These Dark Things (11 page)

Lola’s head was already a crown of shiny foil when Natalia was let into Fionetta’s beauty parlor. Natalia greeted the proprietress and bent to kiss her childhood friend before taking the chair next to her. The tall window shades remained discreetly closed, as usual, when Lola got together with her old friends for an early-morning appointment before the salon actually opened. Mariel had yet to arrive.

Mariel, Lola, and Natalia had attended elementary school together and survived adolescence sharing the same classes. They got their first brassieres together and gossiped incessantly about their rivals and first beaus. As they grew older, Lola’s family proved a problem. The Nuovolettas were Camorra. Her grandfather was sent away during the Maxi trials, after which her father tried to go straight, but the temptations and the pressures proved too great. He got into contraband-cigarette smuggling and expanded into hard drugs. Lola was twelve when he was gunned down. Her mother took over the smuggling.

Signora Nuovoletta was a country girl from a mountain village in Abruzzo. Her parents moved the family to Naples, where she met and wed Lola’s dad. A real love match. When Natalia visited, she remembered being embarrassed by their lingering kisses and the gentle slap her father gave her mother’s ample behind. Nothing like the physical expressions her parents allowed themselves.

Natalia loved Lola’s birthday parties, which grew even more lavish after her father was killed. However, Natalia’s and Mariel’s parents forbade them to attend any more, and that was the end of pony rides and elegant cakes and presents. Nonetheless, the three of them continued the tradition, meeting secretly to celebrate. They were, after all, distant cousins, Nonna insisted. Family.

At fourteen, Lola—a fat kid with sagging knee socks—turned svelte and augmented her school uniform with a bustier. The nuns sent her home. Within a week, she’d quit school and was serving drinks in her uncle’s bar. At eighteen, she married her second cousin, Frankie. As a wedding present, Frankie was given the carting business in the district. Lola and Frankie built a luxurious home in Posillipo but preferred the simple rooms above the bar and remained there to this day, using the other as a vacation house.

By the time Natalia and Mariel started at university, Frankie was the head of the local gang, the
capo paranza
, and Lola was a glamorous young matron holding court at the latest hot café with the other wives and sisters of Camorra captains. But whenever possible, or when the occasion demanded it, the three of them got together quietly to gossip and celebrate.

“What is Madam having done today?” Fionetta said, frowning and holding up Natalia’s gray curls. “Some color?”

“A trim,” Natalia said.

Fionetta hadn’t changed her beehive hairstyle since the three friends first came to her at sixteen, hoping to find the secret to looking older. “Onetta” was fragrant with Chanel and the holding spray that lacquered her hairdo.

“Can you believe the garbage?” she said, peeking out around the drawn blinds.

“What’s this?” Natalia said, holding up Lola’s wrist.

Lola beamed. “My new bracelet.”

“Nice.”

“Nice? It’s
gorgeous
, is what it is. Twenty-two-carat diamonds set in gold.”

“From Frankie?”

“Yeah.”

“Special occasion?”

“I don’t know.” Lola looked pensive. “I think he’s whoring around on me.”

“Frankie?”

“Yeah. Frankie.”

“I don’t think so, Lola. The guy worships the ground you walk on. Maybe he just had a success … in business.”

“Maybe.” Lola laughed. “Look, I love the man, but he isn’t the brightest star in the sky.”

“How are the kids?” Natalia asked.

“Weeds. Nico is this tall.” She held out a hand, a meter high. “He’s a head taller than the other two. They all pester me about when Aunt Natalie and Aunt Mariel are coming over and bringing more presents.”

Besides being discreet, Fionetta was also nearly deaf. Nonetheless, Lola beckoned Natalia to sit in the chair next to hers, and leaned over to whisper. “I had a visit from Aldo Gambini the other day. When Frankie was out.”

“No kidding.”

“At first I thought maybe he was sniffing around.”

“That old man?”

“Old men indulge in sex, too, Natalia. Remember sex?”

“But with one of his captains’ wives?”

