“She was in love, as much as I was. Perhaps more, because if I’d had any idea what was going to happen to me, I would have run away immediately. We went on dating. One night, on my way home, I was grabbed by three men. They threw a hood over my head and shoved me into a car.”
I give her time to conjure up images corresponding to my story. She certainly has experiences in her own past that should help her do so.
“They took me to a place. I think it was a farm. I could smell the countryside. I heard the voice of the man talking. A rough, gravelly voice, he told me to hold still, that if I was good he wouldn’t hurt me as much, and he kept telling me Bravo! Bravo!… Then they pulled down my trousers and he sliced off my dick.”
Even I am forced to use my imagination for this part. There was a hood over my head. All I saw was blackness. I remember the yellow flash of pain before my staring eyes.
“Then what happened?”
“They threw me out of the car in front of my house, an isolated villa at the beach, at Mondello. I was immediately sent to a private clinic for treatment, where I had emergency surgery and was cared for in conditions of absolute discretion. Absolutely no one was to know that they had kidnapped Amedeo Sangiorgi’s son and cut his dick off.”
My voice must sound to her the same way it sounds to me.
Choked and still filled with disbelief.
“Once I recovered, they transferred me to Rome and I was put into a psychologist’s care. To come to terms with the trauma, they said. The sessions did one useful thing: they made me suspicious. It had all been too well orchestrated to have been a lucky chance. The way they dropped me off in front of my house, the fact that I was given such prompt medical care, the fortuitous presence of the right surgeons in the clinic, as if my father had been warned in advance of what was going to happen.”
I look her in the face again. I’ve watched as this woman killed people in cold blood. But now there’s a bottomless grief and pity painted on her face.
“And in fact that’s pretty much what had happened. He confirmed that to me himself. He knew, but he lacked the courage to do anything about it. Or there was nothing he could do, which doesn’t really change matters much. By this point he was in too deep and he was too determined to climb to the top of the ladder of power.”
I allow her to reflect on the tragic irony of the whole story. The fact that, of all the files, she should have chosen to put into my hands the one that dealt with my father. The fact that the only person who could have helped Senator Amedeo Sangiorgi to recover a dossier that he’d fought so ferociously to track down was his son, whom he’d sacrificed to the laws of the Mafia.
“That’s why I ran away. That’s why I lay low and used a fake name. I took diction lessons to conceal my accent. I was afraid of the world, and I felt only fear and contempt toward everyone. Toward other men, who could be what I could never hope to be again. Toward women, who had the power of exciting me but not of satiating me.”
She looks at me in silence. There’s not much left to say. And what little there is, it’s up to me to say.
“And so, in memory of the words spoken that night, Bravo was born. A pimp.”
“Did you ever find out the name of the man who mutilated you?”
I smile. Despite the effort it costs me.
“Certainly. He was a professional killer hired for the occasion. I met him again in Milan. He’d risen through the ranks, and now he was a gang boss. But I had a clue. I remembered his voice. He didn’t have any way of recognizing me, not even my face, because my head was covered with a hood.”
“What ever happened to him?”
“He died in San Vittore Prison. He was killed by another prisoner in the exercise yard.”
It takes her a second to make the connection. But she gets it almost immediately.
“Did that prisoner by any chance live somewhere near Quarto Oggiaro before winding up in prison?”
My silence is equivalent to confirmation. And it strikes me as the right moment to venture a small additional observation about myself.
“As you can see, I’m no better than you are.”
My story is done. As I’d promised her, it wasn’t long. There will be other stories for both of us. But each of us will experience them on his or her own. Now there’s not much left to say, only a short time left to spend as best we can.
Carla stands up.
“I think I’d better go rejoin my boys. Officially I came in here to thank you properly while they took a dip in the ocean. But now I have to go.”
I accompany her to the door. Her voice stops me short.
“Now let me ask you a question. The same question you asked me. How are you?”
“I have a woman. Just one. I let her see other men. But not for money.”
I open the door for her. I follow her down the short hallway.
“I’ve wondered more than once what that life would have been like.”
“What life?”
“Working for you.”
We walk through the door and we’re in the lobby. Beyond this wooden panel is another world. The world of people who don’t know and in this case would certainly prefer not to.
“I told you, one day in my apartment, when you asked me to bring you into the business. It’s not a road you can’t come back from. But if you do, you’ll be bringing some unpleasant memories with you.”
“Who doesn’t have them already?”
“Right, who doesn’t?”
A few more steps and we’re outside, on the patio from which we have a view of the beach and the sea, abloom with colorful sails. From here, it’s impossible to identify Paul and Malcolm McKay, but I feel certain that down there somewhere they’re enjoying themselves like any father and son on holiday. And they’re waiting for a wife and mother whom they know as Luisa to rejoin them.
I’m tempted to ask her her real name. But I refrain.
Whatever that name might be, to me she’ll always have just one name: Carla.
Carla Bonelli.
Just as we’re about to say good-bye, Pilar catches us by surprise. She must have left the Nissan Patrol in the parking lot and walked around the building, so I didn’t see her coming. She stops just a step or two away.
She looks at us and, with the instinct that all women seem to possess, examines us.
“Pilar, this is Mrs. McKay. She’s going to be our guest at the resort village with her husband and son for a couple of weeks.”
Pilar walks over. The two women shake hands and study each other the way that only women know how to do. Then Carla … no, Luisa—decides that the time really has come to get back to her family.
“Have a good day, Mr. Sangiorgi. Thanks very much for your kind help. You have a good day too, Pilar.”
Without waiting for a reply, she turns and walks away, with a gait that has lost none of its grace. I follow her with my gaze as she stops to take off her shoes and then walks off barefoot across the sand.
