“Can I count on you?”
“You can bet your goddamned balls.”
“Bravo, Porca, you're the best.”
“And you're nothing but the usual piece of shit, Umbertino.”
“Though I'm handsome and you like me.”
“True enough.”
“So you know exactly what to do.”
“Don't worry, if I see the slightest sign of slumber, I'll give him a blow job that the whole city of Palermo will be able to feel.”
“Like I said, you're the best.”
“Speaking of which.”
“Tell me.”
“Payment in advance.”
“You don't trust me?”
“No.”
“You really are a whore, Porca.”
“The best there is, honey.”
Hernandez lost against the mediocre Salatino in the second round. His trainer threw in the towel. The sporting news reported that the Argentine boxer didn't seem himself, someone wondered openly whether he might not have some strange disease, he was emaciated, there were long, unmistakable scratch marks on his arms and on his back, and from the first round on he seemed dazed, as if he'd just barely survived a battle.
The mission had scored its first glorious victory.
The boxers came and went, the years rolled by, and their ability to understand various human types and their preferences improved.
Angelo Morello, a heavyweight from Avellino, trained by his brother Marzio, who was a vainglorious loser. The choice fell on Pina, also known as
'A Trimmutùra
, “The Trimotor,” because of her skill at handling several men simultaneously.
'A Trimmutùra
demanded double the usual and she was worth every penny. She proved to be exactly what everyone had called her for years, a tireless sex machine, capable of dashing the Morello brothers' fleeting hopes for victory on a filthy mattress in Via Firenze.
TKO in the third round.
Morgantini from Perugia, a mid-heavyweight. His tastes were a bit of a mystery. They unleashed a blonde, a redhead, and a brunette, pin-wheeling around him. He eyed them all but it was no good, nothing, not so much as a spark. What proved providential was Franco's eagle eye: he discovered that for a fraction of a second Morgantini had glommed on to a young girl who was all skin and bones.
“What if Morgantini likes his girls with no meat on them?”
He fell into the bony arms of Santa, also known as “The Spike,” after less than a half hour of friendly banter.
KO in the fourth round.
Luca Paolantonio, featherweight.
“It's like I called it, Franco, trust me.”
“But how could you possibly know?”
“I've been around.”
Paolantonio lost on points after spending the night with a bottle of gin and Anna and Cira, together.
“How could you tell that he liked a three-way?”
“If your last name has two first names in it, it's as if you've been branded. There's no mistaking it.”
Cesare Galluzzo, the “Wonder Man of Misilmeri.” A heavyweight, a crude man, an inflexible father and husband. Umbertino poured some money into Mariana, a Brazilian whore on her way from Palermo to the mainland, an exotic type, fit and strong, who knew how to move her ass. The inflexible Galluzzo barely had time to see her walk by him: five minutes later he was fucking her in a hotel room for rent by the hour.
“Mariana danced the samba on the head of his cock for seven hours without stopping, kid.”
And the “Wonder Man of Misilmeri” went down by a knockout in the second round.
Gaetano Bruno of Rome, “The Adonis.” A middleweight, as tall as he was skinny. An observant Roman Catholic, he collapsed at the feet of Rosalia Maggio, also known as
La Chià gni e Fotti
, or “Miss Weep and Screw.” She fainted right before him, and he came to her aid.
La Chià gni e Fotti
began recounting a story of being orphaned and beaten and humiliated and raped and a need for warmth and what lovely eyes you have. As she got to her feet, she wound up on her knees at the exact height of his cock.
“The Adonis” was defeated on points, two rounds to one.
“All things considered, Franco, we're helping to create jobs. First of all, we give work to the women we know and like. Second of all, thanks to us, the bookies get more work, too. And most of all, let's not forget, our name gains renown. It's not our fault if those guys start to think with their dicks the minute an unbelievable piece of ass presents itself before their all-too-willing eyes. They do it all to themselves. If I'm cold, that's no reason for me to leap headfirst into the fire.”
