Alibi

by Joseph Kanon

  And this? There was Bertie in his jewel box, red wallpaper and gilded moldings, the whole room gleaming with gold, dimming now, people hushing. In a minute there would be music and Rodolfo would find Mimi and we’d sit back, annoying the Montanaris, and no one would find it fantastical at all, perfectly normal. I thought of Bertie’s party again, rich foreigners entertaining one another in rented palazzos, another Puccini world. And yet it was Rosa and her friends who didn’t seem real. The orchestra started. Only a mile away someone might be firing a gun.

  I shifted in my seat again, wishing I could smoke, and looked around for Cavallini’s wife-it would be a nice touch if she could say she’d seen us-but the darkness made it hard to find anyone beyond the first row of the boxes. The train would be leaving the station in a few minutes, halting unexpectedly for the signal. Unless that was no longer the plan, something Rosa had made up to make me chase the wrong scent. But it had to be the yards if they expected to stay in Venice. Maestre would favor the police. Maybe it was all exactly the way she’d told me it would be. But which story had Cavallini been told? There are many ears in Venice. How much easier now for Rosa to be betrayed, with the Germans gone, the partisan groups out of hiding. Nobody could be that careful; there was always something to give you away. How many guards did he have on the train? They wouldn’t suspect anything in the yards-they’d be bored with the delay, their guns not even drawn. Still, how long would it take to get them out, fire into the surprise?

  Something moved over my finger and I jumped. Claudia’s hand, reaching over just to touch. She didn’t turn her head, and I saw that her eyes were shiny, her whole attention given to the music. Now I heard it too, Rodolfo’s love song, so beautiful that it seemed no one could have written it, just found it, floating somewhere above the ordinary world. If this was possible, anything was. I looked down at her hand. We could be happy. Why shouldn’t it work? Rosa knew what she was doing. Gianni was gone and we had an alibi. The Germans had gotten away with murder, the whole world. Even in Venice, as beautiful as the music, everyone had an alibi, somewhere else when the air raid sirens covered the sounds of people being dragged off. I didn’t know. I didn’t realize. I had my own life to consider. And of course everyone did.

  I checked my watch. They’d be in boats now, streaming off to Maestre or wherever they were really going. Later we’d go home and not know whether they’d been there or not. I put my hand over Claudia’s, hearing the music again. Why shouldn’t it all work?

  Signora Montanari developed one of her headaches after Act I and they left, with apologies and improbable hopes of seeing us again. Instead we had champagne with Bertie.

  “I don’t blame them a bit,” he said, watching the Montanaris go. “Act I is bliss and then everything goes wrong. Think how it ends.” I sipped more champagne, uneasy again. “Of course the good monsignor loves the death part,” he said, nodding toward the priest, now talking to someone else. “Divine retribution, I suppose, for all that lovely sin. What is going on? Filomena will be furious. She hates being reminded he’s in the police.”

  I followed his look past the priest to the bar, where Signora Cavallini had been approached by two policemen, their uniforms so showy that for a second it seemed they were part of the opera. She was frowning, putting down her glass to leave.

  “What is it, do you think?” I said quickly. “Find out.”

  “Adam,” he said, pretending to be offended.

  “But maybe something’s happened.”

  He looked at them again, debating, then tapped his champagne glass. “I could use a top-up. Right back.”

  He hurried to the bar, just in time to catch Signora Cavallini. They talked for a second, then he put his hand on her arm, reassuring, and shooed her away with the uniforms.

  “They’ve taken him to hospital.”

  “He’s been shot?”

  Bertie blinked. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would he be shot? In Venice? It’s probably nothing-they check in here with a sneeze. Shot.” He peered over his glasses. “This flair for melodrama. Ever since you joined the force.”

  “I should go. Maybe he’s-”

  “Adam,” he said, his tone like a physical restraint, a hand on my chest. “Stop being a ninny and finish your drink. His wife is with him.” He drank some champagne. “I’d no idea you were so close.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it? I think all this business has gone to your head. Unless it’s the wine. I think I’ll finish that,” he said, taking my glass and pouring some wine into his own, and then, before I could protest, “You don’t have to sit with the monsignor.”

