Like all the residents of the city, Nicolas felt a chill the minute he stepped away from its streets, but he hadn’t suffered in Milan, and he wasn’t suffering now that he and his paranza had returned from the north. This morning they’d all awakened to intermittent rain showers, as if a gang of ill-intentioned clouds were having fun swooping back and forth over the city, and every time they emptied their rainwater the temperature dropped precipitously, making the hairs stand up on your forearm. Then the sun insolently managed to wedge itself back in, just making it clear once and for all that this was his personal territory, and the temperature bobbed back up, bringing with it the smell of tar, of the condensation that still hadn’t had time to issue forth, releasing that aroma of hot asphalt, a whiff that blocks your nostrils.
The souvenir needed to be delivered promptly to L’Arcangelo. Actually, the gift consisted of two separate items. A box of mozzarella—a foam container that they’d jammed with ice cubes—and a panettone that they’d bought in Milan at a pastry shop in the city center while the girls were shopping in the boutiques.
When they returned, the city had welcomed them with rain, and that morning, too, the rain continued intermittently to shove the sunshine aside.
Nicolas had tugged loose the handle made with adhesive packing tape on the box of mozzarella, and he’d done the same with the cord on the panettone package. Then he’d hauled them up into the crook of his elbow so he could have both hands free to drive the scooter, and he’d bought a rain poncho to keep the gifts for L’Arcangelo dry. He climbed aboard the TMAX, taking care not to dent the boxes too much, and once he was securely seated, Briato’ put the poncho on him from above, lowering it over his head.
Maraja went straight to the industrial parking lot on the A3 highway. He looked like a scarecrow that some fluke of the wind had shrouded in a chance trash bag. Aucelluzzo was waiting for him at the camper cemetery. He’d rather just take the downpour like a man, Aucelluzzo had said, and then had proceeded to complain about how sick he was of being a postman. Nicolas didn’t even comment. Five minutes later, he was climbing the stairs to the apartment of Professoressa Cicatello. With one arm stiff, holding the box of mozzarella from below, and the other arm behind him, holding the panettone. He set both boxes down carefully on the marble floor of the landing and rang the doorbell. No answer. He tried again. Nothing. And yet he knew there had to be someone at home, because if he placed his ear against the door, he could hear the sound of slippers sliding across the floor. He rang a third time, leaning on the button for a long time, so that he knew L’Arcangelo could hear him from upstairs. Then he realized that he just needed to resign himself to the fact that he’d have to wait there for a while, who knows how long, serving out the penance that L’Arcangelo had ordained for him.
In the meantime, the sun had come back out, and the sudden spike in the temperature was threatening his souvenir. Nicolas started pounding on the door: “Signo’, my gift for Don Vitto’ is going to go bad, this is the finest mozzarella, please, I’m begging you, let me in—” The sound of more slippers on the floor, this time a more persistent sound, and at last the door swung open, with four brusque turns of the dead-bolt key. Professoressa Cicatello was wearing yellow kitchen gloves and she raised them toward Nicolas as if to push him away, but he didn’t give her a chance, because he pulled out a hundred-euro bill and placed it on her cheek. “Signo’, my hands are full,” he said, as he was already running into the kitchen. At an angle, precariously, his eyes fixed on the narrow rungs, he climbed the ladder like an acrobat, careful to keep from tipping the mozzarella box too sharply. The ice in the box must have melted by now. When he reached the trapdoor, there was nothing he could do but start shouting: “Cicogno’, it’s me, Nicolas! Cicogno’!” Another penance, he thought, and then he tried: “Cicogno’, please open up, my surprise for Don Vitto’ is going to go bad.”
’O Cicognone opened the trap door, and then stood there to relish the scene of a sweaty, panting Nicolas, and in the end he informed him that he could come up, but then he’d have to wait awhile because Don Vittorio was up on the roof, choosing whores.
Nicolas managed to get up the last two steps, objecting that he’d paid his penance: enough was enough.
“He’s on the roof, I told you, put your things on the table.”
“No, I have to go up … it’ll go bad!”
’O Cicognone shrugged and vanished into the kitchen.
Nicolas climbed the spiral staircase concealed in a built-in armoire at the end of the hallway. That was how Don Vittorio got to the roof, by climbing up a vertical tunnel that penetrated through twenty feet of reinforced concrete. Don Vittorio was proud of those narrow shafts that he’d had driven through the whole building, allowing him to move freely. “The circulatory system,” he called it. It never occurred to Nicolas that he might set the boxes down, because he knew ’o Cicognone would stick his beak in them for sure.
