Alibi

by Joseph Kanon

  “All right. Come on,” I said. I reached over to take her hand, but she pulled away and walked alone, not saying anything until we’d crossed San Ivo and reached the sluggish back canal. The restaurant on the other side of the bridge had already closed, and there were no lights in the windows, just a streetlamp at either end and the bright moon.

  “Is this where she saw me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Coming to find you. To think, if I had waited at the hotel-” She looked up. “So maybe she’s watching tonight too. Somebody’s always watching us now. Which one, do you think?”

  I cocked my head at the window. “She’s not. It’s dark.”

  “Maybe she sits in the dark.”

  We kept walking. “Well, now she can’t see anyway. Not this far down. She didn’t see which way Gianni turned.”

  “Like this,” she said, pretending to turn left at the end. “But not this way.” She turned toward Ca’ Venti. “Why not? How does Cavallini know he turned that way?”

  “Because it’s the only way that makes sense to him.”

  “And one day he says, What if? And he goes this way.” She started down the calle. “To us.” She grabbed the air with one hand. “Snatch. And will we be safe then? Together?”

  I stopped. “We can’t walk away. We can’t let someone hang for this.”

  “You’ll never save that boy. Don’t you know that? A man like that,” she said, clutching her hand, Cavallini again, “he doesn’t let go. He has his victim. What are you going to give him instead? A story?”

  I turned away. “I don’t know. Let’s wait to hear from Frankfurt. Gianni didn’t deal directly with the Germans-there was always a go-between. So maybe there’s something.”

  “Something what? This boy is here, right now. You want to save him? Then you have to give them someone else to hang. Another body.” She took my hands. “Whose blood do you want on them? Mine?” She held them in front of me, her hands locked around my wrists, and for a second I couldn’t breathe, trapped in the hermetic logic of it. Someone else.

  I shook my head. “But not his either.”

  “Then whose? Whose would be acceptable to you?” She dropped my hands. “Who are you going to give them?”

  “Nobody,” I said, but quietly, not wanting to hear myself, knowing as I said it that she was right, that Cavallini would never settle for another mystery now, with the taste of blood in his mouth. He’d want a body. But he already had one. Our perfect alibi. All we had to do was let it happen. I felt something jump in me, my skin hot. Worse than murder.

  “You can’t save him.”

  “We have to.”

  “We have to save ourselves.”

  “You don’t mean that. You’re just-” I started to walk, then stopped again and waited until she was next to me. “You don’t mean that,” I repeated. “We can’t live that way.”

  “How do you think people live?”

  “In Fossoli. Not out here.”

  “Where it’s so different.”

  I said nothing for a moment, looking at her, then nodded. “It has to be. You think no one’s watching? We are. We’re watching. Or we have to pretend someone is. Otherwise, you’re right, there’s no difference. Fossoli, out here, it’s all the same then. Is that what you want?”

  “And what if it is all the same? Then what?”

  “I’m not going to let him die. I can’t,” I said, an end to it.

  “Then somebody else will,” she said. “It’s started now. Somebody will.”

  I didn’t answer, hot again, trapped back where we’d started. Somebody would. A cat slunk by, mewling, the only sound.

  We turned into the last calle, with the house door at the end. She slowed as we got near, dragging her feet. I turned the latchkey, the one that worked, not the ornate one near the knob. Angelina had left on two table lamps near the stairs, but otherwise the hall was in shadow, all the sconces dark. A bottle of champagne was chilling in a silver bucket on the side table, Angelina’s idea for our wedding night. But Claudia was looking down the hall, her arms crossed over her chest, rocking a little.

  “Let’s not stay here,” she said, still in the doorway. “Not tonight. Let’s go somewhere else.”

  I turned to her. “We have to stay here,” I said, touching her shoulder. “How would it look?”

  She slumped for a minute, then straightened. “That’s right, I for got. We stay here and wait. Until he turns the wrong way. Except that it’s the right way.”

