“Make it something good,” Jimmy kidded him. “But nothin’ too expensive.”

Carter gave him a nod and started for the bus. He handed his ticket to the driver and was just mounting the steps to climb into the bus when Jimmy suddenly called to him.

“Hey, Marco,” he said.

Carter turned and stuck his head back out the door.

“Forget the souvenir,” Jimmy told him. “Just send me a postcard when you finally get laid.”

PART TWO

PART TWO

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 24

One spring morning, long ago when he was sixteen years old, Giancarlo was sitting at the piano, working through the opening bars of the frenetic third movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” It was a challenging piece, even for a pianist as accomplished as Giancarlo had already become by that early age. Nonetheless the music intrigued him, and he was hoping to master it in time for an upcoming recital. It was tough going, though, and he had been at it for almost three hours straight. Now and then, when he grew impatient at his slow progress, Giancarlo would stop and just play his scales for a few minutes to recenter himself before diving back into the music. It was a habit he had learned from his mother, Paola.

“Relax and take a deep breath, Giancarlo,” she had always taught him. “When things go bad, just play your scales and arpeggios for a little while to clear your mind until everything comes right again.”

Paola Rosa had once been the music teacher at the regional school down in the valley below Castelalto. It had been she who first introduced Giancarlo to the piano when he was just a little boy. A violinist by training, she was a competent enough piano player to recognize true talent when she saw it, and she devoted herself early on to helping Giancarlo develop his. She had of course been equally eager that her other son, Giorgio, also take up the piano or any musical instrument, for that matter. Despite her best efforts, however, she could never manage to get him to sit still at the keyboard long enough to learn the simplest melody. He just had not been born with the patience for it.

Giancarlo, on the other hand, took to the piano right from the start and would spend hours at a time at it, diligently practicing, while his older brother ran off to kick the soccer ball with friends. He advanced rapidly, so much so that by the time he reached the age of nine, he was not only playing an impressive repertoire of classical pieces, but he had already started to dabble in composing music of his own.