“I think it was Turrisi.”
“Oh, leave me alone. Why the fuck do you think he would kill a commissioner for culture? It’s out of the question.”
Carmine’s about to say something, but stops. He starts up again. “But Betty, they did kill him.”
“Yeah, I know, I know. I was there too.”
“But,” says Carmine, all serious, “is it about that thing, the oil?”
“Who are you, the Anti-Mafia Commission? What the fuck does a culture commissioner for the province of Catania have to do with oil in the province of Siracusa?”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly,” says Betty, nodding.
“Unless, I don’t know, they did it to spite him?”
“The commissioner? Shit, that’s spite, all right. If they wanted to spite him they certainly succeeded.”
“No, to spite your father.”
“The commissioner wanted to spite my father?”
“No, Turrisi.”
“The commissioner had himself shot to spite Turrisi?”
Fuck if a person could become Betty just by being born to Riddu the Cement-Mixer and Wanda, thinks Carmine. Maybe Riddu the Cement-Mixer and Wanda had become that way as a result of bringing Betty into the world.
“Go fuck yourself.” Carmine lies down and picks up the paper to signal that the friendship is cold.
He turns the pages noisily.
“Carmine …”
“What’s up? It’s bothering you that I’m reading the paper? The sound of my thoughts irritates you? What do you want?”
Betty, very serious, says, “You think he did it for me?”
CHAPTER THREE
But Have You Read the Paper?
“But have you read the paper?” shouts Timpanaro.
Why is Timpanaro shouting? thinks Cagnotto.
They’re in the kitchen and Cagnotto is making coffee.
Why am I making him coffee? thinks Cagnotto.
Oh, right, because I’m gay and like all depressed gay guys I get attacks of compassion. Making coffee for Timpanaro must have unconsciously appealed to me as an activity both useful and appropriately mortifying. “Better to make coffee than to sell my body in Piazza Grenoble,” says Cagnotto to Timpanaro.
“Huh?”
Cagnotto bites his tongue. The tranquilizer mixed with the antidepressant, mixed with alcohol, mixed with sleep deprivation, makes it hard for him to distinguish what he’s thinking from what he’s saying, Cagnotto thinks.
“Look, look at this,” says Timpanaro, all excited and luckily deep in his own thoughts. Timpanaro, when mixed with Timpanaro, has trouble distinguishing what he’s listening to from what he’s saying, thinks Cagnotto.
Cagnotto turns around.
Timpanaro has a copy of La Voce della Sicilia in two hands, the entire front page a photo of Falsaperla sitting in the amphitheater, his head tipped back, his eyes toward the heavens. Pirronello must have worked on that photo from top to bottom, the reinforced concrete amphitheater that spreads out behind Commissioner Falsaperla like a peacock’s tail. All that was left to do was a digital tweaking of the cloudy sky, to get a nice pinky-blue with clouds like balls of cotton. Ever since Pirronello had published, in the weekly magazine of a national daily, a photo of a film producer from Enna become a cadaver flung out on a cocktail table at a party at the Taormina film festival between little umbrellas of colored paper and stuffed olives stuck with flags from around the world because the festival was supposed to be international (the bartender, next to the ear of the dead man, had positioned a shaker with the logo of a famous rum), ever since then Pirronello had been a tiny bit fixated on these artistic photos.
Above the photo, a six-column headline reads:
SNUFFED OUT BY A SNIPER
Cagnotto moans.
He bends over.
He moans again.
“Cagnotto, are you all right?”
Cagnotto goes no with his head.
Cagnotto yelps.
“Just a minute.”
Cagnotto goes no, no with his head, as if to say, Get rid of that newspaper.
Timpanaro opens the paper to page two and says, “You see here, on page two, are the various hypotheses about the bullet’s trajectory.”
“Ow!” Cagnotto puts a hand to his kidneys.
“ … Falsaperla had no enemies …”
“My … stomach.” Cagnotto grabs his stomach with both hands.
“ … then there’s a brief account of the commissioner’s career … Cagnotto, are you all right?”
“No, um, my head!” Cagnotto poses a hand on his brow.
