"Listen to me then

IMPRUNETA is an ancient Tuscan town where the roof tiles of the Duomo were

made. Its cemetery is visible at night from the hilltop villas for miles

around because of the lamps forever burning at the graves. The ambient light

is low, but enough for visitors to make their way among the dead, though a

flashlight is needed to read the epitaphs.

Rinaldo Pazzi arrived at five minutes to nine with a small bouquet of flowers

he planned to place on a grave at random. He walked slowly along a gravel path

between the tombs.

He felt Carlo's presence, though he did not see him.

Carlo spoke from the other side of a mausoleum more than head high. "Do you

know a good florist in the town?"

The man sounded like a Sard. Good, maybe he knew what he was doing.

"Florists are all thieves," Pazzi replied.

Carlo came briskly around the marble structure without peeking.

He looked feral to Pazzi, short and round and powerful, nimble in his

extremities. His vest was leather and he had a boar bristle in his hat. Pazzi

guessed he had three inches reach advantage on Carlo and four inches of

height. They weighed about the same, he guessed. Carlo was missing a thumb.

Pazzi figured he could find him in the Questura's records with about five

minutes' work. Both men were lit from beneath by the grave lamps.

"His house has good alarms," Pazzi said.

"I looked at it. You have to point him out to me."

"He has to speak at a meeting tomorrow night, Friday night. Can you do it that

soon?"

"It's good."

Carlo wanted to bully the policeman a little, establish his control. "Will you

walk with him, or are you afraid of him? You'll do what you're paid to do.

You'll point him out to me."

"Watch your mouth. I'll do what I'm paid to do and so will you. Or you can

pass your retirement as a fuckboy at Volterra, suit yourself."

Carlo at work was as impervious to insult as he was to cries of pain. He saw

that he had misjudged the policeman. He spread his hands. "Tell me what I need

to know."

Carlo moved to stand beside Pazzi as though they mourned together at the small

mausoleum. A couple passed on the path holding hands. Carlo removed his hat

and the two men stood with bowed heads. Pazzi put his flowers at the door of

the tomb. A smell came from Carlo's warm hat, a rank smell, like sausage from

an animal improperly gelded.

Pazzi raised his face from the odor. "He's fast with his knife. Goes low with

it."

"Has he got a gun?"

"I don't know. He's never used one, that I know of.

"I don't want to have to take him out of a car. I want him on the open street

with not many people around."

"How will you take him down?"

"That's my business."

Carlo put a stag's tooth in his mouth and chewed at the gristle, protruding

the tooth between his lips from time to time.

"It's my business too," Pazzi said. "How will you do it?"

"Stun him with a beanbag gun, net him, then I can give him a shot. I need to

check his teeth fast in case he's got poison under a tooth cap."

"He has to lecture at a meeting. It starts at seven in the Palazzo Vecchio. If

he works in the Capponi Chapel at Santa Croce on Friday, he'll walk from there

to the Palazzo Vecchio. Do you know Florence?"

"I know it well. Can you get me a vehicle pass for the old city?"

"Yes."

"I won't take him out of the church," Carlo said.

Pazzi nodded. "Better he shows up for the meeting, then he probably won't be

missed for two weeks. I have a reason to walk with him to the Palazzo Capponi

after the meeting-"

"I don't want to take him in his house. That's his ground. He knows it and I

don't. He'll be alert, he'll look around him at the door. I want him on the

open sidewalk."

"Listen to me then - we'll come out the front entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio,

the Via dei Leoni side will be closed. We'll go along the Via Neri and come

across the river on the Ponte alle Grazie. There are trees in front of the

Museo Bardini on the other side that block the streetlights. It's quiet at

that hour when school is out."

"We'll say in front of the Museo Bardini then, but I may do it sooner if I see

a chance, closer to the palazzo, or earlier in the day if he spooks and tries

to run. We may be in an ambulance. Stay with him until the beanbag hits him

and then get away from him fast."

"I want him out of Tuscany before anything happens to him."

"Believe me, he'll be gone from the face of the earth, feet first," Carlo

said, smiling at his private joke, sticking the stag's tooth out through the

smile.