eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
This “fast-moving crime thriller” takes a deep dive into a politically and financially corrupt contemporary Italy, where crime families, corrupt politicians, and new rabid criminal elements battle each other for control of a glittering prize—a multibillion-dollar development twenty miles from the Italian capital (Publishers Weekly).
During the final days of Silvio Berlusconi’s reign, a massive development proposal that will turn the depressed coastal settlement of Ostia into a gambling paradise, a Las Vegas on the Mediterranean, is winding its way through the Italian legislature thanks to the sponsorship of politicians in the pay of crime syndicates. It’s business as usual in the Italian capital. Or so it seems. A vicious gang of local thugs loyal to nobody but themselves is insisting on a bigger cut than agreed upon. The Mafia and their political puppets aren’t going to back down without a fight. And one policeman, pushed to the sidelines, may not be able to stop an all-out war . . .
With a plot that “thrills from the get-go,” Suburra is a compelling work of international crime fiction and the inspiration for the popular Netflix series of the same name (New Statesman).
“A novel of Rome, meaning that the city itself, in all its history, glory, and despair, is skillfully sewn into the fiber of the tale. . . . Evokes Mario Puzo’s famous trilogy and other classics of the genre.” —Kirkus Reviews
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781609454081 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Europa Editions, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 10/08/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 400 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
daily, La Repubblica.
Giancarlo De Cataldo is a bestselling novelist, essayist, the author of numerous TV screenplays, and a judge on the circuit court of Rome.
Antony Shugaar’s translations for Europa Editions include seven books in the Commissario Ricciardi series by Maurizio de Giovanni, For Grace Received by Valeria Parrella, Fabio Bartolomei’s Alfa Romeo 1300 and Other Miracles, and Margherita Dolce Vita by Stefano Benni.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Looking out the French windows of the Anna Magnani Suite, on the fifth floor of La Chiocciola — a hotel described in handsomely printed brochures as a "charming and secluded little hideaway just minutes from Campo de' Fiori," but popularly known as an expensive sex pad for the capital's elite — the Honorable Pericle Malgradi, MP, a paladin of Roman Catholic values, opened his black silk dressing gown emblazoned with a picture of the snow-covered peaks of Mt. Fujiyama (it's a kimono, they call it a kimono, Samurai had explained patiently, but that guy was obsessed, and everybody knew it), extracted a substantial apparatus whose legendary erections were the pride and joy of the Eternal City, and readied himself to bless, with his stream of murky yellow water, the roofs and pedestrians of the immortal eternal city.
"Sabrina!" he barked, without even bothering to turn to look at his favorite, who had just keeled over in exhaustion and was now lying sprawled on the king-size bed next to the other girl, this one a Lithuanian. "Sabrina, you were born here in Rome, you know that poem, it's by Belli, your great Roman poet ... how's it go? I'm the king of the world ... I'm me and the rest of you aren't shit ..."
Ah, urination, the sublime postcoital urination, what a delight, what pure pleasure! You could direct your spray, weaving and lashing it like a garden hose, a fountain, with recurrent, multiple jets, or straight down like a plumb line, or else you could restrict it drip-drip-drip, or unleash a sudden, foaming waterfall onto the heads of those poor suckers working the night shift.
"Look at that, Sabrina! I got one guy right on his bald dome! That's right, handsome, look up, look up at the sky, and blame the seagulls and the crows ... I'm up here and you're down there ... you get it, the way life works? Sabri'? Sabrina-a-a ... Get out of bed and come watch, why don't you, Jesus Christ on a goddamned crooked crutch, with the money I pay you and that Slavic whore, can't you give me this little bit of satisfaction?"
No response. This shift of hookers seemed to be out like a light. As was understandable. He'd ridden them hard, the two of them. Serious business: we're talking about Pericle Malgradi! He'd see to giving them a wake-up call, the two "professionals."
The Honorable Malgradi stuck his hand into the capacious pocket of his kimono and pulled out his Patek Philippe Annual Calendar 4937G, tenderly planted a kiss of justifiable fatherly pride on the tiny picture of his daughters he'd had inlaid on the dial, clicked the mechanism — you go find someone else like me, who can afford a fifty-thousand-euro timepiece to use as a pillbox — and grabbed a couple of Listra tablets.
