Suburra

by Giancarlo De Cataldo

  What about the halls of power? Who was the institutional sponsor?

  As long as the war raged, such a figure had no incentive to come out into the open.

  Which brought us back to square one.

  Why the shooting if such a colossal business opportunity was in the offing?

  Someone hadn’t stuck to the terms of the agreement, and had chosen to overturn the table.

  But neither Spadino nor Paja and Fieno seemed important enough to unleash a gang war.

  There had to be something else at stake.

  Marco copied everything and headed off to Alice’s place.

  He barged in on her, catching her off guard while, in the center of the living room of the two-bedroom apartment not far from Piazza dei Re di Roma, she was working the heavy bag. Glowing with sweat like that, in a tank top and boxing shorts, she sent a wave of blood to his head. And, fortunately, she put up no resistance at all.

  Afterward, he told her that he needed her help to start playing dirty.

  And Alice was more than willing.

  XXXIV

  Manfredi gave Sebastiano a gift of a .38 caliber revolver and took him on vacation with him, to the area around the Gran Sasso.

  “It’s a clean weapon . . . well, maybe not 100 percent clean. But in any case, it knows how to do its job.”

  “So what am I supposed to do with it? I don’t even know which end is which.”

  “What do you think we’re doing here, anyway?”

  They moved into a handsomely furnished mountain refuge which Sor Scipione had extorted from its rightful owner in the normal routine of his duties as a shylock: a doctor from Prati had gotten in over his head with Texas hold ’em. They practiced shooting early in the morning and at sunset. Sebastiano was a quick learner, he had a good eye and a steady hand, and to make a long story short, with each day that passed, he was looking more and more like the right candidate for what Manfredi had in mind.

  The last night they were up there they went out to dinner in a trattoria crowded with young men in camo and combat boots.

  “My father told me that up here the whole place used to be overrun with paramilitary camps. You know, that whole thing with people who were nostalgic about Il Duce and wanted to bring back Fascism, who were storing rifles and bombs to overthrow the state . . . ”

  “And are these guys,” whispered Sebastiano, pointing to the other guests, “their children?”

  “Nooo,” Manfredi chuckled, “these are just a bunch of knuckleheads who play war games on weekends. You get the kind of buffoons you run into, Sebastia’?”

  “So listen, Manfredi. The pistol, the target practice . . . are you looking for a bodyguard, is that it?”

  The loan shark’s son decided that the time had come to show his cards.

  “No, we’re just going to make a withdrawal,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

  “A what?”

  “We’re going to pick up a guy who owes us some money and we’re going to bring him around,” Manfredi explained.

  “You’ve gone completely crazy!” Sebastiano objected, pushing away the ravioli with mutton sauce, that, actually, he hadn’t even touched yet.

  “It’ll be a piece of cake, child’s play. No one’s going to get hurt.”

  “Don’t look at me.”

  “Not even if Papa gave you a break on fifty percent of the principal?”

  The engineer’s son took his head in his hands. A monster. Manfredi was a monster. He’d taken away his home, his prosperity, his girlfriend, his dignity. And now he was taking what was left of his life. A slave, that’s what he was going to become. A slave.

  And when has a slave ever had a choice in the matter?

  In any case, looked at clinically, there was something attractive about the offer.

  “I want a written guarantee, Manfredi.”

  “We’ll go to the notary. I’ll take you to the notary’s office, brother.”

  “Then, okay.”

  The loan shark’s son leaned forward and, with a conspiratorial air, started telling him about it.

  They returned to Rome in the middle of the night, and took action at dawn. The guy they needed to convince was an accountant from a good family, with the face of someone from the Parioli neighborhood, fancy clothes, and a penthouse apartment in the Flaminio neighborhood. But he’d ruined himself with his coke habit. His wife had thrown him out of the house, and he’d indebted himself up to the neck with Sor Scipione. He was out to the tune of thirty large. Thirty thousand euros that, since he hadn’t been willing to pay when pressured with gentler methods, would now have to be recovered with a more brutal approach.