  There was more of this, even a few dull minutes with the priest before the warning bell rang, and I didn’t hear any of it, my head buzzing with shots. Why else would Cavallini be taken to the hospital? But it was Cavallini who’d been shot. Which meant that Moretti might have gotten away. Unless they were all still there, littered across the yards, everything gone wrong.

  In our box, lights down, I tried to focus on the stage, but now even the music was drowned out by the buzzing in my head. Instead of the Cafe Momus, I was seeing the train doors closing, the smooth glide out from the platform, then the jerky stop in the yards for the light, then-then what? The worst of it was not knowing. But Bertie had been right, catching me in time, before an absurd rush to the hospital. How would I have explained that? A hunch? I checked my watch again. They’d be long gone from Ca’ Venti by now, assuming they’d ever come. Why not do what I was supposed to do, enjoy the opera? While the house sat there, open and waiting, like an overlooked piece of evidence.

  “Do you want to go?” Claudia said at the next intermission.

  “We should stay. See it through.”

  “Scratching your knees and squirming in your seat. Do you think I’m seeing it either?” She reached over and touched me. “If Cavallini’s shot, maybe they got away. Come on. Everyone has already seen us.”

  “And what excuse, if anybody asks?”

  “You think only the Montanaris get headaches?”

  We took the traghetto near the Gritti, standing up as we crossed, looking toward Mimi’s dark landing. I thought of the footmen and umbrellas and torches leading the guests into the hall, the jumpy apprehension I’d felt then too, not knowing if it would work.

  Our calle was quiet and the door was locked, as it was supposed to be. Only a single night-light, so Angelina wasn’t back yet. I turned on the hall lights, the sconces shining all the way to the stairs. Beyond, through the wrought-iron and glass door, the water entrance was dark, maybe untouched. I walked down the hall and opened the inside door, putting my hand up to the light switch.

  “No, no lights.” Rosa, crouching in a corner, a disembodied voice from a dark pile. “They might see. Help me with him.”

  I went over to the pile-Moretti, with his head leaning on her. In the dim light coming from the hall I saw the cloth she was holding against him, blotched with blood.

  “My god.”

  “Do you have a towel? I’m using my slip. The worst of it has stopped. So not an artery.”

  There was a whimper behind me. Claudia stood still for a second, her mouth open, as if she were about to scream. “What are you doing here? You said no one would be here. Lies. I knew it.” Then she took in the bloody cloth.

  “A towel,” Rosa said again.

  “A towel,” Claudia said, a faint echo, her eyes still wide.

  “And something to clean the wound. I couldn’t leave him.”

  But Claudia was already running down the hall to the stairs.

  “Cavallini was shot?” I said.

  “I hope so.”

  “What happened?”

  She indicated Moretti. “They shot him before we could get him off the train. They must have had orders. ‘If anything happens, shoot him first.’ ”

  “How bad is it?”

  “He’s bleeding. Not an artery, he’d be dead, but we have to get him to a doctor. He won’t
make it like this.”

  “When’s the pickup boat?”

  She shrugged. “The link that broke. He should have been here long ago. We have to assume he’s not coming.”

  “But he knew where to get you. If they break him, they’ll come here.”

  “He won’t break.”

  “Everybody breaks, Rosa,” I said, angry. “We have to get the boy out of here.”

  She glared at me, then nodded. “Then we use your boat.”

  “My boat?”

  “You have to take us.”

  “That was always the plan, wasn’t it?” Claudia said angrily from the doorway. “There was never any other boat.” Her voice quivering, edging toward hysteria.

  “Does it matter?” Rosa said to me. “He’ll die.”

  “Oh, my god,” Claudia said, “the blood, it’s all over. We have to clean it up. Before anyone sees.” She knelt and began to wipe the stone floor.

  “Yes, it matters. I have to know how much time we have. Was there another boat?” I had raised my voice, almost shouting.

  “Yes.”

  “So, no time. Let’s get going. First him. Let me see the wound.” I took Claudia by the shoulders and held her until they stopped shaking. “You all right? Can you do this?”