  “Ssh. Angelina’s upstairs.”

  “And we’ll be here. Waiting. We can show him where.” She pointed toward the water gate. “We can look at it every day, while we’re waiting.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, stroking her shoulder. “It’s not for long. You’ll get used to it.”

  Her shoulder moved under my hand, almost a spasm, as if she had started to laugh but caught it before she could be heard. I pressed down, feeling the shaking, not laughter, but she stepped away from me, walked over to the ice bucket, and picked at the foil over the cork. “She left champagne. We should open it. She’ll be offended.” Her fingers stopped, resting on the foil. “I thought you were something new in my life. A new life. Now look where we are.” She turned, looking at me. “A new prison.”

  I stood still, suddenly afraid that she had seen what I couldn’t, our piece of the crystal.

  “It’s not like that,” I said.

  She looked at me for another minute, as if she had something else to say, then gave it up and turned back to the bucket.

  “Close the door,” she said.

  I reached behind me to push, and because I didn’t hold it, the heavy weight of the wood swung away from me, slamming shut with a clang that sounded like metal, loud enough to echo down the hall.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  They’re going to kill him,” Rosa said. “That’s what it means.”

  “What, shot trying to escape? Come on, Rosa.”

  We were walking on the waterfront of the Giudecca, heading toward Redentore, somewhere public but out of the way, Rosa’s request. She had called from a cafe to arrange the meeting, convinced now that her Bauer phone was tapped.

  “You’re imagining things.”

  “I don’t have time to argue with you. The minute I heard, I knew what it meant. There’s no reason to move him. You think there’s something wrong with the jail in Venice?”

  “Cavallini said he was becoming a symbol.”

  “Of what? Their incompetence? They have no case, they know that. So they have to win some other way. It’s what the Germans used to do. Something happens on the way. Or there’s someone in the new place, a grudge they didn’t know about. Fut.” She waved her fingers.

  “You’re serious.”

  “They’re going to kill him,” she said, stopping and turning to me, her voice steady, certain.

  I said nothing, waiting.

  “They’re moving him tomorrow night,” she said, starting to walk again.

  “You know this?”

  “A bird told me. To Vicenza, by train. So it’s difficult. The station’s a trap, and once he’s on the train-A car would be easier. There are possibilities between Piazzale Roma and Vicenza. Even Piazzale Roma would be better-there are several ways out-but no, it’s the train.”

  “Possibilities for what? What are you planning to do, kidnap him?”

  “I’m not going to let them kill him. So it’s necessary, an action,” she said, slightly excited, back in the game.

  “Are you serious? They really will kill him then. Trying to escape. You’ll be setting him up.”

  “Listen to me. They are going to kill him. You have to understand that. So this is his only chance now. Do you think we’re amateurs? We did this many, many times.”

  “During the war.”

  “His father was killed. It’s enough for one family. I want the son to live.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you’re going
to help.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. You owe him this much. Both of us. This never would have started if we hadn’t-well, that’s done.” She raised her eyes. “But there is an obligation here.”

  “Rosa, I was in the army, not the commandos. A paper pusher.”

  “So sometimes you leave the desk. It’s not enough, files. We can’t save him with files.”

  “Rosa, the war’s over. Over.”

  “Not for him.”

  “Christ.” I turned away, exasperated.

  “I’m not asking you to take any risk,” she said, her voice softer now. “Just leave a door open.”

  “A door open.”

  “Yours. On the canal.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do?”

  “Nothing. You won’t be there. There is no risk to you.”

  “A little commando raid, but no risk.”

  “For your piece, no. But I need someone I can trust. You’re not one of us, in the group. You don’t even know who we are. So you can’t betray us. I have to be careful of that.”

  “I know you.”

