Burolo Construction soon found itself on the verge of bankruptcy, but when Oscar applied to the banks for a line of credit he discovered that he was no longer a favoured client. His letters were mislaid, his calls not turned, the people he had plied with gifts and favours vrere permanently unavailable. Furious and desperate, Oscar had played his last card, contacting Renato Favelloni to demand the protection of 1'onorevole himself. If this was not forthcoming, he warned Favelloni, he would reveal the full extent of their collaboration, including detailed accounts of the payoffs over the Latina prison job and a video tape showing Favelloni himself in an unguarded moment discussing his relationship with various men of power, l'onorevole included. Discussions and negotiations had continued throughout the summer, but according to Enzo this had been a mere delaying tactic which his father's enemies used to gain time in which to prepare their definitive response, which duly came on that fateful day in August, just hours after Renato Favelloni had left the Villa Burolo.
From that moment on, the case against Favelloni developed an irresistible momentum. True, there were stiII those who raised doubts. For example, if the destruction of Burolo's records had been as vital to the success of the conspiracy as the murder of Oscar himself, how was it that the magazine had been able to obtain an uncorrupted copy of one of the most incriminating of the discs?
Even more to the point, why did the killer use a weapon as noisy as a shotgun if he needed time to destroy the records and make good his escape'? But these questions were soon answered. The magazine's information, it was suggested, came not from the original disc but from a copy which the wily Burolo had deposited elsewhere, to be made public in the event of his death. As for the noise factor, there was nothing to show that the discs and videos had not been erased before the killings. Indeed, the metallic crash reproduced on the video recording seemed to strengthen this hypothesis. As for the weapon, this had presumably been chosen with a view to making the crime appear a savage act of casual violence. In short, such details appeared niggling attempts to undermine the case against Renato Favelloni and his masters at Palazzo Sisti, a case which now appeared overwhelming.
Luckily for Zen, the case itself was only peripherally his concern. There was no way he could realistically hope to get Favelloni off the hook. His aim was simply to avoid making powerful and dangerous enemies at Palazzo Sisti, and the best way to do this seemed to be to take a leaf out of Vincenzo Fabri's book. In other words, he had to make it look as if he had done his crooked best to frame Padedda, but that his best just hadn't been good enough.
This wasn't as easy as it sounded. The thing had to be handled very carefully indeed if he was to avoid sending an innocent man to prison and yet convince Palazzo Sisti that he was not a disloyal employee to be ruthlessly disposed of but, like Fabri, a well-meaning sympathizer who was unfortunately not up to the demands of the job. In Rome his prospects of achieving this had appeared extremely dubious, but he was now beginning to feel that he could bring it off. The tide had turned with the arrest of Giuliano Acciari and – yes, why not admit it? – with that lunch with Tania and the embrace with which it had concluded. A fatalist at heart, Zen had learnt from bitter experience that when things weren't going his way there was no point in trying to force them to do so. Now that they were, it would be equal!y foolish not to take advantage of the situation.
He strolled along the street, glancing into shop windows and along the dark alleys that opened off to either side, scanning the features and gestures of the people he met. He felt that he was beginning to get the feel of the place, to sense the possibilities it offered.
Then he saw – or seemed to see – something that brought all his confident reasoning crashing down around him. In an alleyway to the left of the main street, a cul-de-sac filled with plastic rubbish sacks, a few empty oil drums and some building debris, stood a figure holding what looked like a gun.
A moment later it was gone, and a moment after that Zen found himself questioning whether it had ever existed. Don't be absurd, he told himself as he stepped into the ailey, determined to dispel this mirage created by his own overheated imagination. The man who had broken into his house in Rome was safely under arrest, and even if Spadola had taken up his vendetta in person, how could he have tracked his quarry down so quickly?
Zen had had every reason to take the greatest care when collecting the Mercedes ar.d driving it to Civitaveccia. He wasn't thinking of Spadola so much as Vincenzo Fabri and the people at Palazzo Sisti. But he hadn't been followed, he was sure of that.
The alley narrowed to a crevice between the buildings on each side, barely wide enough for one person to pass. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Zen saw that it continued for some distance, dipping steeply, and then turned sharply 1ef't, presumably leading to a street below. There was no sign that anyone had been there recently.
When he heard the footsteps behind him, closing off his escape, he whirled around. For a moment everythiny, seemed to be repeating itself in mirror-image: once again he was faced with a figure holding a gun. But this time the weapon was a stubby submachine-gun, the man was wearing battledress, and there was no doubt about the reality of the experience. At the end of the alley, in the street, stood a blue jeep marked 'Carabinieri'.
'Papers!' the man barked.
Zen reached automatically for his wallet. Then his hand dropped again.
'They took them at the hotel,' he explained, accentuating his northern intonation slightly.
The Carabiniere looked him up and down. 'This isn't the way to the hotel.'
'I know. I was just curious. I'm from Switzerland, you see. By us the towns are more rational built, without these so interesting and picturesque aspects.'
You're overdoing it, he told himself. But the Carabiniere appeared to relax slightly.
'Tourist?' he nodded.
Zen ran through his well-rehearsed spiel, taking care to mention Angelo Confalone several times. The Carabiniere's expression gradually shifted from suspicion to a slightly patronizing complacency. Finally he ushered Zen back to the street.
'All the same,' he said as they reached the jeep, 'it's maybe better not to go exploring too much. There was a case last spring, a couple of German tourists in a camper found shot through the head. They must have stumbled on something they weren't supposed to see. It can happen to anyone, round here. All you need is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.'
The jeep roared away.
I thought their deaths would change everything, but nothing chganged. Night after night I returned, as though next time the sentence might be revoked, the dream broken. In vain. Even here, were the darkness is entire, I knew I was only on parole.
Nothing would ever change that. E was banished, exiled for life into this world of light which divides and pierces, driving its aching distances into us.
Perhaps I had not done enough, I thought. Perhaps a further offering was required, "nother death. But whose? I i'ost myself in futile speculations. There is a power that punishes us, that much seemed clear. Its influence ertends everywhere, pervasive and mysterious, but can it also be influenced? Since we are punished, we must have offended.- Can that offence be redeemed? And so on, endlessly, round and round, dizzying myself in the search for some flaw in the walls that shut me in, that shut me out.
A good butcher doesn't stain the meat, my father used to say, though everything else was stained, clothes and skin and face, as he wrestled the animal to the ground and stuck the long knife into its throat, panting, drenched in blood from head to toe, the pig still twitching. Yet when he strung it up and peeled away the skin, the meat was unblemished. That's all I need be, I thought. A good butcher, calm, patient and indifferent. All I lacked was the chosen victim.