“It’s been known to happen. But that wasn’t it: he has babes all over and a serious
amorat
on the side, named Bridget. He wanted advice.” Lola leaned even closer. “Gambini is recruiting women.”

“Great,” Natalia said. “Feminism lives. But he’s a little late. Rosetta ‘Ice Eyes’ Cutolo ran her brother’s operation for thirty years while he was in prison. Ermina Giuliano ruled the Forcella section around the train station forever. And Maria Licciardi controlled the Secondigliano district and waged a drug war with rivals. Shot it out with other Camorra women in the streets. A dozen people died, I think.”

Lola turned serious. “He was also trying to find out about you. I couldn’t tell whether he was expecting me to tell you or not. I’m sure he knows we still see one another from time to time. So I think maybe his asking after you was a message.” She screwed up her face. “Don’t know for sure.”

“Probably.”

“Yeah.”

Natalia didn’t have to ask what the unspoken message might be: stay out of Gambini business. She shrugged. “I have to do my job.”

Lola gave her an exasperated look. “Think about yourself for once. You don’t see your boss out on the street, do you? He travels with three bodyguards in two cars. Three. Who’s looking out for
you
?”

A knock at the front announced the arrival of Mariel, splendid-looking as always in a matching silk blouse and linen skirt, hair a sleek gold cap, perfectly groomed.

“Sorry I’m late. I was trying to cope with the garbage out in front of the bookstore. I had exactly one customer all day yesterday. The stench is horrible. The whole street is strewn with uncollected garbage, from the Porta Alba to Piazza Dante.”

“Here too,” said Fionetta, and helped her into a salon frock.

“What did I miss?” said Mariel.

“Lola wants to know how many dates I’ve had in the last half year.” Natalia touched a curl descending over her eye. “I had to confess: none.”

“Men are overrated,” Mariel said. “I prefer my cat.”

“Em, you could date anyone you wanted,” Lola said.

Natalia agreed. Mariel was smart as well as gorgeous. Natalia was less thrilled with the image of herself in the mirror, however.

“Look at Nat,” Lola said. “She needs a makeover.
Cara
, do you ever consider wearing lipstick? Here. Take mine. You look white as a sheet.”

“I can’t wear that shade of red.” Natalia pushed back the shiny tube.

“Don’t be stubborn. Try it, at least.” Lola swiveled the tube open as she rose from her chair and applied a swath to Natalia’s lips. “There.” She stood back to admire her quick work. “You look terrific. Doesn’t she?”

“Not bad,” Fionetta said, already mixing the chemicals for Mariel’s touchup.

Mariel always encouraged Natalia to indulge herself with beauty treatments. “Maintenance” is how Mariel put it. She had been largely unsuccessful. Mariel treated herself to a salon visit once a month. There she got a manicure, a pedicure, a massage, and a dye job that kept her lustrous hair as shiny as it had been since her youth. But the salon was well beyond Natalia’s budget, and even if it hadn’t been, she had zero tolerance for marking time as a prisoner in so-called beauty parlors. So gray my hair will be, she mused, taking up the hand mirror and studying her unruly curls.

“Get these off me,” Lola said, pointing to the foils covering her hair. “I’m done and I have to get going.” She dug in her bag for her cell phone.

“Don’t forget,” Mariel said. “We’re meeting in the usual place at seven on Natalia’s birthday.”

Fionetta removed the foils and brushed out Lola’s long hair with a few deft strokes. “
Perfetto
,” Lola said. “
Ciao. Ciao.
”

She kissed them each good-bye and clicked across to the door in her red heels.

“A force of nature, that girl,” said Fionetta, scissors clicking as she started on Natalia.

Natalia nodded and pondered the mute warning delivered by her friend. As a child, she had fallen asleep to stories of Peppe “Long Nose” Misso and learned young about
pizzo
, the tax imposed on shopkeepers. When she stopped at Anatolia’s candy store for her weekly chocolate, Enzo Spina was invariably there in the back. After witnessing him take a wad of bills from Anatolia, Natalia, with the innocence of a seven-year-old, asked “What’s that for?”

