Suburra

by Giancarlo De Cataldo

  “Get ready for a funeral: your own.”

  There was no need for a signature. Rocco Anacleti had made himself known.

  Number Eight formulated two thoughts in quick succession.

  Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

  It seems to me I fucked up good and proper.

  Then, exhausted by the effort, he shut his eyes again. The coke surged. And at last he saw.

  Er uoterfront.

  The light of sundown was caressing Ostia so you felt like licking it. And the silhouette of the monumental four-story casino overlooking the waves was reminiscent of that mountain in Brazil, what the fuck was it called? . . . Oh, yeah, er Pandezzucchero. Sugarloaf Mountain.

  Mamma mia, look how beautiful, the casino.

  And what a beautiful name they’d given it.

  Armageddon.

  Which means something like . . . oh, Apocalypse, that kind of thing. Cool, though. They’d even put in a ski slope, with artificial snow. And a chairlift that ran from the pine grove all the way to the top.

  Number Eight was enjoying the view from the top. Piazza Gasparri and the waterfront promenade, all glass and cement. An elevated parking lot stretching out over the water that made you think you were in Dubai. And they say that without a few palm trees you don’t live as well. Oh, sure.

  Er uoterfront.

  How wonderful.

  Number Eight twisted around on the jumpseat on the chairlift and looked behind him. The Via Ostiense cut through the center of an expanse of cement that stretched as far as the eye could see back to Rome, illuminated by the lights of the shopping centers, by the building complexes, both working class and intensive and deluxe. Raphael Park, Michelangelo Park. Leonardo Park. Donatello Park. As if those parks represented the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And after all, goddammit, they could have come up with some names that were more modern for those anthills selling for six hundred fifty euros per square foot. I don’t know, Off-Shore Park, just to fit in with the local establishment.

  Uncle Nino was waiting for him when the chairlift reached the top, on an expanse of pink deep-pile wall-to-wall carpeting.

  How elegant Uncle Nino was. All off-white, head to foot. With a young girl squeezed into a red latex tube dress rubbing up against him.

  “You see, Uncle, what your little Cesaretto has been up to?”

  They hugged and then walked into a wooden chalet built on the casino roof, surrounded by fir trees and boulders from the Dolomites. It really did feel like being in the Alps.

  From there, the view of the plain was magnificent.

  Seven hundred million cubic feet of cement. A variant on the zoning plan, they’d called it. What kind of a variant were they talking about? This was a certainty. The New Ostia for a New World. Their world.

  They didn’t even know what to do with the money anymore, where to keep it, they’d hauled in so much. They’d taken in a ten-fold return on the investment. A couple of hundred million just for the Adamis. And he had bought a yacht like the one that Russian who owned Chelsea, Abramovich, sailed around in. With a helicopter on the deck. Roma, he’d christened his yacht. What was there to argue about? It was black, made of carbon fiber, and he kept it moored at the wharf in front of the casino. The kind of thing the Arabs could just drool over.

  Saliva on his pillow woke up Number Eight, along with the noonday heat.

  The bed was empty. His temples were pounding. His tongue was chained to the roof of his mouth.

  He reached out and grabbed his cell phone and reread the text from Rocco Anacleti.

  Who the fuck cares, the gypsy will just have to deal with it.

  X

  Samurai was a man possessed by his rituals. Marco Malatesta had learned that quickly. Long before he ever put on a police uniform. The locations, the times, the manners of his presence in the city were punctuated by a sort of compulsively repetitive routine that was designed both to reassure and to strike fear. An obsession transformed into an instrument of his rule.

  Whether in broad daylight or in the dark of the night: Samurai was there.

  And he, Marco, intended to remind him that he was back.

  For that matter, this was a propitious occasion. If it made any sense to start asking around a little bit on how Spadino had died, well, then, Samurai was the right place to start. And whether or not he had actually had anything to do with the pyre in Coccia di Morto was of minimal importance, right then and there.

