The Night of Rome Read online

  Setola said farewell, unable to get the image of the kudu antelope out of his head.

  PANTHEON. APRIL 8TH. EVENING.

  Chiara Visone had stayed at Montecitorio until late and, when she left, she remembered she hadn’t had a bite to eat since that morning. The sweetish, nauseating odor that was greasing the whole city eradicated all one’s senses. Nor did the drop in temperature in the evening hours offer any respite from the stench that wafted off the mountains of charred garbage, as well as from the other, still unburnt garbage, intact and piled high, waiting to be collected by special teams of the army and the civil protection service.

  The thought of Sebastiano was obsessive and—even though she couldn’t bring herself to admit it deep down—it was evident that she had gotten herself into this catastrophe through an excess of confidence. And yet Adriano had always warned her. Never be too sure of yourself.

  There’s no need to humiliate the defeated.

  Sure. There’s no need to humiliate the defeated. Right. Exactly. Okay. But hindsight is of no particular use, is it? After all, dumping Sebastiano had just been the logical next step in a game that, at that particular moment, allowed no other solutions. And now? Just how far would Sebastiano push things? How useful could it be to him to drag Rome down into the abyss?

  She tried to shake off those questions without an answer, heading for the Pantheon and imagining that a gelato with whipped cream at Giolitti’s would give her some relief. Suddenly, there he was, right in front of her. Leaning on a wall. As if he’d been waiting for her.

  For a moment she hesitated. Uncertain whether to attack him or ignore him, keep on walking as if he wasn’t there. She turned around to make sure no one was looking. Then she put on her defiant face.

  “I thought you were dead.” She addressed him in the formal voice.

  “Just a little problem with my smartphone battery. It happens. And anyway, didn’t we used to use the informal, or am I mistaken?”

  “Things change.”

  “I’d say from now on we go back to using it.”

  “You, sir, don’t decide that.”

  Sebastiano stared at her, his smile dripping with sarcasm.

  “Ha, ha, ha . . . Then you really haven’t learned a thing.”

  Chiara hated finding herself with her back to the wall.

  “Do we necessarily have to talk here in the street?”

  “It strikes me as the best place, and after all, we don’t have a lot to say.”

  “We could start with Frodo,” she said, provocatively, in a burst of offended pride.

  Sebastiano put on a crestfallen expression.

  “A true misfortune. Luckily, poor Frodo had left clear instructions in case of an untimely death.”

  “Did you do it?”

  “It was a regrettable accident, like I told you. But we don’t have much time, Chiara. And we need to consider the how.”

  “The how?”

  “Yes, the ‘how do we get out of this now.’ That’s why you’ve been trying to get in touch with me for days now, right? Well, listen to me. You’ve seen what we’re capable of. Or maybe I should say, what I’m capable of. Rome belongs to me. So there’s nothing to negotiate about. We’re going to do what I say. I’ll step aside and for a while you won’t see me around. Mariani will take a long vacation and the Consortium of Builders for the Rome Metro and the Rome Jubilee will get a nice, clean new face. Which, of course, I’m going to choose, with the benediction of that gentleman who you never gave me a chance to tell you about but who, as you can see, is still very influential in this fine city.”

  “And in exchange?”

  “You’re intelligent, Chiara. Why would you ask me such a banal question?”

  Visone lowered her eyes, pressing thumb and forefinger of her right hand against her temples.

  When she looked up again, he was no longer standing in front of her.

  She only had a chance to catch the sound of his voice as he vanished into the darkness of the narrow alleys around Via dei Prefetti.

  “Tomorrow the forecasts call for sunshine and a light breeze, Chiara. And something tells me that Rome will open up just like the sky. Sweet dreams.”

  XVII.

  APRIL 10TH

  Saint’s Day: Magdalene of Canossa, Virgin

  PIAZZA DELLE MUSE.

