At the End of a Dull Day (2 page)

He laughed long and loud. At last, he turned on his laptop so he could show me the catalogue.

“All right, now let's talk about women and money, the only two good things about our lives.”

I always played along. I knew Mikhail put on that routine so he'd have time to see if there were any detectives lurking in the shadows.

On his laptop, there were nude photographs of each girl in six different poses, so that their best and worst features were clearly evident. The ones who came to work for us were lucky. We sent them to live in comfortable spacious homes, where Nicoletta took personal charge of them. She taught them everything they needed to know about clothing, makeup, perfume, and etiquette. When they weren't busy with paying clients, Nicoletta gave them work modeling her line of intimate apparel, which served as excellent cover. It was also a good way to make them feel special and to ward off the boredom that could quickly turn into depression. Depression could fill their heads with ideas that were bad for business. To date, in fact, none of the girls had caused trouble and I had never had cause to use my fists on any of them. When my partner and I welcomed each new group we made sure that they couldn't miss a shiny pair of brass knuckles apparently left out in plain view on a coffee table—by accident. Even rank beginners knew that brass knuckles were a whore's worst enemy.

Our girls weren't cheap. Whether it was for five minutes or the whole night, the price never changed: two hundred fifty euros; out of that fee, two hundred euros, no less, went directly into the girl's pockets. Despite the high price, none of our customers had ever complained. They were happy to pay extra for a guarantee of discretion. Anyway the money never came out of the customer's wallet. It was always part of the cost of doing business.

The security rules were ironclad. No drugs, just champagne. Cell phones to be left in the car so that some imbecile couldn't take pictures or compromising videos. The encounters took place in various detached villas, scattered throughout the various provinces and rented for short periods through a real estate agency where Nicoletta's brother worked. Only rarely in hotels. When the girls weren't busy entertaining politicians and friends of politicians, they were made available to prosperous foreign industrialists. The company rule was this: only one client a day, but seven days a week.

The girls fooled themselves into believing they'd become princesses until the morning I loaded them into my car, pretending I was taking them to an orgy outside of town and, once I got them to Genoa, selling them to a group of Maltese gangsters for twice what I'd paid for them. I never asked what would happen to them. All I knew was that a few hours later they were already on board a freighter heading for the Maghreb region of northwest Africa or to Spain. That was all that mattered to me.

The minute the girls got out of the car and found themselves surrounded by those ugly mugs in the filthy warehouse that served as the gang's headquarters, they immediately understood the cruel trap they'd been lured into and they began to weep and wail. It was a heartbreaking spectacle, but it only amused the buyers. They laughed heartily as they reached out rough, dirty hands to grab and grope, savoring the impending rape. For that matter, they were old-school gangsters, firmly convinced that if a whore got a taste of hell, then she'd mistake the clients for heavenly angels. At that juncture, I'd point out that they were taking delivery of delicate, valuable merchandise, count my money in a hurry, and hop in my car and head home.

Every time, the Maltese gangsters asked me to point out the finest of the group, the one that they assumed had spent the most time in my bed. I'd point to one at random, because the last thing I would dream of doing was fuck any of them. After all, I was the boss, and picking one in particular would have just created bad group dynamics. I didn't want any of them getting it into her head that she was my favorite. But because when all was said and done I was the boss, even though we were theoretically equal partners, every month, after splitting the take, I demanded that Nicoletta give me a first-class blowjob. It was a good way of reminding her whose idea it had been. After all, it was a profitable little operation. At year's end, after expenses, I pocketed about a hundred thousand euros, but I was forced to plow about half of that sum back into the restaurant. La Nena had turned into a money pit. The economic downturn was having its effect, even though the Veneto was doing better than many other parts of the country. It was damned expensive to keep up certain standards of quality. My biggest expense was staff. To say nothing of the wine cellar. It wasn't like the good old days. Now even people who could afford the finest still avoided the more expensive bottles. Only when bribers and bribees were drinking to the success of a negotiation was price truly no object. And they were demanding. Especially the ones who had never been able to get a seat at the main table to shovel forkfuls of the angel food cake of corruption into their gaping maws: they always seemed to know all about the latest fashions in wine. I made sure I always had plenty of the latest thing in stock.

Nothing on earth could have convinced me to give up La Nena. It was solid proof that my life had changed for good, a calling card that gave me a respected status in society. In the year 2000, thanks to Brianese and his hefty fee, I obtained legal rehabilitation. My personal history as a former terrorist sentenced to life imprisonment without parole was expunged from my record. At the end of a long and twisted series of events, during which I'd worked like a mule, I had become an upright citizen and the proprietor of a fashionable establishment in the heart of a city in the Venetian provinces. I voted in elections and I paid my taxes. And with a series of smiles, ass-lickings, and lots of hard work, I won acceptance. I was now “one of them.” And not just any one of them. I was a winner. One of the people you couldn't pretend you hadn't seen or forget to say hello to.

Nicoletta picked up on the third ring. With her voice made hoarse from too many cigarettes, she always sounded as if she'd just gotten out of bed.

“How many and where?” she asked.

“All four, and tonight they don't have to travel.”

“Understood. I'll get them ready.”

I went to take their orders. Brianese had already put his guests at their ease and was explaining how he could intervene to help them win a number of contracts for school and army barracks renovations in a neighboring province. When I returned with the wine, they'd already struck a deal for a 3 percent cut and now they were talking about the right gifts to give each official. The building commissioner had made it known that he expected a year's worth of landscaping services.

Waiting for me at the bar was my wife, Martina, fiddling with her aperitif glass. I gave her a smile and a kiss on the lips—lips that tasted of Campari.

“Ciao, darling.”

