I knocked on the indescript door under the fire escape at the end of the alley. Three short bursts of the three knocks each, just as I had been told to do. For a minute it seems like nothing was going to happen, but then I heard the raspy scratch of a peephole cover sliding aside. Then the door creaked open a few inches to reveal a small man, wrinkled, with a fringe of white hair and overly thick eyebrows over the frames of his thick glasses. He looked me over as if I were a curiosity. I cleared my throat. “Um, Giovanni told me to come here....”

He nodded, without speaking, and turned his head slightly to the side, expectantly. I fumbled in my pocket for a second, finding the billfold, heavy and crisp. I pressed it into his hand. He didn’t count it. He simply produced a flat square box, the kind you might gift somebody a wallet in. Taking a quick glance down the alley to insure nobody was watching, I peeked inside. As promised, there were three golden disclike coins. One for each of the mortal sins I was preparing to commit.

The old man let the door fall open a crack more, and in the shadows behind him I saw the shape of a priest intently chanting over some sort of workbench. And he shut his door. And I prepared to open mine.