She grabbed my hand. “I’m begging you. Three times a week. I need to be close to my mama and to Paola and Romina.”
“You’ve already got so many things scheduled . . . ”
“I’ll take care of everything. I swear it.”
I lifted her hands to my lips and kissed them. “You’re a good girl,” I whispered in admiration. “I’m proud of you.”
“Does that mean you’ll let me?”
“As long as it doesn’t affect our life together and, in any case, as long as you understand clearly that this is a major concession and I’ll expect you to make one in return.”
She threw her arms around my neck, deeply moved. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
At the end of a dull day, the lawyer and, incidentally, parliamentarian of the Italian republic Sante Brianese came back to La Nena at aperitif time to talk to me, as promised. After the standard salutations, and after downing a couple of glasses of bubbly, he waved me over.
“We’d better talk in the back room . . . is it clean?”
“Of course. I had it swept this morning.”
“Good. Bring the bottle and a tray of hors d’oeuvres.” The fad of bugging offices was a new one in the city. Bugs had been found in the offices of businessmen vying for contracts of various kinds, and the thing that had aroused the greatest alarm in certain circles was the fact that it probably hadn’t been the police or investigating magistrates who had placed the bugs. A number of rumors were circulating about the likely provenance of these listening devices. Since Brianese was exposed to considerable risk and had a fair number of enemies, he’d hired a technician who worked in the sector to sweep the back room and other “sensitive” places in the bar.
Of course I’d had the rooms shielded against electronic eavesdroppers. There were idiots who complained that in the back room “I can’t get a cell phone signal,” but somehow they figured that no one would ever think to eavesdrop on them or wiretap them, and so I had to take care of things properly, if only to protect myself.
Along with the bottle of wine I brought a tray of local cold cuts and salamis and pickled vegetables. When he wasn’t being forced to masquerade as the successful professional he’d become, and therefore an innovative and discerning gourmet, Brianese went back to being the son of the peasant farmer who broken his back to send him to the university.
He twisted and turned, talking with his mouth full of food about the responsibilities of “leaders.” “This is a country where one minute the people adore you and the next minute they’ll line you up against a wall in Piazzale Loreto and shoot you, or throw coins at you as you leave your hotel.”
I speared an artichoke preserved in oil and a slice of salami with a toothpick and laid them down on a thin slice of bread.
“You’re worrying me, Counselor. You’re dragging this thing out a little too long for it not to be something serious.”
He heaved a deep sigh and went straight to the point. “The whole Dubai business went belly-up. They screwed us with a Ponzi scheme.”
I’ve never been a financial genius so I’ve always entrusted my money to Brianese and his expert advisers, but I wasn’t a big enough fool to be taken in by that old trick. Like every other investor, large and small, on the planet, I’d followed the Madoff case with interest and I knew perfectly well that there were successors to Charles Ponzi around every corner, looking for idiots to fleece. They promise high returns on small investments but it’s nothing more than a financial pyramid scheme. The few at the top of the pyramid rake in the cash invested by the many at the base, and on it would go until the hordes of chickens rushing in for the plucking begin to thin out.
“Even the English advisers who recommended that we get into the deal were screwed,” he went on. “They flew out to Dubai but, instead of construction sites for luxury hotel and office towers, they just found a lot of old ditches. Those fucking Bedouins didn’t even bother to pretend to build anything. Our friends tried to kick up a fuss but the authorities just loaded them onto the first plane out.”
According to what Brianese had promised me, I was going to be the owner of two mini-apartments on the sixteenth floor of an exclusive skyscraper and a suite in a hotel for billionaires. “Any hope of getting the money back?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“None. The con was organized far too high up the ladder. They’ve already pulled the strings that need to be pulled. It ends here. The media have talked about it but without too much emphasis, because we don’t have any real interest in showing how deeply we’re involved in this thing . . . ”
I nodded as I looked him straight in the eye. Brianese snapped in annoyance: “Don’t look at me like that, goddamn it! You saw the commercials on Dubai television yourself.”
