Читать книгу Death Brings Gold - Nicola Rocca - Страница 23

CHAPTER 16

The sound of footsteps forced Romeo to look up. A last-minute client had just arrived.

He asked himself why some people just can’t come and buy their fucking newspaper half an hour earlier, instead of showing up two minutes before closing time, when he had already filled in the goods return form. He couldn’t wait to go home. The day had been deadly boring.

“The Evening Courier, please.”

The newsagent leaned forward to get the newspaper from the already wrapped parcel of return goods and handed it to the client.

“One fifty.” How many times had he already said those words?

The last-minute client rummaged in his pocket and retrieved the coins.

“Thank you,” said Romeo, “and good night.”

“Goodbye,” the man answered.

The newsagent stood staring at the client walking towards the exit. Suddenly, the man stopped.

What the hell is wrong with him now? Romeo asked himself.

Then he realised that something on the big notice board had caught the man’s attention.

Romeo kept watching him, while the man was looking at the collage of old photos.

“Do you like it?” asked Romeo, with a hint of irony.

“It looks like there’s a century of life here,” said the client, with an amused smile.

“Not a century. But half a century, yes.”

“Are you a photography enthusiast? I am too.”

“No, my passion is not photography. It’s only that I like seeing myself with the people who have come into my life and, in one way or another, have left a mark. Positive or negative. For example, in the first photo on the left I am with my wife on our wedding day. Negative mark: she left with somebody else before our fifth anniversary.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ah, you don’t have to feel sorry. Life would have been hard with her. Maybe it was better like this. Actually, it was definitely better like this.”

Romeo noticed the embarrassed look on his client’s face. He tried to bring back the conversation towards a less personal level. In the end he would have liked to continue that conversation. It had been a long time since someone had looked at his photo collection.

“So do you like my idea? I mean, the photo collage.”

“It’s truly brilliant!” the man exclaimed, showing his amusement again. “But do you also have celebrities in there?”

Romeo went around the counter and joined the client. The conversation might begin to be interesting. In the end the day was taking a turn for the better. Coming home could wait.

“Well, celebrities… Yes, there’s some. For example, that one dates back about twenty years ago” he said, taking pride for it, while showing a photo that had faded with time. “I’m with Marco Van Basten, that was the year when AC Milan won both the UEFA Champions League and the Italian Champions. Eh… those were good times.”

“Indeed! Are you supporting AC Milan too, eh?”

“Yeah. But everything’s changed now. Now we’re a minor-league team.”

The client smiled, making a strange movement with his hand. He didn’t know why, but he was beginning to like that man.

“You’re right, it’s a really bad football team. It’s better taking an interest in something else. I don’t know… beautiful women, for example.”

Romeo became gloomy..

“I’ll leave that to you. I’ve never had any luck with women. I didn’t have any when I was young and still had hair, let alone now. Bald and with this gut.”

The client smiled, amused. Then, Romeo noticed that another photo had caught his attention. Before he could say anything, the man had already anticipated him.

“And who is this guy?” he asked. “He looks thunderstruck. His eyes are popping out of his head.”

Romeo moved closer to the board, squinting his eyes to focus on the image. Then he put on his glasses that he kept around his neck. He stood there for a moment thinking, before he answered.

“Ah” he said finally, “now that one really is a weird character.”

When he turned again towards him, the man’s eyes were already set on him, waiting and greedy for knowledge. Romeo checked the time on his watch. Now the conversation was really turning better.

“If you’re not in a hurry, I can tell you that guy’s story.”

The client nodded, satisfied. It would have been impossible not to read the curiosity in his eyes. That’s what the client was waiting for.

***

“He should arrive,” Mrs Beatrice told her friend.

The other woman nodded.

“Usually he comes back around this time. He works late hours. At least, from what I gather. Maybe he works shifts.”

“Ah, you’ve already spied on him, eh? Old busybody,” Beatrice told her, joking.

Luigia looked at her, amused.

“We are old busybodies,” she remarked, winking at her.

