Gunpowder, money and a glass of red

© Erick Poladov, 2025

ISBN 978-5-0064-1907-0

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

PROLOGUE

He often pondered this question: What awaited beyond the threshold, on the other side where death lay hidden? He would undoubtedly find the answer very soon. A.45-caliber shot had torn through his throat. With his last vestiges of strength, he struggled to utter farewell words, but instead of phrases, blood gurgled from his mouth, streaming down both sides of his face. His friend – the only person who cared about his fate – held his head in his lap, tearing at his own throat in an desperate attempt to call for help.

Soon. He hadn’t seen his parents. A reunion with them was imminent. The one cradling his drooping head had become his family. In his short life, he had settled on at least one conviction: he would never return to a past where he might have found a family and a carefree future, instead of the criminal undertakings he’d been forced into since childhood. Having such a friend was the greatest fortune, more than compensating for the moral damage life inflicted. He was grateful that he had spent his entire life shoulder to shoulder with the man in whose arms he now faced his agony.

The wail of police sirens intensified, drowning out his friend’s mournful cries. Unable to utter a word, he began pushing his friend away, urging him to flee. No one could pull him back from the other side, and it would be foolish to fall into the clutches of the police just for wanting to spend a few more moments with a dying body.

His last wish was fulfilled. The only person close to him had departed. Surrounded by seven lifeless bodies, hot shell casings, and shattered glass, he heard the loud screech of car tires braking on the asphalt near the curb. Inside, everything was bathed in the flashing glare of police sirens. Someone entered, their soles crunching on the shards of the completely shattered storefront.

A few seconds later, the figure of a policeman was reflected in his tear-filled eyes, but found no reflection in his fading mind. He crossed the threshold beyond which death awaited him.

1. LIFE IS BULLSHIT

April 1976.

– All rise. Court is in session!.

The courtroom filled with the sounds of trial participants and other attendees standing. A stocky, dark-skinned judge of average height took his seat. He began to read the verdict in his firm, even voice:

– The verdict is delivered. Massimo Spinazolla, you are hereby sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. Considering your age, as well as the fact that the act you committed is your first serious offense, the court has decided to deem this sentence suspended. In light of this, I am assigning a probationary period of one year.

The judge looked into the room and said:

– Please, everyone be seated.

A couple of seconds later, as Massimo, who was nine days shy of his eighteenth birthday, warmly hugged his lawyer and, clutching his cheeks with both hands, almost shouted: “We did it”, – the judge turned to him:

– Mr. Spinazolla, I sincerely hope that you will treat my leniency with dignity. You have committed a serious crime and could have spent a long time in prison. In light of this, the verdict can be considered virtually an acquittal. Do not let me down and prove to those present in this room that this heinous act was nothing more than a mistake you will not repeat.

– I won’t let you down, sir… that is, your honor – Massimo said loudly in a fit of joy, leaping from his chair.

The judge almost imperceptibly shook his head, paused, then struck his gavel and loudly announced:

– The session is adjourned.

With a brisk stride, in a business suit that looked unfamiliar and awkward on him, Massimo moved towards the exit, accompanied by his lawyer. He paid no mind to the prosecutor’s displeased grimace; the prosecutor had been counting on at least a short, but actual prison sentence. They passed through the doorway amidst the stream of trial witnesses..

Massimo quickened his pace, turning to the lawyer:

– Let’s go faster, this moralizing kingdom is getting on my nerves.

His interests in court were defended by forty-three-year-old lawyer Kurt Miller. He had been assigned to defend Massimo’s interests in court at the state’s expense, as the teenager claimed he had no funds for a lawyer.

Stepping off the front steps of the courthouse, Kurt began to speak as he continued walking with Massimo towards the city park:

– How many times do I have to tell you, “YOUR HONOR”. No sirs, no misters, no ‘dudes,’ or other nonsense. Understand, the judge evaluates your behavior and from that decides whether to give you a chance and leave you free.

– Oh, come on – Massimo said dismissively, spreading his hands. – It all ended well, didn’t it.

– This time, yes.

– What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t get it. Don’t you believe in me?

