The Piranhas, The Boy Bosses of Naples

by Roberto Saviano

  Nicolas wrote on WhatsApp: “Guagliò, I’m getting a pair of wings inked on my back. Come on down.” Then he turned the cell phone to show Totò a picture of a fourteenth-century painting of St. Michael with black-and-scarlet wings and told him he had to do them “exactly like that.”

  “But it’ll take me three days to do them,” Totò objected. He was used to working off the patterns and drawings in his catalogs.

  “It’ll take you one. We’ll start work today, and then you’re going to have to do the same for all my pals. But you’ll give us a good price.”

  “Sure, Maraja, whatever you say.”

  They spent the next few days going in and out of the tattoo parlor, and the tattoo artist carved into the skin on their backs, etching the flesh, with a light, attentive touch. Because to a certain extent Totò had actually taken a passionate interest in this work, work that required a minimum amount of creativity. Along with the passion, he’d also become curious, and wanted to know: “What do these wings mean to you?” He’d ask that question as he forced the ink into the skin over the shoulder blades. “Why are you and all your buddies getting them?”

  Nicolas didn’t mind the question, symbols were fundamental, but it was just as important that everyone be able to decipher them, those symbols needed to be as clear as the frescoes on the walls of the churches, where the instant you saw a saint with keys, you knew it was St. Peter. That tattoo needed to be every bit as immediate for all of them, the members of the paranza, and everyone else, outside of it. “It’s like taking someone else’s powers: it’s as if we’d captured an archangel, which is sort like saying the boss of the angels, cut its throat, and taken its wings. It’s not the kind of thing that just happens along, it’s something we sweated for, that we fought hard for and won, and now it’s as if we were Archangel from the X-Men, got it? It’s sort of like … something we achieved, got it?”

  “Ah, like a scalp,” said Totò.

  “What’s a scalp?” asked Dentino.

  “You know, like what the Indians do … they take a knife and peel the hair and the scalp off their enemies’ heads.”

  “That’s right,” Nicolas confirmed, “exactly.”

  “Then who did you cut the wings off?” asked Totò.

  “Heh heh heh,” laughed Nicolas. “Ronaldi’, now you’re asking too many questions.”

  “Oh, hell, what do I know?”

  “That is, it’s as if to say … that you can learn from someone how to play soccer, how to swim fast, no? It’s like taking private lessons for a foreign language, right? You learn. Well, same way, someone taught us to have wings. And now we’re flying, and no one’s going to stop us now.”

  * * *

  For three days the whole paranza had pairs of flaming wings on their backs, but still not one of them had taken flight even once: they were waiting for the signal from Don Vittorio Grimaldi, and the wait was stretching out. They had no idea of how or where they’d be able to get in touch with him. Maraja was acting as if everything was going exactly the way it was supposed to go, but deep inside he was starting to seethe, and in order to brace himself he kept thinking about that meeting in the boss’s home: the man had given him his word, he couldn’t doubt what was coming.

  In the end it was simpler than they’d expected. Aucelluzzo got in touch with Nicolas directly, he approached him on his motor scooter, no phone calls, no visits to the lair. “Guagliu’, L’Arcangelo’s gift to you is at the zoo.”

  “The zoo?”

  “The zoo. That’s right. South side. Go in, there’s a penguin cage.”

  “Hold on,” said Nicolas. They were talking while riding their scooters. “Pull over for a second.”

  “No, why are you stopping? Keep riding.” Aucelluzzo was shitting his pants in fear of Micione’s men because he was in forbidden territory, property of the Faellas. “Download the map of the zoo from the Internet. Anyway, the penguin section is empty. Under the trapdoor, you’ll find the bags. All the gats are in the bags.”

  “Are the Gypsies still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re not going to shoot at us, are they?”

  “No, they’re not going to shoot at you. You shoot in the air and they’ll turn and run.”

  “Okay.”

  “Take care.” After pulling away, Aucelluzzo turned around to shout back at him: “When you’re done, post on Facebook, that way I’ll know.”

