At the End of a Dull Day by Massimo Carlotto, Anthony Shugaar

country lane. I pulled up twenty minutes later, after a roundabout drive through empty parts of town.
    â€œI’ve already got the hole dug,” he told me.
    I noticed his hand gripping a handgun pointing at the ground.
    â€œYou really don’t trust me, do you?”
    â€œYou know how these things go, my friend. This is exactly when they decide to kill you and you wind up at the bottom of the grave you just dug, keeping a corpse company. Then the next thing you know a hotel night clerk has identified both dead bodies and the police close the books on a turbulent love affair gone wrong.”
    â€œI wish I’d thought of that myself,” I kidded him, as I swung open the back hatch of the SUV.
    Â 
    Nicoletta had regained a modicum of self-control. With a cigarette dangling from her lips she was packing up the personal effects of the unfortunate Isabel in her upstairs bedroom. I saw a roll of bills on the night table. I tucked the cash into my overcoat pocket.
    â€œShe won’t be needing it.”
    â€œWhere did you . . . ”
    â€œDo you really want to know?”
    She shook her head and cigarette ashes tumbled onto the clothing piled on the bed. “What should I tell the other girls?”
    â€œThe same fairytale that they’re all wishing would come true,” I answered. “The Russian fell in love with her, bought her from you, and took her off to Moscow to live a life of luxury surrounded by sable stoles, caviar, vodka, and diamonds.”
    â€œThat’s such a moronic story they’d probably fall for it.”
    I watched her pack for a while. “I think you should listen to me very carefully right now, Nicoletta. I wouldn’t want for there to be anything less than a perfect understanding between the two of us.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œA series of small but meaningful details,” I replied. “Buried along with Isabel, who is very well protected by a plastic bag, is your silk scarf and one of your own personal towels, along with the towel from the hotel.”
    â€œWhy are you threatening me? You know I’ll never talk.”
    â€œSee what I mean? You’re still not listening carefully, the way I asked you to,” I scolded her. “I’m telling you that everything surrounding this murder points straight at you and only you.”
    I held out my hands, encased in latex gloves.
    â€œI didn’t leave my fingerprints on anything, but you did. There’s blood in your nice living room and in your SUV, and there’s no way you’ll be able to eliminate every last trace of it.”
    â€œBut you killed her.”
    â€œMaybe so, but the evidence all points to you,” I explained in a faintly whiny, pedantic tone of voice. “I want to remind you that the night clerk saw you take a bleeding Isabel away from the hotel. And that’s something any criminal court in the country would view as a decisive piece of testimony,” I added as I held up a clear pastic bag holding the bottle of rum that I’d made sure to pick up before walking upstairs.
    â€œAnd here are your fingerprints on this bottle, along with the dead girl’s.”
    â€œYou bastard,” she hissed, as she lunged for the bag. I rammed my fist into her solar plexus. It wasn’t a hard punch, but it stopped her cold.
    â€œWhy are you doing this to me?”
    â€œI trust you, Nicoletta. We’ve been friends for a long time, we’re business partners, and I wouldn’t give up your blowjobs for anything in the world—they’re definitely the best in town. But people change and so I’d like to be positive that you would never try to rip me off.”
    I blew her a kiss and slipped out of the house, walking through the dark to the car I’d parked in a nearby street.
    I watched Martina applying her creams and thought back to Isabel. It had been eleven years since the last time I killed somebody.