Maybe she shouldn’t have arranged to see him at the university, in the very spot where they had first met. She should have avoided a place that could have completed the circle, imprisoning their emotions in crystal like the prince and princess in some fairytale.
Fairytales don’t exist, and Eleonora knows it. Her mother had told her so, in no uncertain terms, during their last conversation before she left: Don’t dream. Dreams will kill you if you’re not careful.
But unfortunately I did dream, Eleonora thinks. I let myself be lured into another dream, where I was a penniless princess gathered up by the prince and carried straight into Paradise. But I was no princess. And he was no prince. And there is no Paradise.
She had told him as a gleaming shaft of sunlight suddenly broke through the clouds above them. She’d waited for it, that ray of light; she’d hoped for a good omen. And she’d even forgiven him for that first glance of terror and estrangement, aghast as he was. And the endless silence that had followed.
But not the words. Those were unequivocal, horrible. A chilly verdict.
“I can’t,” he’d said. “I can’t.”
“What does that mean?” she had asked him. “What can’t you?”
He sat there, shaking his head, without a word. Then he brusquely got to his feet, saying, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go now. I need to think.”
She’d talked to him that night, at the usual time. One ring, two, a third. Then his voice, so different from usual: frosty, distant.
“I need to think,” he’d said again. “This changes everything; you understand that, don’t you? It wasn’t part of the plan. I need to think.”
“What about me?” Eleonora had asked. “Don’t you see that I’m part of this too? You think I don’t have dreams, plans, opportunities? Weren’t you there too, when this happened?”
Silence. Silence on the other end of the line, silence in his heart, silence in his soul. And then: “Just think, what would my father say? Can you imagine? At the very least, I’d have to move, we’d have to move. And it would kill him. Plus, I’m a long way from getting my degree. I’d have to look for a job, give up studying. Scrape by, for the rest of our lives: me, you, and . . . it.”
Eleonora decides that she could forgive him anything, except for referring to his child as a stumbling block on the path to happiness.
She’d sat there in silence for a long time. She’d listened to him breathing into the receiver, and he really had seemed like a stranger to her.
In the end, she had said to him, “I don’t want to lose you. I can’t stand to lose you. Let me know what you decide to do.” And she’d hung up the phone.
A whole day had gone by. A night, a morning, an afternoon, an evening. And now it was night again. Eleonora hadn’t eaten, she hadn’t gone out, she hadn’t got out of bed, she didn’t remember sleeping, but she did dream.
She dreamed of death.
She saw herself in a bed, in the middle of the room. She saw, in succession: her mother, white-faced, dry-eyed; her father, distraught with grief, incredulous, despairing; her friends from the university, one by one, with the awkward expression of people who have missed an opportunity, who are full of regret at not having had more time together.
Even his father was there: still a stranger, stiff, sanctimonious, a scrupulous shadow falling over his face, a hint of suspected guilt.
But not him. In the dream, he wasn’t there. Eleonora wonders if she’ll ever see him again.
Then the phone rings.
CHAPTER 30
She had been watching him all through the evening as he sat, lost in thought, his gaze wandering, one glass of wine chasing another. She couldn’t wait for the dining room to empty out enough so that she could leave her young assistant to manage the tables and go sit at his table.
It had been a while since Letizia had last seen him look the way he did when he first came to that city: bewildered, disoriented, unhappy. Slowly, one burst of conversation or smile at a time, he had opened up to dialogue and friendship, and a gentle and ironic nature had emerged, along with a flow of memories of another life.
With her heart rather than her head, Letizia sensed that Peppuccio—a nickname for Giuseppe that only she, in that city, used for Lojacono—was emerging from his solitude; albeit with effort, pain, and regrets, he was starting to sit up and look around, the way someone might after suffering a terrible loss. After all, the man had left behind not only a marriage and a love story, but also his entire life. And his daughter—a bond that could not be forgotten.
She had known men devoid of all instinct for family, men who—once they were out of the house—thought of their children as financial burdens and nothing more. But that wasn’t the way he was. The girl’s silence, the barrier his wife had erected, and his inability to alter his daughter’s obvious intention to eliminate him from her life—all these things were wounds that refused to scar over.
She liked the man. She understood that it was time to level with herself. And the fact that Lojacono clung to his past the way he did, hindering any attempt to build a new life in the present, only prompted a sense of tenderness towards him in Letizia. In some odd way, in fact, it made him more attractive.
Over the last few months, night after night, she had seen that pain fade, become a mist hanging over his soul. The sudden moments of depression still came and went, but they became fainter with time. You get used to everything. Smiles had become more frequent, teasing jibes directed at her and the city, comments about the food. Peppuccio was starting to thaw, she had decided happily.
But tonight the pain and sadness were back, dense as a bank of winter fog. And they were looking for resolution at the bottom of a wineglass.
When she was finally able to take a break, Letizia wasted no time.
“So what’s up? Are you trying to break the world record for the amount of red wine consumed in one evening? And look at that: you’ve hardly touched your pasta. Should I order a fresh bowl for you? Is there something wrong with it?”
