“Yes,” said Dalton, in a toneless voice. “I do.”
Brancati went some ways inward, closing his eyes as he did so in a distant, vaguely robotic way, an unnaturally slow movement, and Dalton could see that the man was trying very hard not to lose what little control he had left.
“Radko wished to know where a Mr. Micah Dalton was. These two soft-spoken Croatian men from Trieste. I find this Croatian motif most suggestive. Do you find this Croatian motif suggestive?”
“Of course I do. I’m not a fool. Why didn’t she tell them?”
“At first she was merely angry at their tone. Then, after they had begun to threaten her, she wished only to defy them. She is a proud woman. I admire her. Of course, this could not last long. Few people, few women as lovely as this fine lady, few men, can withstand the threat of permanent disfigurement.”
“Christ, Brancati—”
“You will say nothing right now. Capisce? Nothing.”
Brancati waited to see if his warning had been heard. It had been heard all the way down the long hall and it was still reverberating thunderously down a distant stairwell. Nurses, doctors, other patients in the corridor had frozen in place. White faces were turned toward them, eyes staring. Dalton, whose own reptilian anger was now fully awake, choked his resentment down, but his expression was now as flat and cold as Brancati’s. Brancati, if he noticed Dalton’s anger at all, did not show it.
“She was not disfigured. She defended herself with a weapon she had concealed in her borsa — her purse. A little pistoletta, a very illegal pistoletta. With this weapon she shoots Radko in the face. A man who lives in her villa. A man named Domenico Zitti. He heard the angry voices. The sound of a shot, coming from the room, and he comes upstairs to see what it is about. The door is shut. He pounds on the door. He is a retired pescatore and very strong from hauling the nets for forty years. He pounds and shouts, the door is pulled open, and these two men from Trieste, one of them bleeding from a wound in his cheek, they try to push past him. He of course resents this. He is stabbed. His wound is grave. He falls. They step over him. He comes to his feet, sees Signorina Vasari. Her condition, the pistoletta. He runs to her and instead of asking for the Guardia Medica or the Carabinieri, she does not yet know that he has been stabbed, she asks instead for a Signor Micah Dalton of the American Consulate. Zitti is a gentleman of great courage. He makes the call at once. Then he calls the Guardia Medica. They call my friend Lucenzo, who is the captain of the Carabinieri for Venezia. He remembers the name Dalton from my report on the death of your Mr. Naumann. He calls me. I call your Consulate. They do not know you. Yet here you are. And I am here. Now you may speak.”
“Did you catch these men?”
“No. Not yet. The report is that they came by a fast boat. A cigarette boat. Such as the smugglers use. They came from beyond the Lido. None of the doctors in Venice have been approached by a man with a face wound. We assume they have taken the boat to sea. We have in the air our elicottero searching for them. That was your question. Now for mine. It was you who assaulted those men by the Palazzo Ducale, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Good. The simple truth, at last. I become less angry. You do not work for Burke and Single? This also is true?”
“I do work for Burke and Single.”
Brancati sighed, and said nothing for a moment. Then: “I see. You are equivoco. You play a word game. You do work for them but you do not work for them. You are not employed by them.”
This was not framed as a question. It was a statement. Brancati was a senior officer in the Carabinieri, and the Carabinieri ran the Italian government’s intelligence service. If Brancati tried hard enough he could find out who Dalton really worked for. Dalton assumed that he had. Time for clarity.
“No. I’m not.”
“You are an agent of the United States government.”
Again, not a question.
“I am employed by the United States government.”
“Good. We progress. Was it United States government business, this matter of the two men in the square? Milan Slatkovic and Gavro Princip?”
“No. It was self-defense.”
“A personal matter?”
“Yes. I was attacked. I defended myself.”
Brancati smiled again, his eyes a little less sleepy.
“I wish you had not defended yourself with such vigore. Perhaps Miss Vasari would not be here in the hospital tonight. Perhaps she would not be facing an atto d’accusa from the police for having in her purse an illegal weapon. So you are perhaps involved in a vendetta with a pair of Croatian sicari, hit men, and she also is involved. Now you will please tell me why she is involved?”
“I was looking for a man. I was told he was staying at her villa near the All Saints’ Cathedral. I went there to find this man.”
“I see. While you were there you showed her identification papers that gave her the strong impression that you worked for the local American Consulate. May I see these papers now?”
“I don’t have them with me.”
Brancati’s face did not register any form of surprise. Rather it seemed to confirm a private opinion already tagged and bagged.
“Of course. This accords with the fact that you are not registered with my government as a member of the American diplomatic service. And what was the name of this man for whom you were looking?”
“I was told his name was Pellerossa.”
“Pellerossa is not a name. It is a kind of people. Your American redskins. Miss Vasari would no doubt have explained this.”
“She did. She was under the impression that her tenant’s name was Sweetwater.”
“And did you locate this Sweetwater man?”
“No.”
“You have no idea who he is?”
“Not yet.”
“Why were you looking for him?”
“I thought this man might be able to tell me something about Naumann’s death.”
“And what gave you this impression?”
“Nothing. A hunch.”
“Come si dice? ‘Nozione’? This means a ‘hunch’? You are equivocal again. Fine. I have consulted with our dipartimento di spionaggio. Also with my friends in your embassy. You are a spy. Spies must equivocate, as gulls must eat carrion, as dogs must lick themselves. I set this aside. In what way did Miss Vasari and this man come to be connected in your mind?”
“I first saw the man at Carovita. He stood out. His manner was strange, as was his clothing. He looked like an American Indian. I became interested in him. The next afternoon, I went back to Carovita and made some inquiries. I was told that this man was living in the Dorsoduro—”
“Who told you this?”