“You probably got a chill yesterday … wait … page three, the diagram … see what nice graphics they have?”
Cagnotto leans on the washbasin, opens the faucet, and sticks his head under.
“Good, good, get your head wet … fuck, there’s a beautiful diagram of the amphitheater with a dotted line that shows the trajectory of the bullet and the place they think the killer …”
“Oh, help …”
“ … where the killer was, and there’s a blowup of the weapon, you see it here in the circle? A precision rifle, shit, beautiful … and the killer with his mirror glasses … where do they get these graphic artists? And then, wait”—Timpanaro turns the page—“here it is, page four.”
Cagnotto rises from the washbasin, looks for something to dry off with, finds a floor rag, and dries his forehead and his neck.
“Cagnotto’s Shakespeare!”
Cagnotto stops patting his forehead with the rag.
“What does the subhead say?”
Cagnotto doesn’t move a muscle.
“The drama within the drama.”
Cagnotto swings around, heads for the refrigerator, opens it, gets some ice, puts it in the rag, and holds it over his wrists first, and then his brow.
“Shall I read you the pull-quote?”
Cagnotto goes no, no with his head.
Timpanaro goes yes, yes. “A hit in the making, felled before it could come to life.”
Cagnotto leans toward the washbasin and vomits.
“What, did you eat shellfish? It’s too hot for shellfish. And that’s not all! There’s a box about Caporeale, a box about Cosentino, and a box about Lambertini, the box about Lambertini is the biggest one, that’s good, that’s what we want. But the best part is the think piece.”
Cagnotto stares with disgust at the little fragments of vomit in the sink.
“Thoughts by Giuseppe Zerbino! The biggest byline in La Voce della Sicilia. Shall I read you the whole thing or just the highlights?”
“Ghlights.”
“‘What can we expect from a Sicily that has forgotten its roots, its love for the theater, from the ancient Greeks to Pirandello to the latest generation of artists who perpetuate these very Sicilian traditions? The possible outcomes are three. Sicily will throw itself into an analysis of the Mafia, of the kind which so often has made it impossible to identify the real villains, and will abandon Cagnotto’s Shakespeare to its sad destiny. A director marked forever by this tragedy …’”
“I got it, Timpanaro, thank you, that’s enough. Please, have a coffee.”
“There are two other possible outcomes.”
“That’s fine, never mind.”
“Are you nuts? Listen to this: ‘Or will Sicily reflect on the actors, the jobs, the financial resources that every year the region invests in theatrical productions, which in turn generate additional jobs? Will we be able to distinguish, as is to be hoped, the inquest for homicide from the stage play, so that this work so dramatically interrupted can return to the stage?’”
Cagnotto moves toward Timpanaro and takes a peek at the newspaper.
“What, so is Lambertini also going to bed with Zerbino?”
“Understand, Cagnotto? This thing is gold. You need an impresario! Forget about the commissioners, forget about sponsorship, with this article you’ll have no trouble getting theater space. Ze
rbino says so in the newspaper.”
“And what’s the third possible outcome?”
Timpanaro looks at the paper, folds it, and puts it in his jacket pocket.
“That was the third.”
“And the second?”
“Right, the second was that they would lose all the jobs.”
“And the first?”
Timpanaro looks at a basket of fruit.
“Timpanaro, give me the newspaper.”
“Forget the fine distinctions, Cagnotto. Leave this to me, I know the business.”
“Timpanaro, give me the newspaper.”
Timpanaro pulls the paper out of his pocket and hands it to Cagnotto without taking his eyes off the basket of fruit.
Cagnotto sees once more the front-page photo of the commissioner and bites his lip, feeling a sharp stab in his gallbladder.
He pages through the paper rapidly, looking for Zerbino’s article.
“‘The third possible outcome is that which no one can hope for. A commitment from the region not to abandon one of its cultural projects would be ill repaid if, as it is reasonable to fear, the terrible episode should be repeated.’”
CHAPTER FOUR
Pietroburger Is Crowded with Female Salesclerks
Pietroburger is crowded with female salesclerks.
