The Disappearance of Grace

by Vincent Zandri

  * * *

  A short boat ride later I am once more sitting in front of the detective as he lights another cigarette.

  “Tell me, Captain Angel,” he says, exhaling a stream of what I imagine to be blue smoke, “what exactly were you trying to prove by going out on your own without the use of your eyes?”

  “My fiancée is missing, Detective. I was trying to find her.”

  “All you would have accomplished is drowning yourself. I don’t need another one of those.”

  “I would have been doing something.”

  He smokes for a minute. Then I hear him stand up.

  “Captain Angel,” he says after a time, “remind me again how long have you been a soldier?”

  “I don’t understand the relevance. Grace is gone. We need to find her.”

  “Entertain me, please.”

  I swallow a breath.

  “Twenty years. Off and on. I’m a reservist in the National Guard now. I had thought about making it a full-time career after the Persian Gulf. But then I decided to become a writer. Decisions and outcome don’t always share the same intent.”

  “I have not been able to locate any of your books here in Venice.”

  “I’m not published in Italy…yet. I just spoke about outcome.”

  “I see. Perhaps one day.”

  I feel my temperature rising, my pulse soaring. He’s placating me while an ugly black spider spins silken possibilities inside his head.

  “Detective, has there been any word at all out on the street about Grace? Has anyone spotted her?”

  “I’m afraid not. But our eyes are wide open.” He smokes a little more. “Were you ever wounded physically in combat?”

  “Not a scratch. Again, I don’t see the relevance.”

  “You don’t see anything. Which is why you are sitting here.”

  “That supposed to be funny?”

  I reminded of my mystery caller. His barely recognizable words.

  I. See.

  “No, it is not. My apologies to you if you thought it was. But truth is, we have not spotted anyone who fits the description of your fiancée, nor a man with a long brown overcoat and a closely cropped black beard or the black eyes.”

  “What about the strange phone calls?”

  “I’ve already told you, we traced the phone call that came to your apartment landline and it came from a cell phone that originated locally. There’s nothing more we can do with that.”

  “You can search the location of the phone with GPS.”

  He laughs.

  “Yes, we can do that if we are in Hollywood. Which we most definitely are not.”

  I let that comment sit for minute. Then, “Why are you asking me if I’ve been injured in combat?”

  He plants himself behind his desk, stamps out his cigarette.

  “Captain Angel,” he sighs, “there is one thing I am having a great deal of difficulty with.”

  “And that is?”

  “If your fiancée was abducted in broad daylight, directly in front of you and literally hundreds of people, why didn’t anyone see it? How is it that not one single soul took even the slightest notice of it?”

  I feel my head filling with blood, panic and fire.

  “Because he must have been quick about it. Maybe he’s a professional. A professional kidnapper or killer or both who has been following us and waiting for the right time to make his move!”

  I’m shouting now. The door opens.

  “Come stai, Detective?”

  “Molto bene,” he responds. “Bene.”

  I feel the pause that follows, until the door shuts.

  “Please refrain from shouting, Captain. It upsets my support staff.”

  I offer no apologies.

  “Listen, Captain,” he goes on. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just that I have a hard time believing there would not have been a struggle…a physical resistance. Or, at the very least a scream.”

  “Doesn’t matter that you don’t believe it. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

  “Like you say, it would take a kidnapper in possession of the skills required of a great assassin or political enemy. Your Grace doesn’t fit the description of an enemy of state. Did she have any enemies?”

  “Of course not,” I insist. But naturally, I have no idea if Grace had any enemies or not. Certainly no one who would go to the lengths necessary to kidnap her.

  “I must tell you, Captain Angel, as much as it hurts to hear it, I believe it is more likely than not, that your fiancée left of her own accord. You’ve already admitted to her affair while you were fighting the war. It might be the most reasonable conclusion.”

  I shoot up.

  “I’ve already told you that’s impossible!” I shout. “Grace would never leave me for anyone! We. Are. In. Love.”

  I find myself leaning over his desk. The door shoots open again.

  “It is the only explanation!” the detective barks back.

  I hear footsteps, and my arms snatched up in the grasp of not one but two men.

  “Get off of me!”

  But they tighten their grip.

  “I want to speak to someone from my embassy. The American embassy.”

  “Why? They can do nothing for you.”

  “My fiancée is missing. They damn well will do something. It’s their job to protect Americans in danger in a foreign country.”

  “Captain Angel, please calm down. You are not in danger. I told you before, if Grace left of her own accord, no one, not even your embassy, can do anything about it.”

  I struggle against the arms that hold me.

  “Call them. Do it. Do it now.”

  I hear the detective pick up the phone, while exhaling a frustrated breath.

  “The American embassy, please,” he speaks. Then, “Let him go, Fredo. Set him down.”

  The men release me.

  “Now please behave, Captain,” adds the detective. “Or you will be speaking to your embassy official from a jail cell in Venice.” He laughs. “Of course, that would be quite the story to tell your grandchildren one day.”

