The little metal door, sloppily painted a military gray, swung open and a vivid beam of sunlight illuminated Alice.
Marco broke into a run in her direction, shouting her name and waving the roses.
The girl look around, saw him and, ignoring him, started walking toward Diego.
She was limping. And she had one hand pressed to her back. Terenzi, you bastard, I’m going to rip your balls clean off.
With a final burst of speed, he caught up to her while she was still just a few steps short of Diego.
“Alice! Stop, Alice, I just want to apologize!”
Diego stepped forward.
“What the fuck do you want now? Haven’t you already caused enough trouble?”
Marco took a step back. Alice laid a hand on the young man’s arm.
“Could you just give us a second, please?”
Diego shook his head, by no means convinced. Alice smiled at him. He nodded and walked a short distance away.
Now they stood facing each other. Marco, with all the stupidity that a man in love can muster, handed her the flowers, hinted at a bow, and flashed a smile that he meant to be taken as humble.
“Forgive me, Alice. I’m an idiot.”
She scrutinized the roses, heaved a sigh, and delivered a straight-armed slap to his face. The flowers flew away. Diego rushed over. Alice waved him off, with her arm held high.
“Let me take care of this asshole.”
Marco rubbed his face, the smile never fading a bit.
“I deserved that. Forgive me.”
“You deserve far worse, you piece-of-shit Carabiniere.”
“Now don’t overdo it, Alice.”
“You’re the one who’s overdone it. You need to release Farideh, and right away!”
“I can’t do that. And even if I could, I wouldn’t. A metric ton of shit, Alice, a metric ton. Shit that was going to the Anacleti clan, shit that was going to Samurai, shit that was going to the people you claim you’re fighting. Farideh needs to convince me that she really knew nothing about that. Can you seriously not understand that?”
He was taking the wrong tone and he knew it, but there was nothing he could do about it. That was his life, for Christ’s sake!
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand. She has nothing to do with any of this, and you know it. You never even gave her a chance. And you used me, you fucker! You treated me like a . . . what’s the phrase you guys use? A stool pigeon?”
Alice had a point. He had used her. He could come up with only one argument in his favor: he’d also saved her from an unjust accusation. Still, he hadn’t believed in her. So all things considered, silence was his best tactic.
“Give me a cigarette,” she ordered him, without warning.
Marco hastened to comply. Alice took a long drag.
“Does it even occur to you what life’s like in there? Do you think about that when you arrest someone? Do you have any idea of what a horrible place prison is, Marco?”
Hearing her say his name filled him with hope. He reached out to touch her, but she recoiled, indignantly, before his fingers could so much as graze her.
“Don’t you touch me, don’t you dare!”
“You’re right, I’m sorry.”
“And stop saying you’re sorry!”
“Yes, I’m sorry!”
Alice flicked away what remained of the cigarette. For a moment her eyes shone with a gleam of irony, the prelude to a liberatory laugh, or at least so Marco fooled himself into believing.
Alice sighed. Her tone grew gentler. But it was a firm gentleness, unappealable.
“You’re not a bad person, Marco. But you do have one problem. A big problem. You don’t know which side you’re on. Whether you’re with the people doing the beating up or the ones getting beaten. You can’t seem to make up your mind. So you’re sort of on one side and sort of on the other. Which means you’re not really on any side at all.”
“Alice . . . ”
“Don’t follow me. And don’t try to find me. Ciao, Marco.”
She went back to Ponytail. He wrapped his arm around her waist, and she leaned on his shoulder.
Marco watched her get into the city car, backlit by the sun which seemed to be mocking him, and realized that once and for all he had lost something priceless.
Marco, the Untouchable.
L
Number Eight had gone off to meet his maker a good twenty days ago or so. And getting to Il Tatami wasn’t that complicated. Denis took aside a couple of punk kids from Ponente, two ferocious stadium hounds who still had zits on their chins but had already graduated to switchblades in their pockets. He’d gotten word that they were going around boasting that they’d been ushered “into an important network” in Rome. Some sort of quasi-Nazi confraternity that met on a weekly basis at a Japanese fitness club well beyond the Giustiniana zone. Where some guy in his early fifties they called the Maestro trained them like young chimps, along with other dickheads, no smarter than them. For that matter, unlocking their silence concerning this precious secret cost him no more than a couple of grams of coke. A price perfectly in line with the price of disloyalty at age sixteen.
Bingo. They’d nailed Samurai.
“We absolutely have to go slaughter that pig.”
Morgana was out of control. Hatred, in women, at times can be more obsessive and enduring than in men. And she was swollen with it. By now she reeked of vengeance. But now Denis was a boss. In fact, he was the boss. And if there was one lesson he’d learned from Number Eight, it was the pointlessness of ferocity without method.
Samurai alive—at least for a while—was an opportunity. And it certainly didn’t take a genius to understand that. Uncle Nino was in prison, and he was going to rot in there. The Anacleti clan were tangled up with the cops who were breathing down their necks, and they couldn’t so much as take a step. The ROS had snapped up Max with a metric ton of cocaine, and he was going to gather cobwebs behind bars for a good long while. The market was demanding new masters and new rules. Meaning, then, that an understanding had to be found. And with a pistol pressed against his temple, even Samurai would become an obedient little lapdog. They just had to go step on his tail in his lair.
