Suburra

by Giancarlo De Cataldo

  “You took it well. I see you’re nice and calm,” Denis replied.

  “When I heard that you’d hit a bullseye on some black, I’d have ripped your head off. But then Samurai called me. And he told me that we need to meet. That we need to talk.”

  “So is that a piece of good news, in your view?”

  “Of course it is. It means that the Anacletis have decided to beg for pity. That they understand they need to kiss the tip of my prick. They’re scared to death, is what, ha!” Number Eight let out a yell and pumped his fists in the air.

  “What else did Samurai tell you?”

  “Nothing. You know what he’s like on the phone. You need pliers to pry words out of him.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Exactly what? You see, Denis, you don’t understand a thing? You see why I say that you still need to get some experience? If Samurai takes action over this street thing, that means that he understands that we own the street. That this swipe of the lion’s paw was badly needed. That they aren’t going to try and come after me again. Wake up and smell the coffee, Denis.”

  “What does Uncle Nino say?”

  “What do I know? Anyway, where he is, he’s not running away. He’ll let us know. And what do you think he’s going to say? Do you think in my situation he’d have just done nothing? Denis, I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to just stand here with my dick in my hands.”

  “Don’t you even want to know who whacked the nigger?”

  “Doesn’t matter to me. What difference does it make?”

  “Morgana.”

  “Morgana what?”

  “She’s the one who did it.”

  “Pretty girl of mine. Mhm.”

  “I’m heading back to Ostia. You need anything?”

  “Yeah, the candy striper. I still have some booboos. Haa haa haa! Haa haa haa!”

  With a sneer of disgust, Denis shut the door behind him while Number Eight kept on laughing convulsively. He felt utter contempt for that man. And above all, he knew the blood of the gypsies. That was his blood too.

  Via del Ponte delle Sette Miglia had all the sounds and the colors of the zambra mora being held by the Anacletis. On a large meadow, in the shade of enormous brightly colored tents, the festival of reconciliation marked the end of a feud among cousins. A shipment of coke, cut poorly and recut even worse. Rocco, in his official capacity as duca and with an unappealable verdict, had established the reciprocal cash reparations to be paid. The women had made dolmas, green peppers stuffed with rice, meat, and tomatoes. The children of the two families of reprobates plunged their hands into the trays loaded high with pita bread, the flour and water crêpes stuffed with ricotta and beets, potatoes and onions. Men and women danced to the melodies of a small combo’s manouche swing, or gypsy jazz.

  Paja and Fieno pulled the black BMW over to the side of the road and joined Rocco, who was sitting at one of the open air tables, set for a meal, with Max. The two men were engaged in conversation, which they broke off when Paja and Fieno arrived. Rocco invited them with a gesture to take a seat, then he pointed to the pot of bosanskibonaz and plunged in a gigantic ladle. That stew, made of meat, green peppers, savoy cabbage, potatoes, and cauliflower, would be hard to digest in a blizzard. When it was ninety degrees in the shade, it was sheer torture. Paja filled his bowl as if he hadn’t eaten for a week. Fieno took just a taste to keep from offending the host. They knew why they were there. Max’s presence was a further confirmation. Nicce didn’t come out for trivial matters. And then, they had nothing to do with the gypsy reconciliation. They needed to talk about vendetta, rather. The blood of the Ferro di Cavallo needed to be washed out in some way. Because the people from Ostia weren’t looking for the zammammero.

  His mouth crammed with that gypsy cement, Paja muttered as he chewed what were no doubt meant to be words of defiance.

  “There’s no need to even talk about it . . . We’ll just go and this time . . . ”

  “You’re not going anywhere. And you know what I’m talking about!” Anacleti said in a chilling tone.

  Fieno had no idea whether Max knew about the disaster of Piazza Gasparri—hadn’t the boss said that it was supposed to remain a secret from everyone?—so he said nothing. In fact, he kicked Paja under the table to make sure he kept his mouth shut, that is, assuming he even had the courage to open it to lodge an objection.

  Max took the floor.

