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Authors: Jan Merete Weiss
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felon? Was the mob keeping tabs on her? Was it some errant husband sneaking home? The possibilities were too many. In any event, pissing off the lawless went with the territory and anxiety about it went with the job.
When she and Pino worked together, they had an arrangement: They could summon one another day or night. They were natives born and bred in their dark city. They knew all the Camorra players and shared the sense of being outnumbered, often alone.
After they became lovers, it became even easier to raise the alarm or confide her fears. Almost more than missing him as a lover, Natalia missed him as her partner and protector. She slept better with him around. Ironic, since she was probably the tougher of the two. Nonetheless…
In the corner by Natalia’s bookcase was the broom her grandmother had placed in the doorway of her bedroom when she was an infant to keep away any witches wishing her harm. Should a witch turn up, she’d be forced to count each bristle, her
nonna
said. The task would take all night until the rising sun took away her power.
Natalia collected the broom and carried it to her bedroom, leaned it on the threshold of the balcony and lay down on her bed, then took her five-shot house gun from the drawer in her night table and slipped it under her pillow.
Chapter 7
It was the day of Vincente Lattaruzzo’s funeral. Bagnatti remained in Dr. Agari’s custody, so far unclaimed.
After Natalia showered, she surveyed her closet for something to wear. Not much to choose from. Mariel always encouraged her to amplify her wardrobe. Maybe if she had the style sense and the means of her best friend, she might have devoted more time to shopping. Though Natalia argued that she spent a fair amount of time in uniform, Mariel insisted there was no excusing her fashion crimes.
Natalia located a black pleated skirt she hadn’t worn in years. Holding it to the light, she picked off a few pieces of lint, glad her friend wasn’t there to witness it. But even she couldn’t have found fault with the purple silk blouse. It was still in its dry cleaning bag, untouched since the time she dated that violinist. Had it been three years?
After she finished dressing, she slathered styling gel onher wild wet curls and combed her hair, thinking again how she had to update the antique bathroom fixtures. She was reluctant to leave. Her four-room flat with its high ceilings and glass doorknobs was her refuge from the world, the only thing she owned outright, thanks to her father. Somehow her parents had collected a nest egg for their daughter—amazing, given the paltry salary her father earned as a city sanitation worker. Her mother had augmented it from the small income she earned mending clothes. They’d never traveled, and rarely did they even take in a film. Until Natalia had treated her mother to Florence, she’d never been farther than Potenza. Natalia showed her Dante’s house and explained that Galileo had trained his telescope on the heavens from a spot nearby. That evening, as they walked along the river arm in arm, the moon hung over them like a shiny locket.
Natalia felt grateful every day for her flat, her niche in the world, with its cool marble floors underfoot and thick, protective walls adorned in pale yellow brocade. It always reminded her of them and the love that had brought her into the world.
As she made her way downstairs and past the concierge’s rooms, Madam Luigina’s canary flooded the stairwell with song. Natalia continued down the stone steps to the ground floor of the two-hundred-year-old house. Its baroque aspect never went out of style in Naples: the inner courtyard plain, its balconies and iron banisters no more than ordinary. But on its exterior were several columns topped with decorative ribbon and floral designs that had survived the eons—a lucky happenstance when so many architectural jewels had been destroyed by Allied bombs during the war.
Overhead, bed sheets swayed on a
When she and Pino worked together, they had an arrangement: They could summon one another day or night. They were natives born and bred in their dark city. They knew all the Camorra players and shared the sense of being outnumbered, often alone.
After they became lovers, it became even easier to raise the alarm or confide her fears. Almost more than missing him as a lover, Natalia missed him as her partner and protector. She slept better with him around. Ironic, since she was probably the tougher of the two. Nonetheless…
In the corner by Natalia’s bookcase was the broom her grandmother had placed in the doorway of her bedroom when she was an infant to keep away any witches wishing her harm. Should a witch turn up, she’d be forced to count each bristle, her
nonna
said. The task would take all night until the rising sun took away her power.
Natalia collected the broom and carried it to her bedroom, leaned it on the threshold of the balcony and lay down on her bed, then took her five-shot house gun from the drawer in her night table and slipped it under her pillow.
Chapter 7
It was the day of Vincente Lattaruzzo’s funeral. Bagnatti remained in Dr. Agari’s custody, so far unclaimed.
After Natalia showered, she surveyed her closet for something to wear. Not much to choose from. Mariel always encouraged her to amplify her wardrobe. Maybe if she had the style sense and the means of her best friend, she might have devoted more time to shopping. Though Natalia argued that she spent a fair amount of time in uniform, Mariel insisted there was no excusing her fashion crimes.
Natalia located a black pleated skirt she hadn’t worn in years. Holding it to the light, she picked off a few pieces of lint, glad her friend wasn’t there to witness it. But even she couldn’t have found fault with the purple silk blouse. It was still in its dry cleaning bag, untouched since the time she dated that violinist. Had it been three years?
After she finished dressing, she slathered styling gel onher wild wet curls and combed her hair, thinking again how she had to update the antique bathroom fixtures. She was reluctant to leave. Her four-room flat with its high ceilings and glass doorknobs was her refuge from the world, the only thing she owned outright, thanks to her father. Somehow her parents had collected a nest egg for their daughter—amazing, given the paltry salary her father earned as a city sanitation worker. Her mother had augmented it from the small income she earned mending clothes. They’d never traveled, and rarely did they even take in a film. Until Natalia had treated her mother to Florence, she’d never been farther than Potenza. Natalia showed her Dante’s house and explained that Galileo had trained his telescope on the heavens from a spot nearby. That evening, as they walked along the river arm in arm, the moon hung over them like a shiny locket.
Natalia felt grateful every day for her flat, her niche in the world, with its cool marble floors underfoot and thick, protective walls adorned in pale yellow brocade. It always reminded her of them and the love that had brought her into the world.
As she made her way downstairs and past the concierge’s rooms, Madam Luigina’s canary flooded the stairwell with song. Natalia continued down the stone steps to the ground floor of the two-hundred-year-old house. Its baroque aspect never went out of style in Naples: the inner courtyard plain, its balconies and iron banisters no more than ordinary. But on its exterior were several columns topped with decorative ribbon and floral designs that had survived the eons—a lucky happenstance when so many architectural jewels had been destroyed by Allied bombs during the war.
Overhead, bed sheets swayed on a
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