Savage Kiss

by Roberto Saviano

  Biscottino smiled; maybe he’d be able to forgive him for his loose lips.

  “I’m pals with someone who murdered a person,” Pisciazziello piled on.

  “If a person gets himself murdered, it means he deserved it, right?”

  Biscottino lofted the ball in the air just enough to get himself in position and get ready for a scissor kick against Pisciazziello. The impact was sharp and hard, a perfect pock sound, and his friend put both fists together to ward off that cannon shot. The ball lofted high and ended its arc right at the entrance to the courtyard. The two of them sprinted to take possession of the ball. Pisciazziello got there first and immediately passed the ball to Biscottino, who raced off, brushing against the walls, and then kicked a gentle cross that the other boy headed sharply into the goal. They’d made peace.

  They stopped to catch their breath, sitting on the sidewalk. “Adda murì mammà,” said Pisciazziello, “inside, they’re talking about us.”

  Biscottino pointed up to a long narrow window about a yard off the ground. He dragged a trash can over, laid it on its side, and climbed onto it.

  “What are you doing!” exclaimed Pisciazziello, looking around.

  “You said it yourself, Pisciazzie’. They’re talking about us inside,” said Biscottino. He grabbed the side casements of the narrow window and, levering up with one leg, hoisted himself up onto the foot or so of windowsill. He remained there for a few seconds, studying what part of the body he should try to insert first into that opening. He looked like a little bird perched on a branch.

  Biscottino slid his legs through the narrow window, got a foothold on the toilet bowl, and leaped down onto the rubber mat without making a sound. He looked out into the courtyard in the middle of which Pisciazziello was still standing, motionless.

  “Pisciazzie’,” he whispered, “you’re up to your neck in the same shit. It’s worth your while to come listen.”

  In a flash, Pisciazziello was in the bathroom, his ears pressed against the door.

  “He really screwed up, and it’s no laughing matter!”

  The voice belonged to Pisciazziello’s mother, and he tried to flatten himself against the door, as if by adhering as closely as possible to the panel, the sound would reach him more clearly. He didn’t understand why he was at the center of the discussion; after all, he wasn’t the one who had pulled the trigger.

  “Yes, he really screwed up, my boy Eduardo,” said Biscottino’s mother. Pisciazziello couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief, and he shifted slightly away from the door. Next to him, he felt his friend’s body stiffening and felt a surge of shame at his reaction. He put a hand on Biscottino’s shoulder, who looked over at him with terror in his eyes.

  “The only thing to do is to cooperate with the police,” said Emma. The sound of shoes scraping on the floor. Mamma’s not happy, Biscottino thought to himself; he was all too familiar with that habit of hers, the way she’d scrape her feet on the floor, like an animal seeking shelter.

  “You really think so?” said Greta. “Give me time, let me think it over.” More scraping, followed by the creak of the springs in the sofa. She’d gotten to her feet and now she was walking across the room. Pisciazziello and Biscottino stood up and turned toward the window, the only way out. Then they heard the sound of the kitchen faucet and a glass emptied all in one splash. They pressed back against the door.

  “If we think too hard and long, we’ll just screw up,” said Emma.

  “I know that’s what we need to do, but I have three children. Where would I go?”

  The little half bathroom beat with the two hearts of Biscottino and Pisciazziello, pounding hard, and every heartbeat, which they could feel in their chests but also in their mouths, in their throats, in their wrists, just punctuated that back-and-forth between their mothers. It seemed like the background music of one of those thrillers they so loved to watch together on TV.

  Biscottino felt a hole opening in the pit of his stomach. In the past few days, he’d thought of every possible outcome, except the possibility of having to leave the city. He would never again see Pisciazziello and the others, he’d never again play soccer in the courtyard. He felt a wave of fear much more powerful than the one that had swept over him when he’d set off to kill Roipnol. He retreated to the narrow window to get a breath of fresh air, but the hole in his stomach just kept getting bigger. And here came the cramps. He sat down on the toilet seat cover and pulled his legs up to his chest. The pain subsided a little.

