Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone (12 page)

Maria Musella, the perfect victim.

Pisanelli waited a moment, then he folded his newspaper, put it under his arm, and set off in the same direction the woman was going, carefully moderating his pace to keep the proper distance, even if he suspected that Maria Musella wouldn't have noticed him if he'd stepped on her foot.

The policeman was waiting for someone to approach her. If you want to kill someone, he thought, you need to approach him. And since Maria Musella never saw anyone, if someone did approach her, that person might turn out to be the killer. Of course there would still be plenty of investigating to do, in-depth research to complete, evidence to sift through, but it was a starting point, wasn't it? A starting point. He could go from there.

He'd pee in a bar when the woman came home after doing her shopping. Right now, he needed to follow her. Nature and his ticking time bomb could wait.

He was already anticipating the pleasure of telling Leonardo about these latest developments. Maybe later he'd go see him at the parish church, unless there was news about the boy; he'd asked Ottavia to call him immediately on his cell phone if there was. And if so, he'd put that visit off. After all, there was no rush. Leonardo was always available for a quick chat. And anyway, in a couple days they'd have their weekly lunch at the trattoria Il Gobbo.

Maria Musella stopped in front of a fruit vendor's brightly colored wares. The May sunshine, brazen and indiscreet, beat down on the display, transforming it into a dazzling kaleidoscope that could not but inspire joy. Four boys in tank tops chased after a soccer ball inside a makeshift playing field bounded by shops, crates of vegetables, dumpsters, parked mopeds, and moving scooters. A fat woman sat shelling fresh peas outside of a ground-floor apartment, from whose interior burst the notes of a neomelodic song on the radio. Life—violent, colorful, and smelly—pulsated in every corner of the piazza.

You don't want to die, Maria Musella. If you go out shopping for groceries, if you cook, if you eat, if you wake up in the morning, you don't want to die. Maybe you don't want to keep living, sometimes, but you don't want to die. And that's the crucial difference.

For no particular reason, Pisanelli's thoughts went to Dodo. I wonder where you are, he thought. Let's hope nothing happens to you.

It's May, and the world is too lovely a place just now.

D
on't trust the month of May.

May will deceive you in the blink of an eye. All it takes is a moment's distraction, a change in plans, an extra laugh, and May will trick you.

Because in this city, May knows how to sneak up behind you. It tiptoes along and in a flash it makes you think you're somewhere else, or in some other time.

Its soft tentacles will embrace you and make you think that everything's fine, that everything's just as it was.

But it's not.

 

Tiziana's running late this morning. Yesterday night, like an idiot, she stayed up watching a pointless movie on TV, and she got to sleep an hour later than usual.

The people at the office where she works have been waiting for this moment, guns loaded, no doubt about it; she's the last one to be hired, and they don't let anything slide. That's how it is for newcomers: the hardest, most boring jobs, and no respect.

But Tiziana needs her job. That bastard hasn't paid his alimony for at least a year and he won't even answer the phone, he's even figured out how to tell when she calls from a blocked number, the sly son of a bitch. And Francesca always needs something; her feet grow a whole size every three months and every season she has to have a new wardrobe. She's four years old, after all. At that age, it's normal.

She hurries past Francesca's bed, patting her on the head as she goes by. A rapid, motherly thought: For the past few days her daughter has seemed quiet and preoccupied. Maybe she's just coming down with the flu.

She goes into the kitchen. She has just a few seconds for her coffee, if Papà made it. From the aroma, she guesses he has. Her father is there, attentive: Good morning, sweetheart, have a biscuit, get something in your stomach, otherwise you'll get a headache. Tiziana nods. It's a good thing you're around, Papà, Francesca and I are lucky that we have you at least, that you took us in, that you're helping me out.

Sweetheart, he says, this will be your home, a home for you and for my little darling. You know that ever since your mother . . . Tiziana goes over and kisses his whiskery cheek; every time that the memory of Mamma passes lightly between them, his eyes glisten.

