“He escaped from Velletri prison sixteen days or so ago. Then he killed Corrado Pizzuti.”

“Corrado? Wasn’t that the guy who was driving the car all those years ago?” asked Brizio.

“The very same.”

Seba cracked his knuckles. “Did he do it to avenge his brother?”

“I’d say so,” Rocco replied. “And Adele paid the price.”

There was a long silence, a good solid ten seconds. Everyone was lost in thought.

“What are we going to do?”

“You promised me, Rocco. He’s mine.” And Sebastiano smiled, even though he had just uttered a threat. “I need to rip the heart out of his chest!” he added. “That’s what he did to me, isn’t it?”

Brizio nodded. Furio was looking at Rocco. He knew that the deputy chief wanted to be the first to lay his hands on the prey. And that he wasn’t going to give him up so easily. “Do you have any idea where he might be hiding?”

“No. I know that he has a daughter . . . She lives on the Via Casilina,” said Brizio.

“There’s no way that rat is holed up there. That’s the first place anyone would look for him. Where did he kill Pizzuti?”

“At Francavilla al Mare, Furio. A city in Abruzzo.”

“No, I can sense that he’s not in Rome.”

“Why do you say that, Brì?”

“Because it would be risky for him here. Too risky. A tip, a rumor as faint as that western wind, and he’d be done for! No, he’s holed up somewhere solid. Maybe he even went back up to Aosta, don’t you think?”

Furio looked at Rocco. It seemed as if he were asking whether Rocco still had the pistol within easy reach at all times. Actually, though, the handgun at that moment was locked in a desk drawer in his office.

“That’s true, he might head back up north. But now there’s a difference. He’s no longer a shadow. Now he has a first and last name!”

Sebastiano picked up his glass. He raised it. “To the death of Enzo Baiocchi, may he spit blood by the gallon!”

His three friends joined him in that toast.

“Que reste-t-il de nos amours . . .” Someone out in the street had just struck up an old French love song.

“These fucking tourists,” said Brizio, wiping his mouth with his shirtsleeve.

Saturday