Slender, timid young ladies who, once they’re onstage, produce voices and aggressive demeanors befitting a lioness; corpulent gentlemen who spin and float as light as gossamer to the notes of waltzes and tangos; coarse, bad-mannered young men who, with a paintbrush in hand, are capable of creating the most delicate arabesques and the most refined landscapes. Maione, for instance, was a master at stakeouts. You’d never have thought it to look at him, big strapping man that he was, clumsy and loud, with his deep voice that reverberated indoors and his harsh, powerful laugh, metallic as an empty tin drum rolling down the stairs. And yet he had this talent, and he made constant and discreet use of it. Perhaps it was because he knew and understood the city; perhaps in any other city he would have been incapable of literally vanishing from sight, merging into the ever-changing backdrop of Naples, endlessly diverse and in perennial movement.
