Christian made an effort to interrupt the flow of thoughts and, without letting Nicolas see him doing it, took another look at his cell phone. Dumbo still hadn’t read any of his messages …
“… and then I went to visit Aza, at the arsenal. I don’t want to go naked when I go to see Scignaca’, capisci? If that guy finds out I’m in cahoots with the Grimaldis, he’ll kill me. And then he kept calling me, where are you? Fa’ ampress’!, t’aggi’ ’a parlà subito.” Hurry up, I need to talk to you right away. Then Nicolas concluded: “Capisci?” You understand?
He understood, Christian did. And every time that his brother would tell him something and then end the phrase with “capisci?” a shiver ran through him. When Nicolas talked to other people, he only rarely conceded a “capisci?” and the others just had to run to keep up, but it was different with him. And he also understood that Scignacane was a real ballbuster, that in Nisida he’d hooked up with Dumbo for who knows what reason, considering that his friend Dumbo was one of those kids made of clay, the kind you can manipulate but only up to a certain point. Dumbo was a lot smarter than other people gave him credit for, Christian had realized that right away, and he also knew that the only reason he’d even gotten into trouble in the first place was his father, with that plan of his that sounded like a joke. One day he’d showed up at Dentino’s father’s house with an idea of how to screw the Romanians and the Macedonians who were undercutting their salaries and stealing their jobs—because the stroke he’d had might have messed up his leg and his arm, he used to say over and over, but his head worked fine, even better now, in fact. It was a simple plan, all they needed to do was get their boys, i guaglioni, and clear out the Vietri glass factory’s warehouses and steal all the tiles, hold on to them for six months, and then start over. In other words, start their own market. Christian had only heard about the burglary from Dumbo, because deep down Dentino was ashamed of having gotten away and not being sent to Nisida.
The plan had sailed along smoothly until Dumbo’s father got it into his head to pull down one of the heavy stacks of tiles from the metal shelving all by himself. He’d fallen down amid the dull crash of Vietri tiles shattering on the floor, pulling the whole shelf down on top of him. For a few minutes, they’d tried to get him out from under, but it was too heavy for their arms. So Dentino and his father had run away, cutting across the fields, while Dumbo had remained behind, tugging at his father, who was shouting at him to just cut and run.
Nicolas had loosened up now and was no longer talking in choppy, bitten-out phrases, but Christian continued to have a hard time focusing, and he couldn’t understand why. Every word Nicolas spoke was important, you could learn from every phrase, so why did Christian seem to be incapable of listening with the rapt intensity that he’d always devoted to Nicolas’s words in the past? There was something electric in Nicolas’s immobility that didn’t add up for him, something that also scared him a little and made him feel like writhing on the bed. But he had no intention whatsoever of getting up and leaving: even more than the evening he’d first brought the handgun home, at that moment, Nicolas, lying motionless atop the dark blue bedcover dotted with white clouds, seemed as invincible as any superhero. Christian took his hands out from under his head and wiped the sweat on his trousers. The mattress had become an anthill. His body itched all over, but he redoubled his efforts to lie there motionless and concentrated, like his brother.
“He had them search me, and he found my gat—’o fierro—on me right away. I wanted to bring Tucano with me; he might be crazy, but if there’s action, he’s always up for it. Scignacane insisted, I had to come alone, capisci? And then Tucano already wanted to kill everyone, just like Scarface. I get there and Scignacane is already on edge, but if you’re setting a trap, trust me, you need to stay calm and keep your victim calm, that’s when they screw you, when you’re feeling calm. So they find the gat on me, and Scignacane starts getting pissed off, because nobody walks into Don Cesare Acanfora’s house carrying a gat, and he says we’re making money, so why would we think of shooting? And I tell him I have no idea of what might happen and what might not happen, all I know is that I feel better if I can shoot when I need to, capisci? And then he tells me, okay, whatever, and then he pulls out a cell phone that isn’t his because it has all these little fake diamonds on the back, and in fact it belongs to La Zarina, and then he opens WhatsApp and shows me a chat between her and Antonello Petrella.”
