The Night of Rome Page 14

  “Can you just imagine with a clown like this one what a ruckus Libano would have kicked up? Just take a look at what we’ve come to. Now we’re supposed to say thank you to these filthy pigs,” said the old woman as she chain-smoked, in a voice they could probably hear over on Via Marmorata.

  The sister couldn’t believe her ears.

  “What did you say his name was, that jerk who’s talking right now, the mayor, whosis?”

  “I don’t know. The German . . . I think.”

  “But that’s not his real name, is it?”

  “Why, you think our Libano was really named Libano?”

  “But when are they going to let Samurai out of jail?”

  “No idea. I think they might have thrown away the key.”

  “Yeah, they threw it away . . . ”

  “But what does it matter anyway? Don’t you see that around here there’s not even a whiff of real, old-time testaccini, the people of this quarter?”

  “Yeah, they’re all actors, movie directors, newspapermen.”

  “That’s right. Every one of them people who ought to erect a monument to Libano. Forget about this fountain. ’Cause without him, what kind of story would they have told?”

  At last, after twenty minutes of jacking off about the restorations and the first discontented shouts from the audience: “Hey German, give it a rest!” but especially the first wisecracks: “Hey, now that we have the piazza back, give us back the Testaccio Stadium!” Giardino got to the point.

  “ . . . And so, my dear friends, I won’t steal any more of your time. The experience of this piazza, restored today to its people, leads me to say that this city is finally ready to take back its own self-government. It has all the qualifications to do so. Enough with public works contracts assigned on an exceptional basis. Enough with claques and influence mongers.”

  The old woman in the wheelchair lit her umpteenth cigarette off the stub of the one before.

  “What is this, some kind of a joke?”

  Giardino took a well-timed pause.

  “Now, I’d like to announce to you all and to the city at large that I’ve chosen as the single responsible official for the public works of the jubilee a man above all and any suspicion: the former senator Adriano Polimeni. A citizen of this neighborhood. One of you. And therefore, one of us! Together, we shall give due and serious consideration to the extraordinary nature of this occasion, which will turn the eyes of the world toward us. And we shall do so with the only weapon that an open and democratic city like Rome, our magnificent city, possesses: the transparency of good government and respectable people.”

  For the old woman, enough was finally too much.

  “Get out of here, go on . . . Put this wheelchair in gear and let’s get out of here.”

  Malgradi was furious. He was sweating like a pig. He confronted Giardino the minute he stepped down off the stage.

  “Martin, why didn’t you just say that you would have the last word on public works projects for the jubilee? You’re making a very grave political error.”

  “Because that’s not what I’ve decided to do. And, like I already told you, for once I’m not in agreement with you. And what’s more, it doesn’t matter whether or not you’re in agreement with me.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that, from now on, if you have anything to say about the jubilee, talk to Polimeni.”

  Malgradi flickered a slimy smile at him, which barely concealed the underlying hatred. You’re a dead man, he thought to himself. You’re washed up as mayor. He walked away toward Via Galvani as he dialed Sebastiano’s number.

  LA CASA DI VICKY CLINIC. EVENING.

  Two black men, tall, strong, strapping, and mean, were standing in the parking lot of Temistocle Malgradi’s clinic. They seemed to be waiting for someone. Sebastiano brushed past them, glancing at them as he passed. Two genuine bastards, that was clear. Dealers, or more likely, pimps. From the main building came an excited buzz of voices. Sebastiano went in, nodding hello to the uniformed security guard. The man in the guard booth pointed to the little knot of people standing at the center of the atrium. Two volunteers, a young man and woman, and a young black woman who was in tears. Sebastiano went over to them and briefly questioned one of the two volunteers.

  “She doesn’t want to leave. She’s afraid because her pimps have tracked her down, and they’ve let her know that if she doesn’t come with them now, sooner or later they’re going to catch her and then they’ll cut her into tiny bits.”

