Miletti was pointing across the street.
‘My car’s over there.’
Palottino saved him. The Neapolitan had parked the Alfetta right in front of the hotel, practically blocking the entrance, and was now leaning in a nonchalantly heroic posture on the driving door, receiving the homage of the passers-by. As he caught sight of the superior from whom flowed his power to flaunt, dazzle and ignore the parking regulations, he snapped smartly to attention.
‘And mine’s right here,’ Zen replied.
‘No, no, dottore,’ Silvio Miletti insisted fussily. ‘You’re travelling with me. That’s why I’ve come, after all.’
‘Signor Miletti, my driver gets so little work he’s almost going crazy as it is. But if you would permit me to offer you …’
‘No, no, I insist!’
‘So do I.’
Zen softened the words with a pale smile, but there was nothing soft about his tone.
Silvio Miletti sighed massively.
‘As you wish, dottore, as you wish. Perhaps you would have the goodness to wait just one moment, however, if it’s not too much to ask.’
He walked across the street to a large blue Fiat saloon and spoke to someone inside. Zen stood watching, his brief triumph draining away. He had not only been rude, he had been uselessly rude. His petty insistence had demonstrated his weakness, not his strength. I’ve lost my touch, he thought bleakly. Then the blue saloon drove off and Zen saw that the driver was a woman. That made it perfect. He had succeeded in insulting not only Silvio Miletti but also his fiancée.
‘I didn’t realize you were with someone,’ he remarked as the two men took their places in the back of the Alfetta.
Silvio Miletti shrugged.
‘It’s only my secretary. I don’t drive.’
They followed the blue Fiat through a wedge-shaped piazza and down a steeply curving street. At the bottom it turned sharp right and disappeared through a narrow archway. Numerous scratches on the brickwork showed where drivers had misjudged the clearance, but Palottino revved up and took it like a lion going through a blazing hoop, almost crushing two pedestrians in the process.
Out of the corner of his eye Zen studied Silvio Miletti. Close to, Ruggiero’s second son looked like an overweight ghost, at once insubstantial and corpulent. His features, which might have been strong and full of character, had sagged like paint applied too thickly. He was sturdily built, yet gave an impression not of vitality but of enormous lethargy, of a weary disgust with everything and everyone, like a man who has never reconciled himself to what he sees in the mirror every morning. His gestures were oddly prim and fussy for such a lumbering frame, and his voice was high and slightly querulous, with an underlying whine of self-pity.
As suddenly as in a medieval fresco, the city ended and the countryside began. One moment they were driving down a densely inhabited street, the next they were on a country road that dropped so steeply Zen felt his ears aching. A yellow sign flashed by: ‘All vehicles using this road from 1 November to 31 March must carry snow-chains on board’. Palottino kept the Alfetta tucked tightly in behind the slowly moving Fiat, like a dog worrying a sheep.
‘Tell me, when did the kidnappers last make contact?’
Zen dropped the question idly, just to test the water.
‘The negotiations are being handled by Avvocato Valesio.’
Silvio Miletti’s tone was so uncompromising that Zen asked himself why he had agreed to be present in the first place.
‘Presumably he keeps you informed.’
‘No doubt he tells us everything he feels we should know,’ Miletti replied with a fastidious quiver, rearranging the folds of his coat. ‘On the other hand he fully understands how difficult this experience is for us, and I’m sure that he would avoid distressing us unnecessarily.’
He made it quite clear that the negotiator’s tact and consideration could well serve as a model to other less thoughtful
‘My car’s over there.’
Palottino saved him. The Neapolitan had parked the Alfetta right in front of the hotel, practically blocking the entrance, and was now leaning in a nonchalantly heroic posture on the driving door, receiving the homage of the passers-by. As he caught sight of the superior from whom flowed his power to flaunt, dazzle and ignore the parking regulations, he snapped smartly to attention.
‘And mine’s right here,’ Zen replied.
‘No, no, dottore,’ Silvio Miletti insisted fussily. ‘You’re travelling with me. That’s why I’ve come, after all.’
‘Signor Miletti, my driver gets so little work he’s almost going crazy as it is. But if you would permit me to offer you …’
‘No, no, I insist!’
‘So do I.’
Zen softened the words with a pale smile, but there was nothing soft about his tone.
Silvio Miletti sighed massively.
‘As you wish, dottore, as you wish. Perhaps you would have the goodness to wait just one moment, however, if it’s not too much to ask.’
He walked across the street to a large blue Fiat saloon and spoke to someone inside. Zen stood watching, his brief triumph draining away. He had not only been rude, he had been uselessly rude. His petty insistence had demonstrated his weakness, not his strength. I’ve lost my touch, he thought bleakly. Then the blue saloon drove off and Zen saw that the driver was a woman. That made it perfect. He had succeeded in insulting not only Silvio Miletti but also his fiancée.
‘I didn’t realize you were with someone,’ he remarked as the two men took their places in the back of the Alfetta.
Silvio Miletti shrugged.
‘It’s only my secretary. I don’t drive.’
They followed the blue Fiat through a wedge-shaped piazza and down a steeply curving street. At the bottom it turned sharp right and disappeared through a narrow archway. Numerous scratches on the brickwork showed where drivers had misjudged the clearance, but Palottino revved up and took it like a lion going through a blazing hoop, almost crushing two pedestrians in the process.
Out of the corner of his eye Zen studied Silvio Miletti. Close to, Ruggiero’s second son looked like an overweight ghost, at once insubstantial and corpulent. His features, which might have been strong and full of character, had sagged like paint applied too thickly. He was sturdily built, yet gave an impression not of vitality but of enormous lethargy, of a weary disgust with everything and everyone, like a man who has never reconciled himself to what he sees in the mirror every morning. His gestures were oddly prim and fussy for such a lumbering frame, and his voice was high and slightly querulous, with an underlying whine of self-pity.
As suddenly as in a medieval fresco, the city ended and the countryside began. One moment they were driving down a densely inhabited street, the next they were on a country road that dropped so steeply Zen felt his ears aching. A yellow sign flashed by: ‘All vehicles using this road from 1 November to 31 March must carry snow-chains on board’. Palottino kept the Alfetta tucked tightly in behind the slowly moving Fiat, like a dog worrying a sheep.
‘Tell me, when did the kidnappers last make contact?’
Zen dropped the question idly, just to test the water.
‘The negotiations are being handled by Avvocato Valesio.’
Silvio Miletti’s tone was so uncompromising that Zen asked himself why he had agreed to be present in the first place.
‘Presumably he keeps you informed.’
‘No doubt he tells us everything he feels we should know,’ Miletti replied with a fastidious quiver, rearranging the folds of his coat. ‘On the other hand he fully understands how difficult this experience is for us, and I’m sure that he would avoid distressing us unnecessarily.’
He made it quite clear that the negotiator’s tact and consideration could well serve as a model to other less thoughtful
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