He persuaded a beggar to give him some loose change to call the gypsy contact, but there was no reply. There were a couple of Italian warships in port at Barcelona and he heard a sailor with a Calabrian accent asking for directions. Dad gave him a cock and bull story about being stranded in the city and the lad gave him a load of pesetas. Everywhere he went, he somehow talked people into helping. It was getting dark.
He chanced his luck on the last bus to the outskirts of Barcelona, a trip on which he might or might not be checked. It held again. And good fortune was his once more when he found a minibus at 3 a.m. He clicked it open with his corned beef key and had a couple of hours’ kip.
But even though it was July, the winds were howling, plants were jumping off balconies and the van was rocking. It was early morning when he got to La Rambla pedestrian mall in central Barcelona, but it was packed with tourists who provided people cover. It was before 8 a.m. when he rang the gypsy, who said he’d just got in from his evening and to call back at 1 p.m.
‘Hang on a minute! Look, pal, this is an emergency. I’ve been told you can help me…’
He told Dad to come round, get this bus, do this, do that, take another bus, do that. The front door was opened by a Spanish gypsy who looked like a flamenco dancer. When he and his wife realised who Dad was – his picture was all over the telly – they treated him like a king. They couldn’t do enough for him. This guy did robberies and Dad, the legendary ‘Lupin’, was one of his heroes. The guy showed him what he’d nicked, including some gold bars. While Antonio was stuck in jail and the cops searched land, sea and air for Dad, he put his feet up with them for a week. He rested and plotted.
He always found a way to do everything. There’s nothing that can’t be done by my dad. A fake passport was arranged from Italy, and when it and money arrived he moved on. He took a plane from Barcelona to Madrid and then a train to Malaga and a taxi to Algeciras. From there he took the ferry to Tangiers, where he fell in with a Neapolitan–Moroccan man who entertained him while he waited for three days for the first plane to Rome.
His trail was complex but cold. A bodyguard-driver met him at Fiumicino Airport and they drove back to Milan, which with my family’s efforts was developing into one of the world’s most important drug-trafficking junctions. In tandem, the European ‘Di Giovine Connection’ was operating. It was a family business run from Piazza Prealpi, their estate, their fiefdom. My Auntie Natalina’s husband Luigi Zolla was appointed by Nan as ‘manager’ of the Piazza.
It was recognised, if reluctantly accepted by rival drug organisations, that the Di Giovine family had majority control. Drug suppliers dealt directly and exclusively with the family or there would be trouble. When one of the family’s dealers attempted to set up business for himself, Nan issued only one instruction: ‘Kill him.’
He was murdered within twenty-four hours.
Another dealer didn’t learn that lesson and tried to edge into Di Giovine territory. He died too.
The notoriety increased with the viciousness with which the family’s dominion was protected. Intrusion was not tolerated. Business had to be protected, no matter what.
When Dad’s sister Rita was sixteen years old, she was living at Nan’s with her boyfriend and they started dealing heroin. When thieves brought stolen TVs and other plunder to be fenced they used the money Nan paid them in the kitchen to buy smack off Auntie Rita in the bedroom. It was a clever crime carousel. But there was a big bust-up between Rita and her boyfriend. She was weighing the heroin and cutting it with sugar to make it go further. She didn’t see that as a rip-off. But she didn’t like it that her boyfriend was short-changing their buyers by putting less than the correct weight of heroin mix in the drug packets.
Rita was never Nan’s favourite. She was too needy, too eager to please, and Nan didn’t respect her as a result. She preferred the kids who spoke out and gave the finger to authority. She didn’t always treat Rita terribly well because of this, and when she found out what Rita and her boyfriend were rowing about she went ballistic. She didn’t want anyone in the middle. She wanted total control. After that when the druggies brought stolen goods she paid them in heroin, cutting out her own daughter.
Like a medieval warlord, Nan had an official taster-tester. Only in his teens, Mimmino, who lived out back in a lean-to, wasn’t employed to check the family food for poison but the strength of the heroin. His reaction to his fix would dictate whether the batch could be cut for more profit. A risky business, and he eventually died from an overdose.
There was so much heroin being packed, unpacked, cut and doctored at Nan’s that a couple of neighbours, women who allowed her incoming calls on their untapped phones, were convinced their dogs were being affected, getting high on the aroma and behaving very oddly. In the mêlée of daily life no one else noticed, just gave a shrug when it was mentioned. The dogs seemed content.
Dad was making more connections with the Turkish gangs who were a developing influence in Milan. They operated easily in the shadow of Italy’s kidnapping epidemic in the years after the profitable snatching of John Paul Getty III. The kidnappers targeted kids from rich families and many of the victims were never seen alive again. In 1976 more than eighty men, women and children were held to ransom. The kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro, the two-time Italian Prime Minister, in 1978 remains an open wound for Italy. But with all the scrutiny and risks and no guaranteed profit, kidnapping wasn’t a business my family wanted to move into. Drugs were the future. Yet there’s always friction, with other organisations wanting to expand in the same line of business. It’s impossible to grow without taking up space that others believe belongs to them. There were plenty of ‘others’.
Dad was mixing with a lot of evil people. One sinister gang, nicknamed Kidnaps Inc, was responsible for grabbing twenty-one hostages, three of whom vanished for ever. A Yugoslav called Francesco Mafoda was one of the leaders. He understood Dad’s contacts and influence and tried to recruit him into the organisation. This guy wasn’t just ruthless and mean; he was borderline psychotic. His unsmiling, pockmarked face was a signal he wasn’t a good bet. Dad said no.
Mafoda didn’t like being turned down but Dad was his own man. And a free one. Nan had paid off a judge from a new bank account in Marbella, to finally get the prison swap charges dismissed. Dad fobbed off Mafoda and concentrated on the drugs business. And keeping business in the family. Along with his brothers and sisters, Dad controlled teams in Milan dealing with the Turkish shipments brought in by road, kilos and kilos of heroin often hidden in giant canisters of cooking lard. Week by week the number of trucks, buses, consignments and millions of dollars involved grew and the heroin distribution crews took on new sales teams to spread the deadly but so lucrative product.
For Dad, it was a wonderful world. And something surprising had happened in his life. He was in love. Adele Rossi was only sixteen years old when Dad started dating her. He adored her. She went everywhere with him. He guarded her, looked after her, loved her. They went around hand in hand. They were always touching each other. Not in a sexual way but as though they were making sure the other one was still there; seeing wasn’t enough. She met Mum and me and we liked her. She was lovely, a joyful personality. And beautiful, with long legs and a cascade of blonde hair. Everyone noticed how happy Dad was. He was even happier when Adele got pregnant. And I was delighted, and nervous, at the prospect of having a sister.
In this absurd world, Mum, estranged and separated from her husband, was also trying to have a romantic life but Dad’s power and personality were an ongoing obstruction. He didn’t want to be with Mum but he didn’t want anyone else to be with her either. It was ridiculous but so common in broken relationships. Dad didn’t love Mum in that way, didn’t