Spring Cleaning

by Antonio Manzini

  “That’s a matter of opinion!”

  The sun was shining, but the exhaust fumes stripped away all poetry from that blue and cloudless sky. Rocco climbed into the first cab available.

  “Via Poerio, please . . . number 12.”

  “On my way,” said the cabbie, switching on his meter. “Beautiful day, eh?”

  “Right. But now, all the way to Monteverde, I’d appreciate a little silence. Nothing about soccer, A.S. Roma, S.S. Lazio, thieving politicians, the collapse of the city, it’s all the Communists’ fault, and all that bullshit. Thank you!”

  “You don’t have to add the vinegar, Dotto’. I’ll be silent as a graveyard.”

  Getting a meeting with Antonio Biga and tracking down Stefania Zaccaria. No simple matter, either one. And most likely he would come up empty-handed. But he had to try, at least, look those people in the eye and get a whiff of their stench. Rocco felt things directly on his skin, first and foremost, and then he processed them in his res cogitans. There are vibrations and waves between people that are sometimes worth more than a hundred thoughts. It reminded him of his uncle’s unfailing advice whenever they played cards together: “Rocco, never forget Signor Chitarrella’s rule: a glance with your own eyes is always better than a hundred thoughts in your mind!”

  The road from Fiumicino to Rome was jammed solid. The driver took a shortcut that would run through the Magliana quarter and take them to the Via Portuense. Filth everywhere. And colossal potholes that made the taxi lurch and jolt. It felt as if they were driving through a neighborhood in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war. He was reminded of a song by a Roman singer-songwriter who compared Rome to a bitch surrounded by swine.

  “DOTTOR SCHIAVONE!” THE SHOUT OF SURPRISE ECHOED IN the stairwell. “How nice to see you again!”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Fine. And you?”

  “How do you think it’s going? Tell me, though, has anyone come to see me in the past few days?”

  The concierge on Via Poerio furrowed her brow and gave it a moment’s thought. “No, Dottore. Aside from the usual bills, and I just always send those up to you in Aosta.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’ll find the apartment a little dirtier than usual. This week the cleaning lady didn’t come. Her daughter’s having a baby.”

  “Not a problem.”

  He stepped into the elevator and rode up to the top floor. To the penthouse. His home.

  There was a stale, shut-up smell in the air, as he’d expected, and the furniture was draped in plastic sheeting. He didn’t even glance at his apartment. He went straight to the bathroom, took a quick rinse, changed his shirt, and went back out.

  BRIZIO WAS WAITING FOR HIM AT THE USUAL BAR, ON PIAZZA Santa Maria in Trastevere. They hadn’t laid eyes on each other in nine months. Brizio had shaved his mustache and combed his hair with a part on one side. He could still turn women’s heads, and just as reliably, Brizio turned his own head to look at them. Since he’d turned sixteen, this was the only pursuit that Brizio had ever undertaken with even a modicum of serious intent. Then he’d met Stella, and he’d calmed down somewhat.

  “You’ve aged, Rocco.”

  “So have you . . .”

  They hugged. “How much time do you have?”

  “As much as it takes.”

  “How is Seba?”

  “We’ll see him later, with Furio. Shall we take a walk?”

  “So let’s take this walk.”

  In May, Trastevere was full of tourists and the Piazza Trilussa steps were already teeming with young people sipping beers and licking gelati. They crossed Ponte Sisto and headed for Via dei Giubbonari. The Tiber was a slow-flowing stream of liquid sewage. Seagulls glided between plane trees and the roofs of the apartment buildings. Two kids raced after each other on bicycles.

  “Rocco, from the names you gave me . . . I hear Walter Cremonesi is supposed to be in Paris.”

  “So?”

  “I say ‘supposed to be’ because they’ve lost trace of him. But why would you think he has it in for you?”

  “Don’t you remember? The armed robbery on Piazza Bologna?”

  “Fuck, though, Rocco, that dates back to 1999!”

  “True, but I still sent him to prison.”

  “Do you really think that thirteen years later . . . No, I’d rule that out. And after all, Cremonesi isn’t a psychotic. He’s a piece of shit, but what good is a vendetta to him? He’s always been connected with major hitters.”

