“One.” And he held the grenade high over his head.
“Two.” And he reached his arm back behind his shoulders.
“Three.” And he raised his other arm, in the pose of a shot-putter.
“Four.”
’O Selvaggio felt a dense, warm liquid splash over his face. He spat it out and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, just in time to see ’o White in the position that he remembered, but now missing at least half of his body. Orso Ted and Carlito’s Way were shouting, but to him they looked like a couple of mimes—the shock wave had left ’o Selvaggio temporarily deaf.
’O White stood there for another second or two, then what was left of him flopped down into the water.
And that was how ’o White, boss of the Longhairs, left this world, betrayed by a countdown and an inaccurate piece of information.
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
Massimiliano liked his upside-down life. Working at night, when there was no noise, and going to sleep in the morning. The graveyard shift at the repair shop had always been his, and the fact that he worked on scooters and that they had promised him an employment contract as an apprentice didn’t really bother him all that much, even if he did have some considerable experience under his belt as a mechanic working on racing cars. He was striding briskly down Via dei Tribunali, and he slowed down only when he found himself face-to-face with a young man his same age hauling on a leash that was fastened to the collar of a somewhat recalcitrant dog.
“Come on, Skunk,” the other young man was saying, jerking on the marine rope he was using as a leash. Massimiliano walked past man and dog without recognizing him; Nicolas, on the other hand, delved into his mental archive where he had a filing system for all the faces in the neighborhood. The mechanic, he told himself, and then went back to scolding Skunk, whose ears had pricked up: “Skunk, what’s wrong?”
Massimiliano continued on his way and turned left, onto Via Duomo. Nicolas saw him vanish around the corner and at that same instant heard three distinct shots, like the sound of a scooter’s carburetor as it accelerated. Instinctively, he drew his handgun and dropped to the ground, head flat against the asphalt, pulling Skunk close. Then he heard seven gunshots, in rapid succession, or maybe there were more. When he raised his head again, he saw a man in a full-face helmet riding a scooter, roaring away. An assassination attempt, in the heart of Forcella.
Nicolas emerged onto the street, with Skunk barking at the end of her leash, and looked around, but he already knew that he wasn’t going to encounter any other would-be shooters. Whoever it was that had tried to kill him had been afraid; otherwise there was no explanation for those shots in tight sequence, fired practically at random. He stuck his head around the corner of Via Duomo, and there he was. Massimiliano’s corpse, hit by two bullets, one in the shoulder, the other one, the fatal shot, to the jugular. Nicolas stepped close, with respect. That poor sucker had taken the bullets meant for him. Massimiliano had saved Nicolas’s life: the assassin must have taken the mechanic for him.
“Skunk, be good,” said Nicolas, and at last the dog calmed down. Then he holstered his pistol, crossed himself, and turned to go.
* * *
Forcella was a teeming locus of ambulances and police squad cars, even if there had been only one victim. Nicolas had been able to make it back home before the arrival of law enforcement, before the various checkpoints and roadblocks had been set up and the neighborhood was militarized. News of the attempt had spread at lightning speed, by word of mouth, but the crucial detail of who had been killed remained unclear. Was Nicolas Maraja really dead?
At that point, the Piranhas packed into Briato’s Cayenne and went over to Nicolas’s apartment house, and Nicolas himself looked out the window.
“I love you all, I love you so much, too much,” he said, fist raised, like a head of state who’d miraculously survived a coup attempt and whose first thoughts were for his people and their future, a future that a few rotten apples couldn’t keep from being brilliant. And his people replied, in chorus: “You’re a miracle, Nico’, you’re a miracle. Long live Maraja!”
With Mena and Letizia, the whole thing wasn’t likely to go off that smoothly. His mother had come to meet him, as always, at the front door. “You’re here,” she’d said, and then she’d thrown her arms around him as if to make sure that he was flesh and blood, and not blue smoke. She’d gazed at him, pride in her eyes, the pride of a mother who always sees her son taking first place. She’d turned over the palms of his hands, skinned and scraped from the rough asphalt: “These are like stigmata, you’re safe because Our Lord wishes it so,” she said, and stroked his hands. “You’re special, Nico’, don’t you ever forget it.”
