Wu Ming - 54

‘Can yours?’ Ettore shot back.

No one spoke.

The two passengers climbed in behind, in the body of the truck, where rudimentary seats had been installed, with sacks and blankets.

Ettore sat down at the wheel, Pierre beside him.

When the the lorry nosed on to the drive, Pierre felt a shiver running across his shoulder-blades. He couldn’t have said why, but his instinct was to turn around and look at the warehouse.

‘So do you know that guy there?’ asked Ettore.

‘I saw him on the ship coming back from Yugoslavia. He was giving orders.’

‘And what was he transporting?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t see any passengers on board.’

‘What’s Cary Grant got to do with it?’

‘No, Ettore, it’s far too long a story, and I’m starting to think I dreamt it.’

Every time he climbed into the lorry next to Ettore, Pierre saw once more, as from the top of a tower, the twisted paths that had brought him here, further and further away from ‘normal’ life, from what decent people consider legal . A clandestine expatriate, without papers, on a smuggler’s boat, then the bar cellar turned into a storehouse for American cigarettes, then Genoa, the theft from the archive of the Villa Azzurra and now this new trip that even Ettore called ‘risky’. And along with all that, as constant as arthritis, the empty wallet. The James Bond of the poor.

‘I’d like to ask you a question: how did you end up doing this job?’ asked Pierre, as the lorry jolted its way down from the Pontelungo, in the far west of the city.

‘It was the middle way between bank robbery and working in a factory,’ Ettore replied, speaking to the windscreen.

He was silent as far as Borgo Panigale, where he cadged a cigarette and picked up his thread. ‘In fact, I’ve tried to do another job, but it didn’t do it for me. I’d learned to drive a lorry in the military, and after the war I started doing this. It’d all be fine if the boss didn’t pay so badly, so to make an extra bob or two I reached an arrangement with the companies and used the lorry for my own trafficking. One day the boss catches me at it and fires me. So I decide: that’s enough . I had a bit of money put aside, borrowed some more, and bought myself a little rig.’

‘And you worked on your own?’

‘Yes, specially for cooperatives. That was the problem. In ’48 I was thrown out of the Party and the co-ops turned their back on me. Then Bianco showed up, an old comrade from the brigade. He said, if you want I can fix you up with a job.’

‘And how did they get involved in smuggling?’

Ettore smiled. ‘I asked the same question. Bianco said to me, “Ettore, listen to me: Italy is a boot, we’ve tried to polish it, but the place for a boot is always in the mud. For the first little while, at least, things were clear: everyone knew that if you didn’t have a Party card you couldn’t work, and you took a few kicks for your pains as well. Now, because we’re a democracy, things have got even dirtier. The law isn’t equal for everyone. If you’ve got friends, if you do people favours around the place, then you do your trafficking, you get rich and no one is going to say a word to you. Otherwise, forget it. You can’t do this, you can’t do that either. And meanwhile the real criminals are making millions. So I tell you,” he said, “that my war, now that no one’s allowed to kill anyone any more, involves fucking over those criminals, their friends and the people who defend them, and making money right under their noses.”’

‘He wasn’t completely wrong,’ Pierre remarked, amused.

‘Well, he certainly convinced me.’

Pierre would have liked to know something about Ettore’s expulsion from the Party, but he thought he had asked enough questions. They still had a long journey ahead of them. He could save some for later.

‘Stiv, what am I doing exactly?’

Pagano’s voice reached him from another dimension, above the noise of the engine.

It wasn’t a comfortable journey, the body of the truck was dirty and the sacks they were sitting on were hard.

‘Did you hear me, Stiv? Now I. ’ he underlined the concept by pointing his index finger to his chest, ‘. what the fuck am I doing? ’

The boy wore a strange expression, he looked as though he had resigned himself to a gloomy idea.

‘Stiv, I think you want to kill me the way you would kill a mangy dog. And of course you wouldn’t tell me, you’re waiting for me to go to sleep or turn away from you, like, “Shithead, pass me that blanket,” and I turn away and pffft with your gun that doesn’t make a noise. Then you throw me into a ditch the moment the lorry slows down.’

Zollo said nothing, and lit a cigarette without looking at him.

‘Ok, Stiv, listen, I want to tell you that I understand. That is, it’s not so much that I like the idea of dying, it really makes me sick and I’m dying with fear, but I know you can’t just let me loose, because I’ve worked out how things stand. You can’t go back. You’ve put Don Luciano in this position’ — Pagano crossed himself as though he had mentioned the devil — ‘and he kills people for a slap, let alone for drugs. He’ll flay us both alive and polish his shoes with our skins. And you can’t trust me, because I’m an irresponsible wretch.’ He hunched his shoulders, lowering his head. ‘You know, Stiv, I enjoyed looking for that television. We went all over, we saw a load of places, we drove the car at speed, I drove it when you were in jail, too, we went abroad, to the casino, I won all that money from the Chinaman and then made a film, an American film, and when they see it in the local cinema they’ll have to shut their traps and lower their heads when Kociss turns up on the screen.’ He smiled. ‘In short, it seems to me that even if I lived to be ninety, there wouldn’t be a place for Salvatore Pagano any more. That’s all I wanted to say to you, and I’m saying it because I’ve done a lot of thinking on the subject. Because if you do decide to shoot me, I won’t hold it against you. It was me who sold you the TV, it was me who got you into this trouble.’

He fell silent, as though waiting for a reply.

Then, in a low voice: ‘So, Stiv, what are you doing? Are you going to kill me?’

‘Listen to me carefully,’ said Zollo, rubbing his temples, ‘I don’t want to hear another peep out of you, ok? I have to think. If you go on talking I won’t be able to. When we’ve crossed the border it’ll be your turn again, and you can fuck off wherever you feel like it. As long as it’s far away from me, ok?’

Pagano rolled his eyes as a bend threw him backwards. ‘Thanks, Stiv, I knew you were a friend. I never really believed that you wanted to kill me, I was just talking for the sake of it, because after all, you know, hypothetically speaking, I mean, just hypothetically speaking if you had wanted to kill me, I would have understood, I’m not saying that I would have forgiven you, but —’

Zollo took out his Smith and Wesson and held it under Pagano’s nose. ‘If you don’t shut up, I might just change my mind.’

Pagano apologised, folded his arms and kept his mouth shut.

Zollo felt his stomach burning: coffee, simpamine and cigarettes was not the breakfast of champions.

Think, Steve, think.

The boy wasn’t a problem. He’d just have to keep him out from under his feet for long enough to do the deal. Then he would let him have his money and goodbye.

The problem was a different one. Toni had vouched for them all, and you could trust Toni. But you never knew what was round the corner. Right now, Luciano must have been chewing the carpet. He couldn’t take that leap into the dark alone, he needed a cover. Someone to watch his back for long enough to get the money and run. Sospel was a one-horse town, he would have to reach a city, with a railway station or a coach station, and get to Paris from there. And from Paris to South Africa.