Suburra

by Giancarlo De Cataldo

  But Samurai’s brash attitude had caught him off guard.

  All right, Samura’, you want to play rough? Then here, let me fix you good. Ciro Viglione puffed a cloud of cigar smoke in his face, then summarized his point of view.

  “Samura’, you fucked up good this time!”

  “I’d have to agree,” said Perri, who even when he was issuing a death sentence, never abandoned the aplomb of a silk master.

  Samurai had prepared a speech of his own. He’d planned to start with the Aryan concept of caste and conclude with a less facile version of Menenius Agrippa’s fable about the Belly and the Members of the human body. He intended to explain that any great project requires leaders and executors. That each one should be assigned the job that belongs to him in the overall plan. That the individual makes sense inasmuch as a part of the whole, a whole that is harmonically ordered in accordance with the hierarchical principle. And so Cesare Adami, AKA Number Eight, whose loss they were all now hypocritically lamenting, absolutely had to be rubbed out. Not out of some stupid whim or a misguided sense of justice (let the Anacletis believe this if they chose), but because he was the infected part that threatened to contaminate the whole. And that was why the sacrifice of Number Eight had become necessary.

  But the quality of his interlocutors was discouraging. Ciro and Perri wouldn’t have understood, and if anything they would probably have been even more irritated by his words. The only one capable of rising to his height of understanding was Max, but he hadn’t come there to convince Max. As for Silvio Anacleti, his decision had already been made at the very instant that the late and lamented Mannlicher had put an end to the life of Number Eight.

  Then Samurai, like Ciro Viglione, provided a summary of his thoughts.

  “Cesare Adami didn’t know how to keep his promises. By killing Spadino, he shattered the harmony of our group. And by killing Paja and Fieno, he broke a pact that every one of us had agreed to, he before anyone else. You may say: but we had agreed on a compensation fee. Even the Anacletis had resigned themselves to it. And I say to you: Cesare considered all this to be a personal success. And success is like a drug. That wouldn’t have been the end of it. He’d have gone on killing, he’d have demanded more and more. He was sowing discord, he was fanning the flames of hatred. He was the sick part that, if allowed to grow, would have multiplied disproportionately, devouring everything else. With his death, the whole loses nothing but an insignificant part of itself. Surgery. And the Great Project is back up and running. Do you understand me now, gentlemen?”

  “Fuck that shit!” roared Ciro Viglione. “I’ve told you before, Samura’: you talk nice, but you talk too much.”

  “That’s your opinion, Ciro.”

  “We’re all in agreement here, Samura’.”

  “I’m not,” said Silvio Anacleti. “Samurai did the right thing. My family’s with him.”

  Ciro Viglione couldn’t believe his ears. He got to his feet and started inveighing against the gypsy. Now what was this new development? The Anacletis themselves had signed the pact in question, the very same pact that Samurai had violated. Therefore, the individual action of that chillu strunz’ —that asshole—ought to ring as an insult to them in particular. That was what the rules stated. Or had the rules all simply fallen by the wayside?

  Young Anacleti replied. In that bloody chapter, the only ones who had paid any price at all, until the murder of Number Eight, had been them, the Anacletis. Spadino, Paja, Fieno—they were all their property. And they’d been slaughtered like dogs by Number Eight. Who had now paid for what he’d done. Samurai had restored things to their rightful balance. Now, in fact, they could proceed to a new agreement. Now, and not a minute earlier.

  Viglione and Perri exchanged a glance. The move by the Anacletis had certainly caught them off guard. An alliance had been established between the gypsies and Samurai that threatened to alter the equilibrium among the various forces at play.

  The first one to understand the situation and its implications was the Calabrian.

  “All right, Samurai. Now the Anacletis are happy. But how are we going to take care of the guys from Ostia, Denis, and that other guy, comu cazzo si chiama . . . Robertino . . . ?” He broke into his native Calabrian as he concentrated.

  “Number Eight’s death will serve as an object lesson to them as well. If they fail to adapt, they’ll meet the same fate. From this point on, Max is in charge of the street. He will be my mouth, my eyes, my hand . . . and my heart, my brain, and my guts.”

  “What about Uncle Nino?”

  “Uncle Nino,” Samurai whispered in an icy voice, “is in prison. And I’m right here. I’ve been entrusted with the task of bringing the Great Project to fruition. And let me assure you, that’s what I intend to do.”

  “And we’re with him,” Silvio Anacleti added.

  Rocco Perri, staring at Ciro Viglione, nodded his head. The Camorrista understood that the Calabrian had allowed himself to persuaded. He’s let himself be fucked, is what he actually thought. But with the Pugliese Santa Corona Unita going over to the side of Samurai, the Japanese, the risk of isolation was becoming critical. Ciro could have sought an understanding with Uncle Nino.

  But that would just mean more war.

  And war led to investigations.

  And investigations scare the politicos.

  And the big deal was in the hands of the politicos.

  And the politicos were in the hands of Samurai.

  And to make a long story short, Samurai had won.