  “It’s the boss’s decision. But I ventured to suggest we keep cool. Very cool. If we’re going to take revenge, it can’t be now. Too many cops out on the street.”

  Anacleti laid a hand on Max’s shoulder.

  “You have a good head on your shoulders, Nicce. You’re a philosopher, and a real one.”

  Paja glanced over at Max with a look that oozed hatred. Anacleti went on.

  “Nicce has a point. Now’s not the time. And anyway, nothing before we know what Samurai wants. He called me. He wants to see me. And we have a few good reasons to be pissed off. He’ll have to listen to us this time.”

  “We’ll come with you. That way, if there are problems . . . ” Fieno hastened to suggest.

  The boss pulled a giant ladleful of bosanskibonaz out of the pot and dumped it in his bowl.

  “The two of you stay here. Eat up and take a nice long nap. Come on, Max,” he said. Then he got up from the table and gestured to Max to follow him.

  Paja and Fieno started to leap to their feet as well. But Anacleti waved to them to remain seated.

  “What did I just say? And after all, the dessert’s coming any minute. The one you like best, Paja. Halva!” he shouted in the general direction of one of the women who were rummaging in the trunk of a black Mercedes sedan, the clan’s make of choice. The woman came over with two silver platters on which steamed an oily polenta, covered with doodles of simple sugar syrup, dried fruit, and pine nuts. As he strolled off with Max, Anacleti smiled: “I’m counting on you. Clean the plate. Otherwise I’ll take offense.”

  The sun deck of Il Tatami overlooked the countryside of the Parco di Veio. And for a moment, Samurai let himself be caressed by the warmth of the sunshine. Alone and naked, except for his mirror-lens Oakleys, he looked down and observed his waxed chest and legs. He took a deep breath, inhaling the essence of bergamot with which he had been imbued by Zelda, the Filipina shiatsu masseuse, a woman who seemed to have had her tongue cut out, which alone made him appreciate his contact with her. Il Tatami was an exclusive club, not some gym or fitness center, both of which recked off the masses. Luca managed it, a Fascist comrade who had returned home from Japan after twenty years on the run. He had come back only after the Italian Supreme Court declared that the statute of limitations had expired on old charges of armed conspiracy. He loved Luca, and Luca loved Samurai. What they had in common was a hatred of bad smells. And a love of rare things, tradition, and the search for the self.

  He reached over and picked up an iced glass of centrifuged kiwi juiced from the bamboo side table next to the anatomical lounge chair on which he was reclining. He had asked Luca to shut the club for the afternoon.

  “I’m expecting friends.”

  Luca had nodded. Without asking questions.

  In fifteen minutes those rabid dogs from Ostia and Centocelle would be there.

  Samurai stood up from the lounge chair and slowly walked the length of the path of scalding stone that led from the sun deck to the showers. He allowed the soles of his feet to become hotter and hotter, feeling the stab of pain that comes just before third-degree burns. Then he quenched the heat in a basin of 40-degree water. The effect on his peripheral blood circulation was instantaneous. A tingling that announced a beneficial awakening.

  Feet and head, he thought.

  He opened the chromotherapy Hidrobox, and a powerful jet of 98-degree water that changed constantly between indigo blue and emerald green b
egan to relax his neck muscles and his dorsals, running between his legs in a triumph of lotus-scented foam. With slow, circular movements, he massaged the nape of his neck, and then his temples. He dried off with ten minutes in the sauna, which was aromatized with lemon-balm.

  Samurai wasn’t sure that it was the right thing. Lower himself into the gutter. Plunge his hands into that sewer of a feud between Ostia and Cinecittà. Why not just let them take turns exterminating each other, like scorpions in a bottle? But the truth is that he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Things couldn’t continue as they were. He would soon enjoy the Schumpeterian moment in which creative force is released from destruction. But not yet.

  Feet and head.