"Listra, Sabri', you understand, not that crap that the working poor take, Cialis, Viagra ... stuff that sets your brain on fire and twists your guts in a knot. This stuff is special, baby girl, top quality stuff, made by the loving hands of my brother Temistocle. One of these days I'll have to introduce you girls to him, you know, because he's hung like a racehorse too, just like me ... It's in the DNA, girls ... the Malgradi brothers, good blood don't lie ... Oh, Sabri', you and that other girl, the Slav, what's her name ... you want to get your asses up off that bed, bitches?"
Nothing. Not a peep. Goddamn it! Now Sabrina was taking things too far. What, did she think she had the only pussy in Rome? In Rome, a city that was literally swimming in peachfuzz! Next time, a couple of black women. No, better yet: a couple of black women and a transsexual. Just for fun, and a little company. Minimum wage, really, after a whole lifetime spent in the service of his community. But let it be clear with the transsexual, though: you can catch, bwana, but you can't pitch. He wasn't some faggot, after all!
The Honorable Malgradi put the watch back in his kimono pocket, extracted a hefty line of coke from an aluminum foil packet, and crushed the tablets into the cocaine; then he laid it all out on the counter and took a powerful snort.
"Sabrina! Slavic girl! Look, there's plenty left for the two of you."
More silence. Enough is enough! A violent sense of vertigo made him stagger. He grabbed the railing. The shit was going to his head. And from his head, before long, it would descend to his junk. Meanwhile, the erectile cocktail was starting to have its effect, a giddy sense of invincibility swept through him. Everyone kept telling him to take it easy, everyone said that they were dancing on the rim of a volcano, everyone was afraid that things could change any second. Everyone kept yammering on about yield spreads, spending reviews, morality ... what the fuck! Italy will never change. We'll always be on top, and the pathetic losers will always be down below.
"Help!"
Oh, at last, signs of life.
"Put in your brillantino, here comes Uncle Pericle."
Ah, the brillantino. This was the novelty that had finally convinced him that Sabrina stood head and shoulders above the rest of Roman hookerdom. A small piece of diamond-encrusted jewelry plugging up her hole, the hole in her rear. That way, said hole was always distended and, how to put it, ready for use. Malgradi liked to extract the brillantino with his tongue. That kind of foreplay was worthy of a sultan! Just one downside: the risk of swallowing the dingus by accident. But there was no way that such a piece of dumb bad luck would befall Pericle Malgradi, Il Numero Uno himself.
Malgradi turned around.
Sabrina was staring at him, looking anxious and pale.
"Now what the fuck's the matter?"
"Vicky's definitely not well."
It started to dawn on Malgradi that he might have a problem on his hands.
"E ora cchi vòli chista? Now what's she want?"
"She's dying, you idiot."
What the hell had come over Sabrina? And why was she screaming like this?
"Muta, sangu 'i cristu, staju pinsannu. Fucking Christ, just shut up and let me think."
Sabrina snorted with fury. Malgradi sized up the situation. Madonna santa! The Slavic girl had turned green, bright green like a late-season artichoke. She was gasping like a fish out of water, flat on her back on the black satin sheets, and an unhealthy background noise kept emerging from deep in her lungs every time her chest heaved and sank as she labored to breathe.
"Madonna mia! She's dying on me! She's dying on me! This bitch is dying on me!"
Incapable of moving. Incapable of making a decision. Incapable of speaking. Sabrina rummaged through her handbag and pulled out her cell phone.
"We need to call an ambulance!" said Sabrina.
A hint of understanding finally ignited in the Honorable Malgradi's mind: I'm fucked! He collapsed onto the bed, next to the foreigner, who was growing increasingly ashen and breathless. As the languid enchantment of the cocaine subsided and the hysterical lucidity of the amphetamine began to gallop, the inevitable consequences flicked before his eyes in rapid sequence.
Donna Fabiana, wife and mother, devout member of the Oblate Daughters of the Virgin Mary. Gone.
His own position as national secretary of the party, fanatically committed to the defense of the Italian family against the twin blights of gay marriage and abortion. Gone.
His angry disappointed voters from the district of the Ionian coast of Calabria.
All gone. Epic scandal. Poverty. Prison.
The Lithuanian girl was gasping and panting, her mouth filling with a yellowish foam, her fists clenching and unclenching as she labored to suck in one last desperate puff of air.
