“No. You can’t keep it up anymore, either.” And she extends a hand. She wants to caress me. I shut my eyes. This time I feel her! I feel her hand on my cheek. I feel her skin, her warmth, her veins, and her blood, flowing fast. She’s here. She’s here again, with me. Forever.

“Ciao, Rocco . . . buonanotte.”

I squint my eyes. I don’t want her to see me cry. Not now. She doesn’t deserve that. I want to take her hand. But I just touch my cheek. I can feel my whiskers. I open my eyes. She’s gone. She’s not there anymore.

Marina? Talk to me again, my darling angel . . .

Tuesday

Paoletto Buglioni got off work at 4:30 in the morning. He’d climbed into his Smart car, and at the sight of him getting in, any ordinary observer might well have bet good money that that huge creature stuffed into that little vehicle wouldn’t be able to get the door shut. From the Lungotevere he headed for Testaccio, and then he turned onto the Via Ostiense. At Ponte Marconi he made a left onto Via Cristoforo Colombo. At that time of the day, those unlucky souls who had to go to work were still finishing their breakfast, while a very few were coming home after a night out painting the town red. Paoletto yawned and tried turning the volume of the radio up high. That helped to keep him from flopping over fast asleep. He drove past the Rome beltway and came to the turnoff for Tre Pini. There he veered to the right, continued along a road that just fifteen years earlier had been little more than a country mule track, and after that turned left up a stunningly steep road that led directly to his quarter, Vitinia. A cluster of houses, more than half of them villas and apartment buildings dating back to the seventies, built in violation of the city code and crisscrossed by a network of one-way streets. He parked his Smart car. It was a parking spot reserved for handicapped drivers, but no one in the quarter, not even a constable, would have dared to say a word to him about it, much less write him a ticket. He got out of the car and pulled out his house keys. He walked through the front door. He climbed a flight of stairs and finally stood in front of Apartment 3, where he lived. He opened the door and switched on the light. He hung up his heavy jacket on the coatrack and entered the living room. Sitting comfortably on the sofa were two men.

“What the fuck . . . ?”

“Ciao, Paolè,” said Brizio. “Do you remember? This is Sebastiano.”

Paoletto recovered his cool. “Certainly I remember. But what are you two doing in my home?”

“Well, you have a piece-of-shit burglar alarm,” Sebastiano replied seriously.