  “All right then,” he huffed, trying to conceal the scorching feeling of humiliation inside him. “All right . . . as for Uncle Nino, we’ll have the lawyer talk to him. But we’re going to have to give him something to keep him quiet.”

  Samurai laid down his ace in the hole.

  “A boat is arriving now from Greece with a shipment of cocaine. Max is taking care of this transport. A metric ton. I will transfer my entire share to Uncle Nino, as reparations. I believe that this is in his interest. The way things stand now, I don’t believe business is going well for him.”

  At last, he gave Max the floor, and the young man set forth the details of the operation. He explained that Shalva, a Georgian middleman who enjoyed their absolute trust, would insure the shipment, and that the Pugliesi who controlled the shipping lanes from Greece were also involved in the deal. He specified the initial investment and the percentages that would be due to each of them.

  Rocco and Viglione got out their calculators and started running some numbers. From their expressions, glowing with greed, Samurai understood that they’d grasped the overall profitability of the deal. A minute ago they’d been ready to strangle him with their own hands, and now they were hanging from his lips.

  Disgusted, Samurai gestured to Max and left the stage.

  XLI

  It was definitely a chilly evening, a late autumn evening, but still a magnificent one. And from the glassed-in terrace of the grand hotel on the Esquiline Hill, the bundle of railroad tracks running out of the mouth of the Termini station looked like nothing so much as a dragon’s tongue. Or perhaps a devil’s tongue. The noises from the multiethnic souk down below on Via Giolitti reached the terrace muffled, as did the car horns facing off in the grid of streets leading to Piazza Vittorio. On the polished hardwood floor in the restaurant area, a dozen or so hostesses moved back and forth with studied composure between the Philippe Starck chairs and tables. In their flat shoes and their black pantsuits, they appeared absolutely modest and chaste. That was certainly in keeping with the etiquette of the private event organized by the publishing house Il Braciere and announced at the entrance to the roof garden by a sign on a colossal tripod.

  MONS. MARIANO TEMPESTA

  ETHICS FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM

  AN EVENING WITH THE AUTHOR

  In a winter Tasmanian wool cassock, the bishop
was killing time by picking up puff pastry canapés with his gnarly fingers; there were trays and trays of them on the long counter lining one of the sides of the terrace. Francesco, his young secretary, dressed in a midnight-blue Armani suit that highlighted his slender gracefulness, joined him, carrying a couple of flutes of Bellavista Riserva.

  Widely known in the clubs of St. John Lateran as Satanella, it was Francesco’s job to choose which of the young men submitted to Monsignor Tempesta’s benevolence should be employed. There were jobs at RAI TV, or in the major state-controlled companies: Finmeccanica, ENI, ENEL. There were rumors of auditions at unforgettable evenings in a love nest just a stone’s throw from Piazza Navona, an apartment that was owned by a Vatican confraternity—frequented not only by the monsignor, but also by Benedetto Umiltà. There was even talk of a sort of blood oath that bonded together for the rest of their lives that budding ruling class, now gathered there on the hotel terrace.

  Pericle Malgradi arrived a little late. And clutching under his arm a copy of the book, which to judge from the pages, had never been opened. He hastened to greet the monsignor with a rapidly rehearsed kiss of the prelate’s hand, and followed it up with a piece of information whispered into his ear.

  “Your Excellency, today I instructed my secretariat to purchase five thousand copies of your magnificent book, which we will give as thoughtful gifts to the leading constituents of my district. And, of course, we’ll send the bill to the Chamber of Deputies . . . Ha, ha, ha!”

  Tempesta expressed his pleasure and then turned his inquisitive gaze to the guy in the horrible shiny suit, out-of-season at best, who stood a few steps behind the Honorable. Spartaco Liberati had his mouth full, having chomped down on not one, not two, but three octopus canapes the minute he set foot on the roof garden. With a wink, Malgradi gestured for Liberati to step forward.

  “Your Excellency, allow me to introduce you to Dottor Liberati, the voice of our city. You know, he was recently given an award on the Capitoline Hill.”

  “Delighted to meet you, my son.”

  Extending his clammy hand, Spartaco sketched out a bow.

  “Radio FM 922 will carry the presentation live, and then we’ll rerun it for a week. Mornings and evenings at nine o’clock.”

  Pushing Liberati away with a gentle shove, Malgradi clarified.

  “Of course, Your Excellency, we also have the three state RAI network news shows, both national and regional. I saw to it personally.”

  “Of course,” Tempesta smiled.

  Benedetto Umiltà, too, seemed to be in excellent fettle, even a bit garrulous. To find himself at the center . . . well, perhaps not actually at the center . . . let’s just say, “close to the center” of the Rome that counts was, for him—every time it happened—the source of fresh excitement.

  General Mario Rapisarda was the last one to reach the roof garden. Pretending he’d only just managed to escape from a hellishly demanding afternoon, he apologized to Tempesta, asking him to sign the copy of the book that he too had brought along with him, which was, of course, as yet uncracked.

  “At a single sitting, Your Excellency. I read it all at a single sitting. You are unyielding in terms of your principles and modern in your style, if I may venture to say.”