They fine-tuned their deductive technique by practicing on passersby they spotted on the street. They developed an experimental method and they came to appreciate the importance of statistics.
A well-dressed, well-groomed man is attracted by a slightly ugly, brazen woman, a woman who ignores her own shabby and unkempt appearance and still wants to be the boss when it comes to matters of the mattress. An elegant man enjoys his state of superiority, beforehand. But once he's naked and stripped of the shield of his clothing, he wants a woman to run the show.
Students are more catch-as-catch-can; in fact, every opportunity for sex is greeted like so much manna from heaven.
The taciturn type likes women who don't talk, and if he runs into a woman who's an expert at working with her mouth, the easiest of victories is mathematically guaranteed.
For those who spend most of their time out of the house, away from the family, the ideal thing is a nice big woman all tits and ass, plenty of reassuring flesh that you can even sleep on if you like.
In the section of hooks and lures, among the numerous different female typologies, each of them with their own ineluctable qualities, there was a mysterious niche. Here you found those exceedingly rare females that Umbertino had dubbed “the killer fems.” Everyone liked them, without exception. Sparks flying, fires breaking out in all directions. A “killer fem” walked by, desire bloomed, and then vanished.
Lazzara was one of them.
Her real name was Meri. She was born in Palermo in May 1945. Her grandmother was a whore, her mother was a whore who had her at age fifteen, and now she was a whore. Her father, apparently, was an American soldier, a guy who might talk but no one could understand a thing he said. Her mother died of tetanus in 1951. Meri was raised by the other whores. They made sure she lacked for nothing. Her “aunts” went hungry to make sure there was bread on the table for her: Zia Gnazia, Zia Santuzza, and Zia Miriam. They brushed her hair and taught her to do needlepoint. Every May they'd wash her with rose petals. She never felt lonely as a child. When she was twelve, she first noticed that men left a trail of drool behind her when she walked by. At fourteen, she was already the highest-earning whore in Ballarò.
Meri handed over a part of her earnings to her two surviving aunts, Zia Gnazia and Zia Santuzza; in fact, she supported them. Her poor Zia Miriam had made the mistake, one November evening, of welcoming the wrong kind of person into her bedâhe'd seemed shy, instead he was a wild animal. Miriam's body was so badly bruised that she hadn't even survived until Christmas. The man, the animal, was never arrested.
She met Umbertino one February morning.
“Hey.”
“Oh, hey.”
“What are you doing?”
“Minding my own fucking business.”
“I wouldn't mind minding your own fucking business myself.”
Lazzara was gorgeous, a dolorous beauty. An orchid: the same precious quality, the same apparent fragility.
It was my uncle who gave her that name.
“Why did you decide to call her Lazzara?”
“Because she could bring even a dead man's cock back to life.”
“What do you think of me?”
“That you're beautiful.”
“That's what everyone tells me.”
“No, everyone tells you you're sexy, which is a totally different thing.”
“Say it again.”
“
Bìedda sì
, Lazzara.”
“Would you stop calling me that? My name is Meri.”
“To everyone else, sure. But I'm not everyone else and to me you're Lazzara. After all, if you happen to be in a room full of women and they're all named Meri and I show up and I need you in a hurry and I call your name, âMeri,' it'll turn out badly, every woman in the room will turn around, and what a disaster
that
will be. How much simpler: âLazzara,' and no one turns around but you.”
“Ah, so that's the reason.”
“Yes.”
“Say it again.”
“Lazzara.”
“Not like that, you idiot, come on.”
“You.”
“. . .”
“Are.”
“. . .”
“Very.”
“. . .”
“Lazzara.”
She lunged at him, trying to hit him, to land a blow. He was so huge that a fist was bound to hit some part of its target, she reasoned. But that's not how it worked. Umbertino's big, rough hands, however delicate and kind they might be with herâhands that would never so much as scratch her, she felt sureâblocked her every time she attacked. And so she gave up and gave in, listening to him, doing her best to believe him, until her strength was consumed, until she was in pain, because he had his arms around her and his eyes were dark.