  It was past 11:30, but Sebastiano knew the biorhythms of that piece of human wreckage. He leaned hard on the intercom button, twice, then stood back to look up at the elegant apartment house on Piazza delle Muse. There was no answer, so he took the stairs, climbed up to the penthouse, and, without even bothering to knock, kicked the door, hard. Once, twice, three times. Until Danilo Mariani opened it with what was meant to be a curse but sounded much more like a death rattle.

  A gust of foul breath washed over Sebastiano, reeking of alcohol and rancid sweat. His eyes followed Danilo as, naked, he dragged himself into the bedroom. He stood hesitantly in the doorway for a few seconds. Then he made his mind up to go in. The apartment was dark. The air was stagnant and stale. Leftover food and vodka bottles were scattered across the carpet at the foot of a sofa spotted with unsettling stains. Sebastiano threw open the big French door in the bedroom and the light illuminated Danilo curled up on the king-sized bed. He was clutching the edge of the sheet in a fist clamped between his thighs, while the other hand covered his eyes.

  “I told you to get cleaned up,” he sighed, “and instead you . . . ”

  Mariani turned his head on the pillow and, with a superhuman effort, managed to focus on Sebastiano’s face.

  “I . . . ”

  Sebastiano didn’t let him utter a word. He grabbed him angrily by the hair, dragged him into the bathroom, and shoved his head into the tub, under a spray of ice-cold water. Until he heard him cry out and come back to life. Only then did he yank him to his feet. He shoved him forcefully with his back against the wall. Danilo had a look of terror in his eyes.

  Sebastiano stared at him with utter contempt.

  “There was just one thing you were supposed to do: get back in shape. And instead, you do nothing. And yet you know that all this mess started the day you asked Fabietto for that miserable loan.”

  Mariani started crying.

  “Cut it out!” Sebastiano shouted into his face. “Because I don’t feel sorry for you. You just make me sorry I haven’t already killed you. I’m going to give you one last chance, Danilo.”

  A last chance. To Danilo’s ears, those words sounded like a sudden flash of light in the darkness of that fury unlike anything he’d ever seen.

  “So . . . ?” he muttered.

  “So now you’re going to dress like a civilized human being, you’re going to drink two quarts of water, which will help you to piss out the mountain of coke you’ve snorted, and you’re coming with me to the bank.”

  Mariani, incredibly, found the strength to smile.

  “There’s nothing to laugh about. We aren’t going for a ride in the park and I’m not about to give you any charity.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That you’re out of the game.”

  “I don’t understand. What does that mean?”

  “That you’re no longer a reputable candidate. For the Capitoline Hill, for Rome, and, especially, for me. Mariani Construction no longer exists.”

  Danilo was seized with a sudden cramp in the pit of his stomach.

  “What do you mean, it no longer exists? What about the jubilee? What about the metro C line?”

  “You’re going to dissolve the company tomorrow. You’re folding it. The Mariani dynasty ends with you, on the 11th day of April in the year of our lord 2015. For the past century and a half your family has been chewing the flesh off Rome. Unfortunately, all they left you was a little gristle. And you don’t even have the teeth to chomp on that. You’re also g
oing to resign as the head of the Builders’ Consortium. You’re out of every last construction site and every public works project in Rome. You will be replaced by a clean new face.”

  “Who?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  Danilo tried to play the part of the tenderhearted employer.

  “But the workers’ families, don’t you care about them?”

  “Clever Mr. Real Estate Developer. You’re a pathetic asshole. Whoever takes your place is going to rehire all your workers, take over all your offices, and substitute for you in the public works contracts.”

  “I don’t . . . ”

  “You ‘don’t’ what? I’m not asking you if you’re willing to do something. I’m explaining to you what you’re going to do. Tomorrow. Or actually, make that now.”

  “But if I . . . ”

  “Danilo, listen to me. I don’t want this to be the last time I speak to you while you’re still alive. Is that clear?”

  Mariani took his face in both hands. Then Sebastiano finished him off.