Once he reached the roof, he saw a very different Don Vittorio from the last time. Gray trousers and a light blue shirt, loafers, and a Rolex on his wrist. He was freshly shaven, and not only because he was going to meet his girls, as he called them. There was still a sense of slovenly neglect, such as a dark stain at the knee of his trousers or the hair that was too long at the nape of his neck, but overall, he looked like a different man.
In front of him, five prostitutes were shielding themselves from the sun in the shade of the dish antennas that Don Vittorio had had put in for all the tenants. The black clouds were moving away in compact formation, and Nicolas retreated under a dripping rain gutter.
The five women looked like sisters. Probably South American, short, dark-skinned, with enormous breasts. Look at that, L’Arcangelo really likes women, thought Nicolas. Don Vittorio paid him no mind, simply beckoned the prostitutes forward one by one by crooking the forefinger of his right hand, then he’d spin the finger in the air, and the prostitutes would show off a pirouette, and when he bent his first two fingers at the knuckle, they’d bend over at the waist, and finally, he’d tell them to walk back and forth with a movement that could easily be mistaken for a head-shake of rejection. Five times in a row, each the same as the last, until the last prostitute blew him a kiss and he said, never once taking his eyes off her: “Nico’, let me fuck this one, and then I’m all yours.”
“Don Vitto’, I came to make my apologies,” said Nicolas. He grabbed the two boxes and lifted them off the floor.
“Ah, so it’s one of the Three Magi, bearing gifts,” said L’Arcangelo without bothering to turn around. “You waited awhile, didn’t you? Well, wait until I have my fuck.”
“No, no, it’s important,” Nicolas objected. All that effort to get to that point, and the gift for L’Arcangelo was going to be ruined for a stupid fuck with a whore. “Don Vitto’,” he tried again, but now he was interrupted by the prostitute who’d been selected by L’Arcangelo. She slipped her hand between his shirt buttons as she rubbed her hip against his crotch. “Vitto’,” she whispered in the voice of someone promising honey, “I’ll wait for you, in the meantime I’ll have a bite to eat.”
“Mary Magdalene has come to the rescue of the Wise Man bearing gifts,” said L’Arcangelo, planting a kiss on the prostitute’s forehead.
“Grazie, signori’,” said Nicolas.
They went down the spiral staircase. The old man went first, moving with slow, exasperating caution, setting one foot on one step before committing to the next one, waiting to make sure that the other foot was lined up properly. Behind him, the young man was seething with impatience, certain that L’Arcangelo was going to welcome his surprise. And how.
Don Vittorio took a seat in his armchair and lit a Toscano cigar. He stared at a point just above Nicolas’s head, an inch or so, no more, making sure not to look him in the eyes. If Nicolas moved, L’Arcangelo followed him, but always gazing up just a little.
The first gift was the panettone.
“I was in Milan, Don Vitto’, have you ever been there?”
“Of course I have,” he said. “We owned Vi.Ga Construction. One time I even went to see a game at the San Siro. We put in three goals against Milan. What a night.”
“That’s the only good thing they have,” said Nicolas, pointing to the panettone.
“And what does the mozzarella have to do with anything?” asked L’Arcangelo, setting the panettone aside. He had always refused to eat panettone when he went on his missions among the industrial sheds of Brianza, and he wasn’t about to start now.
“This isn’t mozzarella. This is a cake for the celebration.”
“What do we have to celebrate?”
Nicolas opened the mozzarella box on the table. Tock, went an ice cube. That’s a good sign, thought Nicolas, and he called ’o Cicognone.
’O Cicognone had seen dozens of boxes just like that one in his life, and he’d prepared dozens more. He knew that you had to take great care in opening the box, otherwise you ran the risk of spilling the mozzarella milk, leaving the mozzarella high and dry in nothing more than a sad puddle of liquid. He yanked the lower end of the length of adhesive tape and started pulling, steadily and without jerks. Once he’d removed the vertical tape, ’o Cicognone proceeded to the horizontal, which connected the lid to the box proper. As he removed that strip, an increasingly pungent stench rose to his nostrils. He pulled off the last length and— “What the fuck!” he shouted, stumbling backward until he ran up against a credenza.
“He won’t bite anymore,” said Nicolas, his eyes focused on L’Arcangelo and the smile of someone ready to savor the scene. “Do you recognize him, Don Vitto’?”
L’Arcangelo was motionless, his face white; ‘o Cicognone, covering mouth and nose with the bottom of his T-shirt, stepped close to the box again. In a greenish fluid, with black veins running through it, studded with worn-out magic pine tree deodorizers, floated a man’s head.
“Why, it’s ’o Tigrotto, Don Vitto’,” said ’o Cicognone in the piercing voice of a little boy on his birthday.
