A Pimp's Notes (20 page)

My friend walks out of the Cinema Argentina looking a little troubled, a little worried, to judge from his familiar features.

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is that I’m in big trouble. This evening I have to be in two places at the same time. And I can’t afford not to show up in either place. Especially not in one of the places.”

He looks around, as if the world around him might be about to offer a solution. Which is what happens, but not to my personal satisfaction. At all.

“But you could go to the other place for me.”

“Are you crazy?”

“It’s no big thing. I just have to make a delivery over near where you live.”

“A delivery? You’ve lost your mind. I’m not working as a courier for any type of shit you may be handling. Not for you, not for anyone.”

He pretends to take offense.

“Who do you take me for? It’s not drugs. I don’t deal in that line of work.”

He rummages around in his jacket and pulls out a fat envelope from an inside pocket. He steps closer to me and cracks it open so that I can see what’s inside, but it’s covered by our bodies. It’s full of 100,000-lira bills.

“I’m supposed to give this money to the guys I owe it to, at midnight. They’re coming from out of town and if I don’t show up, they’re going to get pissed off. And when these guys get pissed off it’s not a pretty sight to see.”

A guy walks toward us and Daytona, in an excess of caution, slips the envelope back into his jacket pocket. The man walks past, completely indifferent to us. We’re left standing there, face-to-face.

I look at him. He looks at me.

“Come on, just do me this favor. I guarantee there’s no rip-off involved.”

It’s starting to look like my main job is being a money transporter. Tonight for Daytona, tomorrow for Tano Casale.

“All right. Where do I have to go?”

“Outside of Trezzano, along the road to Vigevano. There’s a restaurant called La Pergola. At twelve thirty a.m. in the parking lot. I’ll tell them you’re going to be there instead of me. As soon as they get there, you give them the envelope and then leave.”

I lower my head, still undecided. When I raise my eyes to look at Daytona, he’s pulled the envelope back out and he’s licking the flap to seal it. He hands it to me.

“Nice show of trust.”

“I’m putting several million lire into your hands. If you don’t think that’s a sign of trust…”

I take the envelope and stick it into my jacket pocket.

“Okay. But I’m going to remind you that you owe me one.”

“I have an elephant’s memory, I won’t forget.”

I mock him. He deserves it and he owes me.

“You keep on eating the way you do and you’ll have an elephant’s figure, my friend.”

We shake hands and I head for the Mini, which awaits me with its mystery still unresolved.

While waiting for my intuition to suggest a specific direction, I get in the car and start circling around the city, in a series of automotive waltzes.

I swing by the Duomo, to listen to the endlessly evolving conversations of a group of people who never seem to move away from the front doors of La Rinascente department store. Then I drop by the Bar Jamaica and drink a beer with a bunch of demented artists, as funny as they are funny-looking. I have dinner at the Torre Pendente, where I see people and I pick up a couple of jobs for my girls, followed by a quick hop over to the Budineria, the Irish tavern near Via Chiesa Rossa.

At last I find myself sitting in a parking lot outside of town, in a suspicious vehicle, with my pockets full of money that doesn’t belong to me, waiting for the people it does belong to to come along and collect it. The restaurant is closed and I’m all alone in this unpaved area by the main road. The cars that race past give me a gift of light but snatch it back just a few seconds later, hurtling along so that they can play the same trick on someone farther down the road.

I sit and smoke and think.

My life has changed in the past few days. Carla, Tulip, Lucio, Daytona: one new face and other, familiar faces, but with new expressions. Death, emerging out of the darkness and bringing darkness with it. Life, which perhaps still exists.

Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts …

Meanwhile, time is passing and no one’s showing up.

My watch says it’s a quarter past one. Daytona’s debt to me is increasing exponentially. At two o’clock I decide that the price has risen above its market quote so I mentally tell them to go fuck themselves.

I start the car and head for home, which is luckily very close; otherwise I’d have to charge an annoyance bonus for every additional kilometer, aside from the standard rate for oil and gas.

