The Story of X: An Erotic Tale (21 page)

Put my mind at rest? My mind is on fire. Marc is a murderer?

And then a switch is thrown. I turn from Françoise and stare at the circling eagle.

Plati
.

I recall the face of the old man at the door last night, talking in that conspiratorial
way with Marc. I thought I remembered it; now I realize why I recognized his face.
I have seen it often in the newspapers, seen it in the
Corriere della Sera
. Not because that old man is a famous politician or an actor or industrialist, but
because he is a notorious gangster: one of the most infamous and powerful ’Ndrangheta
gangsters of all. I can even recall his name.

Enzo Paselli.

And that’s why I have heard the name
Plati
. It is the home of the ’Ndrangheta, the heart of their terrible darkness. The home
of the Clan Paselli.

I rise, abruptly.

Françoise pales.

“X, where are you going?”

“Plati. It is near here, isn’t it? It must be. You carry on down the road, Marc said.”

Her shock is vivid.

“You can’t. That is crazy. They have . . . they kill people . . . the roads are frightful!”

I am running from the breakfast table. I am running through the castle. I am climbing
into the Land Rover. And, as I guessed, the keys are hanging from the dash. Who would
dare to steal a car from a party attended by Italy’s most brutal gangsters?

I turn the key and rev the engine.

But I hear a voice. It is Françoise. Running out the door, onto the gravel.

“Don’t do this, X. You mustn’t. Plati is a terrible place—very dangerous—Alexandra!”

I reverse the car, and turn right. Taking the dirt road to Plati.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FOUR

T
HE ROAD TO
Plati seems okay at first, but then it narrows to a slender strip of flattened earth,
curving around a steep mountainside. The valley yawns away at my left, filled with
rocks and dull gray grit, a river of dust being shunted all the way to the gray-turquoise
flatness of the Ionian Sea: at times I can glimpse the water through the beeches.

It is bleak. I imagine in spring there might be wildflowers here, the flash of pink
oleander and yellow broom—the glint of water, torrents of snowmelt maybe—but in the
hot high summer it is just rocks and dust and nothing. And a road that disappears.

Skidding around another dust-shrouded corner, I see that a landslide has swept this
entire section of the “road” clean away. I am going to have to edge the car across
a hundred yards of treacherous debris. There is the hulk of a burned-out Fiat maybe
a quarter of a mile below, trapped by the trees; the last rusting remains of someone
who didn’t make it.

And yet I edge the car forward: I change down a gear; I change up a gear; the engine
complains. Slowly I inch the car across the stones and mud and rubble; the whining,
growling Land Rover engine is the sound of my determination, verging on desperation.

I have to get to Plati. I have to know the truth about Marc. And Enzo Paselli, I am
sure, will tell me the truth, if I can find him.

Why I think this, I do not know.

The Land Rover squeals. I force my foot down and the car shoots forward, squirting
stones, and the rear wheels begin to slide perilously to the left, and they are actually
lifting
, but the front wheels
bite
and the Land Rover surges on and we are back on the road. The car and me. Alive.

But even as the relief surges, more doubts assail me. Maybe Marc will be there, talking
and laughing at a white cafe table, sipping amaretto, reminiscing about the men they
murdered.

I shudder.

A murderer?

Please don’t let Marc be a murderer.

I drive on. Just drive. Just get there. Eat up the kilometers. The road is dusty,
rubbled, winding, and endless. I glimpse the odd wild horse staring perplexed at me,
wondering what a car is doing in the middle of a sunburned forest. Then at last the
road improves, and my anxiety tightens.

What if Marc went to Plati for some confrontation? Marc, don’t do this to me. Don’t
be this. Don’t be one of them.

Plati
.

There it is. I am descending from a narrow, treeless pass into a different valley,
and now I can see a town, not as small as I had expected, littering the slopes below.
The town looks like trash and debris rudely scattered by someone upending a sack,
and then walking away. There are half-built houses everywhere, half-built roads, half-built
shops.

“Eh! Eh!”

Two kids are shouting and pointing at the car. I am passing a walled cemetery on the
outskirts of Plati, and they are playing some purposeless game among the tombs—but
when they see me they shout and jump excitedly.

“
Signorina! Signorina!
” One of them makes an obscene phallic gesture and the two boys laugh and whoop. I
cannot work out if they are astonished by the arrival of someone on the absurdly dangerous
back road, or acting as some kind of lookout for everyone in the town.

