Wu Ming - 54

A person with his professional experience does not act in such a way as to have himself arrested by any police force for matters relating to drugs or anything of the kind. He is extremely skilful and surrounds himself only with loyal associates. This makes it difficult to investigate him in any depth.

The presence of Lucania is harmful to Italy’s prestige. Even the communist press has made contemptuous comments about this. By sending him to prison, the Italian government could neutralise Lucania and his wicked international criminal activities. It would be preferable to imprison him for the maximum period contemplated, five years.

Miscellaneous

The secretary-general of Interpol in France has distributed to fifty member nations of Interpol a printed circular about Lucania, as a suspected drugs trafficker of international importance (see ‘Allegation D’). Lucania has been interrogated by the Italian tax police on 5 May 1951 and 15 May 1951 for matters relating to the trial of Frank Callace and Joe Pici for narcotics trafficking.

He was also interrogated by the tax police for the illegal importation of a 1948 model Sedan Oldsmobile, which had been brought to him by a New York gangster, Pasquale Matranga, runner for a certain Willie Moretti, a known gangster from New Jersey, later murdered. Lucania told this to one of my informers. On 7 June 1951 the trial concerning this automobile was held in Naples, and the car was confiscated and he was fined 32,000 lire. He was subsequently interrogated by customs for the illegal importation of 57,000 US dollars. On 27 March 1952, with decree no. 4621 D.G.T. 28853/228/7212, the Naples court found him guilty and ordered him to pay a fine of 2,500,000 lire.

The Public Security officials maintain that Lucania’s two ‘lieutenants’ are implicated in the homicide of Umberto Chiofano, a petty criminal said to have slapped Lucania in public, at Agnano racecourse, last January. They are:

Victor Trimane, forty-three, expelled from the USA in 1949 after being found guilty of manslaughter by battery and four years’ imprisonment in Riker’s Island, New York State.

Stefano Francis Zollo, alias ‘Steve Concrete’, alias ‘Steve Cement’, thirty-five, originally from New York, already close to the Anastasia criminal family. Has lived in Italy since 1951. There are no extradition procedures currently under way for him.

Numerous confidential sources have declared that Lucania has been rigging the results of horse races in Naples by paying sums of money. A jockey, Vittorio Rosa, double-crossed Lucania when a race was being run. Lucania had paid Rosa for a certain horse to win. Instead Rosa made the horse lose. Lucania is then said to have threatened to kill Rosa. Rosa escaped to Mexico. On his return he was interrogated by Lieutenant Oliva, on 20 September 1951.

Among the people mentioned by Rosa as involved in the confidence tricks is Gennaro Iovene, forty-one, racecourse veterinarian.

Although he is not officially its owner, Lucania possesses a building at no. 484 Via Tasso, Vomero, Naples. Lucania paid 100 million lire for the building. He occupies one of the two luxurious top-floor apartments. The registered title-holder is a certain Carlo Scarpaio, but he is not in fact the owner. Lucania has been living there since June 1952.

In March 1952 it was learned from a reliable source that Lucania had 100,000 US dollars in a suitcase at his home.

Lucania also possesses a property at no. 184 Via Aurelia, at Santa Marinella, 2,000 square metres in area. He also owns 10,000 square metres of land and a small villa near the railway track, to the south of Via Aurelia.

Lucania receives secret telephone calls from Italy and the United States on telephone number 20738, a line registered to Salvatore Scarpati, Via Grandi Grafici, Naples. It was the headquarters of a carpet company, now closed.

*

Lucania is also said to be implicated in the smuggling of cigarettes from Tangiers to Italy, or to have financed that activity. In April 1951, he was with Contessa Iolanda Adorni Campagnoli at the Hotel London, in Naples. The woman in question was an associate of known cigarette smuggler Sol Charles Mirenda, a United States citizen, and Alvey Sheldon, the British subject who owns (it is believed) the well-known smuggling ship Sayon-Miami-Flo .

It is claimed that Lucania is a habitual opium smoker, and that he uses a pipe.

Chapter 5

Bologna, 7 May

Dizzy Gillespie filled the room with blue flames, like the flames of a Bunsen burner, hanging in mid-air, then down, towards the floor, notes hanging from tiny parachutes. ‘Good Bait’, a searing melody, short solos alternating with reprises of the theme, and you can’t help snapping your fingers.

Robespierre Capponi had finished telling his story, a little Dalmatian odyssey enriched with scenes worthy of Tom Mix or Roy Rogers and featuring an incongruous appearance by Cary Grant. Fanti was turning around in his hands a copy of a book in English, with a garish cover: Casino Royale . The first five pages full of underlined words, as though someone was deciphering a coded message.

‘They’re the words I had to look up in the dictionary. Can you see that I didn’t make it all up; where would I find a book like that? You can’t get it in Bologna, or in Yugoslavia.’

‘I believe you, Pierre. It’s all too confused and difficult for anyone to make up. The English lessons are starting to bear fruit, I can see that.’

In English: ‘I guess they do.’

Cary Grant in Yugoslavia for a film about Tito. Really curious. He would have to think about that.

‘Show me this pigeon, Pierre.’

Young Capponi held up the cage he was holding between his legs. Inside was a creature with dark-grey plumage. A bit thin and slightly bald, but a good specimen nonetheless.

‘Have you kept it in there ever since you got back?

‘I was worried it would fly home without a message. And I don’t want that to happen. I already know what to write to my father, but I don’t know how big the paper should be, or how to attach it to the pigeon’s leg, I could tie it with wire and it would fall off. You’re a pigeon-fancier, so —’

‘Fine, I’ll show you later. Sorry, I’ve got to change the record.’

Gillespie and his combo had finished their track, the needle clicked at the end of the groove. Fanti raised his arm, lifted the disc and put it back in its sleeve. The void was filled by a more recent piece, 23 Degrees North and 82 Degrees West , by the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Latitude and longitude of Havana, capital of Cuba. It announced the exploration of the Caribbean and its exotic rhythms, midway between Spain and Africa. Twenty-three degrees north and 82 degrees west: according to Kenton, the coordinates of the future.

‘ Professore , I expected to find more people who spoke Italian.’

‘I think that many of them, although they can speak the language, refuse to do so. After all, as far as the Slavs are concerned, it was the language of the invaders, they forced them to speak it during the racist “italianisation” programme: surnames were changed, schoolchildren were obliged to answer in Italian so as not to be beaten by the fascist teachers. I’m not surprised they want nothing to do with it. To understand how much they have suffered, you just have to look at the revenge they took in Istria, throwing people into holes in the ground.’

‘Ah, the Italians they killed and threw into those deep holes in the limestone.’

Fanti didn’t reply, and watched the music. In the bass, intricate horn riffs charging full tilt to the first break. It was like watching them diving into the sea from a cliff. Holding their breath. The trombone solo advanced like a flame along a fuse, to the explosion of the sax, like the space rockets you see in the newsreels. A new pause, a full horn section, furious phrasing to the final apotheosis, the whole orchestra as one, a colossal club whose blows struck the song as though it were a sacrificial animal being led to the sacrifice. The drum roll the body’s last spasm before the death blow. The end.