The Night of Rome Read online

  “How long are these assholes going to take?”

  “Just be patient.”

  “But it’s a pretty chic place, don’t you think, Wagner? Fabietto knows what he’s up to!”

  “Sure, but he pissed on the floor instead of the toilet.”

  “If you say so . . . ”

  Beagle Boy was getting nervous. He kept talking to avoid slipping into a state of paranoia.

  “I hear that this place, once, years and years ago, was one of Libano’s gambling dens. And Freddo, too. And then things went the way they went, and I hear that Fabio snagged it at a judicial auction, because they say that the judge was a regular client of certain young ladies and that he liked trannies too . . . a judge, just think! When it comes to morals, we’re in bad shape, don’t you think, brother?”

  “They’re leaving, let’s go.”

  Finally, the last noisy group of diners made up their mind to leave. Wagner and Beagle Boy armed up with two Beretta 98s with the serial number filed off, lowered their ski masks, and got out of the Fiat Panda, acting nonchalant. Beagle Boy was carrying an empty backpack slung over one shoulder. When the last echo of laughter trailed after the drunken diners and silence fell over the street, they headed in.

  “Put up your hands, come on! Be good, and you won’t get hurt.”

  The cashier, a pretty young girl, turned pale. Two waitresses threw themselves on the floor, sobbing. Beagle Boy gestured to the young woman to turn over the evening’s proceeds. A sizable sum of cash wound up in the backpack. But they hadn’t come in there for that handful of spare change. It was the message they were there to deliver that mattered most.

  “Tell Fabietto that this is just the start,” Wagner spoke the words loud and clear.

  Then they turned and left, moving quickly. They had almost gotten back into the Panda, when they heard shouting behind them.

  “Hey, you bastards!”

  Swiveling around quickly, Wagner glimpsed the outlines of two men. The smaller of the two was swinging a long metal bar, the other guy had an axe. They lunged at Beagle Boy in an instant and smashed him with the metal bar over the forearm he was holding up in an attempt to protect his face.

  Wagner whipped out the Beretta and squeezed off four shots in rapid succession. Aiming at the head. Shooting to kill. The guy with the axe flew backward like a department store mannequin. The little guy with the metal bar collapsed to his knees, and then facedown on the asphalt, with both arms and the backs of his hand splayed forward. Wagner took a few quick steps toward the corpse. He observed the tattoo that marked each of the ten fingers of the hands.

  F-R-I-E-N-D-L-E-S-S.

  He gestured to Beagle Boy to keep his arm pressed tight in his lap and get into the car.

  “I’ll drive. Get in!”

  In the darkness, as they were driving up the Collina Fleming, they heard the piercing sound of sirens. Beagle Boy seemed less in pain than before.

  “I think we started quite a ruckus, right?”

  Wagner said nothing for a while. Then he replied, even if he was really talking to himself.

  “But no one was supposed to get killed.”

  Still, he thought, not everything in life can be predicted. Sebastiano will understand. And maybe, most important of all, Fabio will understand. Maybe a gang war really will break out. He sure wasn’t afraid of one.

  Still, Wagner didn’t tell Beagle Boy any of that.

  Fabio Desideri understood immediately where those robberies had come from. He had to admit to himself that he’d been surprised. He never would have expected such an immediate reaction, much less such a violent one. Least of all, the killings. No question, he’d underestimated Sebastiano, and now a gang war, a real one, with ambushes and corpses, was inevitable. Fabio hadn’t counted on it, but now he was ready to fight it. He had plenty of men and he’d win. There were no alternatives: they were both all in, so they were going to have to come to a grand finale. A finale that he’d write himself, putting an end to the dictatorship of Samurai and his lieutenant.

