A Few Drops of Blood

by Jan Merete Weiss

  In their jury-rigged locker room, they changed into their field uniforms and fatigue shirts with red piping at the collar and their rank insignia over their left breast pockets, CARABINIERE in bold print over the right.

  They put on their wine-red berets with their shiny Carabinieri badges and checked their AR-70 assault rifles.

  They stepped into the hall, joining dozens of officers similarly attired and armed, and converged in the incident room, its walls taken up with boards holding information and evidence accruing in various ongoing cases, each with a map.

  Colonel Fabio stood in front of a board that outlined Ernesto Scavullo’s organization, with the don on top, captains below, lieutenants in the second and third tiers.

  “Marshal Cervino will circulate to collect your cell phones,” Fabio instructed. “There are to be no outgoing calls from this station until we return from the mission in a few hours’ time. All outside lines have been redirected through the reception desk. Why? Because in thirty minutes we will be rolling up the top three tiers of the Scavullo organization, starting with the lower echelons”—he tapped the board behind him—“and ending with Ernesto Scavullo himself.”

  An excited murmur rippled through the room.

  “One of our units has accumulated evidence over the past eleven months documenting the Scavullo outfit’s illicit trade in heroin, methamphetamine, their illegal gambling operations, tax evasion, racketeering and the like. You’ll be going out in teams, each assigned a particular suspect. Any questions so far?”

  There were none.

  “Good. Each team’s target was randomly drawn, with one exception. Captain Monte and Corporal Cavatelli will bring in Ernesto Scavullo as soon as his bodyguards and staff have been stripped.”

  The blood drained from Natalia’s face. Would Ernesto Scavullo take this raid as betrayal—her failure—and make charges connecting Pino’s weapon to Tina Gracci’s death and the impropriety of Natalia’s investigating it? If he even accepted arrest. He could easily resist, requiring force to take him down. Or he could take them down first.

  Angelina looked at her with concern. It’s okay, Natalia mouthed, and tried to convince herself it would be.

  “Question, sir,” Cervino said. “Do you think it wise for our two female officers to attempt arresting Scavullo? He may respond badly to that.”

  “Let’s hope,” Fabio said.

  Laughter erupted.

  “It ends here,” Fabio said. “I want their cartel bled.”

  Eighteen minutes later the teams dispersed, each in pursuit of a different Scavullo capo. Angelina and Natalia held back, giving the others a head start before they would attempt to execute the warrant on Ernesto Scavullo.

  The gate was open, the street blocked by fellow Carabinieri. No guards were left on duty. Presumably they’d been carted off.

  “Our turn,” Natalia said as they drove through. “Pull up to the front door.”

  They got out of the car, rifle barrels pointed down but stocks braced against their shoulders. They went through the front door, past a black marble cheetah, a brilliant replica of the cat from the Museo Archeologico right down to its eerie red eyes. Or had Scavullo extorted the original?

  “Isn’t that music?” Natalia said. “Sounds like it’s coming from the back.”

  No maids scurried forth, no gardeners trimmed the hedges or watered the vast flower beds and lawn. The azure pool matched the sky. A colorful parrot eyed them quizzically from its perch standing under an umbrella shading a table and empty chairs. A paperback lay face down on a lounger. The music grew louder: opera. Verdi. An aria about love and yearning.

  A pair of gold sandals lay abandoned under a glass table. Two glasses. The ice melted.

  It was a vintage recording of wonderful quality playing on a state of the art sound system using exposed vacuum tubes in a design almost as old as the recording.

  Angelina picked up an abandoned glass. “Rum.” She pointed to the pink cabana on the far side of the pool. Rifles raised, they made their approach. The white louvered door was closed but not locked, and they slipped inside.

  The air smelled of scented candle. A rack filled with weights occupied one wall; facing it, a floor-to-ceiling mirror on the wall opposite.

  A pair of swinging saloon doors led into another room. White walls and again mirrors. The vanilla scent was stronger. Dozens of white fluffy towels lay stacked nearby, and a black silk robe draped across a stool next to an antique gramophone.