  Nicolas accelerated and caught up with his boys in the apartment on Via dei Carbonari, to organize the group that was going to go and retrieve the weapons. There was the one pistol, the one Nicolas had bought, and then they had a couple of knives between them. Dentino suggested: “I could go and see if they’ll sell me a pistol at La Duchesca, or else there’s the hunting-and-fishing store, we could just rob them…”

  “Sure, let’s rob a gun store, that way they’ll riddle us with lead.”

  “Okay, forget it.”

  “So let’s get a gat from the Chinese guy where Nicolas got the first one.”

  “Mm-hmm. Another piece-of-shit pistol? No way in hell. We need to head out tonight and grab the gang’s arsenal. L’Arcangelo is giving us all his weapons. It’s serious stuff, not this other bullshit.”

  “All right, then, let’s do that. Let’s go to the zoo.”

  “The zoo?” asked Dentino.

  Nicolas nodded. “It’s all set. We’ll go in, just five of us: me, Briato’, Dentino, Stavodicendo, and Pesce Moscio. Outside: Tucano and Lollipop. Stavodicendo will go ahead to scout, to see if there’s any activity we don’t like, and he’ll call Pesce Moscio, who’ll keep an eye on the cell phone. Drago’ waits in the lair, because we’re going to need to hide the weapons…”

  * * *

  None of them had been at the zoo since they were four years old, and at the very most what they remembered of the place was tossing peanuts to the monkeys. There was a long enclosure wall, and they saw that the main entrance consisted of a gate that didn’t look too imposing. They’d assumed they were going to have to take some side entrance to go in, but instead it was super-easy to climb over the front way. The first to go was Stavodicendo, then, on his signal, the other four. They were in such a hurry to get to the swag that they went right past the signposts for the various animals without noticing. The weapons were right there within reach, they could practically smell them, instead of the whiff of guano from all the birds that ruffled their feathers as they went by. They sounded like ghosts. The guys were all excited, without a hint of fear. But also without the slightest idea of where they were heading.

  * * *

  They were forced to stop halfway up the lake that stretched out on their right. “Where the fuck are these penguins?”

  They pulled out their iPhones and studied the map on the zoo’s website: “It’s a good thing I told you to memorize the way,” Nicolas blurted out, even though he had no more idea of where they were than any of the others.

  “Fuck, it’s totally dark here.” Briato’ had brought a flashlight; the others trailed behind him, using their cell phones to light up the ground in front of their feet. When they came to the end of the lake they were staring into the maw of the lion’s cage. The lion seemed to be fast asleep and was clearly getting along in years, but he was still the king of the beasts, and they all stopped for a moment to gaze at him. “Ua’, he’s big, though, isn’t he, I thought they were about the size of a Great Dane,” said Dentino. The others nodded. “He looks like a mob boss behind bars: but even from in there, he’s the one who commands.” They’d managed to get distracted like a crowd of children, and they’d made a wrong turn into the section of the zebras and the camels.

  “We’ve got this wrong. What do camels have to do with penguins? Let me look at the map again,” said Stavodicendo.

  “Can’t you see that’s a dromedary? You’re always walking around with that pack of cigarettes in your hand and you can’t even remember what a camel looks like!” Briato’ mocked him.


  “Eh, I was just saying, a dromedary, what the fuck.”

  “Oh, guagliu’, we’re not taking an elementary school field trip,” said Nicolas, starting to get impatient. “Let’s get moving.”

  They took a right, leaving the big birdhouse on their left, and headed straight, passing the reptile house without uttering another word.

  “Wait, is that the polar bear?! Then we must be getting close…” At last they found the right section of the zoo. “Ua’, it really smells like shit. Why do these penguins stink so bad? Aren’t they always in the water? Then they ought to be clean.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” asked Nicolas. “They stink because they’re fat.”

  “How do you know? What are you now, a veterinarian?” Briato’ ribbed him.

  “No, but before coming here I watched a whole documentary about penguins on YouTube. I wanted to know if they were likely to attack us or who knows what else. But where is the damned manhole?” They couldn’t see it.

