“No, I don’t want an ambulance. I don’t want the emergency room.”
Reading between the lines, that last statement had a second meaning: I don’t want the police.
“Can you drive?”
Before answering me, he made a quick survey of his energy level.
“No.”
Then he evaluated me.
“I’ll give you a hundred thousand lire if you drive me home.”
I replied promptly.
“Two hundred.”
His answer was just as prompt.
“You’re a turd.”
“Yes, I am. But I’m a turd who can drive. Otherwise, you can always call an ambulance.”
“Fuck you. Help me up.”
I helped him up until he was more or less steady on his feet and I listened to a new and fanciful litany of vulgar twists on religious concepts. I eased him into the car and then I headed for his house, or the address that he gave me, anyway. During the ride, I couldn’t keep my eyes off his swollen face, in the intermittent light of the street lamps. I remember a faint smile he gave me, immediately replaced by a wince at the pain of his cut lip.
“There’s no point in you looking at me. I guarantee you that before they beat me up I was even uglier than I am now.”
I brought him here, to the apartment that I’m in right now. I helped him get cleaned up and get comfortable on his bed. I watched as he tried to get into the best position his body could offer without demanding too much pain in exchange. Finally, I put a bottle of water and some aspirin I found in the bathroom on his night table.
“Do you want me to call anyone?”
“No.”
“Sorry to remind you, but you still owe me two hundred thousand lire.”
Without a word he pointed to the drawer of the night table next to the bed. I pulled it open. Inside was a pile of money. I counted out what he owed me and pocketed the money.
The comment followed immediately.
“You’re a vulture.”
“Maybe so. But I’m going to give you a little extra something for that money, along with the ride.”
I pulled a ballpoint pen out of my inside jacket packet and, on a magazine next to the table lamp, jotted down an abbreviation followed by a number.
“I don’t know if it’s of any use to you, but this is the license plate number of the guys that beat you up.”
A couple of months later I happened to run into him at the Negher de Milan, a club on the Navigli. He came over to say hello. He offered to buy me a drink and made it clear that it wasn’t to thank me, because as far as he was concerned the two C-notes I put in my pocket were more than adequate thanks. It was strictly to toast to the success of a punitive expedition against the three crooks who had given him that beating. He’d managed to track them down from the license number I left on his bureau.
We became friends in a way, the kind of friendship that could develop between a couple of mice who’d fallen into a glass demijohn by accident. I knew his story, which wasn’t really all that different from that of plenty of others who never seem to get tired of getting thrown back into jail almost as soon as they’re released. He basically grew up on the street, with plenty of bad friends, a history of petty theft and stupid risks. The next step was breaking and entering, and finally armed robberies. With a few intervals of working as a rebongista, street slang for a coke dealer, to pick up a little cash when things were tight. His wife left him when she finally realized he was never going to go straight and that she was going to have a baby. Carmine came home one day and found the apartment empty, all her clothes gone from the hangers and drawers, and the box with what little money they had dry as a bone.
And a note on the bed.
In which she clearly stated that she had no intention of letting their son grow up with a father like him. He never saw her again. One day he received an envelope postmarked Germany, with nothing in it but a photograph of a little boy, about two. On the back of the snapshot, written with a ballpoint pen, was a name: Rosario.
When Carmine pulled his umpteenth armed robbery, two people got killed. A plainclothes policeman who tried to interfere and a female bank customer. He was arrested thanks to a police informer and the judge sentenced him to twenty-two years. That’s when I decided to go ahead and pay the condominium fees on his apartment, thinking that if things went south, it might prove useful, along with the car. Now I feel that it was money well spent and that, at least for a little while, Carmine’s apartment can serve as a safe haven. That is, until the lawsuit brought by the families of the victims results in an order of confiscation. It was an arrangement Carmine and I made privately; nobody else knows about it. I pay the condominium fees every month in his name with a postal money order, and as far as anyone knows he’s paying them himself. Same thing for the utilities.
I pick up my bag and go into the bedroom. I set it down on a chair. Luckily, my friend has the same habits as I do. In front of the bed is a dresser with a Saba brand television set and a VCR next to it. Hoodlums and crooks always seem to be at the cutting edge when it comes to technology. Next to the VCR and piled on a shelf are plenty of videocassettes, but unfortunately for me nearly all of them are porn.
Not my favorite type of entertainment.
I’m reminded, sourly, of a joke by Giorgio Fieschi that doesn’t seem funny right now: sex is like sports—the important thing is to participate.
I turn on the television set and check to make sure it works. I leave it turned to RAI 2 with the volume down low. I step into the bathroom, slide my trousers down, and sit down on the toilet. A couple of involuntary Madonnas that might reasonably compete with those uttered by the actual owner of the apartment escape my lips. It feels as if I’m pissing flaming matches.
I flip the switch that turns on the hot water heater, and as I wait to be able to take a shower, I go back and lie down on the bed. I shove aside the rough cover on top of the bare mattress and the pillows without pillowcases. I take off my shoes without unlacing them. The pictures on the television set are blurry and the words belong to a nonexistent language.
I feel like shit.
