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assigned by King Saul Boulevard to watch over him during the restoration of the San Zaccaria altarpiece. She revealed herself to him a short time later in Rome, after an incident involving gunplay and the Italian police. Trapped alone with Chiara in a safe flat, Gabriel had wanted desperately to touch her. He had waited until the case was resolved and they had returned to Venice. There, in a canal house in Cannaregio, they made love for the first time, in a bed prepared with fresh linen. It was like making love to a figure painted by the hand of Veronese.
    On the day of their first meeting, Chiara had offered him coffee. She no longer drank coffee, only water and fruit juice, which she sipped constantly from a plastic bottle. It was the only outward sign that, after a long struggle with infertility, she was finally pregnant with twins. She had vowed not to resist the inevitable weight gain with dieting or exercise, which she regarded as yet another obsession inflicted upon the world by the Americans. Chiara was a Venetian at heart, and Venetians did not flail on cardio contraptions or lift heavy objects to build their muscles. They ate and drank well, they made love, and when they required a bit of exercise, they strolled the sands of the Lido or walked down to the Zattere for a gelato.
    She hung up the telephone and settled her playful gaze upon him. Her eyes were the color of caramel and flecked with gold, a combination that Gabriel had never been able to render accurately on canvas. At the moment, they were very bright. She was happy, he thought, happier than he had ever seen her before. Suddenly, he didn’t have the heart to tell her that General Ferrari had appeared like the flood to spoil everything.
    “How are you feeling?” he asked.
    She rolled her eyes and sipped from her plastic water bottle.
    “Did I say something wrong?”
    “You don’t have to ask me how I’m feeling all the time.”
    “I want you to know that I’m concerned about you.”
    “I know you’re concerned, darling. But I’m not terminally ill. I’m just pregnant.”
    “What should I ask you?”
    “You should ask me what I want for dinner.”
    “I’m famished,” he said.
    “I’m always famished.”
    “Should we go out?”
    “Actually, I feel like cooking.”
    “Are you up to it?”
    “Gabriel!”
    She began to needlessly straighten the papers on her desk. It wasn’t a good sign. Chiara always straightened things when she was annoyed.
    “How was your work?” she asked.
    “It was a thrill a minute.”
    “Don’t tell me you’re bored with the Veronese.”
    “Removing dirty varnish isn’t the most rewarding part of a restoration.”
    “No surprises?”
    “With the painting?”
    “In general,” she answered.
    It was a peculiar question. “Adrianna Zinetti came to work dressed as Groucho Marx,” Gabriel replied, “but otherwise it was a normal day at the Church of San Sebastiano.”
    Chiara frowned at him. Then she opened a drawer with the toe of her boot and absently inserted a few papers into a manila folder. Gabriel wouldn’t have been surprised if the papers bore no relation to the others already in the file.
    “Is there something bothering you?” he asked.
    “You’re not going to ask me how I’m feeling again, are you?”
    “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
    She closed the drawer with more force than necessary. “I stopped by the church at lunchtime to surprise you,” she said after a moment, “but you weren’t there. Francesco said you had a visitor. He claimed not to know who it was.”
    “And you knew Francesco was lying, of course.”
    “It didn’t take a trained intelligence officer to see that.”
    “Go on,” said Gabriel.
    “I called the Operations Desk to see whether anyone from King Saul Boulevard was in town, but the Operations Desk told me that no one was looking for you.”
    “For a change.”
    “Who came to see you today, Gabriel?”
    “This is beginning to sound like an