Requiem for a Killer by Paulo Levy Read Free Book Online Page A

breeze was blowing lightly, causing
the boats anchored in the bay and tied up at the dock to rock
lazily. When seen from far away they looked like little cradles
rocking to a never-ending lullaby. The gently rippling waves
reflected the moon’s fading light; by then it was already low on
the horizon and ready to dive into the ocean and go to sleep. The
scene had everything; the shape, movement and content of an immense
sleeping pill.
    Dornelas moved jerkily, like a disjointed
doll, to the small beach that led to the pier, further down from
where the body was removed the day before. They had agreed to meet
there.
    The inspector pulled himself up awkwardly
and sat on the sea wall, back to the ocean, his body feeling heavy.
Then he threw his legs over so he was facing the sea and was taken
by surprise to see a man gliding toward him. Had he had so much to
drink that he was now seeing a prophet walking on water? He rubbed
his eyes, struggled to clear his mind and recognized Claudio,
standing upright in the skiff and paddling towards him from Monkey
Island.
    “Good morning, Inspector,” said his friend,
jumping onto the beach.
    Dornelas muttered an answer and stepped down
onto the sand. Claudio dragged the skiff out of the water and
asked:
    “Where we going?”
    “Up the canal, beyond the curve in the
mangrove.”
    Dornelas was making an effort to overcome
his tiredness and not sound disagreeable. Not wanting to fall
sprawling into the water at that time in the morning, he got in the
boat carefully and sat down on the floor. His friend pushed the
little boat into the water, jumped in and began paddling. Claudio
had the dexterity and lightness afoot of an acrobat on a
tight-rope.
    “Where did you learn that,” asked Dornelas
in admiration.
    “Learn what?”
    “To paddle standing up.”
    “My father, Chief.”
    “Have you ever fallen?”
    “Two or three times...those damn
motorboats!”
    With his curiosity satisfied, the inspector
decided to keep his mouth shut and turned his attention on the
water he had just noticed in the back of the boat. With each stroke
of the paddle it went rolling back and forth along the bottom,
drenching his pant legs.
    He shrugged his shoulders and let himself be
taken in by the starry sky and the dark shape of the mountains
behind the city, the Historical Center, the houses with their
closed windows, the streetlights still glowing. He lowered his eyes
and admired the faint luminescence of the trails made in the water
by each stroke of the paddle, as if they were navigating a shining
space ship. The sound of the paddle cutting through the surface and
the water’s soft murmur were all he could hear.
    He thought back to his childhood, fishing at
night for squid using shiny bait and fishing rods with three sharp
hooks. He and his father. The happy memory of getting filthy from
the black ink the squid spit when fished out of the water came back
to him. The next day they removed the pincers and beaks, his mother
sliced up the little heads into rings and with their tentacles
fried them coated in flour. Crunchy, cooked just right, they
seasoned the squid liberally with lemon and gobbled them down as
appetizers before lunch.
    “Left or right, Inspector?”
    The question jerked Dornelas out of his
daze. It was now possible to see clearly the mangrove’s skinny
trunks suspended above the cluster of roots holding fast like
devilish hands in the black mud; a small mangrove that ended
abruptly in the marsh used by the island’s residents to hoist in
the skiffs.
    “Neither. Go upstream and let the boat loose
in the middle of the river between the mud beach and the fence.
    On the other side of the canal a barbed wire
fence protected an imposing summer house, which clearly highlighted
the great contrast that was Palmyra: wealth and poverty, face to
face, separated by a muddy, filthy, foul smelling canal.
    Claudio went a little beyond the spot
Dornelas had indicated, adroitly turned the skiff around,