SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 9:30 A.M.
Flight AZ 645 bound for JFK banked suddenly over the sea above Fiumicino, sending a fairground thrill and nervous laughter down the aisles.
For a split second, Blume felt weightless. As he looked directly down at bright blue water and imagined himself falling in and slipping under, the back of his throat tightened. Then the wing of the plane came up again, and Ostia slid down the window behind it, into the shimmering dome of heat and smog that covered Rome.
Then the plane started to climb again and move north. After only ten minutes, the coastline of Tuscany was briefly visible. Blume sat bolt upright and craned his head so that he could continue to look back for as long as possible, causing the ache in his neck to return. He ran his tongue over the jagged edges of his soon-to-be-fixed back teeth.
He was chasing after a woman who did not admire him, and leaving behind two junior partners who had both abandoned him in their own ways. First D’Amico, then Paoloni. Maybe there was something wrong with him. Paoloni’s desertion had hurt most. A potential killer, an unreliable partner, a corrupt cop, and-somehow-a friend.
The plane passed over an unfamiliar group of minor islands whose names the other schoolchildren had learned before Blume arrived. Within four months the American kid had mastered the language, within six months he had the accent, too, and they forgot how alien he had once been.
Paoloni was quitting the force. Blume dropped by a few days later. He found his former partner alone in his flat, in a state of deep depression, and left him perhaps even more depressed, but no longer alone. Paoloni said he couldn’t keep a dog for a month without knowing what to call it, and Blume told him he could call it by any name he wanted.
The plane banked again, more gently this time, and leveled out in a northwest direction. Italy was now behind him. He sat forward in his seat.
