“What did you say?”

“Nothing. I just looked at him. And him? Nothing, just a look. But it was there, in his face. And the others, the men with him, they don’t understand it at all. Why he’s staring at this woman by Colleoni. Who doesn’t say anything to him either, just a look. And when they start again, I hear one of them say, ‘Who was that?’ And he says, ‘Nobody.’ And one of them turns back to look and I could see he’s thinking, So why did he stop? But how can Maglione explain it? So it’s the beginning. He wants me dead. Gone, anyway. I saw it there, in his face.”

“In one look,” I said, trying to coax her out of it.

“Yes, one look. I know. I’ve seen it before.”

“Maybe you’re overreacting,” I said gently.

“No, the same. You know how I know? Because it frightened me. The way it always did. Like a knife at your throat—so close, when? So now he’s afraid of me, just the sight of me, and I’m afraid of him. We know each other. Maybe it would have been better if I’d never found him. Now how does it end?”

I went over to her. “You go away and live happily ever after.”

“Ha. Leave. So he wins.”

“No, you do. Just forget about him. Look what it does to you, just passing him in the street. You’re all—”

“What?”

“Nerves.”

She shrugged. “No, I’m better now.” She looked out the window again. “And how is he, I wonder?”

“Claudia—”

“I know. Forget it. All right—forgotten.” She brushed the air with her hand. “But I’m still out of work. No job. Nothing.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, coming nearer. “I’ll take care of you.”

“Like a whore.”

“No,” I said, turning her around, lifting her chin with my finger to make her smile. “Like a mistress.”

“Oh, there’s a difference.”

“Mm. More expensive.”

A small smile. “Yes? How much?” she said, playing back.

I kissed her. “Whatever it takes.”

“Any price—how nice for me,” she said.

“How about dinner at the Danieli?”

She pulled back, smiling. “So that’s my price? A dinner at the Danieli.”

“Why not? You don’t get fired every day.”

In the end we settled for a drink at the Danieli. The big gothic dining room was almost deserted, quiet as a church, waiting for tourists and spring. Waiters stood near the wall gazing toward the lobby. The few diners spoke in whispers. Nobody was celebrating anything. We had a Prosecco in the bar and slipped back out to the Riva.

The moon was out and the air was sharp. We held hands going over the bridge to San Marco, still happy to be out of the hushed dining room.

“I’ll talk to Bertie,” I said. “Maybe he can do something.”

“No. Anyway, I don’t want to go back there.”

“Where, then?”

We were strolling past the empty cafés.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go to Murano and make glass. Maybe Quadri’s,” she said, pointing to the frosted windows. “Somebody must do the dishes.”

“Not tonight,” I said, looking in. An old woman in a fur coat, nursing a drink. Two men at the bar.

We went under the arcade and out of San Marco, past the back basin where the gondolas tied up. Guido’s was a small restaurant, cozy in the winter, with windows overlooking the Rio Fuseri and a long antipasto table filling the far end of the room. In the summer it would be filled with foreigners, sent by the big hotels with walking maps, but now it was only half full, romantic with shaded lamps and a pleasant murmuring of Italian.

Claudia saw them first. I was handing the coats to a waiter near the door, the eager maître d’ hovering nearby, and felt her grab my arm. Gianni’s back was to us, so it was my mother who looked up, startled for a second, then smiled.

“Darling, what a surprise. Look, Gianni, it’s Adam.” She stopped, finally taking in Claudia, her eyes darting nervously to the rest of the room, uneasy. “I wish I’d known,” she said in her social voice. She motioned her hand over the table, only big enough for two. “But maybe they can move one.”

Gianni turned in his seat, then got up slowly, hesitant, not sure how to react. It was, as Claudia had said, a kind of fear. But of what? An awkward moment in a restaurant? Her face had hardened, and she was glaring at him. For a few seconds nobody moved, not even the maitre d’, waiting to see how we wanted to be seated.

“Adam,” Gianni said. “You brought her here? Why do you do this?” Annoyed, but keeping his voice even so that no one around us heard anything unusual in it. He looked at Claudia. “What do you want?” he said, almost pleading, exasperated.

“From you, nothing.” She turned, gripping my arm more tightly. “Let’s go.”

“Darling,” my mother said, drawing it out so that it was like a hand reaching over, insistent. She looked around the room again, then at me, a signal to behave. “It’s no trouble. About the table.”

Now her voice reached Gianni, stopping the unguarded look on his face and bringing him back too. He stared at Claudia for another second and then nodded to my mother, trying to please her, or deciding that the only way to deal with the situation was to pretend it wasn’t happening.

“Yes, join us,” he said, a little unsteady, still not sure, but gesturing graciously to the table. “I can recommend the polenta. If you like that.” Now even a polite, forced smile.

“With you, never,” Claudia said, her voice low.

Nearby the maître d’ waited. Gianni looked around. No one was paying attention. We were still just a group of foreigners saying hello.

“But perhaps you would rather be alone with your friend,” he said to me.

“Oh darling, this would be such a chance to talk things out,” my mother started, then stopped, caught by Gianni’s sharp glance, the first time I had ever seen him look at her this way.

“Grace,” he said, cutting her off.

“Is that what you want?” I said. “To talk about things? Old times?”

Before he could answer, Claudia said something in Italian, her voice still low but edgy, even the sound of it unpleasant. Gianni’s face clouded. The couple at the next table looked up.

“Adam, don’t,” my mother said. “Please.”

“She lost her job today,” I said to her, then looked again at Gianni. “Want to talk about getting it back?”

“Why Gianni?” my mother said. “What are you talking about?”

“Tell her,” I said to Gianni.

Claudia said something more in Italian, rapid-fire, too fast to catch. Gianni’s face darkened again.

“Enough,” he said in English. “First the father, now your job. Everything that goes wrong in your life you blame on me? Why?”

“You made the call, didn’t you?” I said. “Tell her.” I nodded to my mother, then put my hand on Claudia’s back, ready to go.

“Listen to me,” Gianni said before I could turn, almost in an undertone, just English to the rest of the room. “We are almost finished. We will take our coffee elsewhere. Sit over there with your friend. In a few minutes we’ll be gone. No scenes.”

“Do you think I would stay in the same room with you?” Claudia said to him in English.

“I am sorry for your confusion,” he said deliberately. “A misunderstanding. Some other time we will discuss it.”

“Darling, do please stop,” my mother said. “I don’t know what this is all about. Gianni doesn’t even know her. I told you.”

“Is that right?” Claudia said to him. “You don’t remember me? Shall I describe it for her?”

“Adam, you can see what she’s like,” Gianni said. “Take another table. People are beginning to look.”

“You don’t remember her?” I said.

“Go to the table,” he said in a hard whisper.

“That’s right. You forget things. You don’t remember her father either, your friend from med school. Do you remember the Villa Raspelli? Your friends there? I found somebody today who remembers you.”

“Adam, really—” my mother said, but the rest of it faded, only a sound in the background, because at that instant I saw Gianni’s face shift. Not just a scowl, a narrowing of the eyes, but a look of such pure hatred that for a second I couldn’t breathe, trapped in it, the way a victim must feel just at the end. He wanted me dead. In that one look I saw that everything Claudia had said was true, that he was capable of it. What I hadn’t seen in the photographs or behind the smiles over a lunch table: the eyes of someone who could kill. Steadily, without hesitation, just getting something out of the way. And then it was gone—the eyes blinked, adjusting themselves.