Massimiliano liked his upside-down life. Working at night, when there was no noise, and going to sleep in the morning. The graveyard shift at the repair shop had always been his, and the fact that he worked on scooters and that they had promised him an employment contract as an apprentice didn’t really bother him all that much, even if he did have some considerable experience under his belt as a mechanic working on racing cars. He was striding briskly down Via dei Tribunali, and he slowed down only when he found himself face-to-face with a young man his same age hauling on a leash that was fastened to the collar of a somewhat recalcitrant dog.
“Come on, Skunk,” the other young man was saying, jerking on the marine rope he was using as a leash. Massimiliano walked past man and dog without recognizing him; Nicolas, on the other hand, delved into his mental archive where he had a filing system for all the faces in the neighborhood. The mechanic, he told himself, and then went back to scolding Skunk, whose ears had pricked up: “Skunk, what’s wrong?”
Massimiliano continued on his way and turned left, onto Via Duomo. Nicolas saw him vanish around the corner and at that same instant heard three distinct shots, like the sound of a scooter’s carburetor as it accelerated. Instinctively, he drew his handgun and dropped to the ground, head flat against the asphalt, pulling Skunk close. Then he heard seven gunshots, in rapid succession, or maybe there were more. When he raised his head again, he saw a man in a full-face helmet riding a scooter, roaring away. An assassination attempt, in the heart of Forcella.
Nicolas emerged onto the street, with Skunk barking at the end of her leash, and looked around, but he already knew that he wasn’t going to encounter any other would-be shooters. Whoever it was that had tried to kill him had been afraid; otherwise there was no explanation for those shots in tight sequence, fired practically at random. He stuck his head around the corner of Via Duomo, and there he was. Massimiliano’s corpse, hit by two bullets, one in the shoulder, the other one, the fatal shot, to the jugular. Nicolas stepped close, with respect. That poor sucker had taken the bullets meant for him. Massimiliano had saved Nicolas’s life: the assassin must have taken the mechanic for him.
“Skunk, be good,” said Nicolas, and at last the dog calmed down. Then he holstered his pistol, crossed himself, and turned to go.
Forcella was a teeming locus of ambulances and police squad cars, even if there had been only one victim. Nicolas had been able to make it back home before the arrival of law enforcement, before the various checkpoints and roadblocks had been set up and the neighborhood was militarized. News of the attempt had spread at lightning speed, by word of mouth, but the crucial detail of who had been killed remained unclear. Was Nicolas Maraja really dead?
At that point, the Piranhas packed into Briato’s Cayenne and went over to Nicolas’s apartment house, and Nicolas himself looked out the window.
“I love you all, I love you so much, too much,” he said, fist raised, like a head of state who’d miraculously survived a coup attempt and whose first thoughts were for his people and their future, a future that a few rotten apples couldn’t keep from being brilliant. And his people replied, in chorus: “You’re a miracle, Nico’, you’re a miracle. Long live Maraja!”
With Mena and Letizia, the whole thing wasn’t likely to go off that smoothly. His mother had come to meet him, as always, at the front door. “You’re here,” she’d said, and then she’d thrown her arms around him as if to make sure that he was flesh and blood, and not blue smoke. She’d gazed at him, pride in her eyes, the pride of a mother who always sees her son taking first place. She’d turned over the palms of his hands, skinned and scraped from the rough asphalt: “These are like stigmata, you’re safe because Our Lord wishes it so,” she said, and stroked his hands. “You’re special, Nico’, don’t you ever forget it.”
Before he could think of forgetting it, Letizia arrived: “My love,” she said, throwing her arms wide, more to be embraced than to embrace him. “Are you hurt?” she asked him a second later.
“I’m fine, my love,” said Nicolas, planting a kiss on her belly. “No one can do me any harm.”
“Who was it?” She’d been crying and she did nothing to hide the mascara that had run down her face to the corners of her mouth.
“A traitor, my love. Don’t think about it now, don’t get yourself upset.” He helped her to sit down, then he got a chair for himself and sat down across from her. She made him tell the story down to the smallest detail, telling Skunk all the sweet words that she could think of for her. “Do you realize that Skunk saved your life? If she hadn’t been there, Nico’, what might have happened? How would that have left me and the little girl?”
That’s how he found out that it was going to be a baby girl. “For real?” he asked, and he was filled with an unrestrained joy. He lifted Letizia into the air and danced her in a circle, then hugged her tight.
“Really, are you happy about it, Nico’? I didn’t have the courage to tell you it would be a girl, that I wasn’t going to give you a son.” Her eyes welled with tears. “But then I thought you could have died today, that you could have been that young man crumpled on the ground, and you would never have known that a baby girl was about to arrive.” She took his hands and placed them on her belly, as round as the globe. “Nico’, you have to swear to me that you’ll be more careful: you’re a father now, you can’t afford to risk leaving us alone. A father has to protect the future, a father has to protect his family. That means he has to protect himself.” It seemed as if she had rehearsed that speech in her head many times already. “Think about it, Nico’. I’m not trying to meddle in your business, you know that, but it’s different now.”
“I think about it, Leti’, I think about you all the time, you’re my life and soul. Don’t worry, I already told you. I’ll take care of everything, but now you need to go away for a little while, until we can find the traitor. The place in Vomero is still under construction, but you can stay there. It’s better if people think no one’s living there yet. They’re delivering the furniture next week. Right now, all you need is mattresses, and Mammà will take care of that.”
Letizia pressed her hand over his mouth, silencing him: “That’s enough now. It’s bad luck to talk about these things…” And she gave him a gentle kiss on the lips.
Nicolas recoiled: “So what’s that kiss?”
“What do you mean, what’s that kiss? A kiss of affection, because I care for you.”
“I don’t want a kiss of caring,” said Nicolas, and pulled her close.
“Careful with my belly, Nico’,” said Letizia.
“I don’t want the kiss on the cheek that goes with caring. I don’t want the kiss on the lips that goes with love. I want the savage kiss that takes whatever it wants. That takes it all.”