  Ernesto Scavullo lay face down on the massage table, seemingly oblivious to what was transpiring around him. Or maybe just waiting for what he must have known was coming. A sheet draped his buttocks and legs. An intravenous line ran from the suspended saline and nutrient bags to his wrist. His world was being taken apart, and he was having a treatment.

  “Cover me,” she said to Angelina as she walked to the table.

  Liquid dripped from the translucent bags into Ernesto’s veins. He looked relaxed, peaceful, ingesting vitamins and electrolytes as he hydrated.

  “Ernesto. Ernesto Scavullo. You’re under arrest and must …”

  One eye was open, the top of it clouded. Pupils fixed.

  “Bastard didn’t deserve an easy death,” Angelina said. “Someone should have sliced his balls, gouged out his eyes.”

  Natalia reported their discovery on her transceiver and slung her weapon onto her shoulder. She and Angelina taped the perimeters of Scavullo’s cabana and designated it a crime scene. A bird sang on. The partners collected and labeled evidence. Francesca would perform the official autopsy, but in the meantime Natalia put on her gloves and studied the victim. Even dead, Ernesto Scavullo gave her the creeps.

  They fulfilled the basic crime scene investigation. Natalia was glad to get away from there. Returning to their lockers, they couldn’t face the paperwork and signed out. The city smelled like baked stone. Sweet jasmine perfumed the air, competing with the smell of mandarinis, the tiny oranges vendors hawked on street corners. In front of a newsstand, a trim white van delivered the afternoon paper, and the local priest in long white vestments bought the first copy of the late edition of Il Mattino. They bid each other goodbye and went their separate ways.

  Natalia approached the Forcella district. A family of tourists posed in front of the Santa Annunziata Church as a few worshipers exited after late Mass. Across the street, a bookseller lifted the plastic cover protecting his books and rearranged the titles.

  On a landing one step up from the street, mad Carmella, boom box at full volume, launched into her daily performance, breasts escaping the skimpy tank top as she danced. Tourists stopped to gape. The Neapolitans passed without looking.

  In the plaza, an old man, bent with age, reached into a wrinkled paper bag and tossed out crumbs of bread. Natalia approached.

  “May I sit?”

  A cloud of birds rose in a swirl and hurtled off.

  He nodded.

  “That old Victrola,” she said. “My grandparents had one just like it.”

  Pappa Gianni smiled, remembering. “He was fascinated with that machine as a kid. Four years old and he knew how to crank it up.”

  A young American girl in a sequined headscarf crossed the square.

  “So many foreigners,” he said. “It didn’t used to be like this.”

  He scattered a handful of breadcrumbs. “Would you believe this is what I missed most in prison? I used to come here with Ernesto in his stroller. There were hundreds of birds. They would eat from my hand.” He pointed to a bird. “My favorite looked just like that one.”

  “What happened?” she said.

  “There’s a code we live by. It’s how I was raised. How Ernesto was brought up. But something happened with my son. Maybe if I hadn’t encouraged him to be so tough early on. Maybe if I hadn’t been away for so long.” He sighed.

  “I knew Renata since she was a girl. We lived on the same block. She was going to school to learn typing and bookkeeping. One day she passed by, and
we saw each other, like for the first time. She’d grown beautiful with me hardly noticing. We had one child. One.”

  He sat back.

  “The first years in the can, he did everything asked of him. These last years he hardly came and accepted no orders when he did. Which might have been all right, given my age. But the way he carried on, bragging, blogging, parading his whores in public. The level of violence he employed. Killing for no reason. Maiming …”

  He reached down into a ragged shoulder bag under the bench and brought out something wrapped in a plastic shopping bag. Up close his hands appeared arthritic, covered with deep brown age spots.

  “Antonella suggested this should by rights be returned.”

  Natalia felt the bag. An automatic pistol.

