“No, I’m not,” I interrupted him. “It was just an excuse, a way to get close to you.”
He clenched both fists. “You’re in the wrong place to start cracking wise.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I just want to offer you a deal of a different kind.”
“I’m listening.”
“Fatjon Bytyçi. My friends and I had nothing to do with his death.”
He changed expression. I had caught him by surprise. Until that moment, he was convinced that it was pure chance and my stupidity that had led me trustingly into his clutches. His plan was to pretend to sell me drugs and, when the time came for delivery, kidnap me, steal my money, torture me so that I’d tell him where Max and Beniamino were hiding, and then kill me.
“Why are you coming to tell me about it?”
“Because we know you’ve been looking for us. And not because you wanted to buy us a drink.”
There was no mistaking the effect this had on him. I knew a lot, too much. He tried to find out more. “I still don’t see where there’s a deal in all this.”
“Oh, there’s a deal all right. It’s an opportunity that’ll change your life. What we can give you is the head—on a platter—of the guy who ordered the killing done. Take that back home and you can be a hero for your boss and for the whole family. This could be your chance to take Florian Tuda’s place. And then if you tell your people we had nothing to do with it, we’ll make you rich.”
He shrugged, pretending a complete lack of interest. He needed time to recover from his surprise and to think it over carefully. “I don’t understand if you’re still interested in that certain merchandise.”
“Nope.”
“Then we have nothing more to talk about.”
I stood up. “Think it over, Arben. Opportunities like this one come along once in a lifetime,” I said, leaving a tiny scrap of paper behind me on the tabletop. On it I had written a phone number.
He didn’t move a muscle. He just stood there and stared at me as if I were a piece of furniture. I put on my jacket and then my overcoat and walked out of the bar. I counted my paces as I walked and when I got to fifty I stopped, lit a cigarette, and discreetly took a glance behind me. As I’d imagined, Arben had sent one of his Maghrebi enforcers after me.
I crossed the piazza and turned toward Ponte Molino, before cutting into a bewildering medieval network of narrow streets. The guy had to pick up his speed to avoid losing me and, anxiously working to keep me in sight, he failed to notice Rossini, who was waiting for him, leaning casually against one of the columns supporting a portico. He smacked him hard in the face with the butt of his pistol. Twice. The man went down and lay there on the ground, motionless. I was no longer being followed.
“How’d it go?” asked Beniamino once he’d caught up with me.
“I think Arben swallowed the bait.”
“And his greed will screw him.”
“Let’s hope so.”
We met up with Max la Memoria who was waiting for us at a street corner in another part of town. He was loaded down with shopping bags.
“I feel like making something to eat,” he explained.
We returned to our luxury apartment. The fat man busied himself in the kitchen, Beniamino hurried to his bedroom for yet another of his long and heartbreaking phone calls with Sylvie, and I sat down in front of the television set and started fooling around with the remote control. On one channel that was mostly about music, there was a tedious report on the recent transgressions of Amy Winehouse. I would have preferred to listen to her sing. That girl has a voice I like. Her treatment of Back to Black is just incredible.
I felt like listening to some good blues. I called Edoardo “Catfish” Fassio. He always knows everything that’s happening in the world of the devil’s own music.
“This evening, Claudio Bertolin is playing in an enoteca in Castelfranco Veneto; from what I’ve heard, he may even record the concert.”
“Then I can’t miss it.”
“If you did, it would just be another of your many fuck-ups.”
Max was larding a pork roast of remarkable size. “After a long period of abstinence, I’m going out to hear some good music.”
The fat man looked up from the raw meat. “You talk to Beniamino about it?”
“Was there something scheduled?”
“I know that he wanted to go take a look at Stojkovic’s office and house.”
“No need for three of us. I did my part today when I talked to that human cesspool Arben.”
“Right you are.”
I watched him work for a while. Since the day we first met again in Lugano, we’d never talked about the past.
“I still haven’t worked up the courage to go see what’s taken the place of La Cuccia.”
“Right now, the place is empty. For a while it was the usual sandwich shop, then a sushi bar, but nothing worked out.”
My face lit up. “It’s for sale?”
“I saw an ad in the newspaper a couple of days ago.”
“It’d be nice to buy it again and start over. Once we’re done with this fucked up story, I mean.”
Max grimaced. “I don’t know if I’m up for that, Marco.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think I’ll stay in Fratta Polesine. It’s a good place for me. A lot of great people live there, there’s still a sense of community that you can’t find anywhere these days. For the first time, I feel like I’m surrounded by normal human beings, by friendship and kindness . . . And it’s turning into a base for a lot of good projects.”
“Are you thinking of getting back into politics?”
He smiled. “I’d like to give it a try, for the thousandth time in my life. They’re trying to plunder Northeast Italy once and for all: they’ve got a succession of useless infrastructure projects and major public works that will finish off this part of the world for good. I don’t feel like standing by and doing nothing.”
“I have to admit I didn’t expect this.”
He sighed. “You thought it could all go back to the way it was?”
“No, the thought never passed through my mind. It’s just that I’m not ready for the end of our partnership; I’m not ready for our lives to split up, whatever else happens.”
