Survival Is a Dying Art

by Neil S. Plakcy

“I do. He showed me a home movie his uncle Ugo took, of the painting in Ugo’s apartment, and a copy of the bill of sale.”

  “His family is from the Ghetto?”

  “His father was born here, and his uncle lived here until the war.” I gave him the information I’d gotten from Frank, and he nodded.

  “I think I know the family,” he said. “I am Jewish myself, and my family has lived in Venice for many generations.”

  “Through the war?”

  “My grandparents were fortunate. Neighbors hid them until it was safe for them to come out. Do you know the history of the Ghetto?”

  I shook my head as we continued walking along the canal, my backpack over my shoulder and the painting under my other arm. The pavement was barely wide enough that Danny could walk on the other side of me from Foa.

  Foa said, “In 1516, the Venetian Republic created an area to segregate and protect the Jews, and to appease the Catholic Church, which had already forced Jews to leave many parts of western Europe.”

  “Like the concentration camps of the Nazis?” I asked.

  “No, not at all. The Jews could leave during the day to work or travel throughout the city. By the 17th century, Jews controlled much of Venice's foreign trade, and there were Jewish physicians, lawyers, and scholars. The gates to the Ghetto were locked at nightfall and guarded by watchmen paid by the Jewish community, but it was more for their protection than incarceration.”

  And wasn’t that what the Nazis had said as well? But I didn’t say anything.

  “Eventually the neighborhood of the Ghetto Vecchio, or ‘Old Foundry’ was annexed, because there were so many Jews arriving. They did not always get along—there were Jews from the Levant, from Spain and North Africa and parts of the Ottoman Empire. When Napoleon invaded and destroyed the Venetian Republic, he had the walls torn down, and the Jews could live wherever they chose. But of course, most remained in the area where their families lived. Like my own. But non-Jews moved into the area as well, like the family of Signor Grassini. He comes from a family of petty criminals, going back to his grandfather and before.”

  “The grandfather who probably stole all that art work from the church next door?”

  “Yes, that one. Nunzio Grassini. A collaborator with the Nazis, or so I have heard. He died a few years after the war. Then his son, this Grassini’s father, picked up from him. He made sure Remigio went to school and then college.”

  I nodded. It was what my father had wanted for me and Danny.

  “But Remigio has the criminal gene, and he becomes a high level crook. He is the leader of a local gang involved in money-laundering, drugs trafficking and illegal arms dealing in the Veneto. We have been unable to arrest him for anything, because he is very smart. And some say because he has connections within the police.”

  “Affogato?”

  “I cannot say. But I will be watching her very carefully.”

  We reached a pair of bridges that led in opposite directions, and Foa halted. “The Commissario says there is additional art work at the home of Grassini,” he said. “You saw?”

  “Yes. I think I recognized a few other pieces that belonged to Ugo Sena. On my laptop, I have a digital copy of a movie he sent to his brother in America, showing off his apartment and his artworks.”

  “Interesting,” he said. “You are how long in Venice?”

  “We both leave Sunday morning.”

  “Then you will be able to go with me to Grassini’s apartment? Show me this artwork, and the movie you have? Maybe there are other artworks that your Mr. Venable wished to purchase.”

  “Right now?” Now that the tension had begun to drain from me, I felt exhausted.

  “No, my family waits for me at dinner. Tomorrow? You can come to my office at ten?”

  We agreed, and he gave me the address. It wasn’t too far from our hotel, which meant that it was close to Grassini’s apartment as well. Then he turned to Danny. “You are a student of art,” he said. “You will follow your brother to the FBI?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Danny’s still figuring out what he wants to do with his life.”

  “You never know,” Danny said with a smile. “I could do what Leo does, and the woman you’re working with in Florida. Hunt down stolen artwork.”

  “That is just a small part of what we do,” Leo said. “But yes, someone with your background could be quite successful.”