  He shook the remaining crumbs onto the black stone and stuffed the paper bag into his jacket pocket. A few more birds neared. When he stood, they retreated and rose in a grey mass, circling the plaza and finally settling in a large chestnut tree.

  Natalia watched him make his way slowly across the uneven cobblestones, passing a bench with a weathered junkie slumped across it like a chaise, trying to roll a cigarette.

  As far as the city and the Carabinieri were concerned, the investigation was at an end and another crime lord removed. They had only to wait to see what others would surface to replace him or take his territory.

  August holidays in a week. Natalia didn’t fancy a vacation, but Fabio ordered her to take some time off.

  She and Angelina spent the balance of an afternoon tidying up their desks. Angelina and Giuletta were on their way to a stone cottage that had been in Giuletta’s family for forever.

  “It’s great,” Angelina said. “Wake up to the birds. Take a walk at night. Moon and stars.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” Natalia said.

  “It is. I can’t wait. You feel like getting out of this hellhole, give me a call … really. I’m not saying it to be polite. Giuletta’s idea. Before I forget,” she opened a drawer. “Marmellata. Prugna. Plum jam. My mother sent us a case, said to be sure my nice boss got one. You like?”

  “I love. That’s very generous. Tell her thank you. And Giuletta, too. For the invitation.”

  “Seriously, what are you going to do? Hang around here? Play footsies with Cervino?”

  Natalia laughed. “Mariel and I are planning a trip to the Farnese.”

  “Sounds like something Giuletta would suggest. So that takes care of twenty-five minutes you won’t get back. You gonna stay in a nice hotel at least?”

  “You know Mariel. Get out of here, Officer Cavatelli. That’s an order.”

  Natalia put on her best black dress and head scarf and slipped on black pumps. Black pocket book under her arm, she set off for the Duomo.

  The caretaker’s man had dragged a chair to the edge of the courtyard to escape his sweltering room, with its one skinny window that looked onto the street. She watched herself grow larger in the mirror propped just outside his door. With this invention, normally he could drink his coffee and read his newspaper without having to leave the kitchen table and still keep track of the people coming and going.

  But today he sat outside, avoiding the trapped heat indoors.

  So much for security, she thought, as she passed him, his eyes closed and his breathing heavy. A mild breeze ruffled the leaves of the potted plant beside him.

  Passing a narrow doorway at the end of the street, the thrum of a small press reached her, announcements piling up inside: births, baptisms, communions, weddings, deaths.

  Raffi was posted as usual, facing the steps of the cathedral, telephoto lens snapped in place to record the Camorra mourners for his employers. Natalia nodded to him from the top step and entered the vestibule behind Suzanna, who wore a black veil, black suit and stilettos. She was arm in arm with her father-in-law and mother-in-law. Natalia slipped in among Scavullo uncles and their families as the whole group drifted slowly forward to the nave. The casket on the altar lay draped in a sea of white gardenias.

  Gianni’s favorite cousin escorted a teenager in a dark suit and tie, patent leather shoes and immaculate white shirt. Reaching the front pews, Suzanna turned and took charge of the boy, letting him precede her to sit next to Gianni Scavullo and Renata. Natalia reminded herself to check on the male who had accompanied Suzanna to Rome from London.

  There were no professional mourners among the assembled, only professional killers. Nor did Suzanna wail and collapse on the burnished coffin of her estranged husband. Dotted throughout the assembly, lone women sat like shadows, Camorra widows all, attired in black head scarves, shoes, long-sleeved dresses, the odd white handkerchief visible at points in the gloom.

  A monsignor officiated. Natalia recognized him from photographs taken at other Camorra funerals. Natalia was sure she’d never seen so many Camorra in one place, yet the funeral party only occupied the very front of the giant cathedral. The rest of it was given over to the daily business of confession, repentance, prayer and the lighting of white votive candles in small glass chalices that painted one corner red in their reflected light, candles that commemorated the dead.

