The Goodbye Kiss Page 3

  Blue Skies was formerly a disco. Situated in the middle of the deserted countryside, it guaranteed a fair amount of discretion to its clientele. It was a cash cow, and like the owner said, a dozen foreign broads danced, shaking their asses at the customers who’d stretch out an arm to slide banknotes into their G-strings. Not every girl was a knockout. Faces didn’t count for much. The job qualifications were ranked in the following order: tits, legs, height, ass.

  For a hundred euros a day, I handled the customers who requested a private session. A guy would come to me, point out a dancer, and when she was free, I’d send her over to a private booth to perform exclusively for him. Every so often I managed to pull in some tips, and the salary wasn’t bad. But this line of work wasn’t going to get me very far. The most I could expect was to own another topless joint. Just like the Barese, who sported gold around his neck and wrists and kept the nails on his pinkies about four centimeters long. A hood who commanded respect. But he wasn’t my shining example. Still, I liked Veneto. It was on the fringes, and everybody had a chance to make it. All you needed was a little imagination, the drive to act and zero fear about sticking it up the next guy’s asshole. First on the list was the State and its fucking taxes. I knew guys who used to go around in rags, then they found the right racket, and now they were sliding their asses into the leather seat of a Mercedes, dropping five hundred a night on the girls.

  After three months of the same old tune, I decided to rip off the Barese. It’d be risky because he was sharp as a tack, nothing got by him, and he trusted nobody—the essentials for dodging any loss of respect. To make dead sure you got the message, he appeared in public with his two Romanian gorillas, ex-miners who were beefy and cruel. Used to work for Miron Cosma, the boss who led his sooty-faced thugs to Bucharest to teach a lesson to the rebellious students. Instead of heading back to dig coal, they crossed the border to make a pile.

  Convinced I was sharper than the Barese, I started shaving off the take from the private sessions. The first move was to break it to the girls, who gave me a percentage. Ten percent from every customer. Which meant another hundred and fifty, two hundred every night. Some nights were really busy, and the dancers did more than twenty sessions. Since I was the one who kept track of the services and the take, I occasionally “forgot” to cue a customer and pocketed his money. During weekends I managed to earn another five hundred a night.

  One Saturday, just before closing time, a Slovenian chick with a nasty tongue signaled me to follow her into the dressing room where she made a scene, yelling she wanted her money or she’d spill everything to the owner. You can bet I was primed for a situation like this, and I came right back at her. I clipped her hard in the pit of the stomach. Whores are used to getting slapped around, like the Romanians explained to me, and they can take it. She fell to the floor. I grabbed her by the hair, forced her to her knees and shoved my cock into her mouth. I felt her go slack, probably thinking she got off easy. I let her think it. All of a sudden I pulled her up and spun her around, smacking her against the wall; then I tore off her G-string and fucked her up the ass. She tried to get free, but I punched her in the kidneys. That made her settle down.

  “Tell the other girls about our tête-à-tête,” I said, zipping up my trousers. “And don’t forget: anybody who doesn’t play my game goes back home. I know the right cops. You understand?”

  She lowered her head. I grabbed her by the chin. “But you don’t have to worry. You I forgive, and I won’t have you escorted to the border.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to cause problems,” she said in tears.

  “Brava! A little education never hurts,” I said, giving her a pat on the cheek. The bitch fell for it hook, line and sinker. Barely nineteen, she hadn’t been here long. Dreamed of becoming a dancer in Las Vegas and getting her knickers stuffed with dollars. Thick as she was she’d never make it.