  “And you’d betray me?” She shook her head. “Then you betray Moretti. No.” She looked at me again. “I know you a little. There is an obligation here. We have to save him.” I looked away. His only chance. Just leave a door open. “I can do this without you, but no one suspects you. No one thinks to suspect you. An American. So it’s perfect.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “All worked out.”

  But she didn’t hear any irony in my voice. “It’s important to plan,” she said.

  “And after I open the door?”

  She said nothing.

  “I stick my neck out, but no questions,” I said.

  “You’re not sticking it out very far. It’s for your protection.”

  “I’d like to know what I’m getting into, at least. Since I seem to be in it.”

  She looked at me. “Then it’s agreed?”

  “Not yet.”

  She nodded. “Come, see the church.” She took my arm, starting up the broad Palladian steps. “But no names. I can tell you what will happen, your part. But it’s better if you don’t know the rest.”

  “All right. So they put him on a train,” I said, beginning.

  “Yes. Think how difficult. The police boat to the station is impossible. Look at the route. Canale di Cannaregio, always crowded. The station? A cul-de-sac, you can’t get out. So the first likely place, they think, is Maestre. Over the bridge. And they’ll be prepared. After that, there’s only Padua, no other stops.”

  “But there’s Vicenza itself. They’ll have to put him in a car there.”

  “Yes, it was my first thought. So their first thought too, no? Ha, the city of Palladio. Maybe that’s why I thought of this place,” she said, opening the doors.

  The inside was stark white, unadorned, something rare in Venice, architecture left alone. Rosa dipped her fingers in a font, crossed herself, then took a pew in the back. An old woman was arranging gladioli in vases on the altar, but otherwise the nave was empty, a perfect meeting place. For a second I wondered if it was one of those churches where voices gathered at the ceiling and then swirled down to some listening spot behind a pillar, but Rosa, suspicious of the Bauer, seemed unconcerned here. She lowered her voice but didn’t whisper.

  “And what if Vicenza’s too late? You understand, we don’t know when they’ll do it-a few days, right away, we don’t know. And the train worries me. So easy to fall off. And people might believe it, not like in a car. Who jumps out of a car?” Her voice fast, caught up in it. War stories.

  “Do you really believe this?”

  “Cavallini doesn’t want a trial. You told me yourself.”

  “To protect the Maglione name.”

  “Because he’ll lose. The name is disgraced and he loses. A double loss. So, another solution. One he knows. Another thing he learned from the Germans. You think it’s the first time for him?”

  I thought of the arm shooting out to the boy’s throat.

  “I know him a little too. So,” she said, already moving past it, “Vicenza, maybe it’s too late. Maybe everywhere it’s too late. The best thing is if he never leaves Venice.”

  “But they’ll have people in the station.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice eager, “but not in the yards. We have people in the yards. A signal delay. Once the train’s over the bridge, he’s gone, but in the yards-there’s no one but the guards on the train.”

  “How long will you have?”

  “A few minutes. But after, if we make the boat, then we have the advantage. The police will be out front, in the Grand Canal. By the time they get behind the station, we’re already gone.”

  “To Maestre.”

  “One boat, yes,” she said, her eyes bright, watching my reaction. “Where they expect to follow. Another where they don’t expect-back to Venice.”

  “A reverse. Like a football play.”

  “Yes? I don’t know.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we get off the water. We have to expect by this time the alarm is made, all the boats are out. Police boats are fast, they can outrun almost anything. So they chase to Maestre, they chase somewhere else, looking, but there’s nothing to see. The fox has gone into his hole.”

  “At Ca’ Venti.”

  She spread her hands. “ Ecco.”

  “With the boat parked out front?”

  “No, of course not. We don’t even tie up. We don’t need long, just enough time to drop him off. The boat keeps going; he stays in the hole. Then, later, another boat comes, one the police have never seen.”

  “And if they do catch the first?”

  “What do they catch? Only the driver.”

  “And meanwhile they’ve lost the scent and the new boat takes the fox-”

  “Somewhere else.”

