The Crocodile (World Noir)

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  Yes, said state’s witness Alfonso Di Fede, that’s right: Lojacono tipped us off, of course he did. He was how we knew everything the major case squad was going to do before they did it. We knew where it was safe to go and where it wasn’t. Can I have another espresso now?

  Who could say where his name had come up, from what nook or cranny of Di Fede’s memory, prompted by what need to cover up someone else’s involvement? In the sleepless nights spent staring at the bedroom ceiling that followed his immediate suspension, Lojacono had puzzled over that one a thousand times.

  The effect on his own life, and on Sonia and Marinella’s lives, had been devastating. No one was willing to speak to them now—some out of fear that the informant’s account was true, others out of fear that it wasn’t. As long as the matter remained in doubt, everyone kept their distance, and there the three of them were left, in the middle of nowhere.

  He’d read the uncertainty in his wife’s and daughter’s eyes immediately. Not that he’d expected unwavering support. He’d seen this sort of thing happen far too often: he knew how rare it was, outside of books and movies, for families to remain steadfast allies in bad times as well as good. But he had hoped he’d at least be given an opportunity to explain, to defend his good name.

  It would have been so much better if there’d actually been a trial. In that case, he would have had a chance to demolish the absurd accusation, revealing it for what it was—little more than vicious slander. But it was the very fact that there was no evidence that led to a dismissal of charges, meaning no lawyers, no courtroom hearings.

  Advisability: that had been the operative term. No disciplinary measures, merely a matter of advisability. Of course, there was a case file; in some dimly lit room somewhere there was a folder with his name on it, full of documents: copies of reports, interviews, judgments. Fragments, relics of a policeman’s life, a life spent in one of the most complicated places on earth. Everything taken apart and archived, for reasons of “advisability.’’

  “You have to understand, Lojacono,” the chief of police had told him, “I’m doing it for the good of the squad; I need your co-workers to feel safe. And for the good of your family, it’s not in anyone’s interest for you to stay here. You’re too exposed. A question of advisability.”

  It had been deemed advisable to move Sonia and Marinella to Palermo. Why run the risk of extortion, or worse? There were families whose members had been killed at the hands of Di Fede and his men; no one could say what some hothead might decide to do to someone who had collaborated with them.

  Marinella had been forced to change schools, lose all her best friends, even the little boy who liked her. Terrible things, at her age. The last thing he had heard in her voice was hatred.

  The coffee up here was good. At least that was something.

  The transfer had been advisable, of course. Far enough to put him out of play, but not far enough to make it look like a punishment, for something he might or might not have done, for something that couldn’t be proven, one way or another. Naples, San Gaetano police station, in the flabby belly of a city that was decomposing. Evidently they couldn’t find anything worse, at least nothing that was readily available.

  The inspector had welcomed him in a meeting in his office. “You understand, Lojacono, given the situation, that it’s not advisable to put you in charge of investigations.” Advisable, not advisable, he’d mused as he listened. “So I’ll have to ask you not to get involved in anything that smacks of investigation.”

  “Then what will I be doing?” he’d asked.

  “Don’t worry about that, you won’t be asked to do anything. Check in with the Crime Reports Office and once you’re there, you can do what you like: read books, write your memoirs. Just stay there and don’t worry. It won’t last long, I can promise you that.”

  Ten months. Enough to make you lose your mind. Phone call after phone call, in a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to talk to his daughter. From his hometown, from his home office, came only deafening silence. Suspended in time and space, sitting at an empty desk, playing poker against the computer, with no one to keep him company but Giuffrè, another outcast, a onetime driver for a member of parliament, and so on staff but in bureaucratic purdah, assigned to take down the deranged complaints of crazy old women, as he had that morning.

  I shouldn’t think badly of Giuffrè, he told himself. After all, he’s the only one willing to talk to me.

