The bag also held things it hadn’t carried on previous assignments. I had what I brought to New Orleans for a two-week leave as well as what I added while working for Dominic.
It held a pair of linen trousers bought on Magazine Street and a light blue shirt with narrow white stripes that Luca had held up in the shop and declared acceptable for daylight. I had a second shirt the color of dark olive leaves, and I’d also acquired a pair of soft leather shoes that had replaced the boots I arrived in.
I’d packed the shirts myself after Luca had folded them.
I stood over the bag after the zipper had closed. Then I picked it up and carried it downstairs.
The kitchen smelled of coffee and citrus. The courtyard windows were open, and the fountain gurgled steadily.
Dominic was at the counter with one hand resting on it. An unopened bottle of Armagnac stood beside him. He was looking out toward the lemon trees, and he didn’t turn when I carried the go-bag out of the kitchen to the front door.
“I waited twenty years,” he said, “for the city to properly mark something that mattered.”
I returned to join him. His voice was entirely calm.
“I do not recommend waiting as a solid plan.”
“I’m familiar with the story,” I said.
He turned and studied me with the pale, unblinking gaze he used on scores that weren’t yet right. “I’m not telling you the story,” he said. “I’m giving you a data point.”
He reached for the Armagnac and poured a small measure into the glass beside it. “I have,” he said, “in the course of a long life, made errors in timing I cannot change. Not from cowardice.” He lifted the glass. “From the habit of believing there would always be more time.”
He took one small sip.
“You are thirty-eight years old and in good health, and there is a man in this house who made red beans on Monday while you were reading about Loire Valley architecture and who checked your bandage at seven this morning without being asked.”
“He checked it at six-forty.”
Dominic nodded once. “Even more impressive commitment.”
He set the glass down.
“While preparing for the concert,” he said. “And during my life after the concert, the epilogue, as it were, I was wrong about several things.” He turned to look at me directly. “Luca is not one of them.”
He walked past me toward the stairs. At the first step, he paused.
“The lemon trees want water. Luca will be back from Camille’s at four.”
Then he climbed the stairs.
The kitchen clock ticked once. I looked at the go-bag beside the door. I picked it up and carried it back upstairs.
The bedroom windows were open. August had not yet softened into September in any way that mattered; the air moved through the room warm and slow, lifting the linen curtains once and letting them fall.
I set the bag on the chair and unzipped it. The Glock came out first. I laid it on the dresser. Then the passport and the cash envelope followed by the trauma kit.
The new shirts stayed in the bag while I looked at them. Then I lifted the blue-striped one, the one Luca had chosen without asking, and ran my hand once across the fabric before setting it on the bed.
When the bag was empty, I folded it flat and slid it under the bed. The room looked the same.
I went downstairs and filled the watering can at the courtyard tap. The stones held the afternoon’s heat, and the lemon trees cast thin shadows along the far wall. I moved slowly from tree to tree, with the sling pulling against my shoulder each time I bent forward. The ache beneath the brace had become familiar enough that I often ignored it.
When I finished the last tree, I sat beside the fountain. I stayed there until the courtyard gate opened.
Luca stepped inside, carrying a paper bag from Camille’s café. I followed him inside, and he offered me a pale green macaron. After I took one, he continued walking into the salon.
He looked at the front door. The go-bag was not there.
