Rino was late. A bad sign. While Finn couldn’t complain about the previous night, he couldn’t say either that the basement visit had happened as a result of Rino’s research. This had come out of the discussion — which was otherwise useless. Finn waited where they had agreed: Corso Umberto, beside the farmacia and opposite the Banco di Napoli. Or was it inside the farmacia?
Finn checked inside and found Rino waiting at the counter with a pack of disposable diapers in his hand and a queue of assorted women in front and behind. Rino poked his finger into the plastic wrap as he waited and left divots in the packet. The store, with its glass shelves and white boxes, seemed unnervingly antiseptic, at odds with the muddle outside. Behind the counter stood a woman, a girl, and an older man, each dressed in white clinician coats. When Rino reached the front of the queue he allowed the woman behind him to be served. When the girl became free, he again allowed another customer ahead of him, but when the man became free he stepped immediately up. While the man said nothing about this, Finn thought the pharmacist had noticed that Rino wanted to be served by him.
Finn picked through the toothbrushes while he waited, and didn’t become especially aware of any problem until he looked back at the counter and saw the pharmacist pointing at the door and heard him give Rino instructions to leave. Finn came closer to the counter, not quite sure if this was private business or something he needed to be involved in. Rino appeared to be holding his ground.
‘You have a son,’ he said, ‘what if something like this were to happen to him? What would you do if someone was not telling the truth? What would you say to this man?’
The pharmacist, clearly addled, his face white with outrage, as if unused to being challenged. The man shook his head and asked Rino to leave. ‘Go.’
‘No.’
‘Go.’
‘No.’ Rino stood firm, a little petulant but unmovable. ‘I’m not going.’ He pointed at the pack of diapers. ‘I would like to buy these.’
The pharmacist picked up the diapers, looked over his glasses at the price, sharply rang it into the till and asked Rino for the money.
Rino laid the coins one at a time into a small dish. ‘Imagine. You hold on to something for so long. Keep it inside. Is this healthy? Is this advisable? Imagine when something else comes to light, the trouble that this would cause.’ Rino buzzed his fingers at his temples to indicate confusion. ‘Imagine also the kind of father who would set such an example to his son? I have a son, and I wouldn’t want to set such an example.’
The pharmacist pushed the coins back across the counter, took the diapers and placed them behind him. There would be no sale.
‘You think you know what is good for my son, or for my family?’ The pharmacist leaned forward his voice now low and threatening. ‘If you return I will call the police.’
Rino stepped back, gave a small gesture, and lifted his arms lightly from his side as if this were of no account. The police, he seemed to indicate, would possibly also have these questions. Rino caught Finn’s eye as he turned about, then remembered, suddenly, to pick up the money.
The two of them walked out onto the street. Rino, in no apparent hurry despite the pharmacist’s threat, patted his pockets for a cigarette. The pharmacist looked after them as Finn closed the door and made a dismissive gesture to the women as if this were nothing. But the gesture, Finn thought, being too emphatic, and grumpy, seemed disingenuous — and the women, who might be expected to be curious, simply continued with their work as if this had happened before.
‘This man,’ he said, ‘his name is Dr Arturo Lanzetti. The very same Dr Lanzetti that Marek Krawiec claims came with him to the hotel in Castellammare and gave treatment to one of the brothers. Dr Lanzetti says that this did not happen. Marek Krawiec also says that Dr Lanzetti told him about the content of the book, The Kill. Dr Lanzetti says that this did not happen, although he has read the book, he says that he read it after Marek Krawiec was taken into custody. He says he knew nothing about the room, and knew Krawiec only in passing as they lived in the same building.’
Finn looked up at the sign, a small outline of a neon cross. The store windows almost empty except for posters for eyewash in which a young woman looked to a blue sky, white letters furred with beams of light as if offering a religious experience.
‘You think he’s lying? Do you believe the story about the brothers?’
‘I’ve no idea. We need to find another farmacia. Life will not be worth living if I forget this.’
* * *
Rino drove to Ercolano. He pointed out the volcano as they came out of the city and spoke about the earthquake, ‘Nineteen eighty-seven. The city was hit. Many of the buildings were weakened and later condemned, but they weren’t taken down. At the same time all of these factories were closed down, and there was a plan to build here — hotels, places to live, shops. But this never happened. Instead they made them so they could not be used. After they found the body the commune had the doors and windows closed so no one could get in.’
‘This is it?’
‘This is where they found the Second Man.’
He drove over a small crossroads and parked beside the building. When Finn locked the door, he said, ‘Don’t worry, there isn’t anything to see here.’
Finn walked down the small alley, a slip-road to the shoreline. A wall of striated concrete on one side, the factory close on the other, so that path — barely broad enough for a car, became deep. A black railway bridge, and the grey shoreline beyond.
A haze out to sea hid the horizon, hid the sun, so the sky and sea faded one to the other in a glassy bright plain. If they make a film, Finn thought, they should use these locations. The places where it happened. Finn had ambitions he’d yet to formulate properly. He walked along the shoreline, back and forth, stood on the stern grey blocks, smooth, massive and locked together: arms folded he looked back at the factory to imagine the event playing out — not as it might have happened, but as it might be filmed. A crew gathered in the road huddled ready because this would be taken in one long shot, the camera beside the door, a set of tracks for the camera down the alley to the shoreline: and there, the actors playing Krawiec and his accomplice arriving in the Citroën, parking. Krawiec giving instructions: an urgency to his gestures and movement. The Second Man unloads the large bags — unwieldy, tied at the top — and brings them to the shore, while Krawiec smokes with the car door open. Krawiec is the one to manage the body, cut up by this time and sectioned into manageable pieces which are also packed in plastic, blood slipping into the creases. The Second Man manages the sacks, which are full and lighter, and they rustle. Krawiec’s packages are heavier, much smaller, and tape binds round them. The camera will follow Krawiec, because this detail is important. They will want to give themselves options, and the entire scene will need to be shot right from the start (the car arriving) twice, because there are two questions the film will need to answer: 1. Why did they kill, and 2. What happened to the body — and this scene will resolve that issue. They wouldn’t need to specify the victim, well, not the first, because that would undermine the basic mystery. Everybody knows by now that nobody knows who this was, and there’s no point in spoiling this with invention. Instead it would be more interesting to look further into Mr Rabbit and Mr Wolf, now these deserved inventing, fleshing out. These men should be made physical. OK, there was the whole absurdity of it, obviously, it’s a crazy idea, but an appealing idea also, who doesn’t like the idea of two men, tourists, who kill, and take their instructions from a pulp novel. The very randomness of it. They come and go, and no one is ever caught — it’s morbidly satisfying, knowing you’ll never know.