Nikki raised an eyebrow. “You want me to report on a police investigation, and consider this a civic service?”
De Rosa’s expression remained unperturbed. “It’s unlikely the police understand how dangerous he is. They won’t know how to deal with him appropriately. What I’m asking from you…to look…to let me know…it isn’t illegal.”
Nikki clenched her teeth. She didn’t like this burden, this sense of Tito pushing his way into her life. If she agreed to this, if she let him take any portion of her integrity, no matter how small, she risked slipping into his gravity.
She resisted. “No. I can’t do that.”
He seemed to consider. “You live in a battlefield. Can you really think your ignorance protects you?”
“Whatever it is,” Nikki said, “keep me out of it. I don’t want to be involved.”
He turned and began walking away.
Nikki pulled her key from her pocket. Her hands were still shaking as she put it in the ignition. She took her helmet from the duffel and was about to pull it on when she heard him speak her name.
Benedetto De Rosa had paused in the yellow light of a window.
“You should stop lying to yourself,” he said. “You are involved.”
Two
Valerio wished he hadn’t worn his good shoes.
It had been pissing rain all afternoon, but as he left work the clouds dissipated and he saw patches of blue. The streets were dry as he walked to his apartment to shower and change. Unfortunately, the pause in the rain had only been the weather god taking a deep breath before a howling tantrum. Valerio was midway across the city when the skies unleashed a biblical flood. Gutters overflowed and cars, maneuvering in the heavy traffic, sluiced walls of water onto pedestrians.
Valerio jogged through the deluge and ducked under the awning of a nearby gelateria, his best shoes ruined. He was joined by three tourists wearing backpacks and sneakers, then a bedraggled woman in heeled boots, and finally, a muttering vagrant hauling his stinking bags.
Valerio opened the dating app and texted an apology for the necessary lateness. Then, while he waited, he scrolled again through the profile. Her name was Maria. Photos showed a lovely face, luminous skin, beautiful eyes with thick lashes, full lips, and long dark hair. He particularly liked one full-body shot displaying a very nice figure in a tightly fitting black dress.
—
The past few months had been the thirstiest of Valerio’s life. He’d always found it easy to attract women—but something had been off since the summer, after the end of his last relationship. He’d met a few women, but some fundamental spark had been missing, and the experiences were forgettable.
Work had kept him busy enough, distracted so he couldn’t brood over the lack in his life. He and his partner, Maurizio, had been working an extortion case for the past few weeks, and they were close tomaking an arrest. But he was tired of eating alone, watching TV alone, going to bed alone.
The dating app had been his daughter Gemma’s suggestion. At work, when he brought it up, Maurizio scoffed at the idea.
“Dating apps are a scam,” he warned. “There are podcasts about it: Only the top ten percent of men see any action at all—the rich ones and the gym rats.”
“I go to the gym,” protested Valerio, who had been making a particular effort lately and proud of it.
“You know what I mean,” said Maurizio. “The twenty-five-year-old gods.”
Valerio conveyed Maurizio’s arguments to Gemma. She rolled her eyes.
“It’s how everybody does it,” she told him with an emphasis bordering on exasperation. “Everybody!”
For his profile, he snapped a picture of himself in the bathroom mirror. He also posted a photo aboard his sailboat,Calypso, and one at the gym. Then he posted another from his cousin’s wedding last year, where he was wearing a suit and looking quite dapper. Within hours, Maria had reached out with a wink emoji.
Her beauty and obvious interest in him did plenty to ease his reservations. After nearly two weeks of increasingly tantalizing texts, he was eager to meet her.
“She’s clearly too good for you,” Maurizio teased. “Wait and see…she’s probably a catfish.”
—
By the time Valerio pushed through the glass doors of the restaurant, his slacks were sopping, toes like cold pebbles inside wet shoes. Despite a last-minute purchase of a flimsy umbrella from a street vendor, rain had invaded his jacket and run down the collar of his shirt. The maître handed him a cloth napkin, and Valerio mopped his face and neck as he followed the server back into the space.
Maria had chosen the location, a restaurant called Cigno, in a good neighborhood. This turned out to be far more elegant than the placeshe’d suggested—local haunts where he could get good pizza and good wine at a good price. The room was dimly lit, the walls black. White-topped tables stood out in individual spotlights—bright flowers on a dark sea. The back wall was uneven slate and hanging plants, with a ceiling-to-floor waterfall. The icy breeze from the waterfall chilled his already wet shirt and he shivered.
