A Pimp's Notes (8 page)

When he recognizes Micky, he relaxes slightly.

Without a word of greeting, my friend comes right to the point.

“We have an appointment with Tano.”

The guy looks me up and down before deciding that my escort is reference enough for my admission. Then he jerks his head toward the interior and opens the smaller door carved out of the sliding metal door.

We walk through the door and suddenly we’re in another world. On the side of the warehouse we’ve just walked into, we’re surrounded by all the equipment and machinery needed for the operations of the ostensible host company. Workbenches, metal presses, lathes, and other heavy machinery I couldn’t identify. In front of us are the glass doors of a painting department. There’s a diffuse odor of solvents, milled metal, and lubricant. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if this shop was used not only to scrap cars with regulation certificates of demolition but also to modify the appearance of vehicles of much murkier provenance.

But the real surprise comes with what we see on the opposite side of the interior space. Under the lights hanging down from the ceiling and on a modular wooden floor is a genuine miniature casino. There’s an American-style roulette wheel with a croupier, a long craps table, and another table where a number of people are sitting, both men and women, playing what looks to me like blackjack. I think I catch a glimpse of Daytona’s double comb-over, among the card players. There’s even a little bar, with a man and a blond woman leaning against it, waiting for their drinks. Three men dressed in dark suits mingle silently with the crowd, keeping an eye on everything that’s going on.

When Tano Casale does something, he does it right. I’m pretty sure that tomorrow morning, none of what I’m looking at will be here to greet the light of day. The tables will be broken down, the green felt and the black curtains covering the high windows of the warehouse will all be gone. There’ll be nothing but a warehouse full of people cutting metal with oxyacetylene blowtorches, hammering, and waving paint spray guns and airbrushes. But tonight there’s still plenty of time for anyone who wants to hunt for a lucky card or a winning number. They just have to pay their dues, winning occasionally and losing almost inevitably, as required by the rules of the game.

I follow Micky as he walks across the warehouse floor, heading for a door that looks like it leads to an office. Before we have a chance to knock on the door, it swings open and a man walks out. His face is swollen, and a stream of blood is pouring out of his nose. He’s doing his best to stop the blood with a pocket handkerchief. Another man with a powerful physique and a face that’s probably seen more than one bout in a boxing ring holds him firmly by the arm, pushing him along toward the exit and concealing him from the view of the other players.

Micky knocks twice on the doorjamb, and then walks through the door, which has been left wide open. I follow him through. Inside we see two men. One is sitting down at a desk piled high with paperwork and the other is on his feet, leaning against a zinc filing cabinet.

The one sitting down is Tano Casale.

He looks to be about forty-five, with slicked-back hair. There are a few streaks of gray around his temples, and not a trace of gray in his thick, dark mustache. His eyes are determined but his right eyebrow, crisscrossed by a small scar, gives him a slightly quizzical look. His big hands resting on the desktop convey an idea of strength and of a person who knows how to use it.

He sees us walk in and nods hello to Micky. The nod is followed by a smile that says the boss likes Micky. My friend must be a reliable worker and a good earner. What I hear about Tano Casale is that he’s a man of his word and that he recognizes and rewards merit.

“
Ciao
, blondie.”

“
Ciao
, Tano.”

Micky, for all his airs as a man of the world, is intimidated. He points to me.

“This is Bravo, the person I mentioned on the phone.”

Only then does Tano seem to notice my presence. He looks me up and down without a word and his face hardens.

“Bravo? What kind of a fucking name is Bravo?”

A voice emerges from my memory and echoes in my head. It sounds like sandpaper on rust.

… hold still, youngster, don’t give me trouble. If you make this easy on me, I’ll make it easy on you and try not to make it hurt too bad. Understand? That’s it, don’t squirm. Bravo!

I shrug my shoulders.

“Maybe it’s not a name, maybe it’s just an involuntary shout of approval I get from people.”

Tano bursts out laughing.

“Nice answer, kid—bravo!”

“You see? You said it, I didn’t.”

