“What about Ugo?” Big Paolo asked. “We’re not gonna leave him here?”

“Forget Ugo,” Marcello said. “Look at him, he’s dead.”

Am I really? Ugo wondered as the pink haze darkened and the tunnel walls squeezed slowly in.

Officer Favaretto waited in the open doorway of Comandante Boldini’s office while his chief finished his not-so-polite conversation with the mayor of Stresa, who could be seen through the window, gesticulating in his own office just across the Corso.

“I can’t help that, Mr. Mayor,” Boldini was shouting into the telephone. “I know there’s a French tour bus on your front steps, all I have to do is look out my window to see it. Have you looked at my parking lot? You don’t seem to understand, we’re going to have to get a crane in there, for God’s sake, and police business will have to come first. We-” He paused, fuming, holding the receiver away from his ear and rolling his eyes. “Well, that’s too bad, but you’ll just have to wait,” he said abruptly and slammed down the receiver. He wiped a wadded handkerchief around the inside of his stiff, braided collar and stared blackly at the telephone. “Some people,” he muttered. “Does he think I’m Superman?”

Favaretto tapped gingerly at the pebbled glass pane of the door. “Comandante?”

Boldini hauled himself up and used both hands to hitch his pants up over his spreading hips. A bad sign. Here it comes, Favaretto thought sourly. Because I tried to do something, this whole thing is going to get blamed on me. Next time I’ll just pretend I never saw anything and stay the hell out of it. Sadly, it wasn’t the first time he’d been driven to make such a promise to himself.