Morgana raised no objections.
Denis knew perfectly well that she wasn’t happy with the arrangement. But he considered the silence with which she agreed to his terms a sign of submission that was worth every bit as much as a blood oath, if not more.
“When the day comes, I’ll give him to you.”
Flat on his back on the bench in Il Tatami’s Finnish sauna, Samurai didn’t see them coming. And when the door of the wooden cabin swung shut behind them, he felt suddenly defenseless. The way he’d felt only once before in his life. The time that Marco Malatesta could have put an end to the whole story. A woman’s finger pressed against his sternum, exerting a menacing pressure. A man’s firm grip held his arms motionless.
Morgana’s voice was a whisper.
“Are we intruding?”
The question dropped into the void. But Samurai’s silence left them both indifferent. The pressure against his sternum increased slightly, causing a stab of pain to his ribcage. Denis leaned down and spoke into his ear.
“A man with manners answers when someone asks him a question, Samurai.”
They’d described him very well, this Denis. Ferocious, sarcastic, shameless in his way. No resemblance to the crude troglodyte he’d replaced. While Morgana was a discovery. That stiff forefinger was an icepick, and she could have finished him off in an instant by shattering his sternum.
“I’m not in the mood for small talk. And I wasn’t expecting visitors,” Samurai said to Denis, doing his best to conceal the sense of physical and psychological constriction that was crushing him to the sauna bench.
“We thought w
e’d just make it a surprise.”
“I hate surprises.”
“Then maybe you should have been more careful.”
“There’s only one thing worse than impulsive visits. And that’s threats you don’t mean to back up.”
“Who says that’s what this is? How we back it up depends entirely on you.”
“What is it you want?”
“Morgana is dying to cut you to bits. I wouldn’t mind either. All things considered, we could wrap things up right here. And now.”
“Then go ahead.”
“You’re accustomed to working with Number Eight. But I’m not Cesare. I’m here to offer you a deal.”
“What do you want?”
“Everything.”
“I need to take a shower.”
“First, I need to hear a yes.”
“You’ve got it.”
Shalva was running a little late. And as he walked into Il Tatami’s locker room, he noticed that Samurai was huddled in conversation with some guy over by the showers, someone he’d never seen before.
What struck him about that man was his excessive physical proximity to Samurai. Strange that Samurai should allow that. And so he was tempted to get a little closer, but then Samurai and the stranger shook hands firmly.
The stranger, clearly quite pleased, walked off into the locker room without saying goodbye. Shalva memorized his facial features.
He looked around for his terrycloth towel but couldn’t find it, and so he decided for once that he’d do without it. At that time of the afternoon, the sauna was always deserted.
But not that afternoon.
Morgana was seated in the lotus position. Sweat pearled her flesh, giving a glow to her body. Shalva nodded hello to her, the way you do with women you don’t know. She responded by freeing her forehead and her eyes from her bangs, which were drenched. A sign of focused attention. Shalva leveled his eyes into the young woman’s gaze, and then proceeded to explore every square inch of her flesh. Firm, well proportioned breasts, a flat belly that widened into generous hips. Full, fleshy lips. It was a ravenous form of play, and he did nothing to conceal it. She seemed to lend her complicity. That man, with his entirely hairless body and his lily white flesh, had the beauty of a classical statue. Even though he was a man in his prime, he had perfectly defined muscles. His pectoral muscles opened out into broad shoulders, his abdominals highlighted a perfect washboard, and his back, sculpted by powerful dorsals, merged high and smooth into his buttocks. Like a black man’s, without wrinkles or creases. Morgana felt an intense wave of excitement that she saw clearly mirrored in the man who stood looking at her. She stood up from the bench, slowly scrubbed the palm of her hand across her breasts and belly, then left the sauna, shutting in the unknown man behind her.
Samurai joined Luca in the driveway that led up to the Japanese house. He had just left those rabid dogs Denis and Morgana with a commitment that, as far as he was concerned, had as much value as a gob of spit in a pond. Those two were demanding a place in the sun, but like all their peers in that gutless generation, they lacked the balls to take it to the limit. Their inclination to seek a compromise with the older players like him simply condemned them to utter irrelevance. They said that they wanted to take what was theirs by right. But they didn’t want it badly enough to tear it out of the hands of those who had stolen it from them and had no intention of giving it back. He’d been twenty himself, just like them. But he’d sworn defiance to the world at large. He had killed. He hadn’t asked permission. He hadn’t loaded his pistol with blanks. Forcing the old generation to make way for the new was no longer just an option. It was necessary for the survival of the species. The wonder and fury of a new virginity was what they needed. The surging whiff of testosterone that filled the room he was walking into was what they needed.
“The boys are here,” said Luca, pointing to a small crowd of skinheads. “There’s a new one today.”
Samurai looked where Luca was pointing and identified Laurenti, the engineer’s son. He exchanged a nod of the head with him.
