“Green tote bag on her left shoulder,” Luca said. “She stopped for nineteen, twenty seconds. She had the angle on Dominic before she had it on you.”
Luca looked at me.
“You said nothing.”
“Right.”
“At the table.”
“Dominic was there.” A pause. “And I wanted to see if you’d catch it.”
“I did.”
“She was mapping who surrounded him,” he said.
He moved his chair toward me, reached across and set his hand over mine where it rested on the bedspread.
Eamon would arrive tomorrow.
The gas lamps on St. Charles came on one by one through the oaks, amber and steady. After a moment, Luca stood, walked to the window, and watched the garden for a few seconds as if checking that the evening had settled properly. Then he came back and sat beside me on the edge of the bed.
Close, but not touching.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” he said.
“About the woman?”
“No.” He glanced down at his hands. “About me.”
I waited.
“For the first few days you were here,” he said, “I kept thinking you reminded me of someone.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“I wasn’t sure yet.” A small smile. “It took me a while to place it.”
He leaned back on his hands and looked up at the ceiling.
“When I was thirteen,” he said, “my mother took me to hear Dominic conduct for the first time.”
I turned slightly toward him.
“She’d worked with him before. Small things. Copy work and rehearsal logistics. That sort of thing. She told me I could sit in the back if I stayed quiet.”
He paused.
“I’d seen nothing like it. Not the orchestra or the control.”
He lifted one hand and made a small circling motion in the air.
“Hundreds of people in that room watched him breathe.”
“And you liked that.”
“I loved it.” A beat. “Not because I wanted to be him.”
“What then?”