  But before you write the finale, you’ve got to write the movie. He’d bought the Anacletis and plenty of other manpower, and in spite of that, Sebastiano had been capable of hitting four of his establishments on the same night, and with perfect precision. Shouldn’t this Sebastiano be a general without a sword by now? No, what had happened meant that this kid had an army to work with. But who were these soldiers and how come he’d never heard about them? Had he let something get by him? And if so, what? He ordered his men to look into it, and he also sent a wake-up call to Silvio Anacleti, while he was at it. The gypsy showed up at the villa shortly after sunset. Fabio received him in the gym, while he tried to vent his anxiety by delivering a series of punches to the heavy bag. Silvio told him that he’d been over to Future Consulting, where he’d hoped to run into Sebastiano. Instead, he’d found a crowd of young punks who were looking very determined as they hung on the words of a very young kid, with super-black, super-short hair and earrings in both lobes. People called him Wagner, and there were two possibilities: either he was imitating Samurai, or deep down, he was a faggot. Officially, he passed himself off as a Nazi, but in reality he was the two-bit boss of a two-bit gang from Casal del Marmo that liked to go out and break the zammammeri’s bones for so much a pound, clear out nomad camps, the kind of thing Samurai got up to, in other words. And so did Sebastiano. Fabio thanked the gypsy for the tip.

  So, now there was an army, and it looked pretty ferocious, too. Yes, he’d underestimated them. But it wasn’t that serious.

  “Keep looking for Sebastiano, Silvio.”

  “They say he’s out of the country.”

  “Well, you keep trying to find him.”

  “And when I’ve found him?”

  “You arrange for a meeting.”

  “Are you going to make peace?”

  “What I’m planning to do is my own fucking business, Silvio.”

  “Oh no, that’s not right, Fabiè.”

  “We have an understanding.”

  “Fabio, I love you like a brother, but hold on for a minute and listen to me: you’re plenty strong, but so is Sebastiano, and don’t forget who he’s got behind him. And so far things have gone nice and smooth with him. Then you popped up, and you made a nice little speech, but for now it’s all just talk, and we haven’t seen anything concrete so far . . . ”

  In other words, the gypsies were sitting on the fence, far from making a commitment. Sebastiano was raising his head. Samurai was looking on and laughing. And in the meantime his two boys had ended up being carried past the long line of cypress trees. They were in the boneyard, in other words. And these guys were pretty sure the fight was over. He took the gypsy’s arm and his tone of voice turned silky.

  “I understand, and I can’t really blame you. Take care, Silviè.”

  X.

  WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25TH–FRIDAY, MARCH 27TH

  Saints’ Days: St. Lucy, St. Theodosius, St. Augustus

  SEOUL. MARCH 25.

  Adriano Polimeni landed at Incheon-Seoul International Airport at 2:20 in the afternoon local time. In his head, and what mattered more, in his body, it was 6:40 in the morning. During the fifteen-hour flight, spiced up by a frantic stopover in Paris, he hadn’t been spared any of the delights that modern life reserves for economy travelers: seats built for Lilliputian infants, bad-smelling travel companions, foul food, an enforced striptease at the check-in, sprints between gates. He envied the VIPs who skipped the lines and stretched their legs in business class. Like a peeping Tom, hunched up in the first row of economy, he shot hate-filled glances between the half-open curtains separating him from business class, glaring at the fat Americans guzzling wine as they were coddled by the hostesses. He’d even rejoiced at the brutal retching of a well-dressed Japanese man. A totally shitty trip.

  Only one consolation: the
re were those who were worse off than him. Chiara Visone and the other members of the parliamentary delegation paying a courtesy visit in the entourage of a couple of undersecretaries. Actually, a business trip that, in its intentions, at least, was supposed to persuade rich Korean entrepreneurs to invest in Italy.

  For reasons of public perception and in obedience to the reigning poor-mouthing of the administration, the national-political delegation was flying economy. A brutal slap at Chiara, who had spent the entire duration of the miserable flight alternating brief slumbers with indignant silences, doing nothing to conceal her steadily worsening bad mood. “They could have given us at least economy plus. At least that.” Adriano and Chiara had met in the departures lounge, at Fiumicino. She had masked her surprise behind a chilly smile.

  “Are you following me, Adriano?”

  “Martin Giardino got the invitation from a South Korean billionaire who wants to make a donation to the city. He got a bad case of pharyngitis so he sent me in his place. That’s all.”

