The Night of Rome Page 6

Yes, that was too much. The old man was right.

  Polimeni left the club while the burst of applause and low roar of pounding feet that you’d expect at a soccer stadium brought the house down. As he walked out, he was bumped aside by a heavyset guy who was surprisingly and improbably well dressed. A camel-hair coat and a Borsalino fedora that crushed down his already short stature so that he looked like a dwarf.

  Polimeni was so pissed off that he didn’t even have the presence of mind to smile at that grotesque apparition. Neither did he notice, therefore, that the self-propelled refrigerator in camel hair was making straight for “Dottor Sebastiano Laurenti,” the club’s new guardian angel.

  Sebastiano immediately recognized Silvio Anacleti and dragged him out into the street.

  “I told you out in front of the club. Not inside.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “The difference is that you wind up in a picture taken by some asshole and, a few months later, in the pages of some newsweekly, so that later a member of parliament or a deputy mayor will have to explain why they were there, sharing oxygen with a guy like you, who has a criminal record longer than his arm.”

  “Don’t make such a big deal out of it. Who even reads newspapers anymore?”

  “Listen, I don’t have time to waste. I have a problem with Fabio Desideri.”

  “Fabio . . . Fabietto?””

  “The very same.”

  “No kidding. What happened? That boy’s good as gold.”

  “Nothing so far. But I’ve got a sneaking suspicion something’s about to.”

  “Ah. So what can I do about it?”

  “Take a look around. Very discreetly. Don’t kick up any dust. I just want to know what he’s got in mind.”

  “But what’s the problem?”

  “That’s none of your fucking business.”

  “Okay, all right, Sebastia’. I’ll look into it and get back to you.”

  “Good. And I’ll buy you a new overcoat.”

  “Why, something about this one you don’t like?”

  “It makes you look too tall.”

  Sebastiano tried to make his way back into the main room of the club, but after a few steps he found himself face-to-face with Chiara. Who smiled at him.

  “You certainly hang out with some interesting people . . . ”

  “I read somewhere that the DP is home to everyone. Or not? Shall we talk it over at our leisure? Maybe over dinner.”

  PRIORY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA. NIGHT.

  In the pitch darkness, the Giardino degli Aranci, or Orange Garden, was an extravaganza of perfumes. Chiara Visone burst out laughing. Sebastiano gestured for her to follow him.

  “Are you sure, Sebastiano? If they find us in here at two in the morning, what are we going to say?”

  “It’s a public facility. And after all, you’re a member of the Italian Parliament . . . ”

  Chiara laughed again.

  “What a dope you are.”

  “Then we’ll explain that we’re here because, unbelievably, you don’t know the worst kept secret in all of Rome.”

  “What secret are you talking about?”

  Sebastiano took her by the hand and dragged her to the gate of the Priory of the Knights of Malta. Where he invited her to bend over and press her eye against the keyhole.

  Chiara hesitated for a moment. Then she did as Sebastiano had asked her. In front of her, at the end of a visual corridor that stretched for miles, and which the wizardry of an eccentric genius had reduced to a few inches, loomed the dome of St. Peter’s. A rarefied mirage of shapes and light hovering over the city. She felt Sebastiano’s hands brush her hips.

  “It’s the only piece of architecture ever built by Piranesi. By eliminating space and distance, it creates a mystical conjunction between the state and faith. I couldn’t come up with a better metaphor for Rome.”

  She turned around and searched for his mouth. Here she was, deeply moved, electrified in the presence of the miracle. Like millions of tourists before her, thought Sebastiano. With a blend of pride for his conquest and disappointment at the ease with which he had attained it.

  They wound up back at his house. His father’s house. The house he’d taken back as his own, making the loan sharks who had first taken it away from him crawl through puddles of their own blood. The Three Little Pigs, people used to call them.

  “This is a wonderful place,” Chiara whispered as she let her silk blouse slip off of her shoulders.

  Sebastiano nodded.

  And he took her.

