Read Online A Few Drops of Blood by Jan Merete Weiss - Free Book Online

description.”
    “Short and muscular, long hair. Maybe twenty-five. Jesus, keep me out of it.” In one motion, Tulio wrapped the shotgun in sheets of yesterday’s newspaper and handed it to Natalia along with the glass rose.
    “Bribing an officer is a crime.”
    “Give me a break, okay? I’m just a poor man trying to make a living.”
    “Right.” Natalia shoved the weapon into her carryall. “We may need you to come in to make an identification.”
    She and Angelina left Tulio swearing under his breath and made their way back toward their office on foot. Clusters of pedestrians thickened into crowds that surgedaround the railroad terminal. A gypsy couple with a gaggle of children approached a modest café until a tattooed barista shooed them away.
    “I’m glad you’re getting the chance to see this,” Natalia said. “Better than reading a guide book.”
    Every inch of sidewalk was taken, mostly by Nigerians hawking their wares. The locals were outfitted with folding chairs and umbrellas. The immigrants, more desperate, worked standing in the blazing sun. War and famine continued to churn refugees onto Italy’s shores. The Camorra took advantage of their vulnerability and made a tidy profit from the knock-offs they supplied them, especially Guccis and Rolexes. Bags and watches lay on blankets.
    “The police and Carabinieri could work night and day,” Natalia said, “and never even scratch the surface of the labyrinthine criminal system you’re seeing here.”
    Many had resisted, no one had triumphed. No prosecutor, judge, policeman, mayor, legislator, no president. The Camorra had subverted and compromised them all.
    Her
nonna
had told her stories of Salvatore Carnevale, a socialist hero in the fifties who compelled the gentry to share with their workers the profits from their olive harvest. A real feat, approaching the miraculous. Then Carnevale had set out to organize the quarry workers: Camorra territory. A mystic of sorts, he had declared, “Whoever kills me, kills Christ.”
    The mafia came after him on horseback, horse shoes sparking as they struck the flinty ground.
Riding on the stars
, the terrified peasants were quoted as exclaiming. Carnevale, all of thirty-four—dumped in front of his mother’s house like road kill.
    Natalia and Angelina turned onto Via Casanova and continued on past the car repair shops that shared the streetwith the Carabinieri station. In the foyer, the young officer on desk duty shoved his magazine into a drawer. Natalia clutched her carryall and walked up the two flights of stairs to Brigadier Portero’s office on the top floor.
    Portero, the in-house weapons expert, was the longest serving Carabiniere at the station. His dusty room wasn’t much bigger than a kiosk. Walking upstairs, he claimed, kept his weight down, although all five-feet, eight inches of him weighed well over 200 pounds.
    If he hadn’t come from a poor family, he might have gone to university and become a historian. Self-taught, he’d collected books since he was a kid. Natalia heard he owned hundreds of them; many were treasures. He even had a cabinet in his office with the overflow. That’s what he chose to do with his modest earnings. He never took a vacation. He never owned a car. If you had a question about their city, chances are he had the answer. Naples during the time of Bourbons—up until now.
    So, in a way he’d missed out on his dream. Who hadn’t, Natalia thought as she approached his door. But there were compensations being a Carabiniere: the occasional excitement of the job, the camaraderie, the opportunity to serve the community.
    Natalia had given up mourning her own aborted university career, though she liked to think that perhaps Portero would resume his studies when he retired. A solitary sort, he visibly enjoyed the collegiality at the station and his acknowledged expertise. Portero’s door stood open.
    “You have a minute, Brigadier?” she asked.
    “For you, Captain?