A Few Drops of Blood

by Jan Merete Weiss

  “Don’t let me keep you.” Natalia stepped aside, and Tina disappeared into the crowd.

  Natalia felt sorry for her. She hadn’t noticed a wedding ring and wondered about the father. Probably a mob novice her parents had picked. Pino, besides being the object of Tina’s infatuation, must have represented escape from their expectations for her life. Now the poor girl belonged firmly to the family again. But at least she’d have a baby to show for it—someone to love and be loved by—which was more than Natalia could claim for herself.

  Natalia paused in front of a shop window filled with hundreds of Punicellos in jaunty red outfits who peered at her from behind black masks. For a second Natalia caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the glass: an almost middle-aged woman peering back.

  She passed the Cathedral of Santa Caterina Formiello, where a gypsy woman lay prostrate beside her begging bowl, and skirted a scruffy park strewn with trash. A dog peed against the trunk of a giant plane tree while its owner sucked on a cigarette, his chartreuse shirt tucked into a pair of worn pants. In front of the benches lay a black man on a large sheet of cardboard. Not ten feet from him, half a dozen empty vials, banded together and hanging in the branches of a scraggly bush. A woman with chopped hair scratched at her face and begged for change. Her jeans were ripped, the pockets hanging out. She stumbled, caught herself, stumbled again. The park looked as ravaged.

  This sad triangle of earth sheltered some homeless—mostly men from the African community who had displeased their Camorra bosses or otherwise fallen on hard times. They shared it at night with homosexuals. The locals called it Parco Passare—Penis Park—a popular cruising spot for gay men.

  Females who expressed their love in public were cut some slack, and mothers and daughters commonly held hands, girlfriends linked arms, embraced and kissed freely. But advertising oneself as a gay man in Naples invited serious trouble. Men who had the audacity to hold hands or, God forbid, kiss in public, were routinely beaten. If a Camorra male was outed as gay, his own would handle it with unspeakable violence. Polizia and Carabinieri weren’t exactly tolerant either.

  Rough as her city was, she would never dream of leaving. Not for love, not for work. Ambitious as she was, promises of promotion had not lured her away. Because of her studies in art history, her first assignment had been the art squad. A permanent posting in Rome was mentioned soon after she’d recovered a painting held for ransom in a rotting cellar. But much as Natalia admired the wide boulevards and relative tranquility of the capital, she felt she belonged here among the baroque bell towers and palazzos of the Piazza San Domenico, the Bauhaus-inspired post office, the ancient churches, fountains, alleys, the old street market in whose shadows she bought her fruit and fish like nine centuries of Neapolitans before her.

  Natalia passed a display of large sardines stacked in a silver circle, dull mussels and bloody slabs of orate arranged as lovingly as in a Caravaggio painting. In the next stall were topaz lemons, ruby cherries, and clusters of amethyst grapes. And beyond that, orange crabs lay belly up on crystal shards of ice, clawing the warm air.

  If she managed to retire early at fifty, Natalia might still finish her art degree, publish her thesis, perhaps even return to academia part-time. Some days it seemed like a reasonable fancy. Other times she wondered who she was kidding.

  Some large part of her now belonged to law enforcement, an even larger part to Naples. Better to enjoy the gardens of the Villa Floridiana and the royal porcelain in the neoclassical palace without suffering the academic pressures to analyze and publish. Anytime she liked, she could stop by Donatello’s altar to inhale its beauty rather than formulate a paper. What did she have to complain about really? If she had a hankering for a quiet moment with Rembrandt or Titian, the Museo di Capodimonte stood waiting. If her colleagues at Casanova station didn’t share her art obsessions, she could always talk to Mariel and her artistic friends. She had acquired a good many herself in the course of her studies and art squad investigations.

  And Colonel Fabio seemed more than satisfied with her performance as an organized crime specialist. She’d even acquired a reputation as having instincts and insights about the Camorra, in whose midst she’d been born and raised and still lived.

  Natalia checked her watch and headed back to the station.

