At the End of a Dull Day (21 page)

I pulled out the flash stick and laid it on the table. “The material, as you call it, is actually a video and it's much longer, much more articulated, and infinitely more interesting. I just want to make it available to you.”

“Explain what you mean.”

“As you must have realized, the information concerns the Honorable Brianese and his vast network of clientelism and personal interests. Unfortunately, he's gone completely out of control and I've been a victim of his dirty dealings.”

I told him about the fake investment in Dubai and the arrival of the Calabrians in response to my efforts to get back my two million euros. I told him about Tortorelli, his disappearance, and the way the Palamaras had been persecuting me.

He reached out, picked up the flash stick, and inserted it in the USB port of his PC. A few seconds later, Ylenia's voice emerged from the speakers.

“These statements were extorted under torture,” he noted with some disappointment.

“I kind of lost my head,” I admitted. “In any case, every word of Signorina Mazzonetto's statement is pure gold.”

He watched the video from start to finish without moving a muscle. He pulled out the flash stick and gave it back to me. “You see, Signor Pellegrini, the very foundation of the Veneto rests on a clearly defined bloc of power, made up of the various manufacturers' associations, the Padanos, the party in which Brianese is so active, and responsible sectors of the trade unions. None of them really likes any of the others, but what cements the alliance into place is the fact that they each need the others. Do you follow me?”

I nodded, but the truth was I didn't have the slightest idea of what all that political folderol had to do with my money and the Palamaras.

“The situation in this country is fluid, but there will never be any real change in the Veneto, for the simple reason that no one is capable of modifying reality itself. There won't be any dramatic scandals like the ones that blight our unfortunate Italy, nor will there be any sweeping judicial investigations. Of any kind. We'll soon see a series of adjustments in the equilibrium between the Padanos and their allies due to internal issues that are going to result in a schism in the Northern Italian political front. These issues are going to be exacerbated by a number of minor judicial investigations that will single out regional officers suspected of financial crimes.”

“I'm confused,” I interrupted with a sense of unease. “I'm not sure what you're driving at.”

“I was simply explaining to you why Brianese is untouchable and irreplaceable. I can also tell you confidentially that he's going to be appointed a cabinet minister.”

“But I have no intention of trying to hurt him,” I retorted.

“Then you misspoke a few minutes ago when you referred to the Honorable Brianese's ‘dirty dealings,' am I right?”

I changed course instantly. “I only want him to go back to frequenting my establishment. La Nena will be at his complete disposal for all future election campaigns, but I'm not willing to be murdered just to get him off the hook, nor am I willing to let him steal my money.”

“That's quite understandable.”

I picked up the flash stick. “Well, do you want this or not?”

“If you insist in your determination to put it into my hands, courtesy demands at the very least that I accept it,” he explained. “What use I may choose to make of it is none of your business.”

He went back to his computer and I sat there like an idiot. I stood up, mumbled a farewell, and left the room. The woman with her hair in a bun walked me back to the car as if I were the King of Spain.

After a while, that long wordless return journey got on my nerves. “Is he always such an asshole?” I blurted out.

The driver laughed heartily. “His father was worse,” he confided in dialect.

I was so furious and humiliated that I stayed away from the restaurant and from Martina and Gemma as well. I knew I was in a dangerous mood. I got in my car and drove aimlessly from one province to another, through an infinite network of bypasses, highways, bridges, and overpasses. Every so often I stopped to look at the landscape or the traffic. I'd finished high school and a few years of college. I'd grown up in an educated family. In other words, I wasn't a certified asshole but that's what I felt like. I couldn't decipher the meaning of the messages that the man I so admired had tossed offhandedly in my direction. All I knew was that right then and there, I felt like kicking him in the ass.

My cell phone rang. Caller unavailable. “It's Nicoletta. I heard you wanted to talk to me.”

“Yeah. There are some people looking for you. You've absolutely got to disappear.”

