Page 50 of Marcello

I just stood there, watching.

Over the next 15 minutes, a dozen men came up to him, one by one. They wore regular street clothes, ranged from early 20s to late 30s, and all of them were working class: pizzeria waiters, construction guys, that sort of thing.

They all glanced around furtively, shook hands with the Camorra thug, and left a few seconds later.

The gangster was the only one who remained calm the entire time.

I couldn’t see the hand-offs clearly, but I was pretty sure he took their money and slipped them the drugs at the same time.

Weird.

I’d watched all five seasons of The Wire on HBO Max. On the show, corner drug dealers took the money, then sent the customer somewhere else for the pick-up.

I guess the Camorra did it differently.

The thug chainsmoked cigarettes while he was standing there. After half an hour, he ground the last one out with his sneaker and crossed the street.

I followed him.

I kept my distance and made sure I was mostly out of sight –

But I didn’t need to worry. The Camorra thug was totally confident, like he knew nobody was going to fuck with him. He never looked behind him unless it was to catcall at a hot girl passing by.

Occasionally, he would stop at the entrance to an alleyway and wait.

I hung back a block and watched from inside a shop window as more men came up to him, acting nervous and shady.

A dozen transactions would occur… the Camorra would smoke a few cigarettes…

And then he’d start walking again.

I followed him until we reached a courtyard with apartment buildings all around it. It was a big open space with weeds growing up between tiles on the ground.

In one building, an old woman lowered a blue bucket on a string from her fourth floor apartment, and a delivery guy on a moped filled it with a few groceries.

Blue buckets on strings were a common sight in poorer neighborhoods; it was how everybody got small deliveries they didn’t want to go out for.

The old lady and the moped driver shouted back and forth. It was a casual conversation – How’s your day going? Fine, how are you? – but they were yelling so loud the entire block could hear them.

Totally normal for Naples.

The Camorra thug ignored the old lady and the moped guy and walked diagonally across the courtyard.

I couldn’t follow him into an open area without being exposed, so I waited until he entered a side street.

Once he disappeared from view, I hustled across the courtyard.

I reached the side street –

But I didn’t see him.

I started running.

There was an alley to the left, so I paused and peeked around the corner.

It was empty except for a bunch of dumpsters behind an apartment building.

I kept running.