I grab the dirty-looking horse blanket and pull it over myself, like some pathetic character in The Godfather, when the families are at war and everyone goes to the mattresses. A sudden wave of exhaustion sweeps over me, keeping me from thinking and making me forget that, just as I’m starting to understand, I’m losing the ability to believe.
Sleep looks like the only refuge available to me.
I sleep.
17
When I wake up, my eyes are all crusty.
Though I’ve never actually eaten any, it strikes me that my mouth tastes like rabbit shit. I’m a little dopey, but the burning sensation is almost completely gone and one night’s lead-weighted sleep has brought me back into the ranks of the human race. Thought shows up a few seconds later, punctual as always, to remind me of the dire situation I’m in. Human beings don’t have police searching their apartments, and they’re not afraid to walk down the street. Human beings do whatever the fuck they feel like without having to look over their shoulder or keep an eye on oncoming cars, without the constant thought that one of them might turn out to be police or the Carabinieri and suddenly screech to a halt and make a U-turn to come after them.
Human beings don’t run, they walk.
I get out of bed and determine that my bones have returned to the interior of my legs, where they belong, and that my head is no longer spinning dizzily. I strip and toss my clothes on the bed. This time, I make no particular effort to avoid the mirror on the door in the middle of the armoire. My naked body is an anatomical wisecrack, and someday I’ll be strong enough to think it’s funny. Right now, though, my mutilation is the only asset I possess, the one source of true anger I can draw on to react to what’s happening to me.
To what someone’s doing to me.
I head for the bathroom.
The little room is a triumph of dark
brown, with odd tiles with geometric patterns that impart a somber impression, perfectly suited to my state of mind. It’s a clear warning that, wherever you may hide, you can’t escape dark brown tiles.
Here, to make up for that, I find another mirror, a smaller one.
It offers me the detail of the face—the scraggly beard, the bleary eyes, the greasy, disheveled hair. Maybe I’m not completely sane, but in spite of everything, there’s a thought that makes me smile. The idea that this surface, accustomed as it is to presenting the ogrelike features of Carmine, might feel a sense of relief at reflecting a wrecked face but still one that belongs to the category of normal human beings.
A face that, by personal choice, has practically never been photographed. Anytime I’ve found myself in front of a camera, which is something that happens from time to time when you’re out with friends, I’ve always made a point of covering my face or turning my head so that I can’t be photographed head-on. In my drawers, unlike Lucio’s, there are no pictures commemorating my past life. Which I’ve done my best to forget and successfully wiped away, along with my name.
I consider my physical appearance and evaluate how I can work on it.
I decide not to shave. My whiskers grow fast, and in a couple of days there’ll be enough of a beard to constitute a pretty good disguise. My long, wavy hair is recognizable, but I can find a solution to that problem. I start going through the drawers of the Formica cabinets. Among the various items, some of them distinctively feminine, I find what I need. I’d have to guess that after Carmine’s wife left him, he couldn’t bring himself to throw out all the things she left behind in the bathroom. I take a fine-tooth comb, a hairband, and a pair of hairdresser’s scissors. I would never have expected a man like Carmine to be so vain that he’d trim his mustache. But I’m pretty sure that if Carmine heard about the situation I’m in now, he’d say that he never would have expected me to be so stupid as to let myself be framed like this.
I turn on the water, put my head under the faucet, and wet my hair. Then I comb it out, pulling it straight up, and grab it close to the top of my head, forming a sort of ponytail in the center of my scalp. I wrap the hairband around it to secure it, twisting and retwisting and then sliding it firmly to the very base of the ponytail.
I take a look at myself. With my scraggly beard and this barbarian hairdo, I look like an extra in a sword-and-sandal movie from the sixties. The effect would be comical if it weren’t the product of a situation of such dire necessity.
I take the scissors and cut the ponytail off clean, just an inch or so above the elastic band. When I pull the band away, the hair tumbles down, nicely layered. I mentally thank my friend Alex, who unintentionally taught me this trick one time when I was in his salon. I snip and trim here and there with the scissors, neatening up my hair with the aid of a hand mirror I found in another drawer.
When I’m done, I consider the results in the mirror. Now I’m a man with short, layered hair, and probably a cheap hairdresser; I may need a shave, but I’m definitely not the same person I was before.
I gather the shorn hair from the floor and the sink and toss it into the toilet. Maybe, long ago, Delilah did the same thing. I flush the toilet and the rush of water carries my hair away, and with it, my strength.
I extract some reasonably clean towels from a cabinet. My appearance seems to be an acceptable modification. In my situation, I can’t be too choosy about things. I get into the shower and stay there until I run out of hot water. When I step back out, I’m once again in possession of my physical and mental faculties, for what they’re worth.
With a towel wrapped around my waist and a pair of slippers a size too small for me on my feet, I head for the kitchen. Over time I’ve stocked the kitchen with pasta and canned foods of all kinds. The refrigerator is full of mineral water, and there’s oil, vinegar, salt, and sugar.
And above all, coffee.
After turning the gas on at the wall, I fill the espresso pot with water and coffee, give it a twist, and set it on the flame. I sit down to wait for the gasping wheeze of the espresso pot. As I wait, I think through all the elements of this tangled story. All the characters that I saw moving around me like so many puppets without realizing that the only real puppet was me.