  Later on, while he was sleeping, stretched sideways atop the black sheets, both fists clenched and a furrowed brow creasing his handsome face, Chiara quietly got dressed. She wanted to avoid waking up together. She’d leave him a funny note, or maybe a sweet one, or maybe one that was both. Going to bed with Sebastiano had been nice. Was she getting herself into a relationship? Or was this just sex? Sebastiano had come looking for her, no doubt about it, and he’d come looking for her quite forcefully. This, too, was unmistakable. The check had been nothing more than a pretext. A man who knew what he wanted, and capable of identifying the winning strategy. A man who kept questionable company, at the very least: the oil drum in an overcoat he’d stopped to talk to at the door of the club reeked of organized crime a mile away. Were they in business together? And what sort of business? Sebastiano claimed to represent a group of companies. Which companies? She’d look into it. No question, Sebastiano was a well turned out individual, an elegant conversationalist with a rich array of ironic observations and witty ripostes. With an undertone of melancholy sweetness. A young member of the bourgeoisie with a good education and hints of mystery. Intriguing. And yet, at the same time, foolishly predictable. Ever since she’d first arrived in Rome, with a brand-new degree in Economics, not a single man had asked her out without inevitably pulling out the old song and dance of the Knights of Malta. A well established routine that she’d never once avoided or forestalled. She found it amusing to play her part, pretending to be moved, stirred, excited, in other words, the full panoply of the fresh-faced sentimental provincial girl, unconsciously seductive. Men, in their bottomless vanity, found that endlessly reassuring. Only once had she showed her cards. It happened when she’d read in the eyes of the man who had squired her there yet again a clear awareness of her bluff. She’d fessed up, and by confessing her deception had transformed a predictable defeat into a convenient stalemate.

  Chiara Visone had a stab of pain.

  Adriano Polimeni had never been just “a guy who squired her around.” Adriano was Adriano. And for her, in spite of everything, still a problem. While she waited for her cab outside, she realized that she hadn’t left a message of any description for Sebastiano: neither sweet nor funny.

  III.

  MONDAY, MARCH 16TH, 2015

  Saint’s Day: St. Heribert, Archbishop of Cologne

  A PRISON IN THE NORTH, MAXIMUM SECURITY WING.

  EIGHT THIRTY IN THE MORNING.

  Samurai raised himself up on his forearms. He caught his breath, resting there for a long while in a half bent-over position. Then he lay down on his cot. Another brief pause, and then he assumed the lotus position. Seventy-five push-ups. All things considered, an acceptable result, considering the fact that he was sixty. The cabinet ministers that keep pushing retirement age later and later are right, actually: we’re living longer.

  He took off the pants of his tracksuit and, now naked, washed himself acrobatically under the weak, ice-cold stream of a doll’s house faucet.

  Draped in a rough sheet provided by the prison administration, he remembered with longing the sensation of cool power that came with his silk kimonos. That really was the only creature comfort that he missed. Along with his tea, of course. The tea you got in here was a filthy slop.

  But the exile wasn’t destined to
last much longer. Certainly, much less than the fifteen years and six months to which he’d been sentenced in his first trial and on appeal. And which the Supreme Court would soon reduce, if not throw out completely. A wistful hope? Not at all. Just simple common sense. Samurai knew too much, had too many friends, if that term could be used for his business clientele who continued to send him stalwart attestations of solidarity.

  So many, too many, were dancing on the brink of the abyss. All of them bound to him by a cord that he couldn’t allow to snap. Samurai couldn’t afford to fall because if he did, he’d trigger an earthquake.

  They’d have to kill him before they were rid of him. There were those who had tried, and they’d lived to regret it, bitterly. Now, as far as he could see, the horde of would-be suicides had died out.

  But now they were trying to bend him.

