THE VELLETRI HOUSE OF DETENTION STANDS ON AN ELEVATED plain not far from Cisterna di Latina, in the Agro Pontino, or Pontine Marshes. In the midst of that valley—once a marsh, since drained, originally inhabited by anopheles mosquitoes and butteri, or Italian cowboys, who challenged Buffalo Bill, but nowadays a stretch of countryside inhabited by Asian tiger mosquitoes and members of the Camorra who defy the Italian state—the prison looms high like a cement abscess.

Rocco knew the warden, and also a couple of guards. They conducted him to Pavilion C, the infirmary, where Enzo Baiocchi had made his escape sixteen nights earlier.

“He escaped from the ward by removing a bar from the window, and then in the courtyard he waited for the trash truck, he must have climbed onto it and made his escape . . .” said Francesco Selva, the prison warden, an extremely youthful-looking forty-year-old. “We searched his possessions. Nothing that could offer a clue. We went to talk to his daughter, who lives in Rome, on the Via Casilina, but she says she hasn’t seen him or heard from him. Let’s just say that she had a less-than-wonderful relationship with her father.”

“Do you mind if I take a look around myself?”

“Absolutely, be my guest.”

Selva took him down to the storeroom where they kept the convicts’ possessions. “They’ve cut personnel to the bone, and the place has turned into a colander. Nothing’s secure.”

Rocco nodded.

“Staffing levels are down by at least forty percent. Brutal hours for poverty wages. You tell me how we’re supposed to keep up . . .”

“They’ll declare a nice fat amnesty and kick a bunch of prisoners out onto the street. Like always.”

“Right. Can I tell you what I think?”

“Certainly, Francè.”

“They ought to legalize soft drugs. Do you know how the prisons would empty out?”

“I couldn’t agree with you more . . .”

They passed through two metal doors controlled from inside, and then, at last, a guard came toward them with a box. He entrusted it to the warden and then turned away. Francesco set it down on a metal table. “Okay, so this is the stuff that Baiocchi left us to remember him by.”

The deputy chief opened it up. A couple of T-shirts, a silver bracelet. A porn mag, and inside it a holy card. Saint Franco Hermit. “Was he religious?”

“He used to pray.”

“Strange place to hide a holy card, don’t you think?”

The warden leafed through the magazine. After the third image of fellatio he tossed the magazine back into the box. “Yes, I’d say so.”

“Saint Franco Hermit. Do you have an encyclopedia?”

“In the office.”

“IT SAYS HERE THAT HE’S THE PATRON SAINT OF FRANCAVILLA al Mare, Chieti province. That adds up,” said Rocco with the volume balanced on his knees, sitting in a green Naugahyde chair.