“Bene,” she concludes. “Domani mando le foto.” Tomorrow she will send pictures.
I am already moving. Down the catwalk, down the stairs, out into the street where the cold hits me like a clean rule. I walk away from the pub and turn toward the square. I stop in front of the barber and study my reflection as if I am thinking about a cut. She appears behind me in the glass, hair pulled into a low twist, lipstick wiped to nothing, the navy coat traded for a quilted green that could be from any catalog, a canvas tote with daisies.
She does not notice me. Got her face? Better. I have her rhythm. The left shoulder rides a millimeter high from an old bag strap. The right foot points straight, the left toes five degrees out. A small scar by the ear, crescent-shaped, the kind scissors leave when a stylist turns too fast. Nails short, buffed, no color. She has learned to take herself apart and put herself back together in a bathroom mirror without leaving fingerprints on the glass.
She does not look toward the bakery this time. She looks past it, then across the street to a trooper who parks and goes inside the diner for soup. She notes men with badges the way men with badges note trouble.
I hold the image in my head, then strip it down to what cannot change when she changes everything else. Shoulder. Toe angle. Scar. The way her left hand searches her coat pocket twice for a receipt that does not exist.
She disappears around the corner. I take the side street behind the library and let the houses cover me, then cut through the alley that smells like wood smoke and cold onions from the grocer’s bin and reappear at the bakery.
Lila is at the sink. She hears the door and does not turn. I give her the smallest nod when she glances, slide behind the case, and take the tape measure again. The day pulls on. People bringcash and coins and stories about the river and the plow and the pageant costumes that arrived one size off. I am another object in the room, a man with a tool who does not care about anyone’s affairs, and every ten beats, I look across the case and through the reflection to the street. The silver sedan rolls through once at two.
At three, I do a slow walk to the church hall. The floorboards swell in the middle where the varnish has dulled to a satin shine. Folding tables lean against the wall, edges scarred from a hundred bake sales and rummage nights. Petro is near the back door with a stack of chairs at his feet, an old man routine that fits him too well. He coughs into his sleeve to hide his voice.
“Anything?” he murmurs.
“The watcher above the Lantern,” I answer. “She moves well, talks even better. Twenty-one hundred where you stand. She will bring two.”
I study the hinge pins. Painted over. Soft. I run a thumbnail along the edge and gather a curl of old white. The stack of chairs Petro left is placed just so. A fast man will drag them and make noise. A careful man will step around and show his care. Either way, the door will tell me.
“Replace two screws in each hinge with longer ones,” I instruct. “Set one silent chime inside this frame at shoulder height. If someone opens after dark, I want it on my phone before the sound reaches the stage.”
“Va bene,” he returns.
I cross to the playground, note the sight lines from the alley, and put the map in my head. Hall to alley to river to bakery is threeminutes at a walk, ninety seconds at a run. Running makes other people run.
Back at the bakery, I move upstairs to my room. I take the pad from the drawer and write time stamps, the phrases inside my head, the map points she gave me for free. The plan builds as I write—lines crossing lines, notes in gibberish to anyone else.
At four, my head feels heavy. The mind wants coffee more than thought. On cue, Lila appears in the doorway with a tray, the smell arriving before the pot. A grilled cheese and tomato sandwich sits beside it. After I eat, the fog lifts and the plan starts to move again, steady as a river. At last, I sigh, fold the paper, and pocket it. I send a dot to Nico. His reply lands almost at once. Petro’s code follows.
The back bar gets reinforced, and a pair of motion lamps goes up around the back and side entrances. Each trip is clean when tested twice. I leave them to sit like watching eyes and walk to the church hall. A trash can rolled close enough keeps the side door from opening cleanly. Anyone trying it will have to move the can, and I will see the mark. Petro laughs when he catches on, then drops his eyes to his boots. Laughter’s a draft in this work, and drafts make you cold.
Night comes without asking. The square thins. The river sounds like metal cooling. Maria leaves two plates at the landing wrapped in plastic. Lila turns the last pan to dry and lets water run a second too long before she shuts it. My phone moves against my pocket at 21:42. Two buzzes. Petro.
I cross to the back hall where the brick swallows sound. “Speak,” I tell him.
“She’s here,” he says. The words sit low in the throat. “With two men.”
21
LILA
The sign on our door saysClosed for Pageant Prep from Noon to Three. I write it with a thick black marker and a smile that looks real enough to fool a stranger. Maria laughs at me for lining the edges with tiny stars. Marco insists I draw one more, because five-point stars are lucky if you make six, and who am I to argue with small logic that keeps him sure?
We load trays into the wagon for the volunteers. Mini ham biscuits, sugar stars, a pan of brownies that never lasts more than ten minutes. Marco straps his backpack on like a mission commander. He picks the sweater with the snowman whose eye sits a little too low, dark cords, wool socks that refuse to stay up, and the blue hat with the pom-pom he loves enough to sleep in. He tucks his red truck with the silver stripe into the side pocket, the way a man tucks a wallet, and hands me his lunch to check. Turkey and cheddar on wheat, apple slices that brown too fast no matter what the internet promises, and a thermos that will hold hot cocoa until two, if I’m lucky. He adds two sugar stars for trading leverage, winks like a tiny thief, and zips the bag with solemn care.
We walk up Main under a white sky. The community center sits just pastthe church, a brick box with a gym, a stage that hosted over a hundred plays, and the kind of multipurpose carpet that survives paint, glitter, and grief. Someone painted the front door red last year. It still looks surprised.
The hall’s already full and smells like coffee, tempera, and closets packed with old costumes. Heat thumps in the vents. A dozen conversations layer over each other, refusing to pick a lead. Kids run in figure eights until Mrs. Brewster claps once, and the figure eights turn into straight lines.
“Look who’s here,” she calls. “Our designer returns.”
“Designer’s generous,” I say, shrugging out of my coat. “I’m here to pin your shepherds and remind you that felt halos shed.”
Miss Carpenter waves me toward a folding table buried in fabric. “Bless you. I need you here. We have three angels, two shepherds, a wise man who insists on being a dragon, and a star that keeps listing to port.”
Mrs. Nolan sits at the end of the table with a basket of safety pins and an iron that spits every third press. “I brought elastic,” she announces. “The good kind this time. It won’t give up by intermission.” She means the one last year that quit halfway through Act One and fused a halo to the tablecloth. The choir smelled like burnt tinsel till New Year’s.
