Suburra

by Giancarlo De Cataldo

  “What question?”

  “For example, why is it that a guy like you, who only ever talks about A. S. Roma, suddenly starts shooting off his mouth about municipal politics.”

  “Well, it’s obvious. I can answer: ‘Because the Monte Mario grandstand is full of politicians.’ Good one, right, Your Honor?”

  “There, you can see for yourself. Here’s what you do. You keep your mouth shut. When they call you to the stage, I want you to say: ‘Grazie.’ Or, if you really must: ‘Grazie, I’m deeply moved,’ even if no one believes it. Then you put on a nice big smile for the photographers. You shake hands with the mayor while he gives you the case with the pen and the envelope with the check. And then you go back to your chair and sit down. Is that clear?”

  He was beaming as he ended the call. See you on the Capitoline Hill. Who’s going to miss out on those five thousand euros?

  All he needed to do now was get his hands on a suit for the ceremony. And he tried with the usual crooked barter that involved a free mention on the radio.

  “The way it works is you sponsor me with a nice suit and I’ll get you half the south curve at the stadium as paying customers.”

  First he swung by Zara, then he went to Gap. But by the second fuck you, Spartaco Liberati had had enough. So he drove up Via Casilina, to the Giardinetti district. To Elegance, five floors of apparel for hoodlums from the outskirts of town trying to clean up their act, fat men, and cheapskates. The guy at the cash register, Mimmo, was a friend. One of those nutjobs who listened to FM 922 on the air and then again on the podcast, as if it were the Holy Gospel, and who went to the pre-fight celebration at the Ace of Spades.

  “Hey Spa’, what problem is there? I’ll make you look fabulous. And I’ll even give you a 50 percent discount. You have no idea the stuff that’s come in lately.”

  “I can just imagine.”

  “Come on.”

  Mimmo had put him in the capable hands of Danila, a redheaded sales clerk who looked about twenty with a nice ass, cat eyes, a piercing on her bellybutton, another on her right eyebrow, one in the middle of her tongue, and another, he imagined, where he unfortunately couldn’t see it.

  “Size?” she asked.

  “I’d say an L.”

  “Oh, sure. Thirty years ago. I doubt you’d even fit into an XXL.”

  “Listen sweetheart, try not to be such a bitch, or I’ll tell Mimmo to kick your ass out on the street.”

  “I’m fucking Mimmo on a regular basis.”

  “Oh, all right. Let me see this XXL.”

  The clerk came back with a pleated suit in shimmering rainbow hues like the scales on a trout fished out of a mountain stream. And if that thing had even 10 percent cotton fibers, it was a miracle.

  “And where did you get this, at the circus? I’m supposed to go receive a major award, not pull pigeons out of a top hat.”

  “It comes from Albania.”

  “Exactly. I’m not going to a wedding for illegals.”

  “Try it on. If you ask me, that’s your color.”

  He pulled back the curtain in the fitting room and was overwhelmed by a cloud of stale air. He held his breath the whole time he struggled into that mulletskin suit.

  “What do you say?”

  “Perfect. Now I’ll bring you a white shirt, socks, and shoes.”

  “And a tie in a color that goes with it . . . No, wait. I’ve got the tie. The navy blue tie from the A. S. Roma team suit.”

  The shirt was made of cardboard. As were the shoes, for that matter. A badly rendered copy of a pair of Saxons, which they had imitated right down to the trademark that emblazoned the faux-leather insole: Sagsun.

  Mimmo had a few things to say at the cash register.

  “Nice piece of ass, eh?”

  “You should have told me that was your woman. I came off looking like a dickhead.”

  “What are you talking about, ‘my woman.’ She’s a temp. She’s dating the owner’s son. I screw her every once in a while.”

  “Now I feel worse. Okay, how much for this garbage?”

  “Hey, Spa’, now I’m going to get offended . . . this is guaranteed stuff.”

  “Guaranteed how long? Half a day? Anyway, tell me.”

  “Fifty euros for the lot.”

  “What about the discount?”

  “I gave you the discount. I don’t get it, you want this stuff for free?”

  “I don’t have any cash with me. Tell you what, I’ll take it off your bill at the boxing gym. Go, magical A. S. Roma, Mimmo!”

