Number 7, Rue Jacob

by Wendy Hornsby

  “Not until I know who’s behind all this. And why.” Suddenly, he looked up at me. “Who knows you are here?”

  “In Venice? No one except you, me, passport control, and the airline,” I said. “My grandmother and Émile know I was leaving Paris to meet you—Émile drove me to Orly—but they don’t know where I was headed.”

  He laughed softly. “Émile and my sister will have something interesting to talk about over dinner tonight, yes?”

  “I’m sure.” A thought occurred to me as I was pulling my boots back on, getting ready to go out to the shops and on to a rendezvous with a misfit youth. “Jean-Paul, if you’re short of cash, and you weren’t using your ATM or credit cards, how did you pay for my flight?”

  “I used a burner phone to call the one person, other than you, that I know will keep a secret and never betray me.” He leaned closer and whispered, “My mother.”

  “Your mother? Keep a secret? How long until she tells her dear friend, my grandmother, who will tell my brother, Freddy, and my daughter, and so on, and so on, and so on?”

  He shook his head. “Jamais. Never. Not when I told her it was important. I needed her to help me find you in Paris, and she did; she called your grandmother for information. She made your travel arrangements using a prepaid telephone and prepaid credit card in case she was being monitored. There will be questions to answer later, many questions. But until then, she says nothing.”

  “Not even a word to Émile and your sister?” I was still dubious. I’ve seen how quickly the intra-family information network can broadcast bits of news.

  “Not a single word from Maman to anyone. But I can’t say the same for my fishermen friends, or anyone at the airline or the taxi company that brought you here.”

  “Did your mother also rent this Venetian nest for us?”

  With an enigmatic little smile, he said, “No. The apartment belongs to my friend, Gille.”

  “Someone else you trust, then?”

  “Not very much, no. But Gille doesn’t know we’re here.”

  I was appalled. “Aren’t you afraid he might walk in?”

  “Not at all. Gille hates Carnevale. This is the last place he would show up.”

  “Lordy.” I looked around the well-appointed apartment and thought, with a few pangs, about how I had ripped up the owner’s thousand-thread-count sheet and wondered what the etiquette was for replacing ruined linens. And with a flashback at the state of Isabelle’s apartment when I walked in, I cringed at the thought of leaving soiled towels and bedding behind for Gille to walk into.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  I looked at my watch. “A little after four. Tell me about this rendezvous I’m to make at forty-two minutes after five.”

  “Get to the Rialto Bridge a few minutes before the meeting time. Stop to admire the display of red handbags at the front of the third shop from the San Marco end, as you face the lagoon. If you find one you want to buy, so much the better. While you are looking among the red bags, someone will tap you on the shoulder three times. Don’t turn around, don’t try to see who it is. Wait a decent interval, and then continue across the bridge as if you are any tourist.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. I am serious. Dead serious.”

  3

  Not knowing how long we would be in Venice, at the ­Accademia vaporetto stop I bought two unlimited use Tourist Travel Cards from a machine, good for seven days’ travel on the Venetian water bus system. The cards were still in my hand when the vaporetto headed toward Rialto pulled up to the boarding float. I merged into the surging human mass getting aboard and nabbed a spot at the outside rail. It was bitter out; the first of the promised snow flurries danced on the water as we headed up the Grand Canal. We passed two oncoming vaporetti packed with passengers and riding low, headed toward the Piazza San Marco where there was to be a parade of some sort and fireworks that evening. As I debarked at the Rialto stop, I made a mental note to walk home later to avoid the jammed buses headed back toward Accademia on their way toward San Marco.

  Feeling paranoid, as I made my way toward the modern Coin department store in the Cannaregio district, I watched my rear, taking a zig-zag course through the narrow Venetian walkways that coursed between ancient buildings. Now and then, I stopped at shop windows to see if anyone was following me. People walked past in a steady stream without seeming to take notice of me. Every time I stopped, I took out my little video camera and shot a few frames as if I were any other tourist, except that my target was always the faces of people around me, and not the iconic architecture or beautiful doors or the odd cat grooming itself in a window. The sun had already disappeared below the rooftops, and shadows were long when I opened the front door of the brightly lit department store. When I passed a rack of women’s coats on sale on the ground floor, it occurred to me that Freddy’s coat would suit ­Jean-Paul better than it did me. It was way too big for me, and would be a bit big for Jean-Paul, too; my brother is a tall, broad-shouldered man. But the size would accommodate Jean-Paul’s sling. After I shopped for him, I planned to go back downstairs and look at the coats on the sale rack.