  Malatesta pulled up at the end of Corso di Francia on his Bonneville around noon. He prepared to wait a hundred yards or so from the last gas station before Via Flaminia. Though it was true the quarter had changed—between the Collina Fleming and the Milvian Bridge a mushroom patch of clubs and gourmet restaurants had sprung up that ought to have erased whatever soul those streets had ever possessed—it was every bit as true that that slice of the city with its “black” Fascist heart was and remained the property of Samurai.

  “Once a day, he stops by there. The same gas station. The one where we used to get gas for our mopeds when we were kids, before going to the soccer stadium. Someone even told me that he’d bought the place, along with half of Corso Francia,” a friend from the old days had once confided to him. And Marco had no reason to doubt his word.

  In spite of the distance, Malatesta recognized him immediately. The minute he got out of the Smart Car that he’d pulled over onto the concrete apron of the carwash. And he smiled when he saw a small crowd of smooth-cheeked young hoodlums move toward him with the muted respect due to a pack leader. Samurai hadn’t changed. A few gray hairs. A tailor-made suit designed to make him look like the businessman that he wasn’t. Otherwise, he was identical to the Samurai he still remembered from that night at Il Bagatto. Malatesta lit a Camel and walked over to the gas pumps. As he walked, he took rapid-fire photos with his iPhone: among Samurai’s numerous obsessions, privacy and secrecy topped the list. The only photographs of him now in circulation dated back a quarter century. To have a few more recent ones of him could prove invaluable.

  “Buongiorno.”

  Even though he had come up behind him, the stentorian tone of voice in which Marco had formulated his greeting hardly seemed to surprise him. Samurai turned around slowly, without moving a single facial muscle, while with a broad sweeping gesture of his arm, he put a quick end to the burst of apprehension among the young men surrounding him.

  Marco decided not to give him time. He’d learned, at his own expense, that you must never give Samurai that advantage. Never.

  “Any chance we can talk in private, or do you still need an audience to perform in front of?”

  Samurai put on a serpent’s smile and dismissed his entourage.

  “I remembered you as impetuous but well mannered. And, if I may say so, a few pounds lighter. But maybe time and your new profession have been poor teachers. Colonel, am I right?”

  “Lieutenant Colonel. And after all, I’ve only ever had one poor teacher. Someone you know.”

  “Thanks for coming to see me, but the news of your return to Rome had already reached me. Welcome back. What pushes you to this part of the world, Marco? Nostalgia for the good old days, no doubt?”

  “Pure curiosity.”

  “Aaah . . . ”

  “Marco Summa. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No. Should it?”

  “Maybe you knew him as Spadino.”

  Samurai’s smile blinked out in a sneer of disgust. It was a good way to conceal his chagrin and uneasiness. News travelled fast, in Rome. Rocco Anacleti had only just informed him of Spadino, and here you are, the Carabinieri, ladies and gentlemen. Nasty story. The flames could get out of hand.

  “I’m sorry, but that name means nothing to me.”

  “Imagine that! You know, they found him dead in Coccia di Morto. Charred. All that was left were his tee
th.”

  “My God, what a horrible thing. But I don’t know anything about it. You’re wasting your time, Colonel.”

  Marco bestowed a smile of commiseration upon him.

  “You haven’t changed. You’re still the same piece of shit you always were. You’re still pushing drugs, coke, smack, all that filth that churns up kids’ brains. You’ve even brought crack to the city.”

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Marco.”

  “Bullshit. Spadino was a pusher.”

  “That’s not my problem.” Samurai took a step forward and shook his head. “I don’t know who your informants might be, Colonel. But you ought to try to get some better ones. Take a look in the corporate registry. You’ll find my name, along with the names of all my companies. I’m a businessman, understand? A businessman. I have nothing to do with that other stuff now.”

  “Tell it to someone else. Maybe you can tell the four punks who wait for you every day in front of this gas station.”