“How much do I have left?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? But you assured me you were going to invest part of my money in that real estate deal in Croatia . . . I remember you partied big time when the deal went through.”
“I had to make room for other people and I had to leave you out. I need allies even outside the party,” he admitted with an edge of embarrassment. “But don’t worry about it, you’ll make it back. Your prostitution ring takes in plenty of cash and when you’ve put together another pile of money, let’s say, half a million euros, I’ll slip you into a safe investment. For example, after the regional elections they’re going to announce the route for the new high-speed train line. I have a way of finding out about it in advance, so that we can buy up a nice parcel of low-cost farmland and then resell it at three times the price.”
I shook my head, with a forced smile stamped on my face to conceal the seething astonishment and rage. “No, Counselor, that’s not the way it works. I gave you two million and two million is what I want back. All these years you’ve managed my money and taken a 10 percent cut, on top of what you earned by managing my capital. That’s your problem if you let someone rip you off.”
“Business always entails a certain risk factor,” he replied in a paternal tone of voice. “Sometimes you make more money, sometimes you make less, and sometimes things turn sour and you lose everything. Just deal with it and think about the future.”
He went on yakking and stuffing his face with food and wine, as if I was just the least of his many voters or one of his idiot clients to whom he was explaining that it wasn’t his fault that the case went against them. I earned that money by risking my neck in an armed robbery where I was the sole survivor and in a number of other deals that could easily have cost me prison time. The lawyer and parliamentarian Sante Brianese had simply kept the money that I’d lost and distributed it to himself and his friends, gobbling it up along with the contracts, the bribes, the stock swaps, the illicit favors, the fake consulting fees, in other words, all the best aspects of modern politics in Italy.
I’d figured out the way it worked some time ago, ever since the days when he’d convinced me to invest in loan sharking, a sector that the Counselor had abandoned once his political successes catapulted him into the paradise of public works contracts, projects that became bigger and more expensive every year. The Veneto region had become one enormous construction site and the river of cash flowing across the countryside was so immense that at a certain point it became necessary to invest the money outside of the country. In Croatia and Dubai, for instance. Brianese didn’t manage those investments personally. His role was to find the money. Then he entrusted it to certain experts whose names he’d always taken great care not to reveal.
And the experts can go fuck themselves too, I thought to myself.
“Counselor, please forgive me, but you’ve got it wrong,” I interrupted in a placid tone of voice. “I can meet you partway on this and give you your usual commission of 200,000 euros, but the rest of my capital has to come back to me.”
“Oh, the
n, you really are an idiot!”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me loud and clear,” he hissed furiously. “If you’re anybody at all today the credit is all mine. I cleared your criminal record, I got you out of hot water when they were trying to send you to jail for Roberta’s death, I arranged for you to buy this restaurant, I honored you by appearing as your best man at your wedding, I’ve helped you make excellent investments year after year, and now you dare to speak to me in this fashion?”
I took a deep breath. This wasn’t the time to lose my temper. “I certainly had a great debt of gratitude to you, Counselor. You did a lot for me over the years, but I always paid you back. And I’m not just talking about the money I paid you. What with your fees and the commissions that you took on my investments, it comes to a considerable sum. There was a time when I worked as an enforcer for you and your friends. I broke bones and silenced people who could have gotten you into some deep trouble.”
He swept his hand through the air with dismissive anger. “That’s yesterday’s news,” he shouted. “We were younger then, more reckless and less powerful.”
I ignored his bullshit response. “I put together a ring of prostitutes that I ought to patent, it’s so foolproof, and we both know how much trouble you’re causing yourself by this idea of yours of putting pussy on the top of the maypole. And La Nena has always been at your complete disposal: dinners, campaign parties, aperitif parties to introduce the candidates, and you never paid a cent. I’d like to know how much money you’ve made doing business in this back room that I have swept every week at my own expense . . . ”
He grabbed my wrist to stop me and changed his tone of voice.
