Pursuit

by Felice Picano

  Curious if this was a come-on or what, exactly, Addison agreed to accompany him. The lawyer lived above his law chambers, and while it was large, with many bright, airy rooms, he couldn’t help notice how under-furnished it was, by comparison with not only the Pensione Ercoli but virtually every other home in Ancona he’d peered into. The library was no better furnished, with only a large old desk and a single chair. The walls were bare of pictures, yet their square, rectangular, and in one case, oval, outlines were still visible, all suggestive of a man whose financial star had waned over the past nine decades and who was selling off what he or his ancestors had accumulated.

  The first small recto volume Marcellini drew out for Addison’s perusal was a printed volume in Latin and Greek, which Addison recognized but neither read nor spoke.

  “Lucretius,” the lawyer declared. “Very early. Sixteen hundred and ten.”

  The second volume was larger by far and contained ink drawings with at places blushes of colour, representing several youths and young women partly dressed and then undressed, and then actively engaged in various sensual activities. This looked far more modern. Addison was about to ask if the lawyer was the artist, when he saw the profile of a hawk-nosed youth with an unmistakably protruding lower lip upon which rested a portion of another youth’s member. Several other drawings confirmed that the lawyer, albeit much younger, was well represented.

  “I am told you are in the employ of a great lord,” Marcellini said.

  “You are told correctly.”

  “Art of this sort is not so common, I believe, in England.”

  “Never common enough, especially when it is so…variegated. You are certain you can part with this?”

  “Ah, yes. Everyone who is modelled is dead,” he glibly lied.

  “Then, yes. I shall write to him about these two volumes. This larger one might interest him greatly.”

  The lawyer then handed Addison a sheet of pre-printed paper which contained his name, several academic degrees, and an office address.

  “I shall write to him first by telegraph, if that suits you,” Addison said. “It is faster.”

  He was about to step out of the room when a ray of sun caught a particular section of the by now thinning books on a shelf behind the desk. Always one for signs, Addison followed it and found a few more Latin texts and a curious notebook of some dark animal hide but almost paper thin from much handling. Within it was handwritten correspondence in very fine, even fading ink-cursive between two friends. One superscription was that of an Umberto Achille Marcellini, doubtless the lawyer himself, in 1823. But the other, while not as readily legible, was somehow familiar.

  “And is this for sale?” Addison said. “It seems to be the intimate letters of two young men. That Grecian kind of relationships interests both myself and my lord. Would you sell it to us?”

  The lawyer looked startled at first, perhaps by the volume even coming to light, then he seemed ever so briefly enraged, and then resigned.

  “Yes, for a very dear price.”

  “Then I will certainly mention it in my telegram. I’ll go do that now.”

  The lawyer directed him to the centre of Ancona, where the telegraph station was located. On his way, Addison had a thought. Didn’t one of the card-playing signoras tell him she had been left a large number of English-language books by guests? It wouldn’t be unnatural for him to call upon her and ask to see them.

  It turned out she was just returned home from the Pensione Ercoli card game herself and was surprised and flattered he’d called on her. She had her girl bring him more coffee—this one foamy and called macchiato—and let him peruse her left-behind-by-guests library.

  He flung open the little compendium of British poets she had, and there he found the plate of the bust he was looking for as well as his not too unfamiliar signature. Upon another page, he found a full-length portrait which showed the great man in detail, so cleverly achieved that the viewer scarcely made out the club foot. Doubtless the same club foot being licked by several women in those ink drawings the Avvocato had shown him. The same club foot being thrust up to the tarsal-knuckles into the anus of one of the other young men. Oh, yes! That would be a find! Letters and drawings of the young Lord Byron! He wondered if he should even let His Lordship look at the letters once he had them in hand. Surely the drawings ought to be enough to hold his interest.

  9 October 188—

  Casa Ippolito Nuovo,

  Ancona, Italy

  My Lord,

  My landlady knocked on the door and told me a train filled with passengers is coming in from Lake Garda, the first such in four days. Perhaps my great Aunt—for so have I styled Her L-ship to the woman—is on the train? If I hurry, I can meet it at the station. And so My Lord, I go. And drop these lines in a post-box as I do.

  Yrs.

  Addison Grimmins

  12 October 188—

  Late of the Pensione Ercoli

  Current: Palazzo Di Moderi, Calle Albinoni

  Venice, Italy

  My Lord,

  As you will note from the above postal address, I’ve gone ahead into Venice itself. Several days of waiting about the railroad station at Ancona proved fruitless.

  At my arrival at the railroad terminal in Venice several hours later, I located a telegraph office and sent you the note you should have already received.

  Yrs.

  Addison Grimmins

  ✥ ✥ ✥

  It was a nuisance, he had to admit. And his own fault. Once he’d mentioned the old man’s volume of letters to the Signora Faschiletti and somehow made it transparent to her how desirable the object would be for him to obtain, she’d replied, “Come late, after the twelve of the clock to my rooms. Knock twice low on the door, and I will give you the lire. Then you may pay me back.”