  He took in at a distracted glance the landscape that for the past three years and four months had punctuated his days. A cell ten feet by thirteen, a cot, a high window, well out of reach, plastic furniture with rounded edges, no flammable objects, all furnishings made of fire-resistant materials. A small table anchored to the floor to prevent it being used as an offensive weapon. A small sink and a toilet. Individual showers, once a week. Random visual spot checks. Sudden, thorough searches at any time of the day or night. One visit a month with his family members, in rooms specially designed and “equipped to prevent the handoff of objects.” Audio recording, video recording, censorship stamps on the correspondence. Social interactions reduced to a bare minimum in a narrow courtyard, under the watchful eyes of armed correctional officers. Formal, rigid, chilly prison staff. A long, continuous silence.

  Article 41-bis of the Correctional System. In emergency situations, the prisons are allowed to suspend all rules. The prisons that had been humanized by so many lovely reforms accompanied by so many lovely intentions draped in so many lovely speeches still take one giant step backward when confronted with murderers, terrorists, and Mafiosi. Restrictions that verged on sheer inhumanity. The theory behind this provision, to use the terminology of a nitpicking legal pettifogger: to prevent contacts amongst co-conspirators, bring to bear the full burden of the sentence. Underlying philosophy: undermine free will, encourage defections, induce hard-liners to turn state’s witness.

  With lots of miserable wretches, it had worked fine. But not with him. Samurai wasn’t going to fold. Samurai was going to come back. It was only a matter of time. He’d lost a battle, but he sat firm in his saddle.

  He was still the master of Rome, and he always would be.

  From outside, the peephole was opened. Two frightened eyes appeared. A hesitant voice announced a visit from the lawyer. Thanks to the pressure brought to bear by the defense counsel lobby, the rigors of Article 41-bis, at least on this point, had been relaxed somewhat. You could only see your wife and children once a month, but your lawyer as often as three times a week.

  “I’ll be ready in a second,” Samurai sang out, with a half smile.

  The lawyer was waiting for him in the visiting room. When he saw him he leapt to his feet.

  “At ease, counselor, at ease.”

  Manlio Setola was a tanned gentleman in his early fifties with a flowing mane of hair, a salt-and-pepper beard, and a relaxed, suavely sociable manner. He was a former prosecutor. For years he had run roughshod over evildoers, taking on all the most spectacular investigations as his own personal crusades. He was an expert at finding the legal solutions that made everyone happy. Especially the man in the street. And in one case in particular, in the distant past, he had even made a young Samurai happy, and as a result the older Samurai hadn’t forgotten him. Setola had resigned from the magistracy just moments before being actually ejected, possibly with a sharp, swift disciplinary kick in the ass, and had transitioned into the ranks of criminal defense lawyers. Samurai had divested himself of his old legal counselors, who were far too punctilious about professional standards of legal practice, and had hired him full-time. Samurai was, practically speaking, his only client. In terms of technical proficiency, he was no fool. But what counted most was that he couldn’t really afford to disobey any of Samurai’s orders.

  “You’re in good shape, I see.”

  “I’m up to seventy-five push-ups. But I’m starting to notice a certain weariness, especially with the food. The cooking here is hard to digest.”

  “The Supreme Court hearing has been moved up. It’s a matter of days now. We have high hopes.”

  “Hope isn’t enough.”

  “For the attempted murder charges, the situation is compromised. The evidence is too strong.”

  “Four years of concurrent sentences for the international narcotics trafficking and Mafia co-conspiracy . . . four years you’ve already served . . . I could demand damages for wrongful detention. What about the rest?”

  “So about the rest . . . ”

  “About the rest?”

  Setola sighed.

  “There’s that question about the surveillance, the wiretaps . . . they’re obviously unusable. That ought to be clear to everyone.”

  “Ought to be is a conditional form. I much prefer the present tense and the indicative mood.”

  Setola gulped.

  “It’s clear.”

  “Now that’s better. Any other news?”

  “Have you heard about the jubilee?”

  A broad smile appeared on Samurai’s face.

  “The time has come for us to do good deeds, counselor. Let you-know-who have a full report.”

  ROME, TESTACCIO QUARTER. PIAZZA DELL’EMPORIO.

  KREMLIN. MORNING.

