The Crocodile (World Noir)

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  She stands up and gets ready to get off.

  CHAPTER 19

  Letizia flopped into a chair at Lojacono’s table. “Mamma mia, I’m shattered tonight. I really am turning into an old woman. There was a time when I bounced from one table to another like a young gazelle.”

  The inspector smiled, giving her a wink. “Ah, you look like a schoolgirl, you know. Come on, it’s obvious that all the men who eat here must be interested in you, because if it was for the cooking . . .”

  Letizia picked up a fork from the table and pretended to stab him with it. “Hey, how dare you? Let me tell you, there’s no better ragu anywhere in the city, which means anywhere on earth. And you know that perfectly well, since you eat it almost every night.”

  Lojacono patted his belly. “Of course I do, and take a look at what you’re turning me into. When I first started coming here I was an athlete and now I look like a sixty-year-old captain of industry.”

  Letizia blushed imperceptibly. “No, no, I assure you, you look fine. You’d have to eat a lot more ragu than that. But listen, I heard you were there last week when they killed the son of that nurse, Luisa. Is that right? What happened exactly?”

  “Yeah, I was on call that night. Such a pity; he was just a boy.”

  Letizia shrugged. “Sure, he was young, but they get started early here. I hear that he’d started to run with the wrong crowd, that . . . he was getting busy.”

  “What do you mean, he was getting busy?”

  “You know, easy money. Take something across town, a bit of petty drug dealing. They recruit them early. They call them muschilli—gnats. And then, little by little, they ease them into the business. Who knows, he could easily have broken some rule without even realizing it.”

  Lojacono drank another sip of wine. “I don’t know about that. It strikes me as odd; it doesn’t seem like a typical Mafia hit. They’re arrogant, you know. When they teach someone a lesson, they want the lesson to be out there, for everyone to see. But what about the mother—can you tell me anything about her?”

  Letizia extended her arms disconsolately. “What can I say? I’ve known her practically forever. She had this son, nobody seems to know who the father was, and she worked her fingers to the bone to bring him up right. She made sure he lacked for nothing. She worked for a while in some clinic somewhere and now she does home care, injections, IVs, stuff like that. There are times when she’s out all night sitting up with some invalid, which means the boy hangs out, or I guess used to hang out, on the streets, getting to know all these little losers. That’s the way the world works sometimes.”

  Lojacono looked into the middle distance, lost in thought, before saying, “There were tissues on the ground, right near where the boy was killed. A number of tissues, as if the person who used them had been there for a long time. Hours, for all we know. So a guy stands there, in the dark, in the pouring rain, for hours, waiting for a kid to come home so he can shoot him in the head, one shot, small caliber pistol, a toy gun. A handgun you could carry in your pocket. That’s no Camorrista, take it from me.”

  Letizia listened, holding her breath. “Tissues? You mean like paper tissues? Can’t you test them for DNA? I saw a TV show the other night—”

  Lojacono waved his hand dismissively. “Forget about those TV shows, they’re full of shit. Somebody finds a fingerprint and before you know it they have the murderer’s horoscope. Giuffrè, a guy who works in the same office as me, saw the forensics report that the medical examiner sent in: lachrymal secretion. And cell flaking, which means that when he wiped the tears off his eye, little scraps of eyelid skin stuck to the tissue. They analyzed everything, but all they were able to determine was the gender: male.”

  Letizia was perplexed. “What do you mean, tears? So the murderer was crying?”

  “Not necessarily. Maybe he has a cold. It’d make perfect sense: all that time standing in one place in this wet chilly weather. Anyway, this is secret information—in theory not even I should know about it—so do me a favor and keep it to yourself. Still, I like the way they’re moving fast. The assistant DA is young but she knows what she’s doing. I saw her that night and she strikes me as one of those women who aren’t satisfied with just being attractive but want to get out there and do something.”

