The Venetian Judgment by David Stone Read Free Book Online Page A

on the Via Santa Margherita, near the Piazza Garibaldi, every evening for a full year before the murder actually occurred. The tale was regularly recounted around the bacari, growing more lurid with each telling.

    “You are still . . . seeing him?”

    “Now and then.”

    “And he is . . . the same?”

    “Since you saw him? God no. He’s got himself all put back together. You’d like him. He makes the bella figura —”

    “ Si, per un cancrenato! I was hoping this cancrenato would go away.”

    “He will.”

    “Grazie a Dio,” said Brancati, more as a prayer than a belief. It was always possible that this volatile young American was insane, but for Brancati, who knew the man’s whole story, a barrier of mild insanity was a sensible response to the experiences he had lived through.

    “Micah, about leaving Venice . . .”

    “Yes. These . . . events? Galan said you would explain?”

    “Not yet. In a moment. No, I was thinking of Cora.”

    “Then stop. There’s nothing left to do. Her people have her—”

    “I know. Hidden away in Capri. But she is no fanciulla . She’s older than you are, a grown woman, and a professor at the university in Florence—”

    “Psicologia.”

    “Yes. And also a witness involved in the trial of the man who shot her.”

    “Radko’s still alive?”

    “Yes. For the most part.”

    Radko Borins had, in his attempt to kill Cora Vasari in the courtyard of the Uffizi, also managed to kill two of Brancati’s men assigned to her protection detail. Radko Borins had the bad luck to be taken alive by a man whose ancestors once controlled the prison next to the Palazzo Ducale. They had walked many men across the covered Bridge of Sighs who had never been seen again by their loved ones. Radko Borins had been made to suffer.

    “How does that affect Cora?”

    “I could have her . . . what is the word? Summoned? ”

    “Issue a subpoena, you mean. Force her family to deliver her?”

    “Yes. She is almost recovered now. She would want to see you.”

    Brancati spoke with less than total conviction, since there was no way of knowing what Cora was actually thinking, but, in the absence of a reply in any other form, her silence was eloquent. And reasonable. Her connection with Dalton had nearly killed her. Twice.

    “No,” said Dalton after a time, “let it go. She’s safer that way.”

    “Can you? Let her go?”

    “I already have.”

    Neither man called the lie. What was the point?

    They sat in silence for a while, watching the fire burn down.

    Brancati sighed, leaned forward, set his flute on the hearth fender, reached into his shirt pocket, and pulled out a small, rectangular black lacquer box, about eight inches long, intricately inlaid with pale green jade and tied with red silk ribbon. He handed it to Dalton.

    “This was found sitting on my desk last Monday morning—”

    “On your desk?” said Dalton, turning the box. Shimmers of amber light rippled along its sides.

    “Yes,” said Brancati, clearly upset. His office was on the top floor of the Arsenal, deep in the heart of Italy’s military and spionaggio establishment—in these years of terror war, a difficult place to reach.

    “Last Monday, you said? That was three days ago.”

    “Yes. It took a while for us to figure out that it was meant for you.”

    “How did you find that out?”

    “Do you not recognize it? It used to have a cigarette holder in it.”

    Dalton held it in his hand, thinking. Then it came to him.

    “Mandy Pownall. She’s an aide at Burke and Single. In London. She’s Agency. You’ve met her. I was with her in Singapore, when she got this. As a gift from an SID agent named Sergeant Ong Bo. The cigarette holder inside it was a trap. They tried to say it was drug paraphernalia.”

    Brancati nodded.

    “I remember you telling us the story. Galan looked for tobacco residue in the liner, just to confirm. It is there. There could not be two such as this. And besides, we