I’m talking about verbal harassment.’

  Caputo looked utterly perplexed.

  ‘But he only speaks English!’

  ‘The only English he speaks is “only spik Ingleesh”. My bet is that he’s as Neapolitan as you. Your job is to prove it. Set up a roster of men to go down there in shifts and abuse him in dialect. Tell him his mother performs fellatio on Arab carpet salesmen’s dogs, that sort of thing. The idea is to get him to respond. It doesn’t matter what he says, just the fact that he understands what’s being said to him. OK?’

  Caputo gave a laugh as sharp as a razor cut.

  ‘I’ll get Santanna on the job. When it comes to this sort of thing, he’s a virtuoso.’

  ‘Go to work on him until he cracks and says something in return. Then I want you to really go to work on him. I need a name, an address, anything we can pass on to the Questura to get this son of a bitch off our backs.’

  He headed for the door.

  ‘And if la Piscopo calls again?’ asked Caputo.

  Zen smiled thinly.

  ‘Tell her I’m in Rome following up an important lead.’

  Caputo gave an exaggerated wink.

  ‘Right! Oh, before I forget, I managed to get those tickets for you.’

  He handed Zen an envelope.

  ‘My brother-in-law works backstage at San Carlo and gets comps to all the shows. Turns out he doesn’t fancy this one, so if they’re any use to you …’

  Zen pocketed the envelope gracefully.

  ‘Thanks, Caputo. Once we get this stabbing business sorted out, I think you’re due for some leave. A couple of weeks sound good to you? You could spend some time with the wife and kiddies to make up for all this involuntary overtime.’

  Caputo scowled.

  ‘I’d rather come to work! But I have a few commercial interests which need a little personal attention. You know how it is.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with this country,’ Zen agreed, putting the plastic cassette away in his coat pocket. ‘If you don’t do it yourself, it doesn’t get done.’

  Soldati d’onore

  At about the time Aurelio Zen left his office, allegedly to go to Rome, two other policemen entered a superficially similar room in a building at the foot of the Vomero, just off Via Francesco Crispi, about half a mile from Zen’s house as crows flew and footballs rolled. There was the same sense of excessive space, the same bleak décor, the same functional furniture, the same combination of chaotic clutter and impersonal neatness.

  There, however, the similarities ended. For here, each desk sported a smart new Olivetti computer, all networked to each other and to a host of other such work-stations across the country. Phone calls were routed via the military communications system, with digital encoding to prevent interception. The windows were toughened against bullets and explosives, and incorporated a layer of metallic material designed to baffle electronic eavesdropping.

  For this was the local headquarters of the Divisione Investigativa Antimafia, an élite unit comprising hand-picked members of the Carabinieri, the police and the Guardia di Finanza, which had been created specifically to combat organized crime. The former regime’s commitment to this particular struggle had always been a matter of some doubt, to say the least, and one of its most prominent and illustrious figures was currently facing trial on charges of having been, as many had long suspected, ‘the Mafia’s man in Rome’.

  One of the first steps of the new government had therefore been to throw a conspicuous amount of money at the DIA, in an effort to demonstrate the difference between their predecessors’ ambiguous and dilatory approach and the determination of these bold new brooms to sweep the country clean. Whether this determination also held good on a political level was of course another question, and one which the two men chatting quietly in the third-floor office had often discussed.

  Not at work, though, in however quiet a voice. For rumour had it that when the building had been upgraded to incorporate the various technological marvels of which it now disposed, it had also been fitted with a series of extremely sensitive microphones which could pick up the merest whisper of sound in any corner of any corridor
or room, toilets included. There had even been jokes concerning one of the officers on the team, whose bowel movements were of legendary volume, ‘making a big noise for himself in Rome’.

  No one had been able to confirm or deny the existence of this surveillance system, still less identify who, exactly, might have access to the results, but the prevailing wisdom held that it was advisable to avoid raising potentially sensitive issues while on the premises. The two men in question have no need to worry about this, however, for they are merely discussing their work, and in particular a new file which they have opened concerning one Ermanno Vallifuoco, who has just been reported missing by his family following his failure to return from a trip into town, supposedly to meet two business associates at a famous hotel on Via Partenope.

  One problem is that each of these ‘associates’ claims to have spent the evening in question elsewhere, one at a restaurant (ten witnesses) and the other at home (fourteen, of whom five not directly related to the family), and that each denies ever having arranged to meet Vallifuoco in the first place. But what has brought the matter to the attention of the DIA is the fact that this is the third such disappearance in as many weeks, and two of the presumed victims are successful local businessmen linked to the Camorra and the other a prominent figure in local government.

  Attilio Abate, the first man to vanish, failed to return after going out one night to walk his dog in streets surrounding his villa in Baia. The animal, a Great Dane, also disappeared. Abate was reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in the city, the owner of a company which had won substantial government contracts for the supply of military uniforms, bed linen and such items. At first a kidnap was suspected, although no ransom note was received. Then, ten days later, the second man went missing.

  Luca Della Ragione had been a prominent member of the centre-right coalition which ruled the Campania region until the recent upheavals. Following the earthquake which devastated the inland region of Irpinia in 1980, money poured in from national and international sources, but for one reason or another a substantial proportion of this largesse not only failed to reach the tens of thousands shivering in their makeshift tent cities, but also vanished from the government’s accounts. It had since been alleged that Luca Della Ragione was responsible for facilitating this financial conjuring trick, and that he also knew the whereabouts of the missing funds. The facts concerning these matters were likely to remain obscure, since he had also gone missing. Early one morning he had left the modern apartment block on Via Greco where he lived for a briefing with his lawyer before a court appearance, and had never been seen again. His car was found in the street, the alarm defused and the doors unlocked, but despite an extensive search and investigation there had been no further sign of Della Ragione. And now a third name had joined this select list …