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sternly.
    She dropped Jacob Mahler off outside the small house she’d rented for him in the Coppedè district, near Corso Trieste. It was Mahler himself who’d requested it. He wanted to sleep in one of those bizarre, menacing-looking buildings full of strange faces, masks, crenellations, turrets, lilies, roses and vines intertwined beneath the pointed rooftops.
    Well, if that’s what he wants. …
    Beatrice rests her head against the car window. She’s tired. The cold glass feels good against her cheek. It freezes out her most troubling thoughts. She was expecting a lot from this day, and she has the feeling she didn’t get much out of it. Not that she thought “the great Jacob Mahler” would be more easygoing, but she’sdisappointed by the man’s pointless arrogance and by how she let her thoughts get muddled.
    Jacob Mahler is tremendously self-confident and incredibly cold.
    They say he’s one of the very best professional killers in the whole world.
    Inside the Mini is a lingering trace of his violet-scented cologne.
    Beatrice shuts her eyes and thinks back to how they said goodbye.
    “What should I tell Joe Vinile?” Beatrice asked, dropping him off outside the house. A wrought iron gate spiked with sharp points. Balconies resting on the backs of ancient mythological figures.
    “Tell him we’ll meet tomorrow at eleven past eleven.”
    “Here?” Snowflakes were clinging to her hair like little white spiders.
    He shook his head, looking at her with his piercing, light-colored eyes. He nodded toward the house. “I’m not here. Nobody’s here.”
    I’m such an idiot
, thought Beatrice.
No one’s supposed to know that Jacob Mahler’s here in Rome
.
    “We’ll see you at Joe’s restaurant, then?”
    For the second time, Jacob Mahler shook his head, enjoying the chance to make her feel foolish.
    “Where, then?”
    “At the best café in Rome. At eleven past eleven.” Having made this enigmatic statement, he turned around and walked through the gates.
    “Mr. Mahler?” Beatrice called after him. “Mr. Mahler? The best café in Rome … Which one is that?”
    A thick whirl of snow was carried in by the wind, forming a white curtain between her and Jacob Mahler.
    When she looked again, he’d disappeared.
    A honking horn suddenly snaps her back into the real world. Traffic has moved ahead a few meters. Beatrice puts her car into gear and creeps forward. It could take her hours to get home. And all she wants to do is crawl into bed and close her eyes.
    She’s gripped by the anguishing feeling of helplessness. She looks for her cell phone and scans down the list of names. She finds Joe Vinile’s number, stares at the phone’s glowing display but can’t find the courage to hit the call button. Instead, she sends him a message: MEETING TOMORROW AT ELEVEN PAST ELEVEN, AT THE BEST CAFÉ IN ROME .
    “What the heck!” she yells, tossing the cell phone over her shoulder. She clutches the steering wheel and counts the minutes it takes her to move one meter forward. Just then, the cell phone starts ringing.
    Beatrice twists her arm back and finds it, checks the number and is relieved to see it’s neither Joe nor any of her ex-boyfriends.
    “Beatrice?”
    It’s Jacob Mahler.
    Her mouth drops open slightly. Her stomach churns with worry while her brain wonders,
How’d he get my private number?
    “Yes, Jacob?” Beatrice bites her lip. She just called him by his first name.
    “There’s been a change of plans,” Jacob Mahler continues.
    “How so?”
    “We need to do something tonight.”
    “Did you hear from Joe Vinile?”
    “We need to go see a man.”
    “Where?”
    “Under the Ponte Sisto. In half an hour.”
    “We can’t,” replies Beatrice. The cars around her aren’t moving. The snow whirls down from the sky and gives no sign of letting up. “I’m in the middle of a traffic jam.”
    “Find a way. It’s very important.”
    “It’s impossible! Nobody’s moving.”
    “That’s