A Few Drops of Blood by Jan Merete Weiss Read Free Book Online Page A

shop.
    Natalia stopped across the street and watched the clerk quickly slice an order of their favorite
prosciutto
, free of charge, while the women collected the weekly
pezzo
, their piece of the shop’s revenues.
    Real babies occupied the twin carriages, but Natalia was certain weapons also lay tucked somewhere under the satin coverlets near the two innocents. Bianca’s daughters moved in and out of businesses along the street, collecting 500 to 2,000 euros from the shops and thirty to forty fromthe street peddlers. At Christmas and Easter, bonuses would be expected: gifts of gratitude for the Strozzis’ benevolence and protection. Not to mention the purchase of decorations like Christmas lights from the Camorra’s collectors at an absurd 100 euros a set.
    Mama stood nearby in case. Collecting the
pezzo
was small time next to their trash business, but it was a traditional racket to which they remained nostalgically attached. Given the number of shopkeepers and vendors, it still came to thousands of euros from each block.
    Camorristi
never surrendered so much as a penny once a claim was established, and the Strozzis always exercised their right to collect their due, as they had for several generations. And their inherent right not to pay the politicians a penny of it in taxes.
    Even Valentino, the drunkard, wasn’t exempt. He staggered out of his folding chair as the ladies approached. Although hopelessly alcoholic, he nonetheless managed to eke out a living selling fruit to a few customers who didn’t mind the occasional rotten strawberry or apricot: residents loyal to the memory of his father, who had started the business when horse-drawn carts clattered down the cobbled streets.
    Further on sat Mr. Prava in a chair on the narrow sidewalk, a new bit of graffitti scrawled in blue on the ancient wall over his head. His place occupied the limbo corner where Bianca Strozzi’s territory ended and Scavullo’s turf began. Prava didn’t look so good, with his eyes puffy, his lovely white hair uncombed, and shirt wrinkled and threadbare.
    The doors to his place stood open, tables stacked on the street. The bar inside was under construction and torn up. A workman lacquered its top black. A giant televisionscreen suspended on the far wall carried a soccer game, but Prava paid no attention. Had he fallen behind on payments? Lost the café? More likely he’d acquired uninvited partners, and they were draining him dry, helping themselves to free food and drink, forcing their knock-off booze and goods into his regular orders at jacked prices and skimming the till as they squeezed every euro out of his pockets. Scavullo showed no mercy for anyone behind on paying him.
    For that matter, neither were the
madrina
and her daughters at all lenient. The ladies were running their scams and making out on garbage collection contracts as they worked their way up the criminal food chain. Meanwhile, they maintained their hold on their vendors with these traditional weekly walkabouts.
    Natalia had known Mr. Prava for twenty years. She said hello. He looked past her and closed his eyes as the Strozzis passed him by, dutifully respecting the boundary of their rival.
    The Strozzis were in the vanguard. With more mob men in jail, their women had moved up to take command. A Neapolitan innovation. The Sicilian mafia would never entertain the idea of having women dons. But Naples’s females often stepped in when their men were sent up. The Camorra took genuine pride in their ruthlessness.
    At first, not everyone in town believed they were for real. Enzo Gracci, for one. Violetta Lupe had inherited the Rione del Vasto from Papa Marco. Gracci ran a successful fish market there—wholesale and retail—maybe the largest in Naples. Thinking Violetta a pushover, he held back a couple of payments, referred to her a couple of times as “that bitch.” A week later Enzo sat on a bench in Piazza Dante with his eyes gouged out, quite dead from shock.
    Here