“You’re right, I apologize. In all these years we’ve helped each other out and we both benefited from it. You’re a smart boy and you have all my esteem and affection and that’s why you have to believe me when I tell you that I don’t owe you a penny—”
“I find it difficult to believe you, especially when I think of the fact that you kept me out of the Croatian deal.”
He spread his arms wide. “I already explained why that had to happen. The Fearless Leader is increasingly at risk of making a crash landing, and we have to brace ourselves for impact if that happens, so we can survive the end of his rule and go on governing. This is the time to reach out and make new alliances and develop new strategies.”
“Talk to me about money, Counselor. It’s the only subject I’m interested in.”
He sighed. “All right, all right! I give you my word that, within a year from today, I’ll reimburse you for your loss with 25 percent interest.”
“That strikes me as a pretty daunting commitment,” I replied, baffled.
He refilled our glasses and raised his in a toast. “Just remember who I am and what my word is worth.”
I picked up my glass and accepted his toast. Brianese got to his feet.
“Duty calls, I have a party meeting to decide on the upcoming candidates.”
“Good luck.”
“I’m going to need it,” he muttered as he pulled a box of mints out of his jacket pocket and tossed a couple into his mouth.
Brianese was an intelligent, skillful, pragmatic man. I’d always respected those qualities of his and I ought to have been satisfied with the way he’d come around on the two million euros, but there was something that didn’t add up. I had the feeling that his final toast of farewell, offered as a guarantee of his promise, was just dictated by his haste to win over the latest asshole in a long succession of suckers. It didn’t strike me as being in keeping with his style. My doubts became intolerable over the course of the next half hour, and when I caught myself being rude and abusive to the chef for no good reason, even though I know how hard it is to find good cooks in this city, I decided to make a phone call to a person who might be able to help clear up my lingering misgivings. He was willing to meet me but since I couldn’t very well show up empty-handed I gave Nicoletta a call.
“Do you have a couple of girls free?”
“Yes. The two Venezuelans.”
“I’ll swing by to pick them up.”
A moment of silence ensued. “For personal use?”
“I need to give a gift.”
“Understood.”
“This is a useful investment for the company,” I lied. “Anyway, I’ll take care of the girls.”
I made a quick round of the tables and I took a seat at the one where Martina and Gemma were sitting. Gemma hastened to point out the absence of Professor Salvini.
“He didn’t make a reservation tonight,” I explained. “He must have moved on to try the cooking in some other restaurant. Anyway, I doubt we’ll see him in here again. He said that he wasn’t used to spending so much for a meal. The classic bullshit you hear from the radical chic crowd.”
Martina smiled at the cutting comment. I ordered a grilled tenderloin with a side of roasted vegetables.
“How’d your run go?” I asked.
“It went great. My time’s improving.”
I caressed her cheek and turned to Gemma. “She’s prettier with every day that passes, don’t you think?”
“She has the good luck of having a man who loves her to distraction.” I shot her a warning glance not to exaggerate, but Martina blushed slightly as she nodded: “It’s true. I really am a lucky girl.”
I stood up. “I have to leave you two. There’s a wine tasting outside of town and I’m running late.”
I left Piero, the oldest waiter, in charge of the place and headed for the garage where I lovingly kept my Phaeton, a full-size sedan made by Volkswagen. It never sold well, though it’s a luxury vehicle and priced accordingly, at over 100,000 euros. I bought it for a ridiculously low price from a client who was in a hurry to get rid of it before leaving the country and moving to Bulgaria, where he now lives in a handsome villa overlooking the Black Sea, out of the reach of creditors and the tax authorities. He sold cell phones to the tune of 20 million euros out of a fake shell company based in Burgas, Bulgaria. That little scam allowed him to become one of the many total tax evaders who make the economy of the Veneto as successful as it is.