  Rocco nodded, none too convinced. “What do you know about Zaccaria?”

  “Stefania Zaccaria? Two days ago she had a head-on collision on the Rome beltway. Now she’s at Santo Spirito hospital. She has more plaster on her than skin. If she comes out of there alive, she’ll go make a pilgrimage to Medjugorje.”

  “Two days ago . . . isn’t an alibi. What’s more, she could always have sent someone up to do the job. What about Antonio Biga? What’s he up to?”

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t been seen around much. People say that he’d teamed up with the Casamonica clan. But I don’t know about that. He’s too much of an asshole.”

  “Does he live in Garbatella?”

  “No. His mother’s there. He lives right around the corner from Piazza della Chiesa Nuova.”

  “Is that where you’re taking me?”

  “All right with you?”

  IN THE LITTLE PIAZZA SURROUNDED BY THE NARROW LANES, there was an enormous fig tree, twisted and gnarly. Rocco and Brizio walked into the café across from the building where Biga lived. The deputy chief smiled at the sight of trays of tramezzini under damp cloths. “Bring me two. Tuna and baby artichokes for one and, let’s see, chicken salad for the other. And a mineral water,” he said cheerfully to the young woman serving at the counter.

  Then they went and sat down at the open-air tables outside.

  “Are you sure he’s not home?”

  “For sure,” Brizio replied. “The neighbor told me that he’s gone out. But he’ll be back soon.”

  The tramezzini came, along with an espresso for Brizio. Rocco bit into one of the tramezzini immediately. “Ahhh. That’s right . . . This is what I’ve been missing.”

  “Why, what are you saying, don’t they have tramezzini in Aosta?”

  “No.”

  “That’s crazy . . .” said Brizio, sipping his espresso.

  “It sure is, but they make plenty of good things up there, though.”

  “Like for instance?”

  Rocco thought it over. “Panini with mocetta.”

  “What the hell’s that?”

  “Next time I’ll take you. You can’t really describe it.”

  THEY WERE CROWDING IN ON HIM, ALL THREE OF THEM, EACH double his weight and a good foot taller. Their heads blocked out the sun, suffocating him and erasing the walls and the guard tower.

  “Abdul, how long do we have to wait?” the blond threatened him, the one with one eye sealed half shut by a scar and a tattooed snake writhing up his neck. Erik the Red, they called him there in prison. “Well, Abdul?”

  It didn’t strike Omar as wise to correct him on the name. “I don’t know. Like I told you, there are certain things I don’t do.”

  “I say bullshit!” snarled the Nigerian. The biggest guy there, the one who trained in the gym every day. In the outside world, he’d been a boxer; in here, he was a killer. “This morning, you piece-of-shit Moroccan, you were supposed to take a delivery of drugs!”

  Omar wasn’t a Moroccan. He was from Tunis. But he decided to turn a blind eye to that minor inaccuracy as well. The Nigerian’s enormous hand crushed Omar to his chest. “You want to die at age twenty?” The Nigerian vomited the words onto him, flashing his set of white teeth, marked here and there by patches of tartar. The big black man’s breath might even have been worse than his fists. “Eh? Do you want to die at age twenty, you piece of shit?”

  Another minor inaccuracy. Omar had been born in Tunis on May 18, 1988. If
he were to die today, as Oluwafeme was threatening, it would happen just a few days short of his twenty-fourth birthday. But he chose to say nothing, especially now that the African’s enormous hand was clutching his Adam’s apple.

  “Listen carefully.” Now the third member of the trio, the Professor, was speaking. The one with glasses. An NGO, Never Get Out. Two life sentences without parole, plus other judicial kibble he’d piled up in years of honored service. Behind the lenses, what he had weren’t eyes, actually. They were two pieces of soulless glass. Two things he used to look through, to spy on the world, to observe but not to transmit emotions. “You see, Omar, my friends and I know all about the fucked-up things you do in here. That you have your friends from the outside bring you little presents, and that you peddle that shit around and save up money for when you get out. Because you’re getting out, right?”

  Omar nodded. He only had six months to go.

  “Let me correct myself, because you’d like to get out, right?” The Professor gazed at him seriously. “And according to us, this morning your friends on the outside were supposed to bring you some presents. Where are they?”