  With the new cash flow I could afford to rent a house in town. Up till then I lived in a one-room flat carved out of the top floor of the club. It goes without saying I located the house through a customer who ran a real-estate agency. That’s how things worked at the club. When somebody needed a favor, they turned to the right customer. In town they knew who we were, even the ones who never set foot inside Blue Skies and made out like they were moralists in public, looking down their noses at us. They acted the same way people did with brothels, like real holier-than-thou hicks. Even the widow Biasetto, the cleaning woman, didn’t stop herself from bad-mouthing the place. But we had the customers by the balls. We knew everything about them because they confided more in the girls than in their parish priest. After I closed on the house, part of a two-family dwelling, and furnished it cheaply thanks to a lot of furniture dealers who appreciated the private sessions, I started hanging around town, shrugging off the looks I drew from people. I could’ve got myself a decent car, but that would make me more conspicuous, especially with the carabinieri, who stopped me every time we bumped into one another. When they checked my documents, I turned out to be a dangerous ex-terrorist, and they used it as an excuse to search my car and give me the third degree about the Barese’s business. They were hoping to nab me with some of the cocaine that flooded the club, but I wasn’t a dope. So I had to content myself with a used Panda. At the wheel of the compact I gave the impression of being the lowest gopher at Blue Skies. I consoled myself by dreaming of the pimpmobile I’d buy some day.

  One winter afternoon, as I was strolling beneath the porticoes, I stopped to look into the window of a shoe store. It belonged to a dealer who had the twin vices of dancers and blow. At the cash register I spotted a gorgeous woman about forty. Blond, turned-up nose, fleshy lips, blue eyes. I shifted over to the next window to see her better. She wore a close-fitting black suit and shoes with the steepest heels. I went inside to try on a pair of moccasins I didn’t need. Worked it so she’d have to help me. She had a faint net of wrinkles around her eyes and the no-nonsense look of a woman who made it the hard way. I learned her name was Flora. Flirted a little and bought the shoes. I came back over the next few days, and when her husband wasn’t there, I took advantage of it and went inside to shoot the breeze with her. She was less and less nice. One morning she checked to make sure there were no customers and told me point-blank to cut out bothering her. She spoke in dialect and used expressions as tough as slaps. I grumbled a few words of apology and slipped out the door. Tried to forget about her, but day after day Flora became my obsession. I went to sleep and woke up thinking about her. One night I ran into her husband at the club. He wanted some coke on credit, and right then I saw how I’d get his wife into bed. I started to supply him with drugs and girls, assuring him he could pay at his convenience. He let the machine chew him up like a real idiot. Then one day I went to see him in his store. I waved him over. Flora was there too. I winked at her.

  “Your account has hit ten thousand. Time to settle up.”

  He turned pale. “I don’t have it. You’ve got to be patient.”

  “I can be as patient as you like,” I lied, feigning sympathy. “The problem is the Barese. You know how he is, a fucking southerner, and when somebody doesn’t pay, it’s like a bug up his ass. You’ll get a little visit from the Romanians, who’ll break your arms and legs. This is the way it works.”

  “Help me, please,” he whined, desperate.

  “In a week the balance will double. You know how these things go. You’re not a kid anymore.”

  “Help me. We’re friends.”

  I made as if I was keeping an eye on the store. “Who’s that looker?” I asked, pointing at Flora.

  “She’s my wife,” he answered, surprised.

  I grabbed his arm and squeezed it hard.

  “Now you know how I can help you.”

  I loosened my grip and left.

  He didn’t show up that night. A few days later, as I was leaving the club at four in the morning, a car flashed its lights to catch my attention. I strolled over. It was Flora’s Hyundai coupe. She rolled down the window.

  “I’ll follow you home,” she said without feeling.

  I showed her into the living room. She took off her fur. “Do you want to screw me here or in bed?” Her tone was disagreeable.

  “Beat it,” I hit back, irritated. “Tell your husband to come up with twenty grand by tomorrow or the Romanians’ll show up. At the store. So the whole town’ll know how he pissed away his money.”

  She raised her arms in a gesture of surrender.

  The babe had to be tamed. I decided to lay it on thick by throwing her out of the house.

  I left her in the cold for some twenty minutes. She didn’t move. She just kept ringing the bell.

  “Beat it,” I repeated through the intercom.

  “Let me in. Somebody might see me.”

  I pressed the buzzer and went over to the couch. When she came in, I patted the seat next to me. I caressed her face with the back of my hand, then slipped it under her short leather skirt and started fiddling with the elastic of her thigh-highs.

  “You’re decked out like a real slut,” I snickered to insult her.