He invited me to step outside La Nena and showed me the car. “It’s got five thousand kilometers on it. You can have it for 30,000 euros.”
I shook my head. “I have 20,000 on hand. I can’t get any more than that tomorrow or the next day. I might be able to get 30,000 in ten days or so . . . maybe.”
He tossed me the keys. “You just got a bargain.”
No doubt about it. And now I was driving a handcrafted jewel with refined and understated lines. Exactly the kind of car that makes you look good in certain circles in the Veneto.
After a ten-minute drive I pulled up in front of a small villa on the immediate outskirts of the city. A new development surrounded by bypasses and beltways and completely devoid of infrastructure.
Nicoletta was waiting for me with the two girls in front of a crackling wood fire. They were relaxed, smoking cigarettes.
“Damn, Nicoletta, it really is a shame you have to ruin that perfume with those cigarettes,” I said, as I leaned down to plant a kiss on her cheek. “It’s incredible and it gave me a hard-on the nanosecond I smelled it.”
Isabel and Dulce snickered. Nicoletta pretended she hadn’t heard me.
“Where are you taking them this fine evening?” she asked in a low voice.
“To work in a factory.”
“Another industrialist who can’t seem to have sex outside of his office?”
“Something like that.”
“If you get them back to me by a decent hour tonight I have a couple of Englishmen parked at the spa who would be glad of their company.”
“I’ll do what I can. Where are the other two?”
“In Venice. I’m driving to pick them up tomorrow morning.”
The sign and the lights in the offices were all dark. The security guard at the front gate pointed me to a large industrial shed. I parked near the entrance and told the girls to get out of the car. “Is this the right place?” Dulce asked in a worried tone.
“Yes it is, so now shut up and put on a smile.”
We walked into an immense printing plant. The presses and other machinery were all still and silent but, in a lighted area, thirty or so men, standing along a worktable, were hand-assembling advertising leaflets for a supermarket. They worked in silence, focusing on the rhythm with which they lifted and folded the sheets of paper. They had their backs to us and didn’t even notice we were there until they heard the unmistakable sound of the girls’ six-inch heels. They swung around suddenly and stared at us in surprise. There were lots of things that wouldn’t have surprised them that evening, but the arrival of two such stunning beauties wasn’t one of them.
A stocky powerfully built figure emerged out of the darkness, a man dressed in a 20-euro fleece pullover, shapeless trousers, and running shoes. He took one last drag on his cigarette and dropped it on the floor.
“Well, what are you looking at?” he shouted. All the men turned around and went back to work.
“I didn’t expect you to show up with lovely company,” he said as we shook hands, gauging the girls with an expert eye. “My name’s Domenico,” he introduced himself. “And you two lovely young ladies?”
His last name was Beccaro. He was the owner of a printing company that his father had founded with two shabby old printing presses that now enjoyed pride of place alongside the giant oak-and-steel desk in his office. Domenico had worked hard and played his cards right with a few local politicians. I first met him at La Nena when he came to a few dinners in the back room with Brianese, invariably followed by entertainment in the company of my girls. Then he came back to eat with his wife and a few friends and told me that my menus weren’t very well printed, and that I should come to see him sometime. So I did and he became my trusted printer. The menu work I gave him from the restaurant was nothing compared to the orders he got from corporations and restaurant chains, but he was one of those businessmen who never turn away a customer. He spoke exclusively in dialect but he managed to make himself perfectly understood in every walk of life. Months ago, by pure coincidence, I overheard a snatch of conversation as I was opening a bottle of wine that let me know that he too had been involved in the Dubai deal. Now I’d come to see him in hopes that by offering him the services of my girls I could get him to tell me how much money he’d lost on the deal and how he hoped to get it back. My partner always gathered information about our clients. She claimed that one day it might prove useful. And in her dossier on Domenico Beccaro she had him coded under the heading t.c.h.: total cunt hound.
At the End of a Dull Day Page 3