The man raised his eyes to hers. “I guess I’m not hungry tonight.”
Letizia sat down, drying her hands on her apron, and faked a laugh. She’d long since learned that it was pointless to question him; if he wanted to talk, he’d do so without prompting.
“That’s a bad sign. Must mean you’re in love.”
Lojacono said nothing, turning the wineglass between his palms. Then he spoke.
“You know, when that boy was killed and they called us, I was asleep, catching a nap on the foldout bed they have for the guys on the graveyard shift. I don’t dream about Marinella often, though I think about her all the time, as you know. And that night, that very night, I dreamed about her.”
Letizia listened attentively. “What did you dream?”
“She looked exactly like the last time I saw her, when I left and she refused to give me a parting hug. She was at a disco, or she had been, then . . . Well, it didn’t go well, I don’t want to think about it. And as the car she was riding in . . . That’s when the phone rang, and I woke up. And as you can understand, I still have that weight on my chest.”
“I get it. But you shouldn’t dwell on it. It was a bad dream, that’s all. You know, in this city we say that dreaming someone has died makes them live longer.”
Lojacono smiled sadly. “I know. I know that a dream is just a dream. But then, when I was there, I saw the face of the boy’s mother. There was a woman, must have been a neighbor or a relative, I don’t know who, comforting her. And she wasn’t talking. But her face . . . She was such a wreck.”
Letizia shivered. “I can imagine. Poor Luisa. That son of hers was all she had in the world. Since then, I’ve heard she never leaves her flat, not even for food. Her neighbors bring her something to eat from time to time. I don’t have the nerve to go see her, though maybe I’ll try someday soon.”
“Sure, I can see why. That kind of grief is intolerable to be around, even at a distance. That night, it looked as
if she was screaming but she didn’t make a sound. Or she did, but it was a sort of sigh, a hiss. I can’t seem to get it out of my mind. And I’ve seen dead people, in my time. And survivors, relatives of murder victims, plenty of them. But not like her.”
“Listen, Peppu’, it strikes me that you’re spending too much time on this thing. Those kids aren’t your daughter. This is a nasty city and unfortunately this kind of thing happens.”
Lojacono’s eyes were lost, empty. “Then I attended the girl’s funeral. I don’t even know why I went; I just wanted to understand. And there were all her friends, her classmates—you can imagine, it was a terrible thing. And the mother, oh, the mother . . . At a certain point, she started talking out loud, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And the things she said . . . She was raving, obviously. As if she’d lost her mind. I was right across from her, so I got a good look at her eyes. I felt as if I was looking straight into hell.”
Letizia decided to put an end to the torment. She took his hand.
“Now listen to me. I don’t like this whole business. You’re taking on a burden that doesn’t belong to you, and in the shape you’re in, you can’t afford it. Otherwise you’re going to lose your mind and then they really won’t let you see your daughter ever again. These murders, these two dead kids—it’s atrocious, chilling, unnatural. But we don’t know who did it, and we don’t know what it was about. Money, drugs, extortion; this city has a lot of different faces. But you have nothing to do with it, your daughter has nothing to do with it, none of us has anything to do with it. And you’re not going to solve matters by hanging around eating your heart out over it.”
Lojacono stared at her. A light gleamed in his slanted eyes.
“You don’t understand. The paper said he was a crocodile because of his tears, but that’s bullshit. He’s a crocodile, that’s true, but it’s his technique that makes him one. Do you know how crocodiles hunt? They can’t swim fast, they have short legs, and they can’t chase their prey. And yet they’re among the oldest animal species on the planet. Evolution left them as they are, and you know why? Because they’re perfect. The crocodile is a perfect death machine.”
Letizia shook her head. “I don’t get it. What does the crocodile have to do with anything? That’s a gimmick some reporter dreamed up.”
“True, but without knowing it that reporter hit the nail on the head. Listen to me: a crocodile selects a location—in the swamps, in the muddy waters of the savannah—and it takes time making its choice. A lot of time. The place where it knows its prey will go, sooner or later, for water. And then it positions itself under the surface of the water, every so often breaking the surface with its nostrils so it can breathe. And it waits. It waits.”
Letizia was holding her breath. Lojacono’s voice was little more than a murmur.
“Finally, the victim arrives. It sniffs, it looks around. Its instinct tells it that there’s danger here, but it needs to drink. It sees nothing dangerous there, in that specific place. So it lowers its head to the surface of the water.”
Silence. At a nearby table someone laughed, and others joined in. Lojacono went on.
“That’s how he hunts. And that’s our Crocodile’s technique. He knows their activities, their routines, their schedules. He knows where the kids will go, what they’ll do when they get there. And when they approach his jaws, he fires. A single shot, with a small-bore pistol; not very accurate, but he can’t miss. Because he’s studied carefully. He’s laid his plans, for who knows how long. And like real crocodiles, he’s cold-blooded.”
For the first time, Letizia understood the hell that her friend carried with him in his soul. She also understood what a born cop he was.
“So have you told your colleagues about this? Have you talked about it to anyone else?”
