“Here’s San Samuele, our stop.” Margo nodded toward the gleaming Palazzo Grassi.
In a dramatic percussion solo, the vaporetto bumped and scraped the dock until the avalanche of noise came to a whining stop. As they left the boat, Anna peeked at the dark-jacketed man, still aboard and realized it would be child’s play to follow them to her pensione. He made no effort to disembark when they alighted, however. The gate clicked shut behind them, the engine revved, and the boat veered back into the mist.
The high water had receded here, leaving scattered puddles. Under the full gaze of the stone Virgin in a narrow niche, past the house of Casanova, they headed down an alleyway, Margo leading them like a seasoned guide in a casbah. They dragged Anna’s luggage and trudged by hidden pensioni, wood sculpture, and lace shops.
“You know where you’re going?” Anna asked.
“You forget I lived here. It’s a bit harder at night, but you remember the way by recalling the stores.”
Anna thought of Margo’s divorce. “Does it still hurt?”
“I’ll be damned if agonizing about him makes me love the city any less.”
“Thatta girl.”
They zigzagged forward through twisting paths until they turned a corner and faced an empty plaza, nothing but darkened storefronts and bare pavement greeting them.
“Where are all the Venetians?” Anna asked.
Margo paused atop a small bridge. “The city closes early. When there’s been flooding, even fewer are out. We’re lucky that we can roll your suitcases instead of lifting them above ankle-deep puddles.”
A lone gondola glided beneath them like an enormous night insect on dark wings. It unnerved Anna somehow. She had expected a singing gondolier and a crew of raucous passengers. In an instant, the boat rounded a corner and vanished.
In the buildings they passed, human silhouettes played against drawn curtains, like gigantic shadow puppets in a secret ritual. The clicking rhythm of the women’s heels on the hard pavement echoed against the stone walls of Campo San Angelo, adding to Anna’s unease. Gray, shifting forms drifted in the distant haze before revealing themselves as flesh-and-blood pedestrians. Ah, here are some people after all, Anna thought.
Winding by an old mask shop, Anna glimpsed glittering moons, gleaming suns, porcelain doll faces, and fairy princesses sparkling as if they had been dusted with sugar. A sign on a nearby wall read Calle dei Assassini.
“Street of Assassins, really?” Anna asked.
“Centuries ago,” Margo said, as they approached a two-story tan structure on their left. “Here’s your hotel, Pensione Stella. The desk clerk’s expecting you. You’ll join us for lunch at one tomorrow, after you’ve gotten a good night’s sleep. I’ll call in the morning with directions.”
“Can’t wait to fall into bed,” Anna replied, managing a hint of a grin. “And tomorrow we have to figure a way out of Biondi’s clutches. In the meantime, don’t let anyone know about Sergio’s murder.”
“Right. But remember, no more worrying for tonight.” Margo brushed her lips against Anna’s cheek, then strode toward a narrow alley, the scent of jasmine lingering in her wake.
Lovers embracing in the shadows of a nearby bridge drew Anna’s attention. She shook her head as she opened the pensione’s heavy doors.
La Stella
Sunday, evening
The desk clerk at Pensione Stella looked up from his book as Anna entered, and flashed a crooked smile. His bushy silver sideburns contrasted with an irregular patch of brown hair, reminding Anna of a bird of paradise she’d seen recently in National Geographic. Perched behind an ornate wooden counter, he took hold of a thick, leather-bound log with years of rooms, dates, guest names, and notes written in longhand. After inspecting her passport, he dipped his pen into a crystal inkwell, inscribing her name, room, and passport number with a flourish. Anna felt relieved when he finally handed over her key, an old-fashioned one with the room number notched into a green rubber ball. All the better to float in the canals, Anna thought as she followed him across ceramic floor tiles depicting ancient ships sailing the far blue seas, past a couple of burgundy leather love seats, and up the squeaky stairs to her room.
Had Margo even looked at the Stella’s guest rooms? Anna wondered as she opened the door. She surveyed the pale stucco walls, the single bed, the rickety desk, and the nightstand with a lamp so dim, that reading would be impossible. A paisley-upholstered chair and a small sink drooped along the opposite wall. The bath was down the hall. She wouldn’t mind staying here, but years ago, traveling with Jack, she would have expected far better.
