Page 5 of The Collector
“I’m an iconoclast. I flout convention.”
He was also the world’s most famous retired spy. He had settled in Venice with the approval of the Italian authorities—and with the knowledge of key figures in the Venetian cultural establishment—but his presence in the city was not widely known. For the most part, he dwelled in an uncertain realm between the overt and covert worlds. He carried a weapon, also with the approval of the Italian police, and maintained a pair of false German passports in the event he found it necessary to travel pseudonymously. Otherwise, he had shed the accoutrements of his previous life. Tonight’s gala, for better or worse, would be his coming-out party.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be perfectly charming.”
“And if someone asks how it is you know Anna Rolfe?”
“I’ll feign sudden hearing loss and make a dash for the gents.”
“Excellent strategy. But then operational planning always was your strong suit.” A singlecicchettoremained. Chiara nudged the plate toward Gabriel. “You eat it. Otherwise, I won’t be able to fit into my dress.”
“Giorgio?”
“Versace.”
“How bad is it?”
“Scandalous.”
“That’s one way to secure funding for our projects.”
“Trust me, it isn’t for the benefit of the donors.”
“You’re a rabbi’s daughter.”
“With a body that won’t quit.”
“Tell me about it,” said Gabriel, and devoured the finalcicchetto.
It was a pleasant ten-minute walk from the Campo dei Frari to their apartment. In the spacious master bathroom suite, Gabriel quicklyshowered and then confronted his reflection in the looking glass. He judged his appearance to be satisfactory, though marred by the raised, puckered scar on the left side of his chest. It was approximately half the size of the corresponding scar beneath his left scapula. His two other bullet wounds had healed nicely, as had the bite marks, inflicted by an Alsatian guard dog, on his left forearm. Unfortunately, he couldn’t say the same for the two fractured vertebrae in his lower back.
Faced with the prospect of a two-hour concert followed by a multicourse seated dinner, he swallowed a prophylactic dose of Advil before heading to his dressing room. His Brioni tuxedo, a recent addition to his wardrobe, awaited him. His tailor had not found it unusual when he requested additional room in the waistline; all his trousers were cut in that manner to accommodate a concealed weapon. His preferred handgun was a Beretta 92FS, a sizable firearm that weighed nearly two pounds when fully loaded.
Dressed, Gabriel wedged the gun into place at the small of his back. Then, turning slightly, he examined his appearance a second time. Once again, he was mostly pleased by what he saw. The elegantly cut Brioni jacket rendered the weapon all but invisible. Moreover, the fashionable double vent would likely reduce his draw time, which, despite his many bodily injuries, remained lightning-strike fast.
He strapped a Patek Philippe timepiece to his wrist and, switching off the lights, went into the sitting room to await the appearance of his wife. Yes, he thought as he surveyed his sweeping view of the Grand Canal, he wasthatGabriel Allon. Once he had been Israel’s angel of vengeance. Now he was the director of the paintings department at the Tiepolo Restoration Company. Anna was someone he had encountered along the way. If the truth be told, he had tried to love her, but he wasn’t capable of it. Then he met a beautiful young girl from the ghetto, and the girl saved his life.
The deep thigh slit and absence of shoulder straps notwithstanding, Chiara’s black Versace evening gown was by no means scandalous. Her shoes, however, were definitely a problem. Stiletto-heeled Ferragamo pumps, they added ten and a half desirable centimeters to her already statuesque frame. She gave Gabriel a discreet downward glance as they approached the pack of press photographers gathered outside Teatro La Fenice.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” she asked through a frozen smile.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” he answered as a barrage of brilliant white flashes dazzled his eyes.
They passed beneath the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag hanging from the theater’s portico and entered the multilingual din of the crowded foyer. A few heads turned, but Gabriel received no excessive scrutiny. For the moment, at least, he was just another middle-aged man of uncertain nationality with a beautiful young woman on his arm.
She squeezed his hand reassuringly. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“The night is young,” murmured Gabriel, and surveyed the shimmering room around him. Faded aristocrats, magnates and moguls, a smattering of important Old Master dealers. Tubby Oliver Dimbleby, never one to miss a good party, had made the trip down from London. He was comforting a French collector of note who had been burned to a crisp by a recent forgery scandal, the one involving the late Phillip Somerset and his fraudulent art-based hedge fund, Masterpiece Art Ventures.
“Did you know he was coming?” asked Chiara.
“Oliver? I heard an alarming report to that effect from one of my many sources in the London art world. He’s under strict instructions to give us a wide berth.”
“What happens if he can’t help himself?”
“Pretend he has leprosy and walk away as quickly as possible.”
A reporter approached Oliver and solicited a comment, about what, heaven only knew. Several other journalists were gathered around Lorena Rinaldi, the minister of culture in Italy’s new coalition government. Like the prime minister, Rinaldi belonged to a far-right political party that could trace its lineage to the National Fascists of Benito Mussolini.
