Giorgio Faletti - I Kill

Halfway to Jean-Loup’s house, he had got thirsty and had drunk the entire can of Coke that he had brought from home. He was a little unhappy because he had meant to share it with Jean-Loup, but it was a hot day and his mouth was dry and his friend certainly wouldn’t mind such a little thing. And he still had a can of Schweppes left.

He was sweaty on reaching Jean-Loup’s house and thought that it would probably have been a good idea to bring another T-shirt to change into. But it wasn’t a problem. He knew that Jean-Loup had a chest in his laundry room where he kept T-shirts for doing jobs around the house. If his shirt was too sweaty, Jean-Loup would lend him another one, which he would return after his mother washed and ironed it. It had happened once before when he was in the pool and his shirt had fallen in the water and Jean-Loup had lent him a blue one that said ‘Martini-Racing’. He had thought that Jean-Loup was lending it to him, but it was a present.

The first thing he wanted to do was find the key. He found the aluminium mailbox inside the gate with the words JEAN-LOUP VERDIER written in dark green paint, the same colour as the bars. He stuck his hand underneath the metal box. Under his fingers, he felt something that seemed like a key attached with a dried-out piece of chewing gum.

He was about to pull off the key when a car drove up to the construction site not far from the gate. Luckily, Pierrot was covered by a bush and the trunk of a cypress tree and he couldn’t be seen from the car. He saw the American in that blue car, the one who was always with the kind inspector but then he wasn’t any more because someone said that the inspector was dead. Pierrot moved away quickly so the man wouldn’t see him. If he did, he’d ask him what he was doing there and would take him home to his mother.

He went down the road, following the asphalt and staying under cover. After he passed the steep part that made his head spin just from looking at it, he climbed over the guardrail and found himself in a bush that completely covered him. From his observation point he could see the courtyard of Jean-Loup’s house and watch with curiosity as a bunch of people walked back and forth, mostly policemen dressed in blue and a few in normal clothes. There was also the one who had come to the station and never smiled when he spoke, but smiled all the time when he spoke to Barbara.

He stayed in his hiding place for what seemed like a very long time, until everyone had gone and the courtyard was empty. The last one to go, the American, had left the garage door open. It was lucky that Pierrot was there to take care of his friend’s house. Now he could go and make sure the records were okay, and before he left he would close the garage door. Otherwise, anyone could come in and steal whatever they wanted.

He got up slowly from the ground and looked around. His knees hurt from crouching for so long and his legs had fallen asleep. He started stamping his feet on the ground, the way his mother had taught him. In his own small way, Pierrot decided on a plan of action. He couldn’t reach the courtyard from where he was because of the very steep part along the cliff by the sea. So he had to go up the paved road and down again to see if he could climb over the gate.

He adjusted his knapsack on his shoulders and got ready for the climb.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed some movement in the bushes, lower down. He thought maybe he was mistaken. How could anyone be below him? He would have seen them pass by. But just to make sure, he crouched back down in the bushes, parting the branches with his hands so that he could see better. Nothing happened for a while and he was beginning to think he had been wrong. Then he saw something else move in the bushes and held his hand over his eyes to protect them from the glare of the sun.

What he saw made his mouth drop open in surprise. Right below him, dressed in green and brown as if he were part of the earth and the vegetation, with a canvas bag slung over his shoulder, was his friend Jean-Loup, crawling out from under a tangle of shrubs. Pierrot held his breath. If it were up to him, he would have jumped and cried out that he was there, but maybe it wasn’t a good idea because if not all the policemen were gone, someone might see them. He decided to climb up a little higher and move to the right so that he would be covered by the embankment before making his presence known to Jean-Loup.

He crept quietly, trying to imitate the movements of his friend below him who was going in and out of the bushes without rustling a single leaf. Finally, he reached a point where it was impossible to see any further and he realized it was the perfect position. A piece of rock jutted out below him, just large enough to stand on and call out to Jean-Loup without being seen by the policemen.

He climbed down carefully to get as close to the rock as possible. He bent his legs, then raised his arms to the sky and jumped. As soon as his feet hit the ground, the brittle piece of rock broke under his weight and Pierrot rolled down into the void with a scream.

Frank moved forward very slowly in the pitch dark.

After careful examination of the tunnel, he had seen that it was high enough for him to crawl through on all fours, which was what he decided to do. It was not the most comfortable position, but certainly the least risky. He had thought with a bitter smile that he was literally going to ‘the dark side’.

After a few steps he no longer had the help of the dim light coming from behind and he had to continue in total darkness. He held the gun in his right hand and leaned his body against the wall on the left, bending slightly backward to use his free hand as a sort of advance guard to make sure that there were no obstacles or, worse, holes he could fall into. If that happened, he’d be stuck there for all time.

He moved cautiously, step by step. His legs were beginning to hurt, especially his right knee. That was the knee with torn ligaments from a college football game that had ended his playing career and kept him from pursuing professional football. He usually stayed in good enough shape to avoid problems, but he had trained very little recently and the position he was in would have bothered anyone’s knees, even those of a weight-lifter. He shivered slightly. It wasn’t warm in there. Still, nervousness made him sweat, soaking the light material of his shirt. There was a dank smell of wet leaves and humidity in the tunnel, as well as of the mildewed concrete with which it was lined. He occasionally brushed against a root that had burrowed between the joints of the piping. It had startled him the first time and he had pulled back his hand as if he had been burned. The pipe obviously led outside and some animal could easily have found its way in and made a comfortable den. Frank was not skittish, but the idea of touching a grass snake or a rat made him shudder.

In this long manhunt, his fantasy had finally come true. This was the situation he’d imagined every time he spoke of No One. A slow, creeping, furtive advance, in the cold and damp domain of rats. It described their investigation perfectly: a tiring, step-by-step process done completely in the dark, searching for a slim ray of light to lead them out of the blackness.

Let us perish in the light of day…

In the pitch dark, the famous passage of Ajax’s prayer from the Iliad came to mind. He’d studied it in high school, a million years ago. The Trojans and the Achaeans were fighting near the ships and Jove had sent fog to block the vision of the Greeks, who were losing. At that point, Ajax sent up a prayer to the father of all the gods, a heartfelt prayer not for his own safety, but for the permission to approach destruction in the sunlight. Frank remembered the words of his favourite hero.