  CHAPTER 4

  Sweetheart, my darling,

  I’m here. At last. I’m breathing your air. Perhaps, even as I write, here in this room, there might be a little left—air that once flowed into your lungs and then out again.

  The last few months were endless. She took so long to die, and in the end every breath she took was a desperate death rattle. I sat up all night at her bedside, hoping that noise would come to an end, that I’d finally be free. God, it took her forever.

  She had become my prison. She wasted away in the bed, slowly, imperceptibly. No one came to see us after a while; the very sight of her was intolerable. A shipwreck of life.

  Not me. I never let myself go. I had you, my darling.

  The thought of you sustained me every second of the day; the idea that I could see you again, hold you again in my arms—that idea lifted me up and carried me away from my despair. You saved me, my darling. Your smile, your beauty, your blonde hair. The warmth of your hands on my face. I could feel you at night, in my half-waking state punctuated by that endless death rattle. I saw you with the eyes of my desire, like a lighthouse in the night, like a house in a tempest.

  Sweetheart, my darling.

  The sound of your name murmured in the silence gave me the strength it took to stay by her side right up to the end. Because I knew there was still a chance I could hold you close to me again.

  I never wasted a second, you know that, right? I organized everything.

  I learned how to surf the internet. People say that it’s hard for a man my age, but it wasn’t difficult at all. You’re smiling, aren’t you, my darling? You’re thinking that nothing could be as hard as these years I’ve lived without you. That’s right, that’s exactly how it is. Nothing is as hard as that.

  It’s incredible how easy it is to organize everything. All you need is the time, and I had nothing but time. Then, your letters told me everything I needed to know. How many times I read them and reread them, my darling. Spreading them out before me like relics, taking care not to get them dirty, not to tear them. Touched only by your fingers and mine. No one else’s.

  Your letters told me everything I needed to know: names, dates. And the computer did the rest. While she was struggling for death and waiting to die, I was finding addresses, locations, and timetables. You know you can find anything on the web, my darling. Anything. All you need is patience and determination; and you know how patient I can be.

  It won’t be long now. And I’ll have finally done what needs doing if I hope to wrap you in my arms again, to stay with you, this time for good, without obstacles. It won’t be long.

  I never had time to tell her, you know. And maybe I wouldn’t have, even if I had had the time. Why give her an extra cause for concern, or even a cause for sorrow? You know how emotional she could be.

  Finally, I’m ready now. And I’m eager to get to work, immediately. Starting tonight, the hunt is on.

  CHAPTER 5

  Mirko is smoking in front of the mirror. He’s checking his hair; he has a brand new Mohawk. He likes it. Nothing overstated, he knows it’s not a good idea to stand out in people’s memories; he’s smart, he thinks about this kind of thing, he’s not a child anymore. He’s sixteen years old now.

  He can still feel the thrill that ran through his body a month ago, when Antonio first approached him. Antonio: a living legend to all the kids in the neighborhood. Antonio, who dates all the prettiest girls around. Antonio, who two years ago was a scazzottiello like the rest of them, just another punk kid playing football
late at night in the Galleria, but now he’s got an enormous motorcycle with chrome-plated exhaust pipes that makes the shop windows rattle when it goes by.

  So Antonio comes over to him, while he’s sitting on the wall with his friends talking about girls, and says to him: “Guagliò, come here, I want to talk to you.”

  Mirko can still remember the look on his friends’ faces: surprise, envy, even concern. And the sound of his heart pounding in his ears as he broke away from his group and walked towards his destiny.

  Antonio had locked arms with him. The way he would with a friend, with a peer. And he had told Mirko that he struck him as better than the others, smarter, wider awake. That he’d seen him on his motor scooter, and that he’d made a good impression. “You’re not the kind of guy that’s going to pull strunzate; you’re not a fuckup,” he’d said to him. “You’re chill, you just hang. That’s what we like. That’s what you need to be one of my guys.”

  “One of your guys?” Mirko had asked, and his voice had barely squeaked out of his mouth.

