The Piranhas, The Boy Bosses of Naples

by Roberto Saviano

  He took off his shoes, then his pants, then his T-shirt, until he was standing there in his underwear.

  “Everything, guaglio’, because you could even have a microphone stuck up your ass.”

  Nicolas knew that this had nothing to do with microphones. In L’Arcangelo’s presence, he was supposed to feel like nothing so much as a naked worm, that was the price you paid for the appointment. He performed a pirouette, as if amused, he showed that he had no microphones or micro video cameras but that he did possess a sense of irony, a spirit that bosses lose, necessarily. Don Vittorio gestured for him to sit down, and without a word, Nicolas pointed to himself, as if to request confirmation that he could sit down like that, naked, on immaculate white chairs. The boss nodded.

  “That way we’ll see if you know how to wipe your ass. If you leave skid marks of shit, it means you’re too young, you don’t know how to use a bidet and Mammà is still wiping you.”

  They were sitting facing each other. Don Vittorio had intentionally avoided sitting at the head of the table, to avoid the symbolism: if he’d let him sit at his right hand, the kid might make all kind of assumptions. Better to sit face-to-face, one on one, like in a police interrogation. And he intentionally also offered him nothing to drink or eat: you don’t share food at the table with a stranger, nor do you offer coffee to a guest you’re sizing up.

  “So you’re ’o Maraja?”

  “Nicolas Fiorillo…”

  “Exactly, ’o Maraja … it’s important what people call you. Your monicker is more important than your real name, did you know that? Do you know the story of Bardellino?”

  “No.”

  “Bardellino, a real guappo. He’s the one who molded a bunch of gangs of bufalari, cowherds, into a serious organization in Casal di Principe.”

  Nicolas was listening the way a devout Catholic listens to Mass.

  “Bardellino had a nickname that was given him when he was just a kid, and he carried it with him even when he was a grown-up. They called him Pucchiacchiello.”

  Nicolas started laughing, Don Vittorio nodded his head, widening his eyes, as if confirming that the story he was telling was true, not a legend. Something that had been recorded in the transcripts of the life that matters.

  “In order to get the stench of the stables and the earth off him, in order to get the grime off his fingernails, every time that Bardellino went down into town, he’d wash, he’d put on scent, he’d dress up fancy. Every day like it was Sunday. Brilliantine on his head … his hair glistening and wet.”

  “And where did this nickname come from?”

  “Back then, the town was full of farmhands and sharecroppers. To see ’nu guagliunciello, a young man like him, all fancied up, started to seem normal: Pucchiacchiello, like the pussy—la pucchiacca—of a beautiful woman. All clean and sweet smelling, like a pussy.”

  “I got it, ’nu fighetto,” he said, using a comparable term in Italian.

  “The fact remains that this name wasn’t a name for someone who can command. If you want to command, you have to have a name that commands. It can be ugly, it can mean nothing, but it can’t be foolish.”

  “But you don’t decide your own nickname.”

  “Exactly. And in fact, when he became a boss, Bardellino insisted that he only wanted to be called Don Antonio, anyone who dared to call him Pucchiacchiello was in a world of trouble. No one could call him that to his face, but still he remained always and only Pucchiacchiello.”

  “Still, he was a great boss, wasn’t he? So that means, adda murì mammà, that your name doesn’t really matter all that much.”

  “You’re wrong about that, he spent the rest of his life trying to get rid of it…”

  “So what ever became of Don Pucchiacchiello?” he asked with a smile, and then saw that Don Vittorio didn’t like that smile.

  “He disappeared. There are those who say that he started a new life, got plastic surgery on his face, pretended to be dead and enjoyed himself behind the backs of those who wanted him dead or behind bars. I only saw him once, when I was a kid, he was the only man of the System who sembrava ’nu re—who seemed like a king. There was no one like him. Nisciuno comm’a lui.”

  “Good job, Pucchiacchiello,” Nicolas commented, as if he were speaking of a peer.

  “You were lucky, they nailed your monicker perfectly.”

  “The reason they call me that is because I spend all my time at the New Maharaja, a club up in Posillipo. That’s my headquarters, and they make the best cocktails in Naples.”

  “Your headquarters, is it? Eh, bravo.” Don Vittorio stifled a smile. “It’s a good name, do you know what it means?”