They’d been on the landing for fifteen minutes, waiting for the new tenant to come home. He was a young man in his thirties, with dark skin. But not really black. Brownish. As if a perfect mix between a white and black person. They didn’t know what the right word was to describe an individual of that skin colour.

He was a handsome young man, oh yes. Muscular too. But they were too old now to even think about picking him up. There was another reason why they had decided to wait for him. They couldn’t wait to introduce themselves and gossip for a while about the habits of the other tenants who lived in the old council building. Minding other people’s business helps you live longer, Beatrice and Luigia were convinced. Or they wouldn’t have reached eighty and eighty two years old respectively.

They heard a squeaking sound from the ground floor. The old door of the main entrance had been opened.

“He’s coming, he’s coming,” Beatrice exclaimed, all excited.

They were beside themselves with delight. They were going to vie with one another for who was going to gossip the most.

Luigia rubbed her hands. They would have certainly told him everything under the sun. That lad was going to stay and listen to them.

But both friends saw the disappointment in each other’s eyes when a man with a dark coat appeared on the staircase. His face was covered by a scarf and his head by a wool cap. The collar of his coat, turned with the point upwards, helped hide his identity.

The elderly ladies stood there in silence looking at him. The man, with his eyes behind glass lenses, nodded his head in a polite greeting. Beatrice and Luigia did the same.

Then the man that they’d never seen before continued climbing the stairs, and disappeared from view.

“And who was that man?” Luigia asked her friend, under her breath.

“How would I know?” the other lady answered, almost whispering. “Between us, you’re the best gossip.”

“Look who’s talking…”

Luigia would have liked to say something else, but at the squeaking sound from the main entrance door her friend anticipated her.

“This must be him.”

She nodded, her bright eyes revealed her happiness.

***

The man looked around, sitting on the ruined fabric of the couch that he had found at a dump. He was moving his eyes from one side to the other of the lounge, the biggest room of his two-room flat.

His… What a nonsense! It was owned by the council. He felt ashamed for even thinking that only immigrants and old lonely people would live in one of these council houses. Immigrants, old people and himself, Giuliano Giuliani.

If he hadn’t been caught, maybe he would have become the leader of a criminal gang, a really big one. With a lot of dough. After all, hadn’t he got away with it when, during a job someone had died?

You don’t make history with “ifs”, you don’t make anything with “ifs”, he admitted to himself.

But, if… here he goes again. Well, who cares. If his life had been different, maybe he could have even had a family. A beautiful wife and a couple of brats around the house. He should have quit dealing earlier. Had he got out once he’d made his money, he could’ve thought about starting a family.

Instead he was all alone. And certainly he would remain like this for the rest of his awful life. Besides, which woman, even one of the really desperate ones, would want to have a relationship with an incomplete man?

That question made him look down at his arm that no longer had a hand, and down at his leg that was without a foot.

He sighed.

Then he cursed out loud.

***

Romeo went to the entrance door and locked it. The newsagent’s was officially closed. His working day was over.

“I bet you’ve never heard such a bizarre name before,” he said to the client. “That guy was called Giuliano Giuliani…”

“Like an old goalkeeper from Udinese Football Club, I think.”

“Ah, I didn’t know that. Well, if so, then I’ve lost my bet.”

They chuckled, like friends.

Then, the newsagent regained his train of thought.

“Going back to Giuliani… those were the times when if a client wanted to buy a copy of La Gazzetta Magazine with the special supplement, he’d come to me. I was the only one who could supply that.”

“Special supplement?” the client asked, with a perplexed expression that was a pleasure to watch.

“Yes, back then, when someone wanted to smoke some good weed he’d come to me to buy his copy of la Gazzetta dello Sport. I’d insert it among the pages of the newspaper. I had the best Mary Jane in all Milan. At least, that’s what I thought. I didn’t know that on the other side of the city – in Quarto Oggiaro – there was a Giuliano Giuliani who had it as good as mine. And in industrial quantities.”

Romeo paused, noticing that the interest in the eyes of his anonymous client was growing. People may have said these were not the kinds of things you’d discuss with anyone, but at this stage he had nothing left to hide. He’d made his mistakes and had paid for his errors. That life belonged to his past. But it would always be his life and he could recount it to anyone he wanted to, any time he felt like it.

