The Piranhas, The Boy Bosses of Naples

by Roberto Saviano

  While they were hurrying downstairs, taking the steps three at a time, Dentino asked: “Ma ch’amma fà, mo’?” What are we going to do now?

  Those pistols had been taken to be used immediately. In that rapidity, Dentino had recognized an order.

  “Denti’, you don’t learn to shoot by aiming at dish antennas and walls.”

  Dentino’s intuition hadn’t been wrong. “Maraja, you say the word and we’ll do what you tell us.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, Nicolas stood in Briato’ and Dentino’s way and repeated what he’d just said. He slowly and clearly uttered each word, staring at them as if they’d violated some fundamental stricture: “You don’t get respect by shooting at dish antennas and walls, right?”

  The kids knew what he was driving at. Nicolas wanted to shoot. And he wanted to shoot at living beings. But on their own, they didn’t dare come to that conclusion. They wanted to listen to him stringing those words into a sentence. Putting it as clear as day.

  Nicolas went on: “We need to do a piece of work or two, and we need to do it now.”

  “All right. Adda murì mammà, I’m in,” said Dentino.

  Instinctively, Briato’ tried to argue: “Let’s learn to use the guns better. The more we know, the better we can put the bullets where we want them.”

  “Briato’, if you wanted to get training, you could have become a policeman. If you want to be in the paranza, you need to be born knowing what to do.”

  Briato’ said nothing, afraid of winding up like Agostino.

  “Adda murì mammà, I’m in, too. Facimm’ ’e piezze.” Let’s do these pieces of work.

  Nicolas walked away from the two others and said, over his shoulder: “We’ll meet directly in the piazza, in a couple of hours.” He made an appointment where they always met, in Piazza Bellini. “See you there.”

  The motor scooters took off. The paranza was excited, they wanted to know what Dentino, Briato’, and Maraja had said to one another, but they were willing to just twist the throttle and head for the piazza.

  Nicolas, who’d been ignoring his cell phone until that moment, noticed that it was bursting with messages from Letizia.

  Leti

  My love, where are you?

  My love, aren’t you reading your messages?

  Nicolas, where the fuck are you?

  Nicolas, I’m starting to get worried.

  Nicolas!!!????

  Nicolas

  Here I am, sweets, I was with the bros.

  Leti

  With the bros? For six hours?

  But don’t you ever look at your cell phone?

  Don’t say another word, I don’t want to hear it, you can just go fuck yourself.

  Letizia was sitting on the saddle of Cecilia’s scooter, a Kymco People 50. Her friend had covered the bike with stickers because she was ashamed of it. But Letizia didn’t feel an ounce of shame, because when she was beside Nicolas, she always felt like a queen. There were times when she felt like telling him to go to hell, and she did, but it didn’t mean a thing, it was nothing more than a lover’s game. What counted was the reflected light that many mistook for power.

  Letizia’s Kymco was parked right there, at the foot of the statue of Vincenzo Bellini, surrounded by dozens of other motor scooters dotting the crowd of young people talking, drinking beer and cocktails, and smoking joints and cigarettes. Nicolas never rode his Beverly all the way here, he always parked it on Via Costantinopoli, and then he’d walk the rest of the way to the piazza. That wasn’t the horse to ride in on before an audience.

  He tipped his head in Letizia’s direction, signifying: “Get off and come over here.”

  She pretended she hadn’t noticed the gesture, hadn’t received the order, and so Nicolas was forced to walk over to her.

  He came closer to her. His aching nose brushed against Letizia’s, and she didn’t even have time to say, “My love, what have you done to yourself?” before Nicolas had kissed her hard, a lengthy kiss. Then, hooking two fingers around her chin, he pushed her away spitefully.

  “Leti’, adda murì mammà, don’t you ever dream of telling me to go fuck myself. You got that?” And he turned and left without another word.

