The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (83 page)

She woke a second time to see Arianna lunge from the mattress and spit at Rafí. Rafí cowered and blocked her blows with his forearms. Arianna flailed, untiring. The dressing flapped loose from her wrist.

Throughout, awake or gone, Lila could feel the unending arrhythmic cough of Rafí’s dog. She’d let that dog free sometime. She and that dog would go separate ways. She’d rather see it dead than live out on the rooftop.

When she woke a third time the argument had shifted pace, and Arianna sat on the floor hugging her knees and Rafí leaned over her, swearing that he would find these men. He was emphatic. If Arianna knew where these men, these brothers, were now, where he could find them, he would kill them, he swore. He would find them and he would castrate them.

And later still Arianna sat with her head in her hands, sobbing, saying this is crazy, crazy. Alongside this, Rafí talking. It was the wrong day, entirely the wrong day, he had somewhere else to be, he was in default of a debt, the total, by default, now doubled. Lila and Arianna needed to understand this, because he couldn’t run around after them, waiting on them, doing the things that needed to be done for them
all of the time
. In any case the Stromboli was closing down, in two months they would be out of a place to live.

In her sleep Lila pawed at her arms, wanting to wake but unable to rouse: she recalled details of the assault with a terrifying clarity – the sour breath of the younger brother as he beat her and how boyishly happy her fear made him, how bold he became, how certain. How he drew on the cigar before he stamped it onto her skin. When she held up her arm to protect her face he grabbed her wrist and bit deep.

*

She woke with Arianna crouched over her, whispering, sobbing, eyes an unreadable black: ‘I can’t stay here. I’ll find somewhere. I will come back.’ Arianna stroked Lila’s hair, a roll of cash in her hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ A kiss and a promise to return.

✩

Peña returned the boy’s trophies: the small soldiers, a racing car, the diver with the yellow aqualung. She set them in a single line close to the door then returned to her apartment to call Salvatore to find out who these men were and exactly what had happened. But Salvatore was not at work and refused to answer her call, although she left message after message. ‘I’m not happy,’ she said. ‘I was very specific that there should be no trouble with the residents. Tell them that I want to speak with them.’ But she knew, even as she spoke, that these words were nothing more than a gesture.

The toys remained in place for the entire day. Afterward, the only sounds to come from the apartment came from Arturo Lanzetti, and slowly Peña came to realize that Anna Soccorsi and her son Sami were gone.

Paola wasn’t sure she could find the time. Today? Tonight? This weekend, she excused herself, she had plans, work to complete. He could see for himself. All of that, that right there. All of those clothes needed stitching, they weren’t going to do themselves. And when she was done it would start again on Monday. Marek couldn’t believe his ears. He laid out the brochure, pointed to the hotel. Was she crazy, or being deliberately stupid? This was a five-star hotel with a spa, a swimming pool, a gym, a chef of international renown, with three fully-staffed restaurants one of which sat on a promontory with a view of the entire gulf, and all of it was for free. The brothers were away for the weekend, and they could use their room. Why was she was turning her nose up at the opportunity, except to be spiteful?

He expected a denial, but no, Paola admitted, if that’s how he chose to see it, that’s probably how it was. But think about it, she said, whoever gives anything away for free? Things that looked too good to be true, as a rule, are pretty much always too good to be true. ‘We aren’t the kind of people who get given things for nothing.’

Out of his building Marek saw the magistrate’s driver again waiting beside the car. The car was parked in almost the same place and the man adopted the same position – leaning against the car door with his arms folded. The difference this time was that the man faced Marek’s building, and not the magistrate’s. The driver’s expression appeared stern and focused, expectant. Aware that he was being watched Marek stepped into the café and decided to take a coffee.

To his surprise the man unfolded his arms, stood upright, and came across the street.

Standing next to Marek the driver took off his sunglasses and asked for a coffee.

Both men stood at the counter and slowly stirred sugar into their coffee.

‘It’s hot.’

‘Indeed.’

‘The coffee is good.’

‘Very good.’

Both men nodded and then drank their coffees.

The driver smiled. ‘The thing about coffee,’ he said, ‘is that you can never make it the same yourself. It’s impossible. It always tastes better away from home.’

