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you’re eating alone when you have the bartender to exchange small talk with.
    I ordered a martini with Russian vodka and Giancarlo came over to tell me the specials. It occurred to me I’ve never looked at his regular menu. He was pushing a wild boar stew, which I ordered with a grilled octopus salad to start. He recommended a glass of a Barbera he’d just got in. I said that would be fine. The first night, he and Victoria conspired to stick me with a $475 bottle of Barolo, but since then, he and I have reached a more reasonable understanding about wine. The octopus was delicious, the stew even more so. The wine was good, not in a league with the Barolo, but neither, I assumed, was the price. I enjoyed my meal while I replayed the events of West Forty-eighth Street.
    Leitz was right to be concerned. Someone was after his secrets. They’d tried the brute-force electronic attack; when that didn’t work they’d resorted to an old-fashioned approach, just as I’d done. These were sophisticated, high-tech crooks—but crooks first. Early November, Timid had told me, he’d been approached. He hadn’t wanted to describe the men who’d threatened, then bribed, him to install the first computer bug. He was deliberately vague on height, hair color, girth, dress, accent. His friend, Bold, professed not to have seen them. I wondered where they’d learned the tricks of their trade, and secured the descriptions with another two hundred dollars.
    One was an ordinary-looking man, medium height, brown hair, plain features—anglo, of course—wearing a puffy, dark blue jacket over khaki pants and running shoes. He did all the talking—he described the trading room layout and told Timid exactly where to place the device. That suggested an inside connection—Leitz had more problems than he knew. The other man scared both of them. Also anglo, very tall, ugly, mean. He didn’t say a word, but they could tell. Buckteeth, fading hair, pockmarked skin, and a look that conveyed how he’d happily eat their entrails while he raped their wives and daughters. Timid had been quick to agree to their proposition.
    As I rethought it now, however, over stew and red wine, I realized I’d sized it up wrong, too quick to jump to conclusions. Ninety minutes earlier, back on West Forty-eighth Street, they had confirmed my belief about carrots over sticks. I knew better than that. Timid and Bold were double-dipping—take my money, sell out the first guys, then extract another fee from the first guys by selling me out as well, ratting how I was interested in the same setup. The price of the Repin had gone up. Time to watch my back.
    The restaurant crowd had thinned when I finished my dinner. The city may never sleep, but Upper East Siders who can afford Trastevere have Wall Street battles to fight in the morning. Giancarlo came over to chat. He asked, as always, if I’d heard anything from Victoria. I shook my head.
    “Don’t worry, my friend, she’ll be back.”
    “I keep hoping you’re right.”
    “Only a matter of time. You’ll see. What you and she had—no woman can stay away from that.”
    “It was that obvious?”
    “Signore, I’m Italian. And I am not blind.”
    He filled my glass. “On me.” He went to help some departing diners with their coats.
    I sipped my wine and thought about what he had said and whether what we had was indeed stronger than her need, as she put it, not to have her heart broken. A restaurateur as successful as Giancarlo learned to be a shrewd judge of character. Better than I was, I hoped. Of course, he didn’t know I’d all but driven her out the door.
    She had lots of reasons, she kept saying, for not getting too close. I focused too much on all the reasons I was giving her . In retrospect, maybe she was sending a signal that had more to do with her than me. Maybe it wasn’t my doing after all, her abrupt departure. I thought again, for the hundredth time, whether if given the chance, I could change