“Do you know him, Samurai?”
“His name is Sebastiano. He’s a right guy. I have plans for him. Am I wrong, or are there more kids than there were last time?”
“You’re not wrong.”
“So finally a few of them are willing to listen.”
“They’re all here for you.”
“We need to be careful and to avoid making mistakes.”
“Why would we?”
“Because it’s happened before. And this is no longer a time for mediocrity. There is no redemption in the sewer we’re swimming in, Luca. We need to work to create a new era. The one we live in reeks of carrion. We must reeducate ourselves for pure ego. The tension toward the act. I’m sick and tired of the superfluous. And the trite bric-a-brac that it engenders. This anti-Semitic racism out of some operetta, this glamorous Fascist fetishism and these cinematic street thugs turn my stomach. The difference between an Aryan and a kike is a matter of the spirit. Not the facial features. We must work within the conflict that exists between the yearning for redemption and the lure of dull matter. The recession is offering us immense spaces in which to maneuver. Social hatred will soon wash over the Europe of bankers. And we need to be ready when that happens. As far as the near future is concerned, re-read your Evola.”
“I’ve already started to. And in any case, I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to take a look at that draft document.”
“Dawn. Yes, the title seems pretty good to me.”
Shalva interrupted them. He’d stayed in the shower longer than usual to extinguish, or perhaps prolong, the desire that had exploded in the sauna. He gave Samurai a hug, and Samurai told Luca to give them a minute to talk alone. The confiscation of the load of cocaine in Fiumicino was not a matter for public discussion.
“Was it an accident, or did someone tip them off, Samurai?”
“I’d call it an accident, Shalva.”
“Should I be worried about that Max?”
“Don’t worry. I know him. He won’t say a thing. He’s got head and heart. But also guts.”
“What about the Iranian girl who was with him? Farideh, I think her name was. Max introduced her to me on Folegandros. I have to admit, a very nice choice, but still . . . ”
“The girl wasn’t expected.”
“Exactly. You say it was an accident, but I’m wondering whether the girl wasn’t something other than what she seems.”
“If I know Max, she wasn’t in on a thing, and still isn’t.”
“You’re right, my friend. Still, Max ought to have told you.”
Samurai smiled.
“That’s true. But I trust him. And in any case, the beautiful Persian girl is going to keep her mouth shut too. She has no alternative. If she talks, she gets sent up for international narcotics trafficking. If she plays dumb, she might get off entirely and be set free even before the trial. We can keep an eye on her, but she doesn’t strike me as a problem.”
“By the way, who were those two in the locker room?”
“Two annoying little flies from Ostia. His name is Denis. She’s Morgana. Just think. Just think, the cross and the Celtic sorceress.”
“Problems?”
“Delusions, I’d say. Foolish delusions. Which we’ll take care of once and for all when we’ve finally implemented the Great Project and we can clear the air of the last few insects. And maybe I’ll ask you to crush those two.”
“With pleasure, my friend.”
LI
In the end, Pericle Malgradi made it through by the skin of his teeth.
The knot that he had to untangle, the boulder that threatened to thwart the Great Project, was the sudden and unexpected splintering of his group. The city council members he had been counting on to pass the bill had risen in open revolt
. The underboss, the politico that had started all the trouble, was a greedy old member of the Fascist nomenklatura of years gone by who had earned himself the nickname, both for his gelatinous appearance and for his total lack of scruples, of Jabba, as in Jabba the Hutt, the criminal batrachian from Star Wars. The old Fascist, who controlled a faction within the council, had let the dynamic of what he saw as “political momentum” get to him. Once he saw the granite mass of the center-right majority coalition begin to crumble, the race to “reposition” had begun. And Jabba had moved with lightning speed. He’d established a clear distance from the existing regime in its death throes. And in doing so, he had brought with him what had once been the Malgradi gang. Which meant that now the Great Project was starting to look like excess weight, and would have to be heaved overboard.
Malgradi confronted Jabba in no uncertain terms.
“What the hell, don’t you know who’s involved in this deal?”
“The fact is that the Great Project is going to split public opinion. Already all this mess with the blog has provoked an array of reactions. There’s going to be an endless stream of controversy. We’re going to be overwhelmed by a tidal wave of appeals—”
“But it’s all strictly legal, you know that, don’t you?”
“Of course, no doubt. But times have changed. The future is uncertain. We’re too weak to pull it off alone. I’m not saying that nothing’s going to come of it, just not right now, Pericle, not right now.”
Oh, sure, all strictly legal! Oh, sure, not right now! Go explain all that to Samurai, to Ciro Viglione, to the Calabrians . . . and to the Monsignor.
“So, help me understand, if there was a broad consensus, then it might be feasible in any case.”
“Of course, but where are you going to find it these days, this broad consensus?”
“Leave that to me, you just need to keep cool and promise me that when the time comes, you won’t pull out at the last minute. You and all the others.”
All the others who had been eating from his feed bag for years, God damn them to hell, the ones who were bound to take to their heels at the first sign of trouble.
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