Kurt adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and began speaking in a more serious tone.

– You almost got away with robbing a pawnshop, but that doesn’t mean you can go back to your old ways. If tomorrow you don’t even pay for your metro fare, the judge will have grounds to change your suspended sentence to a real one. Because you refused to rat out your friends, he might not have shown mercy. And seriously, stop spending time with them. You’ll meet with them again, and they’ll just offer you something else. So that’s enough. Cut ties with them. Find a job. Earn money like all normal people. Do you even help your aunt at all?

– I was under investigation, you know. I’ll go back now and try to find something.

– Are there any options at all?

– A couple, yeah.

– If anything happens, call me. I have friends at the labor exchange. They will help.

– Thank you, but I’ll do it myself.

– OK.

Kurt paused and asked in a sad voice:

– By the way, did you check in on…

Massimo’s face shifted abruptly. The relief from the verdict had somehow vanished. His face took on a sour grimace, and notes of sadness crept into his voice:

– Yes. I was only allowed to call one number – the attending physician.

– And… what do they say?

– Next week they will operate. They said the chances are low, but either way, it’s the best option because the longer they wait, the larger the tumor gets. In about twenty days it will no longer be operable.

– And if time is short, why don’t they operate now?

– Uhh… there’s a waiting list for a month and a half. So there’s nothing to be done.

Massimo thought for a bit and said:

– Hey, Kurt. Could you lend me a tenner? I’d like to see my aunt.

– No problem – Kurt replied politely. – That’s sacred ground.

The lawyer took a wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out a ten-dollar bill from among the notes, and handed it to Massimo, saying:

– And go on, find some new friends. These ones will put you back in the dock again.

– Yes. Of course.

They said goodbye and went their separate ways. Kurt headed to the public parking lot, while Massimo walked to the nearest metro station. Three stops later, he exited the subway. On his way, Massimo paused at a flower stall. He asked the saleswoman to make a bouquet of five scarlet roses.

Ten minutes later, Massimo knocked on the hospital room door. Inside, his forty-seven-year-old Aunt Barbara lay on a cot. She was Massimo’s father’s sister. When he was just five years old, his parents – Silvio and Ramona Spinazolla – became among the eighty-three attendees of a movie theater captured by suicide bombers. On that ill-fated evening, Massimo was under the care of his aunt, who lived four bus stops away. Since then, he never returned to his parents’ apartment, remaining in Aunt Barbara’s care.

Eight months prior, Barbara Spinazolla had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. After several courses of chemotherapy, her condition had not improved. The tumor continued to grow in size. Six weeks after her last course, her attending physician recommended that she agree to surgical intervention. She agreed without hesitation.

– Massimo? Finally – Aunt Barbara uttered weakly. Despite the frailty in her voice, her face expressed indescribable joy at her nephew’s appearance.

– Hello – said Massimo. He approached his aunt, kissed her forehead, then carefully placed the bouquet on the edge of the bed.

– Here. These are for you.

Barbara brought her head towards the flowers, smelled them, and said:

– How fragrant they are. – She looked at her nephew and asked: – Why have you been gone for so long?

Massimo took a chair from near the wall, moved it closer to the bed, sat down, and replied:

– I just found some part-time work. So I got tied up.

– Part-time work? – the aunt asked with suspicion.

– Yes. What’s so surprising about that? I needed to buy you flowers somehow. I couldn’t show up after all these days, and empty-handed at that.

– You are my dearest – aunt Barbara said with a smile.

– How are you? Does it hurt badly? – Massimo asked anxiously.

Aunt Barbara took as deep a breath as her strength allowed.

– The nurse comes in thirty times a day. I have enough painkillers in me to last a lifetime.

Massimo placed his hand over his aunt’s, encouraging her:

– But don’t you dare give up hope. The doctor said it would be our turn soon.

Aunt Barbara let out a loud sigh.

– God willing. God willing.

Massimo sat by her bedside for almost three more hours, after which he kissed his aunt again and started back towards the metro station.

With one transfer, Massimo rode for forty-two minutes to the station, which was a few minutes’ walk from the house where he and his aunt shared an apartment.