  “Should I believe you?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  In the arrival hall, Adriano found an elegant young man in a dark suit waiting for him, holding up a sign on which was written “Mr. Puly-Money.” They shook hands warmly, and then Adriano followed him, while Chiara and her group trailed after another young man, a little less well dressed than his greeter had been. As they left the airport parking lot, he noticed that the Italians had been packed into a sort of bus, a jitney with with a South Korean flag on the sides. And the luxury of the Lexus that had picked him up gave him another delighted shiver of revenge. His driver was named Leo, and he spoke excellent English. He told Adriano that Mr. Gu sincerely thanked both him, Adriano, and the mayor of Rome, for having accepted the invitation, and he asked whether the senator would care to be Mr. Gu’s guest tomorrow night for dinner. Out of respect for his guest, Mr. Gu thought it would be best to give him some time to get over his jet lag. Adriano thanked Leo every bit as sincerely, on his own behalf and that of his mayor, and he confirmed the dinner engagement for the next day. Then he gazed out at the landscape.

  On all sides he saw hills streaming past, scattered vegetation broken by urban settlements, and groves of trees that popped up unexpectedly out of nowhere. In the distance, set against a backdrop consisting of the horizon dominated by a leaden gray sky, struggling to hold at bay any and all sunbeams, he glimpsed the skyscrapers of Seoul. Population: twenty-five million. The third greatest density of skyscrapers on earth, and Asia’s fourth-largest economy, after Japan, China, and India. One of the continent’s tigers. The East was on the march, he thought with an edge of concern, and old Europe was on the retreat. When we were young, we dreamed of the Red Guards. What idiots.

  Leo dropped him off at the InterContinental Seoul COEX, a fabulous hotel in the heart of the Korea World Trade Center, the city’s business and trade district. Leo wished him a comfortable rest, and let him know that in a few hours he’d be visited by a person whose job it would be to look after him. Adriano took possession of the suite that he’d been assigned, an apartment that was actually larger than his place in Rome, and realized that luxury no longer bothered him the way it once had. He felt a vague sense of guilt, but at last his weariness took the upper hand and he collapsed into a comatose sleep. The sound of the room phone awakened him. He grabbed the receiver. On the other end of the line, a feminine voice, young and sweet.

  “Forgive me if I’m bothering you, Senator Polimeni. My name is May. Mr. Gu asked me to look after you. If you’d like, I’ll be waiting for you down here in the lobby.”

  “Thanks. Let me just take a quick shower.”

  May was a young woman of exquisite, canonical beauty, if you like the Far East. Petite, dark, with short lustrous hair, large almond-shaped eyes, an elegant skirt suit, a fine piece of western prêt-à-porter. She’d studied Italian at Ca’ Foscari University. She adored Venice. Polimeni, who was hungry as a wolf, plunged with her out into the night of Seoul.

  While the senator and little May were exiting the hotel, Sebastiano Laurenti was entering it. The two men almost brushed shoulders, without even noticing each other. Adriano was absorbed in mirroring himself in the inscrutable smile of his chaperone, and Sebastiano was typing a text to Chiara on his iPhone. He had made up his mind to follow her to Seoul on the pretext of “business,” a category that was otherwise left vague. But the truth was that he wanted and needed to be with her.

  MARCH 26TH.

  May was a courteous companion, perhaps even too courteous, verging on the ceremonious. But all that courtesy and pliability, the warmth that her body transmitted to him when she took his arm, the detailed explanations about the usages and customs of her people, the constancy with which she sought out physical contact . . . All of this only emphasized the fact that she was a paid employee of Mr. Gu. A sort of high-toned escort. She must have perceived something, because in a moment of sincerity—they were touring the Samsung museum—she explained to him, seriously, that he shouldn’t expect any nasty tricks from little May.

  “I’m not a flower snake girl, you can feel safe with me, Adriano.”