  Now it was up to her to follow him. He expected it, she knew it, and so did everyone around them. And that’s the way it went. It started with his brisk step, and her chasing after him. Then it was the other way around, with her turning her back on him as she sulked, and him pursuing her, with blandishments, and so it went, in a continuous alternation of fronts and backs, voices raised, fingers pointed, hands clasped, kisses stolen. All the while wearing down the basalt pavement of the city’s historic center, wandering along the narrow vicoli, with “You shut up” or “Don’t you dare” glossed by “My love, look me in the eyes, have I ever lied to you?”

  The whole paranza, in the meantime, had assembled on Piazza Bellini.

  While Nicolas was making peace with Letizia, Dentino and Briato’ were doing their best to upholster their anxiety with convulsive tokes on the joints the paranza was passing around. Who would be their first target? How would it go? Who’d be the first to come off looking like a fool? Biscottino broke the tension: “But what’s become of ’o Maraja?” And Lollipop went on: “Denti’, Briato’, marcat’ ’a peste? What the hell happened, what did Nicolas do, did he give someone else our arsenal?” Lollipop hadn’t even finished the sentence before Briato’ slapped him good and hard, a smack his own mother wouldn’t have dared. Along with the smack on the terrace, this was the second one he’d received that day. “’O, scie’, hey, stupid, don’t you dare to utter that word again in a public piazza.”

  Lollipop rummaged through his pockets, a standard overture before yanking out his switchblade. Dentino immediately drilled in on Briato’, grabbing at his T-shirt, coming close to ripping it. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you?!” he whispered harshly in his ear.

  Lollipop, who had already pulled out his switchblade and flicked out the blade, found himself face-to-face with Pesce Moscio, forming a human barrier. “Oh, what’s this? Now we have brothers stabbing each other?”

  On the other side of the fray, Dentino said in an imperative tone to Briato’: “Go apologize to him. This situation needs to get fixed here and now.”

  At that point, Briato’ summoned up a smile: “Oh, Lollipo’, sorry. Ramm’ ’a mano, jamme. Let’s shake hands, come on. Still, you were a little off, you know. The paranza’s business is strictly for the paranza. Not for half this piazza. Controlla ’a vocca, ’o fra’.” Keep a lid on your mouth, bro.

  Lollipop shook hands with him, gripping a little too tight: “It’s all good, Briato’. But don’t you ever think of putting your hands in my face again. Never again. But anyway, you were right. I need to zip my lips: m’aggi’ ’a stà zitto.”

  Flames that flared up and died down in the space of an instant. But the tension persisted, it gusted over the paranza and spun everyone’s emotions into little whirlwinds.

  Dentino and Briato’ no longer knew how to dampen the tension. Dentino could feel the pistol barrel, he’d shoved it into his crotch and it was scratching his ball sack. He liked it. He felt as if he were wearing a suit of armor, as if he were more than himself. There was a small group sitting next to them, and in exchange for the joints that the paranza was passing around, they offered slugs of rum and pear juice. Dentino and Briato’ were ripped on alcohol and hash. The piazza was starting to empty out. A few members of the paranza were answering their phones, replying to their parents’ questions with lies: “Ma, don’t worry, really, Mamma. No, I’m not out in the streets, I’m at Nicolas’s house, I’ll be home later.”

  The university students who recognized Pesce Moscio because they regularly bought hash from him in Forcella came over asking if he had any to sell them. He had little or nothing on him at the time, a couple of sticks of hash that he let go at fifteen euros apiece, instead of ten. “What an asshole I was not to come out with my
underwear jammed full,” and turning to Lollipop he said: “I ought to carry a kilo of hash everywhere I go, perché cu ’a faccia mia m’ ’o llevo tutto int’a mez’ora.” The last bit slid into thick dialect, as he boasted that with the face he had on him, he’d sling the whole key in half an hour.

  “Take care or that face of yours will become familiar to the carabinieri, too. And then that face of yours will wind up behind bars in Poggioreale Prison.”

  “Me? Lollipo’, they know my face in Poggi Poggi, believe me.”

  Now the piazza was empty. “Guagliu’, I’m out of here,” said Pesce Moscio, who could no longer turn a deaf ear to the phone calls from his father, and so everyone in the paranza slowly made their way home.

  It was three thirty by now and there’d been no sign of Nicolas. And so Dentino and Briato’ went looking for him at the lair. The quarter was still teeming with noise. As soon as they were inside the apartment they started searching. At last they found a little baggie.

