A guy in a black coat and peaked cap holds up a sign reading “Sig. Hoskins” when we get through Linate’s customs and immigration. His black Mercedes sedan takes us down an expressway that becomes an increasingly urban street clogged with midday traffic. Postwar architecture, some parks, billboards and posters that look like the billboards and posters we get every other November, except in Italian. “Is there an election or something?” I ask the driver.
“Si, signore. Very soon now.”
The closer we get to the center of town, the more it seems like we’re worming our way through a maze. I catch a glimpse of the Duomo’s spires: the Duomo! For real! I also notice a lot of people heading toward those spires carrying pink or yellow or orange flags. We pass a couple rainbow flags and a sign with “Libera” splashed across it. “What is this?” I ask Carson. “Gay Pride Day in Milan?”
Carson shakes her head. “Anti-Mob Day.”
The Italian Mafia didn’t come to our gallery. The Russians, yes, and don’t get me started about the Mexicans. I watch the banners and signs pass by and pick out a few words here and there. Cosa Nostra I know because I saw all the Godfather movies. “Mafia” is universal; so is “No.” I get the point.
After we move about a hundred feet in twenty minutes, the driver twists around to face me. “Signore, mi dispiace. The roads, they are, um, too full.” The poor guy’s blushing.
“I see that. How far to the hotel?”
We grab our bags and dodge the Libera people until we reach an open plaza a couple dozen yards down the street. A building across the square catches my eye before we turn left into the arcade that’s supposed to lead us to the hotel. I stop to gawk. Eighteenth-century neoclassical, gray stone details against cream stucco.
“What?” Carson barks.
“That’s La Scala.”
“So?”
“Dude, that’s La Scala. The most famous opera house in the world. It’s almost as old as America. Madame Butterfly premiered–”
An iron hand clamps my elbow and drags me away from the curb. “I gotta piss. Go see the opera later.”
It’s not some fleabit market alley on the other side of the arcade entrance; it’s the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, the grandest of the mid-nineteenth century shopping arcades. A glass-and-iron vault stretches over a broad promenade lined with large stone arches, each one a shop door or window. The mosaic floor is a riot of geometric reds, blues, tans and blacks.
We both stop dead. Carson just shakes her head in wonder. I say, “Welcome to the mall, Belle Époque style.”
As we trundle down the concourse, I notice the other end—about a block away—is completely choked with people. More flags, more signs. The crowd roar fills every empty space, including my ears. “I didn’t know the Mob’s so big up here. Aren’t they down south?”
“You mean the Cosa Nostra. Sicilian Mafia. All the Mob movies are about them.”
“So how many mafias are up here?”
“Too fucking many.” Carson’s starting to speed up; maybe she can’t hold it much longer. “Three main ones to watch here. The ‘Ndrangheta’s from Calabria, the foot of Italy. Watch the Mob movies? Know how the Sicilians call their gangs ‘families’?”
“Yeah.”
“‘Ndrangheta calls them ‘ndrine. They really are families—they’re blood relations or in-laws. There’s enough ‘ndrine in Milan to make a locale, a group of families. They’re worldwide. They run the cocaine trade in Europe.”
“I’ve never heard of them.”
“Yeah, nobody has except the Italians.” Her tone says she’s irritated, but I don’t know if it’s because of the subject or me. “There’s the Albanians. Do their own thing, but the ‘Ndrangheta subcontracts to them, too. Opportunists. Do whatever to whoever for whatever.”
An uncomfortable flash: that sounds like Gar and me at the gallery. “What’s the third group?”
We reach the ottogono, an octagonal plaza under the central glass dome. It’s choked with tourists and protesters on their coffee break. Carson stops to get her bearings on her phone; there’s no sign that says this way to the hotel. She’s quiet for so long I figure she’s blown off my question. Then she says, “Russians.”
“Italy doesn’t have enough gangsters? It has to import?”
She shoots me a crabby look. “Nobody asked for them. Milan got part of the Solntsevskaya Bratva brigade in Vienna.”
“The what?”
“Solntsevo Brotherhood, out of Moscow. Biggest, strongest Russian mob. Hard-core as the movies say. They’re muscling in on the ‘Ndrangheta’s turf. They’re global, too.” She points her whole arm down one of the halls. “That way.”
I trot to keep up. She seriously must need to pee. I scrape up the nerve to ask, “How do you know all this?”
“Just do.”
“Bullshit.”
“Leave it.”
“You were mobbed up, weren’t you? That’s why Allyson took—”
“The Mob? I was a cop!”
She screeches to a halt, fuming. For a moment, I’m sure she’s going to hit me. But then she leans her head back, closes her eyes, and mouths “fuck!”
A cop. This explains so much: the way she moves, her attitude, the way her eyes are always looking for threats, even her vocabulary.
“Now you know,” Carson snarls. She’s staring at me with her sucking-lemons expression. “Happy?”
Not especially. Still, while she’s talking… “Were you a Mountie or something?”
That sets her off again. “Wasn’t any goddamn pony. TPS.” She must read the complete lack of a clue on my face. “Toronto Police Services. Detective sergeant, Organized Crime Enforcement.”
“Okay.” One more? Try it. “Why’d you stop?”
Her mouth twitches. “Wasn’t my idea.”