  “Today they didn’t bring me anything, I swear it. Marini was in the visiting room. And when Marini’s around . . . you know it yourself, not a fucking thing gets through! I’m not lying, Professor. I’m not—”

  Oluwafeme was rapid and precise. A cross delivered with all the mass of his shoulder, connecting to both nose and lip. A sharp blow, practically invisible given the sheer speed of execution—that is if it hadn’t been for the blood that gushed out of Omar’s lips and nose. The young man’s hands flew up to his face. In his eyes hundreds of lights flashed and popped, and a dull pain drilled into his skull. His legs gave way beneath him, but it was impossible to drop to the ground. Oluwafeme’s other hand held him up, on his feet, pinned to the wall.

  “But we don’t believe you! And when we don’t believe someone, what happens?”

  Four-Eyes, the brains of the group, shook his head. “I don’t know what happens to us. But the person we don’t believe generally dies.” He grabbed Omar’s chin and glared into the eyes that Omar could barely keep open. “Do you understand what I just said? You’ll die. Let me ask you one more time: Where is the shit?”

  Omar couldn’t breathe. He bowed his head and spat a clump of blood to the ground; then he looked up again. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear . . .” And he shot a glance over the right shoulder of the black man, who had his fist poised for another punch; now he could see his friend Tarek in the courtyard trying to find him. He needed to let himself be seen, or else he was a dead man. “Professo’, which part of what I said didn’t you understand? I don’t have a fucking thing!”

  The Nigerian ex-boxer let fly with another right to the temple. Omar let his head loll forward, but then Erik stepped in and raised it for him with an uppercut to the chin that crushed at least a couple of his teeth and opened a cut on the tip of his tongue. That punch was followed almost instantly by yet another roundhouse fist to the belly from Oluwafeme, a left this time, just to keep his other hand in if nothing else. Omar vomited his breakfast onto his shoes. But at that point the beating could no longer remain a private affair, and convicts began picking up on it all over the playing field in the courtyard of the Varallo house of detention. Tarek and Karim, Omar’s two close friends, noticed the brawl and came lunging at Erik and the Nigerian.

  Tarek went sailing through the air a couple of feet off the ground and slammed a solid kick into the back of Oluwafeme’s head; the Nigerian fell forward and slammed into the courtyard wall. Karim, on the other hand, had lunged onto Erik’s back and was now hanging from his shoulders, a deadweight, clinging like a koala to a eucalyptus tree, digging his fingertips into Erik’s eyes. The fair-haired man with the scar on his face writhed frantically, trying to toss him off, unsuccessfully. Omar had let himself slide to the ground, his mouth full of blood and snot. The Professor let fly with a kick at Karim, who was clinging to Erik’s back, and hit Karim in the kidneys. The young man yelled out in pain but kept his fingers firmly planted in the Viking look-alike’s eyes, as Erik tried to free himself from this wildcat that had landed on his back. In the meantime, the Nigerian, shaking his head, had stumbled back up on his feet. Warily, Tarek was waiting for him. Oluwafeme charged at him. Tarek tried to hold him at bay with what rudiments of karate he’d been able to pick up in a flea-bitten gymnasium back in Hammamet. But he was unable to do anything more than to annoy the giant Nigerian boxer. The other inmates of the house of detention stood watching the brawl that was now raging between the three Tunisians and the Professor’s gang, but no one dreamed of interfering. The younger convicts broke off their soccer match; the older ones interrupted their game of cards. Aziz stepped away from the group that was milling around and chatting next to the woodworking shed and hurried over to help his fellow Tunisians. He ran straight toward Erik, who still had Karim fiercely wrapped around his back. In the meantime, Oluwafeme, former boxer that he was, had punched Tarek in the face and knocked him headlong to the ground. Omar, his face bloodied and his eyes swollen almost completely shut, was still trying to get back on his feet, but the Professor slammed his foot down on the young man’s neck, pinning him down to the ground. With a jerk to one side, Erik finally managed to get Karim off his back, and now he darted toward him and seized him by the throat. He started squeezing, bringing greater and greater pressure to bear. Karim’s eyes were already bulging out, and he clearly was unable to breathe. But just then Aziz waded into the fray, smashing his fist into Erik’s head, right behind his ear; Erik released his grip, dropping Karim to the ground, where he coughed his heart out, desperately trying to suck air back into his lungs. Aziz shouted, trying to work up his courage, and then launched himself straight at the fair-haired scarface. He was windmilling his fists with all his strength and fear. Those punches, however, weren’t finding their mark. Aziz was a shopkeeper, and brawls weren’t exactly his forte, which Erik understood very well. He hung back and bided his time, until he finally let loose with a seemingly endless series of punches that ravaged Aziz’s face. Jets of blood and saliva sailed through the air in all directions. At that point, the other convicts decided that the time had come to weigh in. They all surged forward to bring a halt to the massacre. From the main gate, at last, two correctional officers hurried up to put down the brawl. There were shouts and fists and kicks continued to fly. A third correctional officer, Federico Tolotta, standing guard in Wing 3, came rushing over at a dead run, in spite of his enormous bulk. He bent down to pick up the bunch of keys to the armored doors from the ground, clenched them in his fist, and hit the Nigerian hard with them in the back of the head, causing him to stagger. More armed guards swarmed into the courtyard. They took custody of Oluwafeme, Erik, and Agostino, a.k.a. the Professor, swinging their billy clubs freely. The brawl subsided. Omar and Aziz were beaten black and blue. Karim had gotten off with some difficulty breathing but nothing much more, whereas Tarek, after the punch from Oluwafeme, had gotten back to his feet and, aside from the jaw that creaked every time he bit down, seemed to be in reasonably good shape.

