For the young man who was watching the scene with a look of disgust on his face as he sucked on a licorice root and leaned on his armor-plated BMW X6 SUV, money was also the most important thing. His name was Shalva Israelachvili, he was thirty years old, and he came from Georgia. Stalin’s Georgia, just to make that clear. A compatriot who might have had his shortcomings, but if nothing else had known how to keep the Russians in line.
He was a Jew, and he’d become a Nazi. Because he believed in law and order, and that’s how he saw himself: as a man of law and order. Women adored him. They said he was gorgeous. They lined up to jump into his bed. And in fact, with his long black hair, his fair skin, his oriental cheekbones, his deep dark eyes, a compact but not massive physique, and the innate elegance of someone accustomed to being around people, he was reminiscent of the early Sean Connery. But he was much, much more, Shalva was.
He was a boss.
At the age of fourteen, encouraged by Bekha, his beloved older brother, he had told the rabbis to go to hell along with all their paranoia and he’d gone back to his homeland, finally liberated from the longtime oppressor. For that matter, wasn’t Georgia the most beautiful place on earth? Back home the story was told of how, when God was busy distributing lands to the humans He had just created, the Georgians were having one of their lavish and proverbial banquets. And so it was that the Georgians showed up too late and God, sorry but also a little ticked off, explained that there were simply no more lands to be given. At that point the Georgians said: yes, Holy Father, we are late, that is true, but it was because we were drinking to Your health. And so God, touched, assigned them the land that he had been keeping for Himself.
Georgia, my homeland!
Thanks to Bekha, the Vory v Zakone, the powerful Mafia of Thieves had welcomed him with open arms. He had grown up in his big brother’s shadow, and when he left this world for good, Sieg Heil to his blessed soul, he had inherited all his contacts.
Officially a lumber importer, Shalva was the organization’s representative in Italy. His Italian was perfect, only faintly inflected by the vague suspicion of an accent. He feared no rivals in the transportation business. His trucks came and went incessantly along the routes of the Balkans, transporting human flesh, arms, drugs, and everything that served to make the harsh existence of human beings a little less miserable.
Instead of fighting them and persecuting them, the government ought to bow down to people like him. They should put up monuments. It was people like Shalva who made the lives of so many good people actually worth living.
Once the aspiring whores and housekeepers had cleared out, a fat, sweaty guy broke away from the crowd of van drivers. He went over to Shalva and asked him, deferentially, if he had a light. His name was Stanila, he was Romanian, and he had been working with the Georgians for years. They spoke Italian. It was supposed to seem like a typical conversation between two strangers.
“The white Audi,” said Shalva, flicking his lighter into flame, “across the way, three hundred yards, under that billboard.”
“There’s a new guy,” Stanila whispered.
“Who vouched for him?”
“One of your men, Thaka.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know. I don’t like him. He’s too nervous.”
“That happens on the first trip.”
“If you say so . . . ”
“You’re not convinced, eh?”
“No. But you’re the boss.”
There was no doubt about that, and it was wise of Stanila to keep it in mind at all times. In any case, the Romanian was an experienced transporter. His sixth sense was something to be relied on. So was his sense of fear. Stanila knew that there was much to be gained from staying on the right side of things. He knew that in business trust is everything. He knew that if anything went sideways, they might all be suspected of betrayal.
And he knew that no mercy would be shown to traitors.
“All right. Tell him not to come.”
“What about the package?”
“Tell him to take it back to whoever gave it to him. Is that clear?”
“It will be done.”
“Now get going.”
Stanila went back to the others. Shalva saw him in conversation with a tall skinny guy. The tall guy clearly launched into an objection of some kind. Stanila told him to go to hell. They guy shrugged in resignation and started off toward his van. The other drivers headed off, acting nonchalant, toward the white Audi where Thaka was waiting for them.
Shalva pulled out his iPhone with the Georgian SIM card, opened Viber, the Israeli app that couldn’t be hacked, and called Samurai.
“Shalva, brother!”
“I need to talk to you.”
“I’ll be with you at noon.”
Then he got in his SUV and took off, without laying down too much rubber.
Thaka was too far away to be able to judge his reactions. He wondered if he’d been right to trust Stanila’s hunch. Maybe the Romanian was wrong, and there was an explanation for it all.
Still, it really was remarkable that the very same day he brought Thaka, one of the last arrivals, to do deliveries for the very first time, a new face should happen to have popped up. And the person who had vouched for him, it just so happened, was none other than Thaka. Two new developments taken together constituted an oddity. And Shalva wouldn’t have gotten where he was now if he hadn’t learned to be wary of oddities.
For that matter, the system that he had developed had been running smoothly for two years now. An eternity. Maybe the time had come to develop something else. Here’s how it worked: Shalva had shut down one of his shipping companies. The delivery vans had all been sold at auction. All aboveboard. Except that they’d arranged to give preference, among the bidders, to those who were married and had children. The new van owners were approached with a clear and simple proposal: they could do whatever they pleased with the vehicle, provided that with each trip a “little package” was delivered to Shalva, or delivered at any rate to a trusted person indicated by him. Payment for each delivery: five hundred euros.
