The Echelon Vendetta Read online

  Stallworth’s words came floating back to him:

  “I tell you, kid, I’d love to know what it was. I mean, the company could use something like that.”

  Dalton looked down at his hands and saw, in his Narcan-induced acuity, that his left hand carried no bite mark at all.

  He flexed it and saw the tendons rising like cables out of his clear skin. There was no blackened wound where he had ripped at the flesh with his scissors. No tiny red pinpricks where the green spider had supposedly bitten him.

  He lifted the sleeve of his shirt enough to bare a length of his left forearm. It too was unmarked. No crisscross network of gouges and scratches. He patted his shirt pocket and pulled out the elastic-wrapped packet of Toscanos.

  He shook it once.

  Twice. Then, gathering his nerve, he ripped the elastics off and popped the lid. Six cigarillos lay in the box. He tipped the packet out over the floor, letting the cigarillos tumble out. The box was empty. There was no emerald green spider.

  He had never been bitten.

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  None of that had ever happened. It had all been a hallucination— and a very deep and long-lasting hallucination, with much of its power remaining in effect even by the following morning. But the essence of the thing was plain: he had been drugged, set up in Nau-mann’s room and drugged.

  But how?

  The cigarillos? Had the man left them on the table, knowing that Dalton would pick them up and smoke them?

  That was leaving a lot up to chance, wasn’t it?

  Moonflowers.

  Now he remembered where he had heard about moonflowers. Not from Jack Stallworth. Brancati had mentioned moonflowers when he was talking about Naumann’s hotel room in Cortona. The cops had found a broken vase full of morning glories in Naumann’s room. Brancati had told him that morning glories were nocturnal. That meant that they opened up their petals in the night. Last night there were moonflowers in Dalton’s room at the hotel.

  Right on the dresser. Near the minibar.

  And his . . . attack . . . hadn’t it come on shortly after the flowers opened? Opened up to release ...what?

  What had he been exposed to?

  The persistence of the illusion seemed to imply ...what?

  Long-term residual effects?

  Flashbacks?

  Irreversible organic damage?

  And even the grim possibility of ever-increasing impairment— leading to what? Insanity. Madness? Confined for life to some high-security institution. The question chilled him to his core.

  As if to underscore his panic, the room began to grow pale again. He concentrated on his breathing and fought the rising panic. Gradually his vision stabilized; the colors of normal life came seeping back into the room while he considered the shattered terra-cotta

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  cylinder and the small fan of pinkish powder lying on the parquet flooring.

  If the idea had been to drug him for some unknown purpose, a vase full of doctored morning glories seemed like a damned uncertain way to accomplish that. But it had sure as hell worked, hadn’t it?

  Is that how Naumann got taken?

  Taken by whom, Micah?

  Who were they ?

  And why had they come after Dalton next?

  If the idea had been to incapacitate him, or to confront him later in his room, or even to kill him, why had no one followed through? Why go to all the trouble to plant a vase full of doctored flowers in his room and then just walk away?

  Unless they had assumed that drugging him was all they had to do, that the drug itself would have killed him, or driven him to kill himself. His reaction to being bitten by the imaginary spider was to take an imaginary blade to his left arm.

  But it need not have been imaginary at all. In that state, out of control, hallucinating, a desperate life-threatening act was not only possible but very damn likely.

  If he had taken a real blade to his arm, he would have bled to death in the bathroom. If the drug had persuaded him that he could fly, he would have stepped right off the balcony.

  These things happened all the time; they were in the news every day. The verdict would have been suicide, or death by a suicidal misadventure, brought on by too much drink and by some unidentified narcotic. Just like Porter Naumann.

  Brancati had already decided that Naumann’s death, although possibly drug-related, was just one of those tragic outcomes that happen so often in the world of recreational drug use. In a way, the hallucination of Naumann’s ghost may have saved Dalton’s life, be

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  cause he spent the rest of the evening chatting with a delusion instead of taking a flier off the balcony. Even if there had been no intent to kill him with this drug, there certainly was a criminal lack of concern with the outcome, which meant that the idea may have been simply to take him out of the picture.

