Blanca and Liguori saw each other again at breakfast—the woman expected a certain distance and she found what she’d expected. She wasn’t able to swallow, the few forced bites she took pushed her nausea toward her mouth.
“Did you sleep well, Signora? Your face looks nicely rested.”
“Slept very well, thank you. I see that you too have a relaxed expression this morning.”
“Yes, your eyes serve you well.” Liguori spoke with the smile of any ordinary distant spectator. “Tell the truth: you like pain, you like wandering around blindfolded inside the lives of others, mocking the meanness of spirit of those who fail to grasp a single aspect of your mystery. It amuses you, the malaise of distance is no contraindication. Quite the contrary.”
“Now then, Detective, today we meet with Adami. We have an appointment to see him at eleven.”
“Fine. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take a walk over near where Julia Marin lived. The extracurricular details continue to interest me. See you later. If you have any difficulties getting to the police station, give me a call.”
“I won’t have any difficulties.”
Liguori moved off. The light settled into his weary eyes and annoyed him. He likewise noticed the beauty of piazzas and streets, finding that beauty to be homogeneous.
“Where we come from, the wonderful is always undercut by the horror nearby, the sincerity of chaos. Here, everything seems to be mature, uniformly applied; it reassures your expectations, promising more. Different forms of allure. If you want to go for subtleties, the only problem I see is this pavement, like the marble flooring in a lobby, a sort of television plaster. It must be a recent innovation.”
The places where Julia Marin had lived possessed an equal share of constant beauty.
He asked around about her. Only a few were willing to talk to him, but when Liguori added that Julia Marin was the victim found in the stadium, they did their best to remember. The information he gathered yielded no interesting tidbits.
Blanca asked the housecleaner when her shift ended. Her schedule suited Blanca’s need and so she asked the woman to walk her to the police station.
“Your accent isn’t from around here, have you lived here long?”
“Just three years. I’m Calabrian, my son is studying at the university here.”
“How do you like living here?”
“There’s good things and bad things, like anywhere, like always.”
The woman had no interest in talking, and when they reached the police station she refused money and left.
Captain Adami said he was quite skeptical about the likelihood of a serial killer. He didn’t see the one constant that he’d seen in murders committed by serial killers: a lack of connection between the victims. Jerry and Julia in fact had actually been lovers. Liguori and Blanca studied the evidence, interviewed the captain, and told him about the events in Naples. Adami asked lots of questions about the murder of the night watchman. The detective told him that in Martusciello’s opinion, it had been the work of professionals interested in leaving as few clues as possible. The captain told them that he considered organized crime to be a national catastrophe, that he wanted nothing to do with those who thought fine, too bad for them, let them kill each other off. This captain listened to good music.
Every so often Liguori got distracted and glanced over at Blanca.
Every so often, Blanca lacked focus because of that scent of the flesh. Adami explained that the night of Julia Marin’s murder, the two guards at the Bentegodi had been drugged, the forensics team had found traces of the narcotic in a bottle of second-rate spumante, so bad, he added, that in order to forget it they would have fallen asleep even without the sleeping pills.
They worked all day. When evening came, the captain invited them to dine in the same restaurant where they’d eaten the night before.
The proprietor suggested Blanca sample the Amarone risotto.
“I had a chance to enjoy it yesterday.” She turned toward Liguori. “I would rather procure a new memory.”
Adami was pleasant company, and during the meal they avoided all conversation about investigations and suspects. It was only when they were saying goodnight that the captain mentioned the appointment the following day with the medical examiner.
Blanca and Liguori climbed the stairs to their floor in silence. The man stopped outside the door of the woman’s room:
“You owe me a few apologies. You can make them in your room, that way you don’t have to leave afterward.” They spoke in the dark. They exchanged secrets and laughter and phrases without any intelligent line of defense.
Then Blanca climbed back up onto her high heels and teetered once again on the brink of the precipice.