  That is, I thought, if his big brother would ever let him take a dangerous job. Which wasn’t likely as long as I was that big brother. It was OK for me to get shot at – but not Danny.

  23 – Quite a Collection

  In addition to carrying the painting, I felt the weight of my laptop on my shoulder and figured that I ought to send a couple of emails while the details of the day were still fresh. I suggested we stop at one of the internet cafés and Danny agreed. He used his phone to check his own emails, while I sent a message to Miriam Washington about what I’d seen, and copied Vito. I also emailed Frank that I had the painting and would be bringing it back to Florida.

  I sent a much less detailed message to Lester, leaving out the parts where a man was killed in front of us, and where we were taken in for questioning. No need to worry him; I’d tell him all about it in person when I saw him.

  For a moment, when he was busy with his phone, I looked at my brother. He had stopped shivering, but there was something hunched and closed-in about his posture that told me was upset. “How are you doing, bro?” I asked.

  “Not really sure,” he said, looking up at me. “I didn’t know the man who was killed, but it freaks me out that one minute he was breathing and yelling and the next... I mean, you see that kind of stuff all the time in the movies and on TV shows, but you know that it’s all an act, probably a stunt man, and everybody walked away at the end.”

  “The first time I saw a dead body I was pretty upset,” I said. “He was a busboy at a gay bar where I hang out sometimes, and though I didn’t know him, by the time I saw him at the morgue I had talked to a lot of his friends and co-workers, and he’d become a real person to me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I focused on finding out who killed him,” I said. “But this guy, I don’t even know his name, and even though I was a witness it’s not my case or my responsibility.”

  “You haven’t killed anybody yourself, have you, Angus?” Danny asked, in a small voice.

  I shook my head. “I’ve shot at people, and hit them, but none of them died. And I hope that never happens, but I recognize it’s part of my job.”

  “Maybe I ought to stick to art history, then,” Danny said.

  “Good plan.” Danny’s stomach grumbled, and we both giggled. “Some things never change, bro. You still have the appetite of a horse, even though you spent the afternoon in police custody.”

  “Were we in custody? I thought we were just there to answer questions.”

  “We couldn’t get up and leave. That’s my definition of custody.”

  “Hey, I’m a Green,” he said. “We’re tougher than we look. And besides, I knew you’d be able to work things out.” He elbowed me. “You’re my big brother.”

  I put my arm around his shoulder and pulled him close, and kissed the top of his head. “What do you want to do for dinner? Frank Sena told me not to skimp on food, so let’s pick some place nice.”

  Danny shook his head. “That feels too much like celebrating, and I’m not quite ready for that. Alexandra and Beth told me about a great student place near the train station, real Italian food but big American-style portions.”

  We went back to the pensione first, to drop off the painting and my backpack, and I then I let Danny lead me onto a stone bridge over the Grand Canal. We stopped at the top and leaned across the balustrades, looking out at the water. It was early evening, and lights had begun to come on along in hotels and restaurants along the water’s edge. The city looked magically beautiful, with gondolas on the water and a steady stream
of tourists and locals around us.

  The restaurant was cavernous, with long shared tables like where we’d eaten the night before, but the atmosphere was different. Almost like we were cattle lined up at a trough, the way the waiter tossed menus at us, then demanded to know what we wanted.

  Danny handled the ordering, impressing me with the fluency in his voice, and I could tell the waiter treated him with more respect because he spoke the language. We were surrounded by families, some tourist, some local. The noise level was high, lots of talking and laughing in loud voices to be understood over the Italian pop music blasting in the background. It was the right kind of place to let the events of the day wash away from us.

  Danny and I shared a bottle of wine, a huge platter of flat noodles in a meat sauce and then what looked like chicken parmigiana. It wasn’t delicious but it was comforting and filling, and that’s what we both needed. We didn’t talk much except to agree we’d go for dessert to a gelato place the girls had also recommended.