  He needed them. And he wasn’t the only one. The Calabrians under Perri needed them. The Neapolitans under Viglione. That buffoon Malgradi. The project of Waterfront and the working class housing had a single sine qua non. And that condition was that peace reign uncontested between Il Fungo at EUR and Lido di Ostia, between Casalpalocco and Romanina. At least until the city council approved the resolution that would upend the nature and direction of urban development between the city and the sea. Rome couldn’t continue to burn with the short-sighted fury of a band of psychotic coke hounds. It was time to put an end to it. Immediately. Now.

  Submerged under a luxuriant bougainvillea hedge, Il Tatami’s electric gate swung open at the second honk of the black Hummer’s horn. The car stopped under a cane overhang in the interior courtyard, and the silent Zelda appeared, ready to lead the man who stepped out of the car indoors. Number Eight was alone. He walked into the club’s outbuilding, a perfect reproduction of a katei, a Japanese house. Legs crossed, Samurai, dressed in a black linen suit, was sitting on a mat in the center of a large room, with a minimalist decoration in cypress, iron, and bamboo. With his hands, he was slowly lifting to his lips a porcelain cup of lukewarm green tea.

  Holding his hand, Number Eight started to walk closer.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a chair, my back is a wreck . . . ”

  Samurai held up his hand to block him, and pointed to the floor.

  “Sit.”

  He lowered himself onto the cushions, sensing a loss of control over his sweat glands.

  “Fucking hot . . . You can’t catch a breath today,” he blurted out.

  “We’re not here to talk about the weather.”

  “Tell the truth, I don’t know what you want to talk about, Samurai.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “You know what I can’t stand? People who think they can make a fool out of me.”

  “Hey Samurai, what are you joking around? I really have no idea.”

  “I’m going to ask you one more time. And this is going to be the last. Do you really not know why you’re here?”

  “Okay, I know why. But we’re not the ones who started this tarantella.”

  “Really? And you think Spadino just died because he nodded off? Explain that one to me, I’m curious. He fell asleep with a cigarette in his mouth in the pine grove?”

  “Spadino was a piece of shit and you know it yourself.”

  “If I look around I see nothing but dung.”

  “What?”

  “Dung means shit.”

  “Ah . . . anyway, Spadino had taken it into his head to blackmail Malgradi, Samurai. He was going around telling anyone who would listen that his time had come. That alliances aren’t forever. And then Malgradi reached out and asked me to help him out.”

  “What was he blackmailing him for?”

  “Because a prostitute died in his arms, and Spadino had given him a hand with the cleanup. That’s what he told me.”

  So that was the reason. Animal lust. Samurai was nauseated.

  “Spadino wasn’t just any ordinary junkie. Spadino was Anacleti property. You knew that, right?”

  “Of course I knew that. And that’s why I had to whack him. How dare the Anacletis come and eat out of my bowl without permission? With them, I’ve always respected their bowls. So you want to know something? Look at this.”

  Number Eight held his BlackBerry out to Samurai, the phone with the text that Anacleti had sent, condemning him to death.

  “They came looking for me in Ostia, Samurai. You tell me, what was I supposed to do?”

  The door of the Japanese house swung open. And with a faint hint of a bow, Zelda ushered in Rocco Anacleti and Max.

  Number Eight leapt to his feet and started to reach his hand around behind his back.

  “Don’t try it.”

  Samurai’s voice hadn’t increased a bit in volume.

  Number Eight took his seat on the floor cushions once again.

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “Neither do I, right?” said Samurai, addressing Anacleti.

  Anacleti didn’t say a word and just clumsily let himself drop onto the floor, along with Max, who greeted Samurai with a brief nod of the head.

  Samurai reported what he had learned from Number Eight. Anacleti was furious. That was just so much bullshit. He had never tried to fix Malgradi. And anyway, even if Spadino had wanted to subject the Honorable to a treatment, that had been on his own individual initiative. The family had had nothing to do with it.

  “Exactly!” Number Eight crowed. “So you ought to thank me, because I crushed the serpent’s head!”

  “A rat with a rose tucked behind its ear is still just a rat,” the gypsy murmured softly in his language.