“Should I be afraid?”

“Very afraid. If they catch you they'll kill you.”

“I'm not ready to leave. I need a few more days to wrap up some things.”

“Then you're going to have to worry about me catching you before they do, because I can't run the risk of having you talk.”

That scared her. “I have a friend who lives in New Zealand. I'll get a flight tomorrow.”

“Get back in touch in six months and I'll let you know if it's safe to come back.”

Had I made the right decision by letting her live? It certainly hadn't been prudent, but the conditions for her survival had been established by the intrinsic dynamics of criminal creativity. Attending her funeral was the last thing I could afford to do right now. And I really couldn't go out and dig another shallow grave in the little graveyard I'd created on Brianese's estate.

 

At the end of a dull day Ylenia showed up with a shopping bag made of organic cotton, filled with cash. “Fifty thousand euros a month till the debt is paid off.”

“Has something happened that I don't know about?”

“It was Sante's decision,” she replied. “I'd also like to ask you to be so kind as to come up with a menu and an estimate for a bridal shower.”

“Who's the lucky girl?”

“I am.”

“Who's the guy?”

“His name is Franco, you don't know him.”

“And how did you meet him?”

She told me where he worked and everything became clear. “Another one of Sante's decisions, I assume?”

“For my own good,” she lied to both of us.

I couldn't understand why the powerful man to whom I'd entrusted the Counselor's secrets should have decided to unite Ylenia in holy matrimony with his assistant, but it certainly did nothing to harm me. In fact, that first bag of fifty thousand euros was a clear sign that Brianese had been forcefully advised to reconsider my legitimate requests.

I looked at the two Calabrians who were stuffing their faces with hors d'oeuvres and prosecco at my expense. There was no way of getting rid of them.

I'd have to wait a few more months. Then, finally, one night I feasted my eyes on the television screen and the sight of the Palamaras in handcuffs, being carted off to prison. Giuseppe glared into the TV camera with fierce contempt.

One of the investigating judges clearly spoke about dealings between the 'Ndrangheta and politicians in Lombardy. One of the men who were arrested was identified as a major vote bundler.

If I wanted proof that the Calabrians would stop persecuting me, the clincher came later that day: they didn't show up in the restaurant. I couldn't be sure that Giuseppe would forget about yours truly and the humiliation I'd inflicted on him with my creative criminality, but he had other things to think about for the moment.

 

At the end of a dull day La Nena was packed with beautiful people celebrating Sante Brianese's appointment as cabinet minister. The powerful man had predicted everything down to the smallest details. The Padanos had proven incapable of exploiting their victory and they had some serious internal fleas to scratch. The Counselor was a rising star but the prestigious government appointment would force him to abandon the Veneto once and for all and someone else would have to take over his network of dealings. Politics too was a form of creative criminality. In fact, it was creative criminality taken to its logical extreme. I might be excluded from the field of political endeavor entirely, but I'd decided to stay right where I was. I was born to ass-fuck my fellow man and it was something I really enjoyed. It made me feel alive. I had the distinct sensation that I had absorbed the life force of all the people I'd eliminated from the face of the earth, but maybe that was just the euphoria of victory, or at least of knowing that I'd come home alive but still having a hard time believing it. Now I'd need to look around and build new alliances, connections, and connivances. I'd have to grow a new politician all my own. Let him use La Nena as a springboard and then tend to him throughout the course of his career: city government, provincial government, regional government. I wasn't looking for a rising star, like Brianese ten years ago. I needed a competent midfielder.

Signora Ombretta Brianese née Marenzi moved away from her husband's side and came over to me. She gave me a sly, knowing glance and kept taking small sips of bubbly. The ring of lipstick on the champagne glass looked like a spot of fresh blood and she looked like a beautiful vampiress who had just banqueted.