“We were forced to pick up and leave one day. We lost everything we thought we owned. That’s just what happened.”
“I’m feeling a little lost, Max.”
The fat man pulled open the fridge and uncorked a bottle of prosecco. “Bubbly, boy. You urgently need a pick-me-up.”
“Is there a woman waiting for you in Fratta Polesine?”
“Her name’s Irma. She showed up one day with some of my friends and she hasn’t left since.”
“Do you miss her?”
“I do. A lot.”
I’d never seen the fat man making personal phone calls. “Why don’t you ever call her?”
“I told her I’d come back.”
“Sometimes that’s not enough.”
“I’m sick of mixing this shitty story with things that are good, you know what I mean?”
Max was in love. The bandit was in love. What about the Alligator? What about me? “Yeah, I think I understand,” I replied after a little while. “Though I never made those kinds of distinctions.”
“Yeah, but you have a few screws loose.”
“Right, like you don’t . . .”
He pointed at the floor. “I’m the only sane man in this place.”
I gulped down three glassfuls in quick succession. Then I stood up and hugged Max. “I guess it just means I’ll have to come visit you.”
“As long as you don’t ruin my reputation.”
I stood up and put on my jacket. “Can I borrow your car?”
Max tossed me the car keys. “It doesn’t belong to me; treat it nice.”
I walked past Rossini’s room. The door was half open, and I could see him staring out the window, his hands flat against the g
lass. I decided this wasn’t the right time to bother him; I slipped quietly out of the apartment, gently pulling the front door shut as I stepped out onto the landing.
As soon as I got into the car, a little Korean compact that I was certain belonged to the mysterious Irma, I instinctively pulled open the glove compartment to see if I could find anything that would tell me about her. Then I slammed it brusquely shut. Poking into Max’s love life was really going a bit too far.
I drove over to La Cuccia. I smoked a few cigarettes in the car, parked in front of a green for-sale sign with the name and logo of a real estate agency. It was depressing: shuttered, lightless, abandoned. I called Virna and told her where I was.
“Are you already nursing a bottle of Calvados?”
“No, these days I only drink at night, that is, if three glasses of prosecco in a row don’t count.”
“Why did you call me, Marco?”
“Because I suddenly realized that I’m all alone. And when all this mess is over and I can start living my life again, I’ll have to deal with my solitude and loneliness.”
“I hope you haven’t taken me for just a shoulder you can shed your crocodile tears on.”
“I’d never dream of it,” I lied.
“Because I’ve had it up to here with men who trample everything and everyone in their path like rogue elephants until they hit fifty, and then start tugging at your sleeve and saying they feel sad.”
“Virna, please, don’t think that’s what I’m up to; I haven’t fallen that low.”
“Good, that’s a relief. So, I’m still waiting for you to answer my question: why’d you call?”
“To tell you that I’d like to start looking around for a nice place to live where a very attractive young mama could come spend a few enjoyable hours from time to time with yours truly.”
“And that nice young mama would be me?”
“Right.”
“Then you have to do things the right way and ask for my hand.”
“Is that customary among lovers?”
“Especially among lovers. And you have to swear you’ll be faithful to me.”
“But you’re not faithful to your husband.”
“I need two men; you don’t need two women. Or am I not enough for you? If not, we can just end this conversation right now.”
“Virna, can I ask a question? Are you serious?”
“I certainly am. I have no intention of sharing you with another woman, and I don’t want to discover that I have to spend time with a big cry-baby, which—let’s face it—is exactly what many men your age are.”
“Agreed. I’ll do my best.”
“No, you have to be certain. Give a call when you’ve made up your mind.”
She hung up. What a force of nature.
I couldn’t help it. I was still in love with her, and . . . I liked her. Just thinking about her stirred my baser instincts. I wanted a woman, and if I could, I’d have called Morena. She at least would have pretended to listen to me.
Instead, an hour later, her handsome policeman called me.
“Any news?”
“Nope.”
“Then can you tell me what the fuck you were doing in the bar that the Pe´c Kosovars use as a front? I’m not sure I see how that fits in with our agreement.”
I should have guessed that the place was under surveillance.
“You’ll find out soon.”
“Don’t try to reassure me with bullshit, Buratti, because if there’s anybody who’d be eager to replace the Serbs around here, it’s those fucking Kosovars.”
“My plans include a good fucking-over for Arben Alshabani, too, but first I have to make sure that no one’s tailing me.”
He mulled it over. The stakes were getting more interesting. “Fine. We’ve got a security camera trained on the bar, that’s all.”
“I’m not worried. But you have to relax too.”
He emitted a dubious sigh. “Do I need to remind you what happens if you try to screw me?”
Jesus, what a pain in the ass! This whole thing was based on a card-castle of deceit and threats. “Now you’re starting to annoy me.”
“Whoa, take it easy, friend. You’re the one who came looking for me.”
“Just back off: I don’t need you breathing down my neck.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to the idea: I can do whatever I want because I’m the good guy.”
I hung up the phone. Fucking cop.