  “We’ll get two good lines out of this, no problem.”

  Two lines of yellow coke, pisciazza. They rolled up the bar receipt and made a short straw. Pisciazza was actually one of the best varieties, but its color always stirred mistrust. The nostril sucked up all the powder, like a vacuum cleaner: “It seems strange, doesn’t it, to snort ’a pisciazza,” said Dentino. “But instead it’s good, it’s excellent. But why is it yellow like that?”

  “Practically speaking, because it’s all base paste.”

  “Base paste?”

  “Yeah, without all of the processes that come later.”

  “What processes?”

  “Oh, well. I’m going to have to give Heisenberg a call so he can swing by and give you a free lesson.”

  They were still laughing when they heard someone fooling around with the door. Nicolas appeared with a smile that cut right across his face: “You’re snorting all the pisciazza, aren’t you, you bastards?”

  “Exactly. But what the fuck have you been up to till now!” Briato’ welcomed him.

  “Did you leave a little for me?”

  “Sure enough, bro.”

  “We need to do a piece of work.”

  “But it’s four in the morning. What piece of work do you want to do?”

  “We’ll need to wait.”

  “Right, let’s wait, that’s better.”

  “At five in the morning we’ll go out and polish off a couple of pieces of work.”

  “Namely what and who?”

  “The pocket coffees.”

  “The pocket coffees?”

  “That’s right, guagliu’, the pocket coffees … the blacks. We’ll pick off a couple of blacks while they’re waiting to catch a bus to go to work. We’ll swing past and take them down.”

  “Ua’, nice,” said Dentino.

  “Just like that?” asked Briato’. “I mean, without even having an idea of who they are, we just swing by one fine morning and shoot a random pocket coffee in the head?”

  “That’s right, and we can be sure that way that they’re not under anyone’s protection. Nobody gives a fuck about them anyway. Who’s even going to investigate to find out who killed some black?”

  “So is it just going to be us three, or should we call the whole paranza?”

  “No, no. The whole paranza needs to be present. But the three of us are going to have the only guns.”

  “But those other guys are at home sleeping now.”

  “Who gives a damn, we’ll swing by and call them, and they’ll get up.”

  “Why don’t we just do it ourselves … and no one else.”

  “No. They need to see. They need to learn.”

  Briato’ smiled. “But didn’t you say that in the paranza we are all already born knowing what to do?”

  “Start up the PlayStation, eh,” Nicolas ordered without answering the question. While Briato’ was switching on the PlayStation he added: “Boot up Call of Duty. Let’s play Mission One. The one where we’re in Africa. Così mi riscaldo a sparà ncopp’ ’e nire.” That last line was about getting warmed up for shooting blacks.

  Dentino sent WhatsApp messages out to everyone in the paranza. “Guagliu’, tomorrow morning,” he wrote, “early morning errand for the game we need to play.” No one replied.

  There it is, the opening screen of the game. “The Future Is Black” is what’s written. But the future belongs to those who remember to reload their Kalashnikovs before anyone else. If you get too close to the guys dressed in tank tops, you’ll find yourself with your guts spilling out of a machete wound, and if there’s one of these blacks, then that must mean something. Second rule: stay under cover. A boulder, a tank. Actually, all you need is the trunk of a double-parked car. And in reality, you’re not going to have the air support to call in if things go to hell. Third rule, the most important one. Run. Always.

  They started playing. The machine gun kept firing as hard as it could. The game seemed to be set in Angola. The main character was fighting with the regular army, he had a camo uniform and a red beret, the objective was to shoot against irregular troops, guerrilla fighters, in horrible tattered guinea-tees with submachine guns slung around their necks. Nicolas kept shooting manically. He took gunfire but just kept going. At a dead run. Constantly.

  * * *

  At five thirty that morning they hurried over to the homes of the other members of the paranza. They rang Lollipop’s buzzer, and his father’s voice answered: “Hello, who is this?”

  “Excuse me, Signor Esposito, it’s Nicolas. Is Lollipop there?”