  Sebastiano stared at the girl. Her tear-streaked, acne-ravaged face summoned up no form of pleasure he could think of. But that didn’t matter to the pimps. No one is happy to give up their own capital assets.

  “So you want to stay here?” he asked.

  The girl nodded her head.

  “Wait here five minutes.”

  He went back into the street. The pimps were still waiting. They were smoking cigarettes and exchanging phrases in their guttural pidgin English. Sebastiano’s driver was standing next to the Audi, parked at the center of the square. He summoned him with a jerk of the head. As the drive was coming over, he thought back to one of Samurai’s many lessons. In the world of crime, as in the normal world, there exists a well established pecking order, a food chain. Down at the very bottom of that order are the child molesters and the rapists. For them, no pity to be shown. Just one rung up, pimps. You can do business with them, but by their very nature they aren’t trustworthy. Cannon fodder. When you teach a pimp a lesson, Samurai had explained to him, you’re certainly not doing it out of a sense of mercy. It’s strictly out of a sense of aesthetics.

  “What is it, Sebastia’?” asked his driver.

  Sebastiano pointed at the two black guys. Furio nodded and extracted his handgun. They took up a stance, face-to-face with the Nigerians. Sebastiano pointed at the gun, which Furio seemed to handle with lazy carelessness.

  “The girl isn’t coming with you.

  “Says who?” reacted one of the men, the most arrogant one.

  “Says this,” Sebastiano explained, turning around to point at the gun again, “this and Samurai. You know who I’m talking about.”

  The Nigerians exchanged a few hurried words and, with a glare of hatred and a shrug of the shoulders, they turned and left. Furio made certain that they were gone, then headed back to the Audi, muttering something under his breath.

  Sebastiano could have read his mind. Why go to all this trouble for a black whore? Samurai wouldn’t have done it, it was none of their business and, above all, there was nothing to be earned from it. But then he wasn’t Samurai.

  He went back into the clinic. He told the girl and the volunteers that the matter had been taken care of. He strode on, ignoring the outburst of tears and astonishment, and slipped into Malgradi’s office. Temistocle was frantically typing at his computer. He broke off with a broad smile.

  “Ah, Sebastia’, thanks for coming. I’m getting a little package ready for that asshole Martin Giardino.”

  “Have you talked to him, at least?”

  “No, it won’t do any good. He’s obsessed with Polimeni. He’s given him full powers. Full powers, you understand? He told me that I—you understand, even me—have to talk to Polimeni and nobody else if it’s anything to do with the jubilee . . . Madonna santissima . . . ”

  “Explain what you’ve got in mind.”

  “I’m going to blow him right out of that office. Martin Giardino is done for. No more than a week and his coalition will collapse, and then he can go back to studying algebra with all those fucking Germans just like him.”

  “How are you going to do it?”

  “I have my ways.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we’ll run a primary against him and we’ll kick his ass.”

  “You?”


  “Yeah, me. What, don’t you believe it? Me and your friend Chiara Visone. You get what a ticket that would be?”

  Sebastiano nodded.

  “Go ahead. But make sure you don’t make any missteps. This is a delicate maneuver. We only get one shot at it, and it better be a good one.”

  And he turned on his heel and left, giving the man no time to reply.

  GALLERIA ALBERTO SORDI. NIGHT.

  Chiara emerged from the front entrance of Montecitorio, home to Italy’s parliament, a little after midnight. Exhausted but happy, she announced to Sebastiano, who was waiting for her outside the Galleria Alberto Sordi, busily tapping on his iPhone, that she’d managed to get a vote on the wiretapping and surveillance law onto the agenda.

  “And so, specifically?” he inquired.

  “Prohibition on the publication of content obtained through wiretapping and surveillance until actual indictment, nothing more than a summary in preemptive detention warrants. Narrow interpretation on the use in drafting the sentence on the part of the judge, and absolutely discarded as evidence if the wiretapping and surveillance is conducted outside of the legal guidelines. Limitations on the use of conversations overheard in other investigations. Terrorism, of course, falls outside of these restrictions, you can’t expect any different.”