Shalva liked to boast that he was a generous employer. Everyone accepted, except for one arrogant young man who had put an end to talks by spitting in Shalva’s emissary’s face.
The next night, two men had broken into his house and raped his wife.
Was it clear, now, why Shalva didn’t want bachelors without personal ties in his organization?
The young man had filed a complaint with the police.
That same evening someone had broken his arm.
The young man had withdrawn the complaint.
There had been no further problems.
Each package contained one or two kilos of refined cocaine. When he was in Rome, Shalva personally supervised the deliveries, but no one could ever testify that they had seen him handle the shit. The material aspects were taken care of by the young men who, from time to time, backed him up. They were the ones who took delivery of the packages and forwarded them. Shalva’s percentage, after transporation costs and Samurai’s share, was thirty percent. An arrangement that was not spectacularly profitable, but still reasonably advantageous, and above all, safe and secure.
At least, it had been until that morning.
While he was turning into Via Cassia, he wondered once again whether he was becoming paranoid.
And he concluded, well, if I’m wrong, I’ll be out a couple of kilos of shit. And what does that really matter?
Samurai pulled into Trevignano at noon on the dot. Punctual to the second, and dressed in black, as always.
The two men embraced on the Georgian-style patio of the villa Shalva had had built on Lake Bracciano.
Every time he set foot there, Samurai was forcibly reminded of the unlikely origin of that piece of Olde England transp
lanted into the countryside north of Rome. It had been Shalva himself who told him about the misunderstanding the architect, a well-dressed little dandy in a bowtie, had stumbled into.
“It’s because when I said ‘Georgian style,’ he thought I meant like the English! So I threw him down the stairs.”
“Maybe you could have gone over and taken a look at the job while it was under construction.”
“What do you think, I have time for that? I trusted that piece of shit.”
“That piece of shit did more than just build a house for you, Shalva. He did you a big favor.”
“But he got everything wrong.”
“And it’s a good thing. As a result, instead of having a Moorish dacha with trivial marblework, you now have the residence of a true gentleman.”
“You think?”
“Trust me.”
Shalva was one of the very few people to whom Samurai allowed physical contact. He’d watched that boy grow up, and he knew that he could trust him. He knew how devoted Shalva was to him. Twenty years ago, Samurai had saved the eldest son, Bekha’s life. In spite of the fact that he put on considerable airs, Bekha was nothing much. He’d landed in Italy convinced that he was bound to become the boss, and then he’d wound straight up in the Rome Hotel, as they called the prison, with a sentence of six years and eight months for international heroin trafficking. In prison, he’d stepped on the toes of a major Camorra boss, and Samurai had had to draw on every ounce of his power to keep prison from becoming a living nightmare for Bekha. Even back then, Samurai was thinking big. The disintegration of the Soviet empire had started moving the gears of a world too long crucified on the sterile and obsolete stand-off between East and West. Business horizons opened up that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago. The wheels started to turn again. At last they could play the game freely. Making a friend like Bekha was a far-sighted calculation.
But when Bekha got out, having served his time, he started acting every bit as arrogantly as before. And this time the Neapolitans had decided to reckon up the bill. Samurai had vouched for Shalva personally.
“Are you going to stay and have lunch with me, brother?” Shalva used the Italian term colazione.
“They say colazione in Milan, Shalva. In Rome we call it pranzo.”
“Well, stay and eat anyway. I can make you a nice khachapuri.”
“That fried panino filled with your stinky cheese?”
“Don’t talk that way about our national dish!”
“The French have something similar. They call it a croque-monsieur. And it’s every bit as disgusting. I’ll settle for a cup of tea.”
“My samovar is always on the boil and my heart is always warm for my friends.”
Shalva served the hot drink in English Wedgwood porcelain tea cups. He added two cubes of ice to his own tea. Samurai furrowed his brow. There were certain violations of basic style that could irritate him boundlessly. He set down his cup and shook his head.
“You really refuse to become a proper citizen, Shalva.”
“But I’m trying to stop smoking.”
“All right,” Samurai sighed, “I’m a little on edge today.”
“Problems?”
“We’re on the brink of full-blown war, brother.”
Samurai brought him up to speed on the most recent events. Shalva said that sometimes war is inevitable. And it can even be useful.
Samurai knit his fingers together and raised his hands to his forehead. This was the pose he assumed when he needed to think. If Shalva could have, he would have held his breath.
What if it turned out the Georgian had been right? And what if Samurai chose not to intervene? If he just let them slaughter each other? After all, this could be the right time to do a little housecleaning. Get rid of the scum. Samurai was sick and tired of all those tawdry ignorant subhumans who infested the streets. But this wasn’t the time yet, no.
“Let’s forget about evil thoughts. You got in touch with me, Shalva.”
“Do you think you could help me place a . . . a large quantity of cocaine?”
“How large?”
“A metric ton.”
“No problem,” Samurai whispered, unruffled. “Where is the stuff?”
“Folegandros, or Naxos. It hasn’t been decided yet. There’s an agreement with several cops on site, the Pugliese have arranged to grease the wheels.”
