She noticed Falco's permit. Twenty-four-hour approval. Unusual.
He slid it across the counter.
But the system had a splinter. A new inspector, a woman named Dottoressa Lena, had been assigned to audit the Ufficio Concessioni. She was young, with sharp glasses and a sharper sense of smell. She didn't look at stamps. She looked at the dust on the files. The ones that moved too fast. The ones that gathered cobwebs. la bustarella
"I didn't know," Falco said. "That it would cost you everything." She noticed Falco's permit
He walked away, eating chestnuts one by one, the smoke of the cart curling after him like a half-finished sentence. Above, the bells of the duomo rang noon — indifferent, golden, and utterly unstoppable. a woman named Dottoressa Lena