Luca
Igathered up the bruised lemons from the courtyard floor. It was mid-morning, and I was pleased to see the pots holding small trees made it through the storm without cracks. As requested by Dominic, the bullet remained in the plaster above his podium mark. I had looked at it twice this morning before deciding it was not a productive use of my time. I had red beans to cook.
One distraction I had a harder time breaking was watching Thiago work.
He had been moving through the house without interruption since he arrived. Nothing he did suggested haste. He operated at an even, almost meditative pace, but he never stopped.
I heard him on the stairs and then walking the floor above my head. He systematically opened and tested the doors. When he came back down, he tested the courtyard gate twice and examined its hinges with both hands.
He didn’t acknowledge me, and I didn’t interrupt him.
I tried to understand how I felt watching Thiago. It wasn’t territorial. It was more like when you hand someone a book youlove and then watch their face, looking for clues about what they think.
When he finished checking the gate, I said, “You always do that.”
He looked at me.
“Stand where you can see all the exits.”
“Occupational habit.”
“Army?”
“Rangers.”
I nodded once.
“Does it ever turn off?”
A brief pause.
“No,” he said. “It just gets quieter.”
Leaving him to the courtyard and the lemon trees, I returned to the kitchen with coffee in hand. Dominic joined me there.
He poured himself a mug of coffee and headed for the salon. I followed a few steps behind, watching him take stock. He spent three seconds on the taped pane and then longer on the bullet hole. After touching the edges of the hole again with his fingertips, he began arranging music on his podium.
I retrieved a half-baguette with butter at ten. He ate without looking up, tapping his fingers on his thigh, working through a musical phrase only he could hear.
An hour later, he set the score he was working on aside and rolled his shoulders. He reached for his baton case on a small table near the podium. I’d watched him do that a thousand times.
When he opened the lid, the baton lay on a velvet-lined surface. It had a white shaft and a dark handle. He reached in and picked it up.
Dominic paused, and then he rotated the baton between his fingers. He stopped and then rotated it again.
“This isn’t mine.”
My first impulse was skepticism. The baton looked correct, the same length and coloring, with a worn grip. I saw no difference between the current object and what he’d held almost every day for the past seven years.
“It looks—“ I started.
He tapped it on the podium. Then he extended his arm and balanced the baton across two fingers. The shaft leaned slightly toward the handle end.
“My baton balances here.” He indicated a point roughly two-thirds from the tip. “This one balances here.” An inch lower. “Someone copied the appearance but never tested the balance.”
He delivered his conclusion with the precision of a man reading an instrument gauge. He set the baton back in its velvet channel and looked at it for a moment without expression.
“Someone replaced it.”
