“Then let me put you on speaker, that way I can take notes while we talk. If I try to use my shoulder to press the receiver against my ear, I get a crick in my neck.” Rocco pushed the button and went over to sit at the little desk facing the window. There he had a notepad and a couple of pens. “Go right ahead, Alfredo. I’m ready.”

“All right, then, let’s get started.” De Silvestri’s voice filled the room in the residential hotel. “I skipped everyone who, as you instructed me, sir, had anything to do with small-time capers, thefts, fraud, and other two-bit offenses. I’d start with Antonio Biga. Do you recall the name?”

“Vaguely.”

“Back in 2004. He did eight years for armed robbery and—”

“Oh, yes, right, right, of course. Antonio Biga . . .”

“Antonio got out three months ago. Last known address is Viale Massaia 85. At the Garbatella.”

“Anything else?”

“Certainly. Number two. Stefania Zaccaria. You put her behind bars for pandering in 2006. She got out last year.”

“Stefania Zaccaria. A little short thing?”

“Yes, it says here she’s five foot two.”

“It could very well have been her. She’s half a lunatic. She might not have come all the way up here herself, but she could easily have found some loser willing to do a piece-of-shit job like that. I’m making a note. Stefania Zaccaria. And then, what do you think about Fabio Zuccari?”

“Yes, of course, he’s the first one I thought of myself. He’s in the hospital. He’s got cancer and it’s eating him alive. Then there are the two Gentili brothers and of course Walter Cremonesi.”

The Gentili brothers held the current record for burglary, having ransacked seven apartments in a single day. Walter Cremonesi, on the other hand, was a diehard. He first entered Italy’s prison system in 1976 for membership in an armed gang, a renegade militant of the extreme right. Armed robberies, murders—he treated Rebibbia prison as if it were a revolving door to a supermarket. The last time, Rocco had nailed him for armed robbery and murder. “Where are the Gentili brothers?”

“Apparently in Costa Rica. They’ve opened a restaurant. I’d rule them out, Dottore.”

“And Walter Cremonesi? Why isn’t he still behind bars?”

“You’re asking me? Good conduct. It seems as if, once they’re in prison, these people are magically transformed into lay sisters who go to church every Sunday to say confession.”

“He seems like a good candidate. How old is he now?”

De Silvestri did some quick calculations. “He’ll be fifty-eight next month.”

“Let’s not forget to wish him happy birthday.”

“Nobody’s heard anything from him in years. They thought he was in Paris. In any case, no one else occurs to me for now.”

“Call me the minute you hear anything new.”

“You can count on it.”