They lived in a district the city had christened with a special name: “Little Rome.” The quarter owed this name to the fact that all sorts of people settled there, just as in ancient Rome, at its inception, a motley crowd of foreigners, runaway slaves, criminals, refugees, and exiles had flocked to it. It seemed that Little Rome, too, became a haven for everyone without exception. The district was over ninety percent composed of immigrants and their descendants, like Massimo himself. Primarily, Latin Americans, Spaniards, Irish, Portuguese, French, Germans, and, of course, Italians lived here. The majority were Latin Americans and Italians. People from Eastern Europe were rare. Even more rarely did migrants from the Middle East settle in these parts. Many among the local residents made their living by opening their own small businesses. For this reason, dozens of newspaper kiosks, clothing stores, supermarkets, barbershops, electronics repair shops, bars, diners, and pawnshops could be seen on every street. Robberies were no longer uncommon in this area, and the fact that many goods were on open display sustained a high level of petty theft. Recently, points for the distribution of counterfeit alcohol and elite brands of alcohol at reduced prices began to appear, facilitated by goods smuggled across the border. Over the years, prostitution had also gained momentum. According to official statistics, among cars stolen in Little Rome over the past four years, zero vehicles were returned to their rightful owners by police officers. Each stolen car did not “live” longer than five hours, after which it ended up being dismantled for parts in one of the local auto repair shops.

The street where Massimo and Aunt Barbara lived was perpetually filled with the aromas of local delis, the loud voices of indignant customers who had purchased defective goods, the shouts of vendors enticing passersby, the hum of running engines, and the honking of passing cars.

The sun disappears behind the horizon of residential high-rises, and the streets of Little Rome pass into the domain of corrupt policemen, racketeers, speculators, pimps, and the working class, toiling for the sake of maintaining a corrupt bureaucratic hierarchy developed over years. Bar patrons diligently deplete the establishments’ alcohol stocks. Prostitutes line up in an even formation along the curb beneath the shadow of the overpass. Somewhere, a group of teenagers is ransacking an apartment temporarily abandoned by its owners. In a nightclub’s VIP room, a sharpie with marked cards is stripping someone of their money. In the same establishment, an emboldened and inebriated client persistently harasses a busty stripper swaying to the beat of an erotic blues. And somewhere, a couple dozen tough guys with knives, bats, and brass knuckles have set up a meeting where a lethal outcome is almost guaranteed for some of its participants. At the same time, an escort accompanying Colombian producers of “happy powder” pulls up to the nightclub’s back entrance, who are awaited by a crowd of clients inside the establishment. A suitcase filled with cocaine exchanged for a suitcase stacked with Benjamin Franklins.

With knees weary from a long day, Massimo ascended the stairs of his apartment building, passing graffiti with inscriptions of various content:

“Puerto Ricans rule!”

“Lucas! Scumbag! Pay back the debt!!!”

“Manuela is a whore”

“Republicans FORWARD!”

“Lucas! Where’s the money!?”

“Democrats are shit!”

“Down with General Videla! Long live President Peron!”

“Fortune telling using coffee grounds. $10 per session. Inquire at apartment 25”

“Lucas! Drop dead!”

“Size 38 jeans. Inexpensive. Apartment 26”

“Alessandro was here”.

On the third floor, Massimo Spinazolla walked down the corridor toward his apartment. As he approached the door, an unfamiliar middle-aged man in a leather jacket came up to him. The stranger was endlessly working his jaws on chewing gum.

– Hey, guy? Where is Lorenzo’s apartment?

Massimo’s face contorted into a grimace of misunderstanding.

– Lorenzo? Who is that?

– One schmuck of this height – said the stranger, holding his open palm at the level of his ears. – Almost bald.

Massimo shook his head and answered in an indifferent tone:

– I don’t know him.

The guy looked at him suspiciously for a few seconds, then headed down the stairs.

Massimo watched the stranger until he disappeared down the stairs, then he inserted the key into the keyhole, turned it, and the door pushed open from the frame. There was no need to turn the door handle, as the latch in the door lock hadn’t worked for a couple of years. Because of this, the front door was always locked with a key.

