The Grand Tour: Four International Mysteries

by Michaela Thompson

  “Yes, indeed. I was fascinated. What a time that must have been!” The count’s face was flushed, his eyes shone with candor.

  Tom could see that this man understood May of ’68 and its importance. “Well, Mr.— Count Zanon—”

  “Michèle.”

  “Well, Michèle—”

  Tom continued for some time. Another round of espresso was bought and drunk. Tom enjoyed himself. He noticed he was rubbing his cheeks less.

  When Tom eventually ran down, Michèle let some moments pass before he said, “And Brian was one of your disciples? Surely it was a terrible blow to lose him.”

  Tom shook his head. “That kid. May of ’68 meant nothing to him.” Seeing Michèle’s look of surprise, he added hastily, “Of course I’m sorry he’s dead.”

  “Of course.”

  A breath of irony in Michèle’s tone made Tom say, “What is your interest in all this? Did you know Brian?”

  “Slightly. His murder was bizarre, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah. It really was.”

  “Although, you know”— Michèle sounded meditative— “apparently there had been incidents before.”

  Tom wished Michèle would get off the subject. He waited a long time before saying, “There had?”

  “Yes. This morning I was at the Albergo Rondini, where Brian stayed. The hotel staff was distraught about the murder, as you can imagine. One of them told me that a bearded man had been ejected from the hotel the night before last because he was lurking around suspiciously.”

  Tom wished he could move from Michèle’s line of sight. He became aware that he was rubbing his face. He took his hand away. “No kidding.”

  “Yes. No one knows who the bearded man was, but now they believe there had to be a connection with the murder.”

  The air in Florian’s was stuffy. “I’ve got to go,” Tom said.

  Michèle said, “Fear is a flight; it is a fainting.”

  Tom stared at Michèle. Then he said, “Thanks for the coffee.” He got up, and started for the door.

  JEAN-PIERRE AND THE JESTER

  A young acrobat in a jester’s costume had drawn a crowd in front of the San Moisè Church. His face was painted white, his lips an exaggerated red Cupid’s bow. With every movement of his long arms and his graceful body, tiny gold bells attached to his cap and his red-and-green motley jingled. Their sound blended with his musical accompaniment, recorders played by two young men in velvet berets decorated with plumes.

  The Jester balanced on his hands, let his legs descend into a beautifully arched backbend, came upright, then slid into a split. Cameras clicked. He rose to his feet, pirouetted, then climbed to the shoulders of one of the recorder players. He stood upright, a figure of unbelievable brightness against the gray facade of the San Moisè. The next moment he was a blur of red and green as he flipped to the ground, somersaulting in midair, his red-slippered feet landing lightly on the paving stones.

  Jean-Pierre, at the edge of the crowd, joined in the applause. He couldn’t take his eyes off the Jester. The Jester was everything Jean-Pierre was not. Jean-Pierre was leaden, swollen with grief and anger, clumsy. With every movement the Jester radiated lightness, agility, joy. As the Jester cartwheeled, contorted, spun with increasing abandon and defiance of gravity, something in his performance reminded Jean-Pierre of his early days with Brian.

  In a moment this will pain me, Jean-Pierre thought, but the pain was miraculously suspended. Jean-Pierre remembered Brian’s body quickening, remembered Brian’s strong, straight legs, the way the sweat-soaked curls clung to his forehead. In that moment of suspension Jean-Pierre was flooded with a driving excitement that was almost like ecstasy.

  When the pain did come, it was gentler than before. Through the eyes of his mask, Jean-Pierre gazed at the Jester with gratitude for the relief he had thought he could never, even for an instant, feel. When the Jester bowed low to enthusiastic applause and passed through the crowd carrying the velvet cap of one of the recorder players, Jean-Pierre put a twenty-thousand-lire note on top of the other, much smaller, offerings.

  The Jester looked keenly at Jean-Pierre. He said, “Molto, molto grazie” in an accent Jean-Pierre recognized as French.

  Jean-Pierre replied in French, “I enjoyed watching you. You were marvelous.”

  The Jester shrugged. “You’re very kind.” He moved away to offer the cap to others.

