“You want to know something, Lupa? I could jump out my window. But I’d just land on the roof of the canopy over the entrance to police headquarters. It’s not even a one-yard drop. At the very worst, I’d sprain my ankle. Just look . . .” The sky had opened up. The clouds were fluffy and white. He could see flowers on the meadows.

He inhaled another mouthful of smoke. Nice. Sweet and aromatic. The little electric trains started chugging again in his veins. His brain began spinning at a higher RPM; the pistons were puffing the dust away, the oil lubricated all the ganglions of his nervous system, and at long last Deputy Chief Rocco Schiavone felt that all was right with the world. Now, yes, now indeed he could go out and hear whatever news Fumagalli had, and all about his alleged horror films. He tossed the spent roach out the window, put on his loden overcoat, and opened his office door.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Dottore!” said Casella. There they were, all lined up outside his door. Casella, D’Intino, Deruta, Italo, Caterina, and Antonio Scipioni.

“What is this?” asked Rocco. “Are you about to execute me by firing squad?”

“It’s nice to see you again, Dottore! We missed you, you know that?” said Deruta. All their faces were beaming; they looked like a classroom of students who had just smeared glue on the teacher’s chair and were eagerly waiting for him to sit down.

“Do you mind telling me what’s gotten into you all?”

Italo winked and glanced archly at the wall to the deputy chief’s right.

“What is it, Italo?”

“Just take a look . . .”

Rocco turned around. He hadn’t noticed it when he’d first come in fifteen minutes earlier. There was a sign tacked up on the wall, divided into numbered quadrants. Up high was the title: “Major Pains in the Ass.” Rocco stepped closer. His officers were snickering.

“Who did this?” he asked.

Italo raised his hand.

“Major pains in the ass . . .” the deputy chief started reading. Every once in a while his shoulders would shake. He was laughing. “Cafés that don’t stock Algida ice cream, true enough. That’s a huge pain in the ass . . . Oh, and Radio Virgin Mary, those pain-in-the-ass priests. All the zeroes on IBAN routing numbers . . . Wait, Italo, did you collect all these?”

“In the past few months,” Pierron replied. “Then, as time goes by and we come up with others, I’ll add them.”