  “Because Papa is just too goodhearted,” Manfredi commented, “so I have to take care of things. Or, actually, you and I do, brother.”

  Now the rat had holed up in the lair of a friend of his who was a tranny, Letizia, also known, for reasons that weren’t hard to guess, as “platinum tongue,” in a sort of attic apartment in the Tiburtino district. When they burst into the place, after kicking the door in, they were overwhelmed by the reek of sweaty bodies and stale cigarette smoke, and by a concert of moans and grunts that their sudden arrival brusquely silenced.

  “Jesus, what a pig sty!” Manfredi muttered.

  The accountant was a short, fat, bald man. The loan shark’s son and the engineer’s son had caught him with company: Letizia, a tall job with unmistakably masculine features, and a small woman about thirty years old—less than five feet tall—with curly hair and oversized breasts.

  While Manfredi started searching the place for coke, cash, jewelry, and anything else that could be used to pay back the debt—with accrued interest of course—Sebastiano kept the little trio covered.

  It was to the young man that the three hostages appealed, in rapid sequence. Each of them had their own tale of woe, which they recounted in distinctive tones of querulous lament. And each of them ready to rat out the others.

  The accountant shouted that the busty bitch was to blame for the whole thing. She was the one who’d ripped off the cash. And so he, cunning as a fox, had lured her here, into a trap. To make her sing and to get the money back.

  The big-bosomed midget with curly hair, known to the world as Luana, reacted venomously. Me a thief? That bastard is the one who’s been walking around boasting about how he ripped off the shylocks. As for the shit and the cash, they were splitting it with Letizia.

  When Letizia’s name was mentioned, she volunteered that the two of them, the accountant and the little whore, had offered to go into business with her to sell their shit in the circuit of the trannies and the well-to-do clients who rented them out for their exotic evening entertainments. She added that the accountant had financed the purchase of the first shipment of coke with the very same thirty thousand euros that the two “segnori” were looking for.

  Manfredi declared that the search was over. He held up a baggie full of coke, another baggie full of tabs of ecstasy, and two thousand euros.

  “You look like you’ve been through the mill,” he commented sarcastically.

  That unleashed a flood of tears. The accountant swore on the heads of his three children that he had never meant to, that the cocaine had taken over his mind, that he’d pay Manfredi back to the very last penny, but that first he had to get that monkey off his back. The very next day he’d go into rehab. They had to take pity on him, poor wretch that he was.

  The tranny cursed the brutal slum she’d come from. She had sixteen brothers and sisters to support. She’d work for them for free, if they’d only let her go.

  Luana turned on the waterworks. One day she’d lost her way, and she didn’t even know why. Maybe because of her sick daughter, her dead father, the job she couldn’t find. But she would pay them back. It was just a matter of time.

  Manfredi thought it over. He hadn�
�t expected this kind of a mess. He didn’t know exactly how to handle it.

  Sebastiano stood there listening to the three of them, and little by little an unfamiliar feeling began to steal over him. It was a mixture of anger, cruelty, and indifference. In those three unfortunates, he was unable to glimpse the victims of misguided impulses, the wreckage of lives cast adrift. Instead all he could see was three cunning bastards, pathetic sons of bitches who’d screwed the pooch and were now whining for pity. He felt no pity for any of them. Just as no one had felt pity for him, when he had had his life taken away from him. So, this was their problem, all things considered. Everyone is responsible for their own actions.

  At that exact moment, the engineer’s son understood that he would never get his old life back. So he might as well just go ahead and fabricate a completely different life for himself.

  “Get dressed!” he snapped out.

  He made the accountant give him his cell phone and called a taxi, loaded the girl and the tranny into the cab, gave each of them a twenty euro banknote, and urged them each, in their own self-interest, to forget everything.

  Then he pocketed his pistol, smiled at the accountant, and invited him to take him and Manfredi to his bank. Where he would withdraw all the cash he possessed.

  The expedition lasted no more than a half hour. The accountant managed to scrape together fifteen thousand euros. Sebastiano gave him a week to pay down the rest.