  “For real are you coming around at this time of the morning? Vincenzo is sleeping, and then he has to go to school.”

  “It’s just that we have a field trip this morning.”

  “Vincenzo!” Lollipop’s father yelled. He woke him up and the first thing Lollipop thought was that someone was there to take him down to police headquarters.

  “Papà, what’s happened?”

  “Nicolas is here, he says you have to go on a field trip, but your mother didn’t tell me anything about that.”

  “Oh, right, I forgot.” Lollipop grabbed the intercom receiver while his mother rushed over barefoot waving her hands: “Field trip, but where?”

  “I’ll be right down, Nicolas, I’m on my way.” From the balcony Lollipop’s father was squinting, trying to peer through the darkness, but all he could see was a bunch of heads milling around below. The kids in the street were doubled over with laughter.

  “Are you sure you’re going on a field trip? Tere’,” he said to his wife, “call the school.”

  Lollipop was already in the bathroom, ready to head out the door, certain that it would be hours before they realized there was no field trip, before there was even anyone at school to answer the phone.

  It went the same for Drago’, Pesce Moscio, Drone, and the others. They went to get them at home, one by one. And eventually the paranza became a genuine paranza, a long line of scooters and yawning kids. The only one who wasn’t allowed out of the house was Biscottino.

  He lived in a basso facing Loreto Mare, the hospital. The whole paranza showed up at his house, with their swarm of motor scooters. They knocked at the door. His mother answered, clearly on edge. She knew they wanted Eduardo.

  “No, Eduardo isn’t going anywhere, and especially not with people like you, you’re all no-good gente ’e sfaccimma,” calling them pieces of filth.

  As if the woman hadn’t spoken and wasn’t standing right in front of him, Nicolas took advantage of the open door and said: “Biscottino, come on out, ja’.”

  His mother stood face-to-face with him in all her massive abundance, hair unkempt over her face, eyes bulging: “Ue’, muccusiello,” she said, addressing him as the snotnose she took him for, “first things first, my son’s name is Eduardo Cirillo. Second thing, don’t you ever dream again of telling my son what he has to do when I’m standing here. O pienze che mi fai tremmà ’a sottana?” Her last outburst in dialect was a
rhetorical question: she asked him if he thought he made her skirts tremble, and as she asked it she violently shook the hem of the nightgown she was wearing.

  Biscottino didn’t come out, in fact he probably never even got out of bed. His mother was scarier to him than Nicolas, scarier than the loyalty he owed the paranza. But Nicolas didn’t give up: “If your husband were here, I’d talk to him, but you shouldn’t get involved in this, ma’am. Eduardo needs to come with us, he has a commitment.”

  “Commitment, just what would this commitment be?” asked the mother. “And then I’ll call straight over to your father, and we’ll see. Don’t bring my husband’s name into this, because you don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

  Biscottino’s father had been killed during an armed robbery in Sardinia. Actually, he was just driving the car, he hadn’t done the robbery, all he’d done was work as the driver of one of the gang’s two cars. And when he died he left a wife and three children. He worked for a janitorial services company at the Loreto Mare Hospital, which is where he’d met these coworkers of his, a gang that robbed armored cars in Sardinia. He was killed on his first job. The robbery had gone well, though, out of the members of the robbery crew, two had survived, and they had delivered to the widow a bag with fifty thousand euros, out of the million-euro take. And that was that. Biscottino knew all about it, and this story had been scratching at his gut for as long as he could remember. His father’s coworkers were on the run, and every time he heard reports of their activities, he was sorely tempted to head out on their trail himself. Biscottino’s mother had sworn an oath, as is so often the case with widows, to give her children a different future, not to let them be the kind of fool that their father had turned out to be.

  To Nicolas, on the other hand, Biscottino’s father, killed by the cops, fallen in the course of an armed robbery, was a martyr, a member of his personal pantheon of heroes who’d gone to get money for themselves—as he liked to say—instead of waiting for someone else to give them some.

  “Edua’, when mammeta—your mama—unties you from your bed, give me a call and we’ll come get you,” he ended the conversation, and the whole swarm of the paranza buzzed off to where it was heading.