  It was strange to be with my brother again, outside of the restrictions of work and family. He’d grown up since the last time I’d spent much time with him. He wasn’t a kid anymore, but a handsome, self-confident man. I was impressed at how easily he navigated the intricacies of language and geography. Not bad for a boy from Scranton.

  We walked back over the bridge, through narrow alleys and church squares, to reach a long promenade that faced another island, where the white dome of a church glowed in the setting sun. The water was rough and only a few launches were out.

  “I wouldn’t mind living in Italy for a while after I graduate,” Danny said, as we waited for our gelato. “Despite what happened this morning, I really love the country and the people and the sense that history is all around us.”

  “What would you do?”

  “I could look for an internship with a museum or foundation,” he said. “Or I could teach English. I met an Australian girl who’s doing that in Florence.”

  I wondered if it was the girl or the idea of teaching that appealed to Danny, but I didn’t say anything. He was young, and I hoped that by the time he graduated he wouldn’t be burdened by student loans, so he could do as he pleased.

  We laughed, talked and ate our gelato, and I was able to push away all the fear I’d felt that day, about being arrested for murder, causing an international incident, losing the painting that meant so much to Frank Sena. I’d followed my instincts and my training, and it had all worked out for the best. Now I could just enjoy hanging out with my brother. The little kid who’d hung on me had blossomed into a smart guy with a great sense of humor, and I could see a lot of myself in him.

  We took a vaporetto back to the Ghetto, and collapsed into bed soon after getting back to the hotel. It had been a long day, and I was sure that it would take me a while to fully get over what I’d seen that morning.

  The next morning I was up in time to have the coffee and pastry that Enrichetta served in the lobby of the hotel. “You don’t have to come with me today,” I said to Danny, as we sipped our cappuccinos. Both of us wore T-shirts and shorts, though mine featured a rainbow of surfboards, and his was a mashup of a giant kitten pushing against the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

  “You probably have a museum you want to go to, don’t you?” I asked.

  “My tutor told me I shouldn’t miss the Ca'Rezzonico,” he said. “It’s another one of those old palaces along the Grand Canal, stuffed with 18th century art,” he said. “I could go there this morning, and then maybe in the afternoon we could go to St. Mark’s and the Doge’s Palace together.”

  “Sounds like a plan. You think you could get the painting wrapped up for me before that? I’m not sure how long I’ll be tied up with Leo.”

  Danny agreed readily, and I used the map on my phone to follow a series of narrow calles, broad plazas and arched bridges to the Carabinieri headquarters. Even though it was early in the morning, the streets were crowded with locals on their way to work and backpack-laden tourists determined to see everything Venice had to offer. I wished Danny and I could join them, and that I didn’t have to spend my morning with Leonardo Foa. I was supposed to be on vacation, wasn’t I?

  The clerk on the ground floor of the Carabinieri building directed me to Leo’s office, a small room on the third floor overlooking the façade of a church under renovation. He looked much more professional there, in a starched white shirt and dress slacks. We shook hands, and I thanked him for rescuing us the day before.

  “It was very strange,” I said. “I couldn’t believe that the Commissario thought I stabbed that man.”

  “The Polizia have identified the man Grassini killed. He is a Sicilian, a man with ties to the Mafia there. Gianluca Bianchi. From Agrigento, on the southern shore of Sicily. A history of small crimes like robbery and assault. Our intelligence says that he has been in Venice for nearly a year, though we don’t know what connection he had with Grassini.”

  “Was he trying to steal the painting?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe something else from the rooftop. Or maybe some other deal gone bad. Hard to say with a man like Grassini.”

  He shook his head. “Affogato, too, is a Sicilian. It makes me wonder what her motives were.”

  “You think she belongs to the Mafia, too?”

  “We do not joke about the Mafia,” Leo said. “And I would never accuse a fellow police officer of anything without definite proof. But I am a northerner, you know, and distrust of southerners is engrained in us.”

  “But you’re all Italian.”