  Chapter 24

  I AM NOT TOSSED into a jail cell. Rather, I am escorted to a small waiting area upstairs where I am afforded a view of the Grand Canal that would easily cost me five hundred Euros per night if this were a hotel. Or so a young woman tells me as she escorts me up the stairs. It’s a damned shame I can’t see it. Staring out onto the canal with the never-ending boat traffic moving up and down its narrow man-made banks would help the time pass faster. Instead, I make myself comfortable by seating myself on the leather couch situated up against the far wall, and close my eyes.

  Soon I am walking inside the village, to the dreadful sound of crying and moaning. To my left, two of the stone buildings are burning. A half dozen corralled horses are whinnying, bucking, and snorting now that the earth beneath their hooves has exploded violently. Cats, dogs, and chickens scurry about my booted feet, as though oblivious to the death that now surrounds them. While the women fall to their knees in grief over the dead, the men of the village do something strange. Not far from the well, they also take to their knees.

  The men begin to pray together, their eyes closed until their raise up their heads and open them unto an imaginary heaven. From where I stand by the stone well, my M4 slung over my shoulder, side-arm hanging off my right hip and strapped to my right thigh, they don’t seem to be cursing God. They are thanking Him. Praising Him even. They seem to understand that what has happened to their village is not the work of an angry vengeful God, but instead, simply the work of men no better or worse than themselves. Those who have died in the attack are already in paradise and for this, and they thank God with all their hearts.

  I stare down at the little boy with the dust that covers his face and his arms, spread out over his head like he’s sleeping on his back inside a crib. I wonder if paradise truly exists for him, or simply nothing but unconscious darkness.
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  …But then the dream shifts and I’m no longer in the village.

  I am instead inside the studio apartment over the bookshop. I can see perfectly. With my head propped up on a stack of down pillows, I can see the entire room. The kitchenette that makes up the far wall. The leather couch and the long harvest table pressed up against it. Grace’s easel to the right by the always open French doors. Grace lies beside me on her right side. She’s fast asleep, her naked body curled into a question mark of loveliness. She has become so much a part of me now that I ache at the thought of ever being separated from her again. She is my world, my heaven, my God and my soul. And I only want what she wants.

  …And when the dream shifts once more, I am no longer lying beside Grace inside our studio. I am no longer at peace. I am sitting at a table at an outdoor café in Piazza San Marco. It is noon with a warm sun shining on my face on an otherwise cold day. To my left is the wide open basin and the supply barges and boats that bob in its never- ending chaotic wake. To my right are the hordes of tourists who compete with the thousands of gray/black pigeons that fight over their own tiny slice of real estate just outside the stone steps leading up to the cathedral.

  Seated directly across from me is Grace.

  I see her as plainly as I see the black-suited waiter approaching our table. He’s carrying something on the tray. Something we’ve ordered for lunch. When he arrives at the table, he sets the tray down onto one of those aluminum foldout tray stands. Set on the tray is a severed head. Grace’s head, her long black hair draping her face like a veil, a pool of blood collecting on the place below her cut-away neck.

  I shift my eyes to where she is seated across from me. Her headless torso occupies the chair. But she is not dead. She raises her hands, calmly crossing her arms, like she is simply soaking up the view. When I shift my gaze back to her head, her eyes open and she shoots me a smile.

  “I. See.” she says.

  Chapter 25

  STARTLED AWAKE.

  I open my eyes. What all day had been nothing but a gray-brown blur interrupted only by the rays of the sun and, later on, the manufactured light radiating from your average longer-lasting light bulb, is now gradually replaced with vision.

  Real. Vision.

  There’s a connection here. Sleep and sight. Sight and sleep. And dreaming too. I’m not ignorant to the medical possibilities; the physiological reasoning.

  There’s a man standing in the center of the small square-shaped room.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Captain Angel,” he says in a soft nonthreatening voice. “You seemed to be caught up in a dream.”

  My thoughts shift from eyesight to the severed head of my wife. It was only a dream, I try and convince myself. But it’s like pretending the knife I’m plunging through my chest into my heart isn’t real either.

  I sit up straight, face the man.

  He’s younger than me. Taller, thinner. Dressed in a finely tailored navy blue suit, white shirt and gray silk tie. His black hair is slicked back with something that Grace would refer to as “product,” and he is clean shaven, as though immune to five o’clock shadow even when it’s more than three hours past that hour. A diplomat to the core, blessed with an assignment that any federal government worker with warm blood in his veins would die for.

  He pulls up a chair, holds out his hand.

  “Dave Graham,” he states. “US Embassy. How can I be of service?”

  I take the hand in mine, amazed that I can actually see it and feel it. I grip it tightly. Like a soldier should.

  Releasing my hand, Graham grows a big smile. I can see that he is an expert at making smiles, no matter his mood.

  “So how do you like Venice so far, Captain?”

  Is he kidding me?

  “It would be a hell of a lot better if my fiancée hadn’t disappeared this afternoon.”

  His smile dissolves. It’s another good trick he’s acquired: the ability to shift his moods in a half-second, flat.

  “I understand there was some trouble at the café near the cathedral in San Marco earlier today.”

