‘Because he sells them.’
‘So he’s alive?’
‘He’s back in Bari.’
‘Can I speak with him?’
The men shook their heads. He wouldn’t talk. He had nothing to say. They wouldn’t want to burden him.
The interview was going nowhere. The brothers knew nothing about the affair. Not one thing you couldn’t find in the newspaper or discover on the internet. Even so, this could still be useful. News isn’t news, after all, without colour and detail. Information requires the inflection of experience. Finn understood exactly what he had going. What he didn’t understand is why no other journalist had jumped onto this. So he asked details about the city, about the Italian south, about what they knew of the crimes. Throughout the discussion Rino kept nodding, and gave his own little affirmations, yeah, right, OK, like I told you. Exactly.
The small bar remained busy through the evening. At some point the ceiling fans were turned to the highest setting and the doors that made up the full front were lodged open, all without effect. The sticky night air, honey-sweet, became acrid with sweat. Finn stood at the counter beside the brothers, and while they spoke he took notes in a small black notebook, keeping it as discreet as he could manage, the book held low, at his hip. He wrote about the meeting, small clues and reminders, alongside what he was recording, so that when he had time he could fill out the episode with more detail.
‘Is this all you wanted to know?’ The older brother, Massimiliano, tipped his finger on the notebook. He spoke in English and set his arm about Finn’s shoulder.
‘I don’t know. What else do you know?’ Not his best question, but still.
‘What’s this?’ The man’s finger ran down the spine.
‘It’s nothing.’ Finn closed the book and tucked it into his back pocket.
‘You write nothing?’
Finn felt himself begin to flush.
The man nodded. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Boston.’
The man curved his mouth, impressed. His voice sounded softer than his brother’s, the accent a little more marked. The man leaned into him, angular and uncomfortable. ‘You should be careful who you speak to. Not everyone is happy to remember this story. It might be a big city, but this is personal, and you might want to show some care.’
Finn gave a gesture, a half-shrug indicating, naturally, he would show discretion.
‘Do you smoke?’ The older brother tapped Finn’s arm. ‘Do you want to come outside to smoke something?’
The four men walked to the alley behind the Fazzini. Muffled beats came from the bar, the blue lights of televisions hesitantly illuminated rooms in the wall above them.
The older brother took a cigarette out from a packet. He licked along the length and tore off a strip. ‘You’ll like this.’ He smiled as he concentrated on the task. ‘This is a nice. A little different. You smoke this sometimes? It’s OK?’ Gripped in his hand was a smaller packet, a lighter and papers. He looked to Finn for his response.
Finn said yes.
When the joint was made Massimiliano rolled it between his forefinger and thumb and eyed it, pleased. ‘This is good,’ he said again. A scooter’s buzz sounded in the night. The four of them waited but the scooter did not appear. The younger brother lit a cigarette and leaned back against a car.
‘Twenty euro,’ the man said, his expression held, expectant.
‘Sorry?’
‘For the joint. Twenty euro. It’s good. You’ll like it. Twenty euro and we’ll all have a nice smoke.’
Finn took out his wallet and tried not to show how much money he had. The older brother took the note, pocketed it, then lit up the reefer. Then handed it to his brother.
The younger brother blew smoke up in a long measured calculation. ‘Have you seen the palazzo,’ he said, blinking. Then shook his head and sniggered as if he had no clue what the answer might be, and Finn thought in these casual gestures was seated a small element of threat. In the humid air the smoke rose and flattened out above him.
‘Do you want to see inside the room? The basement room.’ Salvatore used the word basso, although technically this was not one of the bassi, but a simple underground storage room. ‘We can show you the room.’
Salvatore leaned into Finn. ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘We have a key. If you want to see inside the room we can show you. We can take you tonight if you like. Only if you want, of course.’
Salvatore snorted, a little incredulous. ‘Of course he wants to.’
Massimiliano spoke deliberately, answering to his brother through Finn. ‘He’s in a mood. He wanted to go to a party tonight, but instead.’ He took the cigarette out of Salvatore’s hand. ‘So, we can show you the room but it’s expensive.’
A light blinked above them, on and off. The four looked up. Rino, who had yet to receive the reefer looked a little disconsolate.
Massimiliano offered the joint to Finn. ‘So how much to see the room?’
When Finn raised his hand Massimiliano drew the joint away, then slowly set it to Finn’s lips. ‘Take a little, breathe lightly and hold it, then let it go down slowly.’
Finn nodded, and did exactly as he was told.
At the first proper toke Finn immediately felt dizzy. He held the smoke in his mouth and felt it soak softly into him. This, he thought, wasn’t grass. Not even close.
Massimiliano set his chin on Finn’s shoulder and looked up at his face. He smiled when Finn smiled. ‘I said it was good.’ He took the joint out of Finn’s mouth. ‘Don’t blow out yet. Just let it…’ He smoothed his hand through the air, and Finn felt the smoke run free through him.
‘So how much are you looking for?’ he asked.
The men looked eye to eye.
‘Three hundred euro and we can take you there tonight. You can have a look now.’
Massimiliano took a drag himself, a deep, slow intake. He leaned his head back, wrapped his arm about Finn’s shoulders. Looking up at the sky he held his breath, then slowly, in what seemed to be an infinitely beautiful moment, exhaled with a satisfied hum, a soft guttural roll. He offered the cigarette back to Finn.
‘I like the name. Finn. It’s a good name.’
The two men held on to each other. Massimiliano, inexpressibly big and soft, seemed permeable, his arm still about Finn’s shoulder. ‘You have three hundred euro. It’s nothing. You can afford this.’
‘How do you have the keys?’
‘For the shop. Everyone has keys.’
* * *
Massimiliano opened the small portal door to the courtyard, and as he held it open he warned that there wasn’t a great deal to see (now the money had changed hands), but a trained eye could pick out the right details to get a close picture of what had happened. The two brothers led Finn across the courtyard to an unlocked metal door. Rino followed behind, his hands in his pockets. Finn ducked through the doorway and found to his surprise a steep set of steps carved into the rock to form something like a tunnel, the top of which was rounded, the steps themselves small, steep, and worn with use. A blue electric cable threaded down the steps, and Finn, feeling increasingly more of an interloper, consciously ducked to make himself smaller — still feeling a soft buzzing blur from the reefer (surely something more than just a regular reefer).
The four men came carefully down to the basement. The air, cooler underground, set up the hairs on their arms, a stale reek of mildew made them hold their breaths. At the bottom, Massimiliano pushed forward and indicated a door set into the right side.
The door, small, metal, chipped and battered, had the lock punched out and the handle removed so that it could not lock. Salvatore pointed this out. ‘They took the door handle as evidence,’ he said, smiling. ‘Look, they cut it out.’