The Truffle Don

“Ah, bon,” another voice came from the back of the car, saving our Mikael from a certain embarrassment and who knew what more. A pot-bellied, balding, and outrageously Italian man stepped out, as if straight from a Martin Scorsese set. He was very well dressed, wearing a pair of expensive shoes so highly polished they shimmered in the dark. The driver came out right behind, without bothering to stop the engine or move the car from the middle of the driveway. The Don himself opened the trunk, inside of which were a few portable coolers. The pungent scent of white truffles hit our noses almost before he unlocked the trunk. He opened one of the coolers, showing us layers of neatly stacked packages, each loosely wrapped in a kitchen towel. He removed the first two layers before unwrapping the third one.

This time, the heady scent washed over us like a wave. Inside the package were what looked to me like a few pebbles covered in dust, but that unmistakable stink betrayed the real identity. (No, they were not old socks.) We sniffed, squeezed, and passed a few around until we found the two we liked most, all the while being watched ever so carefully by the driver. Out came a precise digital scale and on went the truffles. The two we wanted weighed in at about one hundred grams, and at just about two hundred euros. That was certainly at wholesale price. Our connection was better than even we had realized.

We paid him in cash. There was of course no receipt. Another friend who’d had a previous transaction with him via post received his overnight package in a box with no return address. When he requested a receipt, an envelope arrived the following day, with a small white sheet of paper, on which was written, with a pencil, the amount he paid the previous day. That was the Truffle Don’s idea of a transaction record.

Walking away, the Don turned around and spoke to us. “Now that you know my number, you could always buy directly from me, no need to bother with that fancy place,” he said, pointing to the other side of the parking lot, directly at the most expensive gourmet food shop in town. He was right, just a few feet over that way, the price would have been twice what we paid him just now.