Resisting the urge to collapse into bed, Anna unpacked and took stock of her garments after the police seizure, noting with satisfaction that no clothes were damaged or missing. Hanging each piece in an artificial-wood armoire, she imposed a semblance of order. When it grew stuffy, she pushed the window and shutters open and stood looking out, breathing in the night air. Across the way, a brick palazzo huddled in the dark, the reflection of the pensione’s neon star on one of its windows. An ivory balcony wrapped around the far edge of the building and jutted over the water. The tinkling of piano keys reached her ears, along with the peaceful gurgling of the nearby canal.
The couple on the bridge had moved closer to a filigreed street lantern. The woman sat atop a wide cement railing, at an angle to Anna, her silver dress unbuttoned and pulled up so high, it barely covered the tops of her thighs. Her breasts obscured her lover’s face, but Anna caught a glimpse of blond highlights. The woman guided his hands under her panties so as to cup and squeeze her buttocks. Crouching before her, he trailed his lips on her flesh before burying his face between her legs. The woman leaned back and gyrated in pleasure, her dark hair swinging in the weak light.
Dogs in heat, Anna thought. Where were the police? Probably chasing innocent tourists like her. That would keep them busy! A tape of her interrogation played in her mind. It dragged her through loop after loop. She doubted she could sleep without being pursued by visions of Detective Biondi or Sergio.
She slammed the window against the muffled sighs. Despite its glamour, Venice, she realized, consisted of communal living in a maze of little alleys. Whether you liked it or not.
In the depths of the night, Anna awoke, startled by a cry, and threw off her bed covers. The calle acted like a funnel, magnifying and mixing sounds in a hallucinating brew. Peering through the window, however, she didn’t see a soul on either the bridge or the stone pavement. Then she noticed a faint glow in the brick palazzo. Now that the neon star had been turned off, she could see into the window, where, by the pale light, she made out a teddy bear tossed on a rug. Then she heard the high-pitched sobbing of a child. Somehow, Anna knew that no adult was nearby. She wondered what kind of person could have left such a small child alone. The Italians she knew celebrated and loved children.
In a blur, Anna recalled her own painful quest. She saw herself in a consultation room with oversized photographs of smiling babies looking down from the walls. Needing to believe that a photo of her child would hang there one day, she had concentrated hard, hoping that through the power of positive thinking, she could control the outcome of a science that knew no grays. She had sat there, head down, like a mute soul waiting to learn its destiny. The door had opened and the medical assistant’s kind eyes had sought her out. Anna could not remember the face, just the bare legs and clogs on a blustery day. Then the slight Dutch accent, as she leaned close to Anna and said gently, “No. None fertilized. I am so sorry.”
Anna had looked out at a passing rain cloud over San Francisco Bay before nodding. That’s all right, she had told herself. It was a small chance anyway. We knew this all along. We’ll try again. But inside her, a glass had silently shattered.
Sleep finally overcame her when daybreak began painting her room gold. At nine o’clock, the bells began to chime, first one, then more—a never-ending song through the centuries—altos, tenors, baritones, basses. Their individual person
alities and locations unknown to her, the bells cried out in a deafening canto. She knew that in bygone days, they had rung to celebrate the survival of the city after the plague, the coronation of a doge, or to warn of a hostile naval force. Now they awakened tourists in their beds.
Beside the Still, Green Canal
Monday, afternoon
A church bell rang out with one deep bong as Anna raced to the count’s palazzo. Margo had warned her not to follow the numbers along the streets, since the address of one building bore no relation to the next. Here, addresses were splattered like paint across the district, or sestiere. Anna pictured losing herself among randomly numbered buildings in alleyways leading nowhere. Scary, she thought, not being able to trust numbers when she had built her life around them. She had followed a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a master’s in physics, gravitating toward astrophysics. All her professors had expressed disappointment when she announced she was not continuing onto the PhD program.
Anna hurried across a stone bridge, her image in a white knit top, navy cotton pants, and red purse blurring against the damask cushions in an antiquarian’s window. She passed through a short tunnel, and finally, she glimpsed an imposing ocher palazzo in the distance, alongside a still, green canal.