  Back at her desk, she opened both the fat file on Ernesto Scavullo and the enormous one for Gianni, his father, just at the finish of a fifteen-year sentence. Working backward from the present and going deep into their pasts, she read and meditated on the clan that dominated a large piece of the underworld commerce and crime in Naples. Her recollections paralleled the recorded facts and grew more vivid the further back she went, taking her finally into her youth, her school years with Lola and Mariel and Suzanna. Suzanna Ruttollo’s betrothal to Ernesto Scavullo, followed by their raucous wedding and just-as-sudden break up. Then Suzanna’s exile to England.

  Exile. Not the norm. A temporary retreat to Florence or Milan was more usual and a long debate whether to actually divorce and suffer the Church’s sanctions, followed by a return to the city. Suzanna was as Neapolitan as they come. Years away from it, from friends and family must have been hard to endure. Why did she leave, and why stay away for so long?

  Natalia dialed a counterpart at the police, whose department was charged with surveillance of Camorra and elicited information about Suzanna’s and her mother’s movements and near term plans. The items that caught her attention were two. Suzanna Ruttollo had arrived in Rome travelling with a male companion who had remained in that city. Partner? Bodyguard? Dogsbody? Natalia emailed her colleague a request for further information on him.

  The second bit of information had Natalia scrambling. Mother Lucia was just leaving for a visit with her new grandchild, going by train in an hour’s time.

  Near the Stazione Centrale, a man pulled ears of corn from an enormous cauldron. Flushed from the heat of the day and the steam from the boiling water, he worked in tandem with his wife, who fried eggplants and shoveled them into paper cones for travelers. Natalia was tempted by the fritters but wouldn’t risk the grease. She stood on the street and scanned the throng. And there she was.

  Lucia Ruttollo bore the same scar from her lip to just below her nose that Natalia remembered as a teenager. Mariel and Lola had often wondered aloud why Suzanna hadn’t arranged cosmetic surgery for her mother once she had money. More likely she had offered and her mother refused, as Natalia’s mother would have. That generation grew up poor and hard and considered it unseemly to toy with fate. God gave you the face you were destined to wear. Altering it was like defying Providence.

  Lucia Ruttollo looked grayer and fatter than at the bank, but otherwise the same. Her ample breasts still drooped, and her attire remained unfashionable and cheap. Despite the day’s heat, she wore a mousey sweater offset by an incongruous lime green scarf stamped with purple butterflies—no doubt a gift from her daughter. It was nothing she would have ever chosen for herself.

  Suzanna’s mother wheeled a large black suitcase, a plastic bag balanced precariously on top.

  “Signora Ruttollo,” Natalia said, “remember me—Natalia? Natalia Monte?”

  Lucia Ruttollo hadn’t recognized her in the bank and didn’t immediately now. She squinted, looking at Natalia, and suddenly said, “Si, si. Natalia. It’s been years.”

  “Let me help you with that.” Natalia reached for the handle.

  “You have time?” Lucia Rutollo slung the bag over her shoulder and surrendered the cart. Together they crossed the street in front of McDonald’s and followed the crowd into the rail station. The waiting room was chaos. People stood in long lines for tickets while others dragged luggage to and from the tracks. The homeless wandered through, too. A young couple lay on the floor abutting the newsstand.

  Natalia recognized a couple of con artists in the crowd, looking for a mark, and Santoro, the undercover from Casanova. The announcement board showed a lot of delays.

  “M
y train is late.”

  “Let me buy you a coffee then,” said Natalia. “You have time to keep me company?”

  “I do.”

  Natalia steered them to a kiosk with a few tables and settled Lucia at one while she bought them two cups.

  “I’m going to visit my Nicky,” Mama Ruttollo said. “You remember my son?”

  “Of course. Nicky.”

  A skinny boy, uninterested in school. Fascinated with motor scooters and cars, which he boosted. Preparation for following in his family’s auto-theft business.

  “He opened a garage in Averso,” Lucia said. “Lives there with his wife.”

  “Good for him.”