Maybe my ready wit has made a good impression on him, or maybe not. Still, when the smile fades he looks at me differently. He waves me over and points to the steel and Formica chair in front of his desk. Micky can tell he’s no longer needed, and he leaves before anyone has to ask him to. The other man remains standing, on my left. Maybe he’s trying to intimidate me, but I ignore him.

Tano offers me a thoughtful tone of voice and a piece of flattery.

“All kidding aside, I’ve heard good things about you. You’ve put together your little network, you seem to know what you’re doing, and, best of all, you seem to respect boundaries.”

He points to the door that the guy with the nosebleed walked through a little while ago.

“Not like some people, who think they’re smarter than me and come to my casino and try to sneak in some late bets under my nose. You wouldn’t believe how stupid some people can be.”

He pauses.

“But don’t let’s talk about disagreeable things. Micky tells me you have a deal for me.”

“More than a deal; I’d say a trade.”

“I’m listening.”

I stall for time and light a cigarette. Then I sweep my hand in a gesture that includes everything that’s happening in the warehouse.

“I’d have to imagine that with all this money coming in, the biggest problem you have is how to spend it.”

Tano smiles like a cat thinking about mice.

“We always know what to do with our money.”

I nod agreeably and continue. And I wonder if he’d have the same purr in his voice and glint in his eye if he were telling someone to cut my throat.

“All the same, sometimes it’s good to make things a little easier on yourself. I have the name and address of a guy who just hit the jackpot on the soccer lottery and won himself 490 million lire. He’s willing to sell this winning lottery ticket for a modest gratuity of ten million lire.”

Just to forestall any misunderstanding, I volunteer the terms I have in mind.

“I wouldn’t touch a cent of it. I promised him that money as an incentive and because he strikes me as an honest person. And, most important of all, a reasonable person.”

I’m sure that Tano understands exactly what I’m driving at, but he wants to hear it from me.

“Go on.”

“Oh, I don’t think there are any difficulties from that point on. If you buy the winning ticket, you have a certain sum of money in hand that you can spend without having to worry. Moreover, it would be tax exempt, since it’s winnings from a state-run lottery.”

Tano Casale looks in my direction, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even see me. Then he turns his head to meet the gaze of the man standing next to the filing cabinet. In exchange he receives a look of circumspect approval, confirming a decision that he’s actually already made internally. He addresses me once again in an untroubled voice.

“This we could do. We’d have to look at just how, but this is something we could do.”

After a pause he turns to the second part of the matter.

“Now what about you? What do you get out of this?”

“I just get to keep doing my job without a major headache. There’s a problem between Laura, one of my girls, and one of your men.”

At this point, everything happens very quickly. The guy standing next to the filing cabinet, a man of average height with bulging eyes and a mouth with a nasty sneer, grabs me by my jacket lapels and heaves me up out of my seat. I find myself shoved against the wall, his deranged eyes about a foot from mine, and his breath, which hardly reeks of violets, hissing his cold fury. I’m not all that surprised. This is fairly ordinary behavior from Salvatore Menno, aka Tulip.

His boss, from behind the desk, intervenes.

“Salvatore, leave him alone.”

My aggressor ignores him and smashes me against the wall once or twice.

“You nasty goddamn pimp, what the fuck do you want here?”

Any fuck you’ve got
, I reply instinctively, in my head.

This last would have prompted a round of applause from Lucio, if he ever knew. But I don’t think that Tulip would get the joke. Even if he knew, I still think he’d miss the point.

Tano Casale stands up suddenly from his chair. He doesn’t yell, but it’s worse than if he had.

“I told you to let him go. Go back to where you were.”

Even a psychopath like Tulip shits his pants when Tano Casale speaks in that tone of voice. I can feel the vise grip loosen and I’m free. He walks backward, with my death still dancing in his eyes, until he’s standing next to the filing cabinet again.

I move away from the wall, doing my best to straighten my jacket.

I ignore my adversary and I speak to Tano. With a cool calm that’s nothing like what I’m feeling inside.

“Since the hen that squawks is the one that laid the egg, at this point I hardly think I need to name names. Laura is a girl who works for me and your man wants to force her to be part of his harem.”