Then I said hello to Gemma, the friend who had come in with her, and pointed to a table where a well dressed, austere-looking gentleman was dining alone. “Do you mind eating with Professor Salvini? He's the new chief pediatrician, he's just moved to town, and he doesn't know anybody.”

The doctor was glad to welcome them to his table. Knowing Gemma, I assumed that within five minutes she'd know all about the physician's personal life. She'd been on the prowl for a stable relationship ever since her husband dumped her and moved south to the Salento district of Puglia, where he now lived with his new girlfriend. Luckily, Martina could step in and keep Gemma from taking things too far. Martina and I had been married for nine years and she came in every day to eat lunch and dinner at my place. The kitchen in our apartment was used only for breakfast in the morning and for an infrequent herbal tea at night. If it was up to her, Martina would have been thrilled to cook meals and host lunches and dinners for friends and relatives, but I always opposed the idea vehemently. I didn't see the point of getting a bunch of pots and pans dirty when there was an excellent restaurant available. The waitress came over to ask what my wife would be having this evening. I always ordered for her. I did my best to take care of every aspect of her life. It was my way of showing her how much I loved her. And how grateful I was to her. She'd been there for me at one of the most difficult points in my life, when Roberta, the woman I was about to marry, died suddenly. A tragic accident snatched her away from me. She had an aspirin allergy, and she'd accidentally ingested a fatal overdose at my house. Because of my past, and due to unfounded suspicions on the part of her parents and the parish priest, whom Roberta considered her spiritual guide, I was investigated for murder and persecuted by two overzealous noncommissioned Carabinieri officers. I was lucky that Counselor Brianese stepped in and settled the case. My fiancée had actually introduced me to Martina. At the time, Martina was dating a guy with a poncey accent. Even though we were both involved with other people, something clicked between us and we had a meaningless little fling. It may have been meaningless but it did give me a useful piece of information: unlike my bride-to-be Roberta, Martina was passionate in bed. I saw her again at the funeral; she was at my side the whole time, consoling me and holding my hand.

A few months later, by the time my grief over Roberta's death had faded into a giant blank, we started dating and one night I asked her to marry me.

Actually, I was just planning to live with her, but Brianese had insisted on a proper marriage. That way, people would be more likely to forget about my past and about Roberta. I entrusted the logistics and details of the happiest day of our lives to Nicoletta and everything went off without a hitch. Refined, a little dull for most of the guests, and exhausting for the newlyweds. My lawyer was my best man and Gemma was Martina's maid of honor.

When we got back from our honeymoon in Polynesia we moved to the new house, not far from La Nena and, as we had solemnly vowed, we started taking care of one another.

The first thing I did was advise Martina to quit her job. Her monthly salary of 1,500 euros wouldn't change a thing in our lives and it would only come between us. She didn't want to stop working at first but in the end I convinced her that it was the best thing to do. She was mostly worried that she'd be bored.

“That'll never happen, my love.”

Just like any other couple, getting to know one another and accepting the shortcomings of your spouse was a challenge, but we were in love and in the end we overcame every hurdle. One of the biggest challenges was Gemma and I'd been forced to play my cards with great cunning to curb her negative influence over my wife. Martina had always told me every last detail about her best friend and I knew that things weren't going well in her marriage at that time. So, with admirable generosity, I'd helped her to find a new apartment, a job, and a good lawyer. When Gemma came to thank me I made it clear to her that the time had come for her to be a friend to both of us. I needed an ally to help me maintain a balance in our happy married life.

“I don't like what I'm hearing,” she said. “I've been close to Martina since middle school. She's my best friend, and you're just an acquaintance to me . . . ”

I raised one hand to stop her. “If I tell her to stop seeing you for good, she'll do as I say. And right now you don't have any other best friends, or even a man, for that matter.”

“Martina doesn't have any other close friends either,” she shot back in annoyance.

“But I can buy her all the friends I want and I can deprive you of everything you have.”

Gemma turned pale and bit her lip to keep from crying, but I hastened to add: “I'm not looking for a fight. But you know that Martina has a complicated personality and she needs time to wrap her mind around certain concepts.”

“So you want me to help convince her that you're always right.”

“Gemma, I
am
always right. I work all day, year round, and I need someone to go on vacation with her . . . Winters, summers, weekends . . . all expenses paid, of course.”

“I wish I could just tell you to go fuck yourself,” she said under her breath.

I gave her an affectionate pat on the cheek. “But you won't do that because I'm making your life easier and more comfortable. Look at yourself: you smoke too much, you're overweight, you always drink at least one spritz too many, you're obviously unhappy, and without Martina and her adorable husband, you'll only go downhill.”

At that point, true to the script, she tried to justify herself, find a reason to be able to look herself in the face in the bathroom mirror every morning. “But you do love her at least?”

“I'm crazy about her. Why else do you think I'd behave in such an odious fashion? Because I can't afford to lose her.”

And for once I'd told the truth, even if it was just a line from an old movie. Living with Martina, taking care of her had brought a little peace into my life, but most importantly it had laid to rest those impulses I'd been unable to control in the past and that still surfaced now and then, even though I no longer needed to get drunk on violence and cruelty in order to feel I was alive.

 

The cell phone rang. It was Nicoletta. “All set.”

“I'll go give the clients the good news.”

I walked into the back room and signaled to Brianese, who was entertaining his new business partners with gossip about the adventures of the Padanos in Rome. He stood up and with great solemnity, as if he were about to address the Italian parliament, he announced: “And now, gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce you to several lovely young ladies who can't wait to attend to the needs of our insatiable cocks.”

The developers burst into a vulgar belly laugh, far too enthusiastic for such a feeble joke. The Counselor led them out of the back room, and then turned around to look back at me. The smile vanished from his lips.