  Upstairs, in the third-floor men’s department, I began pulling out clothes that looked like the sorts of things Jean-Paul might wear, and that were warm and practical, and handing them to the sales clerk who had appointed herself my assistant. Two pairs of jeans, a couple of button-front flannel shirts a size too large, a heavy cardigan, underwear, long johns, socks, and a pair of all-weather leather shoes with a lug sole. After I paid for his things, I started back down the stairs toward women’s coats on the ground floor. And that’s when I spotted my tail.

  The tall blond man I had run into earlier was lingering near the bottom of the stairs, in the women’s shoe department, pretending, I thought, to be interested in some really ugly green pumps with a four-inch heel. Freddy’s big coat was hanging over my arm. I slipped my camera out of a pocket and, using the coat as a shield, snapped a few surreptitious frames of the man. His head was down, but with the zoom function I got a good shot of his face reflected in the mirror placed on the floor where women could check out the shoes they were trying on. Just as he looked up, I stepped off the stairs and onto the mezzanine, ladies’ lingerie. Randomly, I pulled a handful of bras off a rack and asked to be shown to a fitting room, a place the blond man could not follow. And where I could have a little time to figure out a strategy for escape. The black-clad maven of lingerie who hovered at my elbow looked from the bras dangling from my hand to my chest, scowled, took them from me and quickly selected half a dozen others before leading me to a fitting room.

  Not since I was thirteen, being fitted for my very first bra, had a sales clerk joined me in the fitting room. Until now. As she unhooked the first of the bras, and with no safe way to exit coming to mind, I stripped to the waist. I put my arms through the straps she held for me. After she fastened the back, she cupped my breasts in her hands, gave them a little jiggle, made an adjustment in the straps, then stood back for me to look in the mirror. The bra was wonderful, the best-fitting, most comfortable little wisp of a garment I had ever worn. We tried two others, but agreed that the first was the best.

  “Quanti ne desideri?” she asked, scrolling up her fingers one at a time. How many did I want? I hadn’t planned to buy any, but the bra was wonderful. And I felt I should reward her efforts, or pay a sort of rent for this place of refuge. I held up two fingers. But she shook her head and announced, firmly, “Quattro.”

  When I nodded that four bras was just fine, she handed me my old bra and shirt and opened the fitting room door. Instead of going right out, though, she peeked through, motioned to a clerk who was passing by with a customer, and whispered something to her. The other clerk walked out through the opening to the sales floor and came right back. She gave a nod and my lady closed the door again.

  “Signora,” she whispered, her back against the door. “There is a man; tall, white hair—You know him?�
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  “He’s a pest,” I said. “He was on my flight and now he follows me everywhere. Is he lurking out there?”

  She nodded as she pointed down, which I took to mean he was down on the ground floor still. “You don’t want to see him, sí?”

  “Sí.”

  She touched the end of her nose. “I knew this. That’s why you ran in here, to stay away from him.”

  When I nodded, she tsk’ed, and with great disdain, said, “These guys, Euro trash. They come at Carnevale to drink and pick up girls. They see a pretty girl, and, like lions, they stalk her. Make like big scooch, eh? They don’t go away, don’t hear No. They have their way, eat her alive. And then what? They fly away home. Maybe have a wife and kids somewhere. Bastardi.”

  She folded the chosen bra. “Wait here. You need something more from store, I’ll get.”

  “It isn’t from your department, but I do need a coat.”

  She glanced at Freddy’s coat hanging from a hook, gave my body another assessment, pulled a phone out of her pocket and made a quick call. Within a few minutes, there was a tap on the door and a second clerk handed in half a dozen coats. The two women studied me, had a brief conversation, and agreed on two of the coats for me to try on. The second one fit beautifully, covered my ass, had a zip-out blanket lining, deep pockets, and cost the earth, even marked down twenty-five percent.

