The Echelon Vendetta by David Stone

was for a time torn between using his boyish charm, of which he had far less than he imagined, or calling in an exorcist.
    Dalton opted for charm.
    “Buongiorno, zia! Come sta?”
    “I speak English.”
    “What a happy coincidence, my dear lady. So do I.”
    This brought a noncommittal grunt and she went back to her folding. Dalton looked at the thin greasy gray hair plastered across her skull for a while and decided that boyish charm was not this old bat’s weak point. He looked around the café and saw that all of to-day’s business was out under the awning. They were more or less alone. He leaned forward, placing his hands on her laundry. She stopped folding and looked up at him, her flat black eyes cold.
    “ Zia, I am looking for a customer who comes here.”
    She said nothing but now a light was in her eyes, an acquisitive glitter rather like a gold coin in a shallow pond of black water. Dalton pulled out his wallet and extracted a sheaf of euros. She focused on them for a moment and then looked up at him again, her face closing like a fist.
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    “Who do you want?”
    “He’s an older man, very big, very strong. He has long silver-gray hair—down to here,” said Dalton, touching his left shoulder. “He wears a black coat like a cape and the long boots of an American cowboy—”
    Her hard eyes narrowed at this. Dalton searched for the Italian.
    “Come vaccaro. Capisce?”
    “Pellerossa,” she said, her voice harsh and rustling in her throat like dead leaves in a gutter. It wasn’t a question.
    “Yes. Mr. Pellerossa. Do you know where he lives?”
    Her black eyes flickered to the entrance and followed a young woman who looked as though she could be the doe-eyed girl’s sister as she walked through the café toward the kitchen. When she was gone the old woman’s eyes moved back to Dalton and stayed there, as full of low cunning and evil intentions as the eyes of a gull.
    “His name is not Pellerossa . Pellerossa is what he is. Why do you want him?”
    “I have something of his. I wish to return it.”
    “Is it money? You can leave it here. He will come back.”
    “When?”
    A shrug, her leathery neck contracting, her tendons bulging out.
    “I do not know. Soon.”
    “I have to leave. I wish to see him before I go.”
    Her eyes settled on the euros in Dalton’s gloved hand. Rested there. Dalton stripped off two twenties. She did not look up but the signal was clear. He peeled off two more. The fifth one did the trick. She showed him her tooth—a fine sharp tooth and it would have looked even more fetching if it had not been all alone in her blood-red gums. Her tongue moved inside her open mouth, a blind white snake-head. She held her hand out, and Dalton placed the euros in her upturned palm. Her fingers folded over the crisp new bills like
    76 | david stone
    the valves of a Venus flytrap, and with a papery crackle the money disappeared. She stuffed it into the innards of her black dress and looked up at him again.
    “How do you know him?”
    “I don’t.”
    This answer amused her. She bared her tooth at him again and touched it with her white snakelike tongue. Dalton had the idea she was tasting his scent. It was an unsettling concept.
    “He is not Italian. He is from America. This is between you.”
    “Thanks for the advice. Do you know where he is now?”
    She reached under the counter and pulled out a large cloth-bound book. It was the Missa Solemnis, tattered and ancient, with the leaves falling out. She laid it down on the folded napkins and opened it up.
    Her talonlike finger moved down the open page until she reached a passage. She turned the book around so that Dalton could read it, keeping her blackened nail on the spot. It was the ordinary for the Giorno dei Morti, the Feast of all Souls.
    She tapped it twice, staring up at him. Dalton looked at it for a while, trying to understand. She seemed unwilling to speak the words. Finally she sighed and frowned at