  Letizia got a hollow feeling in her stomach, but she remained expressionless. “So you had a chance to determine that the lady prosecutor is attractive, did you? I hope you got her phone number. Maybe you’ll both have a chance to talk the case over at your leisure . . . Why don’t you bring her here for a nice intimate dinner?”

  Lojacono burst out laughing. “So you can poison the two of us? Don’t be silly, you know I’m not the kind of guy who does that sort of thing.”

  Letizia gave a hollow laugh, and poured herself a glass of wine.

  CHAPTER 20

  Eleonora sits motionless on the step. And she waits.

  She knew it wasn’t something she could tell him on the phone. These aren’t things you can talk about at a distance. This is news that has to be delivered in flesh and blood, that needs to hover in the ambient air. This is news that has to fall into a familiar space, not hurtle through some unknown and undefined ether. This is news that must meet the eyes of the recipient, news that must resonate, giving an image of pupils, mouth, complexion, each and every slight change.

  Eleonora didn’t bring the sheet of paper with her. It struck her as pointless; harmful, actually. As if she needed a document as proof, certification of the fact.

  This is hard news to deliver. You don’t know whether it’s good or bad news you’re bringing. You’ll only know it when you see his face, in the very instant that the word falls into the space between you and turns solid: either a rose or a stone, a note of music or a knife blade.

  Eleonora trembles. A terrible fear has taken hold of her. She understands in some obscure way, because her woman’s intuition tells her so clearly, that nothing will ever be the same as it was once she speaks to him. For better or for worse, nothing will ever be the same.

  Eleonora dug deep over the last few nights, seeking the courage she would need. She hunted through the conversations, the stories, even the laughter that she’d shared with him for traces of that courage. For the first time, she felt older than him, as she studied his temperament, his character, wondering whether he’d be capable of handling the words she had to say to him, whether he could proudly present her to his family, the way she hoped.

  As the endless hours of night tick past, it occurs to Eleonora that she doesn’t really know him after all. She’d always believed that the only thing that mattered was their love, the love she glimpsed in his eyes when he saw her coming towards him, the love she felt in her own heart when she thought of him; but she really doesn’t know him at all. What does he do when they’re not together? What does he think, how does he amuse himself, what are his fears? Perhaps that information could help her guess how he’ll react. Information that she doesn’t yet possess, and perhaps never will.

  Eleonora runs a hand over her face. She couldn’t stand to lose him. She tries to think positively, the way her father always told her to do: if you ask for trouble, trouble will answer. If you ask for good things, good things will come to you. Papa, how I wish you were here with me, right now. But instead, I also have the problem of how to break this news to you.

  Suddenly, Eleonora has lost all faith. Suddenly, all the promises she was given, on the beach or in bed after making love, seem to be written on the wind. Everything she believed in, everything she relied upon, has melted away like the snow back home. Now she sees that she’s given everything to someone she knows nothing about, with no possibility of getting it back.

  But just as Eleonora lost it, she regains it, her faith. Her heart restores that faith to her, intact. She can’t be so badly mistaken. Love is love, isn’t it? It’ll find a way. Aside from all the obstacles, above and beyond a few broken dreams and a few others that will have to be adjusted, life
will triumph, and life is the two of them, after all.

  Eleonora thinks of his father. She thinks of the man whom she has yet to meet. She thinks of the strictness that he described, the man’s rigidity. She thinks that perhaps a man who loves his son so intensely will understand why she is now becoming so accustomed, so tenderly accustomed, to the fragment of life that she carries within her. There should be a certain degree of understanding, from one parent to another. Love is a universal language.

  Eleonora looks around her. She chose to meet in the university park, the place they first met. It’s a talisman, it’ll bring her luck, of that she feels certain. She’ll see him coming towards her, like he did the first time, with his easy, confident gait, his broad shoulders, slightly jug-eared—one more thing about him that she loves so much. She’ll see him first and she’ll smile in his direction. Then he’ll see her and he’ll break into a happy smile, as he does every time he sees her. And everything will be fine.