“Children shouldn’t be nosy,” Enzo had said, tapping his large nose to illustrate.

“Why not?” Natalia asked.

“To protect the store,” Anatolia said.

“From what?”

“From bad people,” Enzo said, winking at Anatolia. “Now get over here and give us a kiss.”

“No,” Natalia said. She moved away.

“Do as he says,” Anatolia said.

Natalia did. Enzo’s beard was rough and scratchy and he smelled like cigarettes and wine. He must have kept his word about protecting Anatolia’s store, though. She remained a fixture in the neighborhood for many years, often dragging her chair onto the sidewalk to hold court with the other widows. Her hair was lacquered black, well into her nineties. That she was low-level Camorra herself, and might have laundered money and sold tax-free cigarettes, didn’t occur to Natalia until she was on the force.

As Fionetta finished the styling, Natalia’s pager and phone both went off. Never a good sign.
Murder—Sorrento
, read the message.

The Friday traffic was heavy all the way out of the city. The sun was fierce, the car’s air conditioning dicey at best. Natalia turned it off and rolled down the windows. Better hot air than none at all. A few Neapolitans were bathing in the fetid harbor. Many others were attempting to escape the unwelcome aromas wafting through Naples. Those lucky enough to possess a vehicle or rusty motorbike strapped on their luggage and set off. Traffic eased before she had to resort to the siren, much good as it would have done in moving her through the still-crowded streets.

The call had come in from the police in Sorrento. Neapolitan Carabinieri normally wouldn’t be called to an investigation in Sorrento. But as a member of the RAS elite within the Carabinieri mandated to investigate anything involving the Camorra, she had been summoned. The victim was reported to be a Naples resident, and the murder had the earmarks of a criminal syndicate hit.

Reaching the outskirts of town, she thought she’d finally escape the stink of the Waste Management Crisis, as it was called by the politicians and press. But the outside shoulder of the road was strewn with garbage dumped by desperate Neapolitans. Outraged by the incompetence and corruption, they’d refused to recycle anything whatsoever and were separating nothing. Everything got tossed out together to bake on the roadways and streets. Could anarchy be far behind? She was some distance south of the city before the heaps of roadside garbage finally diminished.

As Natalia approached the intersection where the victim’s van stood pushed across the road, traffic came to a stop. The road had no shoulder, so she maneuvered onto the painted median and stuck her siren on the hood of the unmarked Fiat. Blue light and siren screaming, she put her foot to the floor and reached the scene in minutes, grateful that no one on a motorcycle had had the same idea about getting around its four-wheeled neighbors.

The area was properly cordoned off, though the flares on the ground seemed redundant in the glare of the morning sun. Natalia flashed her ID as she walked to the white van that stood idle across several lanes. Its cab door was open and the driver sat upright, safety belts still in place. City police milled everywhere, clearing the way for an ambulance, containing gawkers that stood by the side of the road, directing traffic around the impediment, directing one another. Her “nemesis,” Marshal dei Carabinieri Cervino, was chatting up the constabulary.

“I guess they broke
his
horns,” she overheard him say. The two chuckled.

The dead driver was a bloody mess. On what was left of his head sat black devil’s horns like those a child might wear on All Saints Night. His thick white hair was streaked with blood. She would know that pompadour anywhere. Angelo Tortorino. Proprietor of a popular gourmet shop and restaurant in the Fontanelle district. He was nearly unrecognizable, the single shot having taken out an eye and most of his mouth, which was stuffed with euros, a comment apparently on his fatal greed.

Natalia flashed on the man she’d seen lying dead in the street when she was eight. Her schoolmate’s father, a shoemaker who worked out of a tiny shop below their apartment. He had often treated the two of them to biscotti and hot chocolate in the winter, apricots and strawberries in spring. He’d missed a payment and mouthed off to the collector, the neighbors said. And then he was dead, like this.

According to scuttlebutt, which Natalia had been privy to, Tortorino had spoken against Gambini and the rotting garbage ruining his restaurant business, had even put up a picture of the mob boss wearing devil’s horns.