Instinctively, Tulip takes another step toward me. Tano halts him with a wave of his hand. The only way left for Tulip to let off steam is with words, and he speaks them with flecks of whitish foam speckling the corners of his mouth.

“Laura’s a whore, and you’re making a living off her pussy.”

“That may be. But she’s a whore with free will, and she can be a whore when and with whomever she pleases. No matter what she does, she’s the one who decides. I don’t impose, I simply propose, without duress and, above all, without fists.”

The threat comes as no surprise.

“I’ll have your hands cut off at the wrist.”

I turn to look at him, and I stare him straight in the eye.

“So you’re too scared to do your own hand-cutting in person these days?”

Tano’s voice, slightly raised, cuts sharply through this little exchange of compliments.

“That’s enough! And I mean both of you!”

He goes back and sits down at his desk. He speaks to Tulip without looking him in the face.

“Salvo, go in the other room and see if everything’s under control.”

That request is tantamount to a get-the-fuck-out-of-here, loud and clear. Reluctantly, Menno heads for the door, covering his humiliation with a dignified, unhurried pace. Just before he walks through the door, he gives me a look that contains a complete road map of his intentions. I know that he’s not likely to get over this particular humiliation anytime soon and that, in any case, I’ve just made an enemy for life.

Oh well, nobody lives forever.

Now Tano and I are alone. I go back to my chair. He puts his hands behind his head and draws his own conclusions.

“So, for you this Laura’s freedom is worth all that money.”

“That’s right.”

He looks at me as if he were seeing me for the first time.

“You’re a smart guy. You’re no chicken. From the way you talk, I can tell you’re educated. You have a nice appearance. Are you ambitious, too?”

This sounds like the preamble to a job offer. Which I tactfully do my best to avoid.

“Sometimes ambition can take you on some strange rides, in the backs of certain cars and inside certain coffins. Plus, I’m allergic to flowers.”

Tano Casale bursts out laughing.

“And you’re a philosopher too. Happiness comes to him who settles for less.”

This time I put a ceremonious smirk on my face.

“Or you could put it another way. He who is happy to settle for less lives well and much longer.”

The man sitting across the desk from me seems satisfied, both with me and with the turn of events.

“Outstanding. I guarantee that Salvo won’t bother your girl anymore. As for the rest of it, give me the time to put together the money and then we’ll complete this operation. I’d be just as happy if it was you supervising it, even though, for obvious reasons, I’d assign a trusted colleague to work alongside you.”

I pull a ballpoint pen out of a cup and jot down the phone number of the answering service I use on a notepad lying on the desk. I push it across the desk to him.

“You can get in touch with me any time of the day or night at this number.”

Tano stands up. This signals an unspoken dismissal. I stand up too and reach out to grip the hand he extends to me.

“Now, if you want to go take a stroll around the room in there, I’ll have them give you a handful of chips, just so you can’t say we sent you away empty-handed.”

I put another aspect of my life onto the scale.

“Thanks. But I don’t gamble.”

“Smart boy. There are plenty smarter ways to burn up your money.”

We emerge from the office and into the warehouse. While I was busy negotiating with Tano Casale and getting myself beaten up by Tulip, more people have shown up. Now the roulette table is almost completely concealed by the crowd of male and female players clustering around it. For the same reason, I can barely see the craps table, and I notice that they’ve set up another blackjack table. This line of business must bring in a fortune. A safe and risk-free source of revenue, every night on earth that God grants us. The world is teeming with people willing to lose the deed to their house at a roulette table. Moreover, in the specific case in question, alongside the sheer thrill of gambling is the added charge of doing so in a way that’s against the law. Though I’m pretty sure that Tano, as far as that goes, has arranged for all the necessary protections.

Everything that needs to be said between us has been said. The boss waves his hand good-bye and goes over to Menno, who’s facing the croupier at the head of the roulette table. I see Micky excuse himself from his conversation with an elegant laughing blond woman; he leaves her and walks over to them. They chat. Then my blond friend heads in my direction, while the other two leave through a door in the far wall, followed by a third man who must be their bodyguard.