Michael Dibdin: End games

Zen’s pro tem transfer to his current post as chief of police for the province of Cosenza had come about purely as a matter of chance, and had not promised — still less delivered, until a few days ago — the slightest challenge to his professional skills. A new bureaucratic entity had appeared on the map of Italy: the provincia di Crotone, carved out of the neighbouring provinces of Cosenza and Catanzaro. It naturally demanded a fully staffed bureaucratic apparatus to run it, and this had to be constructed from scratch. One of the vacant positions was that of police chief, and Pasquale Rossi, the incumbent in Cosenza, had eventually been selected as someone professionally familiar with much of the territory concerned and thus in a position to bring his extensive experience to bear. His post had in turn gone to the deputy chief at Catanzaro, one Gaetano Monaco, but unfortunately the latter was unable to take up his duties since he had shot himself in the foot while cleaning his service pistol.

Once made, such appointments are very difficult to unmake, since the promotional ripple effect spreads far and wide and the suitability of each chosen candidate has to be vetted by all interested parties before approval. The Ministry in Rome had therefore opted for the expedient of a temporary replacement for the short period until the original appointee recovered from his self-inflicted injury, and their choice had fallen on Zen. He had been received politely enough by the questore and the other senior officers, but it had discreetly been made clear to him that he was a mere figurehead occupying the post in name only and need not concern himself too much with the day-to-day workings of the department. Which is exactly what he had been happy to do until the recent disappearance of an American lawyer which bore all the hallmarks of a professional kidnapping for ransom.

There was a knock at the door and Natale Arnone entered. He was in his late twenties, stockily built and with a shaven head, no neck and a generally thuggish manner accentuated by his unshaven jowls and bandit beard. After two months in Calabria, Zen was beginning to feel facially nude.

‘This just arrived, sir,’ Arnone said, laying a sheet of paper on the desk. It was a fax from the American consulate in Naples, which Zen had contacted immediately after lunch, and read as follows:

PETER NEWMAN Passport # 733945610 Date of birth: 11/28/44 Place of birth: Spezzano della Sila, Italy Remarks: Birth certified under name PIETRO OTTAVIO CALOPEZZATI. Name legally changed 5/30/69 at San Francisco. US citizenship acquired 4/19/68, sponsor Roberto Marcantonio Calopezzati, SBU//FOUO file reference 48294/AVP/0006

Attached were several official photographs of Newman and a digitalised scan of his fingerprints, taken when he received US citizenship. Zen handed Arnone the documents without comment. The young officer read them through and whistled quietly.

‘Rather changes things, doesn’t it?’ Zen remarked.

The young officer erupted in a loutish, splurging laugh, instantly repressed.

‘In more ways than one.’

Arnone tapped the sheet of paper.

‘Until the land reform acts of the 1950s, the Calopezzati were the richest family in this province and far beyond. They owned half of Calabria.’

The two men eyed one another in silence.

‘Drop whatever you’re doing and get me a certified copy of that birth certificate,’ said Zen.

When Arnone had gone, he rang the consulate in Naples and asked them to explain the significance of the letters SBU/FOUO preceding the file records of Peter Newman’s naturalisation process.

‘Sensitive but unclassified, for official use only,’ came the reply.

‘So I don’t suppose there’s any point in my asking for further details.’

‘FOUO data will also be NOFORN. No foreign nationals. Distribution restricted to US citizens. Sorry we can’t help you.’

‘You already have,’ Zen replied.

Jake and Martin met at SooChic, a Japanese-Peruvian fusion place with accents of the Deep South. The furnishings were 1950s Scandinavian, easy on the eye but hard on the ass. A waitperson showed up and dispensed some intense culinary talk therapy.

‘So?’ said Jake.

‘Yeah,’ said Martin.

Martin Nguyen’s father had been one of the principal torturers for the Diem regime, and his son had inherited the plated face and sinkhole eyes that terrified the living shit out of you even before they cranked up the generator.

‘Basically, we’re solid,’ said Martin. ‘Newman is an independent contractor, totally ring-fenced off from Rapture Works. If he’s been kidnapped, that’s the family’s problem. The son is on his way to Calabria now. Pete knew what he was getting himself into. He’s from there, for Christ’s sake.’

Food came. Jake speared a chunk of sushi and dipped it in the fiery corn porridge puree.

‘Pete Newman?’

Martin nodded.

‘Usual Ellis Island illiteracy, I guess. Pop was probably named Novemano or some damn thing.’

He chomped moodily on his chitterling tamale.

‘I hate Italians.’

‘Foreigners suck,’ Jake remarked.

Martin looked at him sharply. Although he’d lived in the States most of his life, he still felt pretty foreign a lot of the time. Since getting hired by Jake as project manager for the Rapture Works venture, he’d learned how to decode and even speak the idiolect of the city’s software community, where geeks married nerds and the incidence of autism was the highest in the country. Jake wasn’t exactly autistic — mild Asperger’s, maybe — although it had occurred to Martin that he might well fail the CAPTCHA test designed to distinguish between human and artificial intelligence, maybe in both categories. Too dumb to be human, too fucked up to be a machine. But the hard fact was that someone who walked and talked and looked and spoke like Jake was worth more money, right now, up front in cash, than anyone else in the restaurant would earn in his entire lifetime. Including Martin.

‘I mean, to do business with,’ he said. ‘It’s all “Sure, yeah, no problem, you got it” and then no delivery. And they don’t even apologise, just act like you’re a sucker for ever believing they meant what they said in the first place. You need me to go there, Jake. Aeroscan have concluded their installation and set-up and will be ready to roll at eleven this evening our time. The civil authorities have granted them unlimited clearance below a hundred metres.’

Jake gave him one of those looks.

‘Three hundred feet,’ said Martin. ‘Newman said the mayor practically creamed in her pants. Apparently Cosenza is one no-hope town and this is the biggest boost they’ve ever had. I mean, it would be if it was for real.’

He smiled hideously. Jake torqued his lips just a fraction, as if remembering a joke that had seemed funny at the time.

‘So they bought the movie angle?’

Martin reassembled the shards of his face into an orderly pattern.

‘Totally. There’s another city down that way — Matera? An even smaller dump even further off the beaten track. Now it’s jammed with tourist buses, hotels packed to the brim, restaurants gouging to the max, souvenir shops selling out by noon. Know why? Because Mel Gibson filmed The Passion of the Christ there.’

‘Fuck,’ murmured Jake contemplatively.

‘So Pete Newman told the guys in Cosenza, if you think the Crucifixion was big, wait till you see the Apocalypse.’

More food arrived and they ordered another round of Diet Coke with sliced lime. Then the aisle was full of noises. The girl sitting at a table opposite reached for her mobile and started talking her boyfriend through the best route to the restaurant. Martin eyed her appreciatively. His line was that if they were legal they were over the hill. This one looked border-line.