  “You can’t do these things halfway: either you do them or you don’t.” The social worker had taken the floor, interrupting the conversation between the two mothers. The woman’s high-pitched voice reached Biscottino clearly, as he rested his head on his knees. “And you should be happy to do them, because you’re saving your children’s lives.”

  Pisciazziello wrapped his hand around an imaginary erect penis and pretended to jack off with it, smiling in Biscottino’s direction, who instead grimaced back: another cramp.

  “I’ll get in touch with the police and I’ll start a conversation with them, I’ll start briefing them on the way matters stand, the situation … but you needn’t worry, because I won’t mention any names. But I’ll also tell them that you need to be convinced and that you naturally demand certain conditions,” the social worker continued. She articulated her words very clearly, the same as when she spoke directly to Pisciazziello and Biscottino. That wasn’t a good sign, thought Biscottino. “Where would you like to live, Signora Greta? I’ll take care of everything myself.”

  If it hadn’t been so perfectly silent in the bathroom, they wouldn’t have been able to hear the whispered reply: “Venice.”

  Biscottino felt his intestines sag downward, and instinctively he tightened his sphincter, clamped his butt cheeks together. A rivulet of cold sweat ran down his back, ending in his underpants. How could it be his mother was falling for the arguments of that bitch of a social worker? What did she even know about them?

  “Eduardo needs to be kept out of this whole story,” said Greta. Biscottino felt he’d been reborn.

  “And he’ll be kept out of this story, I told you: no names.” The social worker pressed the point home. “And the same for your son, Signora Emma. You need to be careful, too.”

  Pisciazziello sat down on the edge of the bidet and looked at Biscottino. “You, too,” his friend whispered, pointing his forefinger right at him. “You’re ending up just like me, no better, no worse.”

  “But it’s tougher for me,” Pisciazziello’s mother told the social worker. “Probably better, Signora Lucia, if we leave my boys out of it…”

  “Remember that I’m on your side and the side of your children,” said the social worker in the tone of voice of someone who’d repeated the concept over and over again. “I want us all to come out of this situation together, like a team.”

  Then Greta’s voice: “We’ll turn him into an informer, pentito…”

  Biscottino’s and Pisciazziello’s hearts plunged into cold water, as they held their collective breath: “Never,” they said to each other, breath within breath.

  That deadly word, pentito, rushed past outside the door like an avalanche sweeping away everything in its path: in the void that remained, Biscottino’s fart rang out.

  The cramps had resumed. “I can’t take it anymore,” Biscottino said under his breath. The stench immediately filled the bathroom, and Pisciazziello lifted his elbow to cover his nose.

  “Is there someone in the bathroom, Signora Greta?” asked the social worker.

  “Those are just noises from the courtyard in the back, they do everything you can think of out there,” Biscottino’s mother promptly replied. Looking out the window, she’d noticed that the bathroom window was ajar.

  “Greta,” the woman resumed, “it’s my job to protect people, especially minors like Eduardo and Rinuccio. But you have to understand that it’s up to them to let us help them. If you let them speak to the police, no
one would hurt a hair on their head.”

  A second fart was covered up by the roar of a passing scooter. Biscottino waved his hand in Pisciazziello’s direction: it was time to get out of that bathroom, they’d heard all they needed to hear.

  On the other side of the door, the three women were all talking at once, interrupting and drowning one another out.

  Pisciazziello climbed up onto the narrow windowsill while Biscottino gave him a boost, pushing from behind.

  “Never!” Biscottino told himself again. He went out the window and started running through the alleys and vicoli, followed by Pisciazziello.

  THE GIFT

  Like all the residents of the city, Nicolas felt a chill the minute he stepped away from its streets, but he hadn’t suffered in Milan, and he wasn’t suffering now that he and his paranza had returned from the north. This morning they’d all awakened to intermittent rain showers, as if a gang of ill-intentioned clouds were having fun swooping back and forth over the city, and every time they emptied their rainwater the temperature dropped precipitously, making the hairs stand up on your forearm. Then the sun insolently managed to wedge itself back in, just making it clear once and for all that this was his personal territory, and the temperature bobbed back up, bringing with it the smell of tar, of the condensation that still hadn’t had time to issue forth, releasing that aroma of hot asphalt, a whiff that blocks your nostrils.