  “I looked it up on the Internet, it means ‘king’ in Indian.”

  “It’s a name for kings, but look out, or you could wind up like the song.”

  “What song?”

  Don Vittorio, with a broad smile, started to sing it, letting loose with his melodious voice. In falsetto:

  “Pasqualino Marajà

  non lavora e non fa niente:

  fra i misteri dell’Oriente

  fa il nababbo fra gli indù.

  Ulla! Ulla! Ulla! La!

  Pasqualino Marajà

  ha insegnato a far la pizza,

  tutta l’India ne va pazza.”

  Pasqualino Marajà

  he doesn’t work and he doesn’t lift a finger:

  among the mysteries of the East

  he plays the nabob among the Hindus.

  Ulla! Ulla! Ulla! La!

  Pasqualino Marajà

  taught them how to make pizza,

  all of India is going crazy over it.

  He stopped singing, now he was laughing, openmouthed, rudely. Laughter that ended in a hacking cough. Nicolas was annoyed. He saw this display as a form of mockery, to test his nerves.

  “Don’t make that face, it’s a nice song. I always used to sing it when I was a guaglione myself. And after all, I can just see you wearing a turban, making pizzas up on the hill of Posillipo.”

  Nicolas’s eyebrows were cocked, his brow furrowed, the self-deprecating irony of a few minutes ago had given way to rage, a rage he couldn’t conceal.

  “Don Vitto’, do I have to sit here with my dick sticking out?” was all he said.

  Don Vittorio, still sitting in the same chair, in the same position, pretended he hadn’t heard a thing.

  “Aside from bullshit and fuckups, looking like a fool is the thing that anyone who wants to be a boss should fear most.”

  “So far, adda murì mammà, no one’s ever slapped shit in my face yet.”

  “The first thing that makes you look like a fool is that you’re trying to start a paranza and you don’t have any weapons.”

  “So far, with everything I had to my name, I’ve done more than any of your guaglioni are doing, and I’m speaking respectfully, Don Vitto’, I know I’m nothing in comparison with you.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing you’re speaking respectfully, because my guaglioni, if they wanted to, right this second, could come in here and do to you what the fishmonger does when he cleans a fish.”

  “Let me insist on the point, Don Vitto’, your guaglioni aren’t up to your level. They’re hunkered down here and they can do nothing. The Faellas have taken you prisoner, adda murì mammà, they want to make you ask permission just to breathe. With you under house arrest and the mayhem going on out there, simme nuje a cummannà, we’re in charge, with or without weapons. Resign yourself: Jesus Christ, the Madonna, and San Gennaro have all left L’Arcangelo alone in the world.”

  That little kid was just describing reality and Don Vittorio let him talk; he didn’t like the way he kept bringing the saints into it, and even more, he disliked that interjection, he found it odious, adda murì mammà … may my mother die. An oath, a guarantee for anything. A price for the lie uttered? Adda murì mammà. He repeated it with every sentence he spoke. Don Vittorio wanted to tell him to stop, but then he lowered his gaze becaus
e the young boy’s body made him smile, almost melted his heart, and he decided that the reason he repeated that phrase was to ward off the danger of the utmost catastrophe that an unfledged bird—a bird that has not yet left the nest—fears more than any other. For his part, Nicolas saw the boss gaze down at the table, for the first time lowering his gaze, he thought, and he actually believed it represented a reversal of their roles, for the first time he felt powerful and strong in his nudity. He was young and fresh and smooth, and he was facing old, bowed flesh.

  “L’Arcangelo, that’s what they call you in the street, in prison, in court, and even on the Internet. It’s a good name, it’s a name that can command. Who gave it to you?”

  “My father was named Gabriele, like the Archangel Gabriel, may the Lord rest his soul. I was Vittorio who belonged to Gabriele, so that’s what they called me.”

  “And this Archangel”—Nicolas continued hammering away at the walls between him and the boss—“with his wings tied, sits helpless in a quarter where he once commanded, a quarter that no longer belongs to him, and his men don’t know how to do anything but play with their PlayStation consoles. The wings of this Archangel ought to be spread wide, and instead they’re closed like the wings of a goldfinch in a cage.”

  “That’s the way it is: there’s a time to fly, and a time to sit locked up in a cage. For that matter, better a cage like this one than a cage under the forty-one bis regime.”