  “So what are you talking about now?” Number Eight jibed at him, provocatively.

  “Nothing. I was just praying for the soul of poor Spadino.”

  Samurai let an interminable minute of silence go by. He sipped his green tea with his eyes fixed straight ahead of him.

  “Do any of you troglodytes know what Abdel Salam means?” he asked.

  Number Eight opened his eyes wide, the way he did whenever his instinct was no longer of any help to him.

  “It means zammammero. Isn’t that the black from Cinecittà?”

  Rocco Anacleti shot back at him: “That’s right, you fucking dickhead. And you don’t know how much he’s going to cost you. You’ll have to beg me for pity, slithering on the ground like a worm.”

  Samurai turned to look at Anacleti.

  “Right, because you know something about worms, don’t you? Aren’t worms people who make promises they don’t keep? Aren’t worms people who take it out on poor old men?”

  Anacleti tried to backpedal.

  “Listen, Samurai, I . . . that Iranian . . . You see, I mean . . . Plus, that night I told you . . . ”

  “Shut up.” Samurai rephrased the question. “Do any of you know the meaning of the Arabic name Abdel Salam?”

  Max replied, carefully enunciating the words. As if he wanted to savor to the fullest that moment of complicity with Samurai.

  “Servant of peace. It means ‘Servant of peace.’”

  Samurai smiled, with a nod.

  “Thanks, Max. Abdel Salam. Abdel Salam. Would you mind repeating after me. In a loud voice.”

  In disbelief, Number Eight and Rocco Anacleti muttered out that name. Once, twice, three times, ten times. Like a prayer. Until Samurai gestured to stop.

  “You need to know how to read fate, and chance. A Servant of peace is dead. And now, the two of you will take up his mission. Is that clear?”

  Number Eight and Rocco Anacleti looked at each other. They were probably both thinking the same thing. But they both knew they weren’t there to negotiate. Samurai wasn’t done.

  “I’m not going to tolerate any more impulsive moves. This is going to be a zero-tolerance state of peace. And there will be no appeals on the sentence against anyone who fails to respect this peace. Oh, and I forgot. That old Iranian is going to be paid for th
e work he did. I don’t think we have anything else to talk about. Now shake hands and repeat that name one last time, Abdel Salam.”

  Max struggled to restrain a smile. The two pieces of shit had gotten what they deserved.

  Number Eight scratched his bald head.

  “But, excuse me, for real, Samurai . . . now that we’re at peace . . . and I say this to you too, Rocco . . . I hear that a Carabiniere has showed up and he’s busting people’s balls . . . don’t you think it would be a good idea to whack him?”

  Samurai looked at him as if he were a filthy louse. In spite of himself, Number Eight dropped his gaze.

  “No shooting cops. Not these days.”

  “Look, if it’s a matter of courage, it’s not as if I’m short of it, eh!” Number Eight retorted heatedly.

  “We don’t shoot them because it’s in nobody’s interest. There are other ways of neutralizing an annoying enemy. And I’ve already put them into play. The question is closed.”

  Samurai got to his feet, turned to Max with an almost affectionate wave and, before leaving, issued the final order.

  “You’re going to leave here separately.”

  Number Eight nodded. And he followed him out, not a minute later. But not before turning and looking one last time at Anacleti and his man.

  “Nice going, Max, you’ve become a boss. You’ve climbed the career ladder.”

  XXI

  Before giving in to the courtship of Eugenio Brown, Sabrina dangled him on the cord for a while. A technique known as the perfumery: spray a nice seductive scent in the air to whet the animal’s appetite, and then come to a halt right on the verge of the thing, or illu ché, as her maternal grandmother, Pugliese from Andria, used to put it.

  Playing the part of the aspiring girlfriend was an amusing sideshow. But Eugenio Brown, however well-mannered and self-controlled he might be, was still a man. Sabrina couldn’t afford to let the producer’s initial enthusiasm begin to chill. She had to take care not to overdo it with the shy act. And so, on their third date, she took the initiative and took him to bed.