  They found themselves face-to-face with the plate-glass wall that separated the part where the penguins live by day from the area where they sleep at night, hidden from the public. Behind the glass was a diorama of Tierra del Fuego, the place the penguins originally came from. They realized that the manhole was right under the birds, behind the backdrop of the diorama where the penguins were perched, surrounded by shit and some scattered food. They stuck the flashlight into a loophole and spotted two metal covers, clearly the access points for two manholes: “What the fuck, L’Arcangelo didn’t tell me a thing. Adda murì mammà. He just said in the manhole where the penguins are, not actually underneath the penguins.”

  “And how the fuck are we supposed to get inside there?”

  “Wait, weren’t there supposed to be some Gypsies here?” Briato’ pointed out.

  “I don’t see anybody here. How the fuck would I know?”

  They started kicking at the little access door; the noise of their feet on the metal scared the penguins, and they immediately got worked up in that drunken way of theirs, you’d think they’d just downed ten chupito shots in a row.

  “Maraja, shoot at the lock, that way we’ll get in faster!”

  “What are you, stupid?! I’ve got three shots in this gun. Get to kicking!” he concluded, delivering one powerful kick as a demonstration. And with one kick after another, by the tenth powerful blow not only did the metal door swing open, but a piece of the wall enclosing the penguins’ space came with it. By now the penguins were terrorized, and they were emitting cries that made it all too clear that, whatever else you might think, they really were birds. What’s more, flightless though they might be, they still had big, sharp beaks on them.

  With their flashlight trained on the animals, they were almost scared to go in. “Are they aggressive?” asked Dentino. “I mean, they’re not going to peck at us or bite our dicks off, are they?”

  “No, don’t worry about that, Denti’, they know they wouldn’t find a thing to eat with you.”

  “Joke all you like, Maraja, but these are actually violent animals.”

  Nicolas finally made up his mind to go in, and the increasingly frightened penguins began moving around chaotically, flapping their atrophied wings. Now and then one of them would stick its head through the breach in the wall, perhaps looking out at freedom. “Let’s just let them run away, that way they can get the fuck out from underfoot.” Stavodicendo and Dentino started shoving them to get them to leave the space, the way you do with chickens when you’re trying to get your hands on one. That was when they saw the two Gypsies, who had gone off to get something to eat, returning with their hands full of pizza and beer. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?! Who are you?” they shouted, getting the penguins even more upset, while in the near distance a few seals started emitting a ridiculous series of honk-honks.

  Nicolas did as L’Arcangelo had told him to do. He grabbed his pistol and fired his first shot into the air.

  But the Gypsies instead just started shooting right at him and the rest of the paranza. “Hey, these guys are shooting at us!” As they were taking to their heels in search of shelter, Nicolas unloaded the last two shots remaining in his handgun at the Gypsies: on the second shot they tore out of there, silent as cats.

  “Are they gone?” They stood there for a minute listening, silent, Nicolas with his Francotte aimed uselessly out into the darkness, as if his ammunitionless pistol would reload with a click like in a video game.

  Once it was clear that the Gypsies weren’t going to be coming back around, they resumed breathing normally. Pesce Moscio grabbed the pizzas they’d dropped and tossed them to the penguins. “Do those poor beasts eat pizza, you think?”

  “What the fuck, Maraja! Didn’t you say that if you fired in the air the Gypsies would take to their heels?!”

  In the meantime, they managed to get the manholes open. Briato’ offered to go down, while their cell phones were going crazy with beeps and signals as Tucano and Lollipop kept asking from outside what was going on, if they needed them to come in. Dentino replied: “What do you think, if someone’s shooting at us do we have time to answer a message on WhatsApp whether you need to come in or not?”

  Nicolas slapped him on the back: “Instead of wasting time texting on your cell phone, come on in here!”

  “Ua’, guagliu’. Look what the fuck is in here!” Briato’s voice floated up to them, and inside was the biggest arsenal any of them had ever laid eyes on.

  Actually, they could only guess at it; they could see rifle barrels protruding from trash bags. Briato’ and Nicolas, who’d brought duffel bags, started stuffing them full, putting in everything within reach. “Facimm’ampress’. Hurry up. Here, take this fucking bag.”