  Two prison guards took custody of the North Africans and hustled them off to the infirmary. Erik, the Nigerian, and the Professor were taken to solitary confinement as they awaited further disciplinary actions.

  Six guards under the command of Mauro Marini, the senior officer, were doing their best to restore calm among the other convicts. A convict on the other side of the courtyard, far from the brawl, was still lying on the ground, near the door that led to Wing 3. Officer Marini approached him. “Hey! On your feet!”

  The convict didn’t move. Marini kneeled down to turn him over. “Hey! You getting up?” He gave him a shake as he turned him. The man had both eyes open, pupils rolled up out of sight, mouth wide-open, a streamer of drool hanging from his lips.

  “Oh, fuck . . .” Marini murmured, looking around as he tried to catch a colleague’s eye.

&nb
sp; “What’s going on?” Daniele Abela, a new recruit, on staff for just a few months, shouted at him.

  “Hurry, for fuck’s sake!” Marini replied, placing two fingers on the neck of the man stretched out on the pavement. Abela and Tolotta, the gigantic guard from Wing 3, joined him.

  “This guy’s dead!” Marini opined.

  “Oh, fuck . . . call the warden!”

  ROCCO HAD ALREADY GULPED DOWN FOUR TRAMEZZINI AND two espressos. The afternoon was advancing solemnly, and the light was starting to shift from yellow to orange. He kept an eye on the street and the narrow lanes around Biga’s apartment house. Brizio, continually distracted by the women passing in front of him, couldn’t seem to concentrate.

  “I’m starting to get sick and tired of waiting, Brizio. When is that asshole Biga going to get home?”

  “Beats me . . . but I was just thinking something,” said his friend. “If it really was him, then we’re not likely to find him around. He shot Adele instead of you, and if I were him, I’d dive down some hole and pull it in after me.”

  “Who can say? Antonio is a member of the old guard.”

  Brizio nodded. They knew that the Roman underworld had always had this shortcoming: its arrogance. Roman wiseguys keep their chins up and proudly strut when the smart thing would be to duck and cover, but then they scurry into hiding the one day they could go around boasting of their exploits. Biga had to have reached age seventy by now, and after all the years he’d spent in the shadows, he felt protected and untouchable. At least in Rome.

  Biga emerged from Vicolo delle Vacche. He was alone, and in spite of the fact that the evening was mild and springlike, he was walking with an umbrella in his hand. He wedged it down between the distinctive Roman sampietrini cobblestones at every step, leaning his weight on it. Rocco elbowed Brizio in the ribs, and Brizio immediately abandoned his scrutiny of a magnificent Teutonic maiden in short-shorts who happened to be passing at the moment.