Angelology(151)

felt that he might be sick. “How can you hope to defeat them?”

“That,” Gabriella said, sliding back into her blouse and fastening the buttons, “is something I will

explain after you have given me the letters.”

Verlaine set the laptop computer on the surface of Gabriella’s desk and turned it on. The hard drive

clicked, and the monitor flickered to life. Soon all his files—including the research documents and

scanned letters—appeared as icons on the glowing surface of the screen, bright-colored electronic

balloons floating in an electronic blue sky. Verlaine clicked the Rockefeller/ Innocenta folder and

stepped away from the computer, giving Gabriella ample room to read. At the dust-streaked window,

he observed the quiet, cold park. He knew that beyond there were frozen ponds, an empty skating

rink, snow-covered sidewalks, the winterized carousel. A phalanx of taxis sped north on Central Park

West, carrying people uptown. The city carried on in its usual manic fashion.

Verlaine glanced over his shoulder at Gabriella. She read the letters breathlessly, utterly absorbed

in the computer screen, as if the incandescent words might disappear at any moment. The monitor cast

a green-white pallor over her skin, accentuating the wrinkles about her mouth and eyes and turning her

black hair a shade closer to purple. She removed a sheet of paper from the desk drawer and jotted

notes on it, scribbling as she read, not once glancing up at Verlaine or down at the stream of sentences

emerging from her pen. Gabriella’s attention was so intently focused on the screen—the looping,

pinched curves of Mother Innocenta’s handwriting, the creases of the paper reproduced to an exact

digital likeness—that it was not until Verlaine stood at her side, looking over her shoulder at the

computer, that she noticed him.

“There is a chair in the corner,” she said without taking her eyes from the screen. “You will find it

more comfortable than bending over my shoulder.”

Verlaine carried an antique piano bench from the corner, placed it lightly next to Gabriella, and sat.

She lifted a hand, as if expecting it to be kissed, and said, “A cigarette, s’il vous plaît.”

Verlaine removed one from the porcelain box, fitted it into the lacquer holder, and placed it

between Gabriella’s fingers. Still without looking up, she brought the cigarette to her lips. “Merci,”

she said, inhaling as Verlaine ignited the lighter.

Finally he opened his duffel bag, took a folder from inside, and, venturing to disturb her from her

reading, said, “I should have given these to you before.”

Gabriella turned from the computer and took the letters from Verlaine. Sifting through them, she

said, “The originals?”

“One hundred percent original stolen material from the Rockefeller Family Archive,” Verlaine

said.

“Thank you,” Gabriella said, opening the folder and paging through the letters. “Of course, I

wondered what happened to them, and I suspected that they might be with you. Tell me—what other

copies of these letters are there?”

“That’s it,” Verlaine said. “Those are the originals in your hands.” He gestured to the scans open

on the computer screen. “And the scans.”

“Very good,” Gabriella said quietly.

Verlaine suspected that she wished to say more. Instead she stood, removed a canister of coffee

grounds from a drawer, and brewed a pot of coffee on a hot plate. When the coffee bubbled into the

pot, Gabriella carried it to the computer and, without a hint of warning, poured the contents of the pot

over the laptop, the scalding liquid soaking the keyboard. The screen went white and then black. A

horrid clicking noise wrenched through the computer. Then it fell quiet.

Verlaine hovered over the coffee-saturated keyboard, trying not to lose his temper—and failing.

“What have you done?”

“We cannot allow more copies than absolutely necessary,” Gabriella said, calmly wiping her

hands free of coffee grounds.

“Yes, but you’ve destroyed my computer.” Verlaine pressed the “start” button, hoping that it would

somehow come to life again.

“Technological gadgetry is easily replaced,” Gabriella said, not a hint of apology in her voice.

Walking to the window, she leaned against the glass, her arms crossed over her chest, her expression

serene. “We cannot allow anyone to read these letters. They are too important.”

Sorting through them, she placed the letters alongside one another on a low table until it was filled

with yellowed sheets. There were five letters, each composed of numerous pages. Verlaine came to