  Samurai was right. When they make their minds up, these people on the left are good at tying things up with a bow on them. Sebastiano brought her quickly up-to-date on the situation. Chiara bowed her head.

  “I would have preferred a different solution, but if it’s got to be done, let’s do it.”

  She seemed sorry. Hypocrisy? Or authentic regret? There was still something that bound her to Polimeni, something so deep that it sowed in her a degree of uncertainty—she who was usually so decisive.

  Later on, after sex, he caught her busily tapping away at her iPhone.

  “Secret messages?”

  “Public photographs. Just look.”

  She handed him her smartphone. Images of young people, Asian and northern European, with expensive purses, high-performance cars, against backgrounds of exclusive hotels and dreamy locations. A procession of young oafs and slutty girls, arrogantly proud of their nothingness.

  “What the hell’s that?”

  “Rich Kids of Instagram. Some fashionable bullshit. Young billionaires who are determined to inform the world how rich they are, and who can afford things that ordinary mortals can’t even dream of.”

  “And you like it?”

  “I love it.”

  As sleep carried him off, a thought caught him off guard. It had something to do with Chiara’s naïve infatuation with the gilded world of rich idiots. A harmless dream. The fact that she could indulge that whim. His dreams had all been stolen from him. He wanted them back. Was Chiara that opportunity? His one great opportunity for . . . he didn’t even know how to describe the confused tangle of sentiments that for the past few days had been stirring him inwardly. Or maybe he knew all too well. And he was afraid of it.

  Change. Change your life, Sebastiano.

  TOR SAPIENZA. NIGHT.

  The VW Golf was sailing along on the deserted beltway, heading east, and Beagle Boy was deep in a silence charged with tension. Wagner turned to look in the back seat and rummaged around in a duffel bag, from which he pulled a pair of black jeans, a dark blue sweatshirt with a large logo on the chest—“Italia”—a pair of sneakers, a khaki field jacket with the German flag stitched onto the right sleeve, a ski mask, a set of brass knuckles, and a switchblade knife. His uniform, his identity.

  They left the Beltway near the Via Collatina, and that’s where they started to see the lights of Tor Sapienza. Wagner turned on the stereo. The Flight of the Valkyries filled the car. It was this piece of music that had earned him his nickname. In the world of the kids of Casal del Marmo—a place you wouldn’t send a dog, in short—at a certain point the fashion of Nazis had exploded. And there were those who took the name Kappler, others Priebke, and two brothers had chosen to share a name, one of them Kessel and the other one Ring, because the name Kesselring taken all together was too difficult to pronounce, and after all they were twins, and they always shared everything, and they didn’t feel like arguing. To Luca Neto—this was Wagner’s real name—that music had exploded in his ears one time when he’d hooked up with a tough little chick from the rich part of town. Softened up good and proper by a joint, the girl had let him fuck her on the good sofa in the living room, while in the background the whole time this para-parapara-para-parapara was going at full volume . . . Maybe it was just because of the memory, or else because the composer was a Kraut, anyway Wagner was the nickname that stuck to him. And Luca had grown fond of it. Because you can say what you want, that was music that lights a fire in your veins. And that’s why, every time, before they went out on a job, he’d listen to it ten, or twenty times, if that was needed. To pump himself up proper.

  Wagner smiled. The day he’d tossed his first Molotov cocktail at the façade of a residential apartment house for immigrants, he’d read on Wikipedia that that little subdivision had been founded in the 1920s by an anti-Fascist railway worker from Molise. Just think of that! Deep down, the kids who’d been carrying out those attacks in the quarter, what were they asking? Give the subdivision back to the Italians, right? And what else could that anti-Fascist railway worker have been thinking a hundred years ago when he’d founded his Cooperativa Tor Sapienza dell’Agro Romano? Land for his people, right? And so? Where was the problem?