  Finally, he let him go.

  Sebastiano’s icy calm had made quite an impression on Manfredi. If he’d possessed a fraction of his father’s animalesque intelligence, he would have understood that the young man had long since slipped out of control. That it would have been much wiser to just let him go his way. But that’s not what he did. He took credit for his friend’s new ferocity. It had been his charisma as a capo that had transformed Sebastiano. He praised him and told him he was a “born tough guy.” He suggested they split the coke and, when Sebastiano proudly rejected the offer, told him that he reminded him of someone, a guy who mattered in Rome, perhaps the most important of them all. That person was Samurai. Manfredi introduced Sebastiano to him the day after their caper, taking advantage of a quick visit by Samurai to La Paranza.

  “This guy’s cold-blooded, Samurai. You’ll like him.”

  Samurai studied the young man with interest. What he read in his eyes convinced him. He took him aside, ignoring Manfredi.

  “Tell me about yourself, kid.”

  Sebastiano trusted him instantly. He mirrored himself in the eyes of that cold man, seeing there the same indifference that he’d decided to don as a sort of second skin. He concealed nothing from him. In the end, Samurai told him that they’d see each other again soon. Sebastiano went back to his job at the auto dealership.

  Not long after that, he sold a Porsche Boxster for cash to a tremendous slut dressed up as a sophisticated lady, accompanied by a cultured faggot.

  XXXV

  Alice, this is Michelangelo de Candia, my friend the prosecuting magistrate who I told you about. Michelangelo, this is Alice . . . ”

  “The girl from the texts. She’s even better than how you described her, Marco.”

  Marco shot him daggers with an angry glare and hastened to reassure Alice. They’d never talked about her, and he wasn’t the kind of guy to boast openly about his passions.

  Alice planted a kiss on his cheek.

  “Oh, I know, I know. For that matter,” she added, maliciously, “you never told me that your friend was so cute.”

  Marco couldn’t come up with a snappy retort. De Candia broke in and, pointing with almost childish pride to the Renault 4 with a Lecce license plate, opened the passenger-side door.

  “What do you say, eh? Isn’t it marvelous? Be my guests, get in.”

  Alice let herself sink into the fabric upholstery of the aluminum-framed seat which reminded her of a lounge chair and, looking at the gear shift next to the steering wheel and the tiny dashboard that made it look so much like a toy car, put an expression on her face that was a mix of the amused and the appalled.

  “What kind of car is this?”

  “The legendary Renault 4. It was made in 1989. It belonged to my father. It’s the only tangible thing I’ve held onto in my life. What’s the old saying? There are only two things you can never change: your parents and the team you root for. Well, I’ll say that the Renault 4 is the third item on that list, if you’ve ever been lucky enough to own one. Upkeep isn’t cheap, but . . . ”

  Marco had tucked himself into the back seat.

  “This was the Red Brigades’ favorite car,” he commented.

  Alice couldn’t resist. The target was too juicy.

  “Do you mind if we change centuries?”

  De Candia burst out laughing.

  “Well, listen to her.”

  Marco shook his head.

  Alice looked at Michelangelo. That faint Salento singsong pleased her ear. The prosecuting magistrate was definitely a handsome young man.

  They drove past Viale Marco Polo and turned into Via Cristoforo Colombo. Alice and Michelangelo kept on exchanging witty banter. They’d hit it off instantly. Why had it been so hard for him, then? He shut down in a grouchy silence. He had the clear sensation that a not particularly subtle game of seduction had started up between the two of them, and the idea of feeling even a hint of jealousy made him feel both ridiculous and childish.

  Cut it out, Marco.

  When they drew even with the Marconi obelisk, de Candia slowed down almost to a halt.

  “We have been invited here today by Lieutenant Colonel Malatesta Marco,” the prosecuting magistrate declaimed, “to learn ‘the truth about Rome.’ Badaboom. Here, as far as I’m concerned, is where Rome ends. These are my Columns of Hercules, Marco: hic sunt leones.”

  Marco looked at Alice, who turned serious.

