Michael Dibdin - Dead Lagoon

He got out his crumpled pack of Nazionali and sat there smoking one cigarette after another until the packet was empty and the ashtray full. Then he put on his coat and hat, closed his suitcase, and left.

Out of the sun, the air was still chilly. Zen walked the length of the triangular campo without looking back, hefting his suitcase in his right hand, his shoulders hunched and his head lowered. As he rounded the corner into the long alley leading to the Lista di Spagna he collided with someone coming the other way. Zen muttered an apology and was about to pass by when the man spoke his name. Zen set down the heavy suitcase and looked at him, taking in the greasy grey hair, the shabby suit, the tartan carpet slippers, the non descript mutt trailing along at the end of a rope.

‘Daniele,’ he murmured without enthusiasm. ‘You must excuse me. I’m late for my train.’

‘You’re leaving?’

‘As you see.’

‘So soon?’

Zen picked up his suitcase again.

‘I should never have come in the first place.’

Daniele Trevisan scuttled up to him with amazing rapidity and grasped him by the arm.

‘You can’t go yet!’

Zen looked down at the elderly face, as shrivelled as an old nut.

‘Ever since I saw you last week, I’ve been wondering whether or not I should say anything,’ Trevisan went on hesitantly. ‘God only knows when you’ll be back, and whether I’ll still be alive.’

He shook his head helplessly.

‘I just don’t know what to do, Angelo.’

Catching sight of Zen’s expression, the old man hastily corrected himself.

‘Aurelio, I mean.’

Zen tried to tug himself free of the man’s fierce grip.

‘Let me go!’

‘Stop! Wait!’

Zen turned on him with a menacing glare.

‘Why can’t you leave me in peace?’ he shouted.

The old man stared back at him mutely.

‘What do you want with me?’ demanded Zen.

‘Why, nothing! I just…’

An ingratiating smile appeared on Daniele Trevisan’s face.

‘I only wanted to offer you a glass at Claudio’s new bar. Come on, Aurelio! You can’t leave Venice without having a last ombra.’

Zen looked at him.

‘Please!’ the old man added unexpectedly.

Zen glanced at his watch.

‘We’ll have to hurry. I’ve got a train to catch.’

When they reached the bar, Zen found to his surprise that he recognized it. He had been taken there many times by his mother to watch television, at a time when only the super-rich could afford a set of their own. By stretching his credit to the limit, a barista in the Lista di Spagna had managed to acquire a set and thus transform what had previously been a perfectly ordinary wineshop, frequented solely by elderly males, into the social hub of the community, where men, women and children from all over the neighbourhood flocked to watch Mike Bongiorno’s quiz show ‘Double or Quits?’ — having paid the exorbitant surcharge on drinks ordered during the transmission.

The television, in a more modern incarnation, stood on the same shelf at the end of the room, showing an American police series crudely dubbed into Italian, but the old magic had fled. The bar was empty but for scattered groups of foreign tourists who looked askance as Daniele Trevisan sidled up to the bar dragging his flea-ridden dog. Nor did Claudio seem particularly pleased to see them. He looked blank when Daniele introduced Zen.

‘Angelo’s son,’ prompted Daniele Trevisan.

Claudio shrugged.

‘You drink too much, Daniele.’

He set two glasses on the bar and filled them with the contents of an open bottle.

‘Take it down the back,’ he told them. ‘You’ll scare away the tourists.’

They made their way to a dim, grubby area at the rear of the premises, stocked with damaged chairs and tables and crates of empty bottles.

‘It was just like meeting you today,’ Daniele said once they’d sat down. ‘I’d popped round to see if Ada was all right, when suddenly there he was, walking along the canal towards me.’

He risked a smile.

‘ He wasn’t watching where he was going either. Must run in the family.’

The old man bit his lip.

‘I knew at once it was Angelo.’

Zen’s arm jerked convulsively, knocking his wine over. The glass rolled across the table and fell to the floor, bursting like a bulb. A moment later Claudio appeared, marching towards them with a furious expression.

‘Right, that’s it! Out!’

Zen got out his wallet and handed over a two-thousand-lire note.

‘It was an accident. That should cover it.’

‘I don’t want your money! I want you out of here! I’m not running a refuge for drunken louts!’

‘No,’ Zen retorted, ‘you’re running a cheap scam whose sole purpose is to rip off tourists who don’t know any better by selling them shitty sandwiches at ten times the proper price and wine that tastes like bat piss.’

The barman looked as though he were about to have a fit. He kicked away Trevisan’s dog, which was sniffing at the seat of his pants.

‘If you don’t get out of here right now I’m calling the cops!’

Zen flipped his wallet over, revealing his police identity card.

‘They’re already here.’

The barman’s shoulders slumped. He turned away, hastily palming the banknote. Zen plucked it back again.

‘People might think I was trying to bribe you,’ he smiled sweetly.

‘For a lousy two thousand lire?’

Zen shrugged and handed the note back.

‘You’re right. I could buy four like you for a thousand.’

Daniele Trevisan burst into malicious cackles as Claudio retreated.

‘That’s the way to treat them!’

The spilt wine had formed a puddle which was inching imperceptibly across the table towards Zen. He dipped his finger into it, creating a canal through which the liquid emptied itself safely over the opposite edge.

‘You were saying something about having seen my father,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s impossible, of course.’

His eyes averted, Daniele Trevisan shook his head.

‘It was him all right. Two years ago. Two and a half actually. July, it was. The city was sweltering.’

His eyes became vague and distant.

‘I spoke to him in dialect. At first he didn’t seem to understand, and answered me in some strange language. Then he began to speak, haltingly at first, like a child.’

Zen stood up.

‘You’re either mad or mischievous. Either way, I’m not going to listen to this pack of lies a moment longer.’

He picked up his suitcase and buttoned his coat, glancing from time to time at Trevisan. The old man did not look at him. After a moment Zen sat down again.

‘You’ve got ten minutes,’ he said coldly.

Trevisan stared into his wineglass as though it were a clairvoyant’s crystal ball.

‘He asked about you and your mother. I explained that you’d both moved to Rome. “We’ve already been there,” he said. He was with a group of Polish tourists on a cultural and religious trip. The borders had just been opened and they were taking advantage of the new freedom to visit Italy and see the Polish pope. “Don’t tell me you’ve turned religious, Angelo!” I said, but he said it was just that the tours organized by the Church were the cheapest. They’d driven all the way from some city with a name I forget.’

‘This is absurd!’ exclaimed Zen. ‘What has Poland got to do with it?’

‘That’s where he lives.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

Daniele Trevisan consulted his wineglass once more.

‘It seems he deserted from the army in the Ukraine. He and a couple of other lads from the city decided they’d had enough. Do you remember Fabio Fois and what’s-his-name, the elder of the two Vivian boys? I suppose you’d have been too young.’