The evening air had cooled considerably as the sun set over Rome. The brisk breeze floating in through the open door of Il Flagello gave Max chills as he sat at the bar with a cold beer half drank, thinking. He was lost in thought and lost in his beer. He wondered what he was going to do next and how was the outcome going to pay off. A pang hit him in the heart, and he felt lousy again. He drank his beer half-heartedly registering the chatter between the regulars and the bar owner, Sergio. “Did you hear Sergio? Eh, hai sentito?” “Sentito? Heard what?” A man asked. “They’re closing la Lombardia,” Sergio said assessing the thick white foam rising on top of the yellow liquid pouring into the tilted glass, waving like a yellow flag in a desperate wind. “Non e’ posssibile;” another man said with a long hiss from a chipped tooth. “La Lombardia is a region, not a ssstore.” “Cosi ha detto, Mort. They just closed Lazaretto,” Sergio said. All the …