  Everything will be fine.

  CHAPTER 21

  The old man walks by night down the street where the rich people live. He has read that prices go as high as a thousand euros per square foot around here. He’s only interested in knowing whether there are security guards, and what their routines are.

  The old man learns quickly. He takes note of schedules, situations, habits. If you cordon off a place, he thinks, then you turn it into a little world unto itself with only a few inhabitants, and people all move in roughly the same way. Of course, if it were one of those places where everyone knows everything about everyone else, like his hometown, then it would be impossible to pass unobserved; but here, he’s become invisible. People’s eyes slide over him and move on, as if he were made of air.

  Which is a good thing, he thinks. A very good thing.

  The other morning, in fact, he’d found himself face to face with the girl. He was following the route, he felt sure that she’d accept a ride from her girlfriend, the way she almost always did on Wednesdays when she had violin lessons in the evening. But, like everybody else, she failed to see him entirely. A city full of phantoms.

  He walks past the park. He’s decided that the right moment is in fact when she comes home from her violin lesson. The girl is right-handed, and she only uses her right hand: she’ll shift her violin case over to her other hand, she’ll pull out the keys to the street door, and she’ll open it. She never buzzes upstairs. And her routine never varies by more than ten minutes or so. There’s a night watchman in the park, but he doesn’t start his rounds until ten, at times ten-thirty.

  Next to the small entry door set in the larger carriage door is a stunted tree, a sort of dwarf cypress; the old man has a vague notion that this is called a thuja tree. A person could hide right behind that little tree, provided he weren’t too tall. And that won’t be a problem for him.

  He pulls a tissue out of his counterfeit designer duffel bag to dab at his weepy eye, and his hand brushes against the cold metal. The old man finds the contact deeply reassuring.

  The street where rich people live is deserted tonight. He’s seen it at all hours, teeming with traffic or completely empty as it is right now.

  A light rain starts to drizzle down, silently. The old man checked the weather report and knew that it would rain. It’s not strictly necessary, but it’s certainly helpful: there won’t be a lot of residents out taking a stroll tonight. Lots of people here have dogs, but by nine o’clock they’re all safe at home, eating dinner.

  I bet it’ll be someone taking their dog out who finds the body.

  Not that it matters, the old man decides.

  CHAPTER 22

  Giuffrè rushed into the room, waving a newspaper in the air.

  “Hey, Montalba’, did you hear the latest?”

  Lojacono looked up from his book. “Listen, asshole, stop calling me that. I told you already, I find it annoying.”

  The diminutive sergeant shot him an offended look. “Oh, nice manners! You know, I’m the only person in the whole city who even speaks to you. You could try to be a little more considerate, couldn’t you? Anyway, if you’re not interested, go fuck yourself.”

  He turned to leave and Lojacono went back to his reading. Then Giuffrè stopped and spoke again.

  “It’s pity, though. Because if you ask me, the news report I read in this newspaper really might interest you, Inspector Lojacono.”

  Finally hearing himself addressed by his proper name, the inspector swung his feet down from his desktop and shut his book.

  “All right, let’s hear it. Anyway, I know that you won’t leave me in peace until you’ve told me, and this book is unbelievably boring.”

  “I like you better when you play poker against the computer. Maybe you’re frustrated because you always lose, but at least you’re not angry. Anyway, it’s big news. Yesterday, in the Via Manzoni, someone murdered a fourteen-year-old girl.”

  There flashed into Lojacono’s mind, crystal-clear, the final scene of the nightmare that had been persecuting him since the night of the boy’s murder: his daughter hurtling into a car crash.

  “That’s a shame. But it’s not exactly earth-shattering news, is it?”

  “No, of course not. But if you put it together with the fact that since this morning Piras has called Di Vincenzo four times, and that right here,” he said, tapping the newspaper, “they talk about a single bullet to the head, it changes things considerably, don’t you think?”

