Chapter 15: Cesare's POV: Third Chair

Cesare's POV

I left Renata at the oldest wife's kitchen table, with a cup of tea she was not drinking.

Then I went to find a girl who did not want to be found.

I started where any frightened woman would go.

The flat on Halsted had a new lock and a landlord who had never heard of anyone named Zanetti.

Her sister's place in Cicero had a dark window and a cat on the sill.

By ten I was parked on Michigan Avenue with the engine off, thinking about Nico's habits.

Nico had never liked a hotel bar for business.

He liked one for pride.

The Lakeshore had a long marble lobby.

Its bar sat behind a wall of glass, where a man could be seen with his drink.

I went in through the revolving door and stood in the shadow by the coat check.

He was there.

Nico sat at a corner table in a pressed shirt, with his shoulders back and a whiskey in front of him.

Across from him sat Fiora, in the red dress.

She was laughing.

I watched her put her hand on his sleeve.

I watched him turn his palm up under it, and I had to look at the floor.

Yesterday she had told Renata she would have said no to his face.

I had seen that girl cry in a captain's wife's kitchen.

I did not know which of the two I was looking at.

Every instinct I had said to walk in and put my hand on Nico's collar.

I kept my feet where they were.

If I went in, he would see me, and he would know that someone had been looking.

If I was wrong about her, I would find that out the hard way.

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