He walked in through the open doorway, acknowledging the greetings of the three uniformed men lounging about in the hall, and climbed the stairs to his office on the first floor. The trio discreetly broke off their conversation until he had reached the landing, then resumed in a low tone. The murmur of their voices reached up through the cool, shadowy spaces of the stairwell like the distant drone of bees.
IV
Tutti due fan ben la low parteHe had been in the office barely a minute when there was a knock at his door.
'Come in!' called Zen, surprised and pleased that his cappuccino had arrived so quickly.
But it was Giovan Battista Caputo who appeared. His manner was unusually subdued.
'Sorry to disturb you, chief. Can I have a word?'
Zen waved his hand wearily 'We had a spot of trouble last night/ Caputo announced, coming in and closing the door.
'Mmm?'
'We've got a couple of warships in at the moment. An American aircraft carrier and a Greek frigate. A group of sailors from the carrier spent the evening in that bar by the passenger terminal.'
Zen nodded. He had visited the place on a brief guided tour of the dock area with Caputo a couple of weeks earlier, the idea being to provide Zen with a bluffer's guide to his new job. The bar in question, he had been given to understand, was operated by the same consortium responsible for the various phantom enterprises which operated from the top floor of the police station, and served among other things as a perfectly legal front allowing prospective clients to be screened before being granted admission to this inner sanctum. It was a poky place which nevertheless managed to provide a splash of life and colour amid the grandiose austerities of the stazione marittima.