Savage Kiss

by Roberto Saviano

  “Look out, if you fall in it’ll eat your face off…” The Longhairs hadn’t noticed that Micione had come out a door and was enjoying the amusing sight of all of them, heads down, faces on the ground, and asses in the air.

  “Why, are there piranhas in there, too?”’o White promptly asked.

  “Exactly. Do you know much about fish?” asked Micione. Then he shook hands with ’o White, ostentatiously ignoring the others. The Faella boss had shown up barefoot, jeans ending just below the knee and a white Ralph Lauren shirt, untucked. “This way, boys,” he said, and the Longhairs followed the master of the house, suspended above that stretch of Caribbean seascape in the heart of San Giovanni a Teduccio.

  * * *

  “I’m still trying to make up my mind whether I should fill a bathtub with acid and dissolve you in it one by one, or if there’s anything about the bunch of you worth saving.” Micione told them to sit down on a swaybacked sofa without a backrest. It was the only piece of ramshackle furniture in a living room that was crammed with mirrors and statues, candelabra and credenzas, all of it in a profusion of gold leaf and silver intarsia.

  ’O White tried to keep his back straight, but he felt as if they’d extracted his spinal cord all at once when ’o Pagliaccio’s voice broke in: “What is it, have they made you whiter than white?”

  “Crescenzio Roipnol has been shot,” Micione went on, “’a Culona, his wife, has been shot. And you and your paranza were supposed to protect them. In Forcella, you and your paranza are me. I pay your salaries. I pay your bonuses. I pay for your tickets to the stadium. So? Who have you sold out to?”

  “To no one, Micio’,” murmured ’o White. Micione’s eyes turned to the others, and like a chorus of soldiers, they all cried: “To no one!”

  “Why are you talking about selling out?”’o White continued, working up a little bit of nerve.

  “Well, wasn’t Carlito’s Way in your paranza? Wasn’t he supposed to stand guard outside the door? He was the one who sold out,” said ’o Pagliaccio.

  “No, what do you mean? They’re writing all over Facebook that he had nothing to do with it…”

  “That’s true!” said ’o Selvaggio. He tried to stand up and pull his iPhone out of his back pocket, but ’o Pagliaccio shoved him back down with a hand to his chest. “All the lawyers that we have here, eh…” he said, and easily slid his phone out and took it, handing it over to Micione.

  Carlito’s Way had created lots of different profiles on social media, and for each and every one of them, he’d selected the same picture of Al Pacino in Scarface. “For informers all I have are the jaws of the wolf,” Micione declaimed, scrolling with his thumb. “If someone talks dirty about the others with you, then he talks dirty about you with the others…”

  “Quite the poet,” said ’o Pagliaccio.

  “‘Death to informers. Anyone who accuses me of being a traitor and a fake is a traitor himself. My bros have to defend my innocence.’ Well, well, well, he’s turned into a writer to save his ass. That doesn’t mean he didn’t sell out. So? Where is he? What the fuck has become of him? ’O Pagliaccio has been looking for him for months and hasn’t found him…”

  “We’ll find him for you,” said ’o White. He’d braced himself, pushing his fists into the fabric.

  “So who shot Roipnol? Was it you?” Micione stepped rapidly close to ’o White and hit him with an elbow, knocking him off-balance again. “Did you shoot him? Who gave you the money? Was it Mangiafuoco from Sanità, who was trying to defend himself? Was it L’Arcangelo? Was it those Grimaldi bastards? The people from Secondigliano? Who have you sold out to?”

  “To no one!”’o White reiterated.

  “Bring me this fucking Carlito’s Way.”

  “He’s shitting his pants, he’s terrified we’re going to shoot him.”

  “And right he is!”

  “People say he shipped out with his father. He’s a sailor now,” put in Orso Ted.

  “Then get a boat and sail out and get him. Or maybe you could just dive in and swim out and get him. I really don’t give a fuck either way. Do you know why I haven’t dissolved you in acid, one by one, so that there’s nothing left of you but your teeth, bobbing on the surface? Because I have to bring proof that my men, my arms, are clean, that I’m not letting myself be fucked in the ass by these gnats—sti muschilli.”