Just as Margo had described, two sets of pointed arch windows rose above geranium-filled window boxes, and the sculpted head of a bearded god with two faces gazed down from the lintel. One side had been darkened by time and the elements, while the other had remained pure and bright. Searching for a doorbell amid the honeysuckle framing the carved maroon entry, Anna found the outstretched tongue of a tiny brass lion. After a surprised pause, she pressed it.
The door opened with a reluctant buzz into a stone-walled vestibule where the musty cabin, or felze, of the family gondola languished in a corner. The place was between worlds, belonging to neither sea nor earth. The wrath of the canal overflowing its banks would be felt here first. Anna imagined waves slowly filling the little room, the felze quivering in the water.
Curious to see where the gondola entered the canal, she drew near the sunlight pouring through a metal gate. Here, a half-dozen steps swept into the canal, each one following its pale stone brother, the lowest hardly visible through the murkiness where shadow and light intermingled with the rhythm of the water. For an instant, Anna glimpsed a woman’s grimacing face; then it disintegrated into tiny ripples. Funny what water could do, she thought.
Margo and the others would be waiting for her on a higher floor, the piano nobile, not in this desolate spot. A gleaming music box of an elevator answered Anna’s call and transported her as she brooded about Sergio’s murder and Biondi’s interrogation. Margo had given her the right advice on the phone—she needed to put it behind her for a few hours. When the doors squeaked open, Margo was waiting, leaning against a pillar, tapping a sandaled foot.
“You’re fifteen minutes late. Where have you been?”
“Sorry about that,” Anna said. “This place isn’t easy to find. Any news?”
“Nothing about the murder in today’s papers. We may not see anything for a while. Everybody I told you about is here. They can’t wait to meet you, but let me take a second and introduce you to Nero, or we’ll regret it later when he plunks a giant paw on your lap when you least expect it.” Margo turned to a shaggy black dog with warm brown eyes, sitting quietly in a corner, watching them.
Anna calculated his weight at more than a hundred pounds.
“Come here, big boy, and meet Anna. Vieni qui.”
The dog bounded ahead, filling Anna with momentary panic, then sniffed her legs while wagging his tail.
“Good thing I passed the smell test.” Anna petted him on the head.
Margo ushered Anna into the recesses of the palazzo, over smooth pebbles of Venetian terrazzo and past sumptuously painted mythological scenes. Anna’s senses awakened when they entered a drawing room of frescoed parrots and peacocks; on the floor, inlaid mother-of-pearl and lapis lazuli imitated the patterns of a fantastic Persian carpet.
“Those are Alessandro’s ancestors,” said Margo, tilting her head toward a long hall where busts of the count’s forebears overpopulated the top of an ebony credenza set against a red silken wall. A host of lit candles encircled them, as if they were minor saints, Anna thought, smelling the aroma of dusky roses.
After climbing a flight of emerald marble stairs, they emerged onto a grand rooftop terrace. Azaleas and fig trees graced giant terracotta pots, and pomegranates dangled from a small tree. Geraniums and bougainvillea transformed the roof’s edges into a miniature jungle. The verdant garden burst with life. Weeds had outnumbered flowers in Anna’s backyard. Jack had refused to get his hands dirty, and after a few years, she had given up doing all the work. The view of bare soil from her kitchen window had pained her every time she washed the dishes. An echo, she had thought eventually, of their sterile coupling.
Looking out, Anna caught sight of bell towers rising in every direction and crooked chimney pots angled to the sky. Beyond them lay the glittering swath of Venice’s watery arteries and veins narrowing to wispy capillaries, shining in the sun.
Her gaze shifted to the immaculate setting of the rectangular table. Margo had rattled off gossipy snippets about the count and his houseguests: ages, backgrounds, hobbies. As if she had memorized their dossiers. No wonder she was always winning prizes for her reporting. With such talent, she would have been a great spy.
Count Alessandro Favier was seated at the head of the canopy-covered table, smiling at a dark greyhound of a man to his right. That must be the Peruvian consul from Florence, Pablo Morales, Anna thought. Margo’s cousin, auburn-haired Angela, sat across from him. She looked as high-spirited as ever, waving her freckled arms as she made an emphatic point. To Angela’s left sat Yolanda, Pablo’s blonde, olive-skinned wife with tawny, feline eyes. The far end of the table was empty.