Don't think about it, Papà. Now we're all together. You see, the weather's starting to get nice: Pretty soon we'll be able to go to the beach, all three of us. And we'll have a few hours of fun, we deserve it, don't we? Now I'm sorry, I've got to fly to the office. I ironed a playsuit for her, so if the weather doesn't change, you can take her to the park if you feel like it.

She blows him another kiss and then Tiziana is out the door and into the street; her father watches her turn the corner, her coat flapping behind. He sighs, shakes his head. Poor daughter, he thinks. What a life, he says. It's a good thing I'm here to take care of them.

Careful not to make noise, he goes to see if Francesca's still sleeping. Sweetheart? Are you asleep? You're just pretending, aren't you? Because now you want to play.

And, walking over to the bed, he unzips his trousers.

 

You can't trust May.

It's a month that knows how to pretend, suspended between the tail end of winter and the tip of summer's nose. It knows how to mask itself, perhaps behind a thought or a false desire, and it plunges the blade of a hopeless fantasy into your back.

It envelops you in a faint perfume, so light you don't even notice you're smiling until it's too late.

May is a razor-sharp threat that penetrates so deeply, you can't draw even a single breath.

 

Ciro is a good boy. But the neighborhood where he lives is a tough one.

Still, he's steered clear of the bad crowd, doing his best to keep from being dragged into things. His father is a streetcar operator and to bring home a little extra money, he takes on ridiculous shifts. Ciro wouldn't be able to live with himself if he paid him back by giving him something else to worry about. His father has always told him—in very few words, because he's not the kind who does a lot of talking—that people like them have no one to defend them; if they get mixed up in something, they'll wind up behind bars and they won't make it out again. Better to stick to the straight and narrow, better to work hard, even if only for a pittance.

Ciro knows, he can see how easy it would be to steal what he'd need to be able to go around on a motorcycle, wearing expensive shoes and nice clothing. But he also knows that guys who choose that path don't last. It's safer to work in a café, like he does, waking up at dawn and running up and down the stairs in office buildings delivering trays full of coffee, hoping it's the key to a longer life. That's what Papà says, though not in so many words, and he has to agree.

Ciro is a good boy.

He met a girl, Ciro did. She works as a salesclerk at a women's clothing store, downtown, along the main thoroughfare where he often goes to deliver trays of espressos and cappuccinos. At first, they smiled at each other every time he went past the plate-glass window. Then, one time, he was so busy smiling that he dropped his tray and everything—coffee, mineral water, and check—went up in the air: a tragedy. She hurried out to help him collect the cups and glasses from under the feet of passersby. It was May. A year ago. It's a nice thing to meet in May. The world is beautiful in May.

They've been going out for one year exactly, and Ciro wants to do something to celebrate. His friends give their girls lots of things: jewelry, nice clothes. Easy to do, when you have easy money. But Ciro is a good boy; he's never had much money and he never will.

But he doesn't want to let May go by without giving her a gift that'll take her breath away. May is their month, you know, and she's the most beautiful thing on earth, the only good thing that's ever happened to him, to Ciro, the only good luck that's come his way.

It's easy, they told him last night at the pub. The jewelry boutique is tucked away, right by the
vicolo
that leads to our neighborhood, get fifty feet away and no one would ever catch you, even if you're on foot. In the last year, we knocked the place over five times, it's like an ATM, little kids rob the place, twelve-year-olds. And after all, it's not like you're trying to ransack the place, just take a thing or two and then you're out of there, those guys won't even come after you, the guy who runs the place is a chump, he's the owner's son, our age: He always gets scared and hides behind the display counter.

Ciro is a good boy, and he wants a special smile from her this month, this May. May is their month, and he'll never have the money to buy her a ring. Once, just this once. He's not afraid, not running any risks; five minutes and he'll make her happy. It'll last for the rest of his life, her smile. Five minutes.

