Page 156 of Marcello

I showed her the exteriors of old churches…

The Pulcinella statue with the gleaming nose all the tourists rubbed for good luck…

The thousand portraits of Maradona…

The stores of the Spaccanapoli…

And all the street art, including the Madonna con la Pistola.

Basically, I took her to everything Federica had shown me when I first got to Naples.

Giulietta loved it. She took in everything with the same wide-eyed exuberance I’d fallen in love with the first night I saw her.

Everything about her was a joy. When I was around her, I felt alive.

But no matter what we did, we always made it back to the hotel –

And made love until she had to go.

Unfortunately, she always had to go…

No matter how many times I asked her to stay.

Eventually, the third week of October rolled around.

Halloween’s not really a thing in Italy. We don’t celebrate it like the US does, with kids trick-or-treating, but little signs pop up here and there.

Cardboard cutouts of pumpkins in grocery store windows…

Rubber skeletons hanging in apartment doorways…

A plastic skull on the counter at a bar.

It was supposed to be playful and kitschy…

And Giulietta loved all the decorations.

But for me, it felt like something dark was coming.

Turns out, I was right.

Our crew kept practicing at the motel until we had it down to a science. We’d done it so much that it felt like muscle memory.

The entire time, Cesare kept getting more and more agitated, like a tiger in a cage too small for him. He always seemed like he was on the edge of exploding.

Sometimes, he did.

One time, he pistol-whipped a guy who made a simple mistake during practice.

Everybody else just watched as Cesare reduced the guy to a bloody, whimpering mess on the ground.

Nobody said shit…

Because nobody wanted to be next.

Everything came to a head on the morning of October 23rd. That’s when Cesare texted me to come to his family’s mansion.

After I parked my car, a lower-level guy met me at the door and ushered me into the library.