  Samurai pointed his forefinger toward Malatesta’s temple.

  “You ought to do something about your temper, Marco. You’ve never been able to conceal it. At age twenty, that’s understandable and forgivable, and I did forgive you. But by now I’d hoped to see you behaving in a more mature manner. And you know, when you lose your temper, your scar starts pulsating. It’s a clear warning sign of your fragility. That’s an advantage you can’t afford to concede. To anyone.”

  It was predictable. Samurai fished freely in their shared abyss. But he’d miscounted his cards. Marco massaged his temples.

  “I have some bad news for you, Samurai.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m fond of this scar, you know that?”

  “Let me guess: the ladies find it exciting?”

  “Women have nothing to do with it. The fact is that this scar reminds me of something I still need to take care of.”

  “Vendetta isn’t always a noble sentiment.”

  “I’m not looking for vendetta, Samurai. That Nazi garbage has nothing to do with me now.”

  “Oh, nothing to do with me either, you should have realized that. I don’t take revenge. I simply see the way things are and how they change and I recognize it. And if necessary, I do my bit to help them change. I control destiny, Marco. I don’t live with rancor, because I make sure there’s no cause for it. You know that. That’s always been your problem, Marco. You want to change the world. But you can’t change the world. You can only manage it.”

  Marco smiled.

  “You know what, Samurai? You’ve become pathetic.”

  “Let’s not exaggerate.”

  “When I was swallowing the bullshit that you tried to foist off on us at Il Bagatto, you had some appearance of humanity, or at least you tried to put one on. Now you’re just an old serpent about to molt its last skin.”

  “You could also say that I was and I remain a generous man. After all, the fact that you’re still alive is entirely due to me. I could have crushed you like a cockroach, but I chose not to. Never forget that.”

  “You were wrong not to settle that account, Samurai. Because I don’t intend to be generous. I’m not repaying any favors. I owe you nothing.”

  Samurai sighed.

  “I don’t think we have anything left to say to each other. And I have a pretty full schedule today. So I’m afraid we’re going to have to put an end to our enjoyable conversation right here and now. Even though I have to admit I’m sort of sorry. Because I imagine it’s going to be our last.”

  “You imagine wrong. In case you haven’t figured it out, this is just the beginning. But I feel sure you understand that, right? If I were you, I’d find out a little more about this Spadino. See you around, Samurai.”

  Marco turned on his heels and headed back to the Bonneville. Samurai’s voice caught him like the lash of a whip.

  “Forget about the motorcycle. You’re too old for that now, Marco. And Rome is a dangerous city.”

  XI

  Engineer Laurenti made his decision at the very instant that the director of the Cassa di Credito e Risparmio, Prati branch, Rome, on Piazza dei Quiriti, handed him the brochure of the financing company.

  “Here you’ll find the answer to your problems, Engineer.”

  He responded with a faint, false smile, and then underscored it with a firm, vigorous handshake.

  Laurenti looked him squarely in the eye with a surge of disdain that the other man didn’t even bother to perceive.

  “All right,” he said, getting to his feet, “it’s all clear.”

  “You’ll see, things will shape up,” the other man encouraged him.

  The engineer nodded, suffered through another handshake, and finally walked out into the open air.

  His son Sebastiano was waiting for him, as rigid and tense as he’d left him, twenty minutes earlier.

  “How did it go, Papa?”

  “Fine, fine, son. It’s all taken care of, it’s all under control.”

  “Well then, Papa, maybe I’ll go . . . ”

  That’s only right, thought the engineer. He has his life. He’s impatient to live it. I’ve been a lucky father. Sebastiano is a sensitive young man. He understands that something’s not right and he insisted on accompanying me. Now that I’ve reassured him, he’s in a hurry to be rid of me.

  But then he couldn’t make up his mind to let him go.