  Nicolas stood up and started walking around him. He walked slowly. L’Arcangelo didn’t move; that’s what he always did when he wanted to give the impression that he had eyes in the back of his head. If someone is behind you and your eyes start following him, that means you’re afraid. And whether you keep your eyes on him or not, if the knife is going to plunge into you, it will no matter what you do. If you don’t look, though, if you don’t turn around, you show no fear and you turn your murderer into an infamous coward who’s stabbed you in the back.

  “Don Vittorio L’Arcangelo, you don’t have men anymore, but you do have weapons. What good are all the guns that you keep stored away in your warehouses? I have men, but the arsenal that you possess? I can only dream of it. If you wanted, you could arm an army, fight a real war.”

  L’Arcangelo didn’t expect this request, he hadn’t guessed that the child he’d allowed to come upstairs to his home would ever venture such a daring move. He’d expected to be asked for his blessing to operate on his territory. And yet, even if it did point to a lack of respect, L’Arcangelo wasn’t bothered by it. In fact, he liked this way of operating. It scared him. And he hadn’t felt fear in a long time, too long. In order to command, to be a boss, you need to be afraid, every day of your life, at every moment. To conquer the fear, to figure out whether you’re still capable. Whether your fear will let you live or whether, instead, it simply poisons everything. If you can’t feel fear, then it means that you’re worthless now, that no one’s interested in killing you, approaching you, taking what belongs to you, which after all you, in your turn, took from someone else.

  “You and I have nothing in common. You don’t belong to me, you’re not in my System, you’ve never done me a favor of any kind. If only for the disrespectful request you’ve just made, I ought to kick you out and leave your blood on the floor of the Professoressa’s apartment downstairs.”

  “I’m not afraid of you, Don Vitto’. If I’d just taken your weapons directly, that would have been a different matter and you would have been right to do that.”

  L’Arcangelo was seated and Nicolas, standing, was now face-to-face with him, hands clenched into fists and knuckles resting on the table.

  “I’m old, aren’t I?” said L’Arcangelo with a razor-sharp smile.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Answer me, Maraja, am I old?”

  “Whatever you say. Yes, if I’m supposed to say yes.”

  “Am I old or not?”

  “Yes, you’re old.”

  “And am I ugly?”

  “Now what does that have to do with anything?”

  “I must be old and ugly and I must scare you badly, too. If that wasn’t the case, right now, you wouldn’t be hiding your naked legs under the table, to keep me from seeing them. You’re trembling, guaglio’. But tell me something: If I give you the weapons, what do I get out of it?”

  Nicolas was ready for that question, and he almost became emotional as he repeated the phrase that he had practiced on his way there, riding his motor scooter. He hadn’t expected he’d have to utter it naked, with his legs still shaking, but he said it all the same.

  “What you get out of it is that you continue to exist. What you get out of it is that the most powerful paranza in Naples is your friend.”

  “Assiettete.” L’Arcangelo ordered him to sit back down in dialect. And then, putting on the most serious of all his masks: “I can’t. It would be like putting ’na pucchiacca in the hands of little kids. You don’t know how to shoot, you don’t know how to clean a weapon, you’d get yourselves hurt. You don’t even know how to reload a machine gun.”

  Nicolas’s heart, throbbing with anxiety, urged him to lash back, but instead he remained calm: “Give them to us and we’ll show you what we know how to do. We’ll remove the marks of the slaps to your face, the slaps delivered to you by those who consider you to be a limping invalid. The best friend you could hope to have is your enemy’s enemy. And what we want most is to expel the Faellas from the center of Naples. Our house is our house. If we kick them out of the center of Naples, then you can certainly kick them out of San Giovanni and take back all of Ponticelli, and the bars, and where you used to be in charge, where you used to command.”

  The way things stood currently was no longer acceptable to L’Arcangelo: a new order needed to be established, and if he could no longer be in charge, at least this way he’d create general havoc. He’d give them the weapons, the guns that had been sitting unused for years. They were a strength, but a strength that isn’t exercised only makes the muscles atrophy. L’Arcangelo decided to bet on this paranza of piscitielli—little fish. If he could no longer command, he could still force the ones ruling over the area to come to him and sue for peace. He was tired of having to say thank you for scraps, and that army of children was the only way he’d get a chance to see daylight before the coming eternal darkness.