  Well, the money was certainly there, but so was the signora herself, in a rather picturesque déshabillé, her hair down, a mere touch of rouge on her lips, and perhaps even on the tips of her breasts. So, the invitation appeared to a fellow of his sophistication to be more like a command performance. As it had been more than a few days since his most recent Teutonic activities, Addison performed commandingly. He was out of the signora’s chambers and into his own by two of the clock.

  No sooner had he awakened that morning than he saw the note under his door. Not a billet-doux as he’d feared, but a visiting card from a Mr. Worthley of the Thos. Cook & Son Travel Office, notifying him that the wire order of funds from His Lordship had arrived and could be obtained at certain hours.

  The usual caffe latte and almond-filled bun for breakfast with no sign of his recent innamorata and he was out the door. Worthley was in the office as promised, and Old Marcellini was up early, too. He was quick to hand over the three volumes, which he then aided Addison in wrapping in parcel paper. For a minute before departing, Addison thought he ought to say something indicating what he believed he knew. But then he thought better of it and simply half bowed and withdrew. After this transaction, the old man wouldn’t need to sell any more furniture or pictures or books if he lived on another decade of need, which seemed all too likely.

  But when Addison reached the Thos. Cook & Son office again, and was looking over the parcels, he was surprised to find a folded note on Marcellini’s printed notepaper, and a scrawled message. It is no sin to be beautiful. It is no sin to give love.

  “Indeed, sir! You have hit the nail on the head!” Addison said.

  “Pardon?” Worthley looked up from his wrapping, baffled.

  “Never you mind! But do mind your packing of these two valuable objects is redundant to a fault.”

  “Not to worry, sir. We know our business.”

  Addison returned to the Pensione Ercoli, packed his bag, and brought it downstairs to what passed for a business desk in the vestibule. With the infamous third volume in hand opening up so many new possibilities, it seemed high time to leave the boring little town.

  She was there, prim and prop
er this morning as only a satisfied woman could be. All business.

  “I fear, Signora, that I can no longer await my aunt, but must move on.”

  “It is high time for it,” she said tersely. Her two hulking nephews were in sight and hearing, lounging in the vestibule.

  “Il conto, Signora?” he asked, putting his long wallet on the counter.

  “Here it is, Sir Inglese.”

  He was looking it over and surprised that it was merely a bill for the time he had spent at the place, with several meals discounted, and no sign at all of the “loan” of the night before.

  “No added special fares?” he asked, to be certain.

  “The charming company of Sir Inglese, for myself and my cumadres at our little entertainments, has any special fare taken away.”

  “Grazie, Signora. Molto gentile.”

  “Prego. But you should know then, Sir Inglese, that the son of my cumadre Maria-Grazia believes he has seen just such a lady as you have to us descripted. Your Gran-Tia? And also, a little donna he believed Italiana o Francese.”

  “No?” He tried not to appear utterly dumbfounded. “When was this?”

  “Sì, Sir Inglese. Yesterday. With them, younger men. I only this morning have report.”

  “Grazie, Signora. Did your cumadre’s son by any chance discover where in Ancona my aunt lodges?”

  “No here. To Venezia they go. Pronto! Aunt. Donna. Uomini. All. By the train. Darkest night.”

  When he was bedding her. It made a certain madcap sense.

  For a second, he wondered how long she had intended to keep this information from him. Perhaps not until after he’d ceased creeping into her bedroom after midnight.

  “Grazie, once again. I shall not fail to recommend this lodging to all Englishmen.”

  “Then one more thing for to know,” she said. “This Ercoli,” referring to the fresco of the muscular Greek hero Hercules behind her desk and indeed pictures on many elements of the pensione, including his bill, “He was for it pose, amico lei—il Vecchio!” Her nose pointed out the door.

  “Il Avvocato Marcellini posed for this?” he asked.

  “Not him. His friend. The poet.”

  He stared, and sure enough, the club foot was hidden by the pose.

  His Lordship would have paid immensely for a photograph of this muscular nude pose had the medium existed when the fresco was made. But it had been a quarter century too early for photography.

  But that meant she knew all about the old man.

  “The poet?”

  “It’s true. We are very proud, all this Ancona.”

  So, they must all know! Perhaps not uneducated Jessica, the maid. But all the cumadres knew!

  Addison bowed to her. She half curtseyed to him.

  As he swung his bag out the door, one of the nephews all but lifted him into a gaily decorated little one-horse gig headed to the train station.

  ✥ ✥ ✥

  At his arrival at the railroad terminal in Venice, he located a tiny telegraph office and sent another telegram confirming his arrival and that the volumes had been sent off. The trip had been long, a dozen hours, and uneventful unless one counted the assorted domestic animals which had to be removed from the track and at one point where the trestle crossed a small river, many people cackled about the love-suicide by drowning of a local young lady.

  By now it was evening, and the train was the last of the day to arrive in the large, still fairly new terminal. The usual noise and smoke and shouts of porters and equally loud replies of passengers, the exclamations of greeters and of those being greeted were all slowly fading away. Addison had no desire to do anything more than sit at a spindly metal table with the greenish glass top, patterned like the waves of the sea, dandling a small glass of French brandy and a larger glass of carbonated water as he got his bearings and tried to see what, or who, would be of use to him in this new location.