  Antonio had put Mirko to the test. One beep on his cell phone and Mirko came running. He’d carried a few packages around the city; one time, he even had a passenger, a young guy he’d never seen before, and he’d taken him from one neighborhood to another on the far side of town. Then, finally, Antonio had assigned him a couple of street vendors, black African immigrants who peddled CDs, and told him to make sure they didn’t pull anything slick, like pretending the police had confiscated their merchandise.

  For the past few days now, though, he was finally working for real. He’d pull up outside the rich kids’ school, up in the nice part of town, and sit there on his scooter, off to one side. When school let out, he’d mingle with the students, and someone would approach him with a folded bill in their hand; they’d shake hands, and he’d palm him a baggie. Just another kid surrounded by kids like him. Dressed like them, with a scooter just like theirs. It was easy, so easy.

  And Mirko had received, directly from Antonio’s hands, two fifty-euro bills. “But you need to be careful,” Antonio had told him.

  Mirko looks at himself in the mirror again, suddenly slightly worried: this Mohawk isn’t too showy, is it? It’s not like someone’s going to recognize him, is it? Some sharp-eyed high school teacher who doesn’t know enough to mind his own fucking business?

  Then he thinks it over and remembers that some of those idiots who were so eager to give him their money have hair exactly like his, and that calms him down.

  For no good reason, his thoughts go to the blonde. He’d noticed her immediately, among all the other airheads, outside the school. Mamma mia, she was a real beauty! She looked like an angel, and when she laid her eyes on him he felt even punier than when Antonio first called him over. And she had smiled at him—at him, of all people. She must have taken him for someone else, but for whatever reason, she’d smiled at him.

  Mirko takes a look around. Of course, if the blonde saw where he lives, what a shitty home he has, he could imagine how she’d laugh. But that doesn’t mean she necessarily has to know, does it?

  He touches the pocket where he keeps the hundred euros. He doesn’t want to break the notes, but he has to buy gas for his scooter. Maybe it’s time to take a stroll through Mamma’s handbag.

  He smiles into the mirror, cigarette in his mouth, one eye half-closed. Mamma. Who always tells him that “it’s you and me alone against the world.” Who gives him everything she has, and has done so as long as he can remember. Mamma, who works and does nothing else, who hasn’t even ever had a man. Who’s never gone out to the movies, never eaten in a restaurant. But who keeps that hovel clean and sweet-smelling, for her boy.

  I’m not a boy anymore, Mamma. Let me do what I need to, and I’ll take care of you now. I’ll bring money home, Mamma. And I’ll take you out to dinner and a movie every night from now on.

  I wonder if the blonde likes guys with Mohawks, he thinks as he looks at himself in the mirror. Anyway, who cares what she likes?

  CHAPTER 6

  Letizia’s trattoria had become fashionable. People came from Vomero, Posillipo, and Chiaia to eat there, leaving their cars in parking garages on the edge of the quarter, where they’d be safe from the rapacious eyes of car thieves.

  One day, a newspaper had published a highly flattering review by a food writer, and everything changed. Letizia often wondered when it was that the man had come in, just one more anonymous diner, and taken his seat at the red-and-white checked table, sampling the “sublime red-onion tomato sauce” and the “fantastic ragout meat loaf, a sensory delight,” as he had described his meal. Actually, she was glad that she hadn’t known at the time; she was proud of the fact that the reviewer hadn’t been given any special treatment.

  Since the man was an authority in his field, famous for his all-guns-blazing takedowns of pretentious high-end restaurants, the favorable review spelled the beginning of an unstoppable rise in the tiny trattoria’s popularity. The phone rang nonstop and reservations poured in. Letizia could perfectly well have raised prices sharply, expanded the dining room to the disadvantage of the kitchen or the wine cellar, made more tables available to her ravenous clientele, and even hired a couple of waiters; but it would no longer be her trattoria if she had.