  “You gave me no choice. Having come to this point, you are a necessary sacrifice. In your bank, you’ll find an account with a substantial sum that I’ll continue to replenish periodically. Let’s just say that you’re going to take a long vacation.”

  “And you’ve probably already chosen where.”

  “I see you’re starting to learn. Yes, I’ve already chosen. You’ll leave Rome. You’ll have a nice long stay on the shores of a pristine Swiss lake. Clean air, lots of silence, and most important of all, one of the finest narcotics detox and rehab centers in Europe. You’ll get a regular course of transfusions until you have the blood of a newborn and your brain has regained minimal levels of functionality. You’ll stop eating crap and drinking worse. And you’ll see, maybe you’ll even be able to get a hard-on.”

  “How long will I be away?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Danilo got dressed like a robot, more or less like a condemned man preparing for his execution. And once he’d tied a knot in his tie, he nodded to Sebastiano: he was ready.

  Sebastiano nodded. And only then did Mariani find the strength to open his mouth again.

  “It would have been better if you’d just killed me.”

  Heading toward the door, he stopped. He turned back to look at his bedroom, staring at the tactical crossbow leaning in a corner.

  At the bank, things went smooth as silk. Primo Zero, the messenger boy who was also the director of the branch office of the Craftsmen’s and Artisanal Manufacturers’ Savings Bank, had done things right. Mariani gave them his signature and simultaneously obtained the details of the Ticino-based fiduciary who, from that day forward, would serve as both bridge and screen for the progressive transfer of his funds from Rome to a bank in Lugano. An electronic front, invisible and, into the bargain, more than reasonably priced: one percent of the sums transferred.

  Zero was unable to refrain from offering his dose of slimy courtesy.

  “You won’t have to worry about a thing, Dottor Mariani. As I like to say to my best clients, such as Dottor Laurenti, my motto is: ‘From the tree to the finished piece of furniture,’ every detail attended to. And if I may be allowed to say it, lucky you, starting a new life.”

  Sebastiano dismissed him with a gesture of annoyance. He took Danilo back to Piazza delle Muse.

  “You have a plane leaving for Milan in two hours. There you’ll be greeted by a car that will take you to your destination. This evening I’ll check personally to make sure that you’ve arrived in Switzerland. This time, there won’t be a second chance.”

  Danilo nodded. He dragged himself back toward his apartment and, turning around in the front doorway, he said a final farewell to Sebastiano.

  “See you soon, Seba.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Malgradi typed the article in less than half an hour, and then he checked it with Sebastiano who, at first, was deeply skeptical. The mayor was never going to bite. Temistocle couldn’t seriously think that he could resolve the mess that he’d stirred up. Malgradi reassured him. He wasn’t working for the short term, he was thinking about the future. It’s obvious that as far as the jubilee was concerned, he had lost that battle. Today. But “today” and “tomorrow,” he had explained to Samurai’s right-hand man, are relative concepts, in politics. An expert like him wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of enlisting a new platoon of hitters and bruisers. The contacts he possessed, a food chain that reached way, way up, to the very top, my dear Seba, certainly hadn’t been interrupted. If anything, temporarily suspended. At the right moment, they would come back to life, and they’d be very useful indeed. Sebastiano gave his approval, provided that his name was kept out of it. Malgradi reassured him: perish the thought.

  Malgradi got to work on Visone. He delivered a little sermon, clear and simple: you’re holding the reins now, my dear, but my experience may be invaluable to you. I’ll act in the shadows, but I’ll always be at your side. Visone made it clear to him that she didn’t give a damn about his protestations of undying loyalty, and that in any case she didn’t set any store by them. All the same, she added in somewhat sibylline terms, you never ought to humiliate the defeated, and she therefore agreed. Provided that her name be kept out of it. Malgradi reassured her as well—this wouldn’t last long, his pariah status—and he asked her the favor of arranging to get Spartaco Liberati his job back. I’d be grateful to you, he explained to her, and you’ll be able to use him. One hour later, Spartaco Liberati, in a brand-new banana-yellow suit, with a cyclamen-colored shirt and a white tie emblazoned with a saxophonist, was standing in front of him. Malgradi was expecting at least a thank you. Spartaco sat down and informed him that he’d been given his old job back thanks to Chiara Visone’s intervention, and that from this day forward his only allegiance would be to her. Malgradi bitterly chewed that one over, and rudely thrust the article at him.