  “She just had a baby.” Lucia beamed.

  “Congratulations. Boy or girl?”

  “Girl. What about you?”

  “Children? No. You know—work and all.”

  “Don’t worry. You still have time.”

  Natalia wondered if Lucia harbored hopes for her prodigal daughter producing more grandchildren.

  “Little Natalia Monte—a Carabiniere. I read about you investigating those murders. We never had that when I was growing up. Men with men. God wants this?” She waved a handkerchief in front of her face to cool off. “I can’t wait to tell Suzanna I saw you.”

  “Lola told me she’s home.”

  “God answered my prayers. I only hope she stays. She’d love to see you. She doesn’t have any friends here anymore.”

  “I’ll give her a call.”

  “Your father is well?”

  “No, he passed.”

  “Forgive me. Now I remember. I forget things these days. But you look good, Natalia.”

  “Thanks. You, too.”

  Lucia laughed. “My daughter says I look like a bag lady. Wants me to have a makeover, dye my hair. At my age? A waste of money, I told her.”

  The giant board clicked and rattled, updating arrivals and departures. A tiny black nun picked up her case and ran. The train to Averso was announced on track seven.

  “I mustn’t miss my train.”

  Natalia signaled to a porter to help Suzanna’s mother with her bags.

  “You’re a good girl, Natalia,” Lucia kissed her. “I’m gonna light a candle for you.”

  The officer on the reception desk politely pointed to a waiting visitor. “Pino!”

  “You’re looking good, Captain.”

  “Momento.” She made a quick trip to the bathroom, dampened her hands and attempted to smooth her hair. Some old lip gloss helped, but there was nothing she could do about the circles under her eyes. Lola was always on her to use concealer. Even when she wasn’t stressed from work and missing sleep, they were dark.

  “Damn,” she whispered and went back out.

  “I’ve been trying to call your mobile,” he said. “You didn’t pick up?”

  “It’s been crazy. I’ve been doing interviews. Come.”

  She led him back to her office and closed the door.

  “So nothing’s wrong?” Pino said.

  “No.”

  “I want to kiss you, but it’s undoubtedly against the rules.”

  “What brought you back to Naples?”

  “Bunnies. Uncle Ricci’s closest neighbor slaughters them and sells the meat. Their shrieking didn’t go so well with morning meditation. There’s no perfect world, Natalia. Not there, not here.”

  “Is that one of your Zen koans?”

  “No.” Pino gathered himself and said, “I’ve come back to town to declare myself to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I care about you, of course.”

  “How long have you been back?”

  “A few days. Actually, I came back to open my flat for a friend … who needed shelter.”

  “Who?”

  “Tina.”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “I’m a detective.”

  “Tina is in some trouble.”

  “It isn’t yours.”

  “No, but she doesn’t have anyone else to turn to.”

  “Of course not. Just her grifter mother and auto-thief father and many dozen underworld aunts and uncles, a hundred cousins and the child’s father.”

  “Yeah. He wants to marry her. Her family is advocating it as well. Which is part of her problem.”

  “Jesus, Pino where are your brains? Don’t you remember the first lecture on the first day at the Academy? If someone you’ve never met or don’t know comes onto you, you have them vetted immediately. If there’s the slightest hint of Camorra association, you report it and step away. Tina is a Gracci for Christ sake, part of Scavullo’s little empire.”

  “She’s not like them.”

  “They’ve got her delivering major dope to their finest customers. They have it brought to the door instead, from their florist.”

  “Six months ago she tried to hurt herself.”

  “That’s not your problem, either.”

  “Why so harsh? It’s not like you.”

  “Take her to the prenatal clinic if you’re so worried.”

  “Natalia—”

  “Tina is Camorra, born and bred.”

  “It’s not her fault.”

  “No, and that’s not the issue. The fact I stated is.”

  “We don’t choose our place in the world—where we’re born or to whom. Not me, not Tina. Or you either.”

  “What is this—a Zen thing?”

  “I don’t want to live my life suspicious of every little thing, everyone I come across.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t be a Carabiniere.”