Antonello is Dumbo, Christian told himself, that’s Dumbo. The itch at the back of his jaw, right under his ear, had become intolerable. He scratched himself in silence, driving his nails into the flesh in order to be as effective as possible, and out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a movement. Nicolas had pulled his smartphone out of his trouser pocket, and now he was scrolling quickly down the screen with his thumb. A chat. An audio message.
“I recorded it all,” said Nicolas, and then with the forefinger of his other hand, he pushed PLAY.
“So you see? You see?”
“Hold on, give me a second. No, that just can’t be!”
“E poi guarda ccà. Take a look right here. He sent a picture of his dick, to my mamma.”
“But Mammeta—your mamma—is going along with it.”
“My mamma just didn’t know what else to do.”
“Are you saying Mammeta wanted to fuck Dumbo?”
“I don’t know, ho voglia ’e levà a miez’a essa e a isso.” I just feel like killing them both.
“Do it, go find Dumbo and take him down.”
That was his brother’s voice, no doubt. It was Nicolas who had told him to “take him down.” Christian knew it, it was his voice, for sure, and yet at the same time, it didn’t seem like it. How could it have been his voice? He looked over at Nicolas, disoriented, but Nicolas was lying there, his eyes glued to his phone.
“No, we’ve got the Antimafia Squad on our backs because of the Taliban, and we’ve got the Americans after us, too. Non putimmo fà un pezzo per strada così.” We can’t do a piece of work out in the streets just like that.
“Well, so what? Just don’t do anything.”
“Just don’t do anything? Are you saying, that if someone offends Mammeta, you’d do nothing?… You’ve got Dentino in your paranza, he’s Dumbo’s best friend.”
“Yeah, Dentino is practically Dumbo’s brother. But Dumbo works for you, he’s always around here.”
“No, it’s been a while since the last time I saw him. He didn’t come in to get his monthly salary, he won’t answer his phone. Nun se fa vedé cchiù.” I haven’t seen him around. “And I can’t order a full operation with my own soldiers pe ’nu strunzill’accussì.” For a little shit like him.
Without realizing it, Christian had closed his eyes; but he couldn’t close his ears, and he somehow couldn’t open his mouth. He wanted to say that Dumbo was one of them, just like Dentino. It was with Dumbo that he’d smoked his first joint, and Dumbo had let him drive his scooter down in the underground garage at his house. He wanted to say so, but he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt the recording, it would have been like interrupting Nicolas: simply not possible. Also, the way his brother had started that whole line of reasoning hadn’t given him permission to show any emotion, as if the words that were now filling the little bedroom had no value in and of themselves, as if they were simply another chapter in his education: all that counted was for him to listen and learn. And so he listened, he had to listen if he wanted to become like his brother, be up to his level, but still he kept his eyes shut and in his memory he hastened back to the funny faces that Dumbo would make to get him to laugh, to the time he’d taken him to the stadium to see Napoli play Fiorentina, and Dumbo had even let him drink his beer. He could almost taste it on his palate, while his ears continued to follow his brother’s voice but also that other voice, both of them equally unreal.
“Someone needs to get him out into the countryside for me, out beyond San Giovanni. You can’t tell him anythin
g. Just that you’re taking him somewhere, to a party. Get whoever you want. I’m not interested in the details. Then I’ll show up, I’ll ask him a couple of questions, and then I’ll shoot him. Then it’s done. È troppo ’nu scuorno, the shame is too much, this guy’s going around telling everyone he’s fucking my mamma. He sent her a dick pic, can you believe it?”
“But if you kill him like that, then no one will know you killed him. No one will understand the punishment.”
“And no one is supposed to know. He just needs to stop breathing.”
Maraja knew that every death has two faces. The killing and the lesson. Every death belongs half to the dead man and half to the living.
“What if I don’t do it?”
“If you don’t do it, then the business we’re supposed to do together won’t happen, either.”
“But what does our business have to do with a dick pic sent to your mother?”