When I get back to my apartment, I undress and toss the envelope onto the chest of drawers, next to the telephone. Then a thought occurs to me. Tomorrow morning I’m going to have to give Pino one million lire. It goes without saying that I’ll have to pay him in cash, because it’s always a bad idea to give certain people checks. I have some cash hidden in my apartment, in a secure place I built for myself. But I don’t want to dig into my personal reserve for emergency situations. Ever since I put the money away, I’ve forced myself to pretend it doesn’t exist.

I decide to use the money in the envelope, which will save me a trip to the bank before going to see Pino. It’s partly for convenience, and partly because sitting there like an idiot waiting for some assholes who never showed up is still making my balls spin in annoyance and frustration. If Daytona has the nerve to get mad because I opened the envelope, I’ll bitch-slap him around the Milan beltway.

I pick up the envelope, slip my pinky into the little opening at the corner of the flap, and run it the length of the crease. The envelope rips open raggedly and part of what’s inside falls with a rustling sound on top of the chest of drawers. I stand there like an idiot, staring openmouthed at something I can’t believe I’m really seeing. The envelope is full of strips of newspaper, cut into the exact size of a 100,000-lira bill.

12

I’m parked on Via Roma, outside a nondescript bank branch office, sitting in my mystery car. This morning I got up early and left the apartment without even showering and shaving. I decided that the people I was going to meet would have to accept me, unkempt as I am.

When I walked out my door onto the landing, I ran into Lucio with his white cane and dark glasses, climbing the last flight of stairs. He reached the landing and stopped. The sound of my door opening and then closing alerted him to my presence.

“You’re an early riser.”

“So are you, I’d have to say.”

He put one hand in his pocket and pulled out his house key. Feeling the door, he inserted it into the lock.

“I had a session in a recording studio at the Castle of Carimate, last night. It went on longer than we expected and I just slept there. This morning I took the only ride coming back. Practically at dawn, as you can see.”

He opened the door and put the key back in his pocket.

“I came up with a new one for you.”

I had neither interest nor time for cryptic clues. I tried to tell him that in a way that wouldn’t offend him.

“I’m sorry, this is a bad time for it, Lucio. I’ve really got to make tracks.”

He refused to take no for an answer.

“It’s always a good time to give your brain a workout. This one’s easy. Listen:
Starlets going incognito in an opera libretto
(four plus six equals ten). Memorized?”

“Memorized.”

I started downstairs but his voice stopped me.

“Bravo, just one thing.”

“Tell me.”

“Thanks for the other night. With Carla, I mean. I don’t know what the relationship is between the two of you, but I’m pretty sure that I owe you for what happened.”

For an instant the sight of their bodies on the bed appeared before my eyes, blotting out everything else. Then I became myself again.

“Everything’s fine, music man. Now I’ve really got to go.”

I heard his door swing shut while I was descending the last flight of steps. I did everything I needed to do as quickly as possible, with the aid of mercifully light morning traffic: bank, one million lire from the teller, then at top speed to Pino’s house, in Cormano. I picked up the product of his craftsmanship, slaloming to avoid the fond glances of his daughter, his invitations, and his good advice, the fruit of age-old wisdom that never kept him from spending various stretches in state prison.

*   *   *

Now I’m a man waiting for someone to show up, and hoping that it turns out differently than last night.

A light green Simca 1000 passes me and pulls in a few slots ahead. A few seconds later Remo Frontini gets out. He’s wearing a dark blue jacket that’s seen better days and a pair of trousers that scream discount store from a mile away. I get out of my car and walk toward him. It’s evident from his appearance that he didn’t get much sleep last night. For different reasons, I’m in the exact same condition. This strange assonance increases my fondness for him, and therefore my concern for his well-being. Maybe it’s because of a certain irritated and instinctive attraction that honesty seems to exert upon people like me.

“
Buon giorno
, Signore Frontini.”

“I hope it is a good day.”

“It will be. Don’t worry. Trust me.”

Maybe he assumes that he has no reason to do so and that’s the reason for his uneasiness. Awkwardly, with the general attitude of someone who can’t wait for it all to be over, he rummages in his pocket and extracts a sheet of paper folded in half, in letter format.

