She drew back to slam the door in his face. The wood hit something along the way. She heard a yelp of pain but he was through, and there was no way of getting him outside again. A glancing blow struck her cheek and she stumbled toward the living room and grabbed the wooden inner door, sending it flying behind her.

He got struck hard in the face a second time and yelled again. Anger. Hurt. She liked both of them.

She propped herself against the sofa, trying to think, trying to locate something that might pass as a weapon.

“Hey,” he said.

He had his hands up and looked offended. His right eye had gone purple from where the door had caught him.

“We just want to talk,” he said. “That’s all.”

“Who wants to talk?” she asked, still looking, feeling behind the sofa with her right hand.

“Some big guys. They don’t mean you no harm. They told me that. They just want you to visit.”

“There are nicer ways to ask.”

He reached into his jacket with his free hand and took out a handgun.

“There are nastier ones too. Alive isn’t the same as undamaged. You choose, little girl. One way or another you’re coming with me.”

Szeryng was playing one of her most cherished passages. Felicia Kaminski hated this anonymous man for ruining it.

She looked him in the eye and said, “They won’t hurt me? That’s a promise?”

“A promise.”

He still had the iPhone in his left hand. She watched the way he held it. The obvious affection he had for the thing.

She put a hand to her head and let down her long brown hair she had fastened for practice. He watched her, smiling again.

“Isn’t that, like, the new version?” she asked, pointing at the phone. “The one with GPS or something?”

They all loved them. Sometimes it seemed there was nothing more precious on the planet.

“Yeah . . . ” He held it a little higher and pressed a button. A video of MIA began to play on the screen. “I got . . . ”

She was wearing the pointed leather boots she’d bought in a Gucci outlet place near San Giovanni. Those needle-like toes were going out of fashion but she liked them. She took one strong step forward, let her right leg fall back a little to gain momentum, then let loose with a kick, as hard as she could manage—right where it hurt most.

He screamed. The gun went sideways. She took his wrist and punched it back against the sharp edge of the wardrobe that contained Harold Middleton’s armory. The weapon clattered to the floor. The iPhone he held on to, but not after the second kick. By then he was on the ground, squirming, looking madder than ever.

If he gets up, I’m dead, she thought.