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place enter him.
    His own house was among the highest, almost halfway up the cliffs, and he left the main road and began the winding climb.
     Here and there small, twisted trees and bushes had broken through the rock formations… tired, he thought, from struggling
     to get out to the sun. He understood that. He would not have wanted to stay covered over, either.
    He parked beside his wife’s tiny red Fiat and started up the seventeen curved stone steps that led to the arched entrance
     to his house. As always, he silently counted each step as he took it. He had forgotten when and why he had started the small
     rite. But it had become a kind of talisman for his family’s well-being, a crazy little offering to the gods of good fortune
     that he knew he would probably do until he died.
    A night light was burning in the entrance hall, and he took off his shoes and left them on the tile floor with his bag.
    Upstairs, his son’s bedroom door was open and he quietly went in.
    My son sleeps, he thought, as though he were keeping a secret as desperate as mine. And to him, it undoubtedly was. At the
     age of eight, Paulie was still a secret thumb-sucker. Though not so secret. Asleep, he couldn’t control it, and the thumb
     was in his mouth now. Even awake, he had occasional lapses and the kids hammered him unmercifully.
    Pound for pound my son suffers more real pain without complaint or self-pity than anyone since Jesus, and there’s no way I
     can help him.
    Walters bent and kissed his cheek, feeling the skin still smooth and baby soft against his lips.
    Paul stirred, the thumb instantly out of his mouth.
    “Dad?”
    The whispered word was in English, although he was truly bilingual and could just as easily have awakened in Italian.
    Walters stroked his hair, as silky and blond as Peggy’s had been before she dyed it. Physically, Paul was mostly his mother,
     with the kind of fair, classic good looks that everyone said was wasted on a boy but which Walters hoped he would one day
     learn to use to his advantage. What came from his side was the wide mouth, the deep-set eyes, and the vague hint of melancholy
     that was as much a part of him as his easy smile and hard core of stubbornness.
    When all else failed, it could be a saving grace.
    “Shhh… ,” he said. “Go to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”
    Seconds later, Paulie’s breathing was easy and regular, and his thumb was back in his mouth.
    Peter Walters undressed and showered without waking Peggy. She half awakened and reached for him as he slipped into bed.
    “Aah, this is better,” she sighed, adjusting her body to his. “I hate sleeping alone.”
    He smiled, holding her. “I never knew that.”
    “Everything all right?” she asked.
    “Everything is fine.”
    “Miss me?”
    “Like crazy.”
    “Isn’t that lovely,” she whispered and drifted off, still holding him.
    She had no idea what he had been doing, of course. Although he had once tried to tell her, feeling that much need to share.
    “How much do you love me?” he had asked.
    “As much as it’s possible.”
    “No matter what?”
    “You should know that by now.”
    “Yes, but sometimes there are things that I have to do. They don’t always make me feel very lovable.”
    “If you do them,” she had said, with the absolute certainty of the young, the foolish, or the very much in love, “then it
     can’t be too wrong.”
    “Some might think it is.”
    “Do you?”
    “Sometimes. But even then I believe it has to be done.”
    “Then, it’s all right,” she had said, granting him final absolution.

4
    G IANNI SAT IN the stationwagon about fifty yards down the block from his studio. It was late afternoon and he had been watching the building
     since early morning. He was waiting to see whether there would be any immediate follow-up to Jackson and Lindstrom.
    It was just an ordinary day on the block. People walked quickly and with purpose on the sidewalks. Cars, taxis, and trucks