  “Oh, but by which muschilli?” asked ’o White.

  “Ah, because you’re not a muschillo, eh?” said ’o Pagliaccio. “So what are you? You a boss? You a zone chief? I throw a bone for you, and you’re supposed to bring it back to me. And you don’t even know how to do that.”

  ’O White bit his lip, and struggled not to respond.

  “I need you to bring me Carlito’s Way,” Micione went on. “I can’t fight a war against everyone. You’re too damned ignorant, all you know how to do is shoot. The more you shoot, the less you command. I have the police after me, the newspaper after me, I’m constantly leading the news roundup on regional TV. They say I’m hurting this city. But in fact, if there’s anyone who’s helping this city, it’s me. I bring jobs to this place where no one else can give you a job. We need to organize business here, not just spend our days being bandits like you guys … bunch of ignorant louts…”

  “I’m not afraid to shoot,” said ’o White. He’d surrendered. Surrendered to the sweat, to the uncomfortable position, to the disappointment of not having been summoned there to be appointed to a new post. And now he could talk about it freely.

  “But is he talking or is he shitting?”’o Micione asked, with a glance at ’o Pagliaccio.

  “No, if you ask me, he just belched.”

  “If you ask me, it was a fart.”

  “Me, afraid? I just fuck fear!” said ’o White. ’O Selvaggio tried to hold him back by tugging on his T-shirt from behind, but by now there was no stopping him. “Fear can blow me! What the fuck do I care about fear? I care about making money. ’O Micio’, if you don’t mind my saying, you should have given the scepter of Forcella to someone like me, not to people from outside…”

  “Ah, so you wanted to be the prince of Forcella? ’O White the First, king of Forcella…”

  “The first asshole!” said ’o Pagliaccio. “You didn’t even know how to protect your own boss!”

  “But he wasn’t my boss,” shouted ’o White.

  “Then it was you who killed him. In that case, you need to die!”’O Micione seized him by the throat, and ’o White started spewing incomprehensible phrases. Everyone else on the sofa bowed their heads, silent and motionless. Micione clutched even tighter, his fingers twisting the muscles of ’o White’s throat. “So who’s your boss?”

  “You are,”’o White finally managed to gasp out, and Micione released his grip.

  “What do you want to become? If you want to be a boss, you have to have a pair of balls on you that when you walk down the street, the street itself bows down before you. Bring me Carlito’s Way, ja’! Save his life for him.”

  PLIERS

  O White needed to think and not think at the same time. Develop a plan and avoid putting his foot back into all the bullshit he’d spewed out then and there into Micione’s face. But he’d never been much when it came to strategizing. Maraja was better at that than ’o White, and that’s why he was running circles around him. But strategies are important only up to a certain point. He’d learned that if you were willing and ready to pull the trigger, then might and right were on your side. The driver who had brought them there had ordered him to wait, he’d go and get the VW Golf.

  “How many shots do you count in here?”’o Selvaggio was saying. He’d pulled out the clip of his Beretta 7.65 and was holding it high, like a saint card. “One, two, three … there’s nine. ’O White, this clip alone will do it, it’s one shot apiece, with a few left over. We blast lead into that piece of shit Maraja and all of his paranza.”

  “I don’t know if it was him. But whoever it was that killed Roipn
ol and that fat wife of his did a good job, he wasn’t from Forcella, he just bought his way in,” said Orso Ted.

  ’O White decided that maybe ’o Selvaggio and Orso Ted were right. But what did that matter right now? Micione had set his sights on Carlito’s and they had to bring him Carlito’s.

  “The Piranhas are just a bunch of limp dicks,” he said. “I’ll eat ’o Maraja fried and crunchy whenever I please.”

  “But when are we going to do it?” asked ’o Selvaggio. “He’s controlling all the piazzas. Micione hardly even noticed…”

  “He noticed, and how, but he’s shitting in his own hand. He’s afraid of blood. If he hangs them one by one, you know what happens? They’ll shut down the piazzas. If you’re afraid to shoot, you wind up shot.”