  The crowd was breaking up. Jean-Pierre stood for a while longer, watching the Jester collect money and the recorder players put their instruments in cases. At last he wandered away, looking idly in nearby shop windows. In a few minutes he heard bells beside him and turned to see the Jester.

  The Jester smiled and said, “You’re from Paris?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me, too. Sometimes I perform in the plaza in front of Beaubourg.”

  “I’ll look for you there.”

  They walked along together. The Jester said, “There are many generous people at Carnival, but few are as generous as you.”

  “Not many performers are as excellent as you.”

  Wandering, they talked about inconsequential things. The Jester’s bells tinkled as they walked, surrounding the two of them with a web of sound. At last the Jester said, “Do you know what I would like?”

  “What?”

  “I would like to see your face without the mask.”

  Jean-Pierre shook his head. “I look awful today. I’m wearing the mask because I don’t want to show my face to anyone.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t awful at all. Please?”

  “I can t.”

  The Jester smiled in a wheedling way. “Even if we went somewhere private? So no one but me could see you?”

  Jean-Pierre looked at the Jester. The Jester touched Jean-Pierre’s shoulder. “Please?”

  After a moment Jean-Pierre said, “All right. We can go to my hotel.”

  When they reached the hotel, Jean-Pierre took no notice of the conventional-looking brown-haired man in a gray suit who was leaving as they entered. Jean-Pierre had taken his key with him, and he did not check for messages.

  When he and the Jester were in his room, the Jester said, “Now.”

  Jean-Pierre took off his mask and put it on the dresser. The Jester moved toward him. He stood in front of Jean-Pierre. He put cool fingertips on Jean-Pierre’s swollen eyes. Jean-Pierre breathed deeply at his touch.

  “Someone hurt you,” the Jester said. He pressed the tender skin of Jean-Pierre’s cheeks.

  “Yes.”

  “Your lover?”

  “Yes.”

  “Love can be brutal, they say.”

  “It can.”

  The Jester said, “I’ll show you my face, if you like. Would you like that?”

  “Yes.”

  The Jester went into the bathroom and closed the door. Jean-Pierre heard bells jingling, water running. He undressed and turned down the freshly made bed. The sheets were cool and smooth beneath his body.

  When the Jester came out, he had taken off his cap, and his face was clean. His brown hair was tousled. He had a small, dark birthmark high on one tanned cheek. He looked very young.

  The Jester saw Jean-Pierre and said, “Good.” He came to the bed, bent and kissed Jean-Pierre. His mouth tasted sweet to Jean-Pierre, as if the Jester had been eating candy.

  Jean-Pierre’s crazy ecstasy returned. It knifed through him, accompanied by the sound of bells as he clasped the Jester. Then the bells fell away.

  When Jean-Pierre was about to be overwhelmed, he said, “My lover is dead.”

  Dozing, Jean-Pierre felt the Jester slide out of bed, heard him slip into his tinkling costume. He opened an eye and saw the Jester find Jean-Pierre’s wallet and remove the rest of his money. Jean-Pierre saw the Jester take his watch from the dresser where it lay beside his mask. Jean-Pierre closed his eye and listened to the soft opening and closing of the door as the Jester made his exit.

  Love can be brutal, but it didn’t ma
tter. There was nothing more for Jean-Pierre to care about, or learn. The Jester was welcome to what he could salvage from the wreck of Jean-Pierre, because Jean-Pierre already had all he would need.

  ROLF AND MICHÈLE

  As always in Rosa and Gianni’s neighborhood, kids were kicking a soccer ball back and forth in the wide, paved area between the cheerless brick apartment houses. The ball sailed Rolf’s way, and he grounded it expertly and kicked it back to them. It scudded across the pavement toward a slight man in a gray suit, an overcoat slung around his shoulders, who was leaning in a doorway almost opposite Rosa and Gianni’s building. The man straightened and approached Rolf. When he got closer, he said Rolf’s name.

  Rolf was instantly wary. He studied the man, wondering if they’d ever met before. Possibly, but right now the straight, thin nose, upward-curving mouth and light brown eyes didn’t look familiar. It wasn’t a face that would stick in your mind. “Yes?” he said, slowing his pace only slightly.