  “That I won’t know.”

  “Nobody knows. Just your piece. The first boat doesn’t know the second boat. No one can betray anyone. Not this time.”

  “You don’t need Ca’ Venti to make the switch. You could do it anywhere in Venice.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Not so many of us have our own canal entrance. I told you, no one suspects you. If we use one of our own people, maybe the police have a list. They’ll look. But nobody looks for you. Besides, the house is convenient, close to the channel.”

  “You’ve already been there.”

  “Rio di Fornace, yes,” she said, precise. “Two ends. One the Grand Canal, the other Giudecca channel. Two exits, not a trap.”

  “Not busy, either. Not at that hour. A boat might be noticed.” I thought of us looking at the bedroom light across the canal, afraid to make a splash.

  “Yes, I know. Just leave the water gate unlocked. It takes a minute. There’s nothing to make people look. And you’ll be out.”

  “Where?”

  “A restaurant, anywhere people will see you. You don’t know anything about it. You weren’t there. You didn’t think to lock the gate, that’s all. You don’t know.”

  “Do you think they’d believe that?”

  “No,” she said, smiling faintly. “But nothing will go wrong. They’re not expecting this. And if we think the police are right behind us, we don’t stop. I give you my word.”

  “And what about Angelina?”

  “Who?”

  “The maid. She lives there.”

  “ Che bella. The problems of the rich. Give her the night off.”

  I started to smile, in spite of myself, then stopped. Out for the evening. No risk. The plan already in motion, whether I helped or not.

  “Do you want to save his life?”

  “Yes,” I said, nodding, suddenly believing it would happen, Moretti safe, Claudia and I happy again, maybe on the train he never took.

  “Then just leave the gate unlocked. Come on, she’s finished with the flowers.”

  She got up, crossing herself again, and
turned to the door before the woman could see her. Outside, she pulled her sweater tighter, an automatic reflex even in the warm spring air.

  “What’s going to happen to him?” I said.

  “We’ll hide him until it’s safe. Who knows, maybe they’ll find the one who did it.”

  “Maybe,” I said, glancing away. “And if not?”

  “Then he becomes someone else. Anyway, he’s alive.” She stopped at the foot of the steps and looked across the channel. “You can see it from here, the house. It’s a good plan, yes?”

  “I hope so. It’s your neck.”

  She brushed this away. “It’s an old neck. He’s just a boy. And to carry this burden now, blaming himself. How I wish I’d never talked to him.”

  “But we were right. If that means anything to you. Gianni was working with the Germans.”

  “Yes?” she said, not really interested. Yesterday’s files.

  “His brother kept papers, it turns out. Giulia has them. Gianni was friendly long before he turned up at Villa Raspelli. Business partners.”

  “Business partners,” she said, dismissing this.

  “And then more, after Paolo was killed. When he found out Moretti had been one of you-” I stopped, backing away from her husband, what must have happened next, but her mind had gone elsewhere, still Herr Kroger with files.

  “These papers, you can get them?”

  “No. Anyway, he’s dead. They’re no use to us now, except to know.”

  “But there must be others. People he mentions, Italians. We need-”

  “She’d burn them first. It’s her family. I thought you didn’t care anymore about Gianni.”

  “Him, no. But the others? Not care? Do you know what’s happening in Italy? No, an American, all you see is this.” She spread her arm to the view. “Not what’s really here. You think the Fascists have gone away? No, back again, the same people. Back where they were, head of the table. Magliones. The Church. My god, the Church.” She waved her hand, the same fingers that had just dipped in holy water, made a quick cross at the pew. “The Germans’ friends. ‘We did nothing. Patrioti.’ And soon everyone will believe it again. All patrioti. Trials? That’s all in the past. And then it’s too late. I don’t have time for a dead man, but the living? To get just one more?” She lowered her voice. “She told you about them. She’ll let you read them?”