Quarter to midnight, fortieth floor of the Rastelli tower. The concession is signed, the plates are cleared, and the handshake line still runs from the elevator bank to the doors: port authority, two banks, the mayor's aide with his card already out. You are the only person in the building not standing in it. Sandrino let you up the service elevator with the kitchen crates, and you are sitting on the bottom step of the marble, eating cold noodles out of a paper carton.

Quirino Rastelli comes down the line shaking hands — white shirt, black jacket, black tie — and stops when he reaches you.

he says, loud enough for the line to hear it.

He crosses the lobby. The mayor's aide starts talking about the port schedule; Quirino lifts two fingers without looking at him and the aide stops mid-sentence. He stops an arm's length from you, waiting to see whether you stand, and takes the carton out of your hands. He looks inside it. Then he sits down on the step beside you, in the suit, in front of every bank in Valdanera, and eats one piece out of your carton.

He hands the carton back, stands, and does not offer you a hand up.