  And she told him that flower snake girls are a Seoul specialty. They’re not prostitutes, but they act as if they are. They get their hooks into you and they smile, they take you out to dinner—your treat, obviously—and then the evening continues at a nightclub. The girls get you to order drinks, expensive labels, and then they let you have a kiss and maybe even a little fondling. Then, just as you’re starting to rev up, the flower turns into a snake. The flower snake girl starts to shriek. Help, this swine tried to rape me! Help, help! Call the police! At this point, the nightclub’s bouncers, who are in on the sting, intervene, and they give our unfortunate tourist a little talk: for what you tried to do to this poor girl, it’s serious jail time, here in South Korea. And you can rest assured that Korean prison isn’t like the five-star hotels you’re used to back where you come from. Still, though, we’re reasonable people here. We’re not looking for trouble, truth be told. How much cash do you have on you? Fifty thousand won ought to be enough, it’s nothing for someone like you, that’s fifty euros, or fifty dollars, if you prefer, when it comes to foreign currencies we’re very flexible . . . Most of the time the unsuspecting unfortunate pulls out his wallet, pays, thanks them, and goes on his way. But every so often there’s a fool who decides to get obstinate. I didn’t do a thing, what are you talking about. She’s the one who tried to pick me up, she let me touch her, too, she practically insisted. Go ahead and call the police, I don’t have anything to be afraid of. The bouncers shrug and call the police, and when the officers show up, it becomes obvious that they’re in on the game. Our unfortunate tourist is arrested and thrown into jail. And sometimes he gets smacked around, if not worse.

  “But that’s not the way I am, Adriano. Let me say it again: You’re safe with me.”

  Because Mr. Gu is paying, Polimeni considered. He stroked her hair and said, softly:

  “Listen, May: I’m old enough to be your father.”

  A glint of solidarity flashed in the girl’s eyes. All ambiguity vanished. They had become friends.

  Mr. Gu was more or less Polimeni’s age, and the young woman accompanying him was more or less May’s age. She was also very similar in appearance and manners. But she didn’t do the same work as May. Or, perhaps, she did it on a different level, a much higher level. She was Crystal, just Crystal, a great singer, with an exceptional voice. She was his protégé. His favorite. The apple of his eye. And for his protégé, for his favorite, for the apple of his eye, Mr. Gu demanded the best.

  They were sitting at a round table in a restaurant whose name Polimeni would never be able to memorize. Mr. Gu had reserved the whole place. And an eight-piece orchestra, which Mr. Gu ordered to start playing when Crystal got up and, with studied slowness, headed over to the little stage at one end of the dining room. She sang a
romanza from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Very nice. Polimeni wasn’t an expert, but the young woman did seem to possess quite a voice, well trained and, at the same time, naturally powerful.

  When he came back to the table, Mr. Gu’s eyes were glistening with emotion. So now they got to the point. Gu, even though he spoke highly workable English, spoke in Korean, and May translated.

  Mr. Gu intends to finance a concert for Miss Crystal and he’d like the event to take place in the enchanting setting of the Basilica of Maxentius, in Rome. Mr. Gu will foot all the expenses, including the orchestra and a special section of five hundred seats for select guests from the worldwide cultural élite. Mr. Gu will underwrite the travel expenses and accommodations of all the guests. Mr. Gu will be honored if the mayor of Rome and Senator Polimeni would be so good as to inaugurate the ceremonies. Mr. Gu, aside from the expenses, is willing to underwrite a sizable donation to the magnificent city of Rome, which Mr. Gu loves like a second homeland.

  Mr. Gu stared at Adriano, waiting for a reply.

  The senator said that he’d need to inform the mayor. May translated. Mr. Gu nodded. The senator excused himself and stepped away from the table, pulling out his cell phone. To rent the Basilica of Maxentius so his protégé could sing there! Rome, Italy: the garden of classical Europe. The playground of capricious potentates. Of all the damned things! Is this what Italy had come to? Had politics come to this? His first temptation was to tell this fat cat to go to hell and take his corrupt whims with him. But then he calmed down. In the first place, this wasn’t his decision. In the second place, politics, or, if you like, administration of the state, had also come to this: a continual pleading and panhandling to get the damned budget to balance, the dictatorship of the economy, and to hell with it if for once a generous patron of the arts popped out of the woodwork. Martin Giardino answered on the third ring.