  While Tempesta, flattered, signed his copy of the book, the commandant of the Custoza division realized that at that soiree, with the exception of the hostesses, not a single woman could be found, even if you’d set out in search of one with a lantern. All of them were men, most of them under forty. And at a guess they were all young professionals. He decided that he had to agree with the guy behind him, who was whispering into his cell phone.

  “Let me call you back, I’ll call you back. I’m out at a party with a bunch of faggots and priests. Oh, sure, all right. Ciao, ciao . . . ”

  Saverio Tesi, the publisher, managed to quiet the audience, and provided a brief introduction to the luminous figure Monsignor Mariano Tempesta, mentioning his “precocious theological studies” and his “marked human qualities.” Then, he confessed how proud his publishing house was.

  “Let me say it. A publication of this sort has no intrinsic commercial value. It is a moral testimonial. And as such, it ought to be sufficient. But the hundred thousand copies of our first print run, I believe, prove how deeply we believe in this book, the proceeds from which, I’d like to remind you all, will be donated to Villa Marianna, a first-rate health facility in this city that, thanks to this donation, will be able to inaugurate a ward for the treatment of drug addiction.”

  Malgradi clapped his hands hysterically till they were sore, thinking of that sharp operator, his brother Temistocle, and the excellent line of coke that he’d snorted in the hotel bathroom the minute he’d gotten past the reception desk. By now he was sailing along on daily regimen of a good solid two grams. His last meeting with Samurai certainly hadn’t helped matters at all. He’d been ready to piss his pants. What was it Samurai had said to him? “Promises are smoke, Malgradi. Just remember that everyone is replaceable. A good player always plays on more than one table.”

  Of course. That’s why he was here. Lots of tables, dear Samurai. And that’s to say nothing of the bishop’s table.

  Sitting with his legs crossed and holding the microphone between thumb and forefinger—which gave his pinky a coquettish freedom—Tempesta lifted the mic almost to his lips. A shaft of side spotlight illuminated him.

  “Good evening, and thank you. Thank you for your demonstration of faith and friendship. Ethics is a word that has perhaps gone out of fashion. But it is a powerful word. As is millennium. The one we leave behind us, the one that awaits us and that will, one day, usher us into the Kingdom of Heaven, joined once again to Our Lord in the joys of the soul.”

  “Oh, sure, and maybe the joys of the flesh, too.”

  Although it was whispered in his ear, Malgradi’s wisecrack made Benedetto Umiltà sit up a little more uncomfortably. The Honorable was clearly revving a little high. A little too high. Tempesta went on.

  “As a guest of the Benedictine friars, I worked on this text in the solitude of the Hermitage of Camaldoli, taking spiritual comfort from the silence of dawn and early evenings.”

  “Oh, sure, and from a nice stick of black licorice belonging to that seminarian from Togo.”

  Umiltà blushed beet red and anxiously stared at Malgradi’s wrecked-looking face.

  “I beg you, Your Honor. I implore you.”

  By now, Tempesta’s voice had the mellow, buttery texture of a DJ in the middle of the night.

  “Ethics. Ethics. You might well wonder how that word applies to a century that is ushered in with the stigmata of atheism. And I can answer that question: read my aphorisms. Make of them the milestone of a new catechesis that stands in defiance of the onslaught of resurgent paganism. You see, my dear friends, not long ago a courteous journalist asked me what thoughts a man of the cloth might have on such topics as the civil union of gay people, adoptions on the part of homosexual couples, artificial insemination, surrogate mothers. Well, I answered him that there is no dialogue—that there can be no dialogue—with those who are trying to legitimize what is contrary to nature. The family of God is a man and a woman, and their offspring. It is in the family that we find the glory of God. The family is the cornerstone of the state. The union of two such people is a bellwether of the Apocalypse. And you all know very well who it is who works in darkness to divide . . . The Devil!”

  Satanella started applauding frantically. And Malgradi immediately joined in. He was now on his feet. For one of his improvised stemwinders.

  “Thank you, Your Excellency. Thank you! We shall not allow perversion to destroy the family of God. We live in faith. We are its guardians.”

  “Amen,” mumbled Liberati. Who hadn’t understood a blessed thing that the bishop had said, but who felt an urgent need to figure out whether Samurai had sen
t him there on a glorified puff job or if there was something else bubbling in the pot.

  Tempesta, once the sermon was done, walked over to Satanella and asked him to get the business cards of a couple of young men he’d noticed in the audience. He’d been struck by Malgradi’s excitement, and didn’t consider it to be a particularly good sign. He decided to confide in Benedetto Umiltà concerning his irritation, as soon as he managed to drag him away from Tesi, the guy from Il Braciere publishing house, who was admiring his shoes, “which must be handmade”—surely you’re not serious, Your Excellency, only three thousand euros?

  “Benedetto, what’s wrong with Malgradi?”

  “I couldn’t say, Your Excellency. He’s looking tense, don’t you think?”

  “He needs to take some time off, if you ask me.”

  “The government stands or falls in part on his vote, Your Excellency.”