“’O Maraja, you really are just a kid. If someone disrespects Mammeta then they’ve disrespected you. If someone disrespects Mammeta, then you’re never going to be able to wash that disrespect off your face. It means that they can do whatever they want to you. You’re authorizing them to shit in your face.”
* * *
“You understand, Christian?”
The recording was over. Nicolas put his smartphone back in his pocket, incapable of grasping his little brother’s bewilderment. Christian nodded. Yes, I understand, is what his head conveyed as it bobbed up and down, but the rest of his body said the opposite. And a sort of scream was rising in his throat, but he didn’t even know it was a scream. He could swim in the deep water, and he still didn’t know how to swim. He wanted to shout out that Dumbo was a friend, a brother, a frato, and you can’t just up and kill a frato. He wanted to ask Nicolas if it was right to kill a friend. He’d answered that question himself some time ago, but if Nicolas had agreed to it, then maybe he was right, couldn’t that be? Maybe it is right to kill a friend who makes a mistake. What about Dentino? What did he know about all this? Christian had always been a little jealous of the friendship between Dumbo and Dentino. He’d never be able to compete, and that untimely thought made him blush in shame, and he turned his face to the wall, even if Nicolas wasn’t looking at him. He pulled out his cell phone, and the tabs still hadn’t changed color. He understood, sure enough, that Dumbo had been sentenced to death, and he also understood his brother’s last phrase, his futile attempt to get Scignacane to think straight: Scignacane, who, like everyone Nicolas held in contempt, insisted on mixing blood and business, family and money. Nicolas hated people like him, he wanted to make sure that flesh and family had nothing to do with business. Money’s one thing, your dick is another. Christian just wanted his older brother to tell him that he’d convinced Scignacane that what he was doing was bullshit; he just wanted Dumbo to text him back.
Nicolas changed position, lay on his side, and then dropped back, flat on his spine. He was about to start again, and for a second, Christian was tempted to do something, for instance, to get up and leave, say that he was going to the bathroom. He didn’t have any exact words in mind, but his legs were ready to snap and lunge. He had the hands he now held stuck into his pockets; he didn’t have words but he did already know what to tell him, namely that to him Dumbo was—is, he forced himself to think—more than a friend, another brother, who unlike Nicolas would allow his stories to be interrupted. And after that, he would also tell him that Dumbo had caused trouble for the paranza and so he knew that he had to be punished. Did he have to be punished? He had to be punished. He repeated the word punished and it ricocheted in all directions like a superball. Like the yellow superball that Papà had bought him at the stationery shop when he was still in elementary school. Punished. Dumbo. Enough is enough. But how long had all that silence been going on? Now I’ll say something, thought Christian, but once again his voice failed him. And at that point, Nicolas started up again: “Scignacane started to threaten me: ‘Oh, that’s it. If my father, ’o Negus, were here, he’d have already killed you because you know him, because he’s a buddy of yours. But I’m not him, nun teng’e ppalle che teneva pàtemo—I don’t have the balls my daddy had—and so you might be bringing in good money, but if you won’t do this thing for me, you can forget about my heroin, you can just go back to selling hash and coke and that’s that. Actually, what’s more, I’ll even tell the Palmas in Giugliano that the heroin they thought they were getting on an exclusive basis, you’re buying, too, accussì non tengo manc’ ’o bisogno ’e te frullà, te mettono lloro int’ ’o frullatore.’ That way I won’t have to put you in the blender, they’ll do it for me. He’d made up his mind. And I asked him how we were supposed to get organized to do this thing. He told me he’d let me know. That we were going to have to throw this party.”
He hadn’t said “capisci?” and that was the signal for Christian that the conversation was over. They lay there in silence for a while, listening to the noises in the rest of the apartment house, the sound of flushing from the neighboring apartments, the voices of other families. Then Nicolas slid off the bed, picked up his shoes, and without another word shut the door behind him.
