to show he wasn’t an easy target, but didn’t stare long enough to invite a challenge. Conversations began again and he ordered a Coke from the skinny barmaid and sat down on a stool, shifting his weight a few times to get comfortable on the hard seat. An old man two stools along asked if he had a light. Victor shook his head.
He sipped his drink and waited. He had his back to the rest of the bar, but the corner tables were all occupied and a huge mirror behind the bar let him keep an eye on his flanks.
It took a few minutes before someone took a stool next to him. The man was short, slightly overweight, with thick arms and a dark, unkempt beard. He was somewhere in his fourth decade and judging by the deep yellow nicotine stains on his hands and teeth Victor didn’t give him more than a couple more.
‘I hear you’re looking for Giordano,’ the man said, without looking at Victor.
‘He’s a hard man to track down. Do you know where I can find him?’
‘I know so many things I fear my brain is not large enough to hold them all.’
‘Where might I find him?’
‘It pains me to say that you cannot. But I am a helpful soul and will fetch him for you. He is terribly shy of strangers, you understand.’
Victor didn’t believe what he was being told for a second. If the bearded man told Victor where to find Giordano, his own usefulness would have been cut short. By keeping Victor in the dark he kept himself as middleman and maintained his profit margins.
Victor opened his wallet and thumbed through the hundred-euro notes inside. He took out one and laid it on the bar, but kept a finger on it.
‘Tell me where I can find Giordano.’
The man reached for the money, but Victor slid it away from his eager fingers.
‘Where?’ Victor asked.
The man grunted. ‘That’s not how these things progress. Let me unburden you of that ugly piece of paper and I can introduce you to him.’
‘Very well.’ Victor slid the note from the bar and placed it back inside his wallet. ‘When can you arrange such an introduction?’
‘How does tomorrow sound to you?’
‘Too late,’ Victor said, understanding the game.
‘Alas, these arrangements take time,’ the man said.
‘And money?’ Victor placed two hundred-euro notes on the bar. ‘How about you take me to him now?’
The bearded man said, ‘That sounds perfectly amicable.’
They walked through the Piazza Maggiore. Locals and tourists sat around the grand square, enjoying the sun and Bologna’s friendly atmosphere while pigeons jostled for crumbs and flapped out of the path of charging children. The piazza was fronted on all sides by buildings dating back to the Middle Ages. To the south, Victor could see the Basilica di San Petronio dominating the square. Its huge facade was composed of elegantly constructed blocks of white and red stone with elaborate carvings and archways at the bottom. Above, however, it was merely topped by crude bare bricks. The result was bizarre to most, horrible to some, but Victor found it strangely appealing — the mix of the beautiful and the ugly.
The bearded man maintained a slow walking pace and smoked cigarettes the whole way, lighting a fresh one while the dying embers of the previous still glowed in the gutter. Victor tried to stay away from the smoke as much as he could because it was the sweetest aroma he’d smelled in a long time and one that tested his resolve. The city streets were narrow and notably absent of trees — the one mark he gave against Bologna’s beauty. The bearded man led him through several of the meandering porticos and Victor realised the route they were taking was just as meandering. He was happy to play along and enjoy viewing the array of old terracotta buildings they passed. Modern architecture was rare in Bologna and the city felt as though time had stood still within its walls while the world changed around it.
Eventually they passed beyond what remained of the medieval walls surrounding the historic centre and out of the time sink. The streets became more crowded, the traffic louder, the lights brighter. The bearded man led Victor for another fifteen minutes before they veered off into an alleyway that ran along the back of a row of restaurants.
‘This is where we part ways,’ the bearded man said, taking the cigarette from his lips. ‘It’s been a pleasure. Now, just walk up there and round the corner.’
He pointed and held out his hand.
‘Giordano?’
‘That would be far too easy, would it not? You’ll find a newspaper under a wooden box. Find the puzzle page. In the crossword is a time and a place. Farewell.’
The air was warm. Music from a nearby bar drifted over him. Victor walked slowly, gaze sweeping over the area, but there was nothing to concern him. He found the box and the paper and folded the puzzle page into his pocket.
The low sun made Victor reach for his shades as he walked back into central Bologna. He passed through the crowds, unnoticed, unremembered. When he had been young he’d wanted everyone to look at him. Now, if anyone did, they were his enemy until proved otherwise.
He used the city’s punctual buses to get around. For some reason, taxis didn’t seem to stop when hailed. Victor spent an hour swapping between buses, before heading to the train station where he sat on a platform bench, thumbing through a classic car magazine. When the eighteen-fifty train to Rome arrived he waited until eighteen-forty-eight before boarding. A few people boarded after him.
On the train, he stood in the vestibule, his hand on the door, counting each passing second. Through the window, he watched for the attendant on the platform give the train driver the all-clear, then he flung the door open and jumped out. He slammed it shut behind him and heard it lock a moment later.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the attendant shake his head. Victor ignored him, looked back and forth along the platform.
No one else had disembarked.
The cafe was small, elegant, with round white tables and stools instead of chairs. The walls were smooth and white with lots of mirrors. Victor liked that. For once he could sit anywhere he chose and with mere flicks of his eyes see the entrance, counter, restroom doors, even the long, perfectly toned legs of the blonde sitting to his right. Though the distraction the latter caused was certainly more of a hindrance than a benefit.
The scent of freshly ground coffee perfumed the air. The establishment was spacious but full, vibrant and noisy. Victor sat with a newspaper spread out before him and a tall glass of orange juice sitting next to it. Condensation beads hung from the glass. The hands on the clock above the counter said that it was nine p.m. He would give it another ten minutes, enough time to explain some bad traffic. If he hadn’t shown by that time then it would be too bad.
He came through the door as Victor was finishing off the last of the orange juice. He looked the same as he always had — slim, tanned, blond, flawlessly groomed, perpetually young, unshakably confident, impossibly good looking.
He smiled at Victor as he approached and said, ‘Vernon, my favourite shark, come all the way to Bologna to see me. This whole city is honoured by your presence.’
‘A shark?’
The blond man sat down opposite. ‘It seems to me the metaphor fits quite aptly. I was thinking about it on the way here.’ He leaned closer and whispered, ‘You swim undetected through the ocean, strike without warning and then disappear back into the depths, unseen but always feared.’
‘Nice imagery,’ Victor said, without inflection.
‘I know, right?’
‘You’re late, Alberto.’
Alberto Giordano shrugged, didn’t say anything, the action itself the explanation for his tardiness.
‘I almost left,’ Victor continued.
‘And not see me? Preposterous. People always wait for me.’ Giordano’s smile suddenly disappeared as he noticed Victor’s right hand was under the table. ‘What’s that about, Vernon?’
‘What do you think?’
Giordano made a face. ‘Such bad manners. I thought we were past all that nonsense. If I’m so threatening,