  And so the big day finally arrived. His big day. Spartaco Liberati climbed the steps up to the Campidoglio in the velvety light of seven in the evening, with setting sunlight that bathed the Palazzo dei Conservatori in pastel hues. He looked around. He spat out a fragment of lupine bean that had gotten stuck between his teeth.

  Freedom of the press, sure. Independent journalism, my ass. The watchdog of liberty, yeah, yeah. The facts. What facts? The truth? My grandfather’s ass: the only truth is what you get to say on the radio.

  That healthy cynicism—realism, re-a-li-sm—gratified him. But yes, what mattered most in life was hitching your cart to the right guy. And when he’d given you what you needed, goodnight nurse. A kick in the ass and it’s been good to know you. Another horse and another ride. And that hot air balloon, Malgradi, who did he think he was?

  The Honorable couldn’t imagine that with the Golden Pen he was about to slip into his breast pocket, he was going to be transformed from the red mullet he was into a shark. What, was there just one Honorable in Rome? And after all, how long could this Malgradi last? He had only one boss: Samurai.

  He was on time. Around the statue of Marcus Aurelius, he noticed two Carabinieri in dress uniform flanking a general deep in conversation with Malgradi. A guy with a face as smooth and chubby as a toddler’s ass, remarkably short and apparently bent under the weight of the stiff dress cap with a great deal of gold braid and the embroidered eagle of the joint command. On his chest was a battery of medals and ribbons, and on his arm was an elderly harridan dressed as a scarecrow. Surrounded by an entourage of rubberneckers, clearly there for the award ceremony, the youngest of whom was sixty.

  He thought to himself: Where on earth am I? What is this? Did they evict everyone from the geriatric wing at San Giovanni’s hospital? Now, you tell me!

  With a wave of his hand, Malgradi gestured to Liberati, waving at the clock. It was time to go in.

  The Hall of the Horatii and Curiatii rapidly filled up with the band of senile old men and teased-out witches who clearly cared nothing about him or the prize. All they cared about was the uniformed fireplug, Malgradi, and the mayor, who was standing in the middle of the great hall, planted there stiff as a stockfish next to a plexiglass podium with a narrow gooseneck microphone at the center. The mayor brushed the microphone with the palm of his hand.

  “Good evening everyone, and thanks so much for being here tonight. Good evening to the civil and military authorities who have been so kind as to be with us tonight, and in particular His Excellency General Mario Rapisarda, commandant of the Custoza division of the Carabinieri Corps, whom I see here in the front row with his lovely lady by his side.”

  Oh, sure, call her a lady. Lucky you, if you can see that as a lady.

  “In the name of the city I have the honor of presiding over as first citizen, I would like to welcome all of you to the first edition of the Golden Pen award, with which this year the city government of Rome intends to honor the most noble of professions, journalism, and one of its finest practitioners, namely Dottor Spartaco Liberati, the free, independent, and tireless voice of Radio FM 922. A nice round of applause, please.”

  Holding the A. S. Roma team necktie against his chest, Spartaco sketched out a bow as he rose from his seat, while the audience full of old people skinned
their hands raw with clapping.

  “Dottore, Dottore.”

  Why is he calling me Dottore? I didn’t even go to college.

  The mayor went back to the microphone.

  “Of course, I could add a great many things, but I’ll keep my own counsel and leave the details to the Honorable Pericle Malgradi, who has consented to grace us with his presence and who is the father of this prize, along with his foundation ‘Back On Your Feet, Rome,’ and the Association of Restaurateurs and Wine Purveyors. If you please, Your Honor . . . ”

  The mayor took a seat in the front row facing the podium.

  Malgradi cleared his throat.

  “It is difficult, in this hall where the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1956, furnishing the cornerstone of the European Union, it is difficult to keep from thinking about just what the stroke of a pen can and cannot do. A word can unleash a war. A word can place the final seal upon a prosperous and lasting period of peace . . . ”

  General Rapisarda’s wife leaned over and spoke into her husband’s ear. This Malgradi was such a good speaker!

  “It is difficult, observing in this hall the history of Rome as it is told to us through these seventeenth-century frescoes by the marvelous artist, Giuseppe Cesari, also known as the Cavalier D’Arpino, to think about what we would be if man wasn’t the sum of what is passed down from generation to generation. Look now, let us look together.”