  “So they say. But just like in your United States, we are a mix of peoples and cultures. Italy was not even a single country until the Risorgimento in the 19th century. Less than two centuries is a short time in the life of a people.”

  “When I researched the painting, I learned that Mauricio Fabre fought in the Risorgimento, like many of the Macchiaioli. Was that what he was fighting for – to unify the country?”

  “More for freedom from Austria and better lives for the people,” Leo said. “Then after the Hapsburgs were gone, Garibaldi came in to unify the country.” He smiled. “There are some who say that was a terrible mistake, that we should have remained a loose federation of nation-states. Especially in Venice, one of the strongest, the Pearl of the Adriatic.”

  I set up my laptop on Leo’s desk and initiated the digital copy of the movie Ugo Sena had taken so many decades before. Leo and I watched all the way through once, then went back over it, freezing the frame periodically to look at specific artwork. Ugo had owned several sketches which Leo explained were probably the en plein air work done by the Macchiaioli before they painted the final work in their studios.

  “Are you an art historian like Miriam?” I asked, when we’d watched at least four times.

  He laughed. “No, I am just a policeman. But I have learned much in my work.”

  I started a spreadsheet on my laptop for the art work we’d seen in the movie. “We will fill in details as we find the items,” Leo said. He recognized some genres, such as those sketches by the Macchiaioli, and then had me enter things like “in the style of...”

  Before we left his office, I checked my email. Miriam Washington had responded to the message I sent her, telling me that I’d done a good job. “You’ll have to write up a very detailed FD302,” she wrote. “This could be useful information for further investigation and possible prosecution.” I groaned at the thought of filling out all that paperwork. But at least I’d have my own email for reference.

  There was also a brief message from Lester. He’d been working hard, managing a special promotion for his whiskey brand at a bar in downtown Fort Lauderdale. “All in all, I’d rather have been on the door,” he wrote. “Very stressful watching people try the whiskey, worrying how they would respond.”

  Yeah, almost as stressful as watching a man die in front of you, I thought, but of course I hadn’t told Lester that part, so I couldn’t complain.

&n
bsp; After I finished, Leo said, “Grassini is still in police custody. But Commissario Affogato has made a copy of his keys for me.”

  The way he said it made me think she’d only done that under protest, but I didn’t press him. He had a hand truck and several flattened boxes in his office, and I helped him carry everything down to the ground level, where he recruited a pilot and a boat to take us to Grassini’s apartment.

  As we motored along a canal, Leo pointed to where a bright blue boat was docked, with a large silver-colored canister on it. A long hose snaked from the boat into a restaurant with a stylish glass front. “See, everything in Venice must come and go by boat. Even our sewage. You have only to smell the water to realize that much of our waste still goes directly into the canals, as it has for over a thousand years. The tides come and go twice a day, and they take the waste out to the lagoon, and ultimately to the sea.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “That restaurant is newer. It has a pozzi nero, a black well, to collect the waste, and then the boat comes and removes it.”

  Since arriving in Venice, I’d seen a man killed, so a sewage boat shouldn’t have made much of an impression, but Venice was beginning to look a lot less romantic. Though I’d be sorry to say goodbye to my brother, I’d be glad to get back to Florida.

  When we reached the closest spot to Grassini’s building, the pilot docked the launch. Leo left the hand truck on the boat and we carried the flattened boxes past the church, to Grassini’s building. A steady line of tourists were going in and out of Beata Vergine della Laguna, and I wondered if any of them knew its history during the Holocaust, or were there just to admire the frescoes above the altar that the guidebook had mentioned.

  Leo unlocked the front door of Grassini’s building we climbed to the apartment. Whoever had locked the place up had closed the windows, and it was hot and stuffy inside. Leo opened the windows and turned on an electric fan, trying to cool the place down a little. I showed him the access panel to the roof, and we climbed up there. It was a lot easier without having to manage Ragazzi al Mare under my arm.