* * *
Three days later it was Dentino who texted Christian, he had to see him right away. He was worried about Dumbo. Nobody had seen him in days and now his parents were going out of their minds. They had even come over to Dentino’s house, but all he’d been able to say was: “I can’t find him, either. I don’t know—nun saccio—what’s become of him.”
“The last time I saw him he turned and waved, they’d come to pick him up on a motor scooter,” his mother had murmured, struggling to reconstruct events.
“Signora, you need to try to remember who it was that came to pick him up.”
He’d started showing her a few photos on Facebook and then some videos with the guaglioni of the paranza, and now he was on Instagram. But the signora didn’t recognize anyone. “I can feel it, something’s happened to him…”
“Why no, why would you say such a thing?” Dentino had replied.
“Because Antonello has never been a boy who doesn’t call home if he’s staying out. Something must have happened to him. He’d surely have told you if he had to stay out for some reason, if something was happening, if he was so afraid that he had to go into hiding…”
“Into hiding from who?”
The mother had looked at him: “Wait, do you think I don’t know what all you kids do?”
“Eh, what is it you think we do, Signo’?”
“I know that you work…”
Dentino didn’t let her finish the sentence: “Sure, we work. And that’s that.”
Dumbo’s father hadn’t said a word, he just looked at the telephone, undecided as to whether he should call the police. “Don’t call anyone, take my advice,” Dentino had told them, adding: “I’ll find Antonello for you. You know he’s like a brother to me.”
The parents hadn’t replied and Dentino knew he only had a few hours’ head start before they called the cops. He asked everyone he knew, and they all swore to him that they hadn’t heard anything. Vanished. Dentino left Christian for last. That was his last best hope because, if he knew nothing, either, then there was nothing to be done for Dumbo.
Christian listened to this story in silence, too, and when Dentino was done, he said that he didn’t know anything about it. He showed him the messages he’d continued to send him, texts that Dumbo would never read. So Dentino gave his small, motionless, slightly rigid body a hug, and promised Christian that he’d send him news soon. And for an instant, Christian found himself hoping that the news might be good.
* * *
In the days that followed, Dumbo’s mother went to the police and reported him as a missing person. That very same evening the online news sites started talking about it. The phrase lupara bianca began to appear—a phrase used by newspapermen to indicate a murder where the body would never be found—though it meant nothing
to the boys in the paranza. On the fourth day of searching, Dentino got a text from White: “They told me to look in ’o Bronx,” the Bronx area of San Giovanni a Teduccio. The territory of the Acanfora clan.
Dentino tried to get more information out of him, but White wouldn’t say anything more. Dentino went straight to ’o Bronx. He searched and searched. He was tempted to shout out his name, but nothing turned up. So he started going into bars: “Guagliu’, have you seen Dumbo?” and he showed pictures around on his cell phone. “No. Nothing. We don’t know him. Who is he, anyway? From around here?”
Until La Koala, Dentino’s girlfriend, wrote him on WhatsApp: “They told me that the last time anyone had seen Dumbitiello was in ’o Bronx, at La Vigna … where the old farmhouse used to be, where they graze sheep now.” He knew exactly where she meant. He’d gone there a thousand times to chug vodka and smoke crack out of a glass pipe. He headed toward the tumbledown farmhouse. It was still daylight. He found nothing. He just hoped that maybe they’d tied Dumbo up, that they’d punished him by tying him to a tree. No such luck. As he walked along, his feet sank into the dirt. And he understood that someone had dug there recently. It had been four days and it hadn’t rained once. “Oh, Madonna mia. Madonna mia. No, no!”
He started digging with his hands. He dug and dug. The dirt burrowed under his fingernails, it raised them up, it wound up in his mouth, it clung to his body because he was starting to sweat. A young girl asked him: “Hey, what are you finding? What are you doing?”
He turned around. “Do you have a shovel?”
She turned around and walked into this sort of ramshackle sheepfold, found a spade, and Dentino started to dig and dig, until he hit something. He stopped using the shovel, afraid he’d tear up the corpse, and went back to digging with his hands.
The Piranhas, The Boy Bosses of Naples Page 35