  “I wonder if you have time to speak with me? I’m a friend of Brian’s.”

  That stopped Rolf. I should’ve gotten out. Why didn’t I get out? “Yeah? What do you want?”

  “I’d like a word with you about yesterday afternoon.”

  The guy was a policeman, investigating Sally’s death. How could he have found Rolf? But wait. A policeman wouldn’t say he was a friend of Brian’s. And no policeman Rolf had ever seen dressed in thousand-dollar suits. Rolf started walking again. “Fuck off.”

  Rolf heard footsteps behind him. The man’s voice said, “I know you were there.”

  Rolf halted abruptly and heard the man stop. The drab, ugly neighborhood vanished, became a gray emptiness waiting to swallow Rolf. If Rolf let that cold grayness surround him, he would be lost. He waited, and in a short while he could again see the buildings, the lines of laundry flapping above, could hear the shouts of the children. He turned around. “What are you talking about?”

  “You were wearing a black cloak and hood, and you had a mirror over your face.”

  The grayness was back. Rolf’s hands clutched at the white plastic bag containing Jean-Pierre’s Pierrot costume. “You’re crazy.”

  The man smiled. “Perhaps I’m crazy, but I’m still correct.”

  Rolf had to swallow several times. Nobody knew who was behind that mirror, yet this stranger knew. Rolf had been worried about the group, one of them knowing about him and sending a poem, and here came a man Rolf had never seen before who knew Rolf had been behind that mirror. Rolf felt painfully, achingly, exposed, as if he had inadvertently shouted out all his secrets in the Piazza.

  “You chose an appropriately Venetian disguise,” the man said. “Perhaps you realized that the glass mirror was invented here? The mirror craftsmen were not allowed to leave Venice, for fear they would give away the secret. The secret became known, anyway, as secrets often do.”

  Rolf scrambled for control. “Talk as much as you like, you lunatic. I have no idea what this is about.”

  “It takes panache to insist on a claim so easily disproved,” the man said. Almost apologetically, he nodded in the direction of the boys kicking the soccer ball. “Before you arrived, I had a conversation with the children over there. One of them told me that you’re staying at his home. Yesterday he saw you— or at least, he saw the mirror-man— coming out his front door. I suppose one could claim that isn’t absolute proof, but I think—” Rolf dropped his bag and lunged at the man, but the man stepped easily past his grasping hands. The man’s face took on a pink tinge, and he looked as if he were about to laugh.

  Rolf stopped. He forced himself to breathe, to clear his head. He picked up the bag. “Maybe I did dress that way. That still doesn’t mean I was— I was—”

  “At the Rio della Madonna? But you were.”

  The flush on the man’s cheeks had deepened. He looked as if he were having a great time. Rolf’s chest expanded with fury. “How do you know? You can’t prove it.”

  All at once, Rolf remembered a white figure, a loony-looking bride, with flowers on her head and tattered white material hanging off her. That person had seen him for sure, had stared at him from across the little canal. Rolf said, “Were you the bride?”

  The man looked confused. Then realization seemed to dawn. “You mean the corpse,” he said. He leaned forward with a confidential air. “You know, To be dead is to be a prey for the living.”

  The panic and rage Rolf had barely been keeping in check took over. “Get away from me!” he shouted. “I don’t care what you saw! I didn’t kill Sally!”

  The man’s brows moved toward one another. “Sally?”

  “Leave me alone, you maniac!” If only those goddamn kids weren’t around, Rolf would grab this guy and batter him until he was pulp on the pavement, until blood flew everywhere. Rolf would stick his thumbs in the guy’s eyes and pop his eyeballs.

  The man stared at Rolf in a distracted way. He muttered, “Ciao,” turned, and walked quickly away.

  Fighting the shakes, Rolf crossed the pavement to the front door of Rosa and Gianni’s house. He saw Rosa framed in a downstairs window, looking out at him.

  She opened the door, her eyes wide. She pointed after the man’s receding back and said, “I just see il conte Zanon.”

  He stared at her. “You know that man?”

  “Si. Yes.”

  “His name is Count Zanon?”

  “Yes. Michèle Zanon.”

  “Where does he live? Um— Dove vive?”