  He needed to get all of this stuff to a company lab as soon as possible. Dalton looked around the room for something to put the powder and the shards into and saw a wicker basket by the old woodstove. He got to his feet and staggered over to the oven. The basket was filled with torn scraps of paper, a crumpled grocery sack, a section of knotted raffia cord with a burned end, and the brittle remains of some kind of flat bread.

  He rooted around in the basket and found a section of newspaper. He was kneeling on the floor carefully sweeping up the remains of the white powder with a gloved hand when he heard Miss Vasari’s footsteps in the hall, and the sound of ice clinking in silver. To his drug-heightened perceptions, the sounds were amazingly distinct, each silvery bong of the ice as pure and crystalline as a temple bell. He closed his eyes and saw the notes, tiny ruby-colored fireflies floating through a deep-blue cloud. It was beautiful, but scary. Please God, don’t let this be permanent.

  “Signor Dalton, I am sorry. I have only Chivas. I hope—”

  He opened his eyes as she came into the room, carrying a silver tray with a decanter, a silver ice bucket, and two scotch glasses, and saw him kneeling on the floor.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Still hallucinating, I think. How are you?”

  She set the tray down on the kitchen counter and came over to kneel down beside him. She moved in a cloud of scent and her body was painfully present when she got this close.

  As much as Dalton wanted to attribute this alarming return of his

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  sex drive to sheer youthful resilience, he had the feeling that, despite the Narcan injection, whatever drug had been used on him was still sizzling away in his cortex.

  Alessandra looked down at the powder. “You should not touch that. Not even with a glove on. And not without a mask. It is poison. You must see a doctor.”

  “I know,” he said, still sweeping up the powder. “I can feel it. It’s still in my head. But I need to get this stuff into a container. We can’t let it blow around the room. Whatever it is.”

  Sighing, keeping her mouth closed tight, Alessandra helped him to sweep up as much of the powder as they could, keeping it off their skin. The powder went into a folded scrap of paper that Ales-sandra had retrieved from the wastebasket by the grill. The shards of pottery she put in a paper bag with the name Mercato Via Gesa on the side. Afterward she helped him sit down and knelt down in front of him, biting her lower lip as she studied his face.

  “What is it like? Tell me. You are seeing things?”

  “I don’t know. Drugs aren’t my usual sport. It’s as if I had no skin and my hearing is abnormally acute—I can hear your skirt creaking and I can hear your breath in your throat. Visually? I can see that your eyes are not just hazel but a kind of auburn with tiny flecks of gold and green and silver around the iris. I can hear birds rustling out on the eaves and there are children playing with a jump rope down the street.”

  She lifted her head and looked to the window. Dalton studied the way the satiny white skin on her long graceful neck tightened as sh
e did this. A large artery under her left ear was pulsing gently. He stared at it and found that he could hear her heart pumping under the swelling curves of her breasts, keeping perfect time with the push and release of that pale blue artery under her ear.

  She looked back at him, and as her head moved it left afterimages

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  of her face streaking across his mind’s eye. When she spoke, her voice was like an organ in a cathedral. Her scent was extraordinary and he inhaled it with inner delight as she spoke.

  “Yes, I can hear them. Your pupils are very large. The light must hurt. And you are flushed. Your breathing is shallow and rapid.”

  She reached out and placed two fingers of her right hand against the muscle of his neck at a point just under his jawline. Her fingers seemed to melt right through his skin. He found that he adored her. He reached for her. She caught his hand neatly as it came up to cup her left breast and held it firmly in the air, smiling a little to herself as she did this, but she kept her fingers under his jaw and she was counting to herself in Italian, a throaty whisper: diciassette— diciotto—diciannove.

  When she finally spoke her tone was all business.

  “Your heartbeat is febrile. I will call a doctor.”

  “No. I’m sorry. I can’t see a doctor.”

