“You’re sure it was her?”
“Her hair is very black. She wears it in a short bob. Very severe. She is difficult to mistake.”
I could hear vague restaurant noises in the background.
“Where are you now?” I asked. “We could come and get you.”
“Tomorrow,” he said shortly. “I did not go into my apartment. When I realized I was being followed, I jumped into a water taxi and she could not follow me. I got away.”
“Good thinking,” I told him. “But if Galina’s people are tailing you…”
I let my voice trail off, hoping he’d put the pieces together.
“I do not feel safe,” he replied.
“Because you aren’t safe, not until Galina is out of the way,” I explained. “If she had you followed, she may already know that you met with me.”
“She has tried to call me, but I have not answered.”
“Keep it that way,” I instructed. Now that Wolfgang was leaning our direction, the last thing we needed was Galina talking him around. “Tell me where I can find her.”
“Not on the phone,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “She is clever. Maybe even now she is tracking my phone and knows I’ve called you.”
He sounded panicky, and I knew I had to do some damage control.
“If she were tracking your phone, she’d have found you already and she wouldn’t need someone to surveil you,” I said. “Where are you?” I asked again. “I can meet you.”
“Tomorrow,” he repeated quickly. “I will bring you the information you want. I am very tired now.” He rattled off a location and a time and I agreed.
“Wolfgang, are you sure you’re safe tonight?” I asked. We had manufactured the threat Galina posed to him, but if she had him under surveillance, he was in greater danger than we’d anticipated. And I didn’t like the idea of him roaming loose for a night with Galina’s henchwoman prowling after him.
“I will stay with a friend—someone she does not know,” he said quickly. “I will see you tomorrow. Do not be late.”
He ended the call then and I looked up to find the others watching me. A pigeon was edging closer to the table, eyeing a peanut that Helen had dropped.
“Tomorrow morning at six,” I told the others. “The Scala Contarini del Bovolo.”
The Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo was a tiny palace a stone’s throw away from St. Mark’s Square. The palazzo was unremarkable, but its staircase, the scala, was the most famous in Venice, beloved of filmmakers and photographers and selfie-takers. It was a good choice for a rendezvous, public but not too public, and theatrical enough to suit an opera singer.
Mary Alice grabbed the napkin Akiko had been using as a scorecard and turned it over, roughing out the plan as we discussed it. Nat pulled the scala up on her phone and Minka found us satellite maps to study from every direction. We batted around loads of possibilities before finally settling on a plan.
“You realize it’s a trap,” Taverner said coolly.
The pigeon was back, pecking at bits of tortilla chip. I picked up a water pistol and in one fluid motion raised it and fired, hitting it right between the eyes. It flew off in a squawk of offended feathers. I put the water pistol down and grinned at Taverner.
“I’m counting on it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
We were up late intothe night making preparations, including a bit of reconnaissance on our rendezvous point. But we managed to snatch a few hours’ sleep, rising before dawn to make our way to the scala. Well before the sun came up, we were en route. In the interest of discretion, Mary Alice had hired a private boat, a narrow little beauty with a fast engine and a low hull that she piloted herself. She handled it expertly, gliding up the Rio de Ca’ Foscari to pick me up. Helen and Nat had already made their way on foot and were in position near the scala.
On the boat, Mary Alice slowly powered up the engine, easing us into the Grand Canal and hanging a left. There was already traffic on Venice’s main waterway, small craft loaded with fish and ice and vegetables, a heavy barge with a crane—even an ambulance boat, making its way slowly past without lights or sirens, which seemed ominous. A light mist rosefrom the water, swirling around each boat as it moved through the low chop of the waves. The water in the canals is usually green, sometimes brown. But in the hour before dawn, in the last hour of the dying night, the water is black and fathomless. I didn’t like the look of it, and I was happy when Mary Alice navigated us to the Rio di San Luca, the canal that ran nearest the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo. We’d mapped out the route during our recon the previous night, planning half a dozen potential getaways if things went south. I leapt off the boat, leaving Mary Alice to secure it and assume her position. The area was quiet, full of tall, narrow houses packed closely together. The palazzo was a tourist attraction, but a modest one, with a tiny courtyard and a gate that had been unlocked and left ajar. Wolfgang must have bribed the security guard, I realized as I eased through the gate, leaving it like I found it. Just inside the front gate was a courtyard garden the size of a postage stamp with a few bits of statuary and a couple of rosebushes that weren’t even thinking of blooming. It was deserted, and by the time it opened at nine-thirtyam, we planned on being long gone.
At first glance, the palazzo looked like an elaborate town house with five levels of arched galleries that ran across the front. What made it a standout was the staircase at the end, a spiral in a tower that rose to the full height of the palazzo. It was open to the elements, topped with a belvedere, a small circular pavilion that offered panoramic views over the city. The only thing separating the staircase from the courtyard was a velvet rope tacked across an arch, so I hopped over it and waited, listening to the silence. I was early, but the unlockedgate meant Wolfgang was probably already in place. I moved to the stairs, and as I started to climb, I noticed the first suggestion of morning, a softening of the black in the night sky to the east, beyond St. Mark’s. Morning comes slowly in Venice, the ceiling of the sky shifting through a watercolor palette of light—grey, then blue, then purple—long before the sun shows herself, the sort of light that inspires painters and poets. I moved like a shadow up the stairs, watching as that light moved with me.
At the top of the stairs was a small wooden door that had been left unbolted. I edged it open, a few cautious inches at a time before easing past and into the short, open gallery that led to the belvedere. As expected, Wolfgang was waiting for me, standing in the center of the belvedere and looking distinctly unhappy. He eyed the door about twenty feet behind me.
“Wolfgang, if you bolt down those stairs and make me chase you, I will not be happy,” I warned him.