  I lean forward, to add emphasis to what I’m about to tell him.

  “Listen, Mr. Graham,” I say. “My wife was abducted by a man wearing a long brown overcoat. He has short cropped black hair and a black beard. He was wearing sunglasses and staring us down. He approached our table and then, just like that, Grace was gone. I have reason to believe this same man has been following us for some time and placing calls to my apartment. He whispers ‘I. See.’ into the phone before he hangs up.”

  Graham bites down on his bottom lip, nods.

  “I understand you are just back from the Afghan war,” he says. “Must have been hard out there in the field.”

  “Yeah, it was hard. But I had a job to do and I did it. No questions asked. I’m a good soldier. I’m a patriot. My country called me and I heeded the call. Now my fiancée is gone.”

  Clasping his hands together, Graham nods once more, and peers at the tops of his polished patent leather lace-up shoes.

  “I further understand, Captain Angel, that you’ve had your share of trouble with PTSD and that you are here in Venice to recuperate at the direct mandate from your company commander.”

  “They assume that a month in Venice with Grace might lift my spirits and my morale. But I think they’re more afraid I’ll turn my back on the red, white and blue…that their go-to toy soldier will actually want to get back to his writing career one day.”

  There’s the big public relations smile again. Graham is like a light you can turn on and off.

  “Have you written anything I’ve read?”

  As a writer, that’s the one question that makes me want to howl. If you have to ask the question, you obviously haven’t read anything.

  “A thriller called Retribution. Another called Pay Back. There would have been more but the wars keep getting in the way.”

  “I’ll have to check them out,” he says, while standing. “Love to read…love, love, love it. But never enough time, you know? I get into bed and the eyelids come down. Oh, and speaking of eyes, how are those eyes of yours? You’ve been suffering from temporary bouts of blindness I’m told. How have you been dealing with that?”

  I’m staring at him standing inside the room. A few feet behind him is the picture window with that amazing view of the Grand Canal I was informed about earlier. I could also stand up and get a look at it, but I’d rather focus on him while I have the chance.

  “Grace has been my eyes while I’ve been here. She helps me. She guides me. She loves me.”

  “Must be especially tough on you now that she’s gone.” Pursing his lips. “Of course, you can always head immediately back to your base hospital in Germany. We would take care of working out your safe transport.”

  Just the sound of him stating the reality of it all in quite that manner and tone is enough to send my insides on a nosedive south.

  “Can you help me find her, Mr. Graham? And can you promise me you won’t tell the army what’s happening? Not quite yet anyway.”

  He turns to peer out the window onto the canal.

  “I understand your frustration in the matter, Captain. But it’s really a police issue now. Had you come to me first, I would have sent you here. Should she become detained by the police for any reason, or should she be officially reported missing, then the embassy will do everything in its power to cooperate with local authorities and Interpol.” Turning to me. “But until that time, her disappearance, as you call it, is still a local police matter. And you really need to check in with your commanding officers, explain the situation.”

  I stand.

  “The detective believes she ran off on her own. Some people witnessed us arguing in a café yesterday afternoon, and that’s what he bases his assumption on. But I don’t believe that Grace has left me. She would never do that.”

  “Yes, that would be a difficult pill to swallow. Especially in your condition.” The smile once
more paints his face. “It’s been a long day, Captain. I really should be getting home. Is there anything I can do for you while you wait and see what transpires over the course of the next forty-eight hours? Can we give you a lift back to your apartment?”

  I shake my head.

  “No, thank you. I have my eyesight back for now. I’ll see myself home.”

  “Literally, I suppose,” Graham says going for the stairs. But before descending them, he turns to me once more. “Captain,” he says, his brow scrunched with concern. “Please don’t do anything foolish. The police will do everything in their power to see that Grace is located. The best thing for you is to go home and get some rest. Should Grace go officially missing, you’ll need all the rest you can get.”

  “I will,” I tell him. But it’s a lie and he knows it.

  “Glad to hear it,” he says, no doubt just to play along. “Enjoy the rest of your stay in lovely Venice.”

  “Forget you, pal,” I whisper under my breath. But the sound of his patent leather soles on the stair treads blocks it out.

  Chapter 26

  BY THE TIME I make my way back down the stairs and into the main reception area, I can see that the precinct has been reduced to a nighttime skeleton crew. I guess Venice was never known as a beehive for major crimes like kidnapping, rape and murder. Focusing my eyes on the detective’s office situated at the end of the open square-shaped room, I see the image of two men standing, talking. Rather, I see parts of their torsos through the glass light embedded into the wood door.

  The detective and Dave Graham from the US Embassy.

  Talking isn’t the right word. They seem to be arguing, the detective waving his hands up and down animatedly, as if to stress his point. I can only wonder if they’re arguing about me. About Grace. Maybe they’re arguing over where to go for a drink and dinner. Maybe they’re not even arguing.

  I know the detective expects me to return to his office so that he can once more assume the responsibility of escorting an emotionally charged, part-time-blind man back to his hotel. But I’m not blind right now. I can see. Seeing means I’m not helpless. It means I can do something. I can try and find my Grace.