  Malgradi solemnly turned his gaze to the ceiling of the hall.

  “The Discovery of the She-Wolf, the Battle against the Veientes and the Fidenates, the combat between the Horatii and the Curiatii.”

  Spartaco was rapt. He hadn’t understood a single word of what Malgradi was saying. Baffling.

  “Man has lived on news since the dawn of humanity. But what is news? The Discovery of the She-Wolf is news. But is it also news to know who that she-wolf chose between Romulus and Remus? You may say to me: the Honorable is taking a long running start at this thing. But I reply: No! I tell you that it’s about us, about our time, that I am talking. News is responsibility. That’s right. Re-spon-si-bi-li-ty. There are those who say that there is no news, there is no journalism unless there’s a scoop. Scoop. That’s an English word, just like the English word gossip, like the Italian pettegolezzo. A treacherous word. Scoop means ‘to dig.’ That’s right, to dig. And what are they looking for, those who dig? They’re only looking for garbage, my dear friends, ladies and gentlemen. They’re looking for muck. Those who dig are rummaging through the things that people have chosen to forget for the good of one and all. Those who dig are seeking to discredit their innocent victims. Journalism is something else. It’s responsibility as truth. Remember that. Responsibility as truth. That is the motto that I have chosen for my prize, the engraving on the 24-karat solid gold fountain pen that our friends from the Association of Restaurateurs and Wine Purveyors are awarding today to Spartaco Liberati for the luminous testimonial he has provided for this approach to his chosen profession. Thank you.”

  The various arthritics struggled to their feet, in a prolonged burst of applause, while Spartaco, obediently, limited himself to a thank you. To the hasty photo pose with the mayor and the clamshell case containing the check and the pen that he insisted on pushing into his hands. A horrendous gold-plated suppository with a cap—what 24-karat solid gold, fuck you and your ancestors, this thing was made in China!

  Then a small brigade of municipal envoys in livery materialized, wearing white gloves and circulating with gigantic silver-plated pewter trays that, hoisted high in a carefully studied and adroitly synchronized movement, revealed to the watery eyes of that audience of diabetics towering stacks of tea sandwiches as imposing as Mayan tombs, buffalo mozzarellas from Caserta, made by the Saverio Viglione & Sons cheeseworks, spicy ’nduja pork sausage, and compositions of stuffed mignon panini.

  Spartaco put up with the monarchistic litany that one of the horrendous harridans who had witnessed the ceremony was inflicting upon him; she had introduced herself as the Baroness Farneti, last-born daughter of an officer of the royal guard of Humbert II of Savoy, “the King of May, as you’ll remember . . . ”

  He was convinced, as far as that went, that only by putting up with Belfagor the Demon would he be able to obtain the cell phone number of the only halfway decent woman there that evening. The granddaughter who had accompanied the Baroness there tonight. A cute blonde denizen of the opulent Parioli quarter, dressed like a nun, but with the smirk of a girl who knew more than she was saying, and a tiny heart tattooed on the inside of her wrist.

  “You know, Dottore, my little girl would so like to become a journalist. And maybe a person like yourself could serve to break her in.”

  From where he stood, Spartaco noticed how Malgradi and Rapisarda were deep in consultation, standing in the shelter of one of the hall’s three great, carved walnut-wood doors. And once again, he was struck by the air of extreme familiarity that the two men were displaying. It was not some mistaken impression.

  Rapisarda was a Calabrian from Reggio, about sixty. His father had been a companion of schooltime snacks and later, of dubious clientelism, with Malgradi’s father. Both of them Fascists, both of them baronial powermongers at the university school of medicine. The sons grew up together. And then went on to follow different paths in life. So to speak. Malgradi had worked his way across the entire political spectrum, managing to leap onto the winner’s bandwagon only seconds before the catastrophe.