  “You must. You have been poisoned.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. In his skull ruby red fireflies bounced off the curve of his mind and skittered away over a green velvet horizon. He opened his eyes again and she filled up his sky like a planet.

  “I’m stoned. It will go away. I cannot see a doctor. And you’re going to have to back away or I will probably kiss you.”

  She smiled again, and stood up, looking down at him. In his mind she was like a tall cypress swaying in a sea wind.

  “That is the drug. It has aroused you sexually. But are you always like this? I think maybe no. You are far too dissipated for sex. Whatever it is you do for a living, it is very hard on you. If you go on doing it, it will probably kill you. You are not having a good life and there is in your heart some ugly thing. Although you are a young man, or at least not yet very old, already you have the outward marks of tor-

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  menti di spirito. I wonder how long since you have had a woman. With any real pleasure in it. Any joy. Or even with any kind of true libido. Allora, this drug may be an aphrodisiac. Perhaps it is ecstasy mixed with something like psilocybin. The effects are very pronounced.”

  “Damn right they are,” said Dalton, trying to conceal his obvi

  ous physical response to her. “How about that scotch?” “Can you stand up?” “I can get up, I think.” He tried. The room started to disintegrate, the walls opened onto galaxies. “But ...I think I better not.” She walked away and Dalton heard the delicate tinkling of silver

  bells as she dropped three ice cubes into a glass. The sound of the scotch pouring was like river rapids hissing through his head.

  When she came back her footsteps echoed and reechoed around the bare walls of the room. She sat down in the chair opposite him and crossed her legs. Dalton found himself delighted that she had and he sincerely hoped that she would do it again.

  “Who is Laura?” “I talked about her?” “Not clearly. Is she someone important to you?”

  Psicologia.

  “What else did I say? While I was under.” “Something about the snow. And, I think... ghiacciolo?” Icicle.

  The word lanced right through his skull.

  He closed his eyes. He heard the creak of leather and the tinkle of the ice in her drink as she leaned forward and placed a warm hand on his knee. He opened his eyes and saw the concern in her strong, handsome face.

  “This is something you do not want to talk about.” “No. I don’t.”

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  “You should. With someone. The drug has brought it out, but it was always there. May I call you Micah?”

  “Please. May I call you Alessandra?”

  “No. My friends call me Cora.”

  The suggestion of growing intimacy implicit in her use of the word “friends” warmed him for a moment, a feeling that was shattered completely when the ghost of Porter Naumann materialized a few feet behind Cora Vasari’s shoulder. His looks had not appreciably improved in the daylight. He was still wearing those green pajamas.

  “I ask you to go help Laura, I find you flirting with a babe.”

  Dalton shot him a hunted look, feeling a crawling tingle of sheer panic slithering up his spine. Irreversible brain damage. A lifetime of mental impairment. Delusions. Madness. He shook his head, trying to drive the illusion out of his mind. But when he opened them again, Naumann was still there, looking mildly offended.

  Cora seemed unaware of the existence of a six-foot-tall ghost in green pajamas leaning on the mantel of her fireplace, supported by an artful elbow, a half smile on his mutilated face as he took in the large medieval room with evident appreciation.

  “So,” she said, “I have a question. You will be honest?”

  “Of course. A little. Sort of. It depends.”

  “This is nuts,” said Naumann, shaking his head. “If you’re looking to boink this babe—and I admit she is eminently boinkable— then find another method. Sympathy fucks are pitiful.”

  Dalton kept his focus fixed on Cora’s eyes as if they were the only doors out of Hell.

  Cora touched his hand. “You look terrible. What is happening here?”

  “I wish I knew. I really do.”

  She frowned. “I too am involved. The man stayed in my home. I could have touched that . . . thing . . . myself. I was here. I saved your life. You are... come si dice...obbligato?”

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  “I am grateful, Cora. I am. But I really have to go.” She lifted her glass to him in an ironic salute. “D’accordo. No problem. Ciao! I will watch.” From over Cora’s shoulder, Naumann watched with evident

  amusement as Dalton got halfway to his feet before the blue-white tide came roaring back, this time rising up from the floor. He felt the chair creak under him as he fell heavily back into it. She regarded him with a sly smile over the top of her glass.