“Here’s what you asked me to bring.”

I open it and check the photocopy. It’s clear and legible. I pull a newspaper clipping with the numbers of the winning ticket out of my pocket, check it, and recheck it. These numbers at least coincide.

“Excellent. Now all we have to do is wait.”

He doesn’t ask who we’re waiting for.

I offer him a Marlboro. He refuses the cigarette with a simple swivel of the head. I light one up and smoke without even tasting the smoke. What happened last night left a bad taste in my mouth. Not feeling entirely in charge of my life is something I’m not used to. I sense a looming threat of some kind, something coming, and I can’t tell what it is or where it’s coming from. It’s not a particularly enjoyable state of mind, because however hard I try, I can’t find even the beginnings of an explanation.

The strips of newspaper in the envelope can mean only one thing, at first glance: Daytona wanted to rip off his creditors and he decided to use me as the courier and maybe as the scapegoat. All the same, it strikes me as such a stupid plan that even the atrophied brain of that chimp should have been able to glimpse its limitations. The fact that those guys didn’t show up at the appointment is something I can’t seem to place. Was it a stroke of good luck for me, or was it a signal that the explanation should be sought elsewhere? The problem is that I don’t have the faintest idea of where that elsewhere might be.

Then there’s the detail, anything but minor, of the serial number on the chassis of my car. This isn’t one of those innocuous puzzler’s skirmishes between me and Lucio. One of those nameless instincts that make you guess the winning horse or avoid the losing one suggests to me that this is anything but a simple matter. This is a much more complicated puzzle, filled with numbers and letters I can’t put together.

Hard as I try, I can’t figure it out. And when I can’t figure something out I feel like a fool, and that makes me mad.

I see a cream Alfa Romeo Giulietta approach from the right and I recognize Stefano Milla behind the wheel. He parks a fair distance away from us. Since he doesn’t get out, I go over to him. He’s sitting in the car, smoking and waiting for me. I pull open the passenger-side door and get in. No greetings. He reaches into the backseat and picks up a saddle-brown Naugahyde valise. He lays it in my lap.

“Delivery completed.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

Milla shakes his head.

“I’d just as soon that guy didn’t see me. I’m only an escort. Tano told me that you’re in charge on this one. With all the honor and all the risks.”

Experience tells me very clearly just what the scope of the risks and the honor might be. I take the briefcase, get out of the Alfa, and go back to Frontini, who seems more nervous than ever. I invite him to step into my car and sit next to me. I crane my neck to make sure there’s no one around, then I open the briefcase and show him what’s inside.

“Here you go.”

I could never describe that man’s expression. It wasn’t greed, it was astonishment. It was the face of a little boy gazing at a pirate’s treasure trove, staring at something he thought could only exist in the imagination, never in reality. There’s the certainty of a new and unexpected way of life in that briefcase, and I look at him and feel happy for him.

“Go ahead and count. There should be fifty bundles of ten million lire each. A total of five hundred million lire. That’s exactly how much money we agreed on.”

I set the briefcase in his lap.

“Take all the time you need.”

He rummages through the money long enough to count the bills in three or four bundles chosen at random and then counts to make sure there are fifty bundles. Then he closes the top and makes sure that the locks click shut.

“It looks like it’s all here.”

“Perfect. Now you go get that lottery ticket.”

I feel it’s my duty to let him know that the risks and the honor that Milla mentioned a few minutes ago involve not only me, but him as well. Experience has taught me that you can never be too careful, even though I’ve broken this rule of mine several times already with Frontini.

“I want to make one thing very clear. I know that it’s not really necessary, but I feel obliged to emphasize that if you pull any funny business at all, of any kind, the consequences could be very unpleasant.”

To my surprise, he smiles.

“At this point, if I hadn’t figured that out, I really would be an idiot.”

Then he gets out of the car, with his briefcase full of joy in one hand. When he’s out of the car he leans over, rests his arm on the car door, and sticks his head in through the open window.