  “I’ll give you what you need, but you aren’t my ambassadors. Any bullshit you pull with my weapons can’t bear my name on them. You pay your own debts, you’ll lick the blood off your own wounds. But whatever I ask you, whenever I ask you, you must do without argument.”

  “You’re old, ugly, and wise, too, Don Vitto’.”

  “All right, Maraja, the same way you came, now you can leave. One of my men will let you know where you can go pick them up.”

  Don Vittorio extended his hand, Nicolas grabbed it and tried to kiss it, but L’Arcangelo yanked it away in disgust: “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “I was kissing your hand out of respect…”

  “Guaglio’, you’ve lost your mind, you and all the movies you watch.”

  L’Arcangelo stood up, bracing both hands on the table: his bones were heavy and house arrest had made him put on weight.

  “Now get dressed again, and hurry it up, because soon the carabinieri are going to be coming around to check on things.”

  Nicolas put on his underpants, his jeans, and his shoes as quickly as he could.

  “Ah, Don Vitto’, one more thing…”

  Don Vittorio turned around wearily.

  “In the place where I’ll have to go to get the … no?”

  There were no listening devices, and Nicolas had already uttered that word, but now that he was almost there, he was a little bit afraid.

  “Well?” said L’Arcangelo.

  “You need to do me a favor and post some guards that I can get out of the way.”

  “We’ll have two Gypsies with guns in their hands, but shoot into the air, b
ecause I need my Gypsies.”

  “But then they’ll shoot back at us.”

  “If you shoot into the air, Gypsies will always run away … Fuck, I have to teach you everything.”

  “But if they run away, what do you have them there for in the first place?”

  “They’ll tell us there’s a problem, and that’s when we show up.”

  “Adda murì mammà, Don Vitto’, don’t you worry, I’ll do as you instructed.”

  The boys accompanied Nicolas to the trapdoor, but he’d already set his feet on the first rung when he heard Don Vittorio: “Oh!” he stopped Nicolas. “Bring a statuette to the Professoressa for her trouble. She’s crazy about Capodimonte porcelain figurines.”

  “Don Vitto’, are you serious?”

  “Sure, get ’o zampognaro, the bagpipe player, it’s a classic and it will always make you look good.”

  RITE

  Nicolas had gone to the hardware store with a whole bunch of keys, but actually there was only one key he was interested in. A multilever-lock key, the classic kind, long and heavy, used to open an armored, reinforced door. This key went to an old but very strong lock, capable of withstanding for many years the assaults of improvised marauders. He was going to the keysmith to ask for copies: “You need to give me ten, no, twelve, no, make that fifteen.”

  “For real?” asked the hardware store owner: “And what do you need to do with this army of keys?”

  “If they get lost…”

  “You really have a problem with your memory, if you lose all these sets of keys.”

  “Better safe than sorry, no?”

  “Well, if you say so. All right, so that’s…”

  “No, no, make me the keys and then I’ll pay you … or don’t you trust me?”

  That last phrase had been uttered with such menace that the hardware store owner had given in; the alternative would have been to copy the keys and give them to him free of charge.

  Maraja opened WhatsApp and wrote to each of them, giving them an appointment.

  Maraja

  Guagliù, meeting confirmed at the lair.

  Lair. Not house. Not apartment. Not some other random word that anyone else would have used to mislead in case their conversations were being monitored. Nicolas wrote the word and spoke it with that old-fashioned echo it carried, “lair,” almost as if to heighten the conspiratorial, lurking, criminal connotation, and thereby ward off the danger of the place turning into nothing but a convenient hangout where they could smoke joints and bang away at the video-game console. He always tried to use a criminal vocabulary, even when he was alone, it was something he forced himself to do. A lesson he had taught himself, a sort of version of the “Start living the life you want now” that was touted by every American self-help book, and that Nicolas had figured out without reading it anywhere. If only someone was monitoring and overheard it! He secretly hoped so: that would be better than the lowest foothold in whatever Camorristic organization at its last gasp. All around him, Nicolas saw nothing but territories to be conquered, possibilities to be grasped. He’d figured it out immediately and he didn’t want to stop growing, he didn’t give a damn about waiting in line, respecting the hierarchy. He’d spent ten days rewatching Il Camorrista: he was ready.