THE NIGHT WAS CHILLY, AND THERE WAS NO ONE OUT AND about. Rocco was angrily chewing on a dry and flavorless sandwich he’d bought at the train station café. He thought back to the evening he’d just spent. He thought about Anna, who regularly forced him into situations that had nothing to do with him. And especially he thought about the fact that right then he was alone, late at night, without a single car at the nearby intersection, not a single light in the windows above. An easy target, a fish in a barrel. He looked around. His would-be killer could be hiding right around the corner of the yellow building. Or hunkered down between the car and the now-closed pharmacy. Or else he could be standing right behind him, merging into the shadows of the fir trees. Maybe he’d never even left Aosta, the man who’d crept into his apartment. He’d just hidden out in some out-of-the-way little hotel, waiting for an opportunity like this. Waiting until Rocco Schiavone was alone, without a witness, unarmed and distracted, when he’d finally be able to complete the work he’d undertaken. The deputy chief threw both arms wide. He turned, slowly. Aside from the occasional branch tossing in the wind and a light that came on in a fourth-floor window, nothing happened.

And so he shouted: “Here I am! I’m right here!”

“And who gives a flying fuck!” replied a distant voice.

A familiar voice.

Rocco burst out laughing. From the street in front of his residential hotel a man emerged. He was smoking. He had a quick, on-edge stride and not a hair on his head.

Furio!

“What are you doing there?”

“Being an excellent target!”

They hugged. His friend dropped his cigarette to the ground. “Your cell phone? Don’t you turn it on anymore?”

“Why are you in town?”

“Passing through. On my way to France.”

“To do what?”

“The less you know, the better. Listen, do you know a quieter place?”

“Quieter than this? Not possible!”

“In the middle of the street?”

“So what?”

Furio looked around. He nodded. Then he grabbed Rocco by the arm. “Come on!”

He led him to a dark corner under a portico. “Do you mind telling me what’s going on?” Rocco asked. “What is it you want to tell me?”

Furio slid a hand into his jacket pocket. “I don’t want to tell you anything. But if you stay here, out in the open, that guy might come back. And I can’t stand to think of you in the middle of the street acting like a fool. So I’m not letting you expose yourself like this.” And he handed him a 9 mm pistol, placing it in Rocco’s hands. The deputy chief looked down at it.

“I don’t carry a handgun anymore.”