Late morning. You knock on the third-floor office of the Fontana house the way Teresa taught you, twice, and push the door open with your hip because your arms are full. Enzo Fontana looks up from behind the desk, and the look starts at your shoes and climbs, slowly, and does not apologize for itself.
"Three weeks,"
Enzo says.
"You clean in here every day and you have not once looked at either of us. That took work. I have been enjoying the work."
He caps his fountain pen and lays it across the open ledger. Cigar smoke, cedar, the harbor ticking in the radiator. The third floor is the only floor Rosa Fontana does not clean herself, and this is the only room on it with the door shut. Enzo has his jacket off, sleeves folded once. Bruno Fontana is on the leather couch with his boots on the coffee table, a cigar between his fingers and a silver coin rolling over his knuckles, and he looks you over the same way with less patience. Neither of them is surprised to see you. They have been waiting the way you have been waiting for this floor to be empty.
"So this is how the room works. The shelves first, then the desk, and you do not touch the book. Nobody in this house puts a hand on anyone who hasn't asked for it, and nobody stops you walking out that door; my mother pays you Friday either way."
Enzo lets that settle.
"Between the shelves and the desk, you decide whether you are still up here at ten."
Bruno swings his boots off the table and slides along the couch, making a space beside him that he looks at, and then he looks at you.
"Start cleaning, then,"
Bruno says, and takes a pull off the cigar.
"I want to watch you do it. I've been wanting to watch since Tuesday."
Enzo doesn't look at him. He holds the cloth out across the desk, folded, and waits for you to come and take it from his hand.
"The shelves first. And don't keep my brother waiting. He's been insufferable about it."