  “Ooh—” Rosa made lavish gestures indicating, Rolf guessed, a mansion. “Beautiful palazzo! So beautiful!”

  “Dove?”

  “Canal Grande.” She put a finger on her chin, thinking. “Imbarcadero San Angelo.”

  All right. Rolf knew who the man was, and he knew where to find him. That’s all he needed. He looked at Rosa, who was blushing, and nodding. As he’d known it would, her earlier petulance had vanished. Well, she’d done him a hell of a favor. He folded her to him, moving his hands down her back to her round bottom. He kissed her, his tongue deep in her mouth, until she broke away, panting. She pointed outside and said, “Boys. Later.”

  Good. He wasn’t in the mood right now. He climbed the stairs to his room, sat on the couch and lit a cigarette. Staring at the smoke, he thought about Count Michèle Zanon.

  PART THREE

  INTERLUDE

  This sunny day is Fat Tuesday, mardi gras, the end of Carnival. Tomorrow comes the boredom of Lent. The rains will disintegrate confetti the sweepers have missed, costumes will be aired, folded, and put away, and for the weeks before the summer tourist onslaught it will be possible to get a table at Florian’s or Harry’s Bar.

  For now, Carnival continues. The pace has become feverish, because the cleansing rain and emptiness loom so close. Last chances hover: The last chance to sell a postcard, a ruffled blue net boa, a necklace of glass flowers, a print of old Venice, a striped gondolier’s shirt; the last chance to go in costume to a concert, to dance impromptu with a stranger, to walk through the streets behind a bouquet of balloons as tall as the second-floor windows, to stand at midnight in the Bocca di Piazza and listen to twenty angelic-looking teenagers singing motets; the last chance to wear a mask; the last chance to get what you hoped Carnival would give you.

  The sun is shining, and the good weather may continue. Perhaps Venice will be so beautiful it will not matter that very little time remains.

  MICHÈLE RETURNS

  Sally sat in Michèle’s salon overlooking the Grand Canal, eating salami, brown bread, and wrinkled black olives and drinking fizzy mineral water. Sun flooded in from the balcony through a wall of leaded bull’s-eye glass. It fell on a huge vase of lilies and a faded Oriental carpet patterned in blue and gold, and made a path of light over the paintings that were hung one above the other to the ceiling.

  She was still jittery from her ordeal with the Medusa, but she felt better after a visit from the police. When the dark-eyed policeman left, taking with him he
r report of the Medusa’s attack, Michèle had said, “Sally, I must go out for a while. Please stay here and rest. Maria is here, and Sandro. You will be quite safe.”

  Sally had been in no mood to argue. She lay down and dozed for a while, but kept waking with a start, thinking she heard noises. When she got up and wandered downstairs to this room, Maria, the housekeeper whose shoes Sally had worn to Torcello, appeared with the snack she had now almost finished. Only a few cookies, liberally dusted with confectioners’ sugar, remained. Sally didn’t want to get sugar and crumbs on the heavy silk upholstery of the chair she was sitting in, or on the carpet. She wrapped the cookies in her napkin and took them with her out onto the narrow white stone balcony overlooking the Canal.

  The air was fresh and cold, the sky still bright, although occasional rushing shadows showed that clouds were forming. The Canal shone its distinctive blue-green and was alive with activity. Sally leaned on the railing and watched the vaporettos, barges, water taxis, and gondolas below and the wheeling, screaming seagulls overhead. Motors drummed, oars and ropes splashed, people shrieked with laughter or called out to one another. Across the Canal were other palazzos with tall arched or pointed windows, elaborate carved medallions or winged lions for decoration, white balconies like the one on which she stood.

  Venice was beautiful, if you saw it like this, if you could stand in the sun after a good meal and forget your troubles for a minute or two.

  She remembered the words her father had said this morning: You’ll come back here with us, sweetheart.

  She saw the brick house in Tallahassee where her parents lived, where she had grown up. There were pink azaleas in the yard, and trees hung with Spanish moss. Sally and her parents would drink iced tea and watch the news on television in the evenings. She’d get a teaching job. Maybe she’d meet some young man just finishing law school, and they’d get married and her life would become what she’d thought it was going to be with Brian.