“I don’t like the Pugliese. They’re treacherous chatterboxes.”
“The Pugliese are powerful in the Mediterranean, Samurai. They’ve got this traffic covered. We can’t cut them out.”
“If they’ll settle for ten percent . . . ”
“I’ll try to convince them.”
“Don’t just try.”
“We’ll need a boat.”
“Consider it procured.”
“And a skipper.”
“I’ve got the right person. But we’re going to have to bring the Neapolitans and the Calabrians in too. Let’s just say we can get away with twenty percent. Just to keep them happy and not mess up the balance of power. Well, a hundred minus thirty makes seventy. Our deal is the usual?”
“Of course, of course.”
That is, forty-five to Samurai and twenty-five to Shalva. Reasonable, advantageous.
Samurai sipped his lapsang souchong tea tempered with jasmine blossom. The scent of dirt mixed with the aroma of smoky wood. A perfect union of feminine and masculine elements.
“If the deal goes through, you’ll get a fair amount of cash out of it, Shalva.”
“Well, as you know, a share belongs to my countrymen, but when it’s all said and done . . . ”
“Do you already know how to invest it?”
“Are you about to tell me something important, Samurai?”
Samurai told him about Waterfront and the social housing project. Shalva listened open-mouthed.
“You see, now, why we can’t afford a gang war right now? We’re all involved, all of us. Me, the gypsies, the Neapolitans, the Calabrians, and even you, if you want to be.”
“Me?”
“We’re going to need a great many vehicles to transport workers from one construction site to another. And we’ll need more for logistics and assistance. I can’t let you have a piece of the earthmoving work, because that belongs to the Neapolitans, but as to the rest of it . . . you ought to put together a company and submit a bid for the contract. Naturally, strictly for appearances, the results are guaranteed. You just calculate that for an investment of, let’s say, ten, you’d see a return of sixty, seventy times that . . . ”
“Samurai, I swear it, you are my brother, my father, and my mother.”
“No, leave out the mother, the mother is sacred, leave her to us Italians.”
Shalva couldn’t believe his ears. However much the tone was the usual, chilly and dry, this was the closest he’d ever heard Samurai come to actually making a joke.
“We need to drink a toast to this, Samurai.”
“You know I don’t like alcohol.”
Samurai stood up to take his leave.
Shalva cleared his throat.
“Samurai . . . ”
“What is it?”
“It’s about the ‘packages.’”
“Problems?”
“This morning I caught a whiff of a cop.”
“I’ll look into it and let you know.”
XVII
Number Eight slowly massaged his right ear. He brushed his forefinger over the rough scabs in the left corner of his mouth.
Fuck that Paja and fuck that Fieno: he looked like a leper.
Still, Silvio, the veterinarian who cared for Morgana’s maremma sheepdog, had done a good job. He’d stitched up his lip and cheek with twenty or so stitches and staples. Which would start falling out in a we
ek or so. A few more days and his face would start to look human again. But there was still the problem with his hearing. The buzz in his ears wouldn’t quit. The only thing the bullets from Paja’s pistol had damaged was the one thing that asshole hadn’t been aiming at. His eardrum.
He had holed up in the hovel in Santa Severa that Denis had found for him. Not even Jesus Christ Himself would be able to track him down there. He’d gotten rid of the Carabinieri without difficulties: they’d caught wind of something, but they had no proof. Evidence: it’d be a great day when they came up with that one, Number Eight thought to himself.
He twirled the Marlboro Red in the cocaine in his cigarette case. In the milky midday light, he leaned over the balcony and gazed down on a shamrock-green sea below. A couple of kids fighting in the street caught his eye.
The one who looked to be older, maybe fifteen at the most, was straddling the other one, who was flat on his back on the asphalt. He was gripping a knuckleduster in his right hand, holding it half-raised in the moment before the first blow.
“You made me do this, you stupid asshole. I don’t have any choice. You know yourself that I have to do it. Those are the rules. What the fuck am I going to say to everyone else, otherwise? After all, if I don’t do it, you’re going to.”
Despite how high above them he was, he could hear the dull thud of the blow, and he saw the head of the punk flat on his back as it twisted to one side in the act of spitting out blood and what looked like teeth.
Number Eight smiled contentedly. He went back into the living room, turned on the DVD player, and restarted the porn flick from the point he’d left it at dawn. On the remote he pressed the mute button.
Things weren’t over with Anacleti, not at all. And, no disrespect intended, but who the fuck cared what Samurai thought about it. After all, he wouldn’t even know until it was too late. Certainly, he was going to be pissed off. But it would be wasted effort, as the saying goes. He too would have to come around, in the end. After all, they had a clear understanding. Samurai was supposed to keep his nose out of the business on the street. In part because now it was more than just a question of honor. Now it was a matter of survival. He’d drawn a wild card. There wasn’t going to be another Piazza Gasparri, and he could thank the idiocy of Paja for that. Because you tell me how you can unload a 9x21 mm pistol at someone crawling on the ground without hitting him even once. Next time, the guys from Cinecittà wouldn’t miss.
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