Then I realize they are simply astonished that
anyone
unknown should come to Plati. Because I get the same wide-eyed, mouth-half-open expression
from everyone. There are old men outside a grimy bar, sharing a bottle of grappa—and
they all turn, as one, and gaze at the strange vehicle passing by. One of them shakes
his head, somberly and gravely, as if amazed to the point of being
offended
.

I am properly frightened now. Plati is hideous, and the sense of hostility is intense.
For a moment I get the strongest desire to just press on, floor the pedal, keep driving
through this ghastly town, get onto a proper road, then head on down to the coast,
and Reggio, and the airport.

But I can’t. I have to know the truth about Marc. I park the car in what amounts to
ugly Plati’s closest approximation of a central square, a piazza, though in reality
it is just a bunch of slightly taller, unfinished cement buildings, gazing at a flat
and empty car lot. It is Islamically austere.

Then I spy a big utilitarian bar, half hidden by a concrete wall. The bar boasts a
few plastic tables out front, a few drinkers staring glumly back at me. This is it.
Cafes are the center of Italian sociability and this is the biggest cafe in town.
If I am going to find Enzo Paselli and the truth about Marc, I will find it here.

I take a seat at one of the plastic tables, ignoring the expressions of everyone else:
the guy tapping on the side of the nose to signify the odor of something suspicious,
the guy pulling down his eyelid, telling everyone, keep your eyes wide open.

A sad-looking waiter comes over to my table. His reluctance is obvious, his body language
is overt. He doesn’t want to speak to me; he wants me to go away. But I have stopped
blushing; I am already too far in.

“Signorina . . . ?”

“Espresso,
per favore
.”

His eyes brighten, he looks intensely relieved at this—the lady just wants a quick
coffee, then she will be gone.

But I add, in Italian: “I am looking for Enzo Paselli.”

Sto cercando Enzo Paselli.

The waiter’s face goes rigid. I have surely violated some terrible code merely by
mentioning the name.

He does not reply. Wordless and pale, he turns and disappears into the cafe. Everyone
stares at me from the other tables. Two youngish mothers, with babes in arms, are
openly grimacing. A trio of middle-aged men, in neat blazers and well-pressed pants,
sharing a nice-looking bottle of Nero d’Avola, stare in amazement at this stupid blond
American woman.

The waiter returns.

“Espresso,” is all he says, as rudely as possible, dropping the tiny white cup and
saucer on the unwiped table. He so obviously yearns for me to drink. Just go,
signorina,
just quit.

I look up at him and repeat. “
Sto cercando Enzo Paselli
.”

The waiter stands back and looks around the tables, seeking moral support, some assistance
with this crazy American woman who wants to get herself shot.

My heartbeat is accelerated and constant; I have my fears, but I am still determined.
The rigmarole is repeated three times in an hour. Each time the waiter comes out,
I order coffee, or water, and I ask to see Enzo Paselli; each time he looks at me
with his pale, sad face and says nothing, then he brings me the coffee. I can hear
the other cafe-goers whispering. One of the middle-aged men rises and leaves his friends.
Gone to get a gun? To get some thugs?

A car backfires somewhere and I think for a moment, almost with relief, that this
is it. Someone is shooting someone. I want to cry. I want to get away from horrible
Plati. But I need the truth about Marc. So I stand and I go right up to the waiter,
who is virtually shrinking from me, and I say: “
Sto cercando Enzo Paselli!
”

This time he responds with another classic Italian gesture: hands pressed prayerfully
together, then shaken up and down—the gesture that says, please, please, please, do
not be unreasonable.

“Signorina, per favore, non si capisce—”

“Sto cercando Enzo Paselli!”

I am practically shouting. I am quite crazy. They are entirely justified in having
me taken to the police, but of course no police ever come to Plati.

And then I feel a hand on my arm. A short young man is touching my elbow. He says,
in thick Calabrian, “
Venga con me
.”

Come with me.

He could be taking me to my car, he could be taking me to be killed. He has a large
tattoo on his neck. His motorcycle boot heels are stacked. He leads me around a littered
corner and I immediately see another cafe, more refined, with proper awnings, and
tablecloths on proper tables.

And there is Enzo Paselli. Eating his late Sunday lunch, alone. And looking at me.
He has half a bottle of wine. He is eating snails.
Babalucci,
attached to green fronds.

He actually stands as I approach the table. He is in pale blue slacks and a wide-collared
shirt, which shows his withered old neck. His chest hair is quite silver. His face
is very lined; he is totally bald. Yet still he exudes menace, even a kind of lethal
virility. A killer with false teeth.

He extends a liver-spotted hand. I shake it. His shake is weak. Insubstantial, barely
there. He must get someone else to do the killing.

