Chapter 7: Javier's Coffee

Javier did not sleep after Dante left.

He lay on his back and listened to the heavy sound of Daniel's breathing and told himself that this was ordinary.

A roommate had a family emergency.

People had family emergencies.

At three he got up and turned on the desk lamp low.

He would not stop thinking until he had looked at the facts.

The facts sat on the door bed in a neat little pile.

One canvas bag, half unzipped.

One pair of dark trousers on the chair, folded in thirds.

One thick white church candle, burned down by about a hand, wrapped in a handkerchief and tucked next to a textbook.

He should not have looked.

He looked.

The candle had a stamp on its base, the name of a church on the old harbor road.

San Marco.

He turned over the trousers, and saw the knees.

The wool was worn pale and shiny there.

It was not the wear of a man who prayed on Sundays.

It was the wear of a man who had knelt, for hours, on stone.

Javier put the trousers back exactly as they had been.

Then he stood in the lamp light with his arms crossed.

He was irritated, and he did not know what to do with it.

He had known Dante Greco for three days.

He knew that Dante ate the crust of the bread first.

He knew that Dante went still, in a very particular way, when someone raised a voice.

He knew that he knew these things because he had been watching, without meaning to, since the moment the door opened.

And he knew that he had touched the scar on that man's face in the dark.

Dante had gone rigid under his finger.

Javier pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes.

"Stop it," he said, under his breath.

"Stop what?" said Daniel, from the other bed, in a thick whisper.

"Nothing. Go to sleep."

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