  She liked taking orders herself, moving around in the dining room, chatting with the diners. She felt that a little personal interaction, without presuming on her customers’ good nature, helped her to understand what people preferred so that she could encourage them with some advice or a suggestion. Dining is meant to involve conversation: if you don’t want to talk, go stand at the counter in a panino place.

  Letizia herself, as the reviewer had written, was one of the reasons it was worth climbing the dark, damp alley: “a dark good-looking woman, all smiles and personality, with a ready wit and a contagious laugh.” What the man couldn’t have known was that behind that laughter was an iron personality, forged by profound sorrow and a great deal of hard work.

  She never talked about her husband, who had died many years ago; some said in a car crash, others said after a brief illness. She hadn’t had children and no one knew of any subsequent relationships, even though a great many men had been attracted by her lovely smile and generous bosom. She had her trattoria to run and at this point in her life—well past forty—she wanted no distractions.

  Just before the article and the sudden rush for reservations that followed, she had noticed one regular customer. He always sat at the corner table, the one that was least visible, the table no one else wanted because it was right under the television set and close to the front door. He never took off his overcoat, he never had anything to read, he never had company for dinner. He always asked for the special, which he ate quickly; but then he’d linger, drinking wine, downing one glass after another, methodically, without enjoyment, as if he were taking medicine. Letizia watched him curiously, sympathetically. He had an odd face. It looked as if it had been carved out of hardwood, high cheekbones, black almond-shaped eyes. In her mind, she called him “the Chinese.” She wished she could talk to him. Her sociable nature made her want to break the silence that isolated him from the rest of the world like a transparent veil, but she sensed that the equilibrium between them was fragile and that, after a few one-syllable replies, he might very well stop coming to eat there.

  She’d impulsively started reserving the table for him. Even when there was a line outside, with customers standing out on the sidewalk in the pouring rain, patiently waiting their turn under their umbrellas, the corner table sat empty, awaiting its silent occupant. And sure enough, he would show up, hair rumpled, overcoat creased, and take a seat under the television. For Letizia it had become something to look forward to, so much so that for him the prices, which had remained the same even though the trattoria was increasingly popular, were actually slightly discounted.

  One night the Chinese fell asleep, shoulders against the wall, wineglass in hand. There was a dolorous expr
ession on his face as he chased after some terrible, unimaginable dream. Two couples, sitting at the next table, started elbowing each other and snickering. One of the girls intentionally dropped a fork to see him wake up with a jerk. But he went on sleeping his sleep of despair. Letizia felt a stab of sympathy in her heart and went over, sitting down at his table to protect his rest. Without opening his eyes, he murmured, “Forgive me, I have a headache. I’ll get up in a minute and free up the table for you.”

  “Don’t worry, you can stay as long as you like. I’ll bring you a couple of aspirin. You’ll see, you’ll feel better right away.”

  Without opening his eyes, he smiled a crooked smile and said, “The headache I have isn’t something you can cure with aspirin. But thanks all the same. Maybe another glass of wine, and the bill.”

  From that night on, whenever the trattoria was almost empty, Letizia developed the habit of sitting at the corner table to eat her dinner, instead of eating in the kitchen.

  One word after another, night after night, “the Chinese” turned into Inspector Giuseppe Lojacono, known to the friends and family he no longer had as Peppuccio, from Montallegro, a village in the province of Agrigento; and his sad story emerged in the images glimpsed at the bottom of glasses full of red wine, including his ruined marriage and his daughter’s voice, the sound of which he was starting to forget.

  Night after night, Letizia had become a door through which Lojacono spied on a city that was very different from the way he’d first imagined it: mistrustful, damp, and dark, increasingly hidden and far less decipherable than he had thought. Everyone eager to avoid trouble of any kind, everyone keeping their nose out of other people’s business, ready to take to their heels. A city that ran through your fingers, turning to liquid, or suddenly evaporating.