The Orpheus Deception by David Stone Page A

pale winter sun was just touching the roof of the Museo Civico on the western end of the square when Mandy Pownall looked up to see a short gnomelike figure standing in the last of the sunlight, a stunted, slope-shouldered shadow man, oddly bent, as if he had been injured and had healed badly. She set her wineglass down and looked up at him, waiting.

    He bowed—a short, sharp bob—and spoke.

    “Signorina Pownall?”

    His accent was strange, a hoarse, croaking rasp that sounded like a cross between Italian and Hebrew. Mandy smiled brightly up at him.

    “Mr. Galan. How delightful. I was hoping you’d come. Do sit.” Galan ducked his head, enfolded in an embarrassed air that did not affect his eyes, which were as hard and sharp as a crow’s. He took the chair opposite and folded his ruined hands in a clasp under the table, as if to spare Mandy the sight of them. She picked up the iced decanter and filled the second glass that had already been waiting there. Galan watched her fill it, thinking that she looked a little like Cora Vasari—the English version; chilly, composed, a fine, aristocratic face. She did not have Cora’s tropical fire. But she had presence, a strong, sensual air. There were delicate lines around her eyes and her lips; her neck was long, and, beneath the dry, crepey skin, there were blue veins showing. Mandy felt his oddly carnal appraisal, as she refilled her own glass. She sat back, raised hers in a toast.

    “To Venice,” she said, and they both drank.

    Galan set his glass down with regret—he loved cold Chablis far too much, especially when in the company of an elegant woman. He leaned back in his chair, said nothing more, and seemed content to wait out the remainder of the afternoon with the same serene calm. Mandy smiled to herself. She had been brought up to speed on Issadore Galan’s formidable talents by Stennis Corso, their Italian specialist at London Station.

    “Well, to business,” she said, setting her glass aside.

    “Of course,” he said, smiling.

    “We’d like to talk to Micah Dalton.”

    “We . . . ?”

    “I’m here for Deacon Cather.”

    Galan closed his eyes slowly and opened them, a reptilian tic. He said nothing at all, but he seemed to gather into himself, as if coiling.

    “Please convey to Mr. Cather my best regards. We met once, at Camp David. During President Reagan’s era. I found him most . . . professional.”

    “I will. About Mr. Dalton . . .”

    Galan was shaking his head. It turned smoothly, as if on an oiled pivot, but his eyes stayed locked on Mandy’s pale pink face.

    “Regretfully, it is my sad duty to inform you . . .”

    Mandy was reaching into her purse. Galan’s voice trailed off, as he watched her retrieve a small silver Canon camera. She held it out to Galan, who accepted it with the fingertips of his left hand, as if he expected it to carry an electric charge.

    “It’s a digital,” said Mandy. “Open the stored pictures section.”

    He did, and found that he was looking at a photograph of a man’s face. He shaded the LCD screen from the sidelong sun, and set a pair of thin, gold-wire-framed glasses onto his nose, squinting at the screen.

    “Yes. This is a photograph of Mr. Dalton.”

    “Taken at your morgue, so we gather.”

    “Yes. It is a picture of him that we used to identify his body.”

    “So, he’s dead, then?”

    “As I said . . . regretfully. We did all that could be—”

    “Are you at all curious as to how we came by this picture?”

    Galan shrugged his shoulders, lifted his clawlike hands skyward in a ghastly imitation of divine supplication. He smiled—showed his tiny yellow teeth, at any rate—although he did not return the camera.

    “You are with Clandestine. The CIA. I suppose you have your ways.”

    Mandy offered him some more Chablis—he accepted it—and shone upon him a smile he would remember for days afterward, in the silent rooms of his gloomy little backstreet villa near the