I Kill by Giorgio Faletti Page A

of those last months and the toll it had taken. They did not have the courage to look at each other then. They each looked out at their own piece of ocean until one of
them silently found the strength to turn and embrace the other.
    From time to time, they did some shopping in Honesty, a fishing village that was the nearest town and looked more like Scotland than America. It was a peaceful little place, without the
slightest ambition of becoming a tourist resort. The wooden houses all looked more or less alike and were built along a street that ran parallel to the ocean, where a concrete barrier above the
rocks stopped the waves during winter storms.
    They ate in a restaurant with large windows across from the pier, built on struts with a wooden floor that echoed with the waiters’ steps. They drank chilled white wine that misted
their glasses, and they ate freshly caught lobster, staining their fingers and splashing their clothes when they tried to crack open the claws. Harriet and Frank laughed like children. They seemed
to be thinking about nothing. They spoke about nothing. Until the phone call.
    They were at home and Frank was slicing vegetables for the salad. There was a delicious smell offish and potatoes baking in the oven. The wind outside swirled the sand from the peaks of the
dunes; the ocean was covered with white foam. The sails of a few windsurfers cut swiftly through the air. Harriet was sitting in a cane chair on the veranda the whistling of the wind kept her from
hearing the phone. He had stuck his head out the kitchen door with a large red pepper in his hand.
    ‘Phone, Harriet. Can you answer? My hands are dirty.’
    His wife had gone over to the old wall phone that was ringing with its old-fashioned sound. She had picked up the receiver and he stood there watching her.
    ‘Hello?’
    Her face had changed, the way faces do when they hear bad news. Her smile had faded and she had stood in silence for a moment. Then, she had put down the receiver and looked at Frank with an
intensity that would torment him for a long time.
    ‘It’s for you. It’s Homer,’ she had said, turning and going back to the veranda without another word. He had gone to the phone and picked up
thereceiver,stillwarmfromhiswife’shand.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Frank, it’s Homer Woods. How’re you doing?’
    ‘Fine.’
    ‘Really fine?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘We got them.’ Homer spoke as if their last conversation had taken place ten minutes before. If he had noticed Frank’s monosyllabic replies, he had not let on.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘The Larkins. We caught them red-handed this time. Without any bombs. There was a gunfight and Jeff Larkin got killed. There was a mountain of drugs and a bigger mountain of cash. And
papers. We have promising new leads. With a little luck, there’s enough material to nail them all.’
    ‘Fine.’He had repeated the same word, in the same tone of voice, but his boss hadn’t picked up on it this time either. He imagined Homer Woods in his panelled office,
sitting at his desk, phone in hand, his blue eyes framed by gold-rimmed glasses, as immutable as his grey three-piece and blue button-down shirt.
    ‘Frank, we got to the Larkins mostly because of your work, yours and Cooper’s. Everyone here knows it and I wanted to tell you. When do you think you’re coming
back?’
    ‘I don’t know, to be honest. Soon.’
    ‘Okay, I don’t want to pressure you. But remember what I said.’
    ‘Okay, Homer. Thanks.’ He had hung up and gone out to look for Harriet. She was sitting on the veranda watching the two kids dismantle their sailboards and load them on to their
jeep.
    He had sat down in silence next to her on the wooden bench. They had watched the beach until the jeep was gone. It was as if that outside presence, though far away, had kept them from
speaking.
    ‘He wants to know when you’re coming back to work, doesn’t he?’ Harriet had asked, breaking the silence.
    ‘Yes.’ There had never