  “Me? Don’t you remember? I’m good at it,” she said, her voice catching. I shot her a look, then glanced down at Rosa, but Rosa was busy now, peeling off the soaked cloth. “Here, I brought some brandy. This is peroxide. For the wound.”

  “That’ll kill him,” I said. “Maybe we should chance it. Bullet’s still in anyway. That’s where the real infection-”

  “No, we don’t chance it,” Rosa said, taking the bottle.

  “I’ll get another towel,” Claudia said, eager to leave.

  Rosa gave Moretti some of the brandy, sitting him up so he wouldn’t choke, and I saw that he wasn’t unconscious, just scared and quiet, keeping his eyes closed against the pain. Shock had drained his face pale, making him look even younger, so that the stubble of beard from his days in jail seemed out of place, ink from another sketch.

  “This is going to hurt,” Rosa said, pouring some of the peroxide on a towel.

  He nodded and clenched his teeth, playing patient, and then the towel touched him, a searing shock, and he screamed, a yelp that raced out of the room and down the canal. Rosa clamped a hand over his mouth to muffle the scream, making him fight for air, his body writhing, so that when she finally took it away he was panting, exhausted from it, the way a seizure subsides into twitches.

  Claudia raced back into the room. “Are you crazy?” she said, not really to anyone. Then she saw Moretti’s face. “They’ll hear,” she said softly. “You’ll give us all away.” She took the peroxide back from Rosa and handed her a towel. “Put this on him. Where is the doctor? How far?”

  “Far,” Rosa said.

  “There’s no time for that,” Claudia snapped. “Tell us where.”

  “The Lido.”

  “The Lido?” Claudia said. “With the police in the lagoon? What do we say if they stop us? ‘Oh, just something we picked up.’ You want to go there, go alone. Don’t kill us too.”

  “I don’t know anything about boats.” She looked down at Moretti.

  “Then call an ambulance. Take him to the hospital.”

  “They already shot him once. You think they’ll stop now?”

  Claudia bit her lip, thinking. “Can you take a bullet out? In the war, they did that. No doctors. You were a partisan. You-”

  Rosa shook her head. “It’s too deep. He needs a doctor. Instruments.”

  “All right. We can call an ambulance from the Zattere-we can carry him that far. No one will know.”

  “About you.”

  “Yes, about us. Do you want everyone caught? At least he can live. He’ll be safe there, in the hospital.”

  “Was your father safe there?”

  Claudia looked away, then went back to the floor, scrubbing it clean, doing something.

  “Why the Lido?” I said.

  “There’s a car there. They won’t know about it.”

  “The next link?”

  “We can get to Jesolo. There’s a doctor I know.”

  “If he’s still alive,” I said, watching Moretti, who was breathing heavily, in a series of grunts.

  “You can’t involve us in this,” Claudia said. “What can we say? They’ll think we were part of it, attacking police. There, it’s gone. What do we do with the towel?” She held it out to me.

  Rosa looked up at me. “We can’t take him to the hospital. You know that. There is an obligation here.”

  I glanced around the room, thinking. The police were on the water, not searching the calles. Could he walk? Mimi’s wasn’t far, a few deserted blocks away. But how could we take him there? Anywhere?

  “Were you followed here?” I said.

  Rosa shook her head. “No.”

  “So only the pickup boat knows you’re still here.”

  “Yes.”

  “The police’ll be on the lagoon.”

  “Maybe not so many,” she said, bargaining. “They can’t stay out all night. They have to think we went to Maestre. No one will think of the Lido, it’s the wrong way. That was the plan.”

  “Yes, and look how well it’s worked,” Claudia said.

  “He’s here, isn’t he? If we can get to the Lido, we can get him away.” She turned to me. “They’re not looking for your boat.”