“I met him in jail,” he continued. “We got caught within days of each other. And we ended up in the same prison. He was a really tough guy. With a knack for business, you know what I mean? For a certain type of business. But in jail he wasn’t popular with the other inmates. One night, he was raped by four of them. Someone joked about it saying that they made his arsehole as big as the window of Milan Cathedral.”

The newsagent stopped, proud of the laughter he elicited in the client.

Then, Romeo’s voice became serious again.

“He had probably mentioned names that he should have kept secret. And jail, as everyone knows is like a big community. Inside everyone knows everything about everyone. To survive you should see and hear as little as possible. You need to plug up your mouth and your ears … to avoid having your arsehole plugged by someone else.”

He granted himself a satisfied little laugh, that his new friend echoed immediately.

“I remember that we became very close” he continued, “even though outside we had been rivals. He made me a proposition to do business together, once we were out of jail.”

“And did you start a.. farm business?” the client said ironically.

“Ah, that’s a good one! No, I called it quits with everything. I mean, I continued selling newspapers, but without special supplements.”

Another pause. And another laugh.

“And what about the guy? What happened to him?” asked the client.

He was really interested, thought Romeo. Good, an enjoyable night.

“I believe Giuliano carried on with his dealings. After a couple of years he even ended up on the front page.”

“On the front page?”

“Yes, he had been assaulted by a group of unknown individuals, according to the journalist’s report. They assaulted him in the middle of the night and beat him to a pulp.”

“Did they kill him?”

“No, for God’s sake! He has a thick skin!” stated Romeo, enthusiastically. Then, getting darker, he continued. “But they ruined him. Apparently they cut off his hand, or his foot. Now I can’t remember exactly. The point is, after jail I have never seen him again. Maybe it’s better. Otherwise now I too could have also be without one of these” he concluded merrily, showing his hands.

***

It was just a matter of seconds. The mixed race young man’s silhouette materialised on the stairs.

“You must be the new arrival, right?” Beatrice was quicker than her friend.

The young man answered with a smile.

“You’ll like living here,” Luigia continued. “ it’s a safe place.”

They waited until he reached the landing area, then Beatrice started talking again, without letting up.

“Let us give you some advice.” She was saying this in a low voice, almost whispering. “Because here even walls have ears.”

The young man looked perplexed.

“If you need anything, do not hesitate to ask,” Luigia added. “Anything.”

The young man nodded, as his eyes darted towards the flight of stairs. Beatrice noticed he was in a hurry. She decided she could not let him go upstairs. At least not until she had informed him of the building’s quirkiest people.

“Yes, Luigia is right. If you need any favour, please ask us,” she said, indicating with a wave herself and her friend. “On the other hand, if you have certain needs to fulfil… Well, in that case you should go up a couple of floors. Mrs Pina, despite her age, is still very active…”

“True,” Luigia confirmed. “When her husband finds out something, you can hear them shouting from here. Even the building’s walls shake.”

The young man gave a hint of a smile. Then his hands clutched nervously at his trousers, as if he was thinking up an excuse to get away from these two crazy old women.

Luigia noticed it.

“Yes, what Beatrice is saying is completely true. Mrs Pina is getting it on with that really weird guy, the one with a hand and a foot missing …”

“That’s right” the other woman confirmed. “See, Mrs Pina is a lot older than him. But, you know, there’s many a good tune played on an old fiddle …”

“Besides, she was already doing that when she was young, good tunes,” Luigia remarked. “They say that Pina, when she was twenty, was always up for it. I don’t know if I make myself clear.”

“Yes, but now” Beatrice continued, “at seventy years old behaving like a tart … and with that guy … Giuliano”.

“Well, at least they’ve found each other. Because he’s not a saint either, eh. Think that up until some years ago he was constantly in and out of prison. Him and his strange dealings...”

“Yes, who knows what he gets up to in that flat.”