Before he could think of forgetting it, Letizia arrived: “My love,” she said, throwing her arms wide, more to be embraced than to embrace him. “Are you hurt?” she asked him a second later.
“I’m fine, my love,” said Nicolas, planting a kiss on her belly. “No one can do me any harm.”
“Who was it?” She’d been crying and she did nothing to hide the mascara that had run down her face to the corners of her mouth.
“A traitor, my love. Don’t think about it now, don’t get yourself upset.” He helped her to sit down, then he got a chair for himself and sat down across from her. She made him tell the story down to the smallest detail, telling Skunk all the sweet words that she could think of for her. “Do you realize that Skunk saved your life? If she hadn’t been there, Nico’, what might have happened? How would that have left me and the little girl?”
That’s how he found out that it was going to be a baby girl. “For real?” he asked, and he was filled with an unrestrained joy. He lifted Letizia into the air and danced her in a circle, then hugged her tight.
“Really, are you happy about it, Nico’? I didn’t have the courage to tell you it would be a girl, that I wasn’t going to give you a son.” Her eyes welled with tears. “But then I thought you could have died today, that you could have been that young man crumpled on the ground, and you would never have known that a baby girl was about to arrive.” She took his hands and placed them on her belly, as round as the globe. “Nico’, you have to swear to me that you’ll be more careful: you’re a father now, you can’t afford to risk leaving us alone. A father has to protect the future, a father has to protect his family. That means he has to protect himself.” It seemed as if she had rehearsed that speech in her head many times already. “Think about it, Nico’. I’m not trying to meddle in your business, you know that, but it’s different now.”
“I think about it, Leti’, I think about you all the time, you’re my life and soul. Don’t worry, I already told you. I’ll take care of everything, but now you need to go away for a little while, until we can find the traitor. The place in Vomero is still under construction, but you can stay there. It’s better if people think no one’s living there yet. They’re delivering the furniture next week. Right now, all you need is mattresses, and Mammà will take care of that.”
Letizia pressed her hand over his mouth, silencing him: “That’s enough now. It’s bad luck to talk about these things…” And she gave him a gentle kiss on the lips.
Nicolas recoiled: “So what’s that kiss?”
“What do you mean, what’s that kiss? A kiss of affection, because I care for you.”
“I don’t want a kiss of caring,” said Nicolas, and pulled her close.
“Careful with my belly, Nico’,” said Letizia.
“I don’t want the kiss on the cheek that goes with caring. I don’t want the kiss on the lips that goes with love. I want the savage kiss that takes whatever it wants. That takes it all.”
THE BASKET OF APPLES
“Last time you behaved badly with that hundred euros, really a bit of an oaf.”
“I had that special gift for you, and I had to give it to you in a hurry, it was starting to stink.”
“Still, you were rude.”
“This time
she seemed contented.”
“What did you bring her?”
“Flowers from Capodimonte.”
“Bravo, guaglio’.”
They’d embraced and then they’d exchanged a few standard words, tokens of politeness.
* * *
Nicolas didn’t tell L’Arcangelo that traveling the streets of Ponticelli was like driving a car in the Paris–Dakar rally. Potholes, lurches, sudden gaps in the pavement, lanes that sloped off to each side until they basically merged with the sidewalks. A pothole, or even a speed bump that had been sabotaged, leaving only discontinuous chunks of murderous asphalt, had caused him to swerve too sharply, chipping one of the roses in the floral arrangement. Nicolas hadn’t noticed it until he was actually standing in front of Professoressa Cicatello, whereupon he’d asked her to wait just a moment; he’d found the porcelain petal mixed in with the banknotes, then he’d rung at a random door and had asked to borrow a tube of Attack adhesive. The result was questionable, the scar was quite visible, but Nicolas had never been an especially good handyman. He’d hurried back up to Professoressa Cicatello’s door, apologized, handed her the centerpiece, and had finally been able to go upstairs.