  “Sure, but Maraja’s paranza has the piazzas now.”

  “Who knows where they get this surplus shit … someone must be selling it to them under the table,”’o White replied. He heard the engine of his car even before he saw it come around the curve, and he headed off down the street, followed by the others.

  “It isn’t garbage, what they sell, they’re good rocks … and at ridiculously low prices, they’re taking over Naples,” said Orso Ted.

  ’O White went on walking, leaving them to argue among themselves.

  “Let’s just ride down to Forcella and take them out. Boom boom boom and we’re done.”

  “And if we kill all the paranzas of Forcella, asshole, then the outsiders will just take over.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “Then let’s go hear what Copacabana has to say … he was the one who was supposed to decide … so he’s the one we’re supposed to bring back.”

  The VW Golf pulled up next to ’o White, who grabbed the keys that the driver tossed him and then slid behind the wheel, violently slamming the door behind him. Then he hit the door locks and started the engine. Chicchirichì and ’o Selvaggio grabbed the handles and started yanking on them: “Hey, open up!”

  “Like fuck I will, you can hoof it all the way back, you pieces of shit. You aren’t real brothers. When Micione took me you didn’t lift a finger, so now you can walk all the way back.”

  “What’s that have to do with anything, ’o White?”

  “You’re out to lunch!”

  “What were we supposed to do?”

  With the screech of tires, ’o White had already disappeared behind the buildings of the Faella clan.

  * * *

  The plan that ’o White had come up with wasn’t outstandingly original or anything, but everyone agreed that it was the most effective one.

  They all knew that the Costagliola family had taken off sometime ago, escaped, down to the very last member. Where they had gone, however, no one seemed able to say; the neighbors were keeping their mouths stitched tight, information was at a premium. The plan was to help the neighbors to see matters more clearly.

  ’O White appeared with his men outside the apartment house, cradling in his arms the only AK-47 the Longhairs possessed.

  “What happened to the Costagliola family?” he demanded, shouting up at the empty windows, giving them one last chance.

  Then, seeing that no one had even stuck their head out, he pulled the trigger. The balconies might as well have been made of styrofoam, so readily did they absorb the bullets, while the window fixtures shot splinters and shards in all directions. A burst of lead hit a line of geraniums, and the red petals scattered, fluttering gently through the air, while the windowpanes shattered, inundating the terrified passersby below with sharp bits of glass. ’O Selvaggio took the pistol he carried with him and started firing. Chicchirichì and Orso Ted, who carried no weapons, shouted amid the roar of gunfire: “You’re all garbage, you’re shitholes…”

  Once he’d fired all the bullets in his first magazine, ’o White waved to his men to fall silent: “All right, then, where are they? What’s become of these ghosts?” he shouted. He gave the people in the building five seconds to make themselves heard, and when that time was up he shoved a new clip into the assault rifle. After the first hail of bullets, once a piece of stone cornice more than three feet long had crashed to the pavement not far from his feet, they heard a voice coming from one of the shattered windows. “In Villaricca! At their grandmother’s! They’re in Villaricca!”

  “Where the fuck does this grandmother live?” shouted Orso Ted.

  “Near the Conad supermarket!” rang out another voice.

  Carlito’s Way’s beehive had started to buzz again. The veil of omertà had been rent asunder because the silence that ensures protection always has a sell-by date, and it corresponds to the moment when you actually risk your own life, in the first person.

  The Longhairs rode their scooters back to the clubhouse, where ’o White had parked the VW Golf, and then off they all headed toward Villaricca, equipped as follows: the AK-47, the five magazines of bullets that they kept hidden behind the Stoya poster in the clubhouse, an old Colt M1911, and ’o White’s Beretta. A GPS set for Villaricca, and a crack pipe. ’O White had made sure to buy a car with an automatic transmission, so that he could keep the car on the road with one hand but had the other hand ready when his turn to take a hit came around. With that traffic, it took them two hours to get there.