  Papa Gianni’s reputation reminded Natalia a bit of Don Cuoca. Would the old man lead a rehabilitated Scavullo clan? Unlike the churchmen, the camorristi showed no leniency and exempted no one. When Don Cuoca, the last of the great dons, became a nuisance, he was taken off for a sumptuous feast in Vincenzo a Mare. There, on the low cliff outside the city, he enjoyed his favorite clams and a cool sea breeze. Those assembled toasted and praised him all evening long, hugged him and kissed his cheeks, with tears running down their own. Then led him away to be stabbed but once by an expert with a mattress maker’s needle.

  Regardless, Papa Gianni’s murderous son lay in his glass bier—nails manicured, features made up and dressed in a suit of impeccable taste, totally worthy of being worn into eternity. His son would be buried like the Camorra prince he was to have been. The world would pause and then continue, turning more easily in his absence.

  Natalia rang the bell and heard the click of Lola’s heels approach but no barking.

  “Where’s Princess?” she said as the friends embraced.

  “Taking a nap.”

  Lola’s hair sported russet threads. Her white satin blouse revealed the edges of a black lace bra and some cleavage. Natalia wondered how she could breathe in her tight white jeans.

  “My baby needs her rest before her salon appointment,” Lola said.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Upkeep, cara mia. She has a weekly appointment. You could take a page from her book. Are you coming in?”

  Natalia entered and surveyed the new potted plants ringing the room. “The Birds of Paradise are gorgeous.”

  “Suzanna treated me to a session with her decorator.”

  “Suzanna Ruttollo? Who would have guessed you’d be friends one day?”

  “Yeah. Well, childhood rivalries aside, we are. So what’s going on with Sergeant Loriano?”

  “Pino turned in his papers and his weapon. Looks like he’s going to be a civilian—at least in this life.”

  “That’s interesting. You back with lover boy yet?”

  “No. Pino’s staying in Caserta.”

  “What’s in Caserta?”

  “A zendo looking for an acolyte.”

  “He’s gonna be a monk now?”

  “Who knows?”

  “He was young,” Lola said.

  “Only a year or two younger than me.”

  “Young in the head, I meant.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  “About him? Don’t know. I’m not giving up my commission and relocating to Caserta. Maybe we’ll try it long distance for a while. Maybe not. What would I do if I wasn’t a Carabiniere?”

  “You could work for us.”

  “Be serious.”

  “There’s plenty of legit stuff to run.”

  “I don’t th
ink so.”

  “You are the noble captain. Sister Benedicta would be proud.”

  “You know the weird thing?” Natalia said. “He would have been better off with the girl.”

  “Tina?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. She would have put him first. Loved him madly. Given him babies by the bushel. He likes babies.”

  “He is a baby,” Lola exclaimed. Arms thrown open, she exclaimed, “Hey! Here’s my baby now!” Micu clicked over to them. “How’s Mama’s treasure?” Lola picked up the dog and kissed it. “There’s going to be a rumor going around tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “You’ll want to hear this part.”

  “What?”

  “Papa Gianni. He’s stepping down.”

  “Really?”

  “You saw him. The man is old, bent over.”

  “The gossip was that he had restored order in the clan.”

  “Yeah, so what. The day-to-day stuff is too much for him. He named someone else to actually run the operation.”

  “A trusted capo?”

  “Family.”

  “Suzanna Scavullo,” Natalia said.

  “Yeah. This whole thing has been in the works for a while, I’m guessing. It’s been two years since he first got in touch with her.”

  “So that’s what brought her back. That and maybe introducing Gianni to his grandson when he got out of prison.”

  “How …?” Lola checked her nails. “You’re too smart for your own good.”

  “She never aborted the baby, didn’t lose it.”

  “No. Nobody’s supposed to know, though I suppose it was pretty obvious at the funeral that the kid was related.”

  “I would say so, yeah. Where is he, back in England?”

  “The kid’s in school in Rome.”

  “Wow. She’s a cool one. What about her businesses in London? Frankfurt?”

  “She’ll multitask, I guess. More likely they’ll fold them into the overall operation.”