  “Michelangelo, this is no joking matter,” he said. “Starting tomorrow, the real city is going to start right from these streets.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve studied the maps of the Anacletis and I’ve gathered a little data. There’s a construction project, a major piece of real estate speculation, the biggest one in history. Prestigious architects are already working on it. Millions of cubic yards of cement will cover the twenty miles from here to the sea. The client ordering this work is a company called New City. The managing director is Michele Lo Surdo, an old acquaintance of ours. The underworld’s business accountant. The same guy who scooped up the state concessions all up and down Ostia Ponente after a providential little hand set fire to the bathing establishments that were already there.

  “A construction project, you say?”

  “Between Rome and Ardea, affordable housing. But it’s a little more elegant to call it social housing. In Ostia, a new port. But there, too, it’s fancier to call it Waterfront.”

  “That seems like something big . . . ”

  “It is.”

  “Then why haven’t I heard anything about it?”

  “It’s secret, for the moment. The gang war has put a halt to everything.”

  “And if it’s secret, how come you know so much about it?”

  With the help of Diego, the Rebel Dragon that Alice liked so much, they had broken into the “cloud,” the virtual safe of the architectural studio of Mailand & Partners. Everything they knew was the result of a series of crimes. The kind of thing you couldn’t explain to a prosecuting magistrate.

  “Let’s just say that I have my methods. Go around this way, please . . . ” Marco pointed de Candia to stay on the right and continue along Via Cristoforo Colombo in the direction of Ostia. “Before you reach Casal Palocco, follow the signs for Axa. There’s a place where we can grab a drink.”

  “So who’s actually behind New City?” Michelangelo asked.

  “A cartel. It’s made
up of the Anacletis, the Adami-Sale clan of Ostia, and I think Rocco Perri, who is the local representative of the Calabrian ’ndrangheta, and then Ciro Viglione, who represents the Neapolitans. Ah, I forgot about the Holy Mother Church.”

  “Really!” exclaimed de Candia, in astonishment.

  “New City, so they can build lots of cardboard houses. Every so many miles, they’ll build a bell tower. Got it?”

  “Interesting . . . ” de Candia pondered. “And you, Alice, you’re not saying anything. Maybe you gave him a hand with all this?”

  “Me? No, I didn’t do anything . . . these are names I’m hearing for the very first time.”

  “Ma famme ’u piacere!” the prosecuting magistrate said in dialect. “Oh, do me a favor!”

  Alice wasn’t much of a liar, Marco realized with a hint of relief. And Michelangelo was a friend.

  They stopped outside what looked like a pub. A low wooden structure, an incongruous mountain chalet in the midst of a stand of tall maritime pines.

  “Frodo,” announced the neon sign outside.

  “I didn’t know that Tolkien lived on the Roman seacoast,” de Candia commented, inviting Marco to lead them in.

  “It’s a curious Fascist community that lives around here,” Marco started telling the story. “A mixture of veterans of the mid-twentieth century, imaginary Fascists stuffed with fantasy culture, and soccer stadium animals. An ideal substrate for the microbes to grow on, if you can just imagine the foundations on which the new Rome is going to stand.”

  With a nod of understanding, the colonel greeted a guy in his early fifties with tattooed forearms who had to be the proprietor. The man introduced himself as Dario. The club was deserted. They sat down at a corner table. Dario served them a tray with three pints of Menabrea beer and a platter of jamón serrano.

  Marco went on.

  “I arrested Dario a short while before leaving the country. He was a sort of revolutionary past his sell-by date. He’s convinced that by arresting him I saved his life. Let’s just say that, since then, we’ve formed a relationship of mutual respect. He’s not a chatterbox, but usually the few things he does say are quite sound. He was the one who explained to me, when I came back to Rome, that the old Fascist comrades had put on jackets and ties and now they were pretending they were executives. He told me: ‘Marco, they’re all in pinstripes now. But right-wing bandits is what they were and what they still are. Deep down, Rome’s never changed. A black sun with the usual satellites orbiting around it.”