I turned the page and stopped cold. It was a color plate of a painting I had only seen once before. I’d been in Venice, taking a few days’ leave after quietly killing the head of an Armenian crime syndicate who was there on his honeymoon. I had planned on seeing the sights, but the rains came and I spent most of my time wandering around museums to stay out of the wet. I had found myself in the Guggenheim late one afternoon, meandering from gallery to gallery, when I spotted it.
The caption identified it as Shepherdess of the Sphinxes by Leonor Fini.
She’d been painted in 1941 but she had lavish ’80s hair, rising up tawny and tousled. She was wearing a sort of armored piece over her genitals, a metallic bathing suit if you squinted while you studied it. Between her legs, she held a shepherd’s crook like a witch preparing to mount her broomstick, and she was looking over her little flock with a calm, watchful gaze. Nothing would happen to her girls while she was around, although from the looks of things, the herd of sphinxes could take care of themselves. They had the bodies of lionesses but the pouty faces and poutier breasts of supermodels. Their expressions were serene as they surveyed their gentle pasture dotted with flowers and the bones of the dead men they’d eaten. It was ghoulish and beautiful, a perfect representation of the terrible feminine power of life and death. The sphinxes had crushed men to bone and sucked out the marrow, all without messing up their hair. I smiled as I looked from one to the other, noting the line of a lazy tail, the assessing gaze directed to a possible meal waiting just out of frame. And yet, they weren’t the predators. They were gathered in a herd, lovingly watched over and guarded. They weren’t evil, after all. They were simply true to their nature. Something in the protective stance of the shepherdess had spoken to me, I guess. I’d bought a postcard of the painting in the gift shop, carrying it with me for years until it had gone soft with age and eventually I’d lost it.
I hadn’t thought of her in years, but here she was in all her ferocious glory. I remembered then something that Constance Halliday had told me the last time I had stood in that room. We had just gotten our orders for our first job, the mission out of Nice, targeting the Bulgarian. My nerves had been jangling, and Constance found me working out in the garden, throwing punches at the sparring dummy until my knuckles were bruised. She’d forced me to come in, ordering me to soak my hands until the swelling went down. I’d expected a lecture, but for the first time, she didn’t say anything. She had sat with me and given me a quiet, confident silence instead.
It unnerved me. I jerked my hands out of the basin of cold water and stared her down.
“Aren’t you going to give me some advice? Tell me how to handle this?” I demanded.
She got up and went to the door, giving me one last look.
“True leadership, Miss Webster, is not about trusting yourself. It is about trusting your team.”
Trusting your team. I looked at the painting in the book, running a fingertip over that beautiful, murderous herd of sphinxes.
I slammed the book shut. “I’ve got it.” The other three looked up expectantly. “You won’t like it. But it’s the only way. Here’s what we’re going to do . . .”
After I laid out the plan, we argued for a few hours before they gave in. I should have slept like a baby, considering the fact that I had just gotten my way, but instead I tossed and turned awhile before heading down to heat some milk. I don’t drink it—warm milk is disgusting. But you have to stir milk constantly to keep it from scorching and I do find that relaxing. I found Helen sitting at the table, address book in front of her, expression thoughtful.
“You got an idea?” I asked as I poured the milk down the sink and got out the bottle of brandy.
“Maybe,” she said. She tapped her thumbnail against her teeth and fell to thinking again.
I didn’t ask her for more. I knew she’d talk when she was ready. My only mistake was thinking she’d talk to me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I came down to breakfast the next morning, following the smell of toast and Earl Grey. I pushed open the kitchen door and stopped, staring at the two people seated at the table. Helen lifted her chin and her companion turned slowly to face me, hands wrapped around a mug of tea.
“Hello, Billie,” Taverner said. His voice was flat and his eyes were anything but friendly.
“Am I hallucinating?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”
“I called him,” Helen said, lifting her address book with a nervous smile. “Now, you are free to yell at me later, but I’d appreciate it if you’d hear me out first.”