The apartment building was an unsightly structure dating from the seventies, and the staircase hadn’t seen a paint job in all the years since. An abhorrent array of cracks, stains, and chunks of plaster that had simply fallen off was covered with a map of giant graffiti informing the residents “Bebbo and Marta, together since 11/27/2010” and “I cant stand being without you,” without an apostrophe. He decided that taking the elevator would be too risky and instead climbed the two flights of stairs. The tenants had decided to take their own individual and idiosyncratic approaches to nameplates. Some had made them out of paper, others in metal, and a few had simply written their names directly on the door itself. Apartment 7 on the third floor had two different surnames: Morini and Baiocchi. Flavio leaned his ear against the door and pushed the doorbell. He heard it ring inside the apartment. At least this one worked. Rapid footsteps. Then a woman who looked to be forty-five or so opened the door. Half her hair was black from the roots up; the rest was a stringy blonde. Her face looked tense, her eyes were reddish, and she wore a pair of jeans and a green sweatshirt with “University of Ohio” written on it.

“What is it?”

“I’m Flavio Buglioni. I was looking for Enzo . . . Enzo Baiocchi.”

“My father isn’t here.”

“Listen, I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s something pretty serious.”

“Well, I can tell you that I don’t give a flying fuck about my father. Or about anything he might have done. For all I care, he can drop dead in the middle of the street!” And she tried to shut the door. Flavio leaned in on it. “No, hold on, hold on. Please, let me come in!”

She looked out at him: the man was polite, and he had a look of despair on his face. She couldn’t even say why, but she let herself be talked into opening the door and standing aside. “Okay, but let’s make this quick, eh? I’m cleaning house.”

The stench of spinach and onions was infesting the air. A little kid, maybe nine years old, was sitting at the kitchen table—or in a room that served indifferently as kitchen and living room—with several pens in his hand. A notebook lay on the table in front of him. The boy looked up at him without a smile.

“You, Tommà, do your homework! The boy wouldn’t go to school today. He says he has a fever . . .”

At last the child smiled. He was missing an incisor from the front of his mouth. He started writing again. “All right, go ahead.”

“In front of the boy?” asked Flavio.

“In front of the boy,” replied Roberta.

“You don’t know where I can find your father, do you?”

“No. Who are you?”