“Me, too,” said Davide.
“That isn’t food. It’s sugar,” said Valerio, who, in the ensuing argument, considered that he often had a chocolate cornetto for breakfast.
It was a matter of minutes before he capitulated.
“Okay. Fine. Go get dressed.”
—
It was raining outside. A steady, miserable drizzle. He made everyone carry an umbrella.
At the café, while they ate pastries and looked at their phones, Valerio thought about Ravenna. He was strangely moved by her bravery. She’d been so frightened, had seen the gun in his hand, yet stayed to accuse him of Gaetano’s murder.
“Hey,” said Gemma, looking up from her screen. “Gina and Annalisa are on their way here. Can I hang out with them today?”
“I thought that we would hang out today,” said Valerio. “Just the three of us.”
“But it’s Saturday!” Gemma protested. “Seriously, Babbo!”
Davide looked up. “Actually,” he said, “a bunch of guys are heading to Fabio’s house to play video games. I told them I would come.”
Valerio tipped his empty espresso cup into his mouth, hoping for another drop. Nothing.
“Fine,” he said, setting it back down.
His phone rang. Luca Errichiello. He sent it to voicemail.
“Can I have some money for shopping—and lunch?” said Gemma. “Please?”
“Yeah,” chimed in Davide. “Me, too. And can I get the boots?”
Valerio opened his wallet and distributed the cash.
“We’ll get the boots after my next paycheck,” he promised Davide.
—
Watching them rush out of sight, Valerio was stabbed through with love and fear. He needed to protect them, yet felt the emptiness of his hands.
He sat in the café for another few minutes, then stood and started moving, a weird pressure inside his body propelling him through the misting rain.
He thought about Ravenna, about her probing questions, her drive to investigate:What if we found out what Gaetano knew? If it was important to Errichiello, maybe it’s enough to get him arrested…enough to give you leverage….
The idea glimmered in the darkness of his thoughts. Tempting as it was, Valerio resisted the relief it offered. Every condemned man has the delusion of reprieve.
Digging through the wreckage of Luca’s crimes carried tremendous risk. If Luca found out, he might simply drop the blade. And this wouldn’t just mean exposure and loss of Valerio’s career and pension; Luca had killed Gaetano for whatever he had known.
Valerio’s work had prepared him for the possibility of death, and perhaps that was why he was willing to take the risk. But Luca had made it clear that Davide and Gemma were also in the balance—and that was intolerable. Yet his children were in danger, whether he took action, or waited like a pig penned for butchering.
He had one advantage and it was this: Luca didn’t know him. Not really. Not yet. The longer Valerio waited, the greater the opportunity Luca had to learn about him, to understand his tolerances, to pressure and corrupt him. He was compromised, but he wasn’t corrupt. Not yet.
—
To his surprise, Valerio realized that, like a homing pigeon, he’d returned to his roost: police HQ on Via Medina. He greeted the door guard, took the stairs, and jogged the long hallway to his office. He unlocked the door to familiar odors of rusted metal, stale cigarettes and coffee, sweat, and yesterday’s lunch. It felt empty without the other men. He sat at his desk and logged in to his computer.
He started with Gaetano’s mother, Ines Mancusi, and the man he’d seen in the photograph with her. Valerio flipped through his notepad to find the name Gaetano had given him:Paride Silvestri.
There were a handful of police files on Ines—traffic violations. Apart from two anemic social media accounts, there was little about her online.