They’d sat down in the kitchen because the living room was off-limits, crammed with ’o Cicognone’s working implements. Don Vittorio had told him to install a more powerful air-conditioning system, and to spare no expense. ’O Cicognone had dismantled all the old equipment, which now lay scattered on plastic tarps, and he was unpacking the latest-generation machinery that would replace it.
L’Arcangelo had finally cut his hair. His locks no longer spilled over his ears and down the back of his neck in dirty curls; now his hair was neatly brushed, with a part on the right. He even smelled different, with a hint of cedar wafting off him.
Nicolas had unzipped his backpack and was stacking wads of cash on the table: four stacks of hundred-euro notes, which he was stacking one by one. L’Arcangelo let him work. He alternated his gaze between the cash and Nicolas. He lit a Toscano cigar, toyed idly with the ashtray, but never said a word. Why would he want to spoil that show?
“This month, we’re selling like crazy,” said Nicolas. He ran a finger over the last wad of notes like a croupier, producing the sound of rustling bills. “This is your end, forty thousand euros. Don Vitto’, admit it, you’re not sorry that you’ve taken us on as partners.”
Partner was the word that had hovered in the air since they’d greeted each other. L’Arcangelo had thought about it and Nicolas had thought about it. Partner meant democracy, equal rights and equal responsibilities. There was an investor and there was someone who worked out in the field, but still, each played a role, each had a share.
“Maraja, of course I’m not sorry. And I’m even happier to know that I still have a partner.”
“So you heard that they’re trying to rub me out?” Nicolas replied promptly. He wasn’t surprised that L’Arcangelo knew about the assassination attempt. The night before, the local TV news report had led with the story. Another innocent victim. Another dead man, collateral damage in the gang war. How much longer would this slaughter continue? Forever, Nicolas had mentally answered as he walked past a newsstand where the banner headlines of the morning papers were crowding the sidewalk. When will they understand that this city is at war? he’d asked himself. If they’d only admit that, these journalists would already have done half their job.
“The paranza is going to find out who did it, and fast,” said Nicolas. As he entered the kitchen he’d immediately identified the place where ’o Cicognone kept the spare whiskey for when the level in the bottle on the sideboard in the living room dropped to just two fingers. He got up on tiptoes and reached for the high shelf, above their heads, and chose a bottle of Masterson’s. “We’re going to unleash a slaughter,” he went on, “the streets are going to run red, or really I should say, they’ll run brown, because that traitor’s blood is brown like shit.”
With the bottle in his hand, he went over to the dish rack and grabbed two glasses at random. He filled them and raised his own, in a brisk gesture at a toast, then drained it to the last drop.
“But you know, Maraja, that if everyone else is looking up, you have to look down. If everyone else is looking out, you have to look in. You always have to look where everyone else isn’t,” L’Arcangelo said as he sipped his whiskey. “And when these things happen, you need to look in your friends’ pockets more than in your enemies’ pockets. More dangerous than the basket of vipers is the basket of apples. The problem is never with the vipers.”
“If you’re referring to my basket, we’re all brothers in my paranza.”
“If you say so, then it must be true.”
“Don Vitto’,” said Nicolas. He was starting to feel a glow of heat, and it wasn’t just on account of the Masterson’s, though that certainly didn’t keep him from pouring himself another glass. “You’re saying and you’re not saying—why don’t you just spit out what you mean?”
“You know your business, it’s your life and it’s your paranza.”
“I know how to spot traitors, and I don’t have any around me, at least not for now.”
“When they tried to shoot you, where were you going?”
“I was taking the dog for a walk.”
“And who knows when you do that, and where you go when you do?”
Don Vittorio was pouring himself a second glass of whiskey and hefting the stacks of bills. “A hundred-euro note still weighs one gram,” he said.
