“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said as she unlocked the front door on the street and climbed the stairs, “get a hold of yourself! First you’re dying of embarrassment, then before you know it you’re complaining that he didn’t even tell you good night . . . This is the first and the last time that I smoke a joint. No matter what happens!”

“And right you are, Caterina!” Signora Cormet said to her, on her way downstairs to take out the trash. Caterina clapped both hands over her mouth. She’d said it loud and clear.

ACCORDING TO GIULIANA BERGUET, EVEN THOUGH SHE couldn’t be sure, Pietro still ought to be in the offices of Edil.ber, the construction company. When Rocco pulled up, the light was on on the second floor. Rocco got out of the car and walked toward the front entrance. He went in. There wasn’t a soul around. Not even a night watchman, nothing. Everything was turned off, lights, office machinery. He stepped into the elevator and rode upstairs.

In the circular landing, only a single light filtered from Pietro’s office. Muffled music was coming from inside. Rocco knocked at the door. No answer. He knocked harder. Someone turned off the stereo, interrupting a song by Grover Washington Jr. “Who is it?”

“Schiavone, state police . . .” And he opened the door.

Pietro Berguet was sitting behind his desk. In shirtsleeves, his collar unbuttoned. His tie was draped over the back of a chair. His jacket lay on the floor. He was alone and was smoking a cigar that had befouled the air. Outside, far away, set like gems in the mountainside, a manger scene of twinkling house lights. Pietro narrowed his eyes. “Ah, it’s you. I thought it might have been the night watchman.”

“No. And now that you mention him, I didn’t see him anywhere.”

“He must be making his rounds,” Pietro replied.

“But just the same as I was able to enter, anybody else could get in, couldn’t they?”

“And do what? What do I have left to lose?” And he gestured to Rocco to take a seat. Rocco sat down on the sofa where, just a few days earlier, Cristiano Cerruti had been sitting. Cerruti, Berguet’s right-hand man. Cerruti, who had sold Pietro out to the highest bidder.

“Say, by the way . . . nasty thing that happened at your house,” Pietro commented.

“Yes. Nasty thing.” Rocco paused, then observed, “But then it’s not as if anybody’s laughing themselves to death around here, either!”

Pietro lifted the stubby cigar into the air. He observed it. He turned it in his fingers. “No. I guess not.” Then he crushed it out on the glass desktop. “They’ve crushed my spirit, that’s for sure.”

“And what are you doing about it?”

“I’m smoking a cigar.”

“You could do something else.”

“Like what, for instance.”

“Like for instance you could go check up on your daughter.”