  The souvenir needed to be delivered promptly to L’Arcangelo. Actually, the gift consisted of two separate items. A box of mozzarella—a foam container that they’d jammed with ice cubes—and a panettone that they’d bought in Milan at a pastry shop in the city center while the girls were shopping in the boutiques.

  When they returned, the city had welcomed them with rain, and that morning, too, the rain continued intermittently to shove the sunshine aside.

  Nicolas had tugged loose the handle made with adhesive packing tape on the box of mozzarella, and he’d done the same with the cord on the panettone package. Then he’d hauled them up into the crook of his elbow so he could have both hands free to drive the scooter, and he’d bought a rain poncho to keep the gifts for L’Arcangelo dry. He climbed aboard the TMAX, taking care not to dent the boxes too much, and once he was securely seated, Briato’ put the poncho on him from above, lowering it over his head.

  Maraja went straight to the industrial parking lot on the A3 highway. He looked like a scarecrow that some fluke of the wind had shrouded in a chance trash bag. Aucelluzzo was waiting for him at the camper cemetery. He’d rather just take the downpour like a man, Aucelluzzo had said, and then had proceeded to complain about how sick he was of being a postman. Nicolas didn’t even comment. Five minutes later, he was climbing the stairs to the apartment of Professoressa Cicatello. With one arm stiff, holding the box of mozzarella from below, and the other arm behind him, holding the panettone. He set both boxes down carefully on the marble floor of the landing and rang the doorbell. No answer. He tried again. Nothing. And yet he knew there had to be someone at home, because if he placed his ear against the door, he could hear the sound of slippers sliding across the floor. He rang a third time, leaning on the button for a long time, so that he knew L’Arcangelo could hear him from upstairs. Then he realized that he just needed to resign himself to the fact that he’d have to wait there for a while, who knows how long, serving out the penance that L’Arcangelo had ordained for him.

  In the meantime, the sun had come back out, and the sudden spike in the temperature was threatening his souvenir. Nicolas started pounding on the door: “Signo’, my gift for Don Vitto’ is going to go bad, this is the finest mozzarella, please, I’m begging you, let me in—” The sound of more slippers on the floor, this time a more persistent sound, and at last the door swung open, with four brusque turns of the dead-bolt key. Professoressa Cicatello was wearing yellow kitchen gloves and she raised them toward Nicolas as if to push him away, but he didn’t give her a chance, because he pulled out a hundred-euro bill and placed it on her cheek. “Signo’, my hands are full,” he said, as he was already running into the kitchen. At an angle, precariously, his eyes fixed on the narrow rungs, he climbed the ladder like an acrobat, careful to keep from tipping the mozzarella box too sharply. The ice in the box must have melted by now. When he reached the trapdoor, there was nothing he could do but start shouting: “Cicogno’, it’s me, Nicolas! Cicogno’!” Another penance, he thought, and then he tried: “Cicogno’, please open up, my surprise for Don Vitto’ is going to go bad.”

  ’O Cicognone opened the trap door, and then stood there to relish the scene of a sweaty, panting Nicolas, and in the end he informed him that he could come up, but then he’d have to wait awhile because Don Vittorio was up on the roof, choosing whores.

  Nicolas managed to get up the last two steps, objecting that he’d paid his penance: enough was enough.

  “He’s on the roof, I told you, put your things on the table.”

  “No, I have to go up … it’ll go bad!”

  ’O Cicognone shrugged and vanished into the kitchen.

  Nicolas climbed the spiral staircase concealed in a built-in armoire at the end of the hallway. That was how Don Vittorio got to the roof, by climbing up a vertical tunnel that penetrated through twenty feet of reinforced concrete. Don Vittorio was proud of those narrow shafts that he’d had driven through the whole building, allowing him to move freely. “The circulatory system,” he called it. It never occurred to Nicolas that he might set the boxes down, because he knew ’o Cicognone would stick his beak in them for sure.