  “Uànema, how the fuck much does it weigh!” Pesce Moscio said to Stavodicendo, holding the bag up from below.

  * * *

  They left the penguin area, with the penguins behind them wandering off into the zoo itself, and then walked past the big cats’ cage again, hauling the heavy bags full of weapons, slung on straps around their shoulders.

  “Ua’!” Lollipop exclaimed; he had just joined them, leaving Tucano alone out front to keep a lookout. He had an idea: “Sparammo ’o lione. Let’s shoot the lion. Then we’ll take it and get it stuffed and we can put it in the lair.”

  “For real?” asked Dentino: “And who’s going to stuff it for you?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll look it up on the Internet.”

  “Ja’, ja’, Maraja. Let me shoot it.”

  “What do you want to shoot, fuck off, get out of here.”

  Lollipop unzipped the bag, grabbed the first thing that felt like a gun, and went over to the lion’s cage. Or actually, behind the lion’s cage. He put his nose in the narrow opening to try to figure out how many animals there were: there was the old lion they’d already admired, and maybe, at the far end of the room, a lioness. He stuck the gun in, aimed it at the lion, and pulled the trigger, but the trigger wouldn’t budge. There had to be a safety on the gun somewhere; he flicked all the switches and levers he could find, pulled the trigger so that the hammer snapped, but there was no gunfire.

  “It’s out of bullets, strunzo!” said Maraja.

  Dentino broke in, yanking on Lollipop’s arm: “Jammo ja’, get moving, you can do the safari ride at the zoo some other time.”

  They walked out the main gate with incredible nonchalance, all they had to do was wait for the private security patrol to go by, and then the regular patrol of the city police. Tucano texted them from outside to give them the all clear.

  They deposited the bags full of weapons at the lair on Via dei Carbonari, where Drago’ was waiting for them. His mother had given him permission to sleep away from home that night. He’d lied to her, saying that he was going to stay over at a classmate’s from school. Drago’ wanted to hear how it had all gone, but they were too tired to tell him anything. They simply said good night with a round of satisfied slap
s on the back.

  They all spent a sleepless, euphoric night. Each slept in his own bed, in a bedroom close to his parents’ bed. They fell asleep like so many children on December 24, knowing that when they woke up they’d find presents to open under the tree. And that they’d wake up eager to tear the wrapping paper off that wonderful package containing weapons, their new lives, a chance to matter, a chance to grow. They fell asleep with the pleasurable discomfort of someone who knows that a great day is about to dawn.

  TURK’S HEAD

  They carried the weapons in their gym bags. The bags were bright green, and on them was printed POLISPORTIVA DELLA MADONNA DEL SALVATORE.

  Maraja and Briato’ had found them in the lockers, among the T-shirts and backpacks. They’d been there since the days when they’d stopped playing for the parish church soccer team. They were the most capacious bags they’d found, and the same duffel bags they’d once used to carry their suits and soccer shoes, they’d jammed full of machine guns and semiautomatic pistols.

  Training in the countryside far from the city meant alerting the families out there, letting them know they were armed, that they were getting organized, that they’d received a shipment of real artillery. Too much noise: better not to; in the blink of an eye everyone would be wondering where the weapons had come from and what they planned to do with them. Better not to give away any advantages. Because as far as shooting went, they didn’t really know how; they’d seen hundreds of tutorials on YouTube, and they’d killed hundreds of characters, but only on their PlayStations. They were strictly video-game killers.

  Going out into the woods and shooting at trees and empty bottles was easy, but it meant wasting time and ammunition that could be better used to carve scars. Their training needed to leave a mark, there was no time to waste. They’d find targets in their own world, in the forest bristling with metal tree trunks and weedy cables. The roofs were teeming with targets: TV antennas, laundry hung out to dry. They just needed a nice comfortable apartment house. But even that wouldn’t be enough. The noise of the shooting would force some carabinieri squad car to come nosing around. And a few police teams might swoop in to check them out, too.