She tossed back the flute of champagne at a single gulp and then handed it to me as if I were a waiter. Not a particularly attractive gesture for a lady of her class. “That villa in the countryside outside of Ferrara has belonged to my family for three generations,” she revealed with ill concealed pleasure, confident that the news would take me by surprise. “And I've been a close friend of the gentleman that you met since I was a child.”

“So Ylenia's wedding was your idea.”

“Let's just say that I wanted to make sure that a deeply unhappy future lay in wait for her.”

I shifted my gaze over to Brianese. “But that means your husband loses out, too.”

She snorted. “He may have lots of good qualities, but he's still just an insatiable parvenu. He'll cause less damage in Rome.”

“In the end, you're always the ones who clean things up and make them presentable, aren't you?”

“Who are you referring to, Signor Pellegrini?”

“The powerful families. The families that matter. The families that have always called the shots. Which is exactly why I got in touch with your old childhood friend from happy days gone by,” I replied irreverently.

Ombretta avoided responding and turned her back on me to graciously accept a compliment from the chief of the city police.

 

Rivers of champagne were flowing and for once I wasn't giving out so much as a free toothpick. Midway through the evening I found a free corner of the bar and enjoyed a glass in blessed peace. Brianese was emanating happiness from every pore, Ylenia had her arms wrapped around her new true love, and Martina and Gemma were chatting with friends and acquaintances.

I had big plans for the two women. A daily routine involving a wife and a lover would degenerate into pure absurdity. But the three of us living together would be a perfect solution. That very night I was planning to tell my wife that as a woman she wasn't complete because she lacked a live-in girlfriend with whom she could have sex on a regular basis. I would ladle a countercultural sauce of Sixties-style pearls of wisdom over the whole thing. “Free Love.” “Unleash the love that's sleeping inside you,” I'd whisper into her ear while caressing her thighs. The idea might frighten her at first, then she'd accept the new situation and place it within the complexity of a love as grand as ours.

It wouldn't take the same amount of chitchat with Gemma. The King of Hearts would give an order and she would obey with wholehearted enthusiasm. I'd develop a schedule of activities designed to keep both of them in shape, but first of all we'd have a plastic surgeon do a series of minor tweaks to our little girlfriend.

I greeted an art dealer who was helping me procure a painting by my beloved Grace Slick. I pointed to the wall I'd chosen, and she took a picture with her cell phone so she could select the frame. Then she went back to mingling with the other guests.

When I'd first shown her the painting on the Internet she'd made some comment about it being just a little too “flower power” to fit in with the interior decoration of La Nena.

“That's me, in the middle, in the hat, running across the field,” I retorted, pointing out a detail.

She went on blathering some nonsense about the intrinsic metamessage contained in the act of purchasing the painting, then she asked me how I intended to pay. When I flashed her a wad of cash, her face lit up and she forgave my supposed lapse in taste.

The painting by my beloved Grace, hanging strategically across from the cash register, would help me to inject a stimulating and fecund dose of imagination into the vein of creative criminality, a pursuit to which I intended to devote myself regularly from now on.

I would no longer get bogged down in activities like the prostitution ring, which demanded a special dedicated logistical structure and organization. Flexibility would be the order of the creative local economy. Applied to my personal sector, it translated into a regular practice of robbing large amounts of money that had been procured through corruption. If restricted to that sector, armed robbery would immediately become a much less risky way of doing business. It meant the elimination of police reports and accompanying investigations.

An elegantly dressed gentleman who was new to the city was mingling with the guests. He was the head of a holding company that defrauded companies undergoing bankruptcy proceedings. Ylenia had explained to me how, in exchange for fifteen percent of the debt paid in crisp new bills, the man pretended to purchase the companies with the promise that he'd turn them around. Instead he'd transfer ownership to foreign corporations, pocket the money, and abandon the entrepreneurs to their fate. He explained to the suckers that the mechanism that would save them from their creditors, the banks, and the tax department was a judicial safeguard consisting of the term: “letter of indemnity.”