The moment Massimo pulled his door open, someone was leaving the neighboring apartment. A twenty-two-year-old guy appeared in the hallway. Massimo said sympathetically, addressing his neighbor:

– You should move out of here, Lorenzo. Sooner or later, they will find you. Not here, but on the street. You can’t sit in your apartment all the time.

– Fuck them – Lorenzo said with difficulty in a trembling voice.

Lorenzo hadn’t finished school and had been dealing in stolen household appliances for five years. Televisions, tape recorders, radios, electronic watches, blenders, electric ovens, cassette and microcassette voice recorders, cameras. Lorenzo owned an old garage a couple of kilometers from his house. This garage served as a compact market for the latest model home appliances. He would acquire goods, haggle over the amount due to the supplier, then set his own price, sell them, and keep everything that was above the price the supplier had requested. But greed is a destructive emotion. Not long ago, another client approached Lorenzo at the garage. He had hauled in five latest model tape recorders for sale, still in their boxes and unopened. Brand new. Among them was a Sony Betamax VCR – a true exotic. There was also a Soviet-made Jupiter-Quadro tape recorder, which, if it ever made it to the local market, would only be through illegal means, making it incredibly hard to come by. Such an item cost astronomical money. Only an imbecile, perhaps, would have wanted to overpay for the right to own such equipment. Lorenzo couldn’t resist the temptation. He secretly sold the tape recorders, held a clearance sale for the remaining goods in the garage (only two old electric stoves, a black and white TV, a refrigerator, and a couple of irons remained unsold), collected the money, and holed himself up in his apartment. He didn’t even pay those whose goods had sold in the clearance, as he had sold them at prices, on average, lower than what the suppliers had asked, just to get rid of the merchandise and quickly fill his coffers. When things got heated and the disgruntled suppliers found out which building his apartment was in, Lorenzo left his apartment and moved in with his girlfriend, who lived on the very same floor.

He stood in the doorway, dressed in a wrinkled white T-shirt and blue jersey trousers. A wide gold chain with a weighty cross sparkled around Lorenzo’s neck. His feet were bare.

– Doesn’t it bother you that they… – Massimo didn’t have time to finish.

Lorenzo interrupted him, but did so in a slightly bolder voice:

– What can they do? Come here for a day or two, make a fuss, and calm down.

After that, Lorenzo took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one for himself, then offered it to Massimo, but he refused. Lorenzo expressed his respect for Massimo for not using that poison.

While Lorenzo exhaled a cloud of tobacco smoke, a thought occurred to Massimo:

– Listen, could you lend me a tenner? I’ll pay you back as soon as I have it.

Lorenzo turned sharply, looked inside and shouted:

– Manuela? Manuela!?

A girl’s weak, barely audible voice came from the apartment:

– What?

– Bring my jacket.

After a prolonged pause, she replied:

– OK.

A few more seconds passed, and Manuela asked:

– Who are you talking to out there?

– Nobody – Lorenzo replied irritably.

– I hear someone’s voice.

Lorenzo said in an even more displeased tone:

– Shut up and bring me the jacket!

After some time, twenty-year-old Manuela Pellegrini – the subject of the graffiti on the stairwell walls – approached the doorway with short, sluggish steps. She was wearing a nightgown or something similar, her eyes were sleepy, and her dark red hair was disheveled. Her state was semi-conscious, if it could even be called conscious at all. Lorenzo’s leather jacket dangled from her right arm, its cuff dragging along the floor.

He picked up his jacket, looked at Manuela’s frozen body and said:

– Are you waiting for something?

With a stony face, she silently turned around and her legs dragged her back into the apartment.

Lorenzo slapped Manuela’s buttock, saying:

– Better get your ass ready. I’ll be in soon.

Lorenzo pulled out from his inner pocket a stack of bills so thick that Massimo had only ever seen in movies. He took two ten-dollar bills from the stack and offered them to Massimo. He took it, but before he could speak, Lorenzo added:

– You don’t have to pay it back. It’s for not ratting me out.