  Lojacono said nothing for a second, and then replied, “First: how do you know that Piras has called so many times? And second: give me that newspaper.”

  When Giuffrè was especially pleased about something, he swayed back and forth on the tips of his toes. Lojacono found this habit maddening.

  “It’s because Pontolillo, the guy who works in the admin department, has a mouth that’s as loose as my mother-in-law’s left slipper, the way he blabs. This morning, he buttonholed me over by the coffee machine and said she wouldn’t stop calling. In fact, they had started to wonder if there wasn’t a little flirtation developing, except that on the last phone call she was so pissed off that Pontolillo was actually scared. So I put two and two together because, what, you think you’re the only cop in here?”

  Lojacono considered the question. “When I was small, I had an inflatable doll; I think I called it Ercolino, if memory serves. It swayed back and forth exactly the same way you’re doing right now, and I used to rain punches down on its face, to see if I could make it sway even more.”

  Giuffrè stopped short, wearing a baffled expression. “Anyway, this thing is getting big. Read it. The newspaper even draws a link between the two murders. I wonder who their source is. And it mentions the notorious tissues. That’s why Piras was so hopping mad, if you ask me.”

  The article was pretty blistering. The journalist reported the murder of G. D. M., a fourteen-year-old high school student in the better part of town, adding that she’d been killed with a single shot to the head as she was returning home from her violin lesson, around nine o’clock the night before. Nothing had been stolen, apparently. On the ground near the corpse the police had found a number of used tissues, a detail that suggested a connection to the murder of M. L., a sixteen-year-old boy murdered in San Gaetano a few days earlier. The reporter wondered what links there might be between the two victims, and what the police were waiting for to arrest the guilty party and bring him to justice.

  The tone of the article wasn’t openly hostile, but it was clear that that was where it was tending. The article concluded with a striking image: a murderer waiting for his victims in the shadows, dropping tissues, wet with his tears, on the ground. A murderer’s tears: the tears of the Crocodile.

  In fact, the image had even inspired the headline: Crocodile Killer Strikes Again. Lojacono understood how angry Piras was, and why: her name was the only one mentioned in the piece.

  The newspaper was one of the most widely read local publications, and the other papers were likely to adopt
the moniker. That in turn would capture the popular imagination, inevitably sensitive to the deaths of young people. As long as it was young Lorusso, the murder could be dismissed as a result of gang warfare; but laying hands on a girl from the upper reaches of the social hierarchy was sacrilege, pure and simple.

  Lojacono turned to look at Giuffrè, who had started swaying back and forth again.

  “As far as you know, were there any reports on the shell casings found on the scene?”

  The sergeant suddenly stopped. “No, and how would I know anything about that? If you want, I’d be glad to look into it though. Not now—Pontolillo’s already left for the day—but first thing tomorrow morning . . .”

  Lojacono had glimpsed a useful scrap of information at the end of the article.

  “Do me a favor: tomorrow, see if you can find out whether they found a shell casing and if it matched the one from Lorusso’s courtyard. And one more thing: cover for me tomorrow. I have to attend a funeral.”

  CHAPTER 23

  His cheeks are burning. That’s always been the symptom, ever since he was a small child, as far back as he could remember: burning cheeks.

  And the sound of his pulse in his ears, as if his heart has climbed into his skull. Now, he’s well aware of the effects of stress, because he’s studied them, but that does nothing to diminish their scope and strangeness.

  Donato walks out into the open air and heaves a deep sigh. He considers how in life you can do your best to plan things out, examine every angle, take into consideration all the pros and cons, but in any case it’ll always turn out differently than you expected, some unforeseen factor will always spin things on to another trajectory.

  He knows that he didn’t skip over anything; he studied the way he usually does. In fact, better than usual. He knows he even managed to find the time, in the last few days before the final exam, to go over the material one last time, making sure there were no gaps in his preparation, no chinks in his armor. He knows that he calmly reviewed his state of mind the night before, trying to ascertain whether he really was as well prepared as he felt.