  For the most part, the terminal workers and railroad men were concerned with finishing their jobs and closing up their various businesses and going home. Even the bartender of this little enoteca, or wine shop, was washing down his shelves and counting his cash. They didn’t count in Addison’s book, and neither did any of the straggling passengers, since those that he sought had surely come and gone earlier in the morning. But he had learned—and not only from the example of his lord—that a simple “look ’round” could reveal miracles, or at least potentialities, if one remained both observant and sufficiently collected in his wits.

  It was then that he spotted one of those layabout lads who sometimes earn small change helping people with their bags, and sometimes earn slightly larger amounts pocketing unattached objects that came into their vicinity. This lad reminded Addison of himself not too long ago, albeit less angelic in appearance than charmingly fox-like, with his narrow, light green eyes and dark blond hair, as well as his slender form. His bleached-out coloured jacket, blouse, and trousers, not to mention his cheap rope and leather footwear or the oh-so-studied casual indifference he affected, marked him as that type. It came in all nationalities.

  This layabout spotted Addison spotting him. He rose leisurely and ambled past the spindly little table twice, the second time asking indifferently, “Cicerone? Signor?” Meaning did he need a guide.

  “Cuanto lingue parla?” It turned out he spoke two languages, French and Italian. But also a spattering of Austrian and English—i.e., more than enough for Addison, whose Italian had grown by leaps and bounds in the past week, thanks to the card-playing landladies. So Addison pointed to his portmanteau, locked tight, the key around his neck.

  The layabout lad lifted it easily, and as Addison finished his apertif with a final toss, he was led outside the terminus to a dark and somewhat wet street chemically redolent of that atmospheric pause between rain showers and to a waiting taxi: one of those one passenger single-horse types so popular in the narrow streets of the canal-crossed city. He of course had led Addison directly to some relative or confederate of his, attached to an ancient jade of a nag and a worn suede cabriolet, but Addison demurred, stopping suddenly at a café table, sitting and calling for one of those poisonous little two-sip demitasses which became heavenly with the addition of a spoonful of anise-flavoured sugar and a twist of lemon.

  His layabout lad was cool enough to wait, but when he began to hunker down on his heels by the table, Addison insisted he rise and sit like a man. He purchased for him a gelato amandine. There, at the tiny table, while Luca bathed his delightful face in the iced dessert, Addison probed him as gently as he knew how.

  What had Luca’s friends told him? Addison was certain all those unofficially employed about the station exchanged information, so that they might more easily identify their robbery victims.

  “An early train from Switzerland brought a half dozen foreigners. Some noble, some not.”

  “Was a great lady among them? Traveling with a chaperone and chamber maid?”

  “I believe so. My friend said—”

  “Did your friend overhear which albergo they were going to?”

  No hotel, it turned out. They were met by a private carriage, which had certain scrolls indicative of the local nobility on its sides, and which moved so quickly his friends were not able to know where.

  “I could find out tomorrow,” he insisted. And here the lad realized he had foolishly released the crucial information Addison sought without first asking a fee. He became so transparently disappointed by his error that Addison forestalled his departure by saying he would, after all, require Luca’s services as cicerone for the following few days. But first he was to bring Addison to excellent lodgings, but not owned or operated by a relative. And he was to return there in the morning.

  Luca was all smiles again, and it was as though the sun had just come out from behind a cloud. As for the information he furnished, only one lady had recognizably spoken English in his presence among the past few day’s arrivals. She had travelled not in a large suite but with a singl
e, tall, stout man around thirty-five or forty years of age, who had looked about himself very cautiously. Amidst the departing passengers all around them, the stout fellow had conveyed them into a gondola to take them to a palazzo beyond the Rialto. This had occurred the previous evening, far too early for the woman Addison was seeking.

  Meanwhile, Luca thought he knew of the woman he’d been told to look out for, the same party that his Ancona landlady’s cumadre’s son had described. At least he knew her to be different. She had distinctly spoken English but also French, he’d been told, and her party was another woman with, perhaps, a younger man.

  However, Luca temporized even that by saying she was a great lady, already known to him by repute. The Comtesse de St. Roche-Debreville.

  Addison immediately distinguished her as a great London friend of his lord, one whom he’d been honoured to be introduced to in his company some two years past.

  To test this theory and Luca’s veracity and usefulness, he waited until they had arrived by a more official-looking gondola at a hotel whose name he recognized had been on a “recommended” list in the Baedeker Guide he’d possessed himself of as well upon a list at the Thos. Cook & Son office. Once settled in his chamber, he sat down and enclosed his lord’s calling card, along with his own hasty note on the establishment’s stationery, in a single envelope and gave it to Luca to present at the Comtesse’s address.

  Luca was as though magically transformed into Addison’s boon confederate by the possibility of his knowing such a highborn and affluent Lady. Luca returned within the half hour, as Addison was unpacking his belongings.

  I’ll be most put out, Comtesse Diane wrote, if you don’t come tomorrow and keep me company in this draughty, old, waterlogged palace while you are in Venice.