Pilar’s voice summons me back to her side.
“That woman likes you.”
I realize that she was watching my eyes, without understanding what was reflected in them. Certainly a number of things, all of them easy to misunderstand.
“Are you going to leave me for her?”
I take her face in my hands. I can hear something solid in my voice, something definitive in my words.
“No. I’m not going to leave you for her.”
I take off my shoes. I want to feel the sand under my bare feet too. It’s been far too long since I last did it. I step off the wooden boards of the patio and sink into the sand. I look at the woman who’s lived with me for the past few years. She’s wearing a pair of olive drab shorts and a black T-shirt beneath which her breasts are free to be themselves and allow others to imagine them.
“Come here.”
Pilar walks over and I pull her toward me. I wrap an arm around her shoulders. I feel her skin, soft to my touch.
“Let’
s take a walk. You want to?”
We walk off toward Punta de Mangle, without haste or purpose.
Pilar wraps one arm around my waist.
“Didn’t you have a meeting?”
“Didn’t you have a date to go surfing?”
She laughs and her teeth are the white of a young female shark.
“Oh, that boy was so dull, so barboso. I have more fun getting bored with you.”
From that moment on, we walk, arms around each other, without speaking, heading somewhere we know perfectly well we’ll never reach. But we feel this progress, this walking together, this new thing pushing us step by step to move beyond our footsteps. We’ll find them there on our way back. If they’re mingled with other footsteps and we’re unable to recognize them, what does it matter? We’re on an island, and everyone here is a survivor in his own way, of one shipwreck or another.
Here the spring lasts a long time and summer, when it comes, doesn’t spoil anything.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel contains the story of a world that no longer exists. It vanished as people went away, as years passed, and as society changed. It faded with the numbers that mark the years of my life, when in the tens column a three replaced the two, and then came a four, followed by a five, and that’s where I stop, because six is Satan’s number.
Milan was not yet a brand you could drink, and the night was still a noble adversary to face in single combat. Sleep was our true enemy, and sunshine at dawn was part of the routine. Indifference was the only sin, unappreciated talent the harsh hair shirt we wore.
In that world and in those years, an adventure began that continues today. I would like to thank all the people who made those years unforgettable, with their kindness or their rejection. Both helped me to become the man I am today, for better or for worse.
But to do this, I’d have to write a hundred pages and mention a thousand names. I’m happy to name just one out of the many: Beefsteak. He left behind a trove of unforgettable, outsized wisecracks, the kind of witticisms that only genius for its own sake could engender. I like to think that I paid him due tribute and endowed him with just a smidgen of the immortality that his creative flair deserved.
Then there are people I should thank for their help in writing and editing this book. They are people who brighten my life with their friendship and esteem, and I return those sentiments in the most complete manner imaginable.
Let me therefore thank:
Claudio Giovannone, who ensured that a person he loves would be transformed into a chief inspector. And he did it in the best possible way: by doing good.
The Lavazza family, who gave me the same opportunity.
Dario Tosetti, for serving as an enthusiastic middleman in this exchange of good wishes.
Dr. Cesare Savina, an outstanding pediatrician, who took a short time off from treating the illnesses of real children to provide me with one for a fictional child.
Dr. Franco Bardari, director of the Department of Urology at the Civic Hospital of Asti, who enlightened me, while I shuddered, on the surgical ordeal that Bravo endured.
La Settimana Enigmistica, in the person of Alessandro Bartezzaghi, who helped me out with the cryptic clues contained in this novel.
Piero Tallarida, historian of and devoted waiter at the legendary Derby Club, the avowed inspiration for the Ascot Club.
Claudia Zigliotto, an assistant deputy commissioner of police, a dear friend, and at the same time a ruthless protagonist in the battle against crime in the city of Milan.
Andy Surdi, spectacular drummer and vocalist.
Michele del Vecchio and Furio Bozzetti, old friends who have surfaced safe and sound.
Giovanni Bartocci, a young businessman and my companion in New York City nights of revelry. Two different ages, the same blues, the same beer.
Last of all, let me mention the group of people I work with, men and women who are my coworkers and at the same time my friends. And work and friendship have never interfered.
Here are their names:
Alessandro Dalai, the man of the clouds.
Cristina Dalai, the young lady of the clear blue sky.
Lorenza Dalai, my favorite elf.
Antonella Fassi, who has a good word for everyone.
Mara Scanavino, who has a good color for everyone.
Chiara Moscardelli and Elisa Montanucci, who have a good press release for everyone.
Stefano Travagli, who is impervious to the siren song of the lap dance, not something you can say about everyone.
Francesco Colombo, who edits me like no one else can.
Piergiorgio Nicolazzini, who encourages me like no one else can.
Roberta, who does all these things put together and more besides.
If I can consider myself a lucky man, they are all fundamental factors in that good fortune.
ALSO BY GIORGIO FALETTI
I Kill
I Am God
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2010 by Baldini Castoldi Dalai Editore S.p.A., Milano, Italy
Translation copyright © 2012 by Antony Shugaar
All rights reserved
Originally published in 2010 by Baldini Castoldi Dalai Editore, Italy, as Appunti di un venditore di donne
Published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First American edition, 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Faletti, Giorgio, 1950–
[Appunti di un venditore di donne. English]
A pimp’s notes / Giorgio Faletti, translated from the Italian by Antony Shugaar. — 1st American ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-374-23140-8 (alk. paper)
I. Shugaar, Antony. II. Title.
PQ4906.A44 A6713 2012
853'.92—dc23
2011046064
www.fsgbooks.com
eISBN 9781466820173
A Pimp's Notes Page 36
