Chapter 6: The Bartender's Clock

They went back to the Marlowe Club on Friday night, because Livia wanted the room that had laughed.

Zia Nella drove them in the Buick and waited at the curb with her purse on her lap.

"If you're not out in forty minutes," she said, "I'm coming in with the spoon."

The bouncer at the door had a clipboard and a headset.

He saw Mirella first and straightened. "Mrs. Benedetti. Welcome back."

Then he saw Livia beside her, in the same coat, and said nothing at all.

"She's with me," Mirella said, and walked past him.

The VIP room was at the end of the carpeted corridor.

Livia had stood outside that door for two minutes the night before.

This time she opened it.

Six people sat around a low table with a bottle of champagne. They were the same six, and there was one empty chair.

Every conversation stopped.

A man with a gold ring on his little finger stood halfway up and sat again.

"There are two of them," a woman in a green dress said.

"Yes," Mirella said. "I'm Mirella Benedetti. This is my twin sister."

"I'm Livia Carrano," Livia said. "I've been Mirella Benedetti for three years, and I'm the one who brought the tampons."

Nobody laughed.

"Last night you laughed," Livia said. "I was outside the door, wet to the skin, with a cut on my knee."

The woman in the green dress put down her glass.

"We didn't know..."

"You said, Three years and she's still at your side, with somebody else in your heart. You said it to my husband, in front of me, through a door."

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