Nicolas on the other hand was mulling over the question that L’Arcangelo had asked him. Who knew? Everyone knew. He hadn’t been so blind as not to ask himself the same question, as he sat watching TV, where the carabinieri were pacing around that red patch on the pavement, keeping rubberneckers away. He decided that he didn’t deserve that fool’s death, he needed to die like a boss, shot in the face or in the back of the head. He’d imagined it plenty of times before, but to die like that, while you’re taking a dog out to pee, around a corner, in your own neighborhood …
“They’d been waiting for you,” L’Arcangelo resumed. “You shit your pants, huh? Did you get a yellow stain?” And he gave Nicolas a kiss on the forehead.
“But who did it, Don Vitto’? Micione? The guys from Secondigliano?”
“Why would they want to shoot you?” L’Arcangelo asked, trying to make him think it through.
“Because I’m busting their balls.”
L’Arcangelo started to pour another glass of whiskey but then decided against it. “Nzù,” he said, little more than the sound of a clucking tongue. “Nzù. That’s not reason enough, just because someone’s busting your balls.”
“Micione wants me dead.”
“Then why haven’t they shot you before? Because you have immunity.”
“Immunity?”
“The immunity of your age, guaglio’. If someone shoots a kid, he’s telling the world that that kid has the power to fuck him. Think how stupid that would make him look. The problem is that you’re growing up, so now your immunity … Well, who do you think it was?”
“Whoever wants to take my place…”
L’Arcangelo nodded: “Huh, and who thinks they have the right to take your place?”
Those words made a suspicion echo in his mind, a suspicion that dated far back in time, a doubt that had lain well concealed until that very instant, so hidden that he’d never thought he even had the doubt. And now that he saw it, the harder he peered to minimize it and ridicule it, the more it grew and the harder it laughed at him, mocking him.
“Don Vittorio,” said Nicolas, “I understand what you’re trying to tell me.”
“Actually, I’m not trying to tell you anything.”
“But you meant Luigi Striano.”
“You’re the one who said that name.”
“Don Vitto’, Drago’ is a brother to me. When he’s behind me, I never think of turning around.”
“Well, that’s your mi
stake. A Striano he is and a Striano he’ll always be.”
“You don’t understand, Don Vitto”—and now he was talking to convince both the other man and the part of him that had suddenly stirred awake—“Drago’ even came to tell me that Micione wanted to turn him against me. If he was a traitor, a Higuain, he’d never have told me.”
L’Arcangelo burst out laughing. “The best way to kill your enemy is to marry him.” He was blowing hard on Nicolas’s doubts, kindling them into flame, and that smoldering fire was kicking up a plume of smoke that clouded his memories and certainties.
“No, Don Vitto’, stop…”
But L’Arcangelo was no longer listening to him. He’d gone over to the refrigerator; there must have been some leftover pastries from last Sunday. “First he married you, and now he’s going to get them to give him Forcella, Maraja.”
Nicolas felt his mouth pucker, his teeth on edge. He continued to click tongue against palate, the same way that that obsessive thought kept pounding in his head.
“Anyway,” said L’Arcangelo, setting the tray of pastries down on the table. “Try these rum babas, sweeten your mouth a little, since it’s turned too bitter just now.”
“No, Don Vittorio, I’m fine, but thanks.” He pictured himself in a puddle of blood. The sonogram sprawled on the asphalt, the flashes of photographers snapping pictures. The death of a fool.
“Come on, try this rum baba, ja’.” He waited for Nicolas to bite into it. “Isn’t it good? The best babas have always been made on the outskirts of town. In the center of town, all you can find is babas for tourists. Maraja, when you’re in command, everyone’s your brother and no one’s your brother. The way you command is by making everyone believe that you trust them, but actually by not trusting anyone.”
L’Arcangelo filled the glasses once again.
“Are you sure it wasn’t Striano who shot at you?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t.”
Savage Kiss Page 30