  “I’ll take it,” I said. “I’ll wear it now.”

  The second clerk, with a nod, took small scissors from her pocket and snipped the tags. I handed over one of the prepaid credit cards and, as instructed by my helpers, sat down on the little chair in the corner of the fitting room while my purchases were rung up. When my bra lady came back, she carried a shopping bag large enough to hold my new bras as well as Freddy’s coat. Like a conspirator, which I suppose she was, instead of sending me back out into the open store, she bustled me along the short hallway outside the fitting rooms, through a door into a stock room, down a freight elevator and, when the coat clerk, who was waiting outside, gave a signal that the coast was clear, showed me out through a service door that opened onto a quiet back passageway. It was dark out there, and spooky, but I could see all the way to the end where it intersected with a second narrow walkway that ran along a side canal.

  “Grazie,” I said, offering her my hand. “Grazie mille.”

  “Prego,” she answered, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “Women, we stick together.”

  Then she closed the door and I was alone. In the dark.

  Staying to the back side of the district, using less-traveled walkways in a residential area, away from the tourists, I wended my way toward the Rialto Bridge and my 5:42 rendezvous. It was only a ten-minute walk, and I had a little more than twenty minutes to make it. When I came upon a small neighborhood beauty supply shop, I went in and picked up a few basic toiletries for Jean-Paul: toothbrush, comb, razor, the shaving gel he used. Laden with purchases, at 5:36 I was studying a display of red leather handbags in front of the third shop from the San Marco end of the Rialto Bridge.

  While I waited for someone to give my shoulder three taps, I was bumped and jostled by the great swirling tide of tourist shoppers, but I held my spot, pretending to be one of them, looking for souvenirs. The red bags were beautiful, so the task wasn’t difficult. I found one that I particularly liked. It was small and flat, just big enough to hold a phone, some cash, and the wallet with my passport. The bag had a long sturdy strap that I could wear across my body and under my coat, a safer place to keep valuables than a pocket. The price was quite reasonable, all things considered, so I held it up to the proprietor, who had been keeping a close eye on me from behind the counter of his narrow store. He came forward, smiling, showed me the price tag. I nodded, handed him cash, and he took the bag to his counter to ring up and wrap. While this transaction was in process, I felt three quick taps on my shoulder and knew my mission was complete. The clerk, with a little bow, presented me with my new bag, said, “Grazie, signora.” I responded, “Prego,” tucked the package he gave me among my purchases, and sauntered on, though I wanted to run all the way back to the apartment where Jean-Paul waited.

  Throngs of people headed toward San Marco, filling the walkways. To avoid them, I crossed the bridge to the opposite side of the Grand Canal and turned toward Accademia, walking fast. From nowhere, someone grabbed my elbow, hard, pulling me back. I spun around, spat “Fucking scooch,” not knowing exactly what the word meant but liking the sound of it. My knee was up, ready to jam into the groin of the tall blond freak.

  “Maggie, Maggie, honey pie. Hold on. It’s just me. Handsome, almost-sober Roddy. Hell, I chased you all the way across that damn bridge.”

  “Roddy Combes.” I was so taken aback to see my old friend from the land of television that I nearly fell over backward until I got both feet firmly planted again. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Chatting,” he said. “Because that’s what I get paid to do, right? Paid a great deal, in fact. The network sent me over to chat up some of the glossier celebs who are in town for the frivolities.”

  “You’re taping your show here, in Venice?”

  “Some bits, anyway,” he said. “I go from the pre-Lenten nonsense of Carnevale here in Venice to the sex and drunken revelry of Fasching in Munich over the weekend. I finish up in London on Tuesday at the Great Spitalfields Pancake Race. If, that is, I’m not too fekkin blootered after Munich to get there.”

  “Do celebs join the pancake race?” I asked, heart still racing.

