And Then You Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

automatically sounded in his brain, and carried on towards the invisible strip of streets where Augusto’s was situated. He had to learn to become an ordinary civilian again, he told himself. The days of danger and glory were over. No one was trying to kill him, no one was even interested in his existence except as a token witness at a foreign trial, flown in like a consignment of truffles or rare wine, a luxury import to impress the locals and make the old country look good. Nevertheless, he counted off another thirty metres, and then dropped his bunch of keys. Retrieving them, he noted that the other walker had also made a left turn at the parting of the ways.
    For a moment, he was half inclined to force a confrontation and find out who the man was, but then it occurred to him that it might well be one of those whom he’d been told would be ‘ keeping an eye on him’. If so, that would be unprofessional and an embarrassment for all concerned. And if not, it would break the cardinal rule of his existence here in Versilia, which was not to draw attention to himself. In the end he decided to do nothing, but he lengthened his stride as much as possible, eager to see the bright lights and crowded streets again.
    He was looking forward to his dinner with Gemma, even though he knew hardly anything about her. In the long wearisome months since the ‘incident’ and the death of his mother, he had been alone almost the whole time, apart of course from the purely professional and usually painful attentions of doctors, nurses, policemen and bureaucrats. However the evening turned out, it would be a welcome change from all that. And if he knew nothing about Gemma, she knew even less about him. Almost everything he’d told her during their very brief exchanges had necessarily been a lie. He reminded himself that he was going to have to keep that up during the whole of the time they were together, adding new details where called for, but such as were consistent with what Gemma already knew. Maybe it wasn’t going to be such a relaxing evening after all.
    At last the gateway at the south-western edge of the former estate appeared in the gloom up ahead. This time, Zen risked an unmotivated glance behind. The man who had been there was nowhere to be seen, but they had passed many minor paths off through the undergrowth to either side, any one of which he might have taken. A moment later Zen had crossed another of the drainage canals, and was out in the streets leading down to the sea.
    Da Augusto , as its folksy name suggested, looked like a perfectly ordinary fish restaurant anywhere from one end of the Versilia resort coastline to the other. It consisted of a nondescript two-storey building on a back street three blocks inland from the lun gomare , with a glass extension jutting out to the kerb at the front and a garden area with a retractable awning at the rear. There was nothing to suggest that it was anything other than a reasonably decent eatery serving reasonably fresh fish cooked reasonably well at a more or less reasonable price. It was only when you tried to get a table that it became apparent that there was rather more to it than that.
    The distinction was based not so much on the food, which was at best a notch or so above many other places in the area, as on the restaurant’s unchallenged pedigree as the chosen haunt of almost every Italian political and show business personality of the last half century, many of whose personally inscribed photographs lined the walls. What had happened off camera was reputedlystill more interesting. That table in the corner, according to some, was where Anita Ekberg was being entertained by Marcello Mastroianni on the memorable evening when she bent down to retrieve something from her handbag, causing her unsupported right breast to tumble out of her dress. According to others, that one over there, against the wall, was where Giulio Andreotti and a group of his closest allies had decided