Читать книгу Crocodile Tears онлайн

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He extinguishes his cigarette on the floor, on the other side of the case; he treads on it, crushes it, grinds it down with the heel of his shiny leather moccasin. There is an awkward silence.

“Tell me the truth: did she pay up or not? Losada’s wife, I mean. Ursula, she’s called Ursula. Not a name you could forget. Maybe she kept it quiet to avoid getting into trouble with the law. Be honest with me. Do you know this woman or not?”

The lawyer speaks, he asks questions, holding an invisible melon in his hands.

Diego wants to say something, he hesitates, he keeps it in.

Let’s just pause for a moment: there’s a lot to explore in that indecision. What’s happening to Diego? Fear, insecurity? It seems as if, for some reason, he can’t speak or, if he could, he wouldn’t know what version to tell his lawyer. Antinucci removes his dark glasses with a slow, pompous, 14theatrical movement, places them on top of the cartapacio, his opaque gaze fixing on a point somewhere on Diego’s face, and Diego feels an almost physical pressure between his eyes and nose. He sees that the lawyer is looking at him through narrowed eyes, like two slits.