“I’m back with my friend, Anna Lucia Lottol.” Margo put her arm around Anna’s waist as they strode forward. “She’s hoping to have a great vacation.”
Right, Anna thought. She gave them a wary smile and scanned their pleasant faces, doubting that any of them could have killed Sergio Saturday night.
Gray-haired Count Favier rose and approached the women, stopping them midway to the table. Of moderate height and weight, he carried himself with quiet dignity. His drooping brown eyes gave him an air of sadness. Full lips hinted at a refined sensuousness. Bermuda shorts revealed tanned, well-muscled legs, making him appear more youthful than his mid-sixties.
The count took Anna’s hand. “Un piacere squisito,” he said, adding in accented English, “Welcome to Venezia.” He kissed her on both cheeks and whispered, “And how is the little bird from jail? Do not worry. You will not be hearing from Biondi again.”
“Thank you so much for vouching for me, Count Favier,” said Anna, surprised. “What an awful experience. Did he tell you about the murder?” She wondered if he and Sergio had been good friends.
“Probably a drug dealer or some other criminal. In any case, the relatives must be told first. Family is important here in Italy.” He raised his voice. “But you must call me Alessandro.” He grinned at Anna and nodded toward Margo and Angela. “They have been hiding you from me.”
“Alessandro, she’s just arrived,” said Margo.
“Besides,” Angela said, “she’s married, isn’t she?”
“Besides,” mimicked Alessandro, “she is on vacation with the husband many, many kilometers away. Where did you tell me?” he squinted at Margo. “Berkeley, yes? A lovely city—for him to stay in.” He chuckled.
With the mention of Jack, Anna feared she’d be dragged into sharing details of her impending divorce with people she didn’t know, who, judging from the half-drained wine glasses studding the table, might ask her embarrassing questions.
“Don’t mind him,” chided Pablo. “Alessandro calms down once he’s been fed.”
Anna pivoted toward the coun
t and said, “Your home is so beautiful.”
“It was built for my family in the fifteenth century,” Alessandro said proudly. With a dramatic sweep of his arm, he added, “I have the original plans and old maps, along with many family documents. Come see my library after pranzo.”
“Yes,” said Margo, “after lunch we can look at the Book of Gold.”
Alessandro showed Anna to a seat next to Pablo before easing into his rattan peacock chair. “I offer you a cocktail. Anna, the Bellini is named after one of our famous artists, Giovanni Bellini, living in the fifteenth century. Back then, if you had floated by palazzi on the Grand Canal, you would have seen many exteriors adorned with his beautiful frescoes. The drink is made with Prosecco, our bubbling Venetian white wine, combined with juice of peach, thanks to Giuseppe Cipriani.”
“Allora Gaetano, ancora per gli ospiti,” Alessandro instructed the somber servant lingering at the door, Nero beside him. “I tell him to bring another round of Bellini.”
“Anna Lucia, what a beautiful name,” Pablo commented.
“Just like Santa Lucia, our saint, buried in San Geremia on the Grand Canal,” Alessandro said. “I am happy to have good friends stay here, but it saddens me that I could not fit another lovely guest in my home as we are refinishing the other bedrooms. How are your accommodations at La Stella?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“They’re fine. It can be a little noisy, though. I heard a child crying in the middle of the night . . .” She paused, distracted by Gaetano pouring their drinks.
“Where was this comin’ from, another hotel room?” Angela asked.
“No, the brick palazzo across the street.”
As he was filling her glass, Gaetano knocked against it, barely catching it in time. Moustache twitching, he peeped at Alessandro.
“Non trascurarti,” Alessandro said, reminding him not to be careless. Turning to Anna, he corrected her with a toothy smile. “The building you speak of was closed decades ago, when its owners left. It has many, how do you say, strutturali, structural, problems, making it unlivable. Like some other palazzi, it is so expensive to fix that no one has touched it. It remains deserted, totally empty, except for a few brave pigeons that have set up housekeeping.”
Venetian Blood Page 4