  “I’m not going to be, I don’t think.”

  “What?”

  “Not much longer.”

  Natalia fell silent. He was serious.

  “I want us to be together, though,” he said, “and I realized it would never happen if I stayed in uniform.”

  “What about Tina?”

  “She’s staying with me for the moment.”

  Some citizen was having a tantrum at the front desk, screaming and throwing things.

  “She doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “I don’t have time for this.” Natalia picked up her phone. “Get her out of your house, Pino, for your own good.”

  “Why do you always get so irrational whenever there’s a little problem in life?”

  “A little problem? I’d hate to see what a big problem looked like. It’s you who’s living in some other world, Pino. Breathe in the gold light,” she mimicked, “exhale the shit.”

  He looked crestfallen. “Maybe I should go.”

  “Yeah, now you’re thinking clearly.”

  “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Up to you.”

  As soon as he left, she hung up the phone and closed the door, then burst into tears.

  “Do you love him?” Mariel whispered.

  “Don’t ask me that.”

  Two angels regarded them from their niche. Wings cracked, eyes vacant. At age twelve Natalia and Mariel had importuned the cherubs for the same boy to return their love. By thirteen, both questioned the existence of God. When Mariel’s parents were killed, those doubts were sealed. Yet once or twice a year they still made a pilgrimage to the Church of the White Angels, as Natalia and Mariel called it, the only Orthodox church in Naples.

  Nothing changed here: the same tapestries adorned the simple walls. Near the confessional, the caretaker flirted with a modern Mary Magdalene in tight jeans and a low cut sweater. A widow knitted in a pew near the altar, no doubt responsible for the yellow chrysanthemums in a tin vase at the feet of Jesus.

  “Why couldn’t we have a normal life,” Natalia said, “living together, eating dinner together, sharing our days?”

  “What did he say about the pregnancy?” Mariel asked.

  “Swore it couldn’t be his. Fuck, Mariel, he’ll be lucky the Graccis don’t deliver a wedding present.”

  Mariel paled. A “pr
esent” referred to cash delivered to a man who got a Camorra girl pregnant. The message: Marry the girl, and buy some china and silverware. Spurn her and it could pay for a funeral just as well.

  “If Colonel Fabio finds out about Pino’s involvement with this girl, he’s finished in law enforcement.”

  “Sounds like he’s done with the Carabinieri anyway.”

  “But I’m not. We had to break up because we’d violated policy, and here he brings me another violation the moment he’s back in my life.”

  Mariel brushed back Natalia’s hair. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” She kissed her friend’s hand. “I haven’t a clue.”

  Chapter 13

  Normally Fionetta opened her hair salon at one on Mondays. Once a month Lola got her to open at ten thirty, though the closed sign stayed up and the shades down.

  Natalia rapped twice, and Onetta opened the door.

  “What’s the matter?” Onetta demanded. “Don’t you love me anymore?”

  They kissed each other’s cheeks and embraced.

  “I do love you, Onetta, but it’s been crazy.”

  “Crazy here, too. Mariel was wondering where you were. Lola’s already had a manicure. Blue. Blue nails, like a teenager’s. And now she wants me to give the dog a manicure.”

  “I wouldn’t let you lay a finger on my precious pooch, would I?” Lola said. “So cute!” She screeched, hugging the dog to her chest and kissing her. “Natalia, don’t you love his little jacket!”

  Onetta had stuck a piece of duct tape across the seat of Natalia’s favorite red vinyl chair.

  “What’s going on? Things falling apart?” Natalia said. “We can take up a collection.”

  “Very funny,” ‘Onetta said. “When I need your help, I’ll ask.”

  Lola and the barking Micu were dressed to kill, the former in a Dolce and Gabbana sheath, leopard skin stiletto gladiator heels and an emerald choker; the latter, in a gray knitted sweater with green rhinestone buttons.

  Natalia hugged Lola and said over her shoulder to Onetta, “It’s good of you to let us use your shop.”

  “How often do old friends have a chance to get together?”