Read Online The Namesake by Conor Fitzgerald - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Conor Fitzgerald
Tags: Suspense
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he had no problem gaining readmittance to Arconti’s room, though accompanied by the sostituto , a young man with a wispy beard and round glasses, who looked like some early-twentieth-century radical. Gramsci, maybe.
The papers had been picked up off the floor, but were piled haphazardly on the desk. Blume said, ‘I can hardly search through the papers of an investigating magistrate.’ With a slight push, he sent a few files sliding over the desk. A few of them flopped onto the floor.
‘Oops.’ He slipped in the false confession as the sostituto was looking at the floor and swept the fanned-out papers back into an unsteady pile.
‘Look, it’s pointless. If you come across my notebook when sorting through the files, let me know, please,’ said Blume.
The sostituto nodded, uninterested and, it also seemed, unsuspicious.
9
Milan–Sesto San Giovanni
When he had been a young man, he made the mistake of storing 40 million lire in an abandoned house on the outskirts of the town. Foolish youth that he was, he had secreted the cash in a cavity between one of the outside walls and the rotten floor, thinking the plastic wrapping he had put around the bundles of notes would protect them from decay.
He was sixteen and had just been inducted as a picciotto and was only then beginning his apprenticeship to become a sgarrista . For a year he had studied the initiation ceremony, overlearning it till it was like the alphabet or the times table.
– What seek you, young man?
– Blood and honour.
– Have you blood, young man?
– I have blood and I have blood to give.
– Who was the man that told you of the existence of this organization?
– My father, Domenico Megale.
– May the bread become lead in your mouth and the wine you drink turn to blood if ever you betray us . . .
Once sworn in, he was convinced they would ask him to kill so that his accession from picciotto to sgarrista might be accelerated, as befitted his pedigree. His family had form, history and honour. But they seemed to have no such exalted plans for him. In what was to be the first in a life of insults received, he was entrusted with the mean task of collecting ‘rent’ from shopkeepers. Worse still, they had assigned him to the oldest and weakest, to the most supine, intimidated and accommodating tradesmen, men completely without hope, honour, or courage. He could not understand this failure to put him to the test. Heaping on the indignities, they did not bother to ask him for the pizzo he was collecting from the businesses, yet prohibited him from spending or investing it. And so it was that he stored it in a damp alcove where it sat for three years. He could not bring himself to look at the growing pile of bundles, symbol of his shame, money taken from beings that were less than human. He pushed them deep into the cavity in the wall, and never noticed the mould that bloomed on the banknotes. When he at last pulled out the hidden packets, three-quarters of the banknotes inside had turned into a greasy black sludge. Those that remained were disintegrating.
He prepared himself for death, and reported his incompetence and loss to the contabile of his locale . But his story of the rotten money was greeted with laughter.
‘Burn what’s left, Tony. And find a better hiding place.’
‘I shall repay my debt.’
‘You made an honest mistake, did you not? 40 million lire. That is not even the salary of a hospital administrator. Let’s write it off as capital invested in experience.’
But he did not like the easy laughter that had greeted him, nor the way in which his expectation of death and willingness to accept it had been treated so lightly. For months, rumours about the circumstances of his birth, about his blood, had been circulating. Not only had his natural ascent been blocked, but there was, he could feel it, a collective sniggering behind his back when his name was mentioned.
But he always knew there was one way he
The papers had been picked up off the floor, but were piled haphazardly on the desk. Blume said, ‘I can hardly search through the papers of an investigating magistrate.’ With a slight push, he sent a few files sliding over the desk. A few of them flopped onto the floor.
‘Oops.’ He slipped in the false confession as the sostituto was looking at the floor and swept the fanned-out papers back into an unsteady pile.
‘Look, it’s pointless. If you come across my notebook when sorting through the files, let me know, please,’ said Blume.
The sostituto nodded, uninterested and, it also seemed, unsuspicious.
9
Milan–Sesto San Giovanni
When he had been a young man, he made the mistake of storing 40 million lire in an abandoned house on the outskirts of the town. Foolish youth that he was, he had secreted the cash in a cavity between one of the outside walls and the rotten floor, thinking the plastic wrapping he had put around the bundles of notes would protect them from decay.
He was sixteen and had just been inducted as a picciotto and was only then beginning his apprenticeship to become a sgarrista . For a year he had studied the initiation ceremony, overlearning it till it was like the alphabet or the times table.
– What seek you, young man?
– Blood and honour.
– Have you blood, young man?
– I have blood and I have blood to give.
– Who was the man that told you of the existence of this organization?
– My father, Domenico Megale.
– May the bread become lead in your mouth and the wine you drink turn to blood if ever you betray us . . .
Once sworn in, he was convinced they would ask him to kill so that his accession from picciotto to sgarrista might be accelerated, as befitted his pedigree. His family had form, history and honour. But they seemed to have no such exalted plans for him. In what was to be the first in a life of insults received, he was entrusted with the mean task of collecting ‘rent’ from shopkeepers. Worse still, they had assigned him to the oldest and weakest, to the most supine, intimidated and accommodating tradesmen, men completely without hope, honour, or courage. He could not understand this failure to put him to the test. Heaping on the indignities, they did not bother to ask him for the pizzo he was collecting from the businesses, yet prohibited him from spending or investing it. And so it was that he stored it in a damp alcove where it sat for three years. He could not bring himself to look at the growing pile of bundles, symbol of his shame, money taken from beings that were less than human. He pushed them deep into the cavity in the wall, and never noticed the mould that bloomed on the banknotes. When he at last pulled out the hidden packets, three-quarters of the banknotes inside had turned into a greasy black sludge. Those that remained were disintegrating.
He prepared himself for death, and reported his incompetence and loss to the contabile of his locale . But his story of the rotten money was greeted with laughter.
‘Burn what’s left, Tony. And find a better hiding place.’
‘I shall repay my debt.’
‘You made an honest mistake, did you not? 40 million lire. That is not even the salary of a hospital administrator. Let’s write it off as capital invested in experience.’
But he did not like the easy laughter that had greeted him, nor the way in which his expectation of death and willingness to accept it had been treated so lightly. For months, rumours about the circumstances of his birth, about his blood, had been circulating. Not only had his natural ascent been blocked, but there was, he could feel it, a collective sniggering behind his back when his name was mentioned.
But he always knew there was one way he
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