  For some time now, Senator, or shall we say instead, former Senator, Adriano Polimeni had gone to live in the large ocher-yellow apartment building on Piazza dell’Emporio that was jocularly known as the Kremlin because it had historically been the chosen residence of big cheeses and high muck-a-mucks of the old Italian Communist Party. Now the party had changed its name and also its spots, but many militants, whether active or in hibernation, so to speak, continued to live there. The Kremlin overlooked the Ponte Sublicio, which, in ancient times, as the Pons Sublicius, had constituted the most heavily armed access route to regal Rome. Legend has it that a heroic Roman, Publius Horatius Cocles, held back, single-handed, the entire Etruscan army, stymieing its attempts to cross the bridge until his fellow Romans could organize a counterattack. As Monsignor Giovanni Daré climbed up four flights of an airy, luminous staircase, he couldn’t restrain a smile. A picture had flitted through his mind of Adriano Polimeni in the garb of an ancient Roman, an image that was by equal parts grotesque and heroic, perhaps ever so slightly pathetic. He was waving his sword over his head and bellowing revolutionary slogans at his enemies . . . well, now, let’s not overdo it . . . Adriano had never been an extremist . . . let’s just say he was spouting some leftist phrase or other . . . as hordes of artfully attired and coiffed young men and young ladies in stiletto heels tried to break through the lines . . . He halted for a moment on the landing to catch his breath. Concerning the finale of the story of Publius Horatius Cocles he remembered two versions. Having beaten back the enemy attack, the hero leaps into the Tiber. First version, more realistic: his armor drags him to the river bottom, drowning him. Second version, more benevolent and mystical: having shed the heavy armor by lithe and vigorous maneuvering, Horatius made his way to the opposite shore, ready to resume the fight. Monsignor Daré was still uncertain which of the two finales he wished upon his friend—a hero’s death or survival, with the inevitable burden of further disappointments—when, even before he had a chance to ring the doorbell, the door swung open and Adriano Polimeni, attired in his inevitable light cashmere sweater, seized him in a vigorous and fraternal embrace.

  As Polimeni offered him espresso, pastries, and mini-pizzas with red sauce—the ones from Linari in Testaccio, just like in the old days—his gaze
wandered over the furnishings. Books, books, and more books. And a few items of special interest. A bronze bust of Karl Marx, cleft in twain by a yellow star . . .

  “It’s by Krzysztof Bednarski, a Polish sculptor.”

  “Very nice.”

  “Well, he had the Communists where he lived. The real ones, I mean to say.”

  Giovanni said nothing. He’d been captivated by a nude of a woman crouching over. An avalanche of memories swept him away. He remembered exactly when that canvas—midway between the metaphysical and pure abstraction—had been painted, who had painted it, and on what occasion it had been painted. He remembered every single point made in the debate that had followed its delivery by a mediocre artist who would never win a slot for himself in art history. But in Rossana’s heart, he sure did, by God. And he and Adriano had talked themselves hoarse, insisting that that miserable scribble-and-smear completely failed to do honor to the mysterious beauty of that goddess, and so on and so forth. The scribble-and-smear was all that remained of her. The scribble-and-smear, and a stabbing pain that time can only muffle, but never erase.

  “She was magnificent, wasn’t she, Giovanni?”

  “She was crazy, Adriano.”

  “And we were crazy about her.”

  “And she was crazy about the painter.”

  “I still see him around every so often.”

  “And?”

  “And we nod, say hello.”

  “Even he wasn’t capable of saving her from herself.”

  “Rossana couldn’t be saved, Giovanni. She didn’t belong in this world.”

  They sat side by side on a large corner sofa illuminated by the view of the Tiber. They remained there for a while, each of them immersed in his own memories. It was always that way when they saw each other. The lost love that had once divided them now brought them back together. But it was, in point of fact, a lost love. Giovanni thought that Adriano had gone into politics to make up for that loss. And Adriano was certain that Giovanni had turned to his religious faith for the same reason. They were both wrong, and they each knew they were both wrong. But that shared unspoken conviction was so wonderfully reassuring.