The salesclerks, Pietro gives them a salesclerk discount, because they’re working girls, he says.
The truth is that the salesclerks serve as poster girls for Pietroburger, but this he doesn’t let them know, because he’d have to pay them as poster girls and that would be expensive.
Pietroburger is parked in Piazza Europa, next to San Giovanni li Cuti. Between Pietroburger and the sea there are only a few volcanic rocks on which, in the summertime, they put up a sundeck for the use of the citizens. (This one in Piazza Europa is free and doesn’t have any palm trees or wicker chairs under umbrellas.)
Pietroburger is a van customized as a sandwich shop that brought the first historic hamburgers and hot dogs to Catania. Pietro had parked it there back in the days when, if you wanted a sandwich, you had to go into the likes of the salumeria owned by Signorina Quattrocchi.
The salesclerks in the shops on Corso Italia, at lunchtime, go sit in the sun at San Giovanni li Cuti and get a tan so that by night, in the discotheque, you can’t see that they have a job. (In Sicily even today in some places, women who work are talked about behind their backs and nobody wants to marry them because working girls keep bad company.)
If you go to Pietroburger at two in the afternoon, when you’d expect a crowd of salesclerks, you won’t find anyone. The salesclerks go down to sit in the sun and diet, so they will not only tan, but lose weight. However, at 3:45, before returning to work, they pass by Pietroburger on their scooters and catch the scent of the hot dogs, the piping-hot eggplant parmigiana, the fried peppers, the caponata, the mushrooms with mayonnaise and peperoncino, the onion frittata, the tuna with onions, and they park their scooters and put off their diets until tomorrow.
At 3:45 it’s party time at Pietroburger: along with groups of brothers’ cousins, sons-in-law’s boyfriends, godfathers’ daughters-in-law, and assorted godmothers, there are groups of salesclerks, dirty dancers married to killers, muggers on the arms of future actresses, ex-PR agents turned cocaine dealers, owners of convertibles acquired in auto leasing because they are sales representatives of mysterious clothing firms, bartenders on their day off, and fences for stolen property on parole.
On the day Pietroburger was inaugurated in the faraway 1980s, Pietro, keeping in mind that his was an American novelty, something you had just begun to see in the soap operas, had decided to dress up like Elvis Presley. At first it was just a whim, because people in kitchens wore white and to Pietro, the white, late-model Elvis costume seemed perfect for the type of American cuisine he wanted to propose to the public. Later, he really got into it. The inauguration day had been a huge success; a police car drove by twice, there was so much pushing and shoving. Pietro was happy because people were having fun. He decided that the Elvis suit brought good luck, and so he dedicated himself to the look, with a new pair of sideburns and a forelock, and he tossed out the old black loafers in favor of white boots with mirror studs, and the word PIETROBURGER spelled out in Broadway-style flashing lights.
Mister Turrisi’s Aston Martin appears, laying rubber as it navigates the roundabout, the squeal of the wheels, as ever, wafting down a deserted Corso Italia.
Pietro looks up, cocks an ear, and goes back to looking at his magazine. Par for the course. Mister Turrisi always lays rubber when he gets to the roundabout; he’s fixated, Turrisi, with his right-hand drive.
Now Turrisi heads up the far side of the street, at the end of which there’s another roundabout. Turrisi has to go around the second roundabout so that he can drive back down and park in front of Pietroburger.
Squeal.
Sound of echo.
At the second squeal Pietro, as always, gets up from the cash register and goes to meet Turrisi, bounding down the three metal stairs and causing Pietroburger to tremble all over.
Turrisi’s Aston Martin flies right past him, continuing down the street at high speed.
Pietro’s Elvis-head follows the car, bewildered: Why didn’t Turrisi stop? At the least, when he’s in a hurry, he’ll say something from the window without getting out of the car (and of course he has the wheel on the sidewalk side).
Turrisi takes the first roundabout once again.
This time the car’s back end skids and Pietro thinks he even sees Turrisi turn the wheel into the skid.
Then he comes up the far side of the street once again, faster than ever, spins around the second roundabout, and finally stops in front of Pietroburger, slamming on the brakes without the least regard for his tires.
