"Where am I taking you, Deputy Captain?"

"To police headquarters. And this time put on that fucking siren."

Alberti drove fast, and every time he dared to slow at an intersection, Colomba urged him on.

They got to Via San Vitale just as Santini's car was pulling through the police headquarters security barrier.

Colomba jumped out and waved her police ID in the guard's face. When Santini opened the car door to get out, she was standing in front of him.

"Caselli? What the fuck do you want?"

She kicked him in the face. She caught him square on the chin with the tip of her boot, and Santini fell back into the car, literally seeing stars.

"Get near Torre again, and I'll hurt you," Colomba said.

"Have you lost your mind?" he demanded, slurring the words as he grabbed the door frame and tried to get back on his feet. But he was like a punch-drunk boxer; his hands weren't responding.

"You heard me."

Two uniformed officers came running on the double, even though it had all been so quick that no one really knew what had happened. Colomba was already walking toward the front entrance. From behind her, Santini started shouting, but she didn't stop to listen to what he had to say.

8.

Minutillo drove Dante home and went upstairs with him, because he knew his presence would make it easier for him to face the stairs. The whole long way up they talked about trivial topics, keeping Dante's mind as far as possible from the forest and from the silo. Dante refused to tell him what had happened in the bathroom, and Minutillo knew that it was pointless to insist.

As they went up the stairs, Dante's mood improved, and once they reached his apartment he seemed to be his usual wry self. What struck Minutillo was the chaos. A functional chaos, with paths clearly marked out between the objects piled on the floor and reasonably clean, but still a sign that Dante had been living as a recluse for too long. The lawyer made a mental note to check on his friend's living conditions more frequently, no matter how witty or relaxed he might seem over the phone. "Don't you think it's time to tidy up a little?" he asked.

"I haven't exceeded the warning level yet. See? The clutter hasn't reached the stove." He went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him, stripped his clothes off, and took a shower. They spoke through the bathroom door.

"Make yourself an espresso if you want," said Dante.

"Never after five in the afternoon. I need my sleep. What happened to the cleaning woman?"

"She's gone. She was a woman of narrow views."

"You could have told me and I'd have found you another one."

"I hate to make you look bad with the agencies." Dante scrubbed his skin. He could still detect the reek of piss, but maybe that was just a trick of his mind. He turned off the water. "It's not the first time."

"I always tell them that you're an eccentric . . ."

"Then find me one who doesn't know Italian. That way I won't have to hide my documents."

"What about that girl you were seeing? What's her name . . ." the lawyer asked, though he'd already guessed the answer.

"She's gone, too. And you can't contact the employment agency to find me another one of those."

"I'm sorry to hear it. What went wrong?"

"She was a woman of narrow views."

"You've already used that excuse."

"Oh, really?" Dante opened the bathroom door in a charcoal gray bathrobe and tossed his dirty clothes into an overflowing laundry hamper. "Maybe I should burn them." He sprawled out on the sofa, legs propped over the armrest. Remembering that Alberti had assumed that same position just a few hours earlier, he sat up straight again. Alberti seemed like too much of a loser for him to think of imitating him.

Minutillo remained standing. "I'm worried about you," he said. "You don't go out and you never see anyone. And now this thing . . ."

"What thing?"

"Don't be a fool."

"Roberto . . . I was already pretty sure that the Father was still alive, and now I just have proof. It doesn't change a lot as far as I'm concerned."

"It changes everything, actually."

"I've survived so far, and I'll go on living. Every now and then, I admit, I'll think about that boy, who's going through what I went through, but maybe he'll be luckier."

"Why don't you take a trip somewhere? You don't mind traveling by train. Or else hire a driver."

Dante giggled. "Or maybe just post two armed guards outside the door?"

Minutillo didn't bat an eye. "I can arrange that."

"I'm not a child anymore, I no longer constitute his type of prey."

"We don't know what constitutes his type of prey."

"Everyone thinks I'm the only one he kidnapped and that now he's dead."

"You don't. So neither do I."

Dante waved a hand. "Time for you to go, I want to mix up some pharmaceuticals and alcohol. And I can't do it with you watching."

"What about the cop who assaulted you?"

"He'll get off, the way cops always do when they step over the line."

"Especially when you don't bother to file a complaint."

"I'll get even with him sooner or later, even if I don't yet know how. I never forget, and you know that."

Minutillo picked up his overcoat from the floor, where Dante had dropped it, and folded it. "I saw the scattered packages. New items for your collection?"

"It's not a collection, it's an homage to things past."

"Make sure you don't get buried in it."