Marco is a good boy. He's not especially brave, it's true, but he's a jeweler, not a cop or a lion tamer. It doesn't take courage to be a jeweler. Or at least, it's not supposed to. He doesn't even especially like the job, it's just that his father has cancer and he can't come down to run the shop anymore. So it's up to Marco.

Marco is a good boy, and maybe even the robbers understand that he'd just as soon be somewhere else. So he's been robbed five times in less than a year. Once they came in with sledgehammers and smashed the display cases, once they were armed with a straight razor, and three times they had handguns, which might have been fake, but I'd like to see you face down a guy in a ski mask brandishing something black right under your nose. He throws himself to the floor just like they tell him, that way at least he saves his skin. Be careful, Marco, his father told him, those kids are all hopped up on drugs. One time he even thinks he heard them laugh, those sons of bitches.

Marco is a good boy, but this time he's ready. As soon as the guy bursts into the shop and shouts, Look out, don't do anything stupid, this is a stickup, and grabs a ring off the counter—and the guy has to be a fool, because with all the valuables in there, he grabs a ring with a microscopic two-bit diamond, and the weapon he brought with him is a kitchen knife, unbelievable—Marco hits the floor behind the counter, the way he always does. Only this time there's a rifle behind the counter, legally bought and licensed, fully loaded, a bullet in the chamber, and Marco, who's a good boy but now he's had enough, levels the rifle and shoots the fucking robber in the chest, and Ciro, who's a good boy but, because it's May, just wanted a special smile, flies backward through the plate-glass window, his belly split open like a watermelon.

Ciro and Marco are both good boys. But in the month of May, in this city, anything is possible.

 

May is a traitor.

A charming bastard of a traitor, with a roguish face that casts a spell and makes you fall in love. A damn slithering serpent, so beautiful to behold that it makes you wish it could last forever.

May echoes with sweet songs; it winds you in its coils with an unfamiliar music that seems brand-new, even though it's actually just that same old tune.

May lets you slip slowly into the abyss.

 

Peppe's sleepy.

He's always sleepy. There are some who get used to it—actually, almost everyone gets used to it, everyone who takes the night shift to make a little extra cash. These days, with the recession galloping along like a horse across the prairie, people will fight over a few extra euros, and there's a line out the boss's door: Please, let me work the night shift.

Peppe stands in line, just like the others. He needs those euros too, there's never enough money at home. But he can't get used to it; he just can't somehow. And after working the night shift, he walks around like a zombie all the next day, a headache in the background of every thought.

He never even wanted this job, never wanted to be a security guard. With all the risks that they run. He could have made it, going to night school, could have become an accountant, and he would have gotten a job in his uncle's company, working during the day and sleeping at night like everyone else. But his pretty wife, Lucia—though everyone calls her Lucy—who wasn't even his wife at the time, just his girlfriend, thought she'd miscount the days of her cycle and wound up pregnant. With twins, actually. And so goodbye dreams of glory—well, hardly glory; just dreams of a job as an accountant for a company that's not even doing particularly well.

Peppe should be happy to have found that job. The work is hard, but when he goes home he finds two little demons who love him and a wife, Lucia, called Lucy, so pretty and so shapely that she literally turns heads. Even men's heads—in fact especially men's heads, and they think that Peppe doesn't notice. Feast your eyes, feast your eyes and dream on, because I'm the one taking her to bed tonight, this God-given bounty.

Maybe not every night, because of the shifts he works. In fact, it happens pretty rarely, truth be told. But at least he makes a little extra cash so he can take her out for a pizza, or to the movies, if grandma will keep the twins. Man does not live by bread alone, no? And neither does woman.

But then May comes along. And May, on certain nights, has this spectacular smell that blows in from the sea and mingles with the odors wafting out from the countryside, and it sweeps the smog and the vast mountains of garbage right out of the air and slips a yearning under your flesh for which there's no relief.