Victorian blouse trimmed in Irish lace, its high collar tucked just under her chin and always a hat, its veil adding a constant touch of mystery. She said very little, and when she did speak, the conversation was impersonal. As it often goes with fledgling love affairs, they skirted personal questions, keeping the mystery alive as long as possible. After dinner, caught up in the spirit of the season, they listened to the Christmas carollers in front of Rockefeller Plaza and they window-shopped along Fifth Avenue.
It began to snow again but the wind had died down and the thick powder began to drift on the sidewalk. Several cabs went by with their ‘Off Duty’ lights on. Then the street was bare except for an errant carriage that had strayed several blocks from the Plaza at Central Park, its horse clopping forlornly through the snow while the driver, a young woman wearing a stovepipe hat with a silk rose in the band, huddled under a blanket. He flagged her down, in the middle of Fifth Avenue, and she agreed to take them to Sixty-third Street.
They huddled under a warm blanket too, and he put his arm around her, drawing her to him, moving her face up toward his with a gentle nudge from the back of his hand and she, responding, kissed him very lightly, the tip of her tongue tracing the edge of his lower lip. They kissed again. And then again, exploring each other’s faces with their fingertips, their tongues flirting, back and forth.
Fifth Avenue was empty when they got to her apartment. The wind had blown itself out and the snow was falling almost straight down, filling the ruts in the street. A gentle hush had settled over everything. He gave the driver three ten-dollar bills, jumped out of the cab and gallantly swept his lady out over the soggy curb and under the apartment awning, and she took his hand and led him into the lobby. Behind them, the crack of the young woman’s whip was swallowed up by the snowdrifts. When they entered her apartment she immediately excused herself and went into the bedroom.
Her apartment, which was on the fourth floor overlooking the Park, was a small but tastefully decorated one- bedroom flat with an open fireplace in the living room. But there was something missing, and it was a few moments before he realized there were no personal effects in the room. No pictures, no mementos. It was almost as if the room were a showcase in a department store.
He stood and appraised the apartment for another moment or two, then stepped into the guest bath and closed the door. He lowered his pants. A leather belt was strapped high on his left thigh with a sheath on the inside of his leg. The handle protruding from the sheath had been planed until it was flat and narrow, and then it had been grooved out to fit his fingers. He wrapped them around the handle and drew out a wood chisel, the kind used by sculptors. He inspected it. The curled edges of its gutterlike shaft gleamed with evil promise. The blade had been cut off about five inches from the handle and honed to a needle point. He tested the point with a forefinger, barely touching it before it broke the skin. Tie sucked a bauble of blood from his fingertip, pulled his pants back up, and reaching around his back, slipped the awl into his belt. He checked himself out in the mirror and returned to the living room.
A radio was playing softly in the bedroom. She called to him and he went in. The lights were out, the only illumination coming from a half-dozen candles flickering in the room. She was seated in the middle of the bed, leaning forward with her head lowered, her long black hair cascading down almost to her lap, a lacy gown thrown over her shoulders. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out details in the dark room.
No mirrors behind him.
Good.
Approaching the bed, he slipped off his jacket and threw it over a chair, unbuttoned his shirt and started to pull out his shirttail, moving his hands around his belt, freeing the shirt.
As his hands moved around to his back, she sat up abruptly and shrugged her shoulders. The gauze gown fell away. The sight startled him and he hesitated for an instant and as he did, she swung her right arm up and held it straight out in front of her.
She moved so fast that he didn’t see the gun, only the brilliant flash from the muzzle, and he felt the awful blast of heat on his face a moment before the bullet blew his brains out.
As Colin Bradley fell, he gasped a single, final word:
‘Chameleon?’
BOOK ONE
—LORD ACTON
I
It was still dark when Marza awoke — that last minute or two before dawn when the sun was still caught behind the church spire out on Venezia and the first sanguine fingers of the day stretched out between the buildings and reached across the lagoon toward them. His wife lay beside him, asleep on her side, her flaming red hair fanned out on the yellow satin pillowcase, and for several minutes, his eyes half open, he admired her as she slept.
Hey, Marza, you lucky bastard, he thought. You have it all and this time it is all working. It is a good time for you, the best time of your life.
His eyes caught a glimpse of the silk nightgown lying on the floor where she had thrown it the night before, and he laughed very quietly to himself. They had been married for ten years, and she still surprised and delighted him with her recklessness in bed. Milena de la Rovere, the tempestuous actress, the red-headed tigress who had driven every director in Europe and Hollywood crazy, yet with him, after ten years, she was still his temptress and his lover.
Looking at the tattered nightgown, he remembered her kneeling over him on the bed, yelling raucously, at the top of her lungs, all the English ‘feelthy words’ he had taught her, and then popping the thread-thin straps at her shoulders and pulling the champagne silk gown down slowly, painfully slowly, over her breasts, until finally they could be held no longer and burst free, the nipples erect and waiting for him as she continued taunting him,
