shoulders and changed the subject. “Well then, Lilia Carnevare. What exactly can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for a girlfriend,” she said. “More of an online friendship, really. She told me to visit when I was in Manhattan, said that we’d, well, go out together.”
He nodded as gravely as if she had just been explaining his taxes to him.
“And now she doesn’t answer when I call her.” Rosa hoped she wasn’t laying the naiveté on too thick.
“So?”
“I think it’s mean of her.”
“And what’s that to do with me?” His tone of voice was still calm.
“She and I are friends. Or I thought so, anyway. And now she’s just disappeared on me. There I am in my stupid expensive hotel, going on tours around the city instead of hanging out with her.”
He sighed quietly. “Look, you’re cute and all that, but I’m in a hurry. A club like this doesn’t run itself. If I can help you, then—”
“She works here, she said. But that was quite a while ago.”
“If she works here, then she has her hands full right now.”
“I just want a quick word with her. I won’t take her away from her job.”
He was still looking at her intently, not offensively, as she had half expected, but with curiosity. As if the way she was taking up his time with trivialities intrigued him.
“What’s her name?”
“Valerie.”
“And what else?”
“Valerie Paige.”
If this was a name that he linked with anything more than a paycheck, he didn’t show it. “Yes, she worked here two or three years ago. Not since then.”
“Fuck.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you any further.”
She looked at her shoes. “Sorry. You’re in a hurry, and I’ve been wasting your time with this garbage.”
He touched the tip of her nose with his finger and smiled. He was alarmingly attractive, and for the first time she really did see a resemblance to Alessandro. “But after all, we’re blood relations, right?”
She cleared her throat and tore her eyes away from his face. The layer of mist hovered just above their heads. Here and there dream catchers hung down through the swathes of vapor.
“What do those do?” she asked.
“They catch the dreams of everyone dancing down there and then throw them back down, arranged and sorted. Better than any drug.”
Now she did turn back to him, to see whether he was making fun of her. But his smile and his nut-brown eyes still seemed perfectly honest.
Naively she asked, “What, right now?”
Michele leaned on the balustrade of the gallery. Even his damn hands looked good. “Anyone who comes to the Dream Room sees things you don’t see anywhere else. Or that are invisible anywhere else.”
“You should put that in your ads.”
“We do.”
“Oops.” She smiled. “Looks like you know how to run your business.”
It was the dimples. They were just like Alessandro’s. They were there even when he wasn’t smiling. Blood relations, yes—only the relationship wasn’t with her.
She leaned over and dropped a light kiss on his cheek. “Thanks,” she said. “And again, I’m sorry to have been a nuisance.” He smelled of aftershave.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Eighteen.”
“You look younger.”
“A lot of people say that.”
“I’m sure those guys at the entrance asked to see your ID.” Now he sounded almost sorry about something. But the dimples were still there. “If not, I’ll have to fire them.”
She was boiling hot all of a sudden. “Oh,” she said quietly.
“Don’t let it bother you. You couldn’t have known who owned this place.”
“They saw my name.”
“They recognized it. And they have their instructions. Some names mean trouble for us here. Obama. Bin Laden.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Alcantara.”
She didn’t have to look around to know that she wasn’t going to get back down from this gallery. He was standing in her way, and here came his security men. She heard footsteps on the iron latticework. Very close.
“That was a lie,” she whispered. “You’re not in any hurry.”
“Oh, but I am.”
“Then why didn’t you say right away that—”
“I wanted to find out what it is that Alessandro likes about you.” That charming smile again. “Apart from the obvious.”
She tried to spin around, but a powerful arm grabbed her from behind and held her. She heard distorted voices from a headset very close to her ear.
The worst of it was that she couldn’t avoid his eyes anymore.
“Shit,” she murmured.
With his fingertip, he touched his cheek where her lips had touched it. “I know what you did.”
RETRIBUTION
THEY GAGGED ROSA, BOUND her hands and feet, and threw her into the back of a