“Ah, Beatrice, he can’t do much now, eh… with only one foot and one hand …”

Luigia stopped. She realised that sentence had stirred some kind of curiosity in the young man. Beatrice realised it too.

“Eh, yes eh…” the latter jumped in. “Probably someone didn’t like his dealings. One time they really beat him up. They cut his hand and his foot off …”

“Yes, Yes, cut off for real” Luigia repeated. “Cut off. Thwack!” she finished, mimicking the movement of a machete.

The young man’s eyes widened, nodding. Then, a shy smile appeared on his lips.

“Now to home. Tired. Much work.”

“Of course!” Beatrice exclaimed. “My friend always has a tendency to drag things out. Please forgive her, she’s of a certain age.”

Luigia gave her a crooked eye. Then she spoke to the young man again.

“I just wanted to put this young lad on his guard. So now he knows who he can trust. And with whom he needs to be careful.”

“Indeed, indeed” Beatrice took the opportunity to continue the conversation. “In this building you need to be wary twenty four hours a day, you never know what your neighbour has in store for you. There are some odd types of people around…”

“And then they gossip, and gossip. Ah, scandalmongers!”

“See, one time…”

“Sorry. I have to go now,” the young man interrupted her, taking two steps towards the next flight of stairs.

“Of course!” Beatrice again. “Poor thing, you must be tired after a day at work.” Then she said to her friend: “Luigia, let him go, this handsome lad must get some rest. He will have another opportunity to talk to us some other time.”

With those words, the young man finally felt authorised to climb the steps, while the two elderly ladies observed him with inquisitive looks.

Once they heard the door of the upstairs apartment closing, the two women said goodbye to each other, arranging to meet the next day. And with that they each took refuge inside their own homes, which were old and shabby, just like them.

***

Giuliani was there, on the wrecked couch, his gaze remaining, since who knows when, on the arm and leg. An incomplete man, that’s what he was.

He repeated to himself for the hundredth time that at least the disability had allowed him to skip the housing waiting list to be given the miserable abode. Otherwise he would have been forced to sleep in a cardboard box under some bridge. Having to compete for a spot, maybe even fight for it, with other homeless people.

Those were the thoughts that took hold of him every night; the thoughts that made him believe he might have been better off dead than reduced to this.

Knock, knock, knock.

Was he mistaken or had somebody just knocked on the door?

He said to himself that the first hypothesis was more likely, because nobody ever visited him. Only Mrs Pina, the one who offered him breakfast in the morning ,and in the evening, unbeknownst to her husband, brought him an ashtray full of cigarette butts, so that he could finish them, smoking the small amount of tobacco that was left. The gossipers in the building were even saying that they were having an affair.

Please! Although he was in a really bad state, he was not desperate to the point of having it sucked by an old hag.

Giuliano looked at the cheap wall clock. Almost 11pm.

Pina had already come at 9pm. It couldn’t be her again. He must have been mistaken, he must have misheard.

In that moment he heard another knock on the door and realised that it was not a mistake.

“Come in,” he said without much confidence. After all he wasn’t accustomed to receiving guests. “It’s open!”

He stood for a long minute staring at a door that had no intention of being opened. Then, exactly when he was taking the last sip from his cut-price supermarket beer – a present from the same Pina – three knocks, stronger and clearer than the previous ones, were heard.

He put the beer can on the coffee table. Supporting himself with his good arm, he stood up on his leg. He didn’t feel like bending to pick up his crutches, so, bracing himself against anything he could find, he started hopping on one foot until he reached the door.

“I said it’s open!” he said sharply, opening the door wide.

The landing was dark and empty. He frowned. It was obvious that the alcohol and his melancholy had played a trick on him.

He shook his head and closed the door. Then, hopping on one foot he turned around and leaned against a small cabinet to regain his balance.

The man in the raincoat was a lot faster than him and attacked, banging him against the wall. Blind with pain caused by his arm bent violently behind his back, Giuliani almost didn’t feel the light sting, as if a needle were entering his forearm.

His sight became blurred and he was forced to shut his eyes. He felt his leg collapsing and a sense of torpor took hold of him.

Then, at once, everything became dark.