Dante waited for the horrible sound of the elevator winching down its shaft, then promptly shed his relaxed demeanor. He shot to his feet and switched off the light. The wall of glass turned brilliant, sketching arabesques on the floor. Beyond the glow of the streetlamps loomed the silhouette of the building across the street. Dante waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness, then pulled the curtains, leaving only a narrow crack, and stuck his head through that. Now he could see a slice of the neighborhood spreading out behind the reflected image of his own face.

The Father was out there, somewhere.

Dante was still his prisoner, and now the cage was as big as the world.

9.

While Dante was turning out the light and hoping that a monster would gaze back at him, Colomba had just been dropped off outside her mother's apartment building. She'd called her on the way back, and her mother's tone was so unmistakably wounded at not having received so much as a phone call in the previous two days that Colomba had decided to move up their weekly dinner together.

Alberti looked at her like a dog that's been beaten as he opened the car door for her. "I'm calling in sick tomorrow, Deputy Captain. I really feel wrecked."

"Inform your superior officer."

"You're my superior officer."

"Not since I stepped out of the patrol car." And that's to say nothing of the fact that I kicked a fellow cop in the face, she thought to herself. "Give my regards to Captain Rovere."

"Well, see you around, Deputy Captain," said Alberti.

Colomba smiled, and Alberti realized what a good-looking face she had. "Be a good boy," she told him. "Otherwise you'll wind up like me."

Colomba's mother lived in an eighteenth-century palazzo right behind Piazza dell'Orologio, in the heart of the historical center. The apartment was a bequest of her husband, who'd died many years before, and he had in turn inherited it from his father, one of the remaining relics of a family with quarters of nobility that had been squandered along with almost the entire family fortune.

Her mother was sixty years old, had the same eyes as Colomba, and was heavily made up, with blue highlights. When she opened the door, she was wearing a pair of jeans and a white polo shirt, as well as a pair of earrings that Colomba had given her for Christmas. She pointed to them after kissing Colomba hello. "Did you see that I wear them?"

"I saw, thanks."

"But you're filthy . . . Have you been out in the fields?"

Colomba unlaced her muddy police boots and took them off, along with her damp socks. Ignoring the slippers her mother was holding out to her, she walked barefoot over the marble floor. Something she'd loved to do ever since she was a girl. "Yes."

Her mother's face lit up. "Have you gone back to work?"

"No, Mamma. I'm still on leave."

Her mother grimaced in disappointment and unsubtly shifted her gaze to the photograph of Colomba taking the oath that hung by the front door. "Do you see how good you looked that day?"

"Young and foolish."

"Don't say such a thing," her mother said in a scandalized voice. She led her to the kitchen, where the table was set for one. "I've already eaten."

Colomba sat down. "Hey, wait . . . if you're going to invite me over for dinner, you could at least eat with me, don't you think?"

"I've been snacking all day, I'm not hungry." She set a glass down in front of Colomba and poured her some wine from the same bottle she'd opened for her the week before. "I got you something from the deli that just opened downstairs. It's really good. Unbelievably expensive but good."

"Thanks."

Her mother served her some veal with tuna-caper sauce from an aluminum tray. A solitary caper bobbed in the watery sauce. Colomba ate in silence, and her mother stood watching her.

"I was just thinking, though, that you look good. You seem to be in good shape, don't you? You're not limping anymore."

"Every so often my knee still hurts me," said Colomba.

"But I can see that you're better."

Colomba put down her fork, not actually banging it on the table but almost. "So?"

"So if you run into a colleague, what are they going to think?"

"That I'm a lucky girl. It's not like in the movies, Mamma. If the cops I work with can get out of anything, they do."

"All of them?"

"No, not all of them. But it's a job, it's not a calling." Colomba started eating again. And, she added mentally, if I ever had that calling, I've lost it. "And most of the time it'll bore you to tears."

"What you do isn't boring."

"If winding up in the hospital is the price you pay for interesting work, then long live boredom."

"Still, you can return to duty whenever you want, can't you?" Her mother said "return to duty" as if she were reading a script from a cop show. "All you have to do is tell them you're better."

"It's a little more complicated than that."

"But you could, couldn't you?"

Colomba sighed. "Yes, I could. But I'm not going to."

"And when are you planning to return to duty?"

"Never. I'm turning in my resignation."

Colomba had planned to tell her in some more diplomatic way, but it just came out that way. Her mother turned toward the stove, where the greasy paper sack from the deli sat on the cold burner. "Ah."

Colomba knew that the best thing she could do was ignore her, but still she demanded, "Ah what, goddamn it? Mamma?"