“
Bìedda sì
, Lazzara.”
For a moment, she felt happy.
“How long have we known each other? Two years?”
“Four.”
“Fuck, time flies, doesn't it?”
“Still, every so often . . . I don't know . . . what do you think if . . .”
“Lazzara, are you asking whether we could be a couple?”
And there it is, the moment in which the truth emerges and everything is ruined. Every last little thing.
“No no no, I wasn't asking you that, not at all, it's just that . . .”
“What?”
“No, it's nothing.”
“What's nothing?”
“Listen, beat it, you can't stay here right now, I've got work to do.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“This very instant?”
“Yes.”
“But didn't you tell me that you'd taken the whole day off?”
“You can't stay here right now, you have to leave.”
“If you say so.”
“Ah, Umberto, on your way out, just leave the usual five hundred lire by the front door.”
Only after those broad shoulders left the apartment did Lazzara get out of bed and hurry to the front door, take the five hundred lire, and impulsively kiss them. That made her feel stupid and vulnerable, and if there was one thing she couldn't be it was weak, because weak women wound up like Miriam.
The flame that consumed the money glittered intensely, the evidence that he had been there vanished quickly, all that remained behind was the smoke, stunning the mind a little longer.
Only once the smell of the smoke was gone did Umbertino slide away down the stairs. He ran into no one on his way out.
The Paladin fought the Monk, Salvo Gurgone of Messina, in January 1971. The fight started at 5:00 p.m. and ended after a minute and thirty-seven seconds, with a KO. The Paladin was much more powerful and lethal than Umbertino and Franco could ever have imagined. He was a magnificent boxer.
“Seventy-one fights, seventy victories. The numbers don't lie.”
“When did you understand just how good my father was?”
“From his very first fight, the only one he ever lost. You know the story: the Paladin fought with a broken left thumb. He had hit the heavy bag just wrong during a training session, the kind of thing that happens. Umberto and I expected him to withdraw but instead the Paladin insisted on climbing into the ring. We expected it to be a bloodbath but he fought the match almost to a standstill, and even won one round on points, boxing with just one hand, attacking and defending himself with that same fist. Kid, the Paladin was a constant surprise. With every match, he pushed the limit, the envelope. He would have taken the national title, as sure as death and taxes put together. He had all the credentials he needed. A boxer achieves the important victories on his own: that is, your uncle and I could carry him as far as possible, but then there's that stretch of road that each individual boxer has to cover on his own two feet. The Paladin could travel that road with his eyes closed. That's why we try to understand a boxer's psychology. Do you remember when your uncle made you nervous right before your first bout by reminding you that none other than the Paladin himself had lost his own first fight? He did it on purpose.”
“Were you in cahoots?”
“We just needed to understand what kind of head you had on your shoulders, kid. If you want to get the most out of a boxer, you have to know the right way to get him worked up. Do you have to get him angry at the world, or is it enough to tell him: âYou're the best there is'? A trainer has to be able to understand if a boxer has that extra something that will make him overcome exhaustion and bewilderment.”
“How can you tell?”
“Only in the ring can you see whether a boxer merely has talent or if he's actually born to box. Strength has nothing to do with it. Legs, balls, and brains, those are the three things that make a boxer. Now, you may be able to train a boxer's legs and balls, but the brains, the strength of his nerves, the ability to keep his wits about him when he's being overwhelmed, all those qualities are something an individual either has or he doesn't. You're just feeling your way forward. Every boxer is a world unto himself, a singular experiment.”
“Was my father an experiment?”
“No. The Paladin was a lesson, for everyone. He saw things before anyone else could, as if he lived apart from the stream of time, as if the world slowed down for him and he could anticipate all of its movements. It was a thing of beauty to see him fight. Watching him, I understood that I had been a mediocre boxer, I lacked that light, that extra something that was so unmistakable in the Paladin, or in Umberto. And now we're going to fight this regional final, kid. Let's see what you're really made of.”