  Passing the pipe around the whole time, they started driving up and down the stretch of street that ran past the Conad supermarket.

  “If we keep driving back and forth like this,” said ’o Selvaggio, “they’re going to start thinking we’re planning an ambush. And then we’ll have the police on our ass, busting our chops.”

  “Get out and walk it, then,” said ’o White, and he parked the car on a crosswalk.

  Orso Ted and Chicchirichì walked along the sidewalk, hands stuffed in their pockets because the evening had turned chilly.

  “What do you think, does Carlito’s Way really have nothing to do with this?” Chicchirichì asked, and he’d been wanting to ask that question for a while now.

  “If you ask me, he doesn’t have a fucking thing to do with this,” Orso Ted said immediately, and it was clear that he, too, had had that answer in his head for some time.

  “According to ’o White, there’s someone behind it, either Sanità with Mangiafuoco, or the people from Secondigliano, or the Quartierani. Which means there’s going to be a war.”

  “You ask me, it’s the Piranhas.”

  “You ask me, Carlito’s Way sold out. He took money to say when the sentinel wasn’t standing guard.”

  “But if he did that, it would have been too easy to find out. He can’t be that much of an asshole. And then, if they’d given him the cash, he wouldn’t be in Villaricca by now. He’s not with the Piranhas. He’s just an asshole. I’ve known him all my life, Carlito’s Way. He’s just shitting his pants because Micione thinks it was him.”

  They went back to the Golf. ’O White and ’o Selvaggio had fallen asleep with their heads pressed against the windows, and, seeing that it looked like the neighborhood was deserted, Orso Ted and Chicchirichì slumped into the back seat.

  They were awakened by the rapid beeping of a garbage truck backing up. Without uttering a word, ’o White started the car and resumed their patrolling. Compared with the night before, the street had come to life, for the most part populated with retirees pulling shopping carts and heading for the supermarket. There wasn’t the slightest trace of the Costagliola family, though.

  “Where the fuck are they!”’o White snapped. He was starting to run out of patience, and the fact that they’d smoked all the crack wasn’t doing a thing to sweeten his mood. He pulled the car up alongside the pedestrians and followed them closely until, terrified by the dilated pupils over that rotten complexion, they scampered to safety down their front drives. ’O Selvaggio kept saying they needed to get back to Forcella, by now they’d made their presence all too clearly known, they’d attracted too much attention, but ’o White wasn’t interested in listening. Now he was tracking
the progress of a couple of matrons on their way back from the Conad. The two women, in their turn, were watching ’o White, and once they reached their apartment house door, the younger of the two yanked on the other’s sleeve to get her to hurry up a little. To ’o White, that uncertainty was more than sufficient. He slammed on the brakes and threw open his car door: “Signora Costagliola? Signora Costagliola?” The two women hurried their pace, without looking around, with the younger one practically dragging the older one.

  “Signora Costagliola, don’t run away! I just want to tell you something for your son.”

  With those words, as if ’o White had shouted, Ready, set, go, the women dropped their shopping bags and started to run. They hurried through the gate and slammed it shut behind them with a metallic clang, vanishing through the atrium while the Longhairs were already clambering over the gate and charging off after them. The elevator door shut right in ’o Selvaggio’s face and so, one after the other, they charged up the stairs, taking the steps three at a time. In the meantime, one of the two women was shouting into her phone for someone to open the door, that it was the people from Forcella, not to waste any time. ’O White waited downstairs, ready to ward off anyone displaying excessive curiosity with the most definitive of phrases: “Nothing’s happening. Family business.”

  The first of the Longhairs to reach the walkway on the top floor, Chicchirichì, saw one of the women dive into the apartment, leaving the old woman at the door. Chicchirichì grabbed her by her headscarf and yanked, uncovering a compact, well-tended hairdo. The Longhair grabbed that head of hair, hauling on it with all his might. And he kept tugging, until he finally ripped the wig free and liberated a cascade of really long gray hair.