Wishing Marek a good morning, the magistrate’s driver put his sunglasses back on and walked back across the street to take his position leaning against the car. This time he faced the magistrate’s building.

It always tastes better away from home.

Marek was certain that the man was mocking him.

He returned to the apartment and found Paola in the shower, and became intensely aggravated, as if she was preparing herself for a man and not for work. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t yet working. Marek waited in the bedroom. He stood back from the window and watched the driver to see if there was any signal, any interest even. He searched quickly through her belongings, the pockets in her jacket and trousers, then in her bureau, looking for receipts, notes, messages, anything that would indicate a separate life. But still, he could find nothing, except a life that was ordered, regular, and constrained by work.

Paola came out of the bathroom with her robe open, her breasts and her stomach equally round and white, and appeared surprised to see Marek. She ruffled the towel under her hair. ‘Look, I’m not going to change my mind.’

‘Who is that man?’

Paola covered herself and peeped quickly out the window to see the driver, her expression indicated that the man, clearly, had some appeal.

‘I’ve no idea.’

Marek was not convinced.

‘Everyone knows who he is. He’s there all day, every day. He’s the magistrate’s driver.’ The whole street could recognize the man and Paola could not? It simply couldn’t be true that she hadn’t seen him before.

‘And why are we talking about him?’

‘If he arranged a weekend in a five-star hotel would you go with him?’

Paola had no idea what he was talking about; she let the towel fall from her shoulder. ‘This isn’t about you, Marek. It’s about work. You know? Work? I don’t have time – I really don’t have the time for this.’

‘But you’d go with him?’ Flustered, Marek gestured out of the window, and pointing at the driver he said that he would go down there now, and he would tell the man that he could have her.

Paola, still confused, called him ridiculous and returned to the bathroom. ‘I’m going to dry my hair.’

Suddenly angry she returned to the room.

‘I don’t know what you want, Marek. Tell me? Tell me what you want, because it isn’t clear to me. You want a child then you don’t want a child. You don’t want a holiday then you want to go away for the weekend. You complain about the city, all of the time, and yet you stay here, you talk about going to a hotel which has the best view of the city when you hate the city. I don’t know what you want. And now this? I mean seriously, what do you think is going on? How can you not trust me? How dare you say these things when you are disloyal yourself? Tell me, which is worse, doing something, or constantly considering it? You are such a child, Marek. You’re this little boy who believes all these things about women. I’m tired of having to work so hard.’

Stopping herself Paola returned to the bathroom, an apparent calm settled about her as she leaned toward the mirror, her mouth set firm as she drew the brush in long forceful strokes through her hair. Marek watched her hand search across the counter top and fail to find her lipstick. ‘Fine. You want to go to this hotel. Let’s go. It’s free. Great. Let’s go and see how free it is.’

Once again Marek had the feeling that he had won nothing.

At ten o’clock Marek reported back to Lanzetti that he had returned to the hotel the previous night. The brothers had called him with a proposition. Lanzetti excused himself from work and invited Marek for a coffee at the
alimentari
. They stood side by side at the counter. Marek checked the street and was happy not to see the magistrate’s driver nor his car. Lanzetti asked after Salvatore and left the change in the dish. Marek leaned into the counter with a book and a map in his hand:
Napoli, Ischia, Capri. Touring Club Italiano
. On a sheet of notepaper Paul had written out street names and features.

‘Paul?’ Lanzetti pointed out the name.

He knew their names now, Marc and Paul. ‘Paul is the younger brother.’

‘And you know where they’re from?’

‘South? You know I’m not sure. Gap? Gad? Gappe?’

Lanzetti said he didn’t know. He hadn’t spent time in France, but he could ask his wife when she called this evening. ‘Everything French,’ he said, ‘she loves it all. She loves the wines. She loves the food. She likes that man. That singer.’ He couldn’t remember names, admitted to it. ‘Faces. I see faces and remember the medicines, the strengths. But names.’ He shivered quickly to change the subject.

‘How long have you lived here?’

Marek counted the years. Three, he thought. Perhaps a little longer.

Lanzetti picked up the book and fanned through the pages. Did Marek speak Spanish?