Everything starts with Carla, and everything leads back to her. Somebody, somewhere, must have learned that I had a special relationship with Lorenzo Bonifaci and that I was one of the few people who could get people into the villa.
Pretty girls, to be specific.
That someone got Daytona working for him, certainly by offering him money. From what I know of Daytona, he hardly strikes me as the type to be roped in by ideological considerations. My miserable friend arranged for me to meet Carla, manipulating me by flattering my pride. He dared me to talk her into going to bed with him and, like an idiot, I fell for it. Then he sang the praises of her physical beauty and her performance in bed. He threw in the fact that the girl was money hungry by mentioning her demand for a higher fee if there was a next time with him. When I rejected his offer of her phone number on the way back from the gambling den in Opera, he dropped me off in Piazza Napoli, and that was no accident. Carla was immediately informed of my lack of interest and she decided to speed things up by waiting for me outside the Ascot Club.
She knew perfectly well I’d show up there eventually.
There was someone following me the whole time. Whoever it was saw Tulip kidnap me at gunpoint. We were followed all the way to Trezzano, and I have only my guardian angels to thank for the fact that I didn’t wind up in an unmarked grave in the countryside near a quarry. Though the only reason they sent Menno straight to hell was to avoid seeing their safe-conduct pass into Lorenzo Bonifaci’s villa torn to shreds right before their eyes. They saw me abandon the dead man’s car and set off on foot for Via Monte Rosa. When all was said and done, I played right into their hands. I handed my car keys to Carla and asked her to drive me home, allowing her to walk through my front door and into my life.
At this point, heaven-sent and anything but an accident, comes Laura’s defection. Carla emerged from her cocoon as the radiant butterfly that she was and I had already shown a certain weakness for her. Given no other options, the decision to send Carla in Laura’s place was inevitable, the only possible alternative.
All the same, it was crucial that for the evening of the murder I should have no alibi. Which is why Daytona, who I just happened to run into outside the Cinema Argentina, sent me with an envelope filled with bundles of newspaper strips in my pocket to a rendezvous where he knew no one would show up.
Next comes the sleight of hand of the switched cars. They used my car for the raid on the villa in Lesmo, replacing it with an identical vehicle designed to ensure I wouldn’t notice a thing. Unfortunately for them, I noticed. After the killings, they made sure to smear some blood on the floor of my Mini, they concealed the handgun in the door panel, and then they put the car back where it was originally.
Apparently quite complicated, but in practical terms, very simple.
I’m also reasonably certain of one thing.
The minute the police really did put out an all-points bulletin on me, I wasn’t going to be arrested. I was going to be found somewhere, in a Red Brigades lair set up especially to deflect the investigators, with a bullet in my head and a pistol in my hand. And on the table next to me a raving suicide note in which I openly declare my guilt and state that I refuse to give the Italian government—so brutally and victoriously wounded by my deed—the satisfaction of taking me alive.
End of story.
The one thing I don’t entirely understand, and can do no more than theorize, is the reason they included Laura as one of the victims in the massacre. Probably, even if she was in cahoots with them, they did it for two reasons. First of all to eliminate an inconvenient witness who they were going to have to kill sooner or later anyway, just as they did with Daytona. In the second place, to make sure that the numbers added
up in what was, after all, an orgy: three men and three women.
The numbers would add up, and Carla’s presence at the scene of the crime would be erased. Once I was eliminated, and, with me, my version of what happened, even if Carla was somehow linked to me, she could just claim to be a poor defenseless girl who fell for me, only to run away in disgust once she discovered that my only interest in her was to turn her into a prostitute.
I consider my situation.
If I’m thinking the whole thing through correctly, then not only do I have the police on my trail, but also whoever it was that organized this whole elaborate prank. I could opt for the lesser of two evils and go to the police, but I don’t think that’s the right way. They’d throw me in solitary confinement so hard I’d bounce, and then they’d lose the key while they checked out my story. And it might not check out at all, in the end. Whatever happened, it would certainly mean an open-ended stint behind bars, given the gravity of the charges and the general dislike that cops and judges feel for people in my line of work.
The only solution that strikes me as acceptable, now that I know more or less how and why, is to try to find out who. I have to do it myself and I have to do it fast, before Tano Casale finds out about the trouble I’m in and goes to cash the counterfeit lottery ticket that I fobbed off on him. Instead of being in trouble twice over, my problems would multiply threefold. Unless he decides to pull the caper I suggested to him on his own, in which case I’d have a little breathing room.
The espresso pot huffs and puffs to let me know that the coffee is ready. I pour myself a cup and drink it, even though it’s the world’s worst, because the pot hasn’t been used in so long. I should force myself to eat something, but I just can’t do it. My stomach is in the clutch of an iron fist, and it won’t stop squeezing.
I get up and go back to the bedroom. I get my things out of the travel bag and get dressed. I find a reasonably secure hiding place for my money and lottery ticket, reassured by the thought that generally thieves don’t break into other thieves’ apartments.
A Pimp's Notes Page 23