  Once he reached the roof, he saw a very different Don Vittorio from the last time. Gray trousers and a light blue shirt, loafers, and a Rolex on his wrist. He was freshly shaven, and not only because he was going to meet his girls, as he called them. There was still a sense of slovenly neglect, such as a dark stain at the knee of his trousers or the hair that was too long at the nape of his neck, but overall, he looked like a different man.

  In front of him, five prostitutes were shielding themselves from the sun in the shade of the dish antennas that Don Vittorio had had put in for all the tenants. The black clouds were moving away in compact formation, and Nicolas retreated under a dripping rain gutter.

  The five women looked like sisters. Probably South American, short, dark-skinned, with enormous breasts. Look at that, L’Arcangelo really likes women, thought Nicolas. Don Vittorio paid him no mind, simply beckoned the prostitutes forward one by one by crooking the forefinger of his right hand, then he’d spin the finger in the air, and the prostitutes would show off a pirouette, and when he bent his first two fingers at the knuckle, they’d bend over at the waist, and finally, he’d tell them to walk back and forth with a movement that could easily be mistaken for a head-shake of rejection. Five times in a row, each the same as the last, until the last prostitute blew him a kiss and he said, never once taking his eyes off her: “Nico’, let me fuck this one, and then I’m all yours.”

  “Don Vitto’, I came to make my apologies,” said Nicolas. He grabbed the two boxes and lifted them off the floor.

  “Ah, so it’s one of the Three Magi, bearing gifts,” said L’Arcangelo without bothering to turn around. “You waited awhile, didn’t you? Well, wait until I have my fuck.”

  “No, no, it’s important,” Nicolas objected. All that effort to get to that point, and the gift for L’Arcangelo was going to be ruined for a stupid fuck with a whore. “Don Vitto’,” he tried again, but now he was interrupted by the prostitute who’d been selected by L’Arcangelo. She slipped her hand between his shirt buttons as she rubbed her hip against his crotch. “Vitto’,” she whispered in the voice of someone promising honey, “I’ll wait for you, in the meantime I’ll have a bite to eat.”

  “Mary Magdalene has come to the rescue of the Wise Man bearing gifts,” said L’Arcangelo, planting a kiss on the prostitute’s forehead.

  “Grazie, signori’,” said Nicolas.

  They went down the spiral staircase. The
old man went first, moving with slow, exasperating caution, setting one foot on one step before committing to the next one, waiting to make sure that the other foot was lined up properly. Behind him, the young man was seething with impatience, certain that L’Arcangelo was going to welcome his surprise. And how.

  Don Vittorio took a seat in his armchair and lit a Toscano cigar. He stared at a point just above Nicolas’s head, an inch or so, no more, making sure not to look him in the eyes. If Nicolas moved, L’Arcangelo followed him, but always gazing up just a little.

  The first gift was the panettone.

  “I was in Milan, Don Vitto’, have you ever been there?”

  “Of course I have,” he said. “We owned Vi.Ga Construction. One time I even went to see a game at the San Siro. We put in three goals against Milan. What a night.”

  “That’s the only good thing they have,” said Nicolas, pointing to the panettone.

  “And what does the mozzarella have to do with anything?” asked L’Arcangelo, setting the panettone aside. He had always refused to eat panettone when he went on his missions among the industrial sheds of Brianza, and he wasn’t about to start now.

  “This isn’t mozzarella. This is a cake for the celebration.”

  “What do we have to celebrate?”

  Nicolas opened the mozzarella box on the table. Tock, went an ice cube. That’s a good sign, thought Nicolas, and he called ’o Cicognone.

  ’O Cicognone had seen dozens of boxes just like that one in his life, and he’d prepared dozens more. He knew that you had to take great care in opening the box, otherwise you ran the risk of spilling the mozzarella milk, leaving the mozzarella high and dry in nothing more than a sad puddle of liquid. He yanked the lower end of the length of adhesive tape and started pulling, steadily and without jerks. Once he’d removed the vertical tape, ’o Cicognone proceeded to the horizontal, which connected the lid to the box proper. As he removed that strip, an increasingly pungent stench rose to his nostrils. He pulled off the last length and— “What the fuck!” he shouted, stumbling backward until he ran up against a credenza.