  XVIII.

  APRIL 13TH

  Saint’s Day: Pope St. Martin I

  Il Meridiano

  Independent Newsweekly

  WITH MARTIN GIARDINO, I GOT EVERYTHING WRONG. AND I’M READY TO APOLOGIZE.

  For the First Time Since the No-Confidence Motion in the City Assembly on the Capitoline Hill, the Former Deputy Mayor Temistocle Malgradi Confesses.

  by Spartaco Liberati

  Since the party dumped him, Temistocle Malgradi has been devoting himself body and soul to La Casa di Vicky, the charitable institution that Rome’s former deputy mayor runs and finances, and which works to get the down and out up and back on their feet. Before welcoming me into his office, Malgradi kept me in the waiting room for a long time. But this wasn’t a case of a disgraced politico reveling in petty arrogance, far from it. The mystery of the lengthy wait was cleared up when Malgradi appeared at his office door. With him was a young Rom woman in tears. Malgradi comforted her, whispering words of encouragement, and then entrusted her to a young volunteer, a girl in denim overalls. When I was finally ushered into his unadorned office, he told me that poor Olimpia (The girl’s name is not disguised here. She was born in Rome to globe-trotting Bosnian parents.) had suffered a horrible and traumatic rape, and she has not yet overcome the consequences of that experience, both physical and psychological.

  “And it wasn’t her own people, no indeed, my good Liberati. They were Italians, people just like you and me. Which tells us all we need to know about the racist prejudices that still infect our fair city. What would have happened if it had been the other way around, if a Rom had raped an Italian girl? And, let me add, little older than a child. You saw her, didn’t you? I can just imagine the headlines in the papers, the aggressive campaigns from the right . . . ah, don’t get me started. This city of ours.”

  He looks weary, Temistocle Malgradi, but his gaze is noble, as befits someone who has decided to consecrate hi
s life to the common good. And even though at first he tries to deny it, Rome is and remains his chief interest. His obsession, you might even say.

  “Rome is about to undertake the extraordinary experience of the jubilee, and I hardly need to tell you how clearly I identify with the noble works of Our Most Holy Father. And I feel sure that, under the wise guidance of the former senator Polimeni and especially of our mayor Martin Giardino, our city will be able to show itself at its finest, thus avoiding any recurrence of the tawdry episodes of corruption and profiteering that have, unfortunately, marked such great occasions in the past. The Jubilee of Mercy will be a triumph of legality and rectitude, I can assure you of that.”

  Even if Malgradi appears very sincere, and his words sound convincing, I can’t keep from asking a question. For that matter, the publication for which I have the honor to write isn’t one of those that lies down and lets itself be used as a doormat by the mighty and the powerful.

  “You’ve just praised Martin Giardino, Dottor Malgradi. And yet, a few days ago you supported a motion demanding his resignation. How do you explain that?”

  Malgradi throws both arms wide, and heaves a sigh.

  “What can I tell you? My intention was to serve as a prod and a stimulus. I thought it was time to exhort the mayor to have a firmer grip and assume full control of the situation, and perhaps to show greater trust in his colleagues.”

  “So you never actually planned to demand Martin Giardino’s resignation?”

  “Are you kidding? I voted for him in the primaries, I was always at his side in all the most challenging moments!”

  “Allow me to insist, that motion . . . ”

  “Let me stop you right there. There was never a motion in my name. Go check for yourself. If anyone is starting rumors about my support or even my role in such a thing, I’ll reply in a court of law with an ample array of evidence and sworn witnesses.”