Michael Dibdin - End games

‘ Ho capito.’

‘Excellent. Then I think we can dispense with our translator’s services.’

He turned to Tom.

‘Run along and keep my chauffeur company. There’s a couple of matters I need to discuss privately with Signor Mantega.’

‘But you don’t speak Italian, Mr Nguyen.’

‘ Hablo il denaro. I speak money, kid. It’s a universal language. Beat it.’

Once they were alone, he and Mantega got along famously. It even turned out that the pudgy wop spoke some English. They concluded the deal in twenty minutes, after which Martin went off to the washroom for a lengthy pee during which he called Jake.

‘It’s down to the price and delivery,’ he said.

‘No way!’

‘So they say. We’ll find out tomorrow. Only I’m worried about the price, Jake. I mean strictly speaking this stuff is priceless.’

‘It’s worthless?’

‘It’s invaluable.’

‘It has no value?’

‘No, like no one knows what the market price is because there’s never been any market. I’ll jew them down as much as I can, but from what I’m hearing it looks like we’re talking seven figures. Maybe one and a half, two?’

‘Wow, you don’t know what this means to me!’

Martin Nguyen adjusted his dress before leaving.

‘I think I’ve got a pretty good idea what it’s going to mean to you,’ he said.

‘Congratulations on your demotion!’ Giovanni Sforza cried as Zen passed him in the corridor on the way back to his office.

‘What demotion?’

‘My spies tell me that the word in the bazaars and coffee houses is that Gaetano’s foot has been declassified from the list of species at risk of extinction. He’ll be taking over here on Monday, so prepare to be forcibly retired to your home in Tuscany. Beato te! Only wish I had your luck.’

‘Who’s Gaetano?’

‘Why, the man you’ve been standing in for! The silly ass who blew one of his toes off while fiddling around with the service revolver he hadn’t used in thirty years. Sometime chief of police in Catanzaro and now appointed Supreme Czar of all the Cosenzas, in which position he will no doubt wield the knout with a vengeance. Gaetano will wrap up that murder case that’s been baffling you in a matter of days. No disgrace for you, Aurelio. Down here it’s not who you are that counts, it’s who you know.’

With a twinkly smile, the bergamasco vanished into his office while Zen stomped back to his. As he crossed the open-plan area in the centre of the building, Natale Arnone emerged from one of the cubicles.

‘Ah, there you are, sir! It looks as though things are finally starting to move. Instead of going straight to his office this morning, Nicola Mantega drove to the square by the bus station and took a large cardboard box into Fratelli Girimonti. He was inside just a few minutes, then proceeded to a residential building facing Piazza del Duomo up in the old centre, where he delivered an envelope to the mailbox of an apartment owned by Achille Pancrazi, Professor of Ancient History at the university. Further enquiries revealed that Professor Pancrazi left yesterday on a flight for Milan, accompanied by his teenage son Emanuele, and has not yet returned.’

Zen lit a cigarette, as much for the symbolic warmth it represented as for the nicotine it contained. The Questura’s air-conditioning system had now been raised from the dead, so instead of his office being as sweatily airless as one of those containers in which illegal immigrants were found from time to time, it resembled the cold hold in a frozen-vegetable factory.

‘We’ll need to have a word with the professor at some point,’ Zen remarked, ‘but there’s no hurry. What did our Nicola do after that?’

‘He phoned the Americans and proposed lunch in a restaurant at San Lucido, on the coast just outside Paola.’

‘He used the phone we gave him?’

‘Yes. He appears to be co-operating in that respect.’

‘“Appears” may well be the operative word, Arnone.’

‘He and the two Americans, Signor Manchu and young Tommaso, proceeded to the restaurant, where they remained for approximately ninety minutes. Unfortunately the nature of the situation was such that it proved impossible for our surveillance team to record the conversation without the risk of disclosing their own presence.’

‘But Mantega presumably called in to report on these developments, as per the terms of his conditional release.’

‘No, sir.’

A bomb exploded overhead, leaving their ears ringing and Zen’s office sunk in near-darkness as the electricity went out.

‘ Gesu Giuseppe e Maria cacciati a jettatura e ra casa mia,’ muttered Natale Arnone, making not the sign of the cross but the two-fingered gesture to ward off evil.

‘What did Mantega do next?’ Zen asked casually.

‘He… he, er, proceeded…’

‘Can’t you just say “went”, Arnone? You’re not in court, you know.’

‘Sorry, sir. He went to a village called Grimaldi, about twenty kilometres south of here, where he visited a famous goldsmith, Michele Biafora. His work has been displayed in Naples, even in Rome. Madonna, che pioggia! It never used to rain like this.’

‘Why did he go there?’

‘We don’t know. Mantega hasn’t reported in, and once again our people couldn’t get close enough to observe the encounter. But we could easily pull Biafora in and question him directly.’

‘No, no. This is not an operation that can be performed incrementally. When the time comes, it will be all or nothing. Afterwards we can pick up the pieces, such as il professore and this goldsmith, at our leisure.’

They stood in silence for a moment, during which a dim, sickly, fuddled light made itself apparent in the room.

‘Ah, they’ve got the emergency generator working!’ Arnone cried with some pride.

‘Sort of,’ Zen replied. ‘Where’s Mantega now?’

‘Back at his office. Oh, one more thing. He also called young Newman, but not on his dedicated phone. He stopped at a service station on the autostrada and used a payphone. We picked up the intercept on Newman’s phone.’

Another series of spectacular rumbles stunned their ears, as if the remaining weakened masonry from the shattered dam were now tumbling down into the flooded valley below.

‘He asked what Tommaso was doing this evening,’ Arnone added.

‘Did he say why?’

‘No, and the American didn’t ask. He told Mantega that he would be spending the evening with his girlfriend. That’s the Digos agent you assigned to that task, Mirella Kodra.’

Zen noted the look on Arnone’s face.

‘Are you jealous?’ he enquired with a hint of malice.

‘No, no! Those Digos girls turn up their noses at ordinary cops like me. Besides, with a name like that she must be from one of the Albanian communities here. Those people are weird. It would never work out.’

He stifled a laugh.

‘Apparently that guy she teams up with when they need a young couple is openly gay. I heard he stuck his tongue in her mouth during one of their fake clinches. Mirella spat in his face and told him to go and ram a gerbil up his boyfriend’s arse!’

Arnone burst into further laughter, from the belly this time, then froze.

‘Sorry, sir. Don’t know what came over me.’

Zen had a pretty good idea, but did not comment on this aspect of the matter.

‘Very good, Arnone. Now then, I need to trace all persons by the name of Fardella or some dialect version thereof who were either born or have ever been resident in San Giovanni in Fiore. Check our own records, then get on to the town council. But discreetly. Make it sound like a routine bureaucratic enquiry of some urgency but no real significance. Report back as soon as possible.’