  “If I promise to aim a camera at them they will do just about anything.” He laughed his famous, great, deep haw-haw. A long time ago, when Roddy and I were both newcomers to television, we had worked together at a network affiliate in Texas. I was anchoring the weekend news broadcast, and he was the weatherman. He got the job, as he would be the first to admit, not because he knew anything at all about meteorology, but because he had a charming Scots brogue and that great big laugh; viewers loved him. Over time, his accent and his quirky dry wit elevated him from making even bad weather sound like fun, to hosting one of the late-night talk shows. Chat shows, he called them. He got paid millions to yuck it up with celebrities four nights a week.

  “But you,” he said. “What are you doing here? Last I heard, you were in Asia trying not to step on land mines.”

  “Who told you that?” The question sounded sharper to my ear than I had intended, but under the weird circumstance I was in, every creak and leaf fall sounded suspicious. It isn’t paranoia when people actually are trying to get you, is it?

  He said, “I ran into your skinny producer at some network holiday gaff. Does that woman ever eat?”

  “Food scares her,” I said, dialing back my over-active alarm system. He was just good old Roddy, for chrissake, not some sort of murderous spook. Still, he didn’t need to know anything more than he already did by just bumping into me at the end of the Rialto Bridge: his stock in trade, after all, was talk. “But, yeah, I’m on my way home from Laos. Bad weather, redirected flights, fate, and here I am.”

  “That explains why you look like hell, my dear Maggie. When was the last time your magnificent carcass found a bed?”

  “Days,” I said.

  He nodded toward my big shopping bags. “And to make it yet more fun, I’m guessing that the arfing airlines lost your bags yet again.”

  “Pisser, huh?” I wasn’t about to explain my situation to him. “Good to see you, Roddy. But I am tired. And a bed awaits.”

  “Oh ho,” he said with a leer. “Could that devastatingly handsome French diplomat, the one you showed up with half-naked in all the tabs, be waiting in the same bed?”

  “If he were, no one would get any sleep, would they? Sorry to say, I’m solo tonight.”

  “Listen, girlie-o.” He fumbled in a pocket, pulled out a pen and a business card with the network logo, and started writing on the back. “A few of the bright, overpaid movie young’uns are dropping by tonight after the
Mozart fest to chat for the cameras. Go take a nice nap, comb your hair, put on a face and some of those new duds, and join us. I’ll give you a glass of something strong, park you on a sofa next to some irresistible film stud, turn the camera on you and do a you’ll never guess who i ran into on her way back from the minefields piece. It’ll make a nice promo bit for whatever the hell you’re working on. Drop by any time after about ten. Actually, come anytime. Just flash this card to my security guy and he’ll show you aboard and ply you with drink.”

  “Aboard?” I asked. “Aboard what?”

  “We’re in Venice, right? Surrounded by water. What else could I do but get the network to hire a great fekkin yacht for me?”

  “Sounds good, Roddy, but another time, friend. I’m too tired to deal with camera lights and witty repartee.”

  “If you change your mind.” He handed me the card. “I’m moored at Marina Sant’Elena. Directions are here. The tub is a quick walk from the Sant’Elena SX vaporetto stop.”

  “Thanks, Roddy.” I slipped the card into my jeans pocket. We exchanged cheek kisses and a quick embrace. As I turned to leave, he called my name.

  “Are you sure you’re all right, lass?”

  “Right as rain, whatever that means.”

  “Currently, cold, wet, dreary,” he said, nodding toward the leaden skies.

  “That’s about right,” I said, turned again and walked away.

  The day had indeed been cold, wet, and dreary. After the sun went down, the wind came up and the temperature plummeted. My new coat was warm, but it didn’t cover my knees. I pulled up the collar and pulled the sleeves down over my fists and cursed myself for not buying gloves. My feet ached with cold. I longed to get back to the warm apartment. Without hope of finding space on a crowded vaporetto, I stuck with Plan A and walked to Accademia; it wasn’t very far. I crossed the bridge, but though I felt thoroughly miserable, instead of going straight up to Jean-Paul, I continued on to the neighborhood market on Campo Santo Stefano where I gathered food for dinner. When at last I unlocked the front door, the apartment was quiet and dark, the only light coming in through the big canal-side windows in front. Without turning on lights, in case someone below was watching for them, I shot the deadbolt on the front door, stowed the groceries in the refrigerator, and took the bag of toiletries into the bedroom, leaving the rest of the shopping on the dining table.