Then he sits down and eats a tiny snail. The snail drool runs down his chin and it
shines in the sun as he speaks. He talks in perfect American-accented English.

“I understand you are looking for me.”

“Yes.”

He smiles. The snail drool still glistens.

“You know this is a very stupid thing to do.”

“Yes.”

“So why?” He eats a second snail: squidging it between his false teeth. “Why come
to Plati?”

A silence. What do I say? Enzo interrupts my thoughts.

“You are aware, young lady, that they kidnap people here. There are tunnels under
every
house. Bodies are interred in the forests all around. Many,
many
bodies.”

“I am the girlfriend of Marc Roscarrick and I want to know the truth.”

A second silence, but much briefer. He nods my way.

“So you are Alexandra Beckmann. I thought as much.”

I stare at him, astonished. He does not respond, just picks up a napkin as if he is
going to wipe the disgusting slime from his chin, but instead he uses it to flap away
a fly. Then he leans forward, and takes a slurp of wine—Greco di Bianco. The fly buzzes.
I ask, stuttering, “How do you know who I am?”

He smiles and swallows the wine.

“It is my job to know everything. Otherwise . . .” He eats another snail, popping
it in his mouth. “Otherwise I would be one of the bodies in the forests above Gioia
Tauro.”

A long pause ensues as he munches and drinks and stares at me with his watery eyes,
with the snail track on his chin. I wonder if he leaves this drool there deliberately,
to freak me out, to repulse me; a piece of mafia theater. If so, it works—I am at
the edge of my ability to keep control, to not run away.

This is it. I speak.

“Please. Can you tell me the truth about Marc Roscarrick? I know you know him. I saw
you in Rhoguda Castle last night. I want to know the truth about him and what happened
in Plati.”

Enzo Paselli thoughtfully munches his snails, detaching them carefully from slimy
green fronds, then skewering them with a tiny fork and slipping them in his wet old
mouth. He swallows, and answers.

“You are a brave woman, Miss Beckmann, coming to Plati on the back road from Rhoguda.
Coming to the most dangerous town in Italy. You know this is also the
richest
town in Italy? But the money is buried, like the rotting bodies.” He sits back. “So
you are brave, very brave. And I admire bravery. It is the greatest human virtue,
the virtue of Jesus. Therefore”—he smiles—“I will tell you the truth about Marc Roscarrick.”

He lifts his wineglass and tilts it slightly, admiring the straw-gold color of the
liquid. Then he goes on. “Roscarrick is a murderer. It is true. He killed a man, here
in Plati, in the middle of the day. Next to that cafe where you had your several espressos.”

The sun is hot and cold on my neck. I can feel a faintness. It is over. It is done.
My love, my lord, my loneliness. All over.

Enzo Paselli is smiling. His false teeth are stained with snail juice. It is a grotesque
comedy, and I am not laughing, not laughing at all.

“But he had a reason. You should know the context.”

“What?” I try to keep control. “Tell me the context, please.”

“Lord Roscarrick went into business here, importing through Reggio—”

“Yes. I know this.”

Enzo Paselli nods at me, and eats one of his last little snails. Then he goes on.
“He
angered
many people here in Plati. He annoyed several rather
important
people. He did not put any sugar in our coffees. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“Certain of these people wanted him gone, they wanted Roscarrick gone. They gave the
job to Salvatore Palmi. You will not have heard of him. But everyone in Calabria has
heard of him, or at least of his nickname,
Norcino
.” A pause. “The pig butcher.”

Enzo drinks a large gulp of wine, breathes out, and goes on. “Norcino couldn’t get
to Roscarrick himself, he was too well guarded, but he could get at Roscarrick’s employees,
Roscarrick’s workmen. So Norcino went to work, he butchered several of Roscarrick’s
workers. Chopped them up. He slaughtered three in one week. Literally sliced them
to pieces, alive. He had special knives.”

I stare at the old man; the snail drool has dried to a powder on his chin. The afternoon
has stopped. We are totally alone, out here in front of the restaurant, though I can
see dark, worried faces inside—staring out at us.

Enzo pushes away his plate and concludes his story.

“Salvatore Palmi was, in truth, a disgusting psychotic. He was loathed, he was feared;
even in Plati he was regarded as . . . beyond the pale. But the police were too scared
to do anything. Salvatore was working for the clans, the
capos
. Untouchable and unstoppable. But Norcino liked his work a little too much; he just
loved making his human prosciutto. The next week Salvatore killed Roscarrick’s foreman—he
killed him at home, in front of his own children, chopped off his head—and then he
killed the wife, immediately after. Simply because he liked killing.”