  She lowered her face. “This is what I have to do to save the store and our reputations. Mine and my asshole husband’s. Just how long does this thing have to go on?”

  “Till your husband pays up. Minus the interest, of course. You pay that.”

  “On one condition: my husband mustn’t set foot in that club ever again.”

  “It’s a deal.” I gave in, although in fact the thought had already crossed my mind. I couldn’t risk letting the sap go around blabbing about the debt, wrecked on coke and alcohol. The owner would get wind of everything.

  I moved close to kiss her.

  She pushed me back. “No, no kissing.”

  Her rebuff turned me on even more. I forced her to look me in the eyes. “We make like two kids on their first date or the deal’s off.”

  The thing with Flora fucked with my concentration. Whenever I thought about her, my cock got hard, and when I couldn’t wait till nighttime, I showed up at the store during the lunch break, hung around till the salesgirls left, and banged her among the stacks of boxes in the back room.

  Two Romanian dancers turned up at the club, but I didn’t pay attention, charging them the usual percentage for the private sessions. It stands to reason they’d immediately go and tell the gorillas about it. At the end of the night the Barese came up to me, smiling, and asked me to join him in his office. The gorillas broke my left arm. The bone made a noise like a snapped branch. The pain was unbearable. I threw up on the carpet. Paid for my weakness by taking a punch in the fractured arm. Then they sat me in a chair in front of the owner.

  “You devised an ingenious scheme, I must admit,” he congratulated me as he examined the nails on his pinkies. “And intelligent people deserve respect. This is why I told the Romanians to rough you up just a little. The girls already get enough. You’ll continue to collect the ten percent on every private session. But you’ll put it in the cash box. The next time I catch you with your hand in the cookie jar you’ll wind up dead and buried. The boys are very skillful at digging deep holes.”

  I looked at the gorillas. First they’d beat me to death, then get the shovels from the trunk of the car.

  “All right, I’ll straighten up,” I promised, relieved the owner was in the dark about my blackmail of the shoe dealer. Otherwise I would’ve had to pay for it with the other arm. And kiss goodbye to Flora and the ten grand I still expected to pocket sooner or later.

  The next night the dancers started to get uppity, giving me wise-ass looks, snickering behind my back. To restore order I had to make a scene in the dressing rooms and throw some jars of face cream against the wall.

  I went back to earning a hundred a day, and the prospect of going broke again drove me to sharpen my wits. Despite my fixation on Flora. The broad loathed me. On no account would she ever willingly go to bed with me. And this is exactly what made the thing such a kick. I forced myself not to think about her while I was working, and very soon I began to solve my financial problems. The owner of a workshop that produced fake Florentine lace asked me for a hand to sneak a group of Bulgarian embroiderers into Italy. It was a snap, and I got paid handsomely. The word spread. A couple stockjobbers had contracts to sew jeans for a name brand advertised on TV, and they needed some Chinese labor. It was a matter of driving a van from Milano to Treviso; the envelope I made them give me in advance contained a wad of two hundred euro notes. The owner of a fishery had me poison a competitor’s tanks. When I emptied the cans, the water started to bubble, and the surface was covered with stiff trout. I always did everything calmly, was never afraid. All I thought about was the money.

  Blue Skies was of course patronized by hoods. Italian and foreign. But I never had anything to do with that element and always confined myself to polite but formal relations. All the same, I kept an eye on them and soon noticed how well honest and criminal customers mixed together. The police had the club under surveillance, but they too got a slice of the pie. The Barese’s philosophy was based on payoffs and informers.