Marek shook his head. He hadn’t meant to pick it up, but it was with the map, and maybe, thinking about it now, he could look up some of the names, at least he could pick out the names of places and see if he knew them.

‘And you don’t speak French?’

‘English. It’s easier, their Italian isn’t good. It’s basic but it isn’t good.’

‘They don’t speak Polish, then?’

Now Marek smiled, he was just getting the measure of the man’s sense of humour.

Lanzetti read out loud from the book. Did any of this sound familiar? He didn’t know it. ‘A mystery?
The Kill
. It must be?’

Marek thought as much. ‘It’s Paul’s, he says it’s about Naples.’ The book wasn’t old, and the story was set in the mid-forties, just after the war, but they were curious about seeing places mentioned in it.

Lanzetti asked if he could borrow the book, just for the night, just to take a look. ‘I always have a book. I like to read to my wife,’ he said, ‘at night. When she’s here. My son reads to me, and I read to my wife. If it’s any good I will order it for her.’

‘They were looking for places from the book.’ Marek opened the map. ‘I’ll take them after the weekend. They wanted to find a farm, a vineyard. In the city.’ Marek spread his hand to flatten the paper, from what he could see on the map there was no such thing.

Lanzetti asked him to repeat the question. There was one possibility, up above the neighbourhood marked as Cariati. He didn’t know what the neighbourhood was called, or if it had a particular name, but just under the Castel San Elmo and the Certosa, there was an area, a hill, he explained, steep, and terraced into small and spare fields. As far as he knew it was run by an association, and there was an orchard, a place to grow asparagus also, some olive trees, from what he remembered: maybe there was also a small vineyard. He’d been there twice with Anna, once for a wedding, then a second time for a feast to celebrate the end of the harvest. There were some sheds, lean-tos, one with a wood-fire oven, and food was brought to be cooked there. Tables were set out in a double row under the shade of the olive trees. ‘It’s steep, and it’s not anything you’d notice, but the area is entirely countryside. You can see over the city, the whole bay, from Capri to Nisida. It’s very beautiful, but from the city it doesn’t look like much except wasteland.’

Lanzetti folded the map in half.

You could reach the place by a church. ‘Here,’ Lanzetti pointed to the map. San Sepulcro, first an old path with proper steps to start, then a small rural path. ‘The association keep goats up there, a donkey.’ From what he could remember. ‘Wild cactus, olive trees, and yes, I suppose a vineyard, grass, not at all what you’d expect in the middle of the city, and it’s very steep. But why would they want to see this?’

Marek said he didn’t know. They were just interested, he said. But it didn’t seem so important.

So this is what they want? Not a driver at all, but someone who knows the city. Someone to confirm a few ideas taken from a book? ‘How well do you know the city?’

Marek shrugged and said he had a pretty good idea.

‘But you drive? For how long?’

‘Two years.’

‘In Naples?’

‘In Naples. Yes. To the airport. To the city.’ Marek wove his hand back and forward. Lanzetti laughed a little.

‘What do they want with the room?’

Marek looked up, blank. He hadn’t asked. At first, because they were businessmen, there was the idea that they needed the room for storage, but now, meeting them, they clearly weren’t here on business.

‘They are away for the weekend, and they’ve offered their room.’

‘At the Grand?’

‘At the Grand. Tonight and tomorrow night. They’ve already paid, but they have to be somewhere else, and they want the room when they get back.’

Lanzetti saluted him. ‘You must have made an impression.’ Marek smiled and said it seemed so. ‘You are a lucky man.’

He drove to Salerno and parked beside the docks under the overpass. It was a good place to smoke dope. Marek set the tobacco pouch on his lap and began to make himself a small joint. At midday the prostitutes came out to meet the long-haul drivers waiting for the ferries and deliveries, the men who slept in their cabs before the drive back north. The police drove regularly along the road beside the docks and parked between the bulky red containers off-loaded from the ships, so that it wasn’t always possible to see them. Marek watched the docks and the road, and made sure that all of the doors were locked. One prostitute wandered through the shade, made her way dolefully between the trucks and flat-bed lorries parked up alongside the pillars supporting the motorway. Leaning into the windows, or climbing up to the cabins and calling to the drivers, the woman solicited business. Marek smoked and watched, with his hands cupped over his crotch.