  “So. Aspetta.” “I’ve got to sleep this off.” “No sleep for you. You are drugged. Incapacitato. Talk.” For a time, Dalton said nothing. She waited in a self-contained

  calm. Naumann watched Dalton’s face with wary intensity, shaking

  his head slowly. “I can tell you some of it. I do owe you that.” “Oh, please,” said Naumann. Dalton looked down at his hand, and then took a sip of Chivas. “I was in Italy to look into the death of a friend of mine. His

  name was Porter Naumann—” Naumann threw his hands up in frustration and walked away shaking his head. Dalton forced himself to look only at Cora.

  “He was a good friend. He died of a heart attack the day before yesterday. In Cortona. His death was unexpected. The company—”

  “What company?” “Naumann worked for an English bank called Burke and Single.” “I do not know this bank.” “They’re not well known. Anyway, when his body was found—” “Where?” “In the courtyard of the Cappella San Nicolò.” “Oh yes. I know it. A sad little church. Very old. Your friend died

  there? Of a heart attack? Was he old?”

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  “No. Fifty-two. And in good health. Or so I thought.”

  “You are not telling me everything about this death, are you?”

  “Let’s just say it was ugly.”

  “In what way?”

  What the hell? She was a grown-up. He laid it all out for her, the rain in Cortona, the crime scene tent, Major Brancati. The ruined body of Porter Naumann. The injuries he suffered.

  He said nothing about the green spider and stayed far away from any mention of what had taken place in the piazza. Cora took the narrative in without a flicker, and when he finished she was quiet for a while. Dalton found th
at he could stand up and went to pour two more scotches. Naumann came over to meet him by the drinks tray.

  “This is very nasty territory, Micah,” he said, in a stage whisper, as if Cora could hear him. “Don’t drag her into it.”

  Dalton mixed the drinks without looking at or in any other way acknowledging Naumann’s warning. When he handed Cora her scotch, she took it without much attention, her professional self now fully engaged.

  “To me this sounds like your friend had some kind of psychotic break. People undergoing such a psychotic break have done terrible things. To others. To themselves. This may be consistent with what has happened to your friend. Sometimes the ...the trigger? ...of such an episode has been drugs. Psilocybin. Peyote and its hydrates. Mescaline. LSD. Occasionally you will find organic causes. This Brancati has told you that he thinks Mr. Naumann had un colpo apoplettico, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “But there was no time for all the blood work to be done?”

  “No. I’m going to Cortona tonight, as a matter of fact. To take charge of his body. And his insurance firm will want to do their own toxicology tests.”

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  “Don’t forget my Chopard,” put in Naumann. Dalton glanced up at him, and then forced his attention back to Cora.

  “Of course,” she went on, “I do not have much regard for the pathologists who work for the Carabinieri. They are buffoni. Clowns. You tell me this policeman says the forensic autopsy suggests stroke. I have seen cases where psychotic episodes have caused un colpo. There may have been a physiological flaw, such as an undetected aneurysm. Your friend was fifty-two? His age makes a stroke very plausible. Was he ...indulgent? A drinker? Given to excess?”

  “Hey! I was in damn good shape, lady,” said Naumann. “He was in excellent shape.” “There you go, kid. Thanks.” “Except for his prostate.” “Schmuck.” “Well, at his age, a prostate problem is very usual.” “My age? I was fifty-two, for Christ’s sake.” “Allora, what I do not understand is what any of this has to do

  with the old Indian man and his spinning pots.”

  “Not a damn thing, sweetheart,” said Naumann, coming across the room and dipping his index finger into Dalton’s scotch, stirring the cubes around. The tinkling sound drew Cora’s attention again to the glass, so Dalton snatched it up and took a sip, watching in mute horror as Naumann stuck his index finger into his mouth and sucked the scotch off it. Dalton found the action impossible to ignore.