  Fascists, they called them. What do you mean, Fascists? Just because of a few straight-armed salutes? Just because they were disgusted by gypsies, Arabs, and negroes? Because their attacks were reminiscent of the Nazi-Fascist squadrismo, as the elite newscasters put it on TV, wrinkling their noses like there was a bad smell in the room, even though I bet they wouldn’t be too happy about having a thieving gypsy and a mangy negro for their neighbors, wherever they lived? Why, those punks who followed him around didn’t even know what Fascism was. And frankly, truth be told, he’d never even given a damn about swastikas and lictor’s staffs.

  He was there for more concrete reasons. Much more concrete.

  Cleansing the town of zammammeri, as Roman slang was for foreigners, was good business; it could make you rich. Exactly the same as giving them a place to stay. “Millions of euros you can make. More than with narcotics,” was the way a guy he knew, a friend of Samurai’s had explained it to him. What is it they called that fun-house ride, anyway? SPRAR, System of Protection for those Requesting Asylum and Refugees. It was super easy. The state kicked in thirty-five euros a day per zammammero. Which meant if you count a thousand negroes and Arabs—and that’s what Rome was paying for—it meant 35,000 shekels a day. You multiply that by twelve months a year and you get more than twelve million euros. You got that, yeah? Twelve million. Which meant there was plenty for everyone.

  One night, at a table at Bounty, a beer hall over near Piazza Vittorio, Samurai’s friend had jotted down a few calculations on a placemat.

  The high muck-a-muck in City Hall who decided where and how many zammammeri to allocate got fifty cents a day per skull.

  The builder who threw up the apartment houses—buildings that with the crisis he couldn’t sell to save his life—got 2 percent of the total annual turnover.

  The Welcome Cooperatives, both left-wing and right, since both sides were always in cahoots, social cooperatives they called them—and I just have to laugh at the thought—gobbled up all the rest.

  Or rather, the rest except for the part that was due to him. To Wagner. Because in order to drive the market up, you needed to create a little frothiness, didn’t you? And how could you tell the state to cough up another two or three euros a day per negro? There had to be unrest. The people in the borgatas had to be pissed off. You had to be able to say that “the migrants”—you tell me what
a fucked-up term to come up with—needed to be moved from east to west. And then from west to south. And after that, from south to north. And all the while the fee was rising. Like in Monopoly. Bare land, then one house, two houses, three houses, and hotels. By deploying one variant, in fact.

  Him. Wagner and his boys.

  Is there trouble in Tor Sapienza now? He’d show up. A week out of hell, the newspaper writing about it every day, women in the street screaming, the mayor making promises. Then off to some other part of town. Infernetto, maybe. And the meter’s running the whole time.

  Then is Infernetto played out? Wagner to the rescue! And off he goes to Tre Teste . . .

  For those jobs, turnkey, no muss no fuss, he earned ten thousand euros an evening. Nice pay, no? With one more advantage. In Rome, these days, when people heard his name, they bowed and scraped. Wagner the Defender of the Borgate. Wagner the Son of the People.

  Of course, Beagle Boy and those other runaways who followed him everywhere knew nothing about it. But business isn’t for everyone. All those guys cared about was that they got to snort a line for free every so often. They did it out of boredom and anger. And if they were happy, everyone was happy.

  When the VW Golf screeched to a halt on Via Morandi, the games had just begun. The street was illuminated and the air made unbreathable by the pestilential fire from a row of dumpsters in flames. Wagner lowered his ski mask, made sure his blade was securely shoved down in the back pocket of his jeans, made sure both pairs of brass knuckles were snug on his fingers, and took his position at the head of a furious mob that was bombarding with rocks and metal bars the thin line standing guard in front of a three-story apartment building.

  Wagner saw a couple of young Maghrebi men trying to sneak out the back way. He shouted with all the oxygen in his lungs.

  “Pieces of shit! Pieces of shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!”