  I often helped with wrapping up deals. Particularly in the insurance line: fires in warehouses, thefts of tractor-trailers, stolen goods. Crimes or incidents of damage to non-existent merchandise. Made my first real money by ruining a family man who loved the dancers but was unlucky enough to be living on a tax inspector’s salary. The first time he showed up with a couple of local manufacturers. I’d already been tipped off so I arranged a series of private sessions with the prettiest girls. Right away it was obvious the dude went for a Dominican chick, tall and slender. I organized a private performance for him. Told the girl to give him some mouth action, and his two friends would pay her well. He quickly became a regular at the club. In the beginning he spent only what he could afford, and I worked overtime to convince him I could give credit at zero interest. “It’s like buying a car on time,” I told him with a smile. He finally gave in, and when the account got to be too big for his means, the two manufacturers sketched a plan that would take care of the debt by obliging him to close both eyes to their bookkeeping practices. Like Flora’s husband, he let himself be fucked over. While I worked at Blue Skies, I saw so many like them. And yet the game was played with the cards on the table. Setting aside the ingénues and the idiots, I always thought these people couldn’t wait to debase themselves. The scams with the dancers and the coke represented no more than opportunities to take the leap and enjoy life.

  The club was a world apart that existed only by night and vanished by day. In time I started to fear it. If I kept working there, I’d be trapped forever. I’d confuse reality with the lie created by the dim lights and the dancers’ heavily made-up faces. When I counted my little nest egg and saw it amounted to a cool thirty thousand, I thought the time had come to shift gears. But leaving the Barese wasn’t easy. You couldn’t just announce you quit. In his fucked way of thinking, so typical of a hood from southern Italy, that decision belonged to him alone, and for the time being I was still useful to him. While I was waiting for the right moment to end my contract with Blue Skies, the Romanians called on me one night. They needed to teach a lesson to four Albanians who bothered a few dancers in town. I tried to convince them not to get me involved in any punitive expedition, but I realized if I insisted too much, those two animals would’ve pounded me like a drum. We got into a stolen car. One of them handed me a pickaxe. The Albanians lived out in the country in an isolated house among frost-covered vines and soybean fields. The gorillas’ plan was simple. Smash open the door, raise hell on the way in and whack them right and left. For me fate reserved the only Albanian armed with a knife. I tried to bash in his head, but he avoided the blow, which caught him on the right knee. The pain made him pass out. One of the Romanians screamed at me to hit him in the face. I struck him three times in a rage. At home I had to throw out my blood-stained trousers. The incident got a short notice in the local newspapers. One of them died from a crushed skull. Maybe the guy I hit. Maybe not. The Albanians were scumbags; at the bar in town people celebrated with a round of prosecco.

  One night after work I spotted Flora waiting for me outside my house, sitting in her car. I walked over, smiling. We didn’t meet that day, and for a moment I kidded myself she really wanted to be with me. Instead she rolled down her window. She smiled at me like she never did before. Her black-gloved hand gave me an envelope.

  “Here’s the ten thousand. Count it if you want. We can finally say goodbye,” she told me, satisfied.

  I felt numb. I didn’t want to give up this woman, the power I exerted over her body. “Flora—”

  “Flora shit,” she cut me off in a fit of anger. “Now get out of my life.”

  She started the engine and disappeared into the night. I knew I’d lost her forever. If I made a big deal about it, she’d go and complain to the Barese, and I’d wind up in deep shit. I went inside the house. With a knife I removed the bricks under the sink and added the money to my stash. Forty thousand. Now that was saying something.

  The next day I took a stroll through the centro. When I passed by Flora’s store, I didn’t even glance in the window. I was again in pursuit of a lover, and I covered the area methodically, patiently. But nowhere did I find a woman as beautiful and sensual as her.

  That night, after a slow, uneventful day, I left the place a little early. I went to a club in Jesolo where I heard a forty-something English entraîneuse was working. She was a letdown. Thin as a rail, flat chest. She had her clientele, but she wasn’t my type. I bought her a drink. Forced myself to listen to some bullshit stories, then went home. Every once in a while the desire to see Flora came over me, but fear stopped me in my tracks. Only that. Otherwise I would’ve done something stupid just to be with her again.

  I had a thing with the widow of a Milanese crime boss. After her husband died, murdered in a maximum-security prison, she lost power and money. She was now making do by working hotels. She played the role of the grande dame, refined, classy, specializing in bald traveling businessmen in their fifties with paunches and swollen wallets. It was me who hooked up with her, after watching her fail to snare the owner of a Val d’Aosta cheese factory. I suggested we have a drink.