Read The Heist for Free Online

children?” he asked incredulously.
    “To find someone to spend the rest of your life with.”
    “I’m afraid I’m past my expiration date,” Isherwood answered. “At this point, I’m married to my gallery.”
    “Sell the gallery,” said Gabriel. “Retire to a villa in the south of France.”
    “I’d go mad in a week.”
    They left the bar and walked a few paces to the Grand Canal. A sleek wooden water taxi gleamed at the edge of the crowded dock. Isherwood seemed reluctant to board it.
    “If I were you,” said Gabriel, “I’d get out of town before the general changes his mind.”
    “Sound advice,” replied Isherwood. “May I give you some?”
    Gabriel was silent.
    “Tell the general to find someone else.”
    “I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”
    “Then watch your step out there. And don’t go playing the hero again. You have a lot to live for.”
    “You’re going to miss your plane, Julian.”
    Isherwood teetered aboard the water taxi. As it eased away from the dock, he turned to Gabriel and shouted, “What do I say to Oliver?”
    “You’ll think of something.”
    “Yes,” said Isherwood. “I always do.”
    Then he ducked into the cabin and was gone.

5
VENICE
    G ABRIEL WORKED ON THE V ERONESE until the windows of the nave darkened with dusk. Then he rang Francesco Tiepolo on his telefonino and broke the news that he had to run a very private errand for General Cesare Ferrari of the Carabinieri. He didn’t go into any of the details.
    “How long will you be gone?” asked Tiepolo.
    “A day or two,” replied Gabriel. “Maybe a month.”
    “What shall I say to the others?”
    “Tell them I died. It will lift Antonio’s spirits.”
    Gabriel straightened his work platform with more care than usual and went into the cold evening. He followed his usual route northward, across San Polo and Cannaregio, until he came to an iron bridge, the only iron bridge in all of Venice. In the Middle Ages there had been a gate in the center of the bridge, and at night a Christian watchman had stood guard so that those imprisoned on the other side could not escape. Now the bridge was empty except for a single gull that glared at Gabriel malevolently as he trod slowly past.
    He entered a darkened sottoportego. At the end of the passageway a broad square opened before him, the Campo di Ghetto Nuovo, the heart of the ancient ghetto of Venice. He crossed the square and stopped at the door of Number 2899. A small brass plaque read COMUNITÀ EBRAICA DI VENEZIA : JEWISH COMMUNITY OF VENICE. He pressed the bell, then, instinctively, turned his face away from the security camera.
    “Can I help you?” a familiar female voice asked in Italian.
    “It’s me.”
    “Who’s me?”
    “Open the door, Chiara.”
    A buzzer howled, a deadbolt snapped open. Gabriel entered a cramped passage and followed it to another door, which unlocked automatically as he approached. It gave onto a small office, where Chiara sat primly behind an orderly desk. She wore a sweater of winter white, fawn-colored leggings, and a pair of leather boots. Her riotous auburn hair fell across her shoulders and upon a silk scarf that Gabriel had purchased on the island of Corsica. He resisted the impulse to kiss her wide mouth. He didn’t think it proper to express physical affection toward the receptionist of the chief rabbi of Venice, even if the receptionist also happened to be the rabbi’s devoted daughter.
    Chiara was about to address him but was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. Gabriel sat on the edge of her desk and listened as she dispensed with a small crisis afflicting a shrinking community of believers. She looked astonishingly like the beautiful young woman he had first encountered, ten years earlier, when he had come calling on Rabbi Jacob Zolli for information on the fate of Italy’s Jews during the Second World War. Gabriel had not known then that Chiara was an agent of Israeli intelligence, or that she had been