“Now your son Gabriele can rest in peace,” said Nicolas.
L’Arcangelo got up from where he was sitting, took a step, getting close enough to peek into the box, and then collapsed back into the armchair. Nicolas was now looking at a decrepit old man, stunned, mouth agape, the same man who just a few weeks earlier had kicked him out of the house. He’d dropped his Toscano cigar on the floor, while ’o Cicognone continued to shout, “’O Tigrotto! ’O Tigrotto! ’O Tigrotto!” extremely excited, to the point that he actually stuck both hands into that purulent water and hauled out the head of Gabriele Grimaldi’s murderer.
“Put down this death’s head,” L’Arcangelo ordered, then went over to hug Nicolas. He held him tight, and stood there for a while like that, chest to chest, his arms crossed over Nicolas’s back, like a couple of lovers who hadn’t seen each other in far too long. At last Don Vittorio straightened up, placed both hands on Nicolas’s ears, and pulled him close. A kiss with lips clamped. Nicolas was overwhelmed by L’Arcangelo’s cologne. He felt his stomach contract, but only for a second, because he actually felt fine. On his tongue, he felt the silence that is created between father and son when they make peace.
All was forgiven and now they could start over. They were even now—but from two different positions; the father who punishes and absolves, the son who learns and grows, surpassing the parent.
’O Cicognone had come back to the kitchen to get the Chivas Regal so they could drink a toast, caught somewhere between a repressed urge to vomit and a proliferation of sweet words in memory of Gabriele and libelous insults against ’o Tigrotto.
Nicolas wanted to tell him about the general Hasdrubal Barca who lost to Scipio, who then sliced off his head, which is the way of victors. He’d watched the documentary on the History Channel, even he couldn’t have said how many times he’d sat through it, and he’d prepared very specific words to say to L’Arcangelo. But that impetus Don Vittorio had shown, and the way he was still holding him tight, had jumbled that little speech in his head, so all he could get out was the question: “Don Vitto’, is this loyalty enough to make you trust the paranza?” And as he said it, he realized that he ached for another one of those fatherly kisses. “We’re allies,” he forced himself to continue, “we’re a single thing, united,” and in the meantime he wondered if this was what it felt like to be a son.
L’Arcangelo gazed at him contentedly, nodding his head almost imperceptibly, stroking Nicolas’s cheek. The sound of clinking called them out of that embrace. ’O Cicognone had come back with three champagne flutes full to the brim. For that very special occasion the whiskey had to be consumed out of party glasses.
“Cicogno’,” said Don Vittorio, jabbing his thumb at ’o Tigrotto’s head, “go throw this garbage in the garbage. And look out for the video cameras.”
They were alone again. “Whoever avenges a son becomes a son,” said L’Arcangelo, accompanying Nicolas out onto the balcony. The air was hot, suffocatingly so, but still better than the air in the apartment: ’o Cicognone would take quite a while to get rid of that stench. Side by side, hands grasping the railing, they looked out in silence at that expanse of buildings and streets, and farther on was the heart of the city, invisible but perceptible. All the way down was the sea. Nicolas knew that it was up to Don Vittorio to break that silence. He had brought him the head of his enemy; now L’Arcangelo would return the gesture by revealing a secret to him. It’s by sharing secrets that you distinguish a real relationship from a false one.
“Maraja,” said Don Vittorio, and then he stopped. He’d used his title and it was right to let it hover between them for a while.
“Maraja,” he continued, “a contact is like water, everyone drinks it but they don’t know where it comes from. Only one person can know the contact. But not even all of that person: the ears can’t hear, the stomach can’t digest it, the mouth can’t even know who it is. Only your heart can know it. The more people know your contact, the more your contact is burned once and for all.”
Nicolas knew all these things, and L’Arcangelo knew that he knew them, but that’s the way it had to go.
“I’m giving you the keys to the safe, Maraja.”
Nicolas nodded. He knew that, too.
“The contact’s in Albania,” he said, looking into the distance again, “his name is Malen Duda, aka Mario ’o Bross. I’ll call him. Starting tomorrow, you’re me as far as he’s concerned. ’O Bross does business from four to six in the morning, but he decides which days. Now I’ll arrange a date for you to go.”
Nicolas turned to look at L’Arcangelo. “Don Vitto’…” he began, but then he stopped immediately. Everything had gone better than expected. He’d won forgiveness, regained trust, and got access to the cocaine, hashish, and marjiuana. He had everything. What should I do, he asked himself, say thanks and go?
“Are you wearing fresh underwear?” L’Arcangelo asked, surprising him.
“Yes, Don Vitto’.”
“Then that’s all you need.”
“Why do you ask me that?”
“Because you’re leaving right now.”