  I took in the canal steps, the boat tied to its mooring pole, barely moving in the calm water. If they were keeping watch nearby, they’d be in the Giudecca channel, not the other end. Nobody in his right mind would head for the Grand Canal, all lights and vaporetti and tourist gondolas. The way to Maestre, the mainland, was up the channel to Piazzale Roma and the bridge. That would be the way to escape, not out toward the lagoon and the open sea. Rosa was right-they wouldn’t think of the Lido. The trick would be getting past Venice itself, the curve of bright lights around the basin, without even a shadow to hide behind. A long trip in any case, too long for someone with a stomach wound, groaning between channel markers. And now they’d be hours late.

  “What if he didn’t wait, the driver?”

  “There’s no one. Just the car.”

  “And you’re going to drive?”

  “I can drive a car.”

  “But not a boat,” I said to myself, then looked at her. “It’s not going to work, Rosa. You have to give him up.”

  “He’s not guilty,” Claudia said. “If there’s a trial-”

  “It’s too late for that,” Rosa said. “A policeman was killed.”

  “How do you know? You didn’t know if Cavallini was shot.”

  “I didn’t shoot Cavallini,” she said calmly.

  In the silence that followed you could hear the creaking of moored boats in the canal.

  “Anybody see you?” I said quietly.

  Rosa shrugged. “It was dark. Maybe. Maybe they saw him,” she said, looking down at Moretti. “You understand? They don’t need a trial for Maglione anymore. Now they have this.”

  I said nothing, my eyes darting around the room again-the hanging gondola, the paving stones, nothing changed, feeling as trapped and anxious as that night. Only the water. The calle entrance was impossible-someone would see, and where would we carry him? Gianni had been dead, something you could slip over the side. Moretti would have to be taken all the way, loaded into the car. If he survived the trip. And if he didn’t? I saw us pitching him into the water, a macabre repetition, everything happening all over again.

  “You have to get him out of here,” Claudia said, maybe seeing it too, shivering as if she were back in the boat. “It’s not fair, to be blamed for this.”

  “Go, then,” Rosa said. “Somewhere after the opera. If they come, you won’t be here. I’ll say you never knew. I came to steal the boat. They’d believe that, stealing the boat.”

  “You wouldn’t even get the motor sta
rted,” I said.

  “I’ll row, then. What do you want me to do? Sit? Let him bleed to death?”

  Nobody said anything, waiting for someone else to move. Moretti, on the floor, fumbled in his jacket and pulled out a gun, aiming at me.

  “Take us,” he said.

  “Stop,” Rosa said. “They’re friends.”

  But Moretti’s eyes were blunt, beyond niceties. I stared at the gun, feeling dislocated. A gun, where we used to give parties. All he had to do was squeeze the trigger.

  “Give it to me,” Rosa said, holding out her hand. Then, fondly, “ Imbecile.”

  He lowered the gun, not giving it to Rosa but putting it back in his pocket.

  “Where did he get a gun?” I asked.

  “The guard who shot him, it’s the one he used. So we took it after.”

  I tried to imagine the scene in the yards, the guard slumping forward, Rosa helping the boy across the tracks, a confusion of shots, the boat racing away from the pier. Or that moment, earlier, when she’d fired at the guard. Not the first. How many had there been? Paolo and all the others. I wondered if it got easier, or if each time was like Gianni, with blood pounding in your head.

  “What happened to the other guard?”

  “He was ours,” she said simply.

  And now the others would kill him. No end to it, the war that kept going, the only thing real to her. But not to me, nothing to do with me.

  It must have been utterly still, because the doorbell, when it rang, was louder even than Moretti’s scream.

  Claudia jumped. “Oh, dio,” she said, frantic, looking at the bloody towel in her hand.

  Rosa sat up, rigid, clutching Moretti.

  “Somebody heard,” Claudia said, a gasp.

  “Angelina,” I said, “that’s all.”

  “She rings? With a key?” She held out the towel in front of her as if it were alive, about to bite her.

  I stood, for a moment almost dizzy, my head turning left, right, anywhere. “All right,” I said finally, pretending calm. “Get over there, behind the stones.” I stepped over to help Rosa drag Moretti behind the pile. “Get under the tarp. It’s probably Angelina. I’ll come back when she goes up. Just stay there.”

  “What do I do with this?” Claudia held out the towel, panicking.