Mister Turrisi gets calmly out of the car, adjusting his hair.
“Who was it? What happened?” says Pietro in alarm, looking around to see if maybe someone is plotting a fistfight or, who knows, a murder attempt or a chase scene, it wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened at Pietroburger.
Turrisi looks in the same direction that Pietro is looking. There’s the statue in Piazza Europa, a mermaid, topless, with a slithery fish tail and her face turned up toward the sky in a spastic pose.
Pietro looks at Turrisi.
He looks calm, as if nothing has happened.
“Nothing. Why, what’s up?” Turrisi asks Pietro.
“Um …”
Turrisi turns around. Piazza Europa is empty.
Lunchtime silence.
The only noise you can hear is the heat.
Pietro goes who knows? with his face. He asks, “Do you want to sit down?”
“Certainly!”
Pietro steps back to let Turrisi go ahead, indicating after you with his head, while with one eye he inspects the Aston Martin, parked a little bit crooked.
Hey.
Turrisi walks stiffly toward the VIP corner, a metal table with metal chairs positioned under an umbrella and surrounded by a plastic chain like they set up when they do roadwork. Inside the area protected by the chain is a patch of Astroturf, and on the Astroturf are some plastic flowers. From time to time Pietro sprays them with water to get a dewy effect. At night, hidden among the flowers, colored disco lights glitter.
Pietro hurries forward to unhitch the chain.
Turrisi enters the VIP zone, drags a chair out of the shadow under the umbrella, and inspects it carefully in the sunlight to see if it’s dirty. He nods, replaces the seat under the umbrella, and sits down. Pietro, those chairs in the VIP zone, he polishes them with Windex every day.
Pietro closes the chain, even though there’s not a soul around. He sits down next to Turrisi with a conspiratorial air. Last night, after Commissioner Falsaperla had been snuffed out, Turrisi had been dead silent. Pietro had tried to ask him something and Turrisi had indicated he’d better stay dead silent himself. Now Pietro is really curious t
o know what the fuck is going on.
“Something to eat or drink?”
“No, thanks, I’m in a foul mood.”
“I could tell by the way you were driving.”
“Why, how was I driving?”
Pietro raises the index finger of his right hand and he screws it around in the air imitating the double circuit of the Aston Martin, fast like they couldn’t even come close at Imola with the Grand Prix.
Turrisi looks at Pietro’s index finger but doesn’t understand, and makes the annoyed face of a guy who doesn’t understand. Turrisi doesn’t like it when he doesn’t understand.
Pietro puts his index finger on the table and lowers his eyes.
“They killed Falsaperla,” says Turrisi, shifting on his chair. Turrisi likes these three-piece suits but the fucking waistcoats give him problems with chairs.
Pietro sits on the edge of his seat. Mother of God, how Pietro loves it when Turrisi gives him his high-toned thoughts about the Mafia.
“And what the fuck does Falsaperla have to do with anything?” says Turrisi, stretching out his legs and folding his hands in his lap as if he were relaxing.
“What does Falsaperla have to do with anything?” asks Pietro, ever more curious. He knows very well what Falsaperla has to do with it, Falsaperla is Pirrotta’s man, everyone had seen the photo of Falsaperla arm in arm with Pirrotta, and Turrisi, it seems, has blown Falsaperla away because he couldn’t blow Pirrotta away directly. It’s called a … wait, what do they call it? … oh, yeah, a vendetta trasversale, an indirect hit. It’s hard to explain because Pietro has never really understood the vendetta trasversale, however, lately it’s very much in vogue and he can’t wait for Turrisi to explain it to him. (When somebody gets killed and nobody knows who the fuck did it, all the folks at Pietroburger say it was a vendetta trasversale, even when you can see they are ignorant and only open their mouths to say something smart and put their moves on the salesclerks.)
Turrisi sits up suddenly, makes a little jump in his chair, and gives the metal table a whack, which for some reason (perhaps because of Turrisi’s signet ring) emits a loud gong sound.
Pietro jumps back.
Sicilian Tragedee Page 20
