Chapter 54

WHEN WE COME TO the door to my building, I turn and thank Giovanni.

“How long have you worked for the café?” I ask.

He smokes the last of his cigarette and tosses it down onto the cobbles instead of into the garbage-infested canal which is only a few feet away.

“Why do you ask, Captain?” he poses, the smoke gently escaping out his mouth and nose.

In my head I’m hearing Alessandra Betti: “Who, prior to yourself, was the last man to touch the ring?”

“The owners are generous to you. They give you a lot of time off.”

He cocks his head over his left shoulder.

“They are very generous indeed. But this is Italy, Captain. Not America. We are not so obsessed with making money.” Working up his now-characteristic smile, which I characterize as decidedly false. “We are more concerned with la dolce vita.”

“Of course,” I say, the first signs of total gray beginning to mask my vision. In a few moments I will be blind again. But in the blindness, I will begin to see things. Things having to do with the disappearance of my Grace.

“The good life,” I add.

“Yes, the good life.”

I unlock the door, step inside, and close it behind me.

“The good life,” I whisper to myself. “The. Good. Life.”