Malgradi snatched the cell phone out of Sabrina's hands.
"You're not calling shit, you get me? Get out of here! Jativínni! Vui cca nun siti mai vinuti! Neither of you were ever here! I never met you!"
"Jesus Christ, she's dying! We have to call for help!"
"That's her problem! Fuck it, I'm getting out of here, now!" shouted Malgradi, as he started desperately flailing around in search of clothing.
Sabrina, suddenly chilly, eyeing him like a vulture, said: "Of course you are; after all, no one saw you come up here with us."
Hotel La Chiocciola, a charming little hideaway. They should have burned it down years ago, damn them and the families that had them! And damn you, he thought. Damn the dick he used for brains, he should have put it on a chain, tied it up in a triple knot: il triplo nodo t'avía 'a fari! Damn fucking Vicky, and the rest of her ilk, Italy's been too soft on these immigrants for far too long now, give them an inch and they'll take the whole damned mile and then some. He was fucked, he knew it. Fucked!
Finally, with one last rattle, the poor miserable girl threw up a chunk of puke, and then fell silent.
"She's dead!" Sabrina whispered softly.
She closed her friend's eyes and shot Malgradi a glare blazing with disgust, nausea, and contempt.
The Honorable Malgradi, however, was miles away. From deep in his heart a memory from his earliest childhood back in Calabria had begun to sprout. What was it his grandfather, Nonno Alcide, used to say when they went fishing off the coast of Le Castella? That's right: prega, prega, c'arriva 'u pisci, picchí è proprio quando non sai che pesci pigliare che devi pregare. "Pray, pray for fish, because it's precisely when you're at loose ends that you need to pray." And so Malgradi fell to his knees, put both hands together, and called upon the Almighty, that His blessed hand might be laid upon His humble servant, "I'll retire to a monastery, o Lord, I'll take religious vows, just save me from this scandal, You who can work Your will as You please, I beg you, I ... "
"That's right, on your knees and pray. Look, here comes your guardian angel now, on a flying carpet."
Ah, now the whore was having her say. And she even dared to insult him. On what grounds? You bring me this encephalitic hooker who probably carries all kinds of diseases, and still you lecture me?
An uncontrollable fury took hold of the Honorable Malgradi. He stood up, lunged at Sabrina, and knocked her to the floor with one vicious straight-armed smack.
"Sure, sure, bravo," she replied, unruffled, rubbing her cheek with one hand. "Now what are you going to do? Kill me too? So then you'd have two corpses to get rid of, not just one?"
"Oh, what the fuck do you want from me now? Do you have any good ideas, you two-bit whore?"
Sabrina picked up her cell phone and dialed a number.
"Spadino? I could use some help here."
Thirty minutes later, a young man, about twenty-two, knocked at the door. He was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a black T-shirt. He was short, pockmarked, and ugly as unsecured debt.
Sabrina let him in and pointed to the bed.
It only took the young man a quick glance around the hotel room to understand he'd just hit the jackpot. The corpse, Sabrina looking depressed and utterly disgusted, the guy dripping sweat and wringing his hands ... Yes, this was his shot at the big time. Better than anything he'd dared to dream of when the call came in from Sabrina.
"If you could help us resolve this rather ... unseemly ... situation ..."
The high muckety-muck came over, with the smile he wore for election-day victory speeches and his hands shaking as if he was on the verge of a panic attack. Let's just hope he doesn't start wailing like a two-year-old.
"Well?"
"I ... you see ... Sabrina, here, has told me so many good things about you, sir ..."
"She's told me the same about you, as far as that goes," Spadino replied with a snicker.
The Honorable Malgradi shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out a fat wallet.
"If you would be so good as to give me a little assistance ..."
By that point, he just didn't know what to say. More importantly, how to put it. The young man amused himself by leaving the man to dangle for a while, then he nodded and lit a cigarette.
"Okay, let me get this straight. You want me to get rid of one dead whore ... And that's something I can take care of."
A broad smile of relief spread across the Honorable Malgradi's features.
"Naturally!" he said, opening the wallet. "I was thinking that for your trouble ..."
"Exactly how much you were thinking, just out of curiosity?"
The Honorable Malgradi handed him a wad of bills.
"That must be ..."
