“The National Antimafia Directorate.”

“Yes. And do you know what is here, what we do?”

I felt the urge to say Mafia hunting? I ignored it, kept quiet.

“We are prosecutors,” she said. “You understand?”

“Yes, I’m a lawyer.”

“Okay, so you understand. We do not answer questions, we prosecute. We do not give out information.”

“Well, where would I get information? I mean, is there…” What was I looking for exactly? A Mafia museum? “…a place to do research about someone from the United States, someone I know who was working on a case involving the Camorra and then-” I was about to say died, but instead said, “-disappeared.”

“Not here.” She gave a brusque shake of her head. “You will not get that information here.”

She gestured at the door. The carabiniere stepped forward, ushering me toward the door and back through the courtyard. Once again, I found myself standing outside the building.

And that, apparently, was that.

I stood another moment, looking at the door. I was about to turn away when it clicked open. I expected to see the carabiniere frowning, telling me to move along or whatever they say in Italian, but instead a young man stepped outside. He looked about my age. He had sandy-brown hair and gleaming blue eyes. Unlike the carabiniere’s and the woman’s, those eyes were smiling.

“You said you were here for what?” he asked.

When I hesitated, he pointed to the camera above the door. “They are everywhere in the building. We see and hear everything.”

“Oh,” I said, a little uncomfortable, “I was just here to ask some questions…”

“Come,” he said, gesturing away from the camera. We took a few steps up the street. He nodded at me, encouraging me to continue.

As I spoke, the man nodded, his eyes gleamed some more. “You are in Roma for how long?” He smiled, showing lots of teeth.

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, come.” He waved an arm up the street. “Let us take a coffee, and we will talk.”

He didn’t ask my name. But then, he’d heard everything I’d said at the office. He already knew that. Still, I offered my hand. “Isabel McNeil.”

He shook it, bowing slightly. “Alberto Giani.”

He began walking, sort of casually strolling. Hesitantly, I followed. I was here to ask questions, after all, and hopefully, he was here to give me answers.

We walked to the Campo de’ Fiori, a big piazza that hopped at night with tourists since it was lined with bars like the Drunken Ship and Sloppy Sam’s. But in the morning, aside from the fruit and vegetable markets, many establishments were closed. The smell of old cheese wafted through the piazza and newspapers blew haphazardly.

I looked at Alberto. He smiled again, gestured at one of the places that was open. We went inside. Patrons stood at the bar, sipping, or in some cases sipping-disguised-as-slugging, from white cups topped with foam.

Alberto stepped up to the cashier and ordered two cappuccinos.

“No, no,” I said, moving beside him. “Tea, per piacere.”

“Tea?” both the cashier and Alberto repeated. They both pronounced it like tay.

“Sí,” I said. “Decaffeinated, please.”

Now they both stared at me with puzzled faces.

“Decaffeinato,” I said. Since I’d been out of work, I’d noticed that the caffeine in my usual green tea was making me jittery, as if my body didn’t have enough daily running-around-stress to soak it all up. So, I’d switched to decaf. It wasn’t much fun to be a decaf tea drinker, I’d found, at least not when you went to a coffee shop. The clerks always looked disappointed at the order. There were usually only a few lame selections, like chamomile or lavender, to choose from. But if I felt marginalized as a decaffeinated tea drinker in the U.S., I knew Italy would be fifty times worse, and so before I’d left, I’d learned to say decaf in Italian.

Almost defensively, I repeated it now. “Decaffeinato.”

Alberto nodded, as if to say, Okay, then, and he and the cashier had a flurried, indecipherable conversation before the cashier seemed to cave.

When we sat on barstools near the window, I thanked him for talking to me and launched into my questions about the Camorra.

But he wasn’t responding. Or suddenly, I realized, he wasn’t listening. He was just bobbing his head, his gaze bobbing somewhere lower than mine.

“Can you help me with this kind of thing?” I asked, bending down a little to try and catch his eyes. “Can you tell me about the Camorra?”

He gave what seemed a blasé shrug. “There are some Camorra in Rome, but mostly they are in Napoli. You want the Camorra, you go to Napoli. But you no want the Camorra. So, what do you do in America? For a job?”

“Well, you heard me in the office, right? I’m a lawyer.” I didn’t feel much like a lawyer right now, but hoped it would lend me some cred.

“What kind of lawyer?”

“Entertainment.”

His eyes went big. He named a few pop bands from America. “You are their lawyer?”

“No. Look, if I wanted to find out about someone in the United States who was working on something long ago, maybe something involving the Camorra, could you help me with that?”

“How long ago was this person working on it?” he asked, although he didn’t sound particularly interested.

“Almost twenty-two years.”

He gave me that big Italian shrug. “Twenty-two years? Ah!” He shook his head, leaned in a little. “So. Where are you staying in Roma?”

I was about to mention the name of the hotel, but something made me lie. “The Hassler,” I said, naming a hotel atop the Spanish Steps.

“Ah, Hassler! They charge too much for drinks, but the courtyard…” He snapped his fingers. “Bellissimo! Have you been to the courtyard?”

I squeezed my lips together, trying to figure him out. What was with all the personal questions? “Not yet,” I muttered finally.

“We will go.” He gestured between the two of us, then cocked his head to one side and looked at me. “You are how many years?”

“Excuse me?”

“You are twenty-five years?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“You have a boyfriend?” he asked.

And suddenly I got it. He was hitting on me. At last-an Italian guy who still knew how to chase women no matter what the circumstances.

I flashed a smile. “No. No boyfriend.” I leaned in, and then I charged forward with my questions.

But the guy couldn’t be budged. By the time he’d finished downing his cappuccino, he was already trying to get me back to his apartment.

“I can’t,” I said. “Thank you. Can you tell me anything about the Camorra?”

He made a hand-waving gesture. “I already tell you. The Camorra is in Napoli. You want the Camorra, you go to Napoli.”

“But they prosecute them here, right? The directorate does?”

“Sí. Here and in Napoli. But I am not prosecutor.”

“Then what is your job?” I waited to hear detective, investigator, something like that.

“I am notary.”

“You’re a notary?” I leaned back, deflated.

“Yes. Yes, I am.” Now, he was the one who sounded defensive. “Notary here is much bigger job than in the United States. It is an honorable position.”

“I’m sure it is. But do you work with the Mafia at all?”

“Not so much.” He beamed at me, flashed his teeth. “You meet me tonight?”

I pushed my tea away. “Not so much.”

Ten minutes later, I was back at the hotel, alone and with no questions answered. I would have to keep going back to one source for them-Elena.

I looked at my watch and figured Palazzo Colonna was open for the day. My aunt would be at work, and it was time for more questions about this Camorra business and my dad. It all seemed too bizarre that my grandmother was Camorra, my grandfather had been killed by Camorra members, my father had been looking into a pair of brothers who were Camorra when he died, and I had been chased by another alleged Camorra member and saved, I thought, by my father.