  “You feel like getting some ice cream?” he suggested, impulsively. “How long has it been since we got ice cream together, the two of us?”

  Surprised, but also flattered, Sebastiano immediately said yes.

  They turned off down Via Cola di Rienzo and took a table at Il Piccolo Diavolo. They ordered two large bowls of ice cream: fruit flavors for the son, creams, the richest, fattiest flavors possible, for the father.

  The greedy delight with which Sebastiano plunged his spoon into the ball of strawberry ice cream brought a stab of sorrow to his heart. He thought it through again. He had palmed off a pious lie upon him. But wouldn’t it actually have been more honest, fairer, to have told him the truth?

  Then Sebastiano started telling him about the trip that he and Chicca had planned to Alaska.

  “In Juneau, you catch a seaplane and you can ice skate on the glacier. If we’re lucky, we’ll see a polar bear hunting seals. And there’s a chance to spend a night or two in a tent on small islands surrounded by icebergs. You sleep right there, you understand? And before you do, they make you sign a release, because there’s no guarantee you’ll survive it.”

  The engineer regretted having thought it through again. Let’s just consider it like this, he said to himself, in a flash of the clear-minded vision that so many times before had come to his aid in the harsher moments of life: I’m giving him a few more moments of carefree existence. He’ll remember it till the day he dies, and maybe he’ll be grateful to me for it. The memory of these last instants together will stay with him in the dark hours that await him. Sebastiano: the pure one, the innocent one. I’m the one who made you like this, son. I taught you a love for adventure because it is only right that a man should always wish to go beyond his limits, forward, ever forward, where no man has ever ventured before. And I raised you in the cult of a respect for one’s fellow man; I explained to you the ethics of hard work, which in the end rewards the just and punishes the undeserving; I spoke to you about the effort of making something, the only authentic metric of value for a life worth living.

  They really did make a lovely picture, the two of them. They emanated a pleasing sense of strength and confidence. A father in jacket and tie, in spite of the heat, fifty years old but looking much younger, a tall, noble figure, and then the son, likewise tall, the slightly conceited demeanor of someone who has just emerged from adolescence, and deep in his gaze a gentle insecurity that time would take care of era
sing soon enough.

  You’ll understand soon enough, son. And you’ll curse my name. Because I’ve ruined your life.

  After the gelato, they indulged in an espresso.

  “Tell me something,” the father suddenly said.

  The son, with an instinctive gesture, looked at the old Donald Duck Swatch on his wrist, a wrist covered with the soft sparse goose down of youth. Of course, of course, he probably has an appointment with Chicca, with some friend or other, it’s hot out, they’re going to want to go to the beach, didn’t he just get a fine A plus-plus in Mathematical Finance? Why should I inflict my presence on him any longer?”

  “Okay, let’s say goodbye here. I’m heading over to the metro. I have some business to take care of.”

  The engineer paid the check, quickly embraced his son, and strode off with a confident step for his last journey.

  He hesitated in front of the civil courthouse on Viale Giulio Cesare, hemmed in by the usual crowd of lawyers and shady businessmen who were eagerly offering empty hope to a legion of bankrupts who’d been crushed by the recession. But there really was no hope.

  He did everything properly, without haste. He went into the Lepanto metro station. He purchased a ticket at the automatic vending machine. He took up his position on the platform facing the oncoming train.

  He had no second thoughts.

  He hadn’t worked like a slave for thirty years, he hadn’t built a solid business structure out of thin air, he hadn’t built houses that were the setting for the charming cries of newborn babies and the frantic moaning of young lovers, houses destined to stand for centuries, he hadn’t done all this only to wind up in the clutches of a gang of goddamned loan sharks.

  If there was no more future for Luigi Laurenti, well then, to hell with it all.

  And forgive me, son, forgive me for having taught you a vast array of nonsense. Perhaps you’ll just hate me. He thought back to the signatures that he’d asked his son to add when he still believed he could get out of it.