"We can count it later," the young man reassured him, pocketing the wad of bills with rapacious haste.
Malgradi fell back on the smile he reserved for his most prestigious counterparts when a negotiation had culminated in a mutually satisfactory deal.
"I'll never forget what ou've done for me today, Signor ..."
"Call me Spadino. And as for saying thank you ... you'll have all the time in the world, later! Right now, get the hell out of here."
Malgradi backed away toward the door, muttering a stream of boilerplate terms of gratitude.
"It seems to me that your boyfriend is quite the asshole," Spadino commented, once the coast was clear.
"You can't begin to imagine how much of one."
"Give me a hand getting this poor girl dressed, Sabri'."
With a sigh, the two of them got to work.
The plan was to dump her in a place Spadino knew well. A safe place. So the important thing now was to get her out of the hotel without letting La Chiocciola's desk clerk, maids, or any chance passing strangers suspect that the girl was dead. But even fully dressed and liberally doused with perfume — the night was hot, and she was already starting to emit a faintly unpleasant odor — there was something unmistakably corpse-like about the Lithuanian girl. So Spadino ordered Sabrina to put some makeup on her, and she contributed the idea of putting on the mirrored Tom Ford sunglasses she wore whenever, after a long night out, she had to pull an unexpected quickie. Even if the effect was less than spectacular, it would work. All they had to do was move the girl fifty, maybe sixty feet, and if they were lucky, everything would work out fine.
They got her to her feet, each supporting her from the side. Jesus, she was heavy, God rest her soul! Moving her was an unwieldy process, and it was obvious she wasn't walking, that the two of them were dragging her.
"This is all we can do," said Spadino. "We'll tell the desk clerk that she's drunk. We can give him a hundred euros, make it clear to him that it's in his interest to look the other way."
His thinking was impeccable.
They headed out the door.
The fifth floor corridor was deserted. The elevator came promptly. Smooth as silk, they strode briskly out into the lobby. Spadino asked the desk clerk to hold the heavy revolving door open for him, which the man happily did with a meek smile. Sabrina slipped him a couple of hundred-euro bills.
Once the odd little trio had trundled off down the street, the desk clerk went back to his chair behind the counter, set aside the Corriere dello Sport that he read religiously every day to make himself feel a little more Roman and, when necessary — depending on the guest's loyalties — more of an A. S. Roma fan or an S. S. Lazio fan, and did some thinking. His name was Kerion Kemani, he was thirty-five years old, he came from Albania, and a nagging doubt was bothering him. He owed everything he had to the Honorable Malgradi: his job, for one thing, and his Italian citizenship, which he was expecting to receive any day now. But just how far should he take it with the gratitude? Before he'd decided to stick to the straight and narrow, Kerion had had his own short time on the street. Come to think of it, it wasn't as if the Italians had given him much of an option. He'd landed in Bari with the first wave of immigrants, back in 1991. He was little more than a child when he'd found himself jammed with a small army of illegal immigrants in a soccer stadium that soon turned into a cage full of savage beasts. To pay for their passage across the Adriatic, his father had sold everything they owned: the house, the fields, the few heads of livestock that he'd managed to save from the greed of the Communist regime. In the Bari stadium, the Vlorë Mafia had taken care of the rest: his sister had become a streetwalker and he'd gotten busy working as a debt collector. What that meant was spending his days terrorizing husbands and fathers, breaking a leg or an arm every once in a while, beating down unruly whores. That kind of thing. After that, things had changed of course, but there are some memories that never fade. And if his street smarts meant anything, well, then the girl with the oversized sunglasses on hadn't really been drunk at all.
She'd been dead.
That said, what to do next?
All right, let's think this through.
Whatever it was that happened in the Anna Magnani Suite, Malgradi was in it up to his neck. Which meant what for him, Kerion?
After all, the generosity that the Honorable Malgradi had shown him had hardly been offered free and clear. Malgradi was helping him get ahead in Italy, but in exchange Kerion guaranteed absolute discretion concerning the man's turbulent sex life. Malgradi was never registered at the hotel, no inconvenient documentation was ever sent to police headquarters, no requests for IDs, and moreover, all Kerion's compatriots who managed to obtain their long-sought Italian citizenship — at least a thousand to date — were obliged to vote for him.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Suburra"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino.
Excerpted by permission of Europa Editions.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.