THE GUNMAN KEPT Blume’s head tilted awkwardly back, preventing him from getting a look at him. The older man, who smelled of after-shave, ran his hands expertly across Blume’s stomach and waist, up and down his side, back, and front, then patted him gently as if he was a big baby with wind. Then he hunkered down on a single knee around Blume’s calves, before standing up again, to extract Blume’s wallet and cell phone from his front trouser packet with considerably more ease and speed than Blume himself had ever managed, even when two-handed. Then he gently raised the sling holding Blume’s plastered arm, and slid his hand across the sweaty patch below on Blume’s polo shirt. Blume was fascinated by the man’s earless head.

“Clean,” he said at last.

“I don’t like that,” said his younger partner, releasing some of the pressure on Blume’s chin.

“What?”

“Yeah? What do we say, then?”

The young man withdrew his tiny pistol entirely from Blume’s face to gather his thoughts and think about this.

Free to move, Blume turned his eyes to the older man. Where his ears should have been were two crumpled pieces of pink flesh that resembled the @ of an email address. They looked infantile and out of place perched behind his aged face. He wore two thin pendants around his neck, one of which, a golden horn amulet, had slipped out from below his T-shirt. Tufts of hair rose from below the neck.

“The fuck you looking at?” said the young man.

Blume ignored the question.

“I said . . .”

“Shut up, Fà,” said the older man. His overtanned face fissured into countless lines and wrinkles as he concentrated on a plasticized card in his hand.

“This is your badge?”

“Can’t you read?”

“I can read just fine.”

Blume said, “Because I thought maybe at your age, you’d need reading glasses, though I can see how wearing them might prove difficult.” Blume broke off as the young man, smelling mockery in the air, shoved his pistol back into his face.

The earless one remained calm. He was old. He must have heard them all by now, and if he was still alive in this business at this age, then he must have some self-control. At least Blume hoped so.

“Fà. Get rid of it,” he told his partner.

The young man lowered the weapon again.

“Commissioner Alexsei Blum-eh?”

“More or less.”

He slipped the card back into the wallet.

The young man made the pistol vanish into his velour top. The other handed Blume his wallet and phone back.

Blume took them wordlessly, and glanced behind him. No sign of Manuela. The dog slept on.

“Step out?”

It was phrased as a request, but the young man moved slightly behind Blume. Blume chose to step out the door, and the two followed. Neither of them had a weapon in evidence. Blume thought about making a break for it, and felt the muscles in his legs throb. He imagined hurtling down the stairs, lurching into the banisters with his sprained arm.

The young man pressed the elevator button. All three stepped in.

“I suppose ‘clean’ is all right,” he said as the doors slid shut. “I can’t think of another way of saying it.”

The older man poked Blume in the back.

“You’re really Commissioner Blume?”

“My fame precedes me.”

“You’re not a journalist?”

“No.”

“Good. There’s something I want you to know.”

“Tell me.”

“This isn’t abduction.”

Blume turned around and said, “No?”

The elevator stopped and the doors opened. A woman with a small boy and some shopping bags was waiting to get in. Blume went to help her, then remembered his arm. The youth pushed past them, then stood outside the elevator. He reminded Blume of a pouting footballer who played for Juventus. Almost good-looking, except for the mouth.

“It’s OK,” said the older man, “I got it.”

He helped the woman get the bags into the elevator. Blume feeling useless stepped out of the way and watched. Although the mother was saying thank you, Blume could see from her face she was uncomfortable with their continued presence.

Blume smiled at the boy, who was clutching a handful of small Japanese action figures. The doors slid shut just as he began to smile back.

Glistening from the effort of helping the woman with the shopping bags, the older man came up to Blume.

“This is not an abduction. I want to make that clear. Up there, in the apartment . . .”

“Yes, what shall we call that?” asked Blume.

“A precautionary search.”

“I am a police officer.”

“Yeah, we know. We had to check. Now anything you do from here on out is of your own free will.”

“Like if I walked away?”

“Even that. We might follow you.”

“If I pulled out a phone, called up a car to have you arrested for assault of a police officer with a deadly weapon, aggravated ab—” Blume stopped. He could see a look of genuine boredom in the old man’s gray eyes. “So, you want me to come with you?”

“That would be by far the best solution. But I want to emphasize that this is something you are doing of—”

“My own free will. So you said.”

The tracksuit behind him moved impatiently. “Can we get out of here? People can hear things.”

“Good point, Fà.” To Blume he said, “If you came with us, it would make things easier. You get in your own car, there’s no telling who you might call. Maybe you’d take a wrong turn, spend the next hour trying to find us again, especially since you would be driving with one arm.”

“I have an automatic transmission in that car. But you have persuaded me. Where am I voluntarily going with you?”

“Mr. Innocenzi’s.”

Blume thought about it. “OK. I wanted to talk to him anyway.”

“Happy coincidence.”

The three of them walked out under the midday sun and climbed into a double-parked Cherokee. The older man sat in the back with Blume. They drove north along the quays of the Tiber, then turned right to head into the center. A traffic policeman began flapping a red-and-white stick shaped like a lollipop at them as they entered the blue zone. They slowed down to let him see the permit on the windscreen. The traffic policeman signaled at them to go on.

They crossed the center. As they drove up Via Veneto, Blume’s reluctant captor pulled out a cell phone and told someone they were almost there.

They arrived at their destination, on Via Po, in the embassy district of the city. The driver pulled the car up to the curb.

“There. The house with the green door. Just one bell. Ring it.”

He opened the car door and Blume stepped out.