Massimo addressed him immediately:

– Thanks. But, you know, still think about what I said. At least get yourself something for self-defense.

Lorenzo slowly took the cigarette from his clenched lips, maintaining a thoughtful gaze.

– You know, this is a good idea.

After these words, Lorenzo slapped Massimo’s shoulder, after which Massimo added:

– When I was coming into the building, there was some suspicious-looking guy sitting across the street, watching our stoop carefully. He’s clearly not from around here.

– Great. The next time you see him, say: “Lorenzo asked me to say: “Fuck you”. Now excuse me, man, but I have to go. I’m about to send a part of myself into that ass over there – Lorenzo said, pointing to Manuela in the back room.

After his impassioned speech, the speculator slammed the front door, and before that, pointing a finger at Massimo’s suit, he said:

– Awesome outfit.

Massimo stepped over the threshold of his apartment. He pressed the door against its frame and turned the key, leaving it in the keyhole. It was a two-room apartment, once furnished with only the bare essentials. The only household appliances were a 1965-model refrigerator, a used black-and-white television, and a non-functioning washing machine. In Aunt Barbara’s bedroom, there was a bed, a bedside table with a lamp, and a small wardrobe with a mirrored door.

Massimo always slept on the sofa in the living room.

He stepped over the threshold and the first thoughts in his head were related to the fact that this place had not been cleaned for a long time. Aunt Barbara has been in the hospital for a long time, and Massimo had to stay in the company of representatives of the judicial and law enforcement system. But he barely had the strength left to crawl to the sofa and collapse with incredible bliss on its soft upholstery.

Massimo was awakened by the doorbell. He cast his sleepy gaze out the window. It was already past dusk. Rubbing his face with his palms, he moved towards the front door. The second bell rang. Massimo grasped the key, turned it twice, and pulled the handle.

Jorge Gomez and Pablo Inzaghi stood on the threshold. Mexican and Italian, both eighteen. Massimo shared a defiant friendship with them from the very moment his aunt took him in. Pablo and Jorge were the first people Massimo met when he moved into the new house. They participated in any scuffle together. If one got into trouble, it directly affected all three, so they both took and dished out blows to their offenders – always as a united front. They spent every day engaged in some activity together. It is therefore not surprising that these two friends had more influence on each of them than their homes and families. Their life views and principles coincided, and their characters were not much different, especially Massimo and Pablo. Each of them resented the lack of justice: some got everything, while others got nothing. They agreed that if you belonged to the lower class of society, ignored by the authorities, then morality and ethics could unilaterally be redefined. Now YOU decide what is right and what is wrong; what’s good and what’s bad. The reasons for such a position in life seemed more than compelling: since someone at the top decided that it was fair to divide people into first and second class, then those politicians could shove their decrees and constitution. The second class would live by their own laws, since general civil rights didn’t extend to them.

Among them, only Jorge had a full-fledged family and a less explosive temper, easily falling under the absolute influence of Massimo and Pablo. He lived in a typical Mexican immigrant family. In addition to him, there were four more children in the family: two brothers and two sisters. But, as is usually the case, life for immigrants was extremely difficult. Hard physical labor was poorly paid and very exhausting. So poverty was inevitable. It was especially difficult for Jorge’s parents. The father had to keep up with several jobs to feed his five children. Only later, when the eldest son began to be interested in cars and was stuck all day long at the car service station across the street, did the family get a car. Jorge’s brother bought a broken sedan cheaply and began repairing it, replacing damaged parts with those from old cars brought to the service for scrap. Jorge helped his older brother, which significantly speeded up the process. When their little beauty was fixed up, the father of the family was moved by the gift he received for his birthday. An old, repainted body, but it ran. It was an incredible event for Sergio Gomez’s family. Although Jorge helped his brother assemble the car and watched his work, he still couldn’t understand all the mechanics involved. He wanted to find something simpler. What he found was a yellow farmer’s pickup truck, which he stole and had dismantled at the first auto repair shop he saw in Little Rome. The pickup truck turned out to be old, and it didn’t fetch much, but this was more than enough to sharply boost his self-esteem and make him feel capable of taking care of himself.