  Mario Rapisarda had made his career by fancy footwork in the halls of power. By immediately learning a basic lesson: Right-wing, left-wing, it made no difference, as long as there was a payoff. Even though he had never stopped fostering, in his heart of hearts, an anthropological and, at the same time, aesthetic anti-Communism, in line with what his father had taught him. As a freshly appointed second lieutenant in Naples, he had learned that there was a thin line that ran between the arrest of a Camorrista and a ticket for a grandstand seat at the Stadio San Paolo for a city commissioner or councilman, and that that line marked the difference between the obscurity of a brief entry in the crime pages and the dazzling and concrete experience of ten, or a hundred clean, sweet-smelling hands to clasp in less than two hours. As a result, first as a major and later as a colonel, he had feathered his nest in Rome, thanks to his marriage to the daughter of an Undersecretary of Defense. A woman who was ugly as sin, but as useful as a life insurance policy. He had worked his way through the schools, the logistics units, the exhausting social minuets in the drawing rooms that count. Thanks to all this, he had become the unfailing protagonist, the perennial guest of every television talk show about crime.

  At general headquarters he was a punchline. “The Carabiniere on Horseback,” they called him. But he didn’t give a damn about those pathetic losers. Undaunted, he would pontificate before audiences of cosmetically enhanced women, stick figures, bee-stung lips, and botoxed dowagers, concerning scenes of the crime, weapons, and motives—all of them topics he had never bothered to learn the first thing about. But that’s where junior officers came in useful, the ones who were working out on the street.

  Now they were together once again, he and Malgradi. Where destiny had fated them to be. But both of them, the one and the other, lacked a final step to their career. Malgradi dreamed of becoming a cabinet minister, Rapisarda dreamed of becoming a commanding general. They could help each other out.

  Spartaco had finally gotten rid of the demon Belfagor and now he could smell the whiff of lily of the valley from the young granddaughter who was jotting down her cell phone number on the palm of his hand with the Chinese pen. He went back to observing Malgradi and Rapisarda.

  The Honorable was gesticulating with a certain emphasis. The general was nodding with a worried gaze, running his hand from time to time over his greasy combover.

  Spartaco tried to figure out what the two men were saying to each other.

 
“You follow what I’m saying, I hope, General. This return to the city might prove to be a serious problem. I’d say even a source of embarrassment for the Carabinieri as a corps, in fact.”

  “That Malatesta is a good cop, but maybe a little overenergetic. Don’t worry, Your Honor.”

  Malgradi took his leave of Rapisarda, walked a few steps, and dragged Liberati over to the far side of the hall.

  “Now you listen to me, and listen good. You’ve taken the prize, you’ve taken the money. Now do what you’ve been told to do. Start that campaign on the radio. And hit it good and hard. The way you know how to do when you have a good topic. Don’t make me sorry I did this. Is that clear?”

  XXIII

  Samurai was proceeding slowly in the direction of Ostia. He planned to arrive right as the ceremony he had no desire to attend was drawing to a close. Sitting at his side, silent as always, was Max. Diligently puttering along in the endless lines of deep-summer traffic, they were listening to Soccer on the Brain, the radio show that had made that sewer rat Spartaco Liberati famous in the Roman demimonde.

  Well then, dear radio audience, we are presented with yet another left-wing mystification. The violent death of an immigrant in Cinecittà turns into another opportunity to shout about the Mafia. What Mafia? What are they yammering about? A bloody settling of accounts among foreigners—which is what we’re talking about until proven otherwise—and what do they go and turn it into? An execution, a burgeoning gang war. Gangs? What gangs? Do you want to get it through your heads that Dandi, Freddo, and Libano are dead and buried? It’s over and done with! Fi-ni-to! Is that clear?

  Spartaco knew what he was doing, Samurai had to admit. The disinformation campaign had begun and was going great guns.

  And yet there is a but, unfortunately. And here I really am left speechless. There’s some girl in Cinecittà who’s called Savelli. The first name is Alice, I think. A zecca, just to be clear. Well, you know what she’s dreamed up? She’s decided to go around slandering half the neighborhood. Respectable people. And the incredible thing is that the Carabinieri are letting her do it. Do we see what this is the prelude to? The Communists defame, and the Carabinieri stand by and watch. How could that be? My friends, if you’ll just be patient, you’ll see that yours truly is going to get to the bottom of this story. And it strikes me that when I do, we’ll all have a good long laugh. Ah, yes. And now, R.E.M. with Leaving New York.