The one phone call I was anxiously awaiting didn’t come, though. Maybe we’d misjudged Arben. Maybe in the face of such a tough decision, he’d just decided to turn the problem over to the family.
What a shitty day. Nothing was going right. Max and Virna’s words whirled through my mind. Between my legs was a pulsing need for pleasure and tenderness.
Nothing could save me now but the blues. It was still too early to drive to Castelfranco. I went to an out-of-the-way bar on the outskirts of town. It used to be a place where people went to find a little company without spending much money. The place looked the same, but now there were three young Chinese bartenders, two young men and a girl, ordered around sharply by a stern Chinese mother. And the clientele was different, too.
All things considered, that was okay with me. If the old crowd had been there, I’d certainly have wound up entangled in some tawdry one-nighter, and it would have just made me feel worse. I remembered I hadn’t eaten yet; I ordered a panino and a beer. Then a pot of tea. The little café table sat next to the plate-glass window, right across from the bus stop, and I passed a few hours peering out at the serious, preoccupied faces of the passengers. I also saw two women I could have easily fallen in love with.
“Everything okay?” the owner asked me in broken Italian when I went up to the cash register to pay.
“Yes, just fine, but I could never become a regular customer of your bar. You see, watching one busload of people after another go by is deeply disturbing, and not the sort of thing I need at this particular point in my life.”
The whole time I was talking, she never stopped smiling and nodding with patient resignation. All she wanted from me was a yes or a no. She hadn’t understood a single word I’d said.
During the time I was in Switzerland, they had been busy building: new roads, roundabouts, and on-ramps. It was all just to get the semitrailers loaded with merchandise in and out more efficiently. Now, with the recession, traffic had declined. Still, I saved only about ten minutes. People were coming home from work, and there were cars everywhere you looked.
The first piece that Claudio Bertolin sang was The Blues Is a Lonely Road. I was unable to listen to the entire rendition of the second piece, Have Been Down to Hell, because my cellphone started buzzing annoyingly in my jacket pocket.
It was Arben. I reluctantly left the club. The bastard might as well have done it on purpose.
“We can discuss it,” he said.
“Okay. Let’s meet tomorrow morning at eleven in the shopping center on Viale Venezia. There’s a bar on the ground floor.”
“I would have expected something a little quieter, a little more out of the way.”
Right, where you can kill some one in peace and quiet, with out-of-the-way comfort, I thought. “No offense, but I like my bars crowded and centrally located.”
“Fine, but you have to give me a chance to check everything out, make sure you’re clean.”
“No problem.”
I called Max. They were parked out front of the Serbian gangster’s villa, and they were bored to tears. I gave him the good news.
“Then enjoy the rest of your evening. From tomorrow on we’re on lockdown.”
Two guitars, a bass, drums, harmonica, and vocals. Nine songs, plus the old standard Every Day I Have the Blues. It was a great concert. I went over and congratulated Bertolin, who had played a number of times at La Cuccia. I found him chatting with another Venetian bluesman, Marco Ballestracci. Marco gave me a copy of his latest C
D, Wimmen ’n’ Devils.
They asked why I’d closed my club. I fed them a plausible lie, and went over to the bar and ordered a Calvados. To my delight, I found they served Alligators.
I decided I’d have a single drink and I ordered a slice of cake.
“What kind?” asked a waitress in her early twenties, pointing to an overbrimming pastry trolley.
“You decide. I don’t eat a lot of sweets, but I need to soak up a fair amount of alcohol.”
“Then you’ll need a double helping of chestnut cream tart,” she decreed with the confidence of an expert. “Pastry dough soaks up alcohol like a sponge.”
At last, I was happy. The blues were flowing through my veins like a healthful transfusion. The day had finally taken a turn for the better toward the end. But there was no one I knew there, and I missed the conversations at La Cuccia. I left before another wave of gloom could wash over me. When I got in the car, I slipped in the CD I’d just been given and pumped up the volume. Baby Please Set a Date, an old piece by Elmore James, exploded from the speakers.
I hadn’t picked the bar in the shopping center at random. A former political prisoner I’d met in jail worked there. When he finally got out of prison, after about fifteen years inside, the woman he’d slept with the night before his arrest was out front, waiting for him. Other bandits, other loves. He couldn’t do much with his engineering degree after all that time. So, now that the one purpose of his life was to take care of his wife and his baby daughter, born exactly nine months after his release from prison, he took a job as a waiter.
When we asked him to do us that favor, he agreed. No hesitation, no questions. He wasn’t a guy with a faulty memory.
I arrived by cab and walked into the bar through a side entrance. Arben was already there, waiting for me. Arms crossed, watchful gaze. He gestured for me to follow him into the public restroom. We checked the stalls to make sure they were empty, and we searched one another for listening devices. We went back out into the bar, and I invited him to choose a table to sit at. Just one more piece of evidence of my good faith. Max had already sat down while we were in the bathroom, and with a pair of earphones and the daily sports pages, he looked like just another slacker with nothing to do. I tried to figure out who was there to protect the Mafioso, but none of the faces looked especially suspicious. If in fact he planned to accept our offer, he couldn’t run the risk of showing up with bodyguards.
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