“No. I told the young woman, the prosecutor, that as far as I was concerned, the Camorra had nothing to do with it. But the things I described are sensations, ideas, impressions. You can’t work with your imagination; you have to work with the facts. What am I going to tell them: that I dreamed about my daughter and I saw the faces of two mothers and so I’ve decided that the killer isn’t a Camorrista?”
Letizia thought that over. Outside, a motorcycle ripped through the quiet of the night.
“Well, I still think you ought to. Maybe you could talk to her, that prosecutor. From what you tell me, she’s the only one willing to listen to you.”
Lojacono shook his head. “No, not a chance. They already think I’m a bribe-taker, an incompetent who boosted his salary by taking money from a two-bit Mafioso in exchange for worthless information. They have all the reports, the information, the findings. And what do I have? A nightmare.”
“Then don’t worry about it. Let them take care of it if they’re so damn good. Maybe it’s all about jealousy, some girl who was in love. Maybe they liked each other, who knows? Maybe you’re right and the Camorra has nothing to do with it. Maybe it’s all about love.”
Lojacono was silent, pensive, for a long while. Then he said, “Maybe so. In cases of this kind, things bob to the surface sooner or later. In the middle of some other crime, or else by chance, the killer slips up. But that’s not what I think will happen here. Someone who’s capable of preparing two murders so meticulously, one right after another, isn’t someone who’s acting on impulse. It’s someone who’s given it thorough consideration. Someone who’s gone to the location over and over again, staked it out, covered the ground, checked it out in every detail.”
Letizia’s laughter had an edge to it. “Really? Walking up and down past a place like the courtyard where Luisa’s son was murdered? Or letting himself be seen outside the girl’s house, when I read that she was murdered near the front entrance of an apartment complex a fair distance from the road? And you think that nobody noticed a murderer walking around with a handgun in out-of-the-way places like that?”
Lojacono ran a hand through his hair. “You live in this city. You have friends here, you work here, you were born here, and you know everyone in your neighborhood. I just got here. I’ve been here less than a year. But I can tell you that it’s very easy to be invisible here. All of you are afraid of getting caught up in some mess that has nothing to do with you, so you mind your own business. You’re probably right too. Still, the city’s full of phantoms, people who come and go unnoticed in your midst.”
“Now you’re trying to scare me. Just you wait—they’ll find your phantom, and you can go back to getting a good night’s sleep.”
“Let’s hope so. But something inside me tells me that the Crocodile isn’t finished hunting.”
CHAPTER 31
Donato worked up the nerve and called her. He spoke, he listened. He mirrored her dreams, her desires, and her fantasies in his own, and he found them intact in the aftermath of the storm.
Of course, it would have been better if none of it had happened. But there’s a solution to everything, if you stay together, if you love one another. At the journey’s end, no matter how grueling it’s been, there’s a smile on your face—the right kind of smile.
First he talked to his father, and that was the hardest thing. He told him about the final exam, not about the two of them. Not because he was a coward, but because he believed that it was right for her to be present when he was talking about her, that any conversations about the future should take place in her presence. Because he is confident that his father, always so tightly controlled and cutting, will melt when he finds himself in the presence of those eyes, that smile. Donato decides that nothing in creation is so diamond-hard that it could withstand that smile.
Now he’s smiling too, about her concern. She’s tense, nervous, agitated. She’s afraid of this meeting, but Donato knows that her fears are groundless. He himself had worried far too much about his unsuccessful exam. His father, with extreme clarity, made him understand that it was at his request that the professor, an old friend, had been willing to accept only an absolute
ly outstanding result. That the decision to advise him to retake the exam had been a way of allowing him to complete his preparation.
He had expected a scolding, an outburst of icy anger followed by a lengthy silence, the way it had been when he’d done something wrong as a child; instead he was greeted with tranquility and understanding. His father truly was an exceptional man. At that point, he worked up the nerve and, taking advantage of the relaxed atmosphere, told his father about her. Not everything, because he didn’t want to compromise his father’s freedom to decide; a decision that could hardly be anything but positive. But the basics, yes, he had conveyed the essentials. And he had managed to secure a dinner date.
Now Donato knows that everything’s fine, and that everything’s going to turn out fine. He knows that he was unlucky to lose his mother as a small boy, but also that he was very lucky to have the father he has; and that luck has continued to favor him, allowing him to meet the most wonderful girl in the world.
Exams come and go, Donato tells himself, as he whistles a cheerful tune and heads downstairs to the garage, to get the car out and drive over to her place. You can always retake an exam. Life always gives you a second chance. Starting tomorrow, he’ll redouble his effort and resume his studies, and this time he’ll give it his all.
Because I have my whole life ahead of me, Donato thinks, and one thing I know for certain is that it won’t be a couple hundred boring pages of text that will keep me from living it.
My whole life, Donato thinks. And he sticks his hand in his pocket, feeling around for the garage door opener.
CHAPTER 32
It was clear that she couldn’t stay awake any longer; her eyelids were growing heavy. So Laura Piras decided to turn off the light and see if she could get some sleep. Outside, the night was finally quiet. That meant it must be past 2 A.M.
The Crocodile (World Noir) Page 9