CHAPTER 1
Richard Amalfi sat alone at a table in the Alta Vista, a posh restaurant perched on a Sausalito hillside overlooking San Francisco Bay, and drummed his fingers on the white cloth-covered tabletop. He had finished his lunch, and was now on his second cup of coffee. Business, but not his own, had brought him here, and now he was stuck waiting around to see if the restaurant’s owner wanted to buy a few cases of a house red at a really good price. Better than good. Cheap.
“The hell with it,” he muttered. Tired of waiting, he threw his napkin on the table and stood to go when he heard a gravelly female voice.
“Richie, caro mio!” Marlena Carbini rushed to his table, kissed his cheek, and sat. She was in her fifties, a bit plump, with thick, wiry gray hair and no make-up. “Sit, Richi
