“Is there something wrong?”
“I know this man—from another life.”
“Is that a problem?”
He closed the file. “Not at all.”
THE Englishman stayed up late, listening to the audiotape he had taken from the professor’s apartment in Lyons. Then he read the stack of clippings and obituaries he had collected by trolling newspaper websites on the Internet, followed by the dossiers Anton Orsati had just given him. He slept for a few hours; then, before dawn the next morning, he placed a small overnight bag in the back of his jeep and drove into the village.
He parked in a narrow street near the church and walked to the house where the signadora lived. When he knocked softly on the door, she pushed open the shutters in the second-floor window and peered down at him like a gargoyle.
“I had a feeling it was you. The scirocco is blowing. It brings dust and evil spirits.”
“Which one am I?”
“I can see the occhju from here. Wait there, my child. I’ll just be a moment.”
The Englishman smoked a cigarette while he waited for the old woman to dress and come downstairs. She answered the door in a widow’s plain black frock and pulled him inside by the wrist, as though she feared there were wild animals about. They sat on opposite sides of the rough wooden table. He finished his cigarette while the old women tended to her oil and water.
“Three drops, though I’m certain I already know the answer.”
He dipped his finger into the oil and allowed three drops to fall into the water. When the oil shattered, the old woman embarked on her familiar routine of blessings and prayers. When he repeated the test, the oil coalesced into a single ball, floating on the surface of the water. This pleased the old woman.
“That’s a neat trick you’ve got there,” said the Englishman.
“It’s not a trick. You of all people should know that.”
“I meant no disrespect.”
“I know. Even though you are not a Corsican by birth, you have the soul of a Corsican. You are a true believer. Do you wish to have something to drink before you go? Some wine, perhaps?”
“It’s six o’clock in the morning.”
The old woman tilted her head, as if to say, So what.
“You should be at home in bed,” she said. Then she added: “With a woman. And not the whores that Don Orsati brings you. A real woman who will give you children and see to your clothes.”
“The women of Don Orsati are the only ones who will have me.”
“You think a decent woman wouldn’t have you because you are a taddunaghiu?”
The Englishman folded his arms.
“I want to tell you a story.”
He opened his mouth to object, but the old woman was on her feet before he could utter a sound and shuffling into the kitchen for the wine. The bottle was dark green and had no label. Her hand shook as she poured out two glasses.
“My husband was very good with his hands,” the signadora said. “He was a cobbler and a mason. He used to work sometimes for Don Tomasi in the next valley. Have you heard of the Tomasi clan?”
The Englishman nodded and sipped his wine. They were still notorious troublemakers.
“Don Tomasi hired my husband to build a new wall around his garden. It was a thing of beauty, I assure you, but Don Tomasi said it was flawed and refused to pay my husband for his work. They quarreled violently, and the don ordered a pair of his gunmen to drag my husband off his property. It’s still there, by the way.”
“The wall around the garden?”
“Indeed!” The old woman drank some wine and gathered herself for the rest of the story. “My husband was a good worker, but he was a gentle man. An agnello. Do you know this term?”
“A lamb.”
The signadora nodded. “He was not the kind of man to fight with his fists or a knife. Word of his treatment at the hands of Don Tomasi spread through the village. My husband became a laughingstock. Two nights after the incident he was baited into a fight in the square. He suffered a stab wound in his abdomen and died.”
Something flashed behind the old woman’s eyes. Anger. Hatred.
“Clearly, blood vengeance was required,” she said calmly. “But who? The oaf who murdered my husband in the square? He was not the one who was truly responsible for his death. It was Don Tomasi who had blood on his hands. But how was I supposed to kill Don Tomasi? He lived in a large house on the top of a hill, surrounded by vicious dogs and armed men. There was no way for me to kill him! So I went to see Anton Orsati’s father, and I hired a taddunaghiu to do the deed for me. It cost me every bit of money I had, but it was worth it. The taddunaghiu slipped through Don Tomasi’s defenses and slit his throat while he slept—killed him like the pig that he was. Justice was done.”
She reached across the table and laid her palm on the back of his hand.
“Sometimes, Christopher, a taddunaghiu can do good things. Sometimes, he can right a terrible wrong. Sometimes, he can dispense justice as well as vengeance. Remember the things I’ve told you.”
“I will,” he said.
He gave her a thick roll of money. Without looking at it, the old woman said, “It’s too much. It’s always too much.”
“You give me peace. Peace is priceless.”
He stood up to leave, but she grabbed his wrist with surprising strength. “Sit with me while I drink my wine. I still miss my husband, you know. Even after all these years.”
And so he sat there, watching the candlelight flickering in the creases of her face, while she finished the last of the wine. Then her eyes closed and her chin fell forward onto her chest.
The Englishman carried her upstairs and laid her gently in her bed. She awoke briefly. Her hand reached up, and she fingered the talisman hanging from his neck: the red coral hand. Then she touched his face and drifted back to sleep.
He went downstairs and climbed into his jeep, then drove to Calvi and boarded the first ferry for Marseille. There, he collected a car Orsati had left for him near the waterfront and set out for Venice.
36
VENICE
THE ITALIAN PRESS had come alive. There was an avalanche of speculation about which pieces Anna Rolfe would perform. Would she attempt her signature piece, Giuseppe Tartini’s demonic sonata, “The Devil’s Trill”? Surely, the music writers speculated, Miss Rolfe would not try such a difficult composition after being away from the stage for so long.
There were appeals to move the recital to a larger venue. It was scheduled to take place in the upper hall of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, a room which seated only six hundred, and competition for tickets had deteriorated into something of a scrum among the Venetian well-to-do. Zaccaria Cordoni, the promoter, refused to consider moving the recital, though in an effort to preserve his good standing in Venice he adroitly laid blame at the feet of Anna Rolfe. Miss Rolfe had requested a small venue, he said, and he was a mere prisoner to the demands of the artist. A magazine with Socialist leanings printed a hysterical editorial arguing that once again music had been hijacked by the moneyed classes. It called for demonstrations outside the San Rocco on the night of the concert. Fiona Richardson, Anna Rolfe’s agent and manager, released a statement in London promising that Miss Rolfe’s considerable appearance fee would be donated to the preservation of the scuola and its magnificent artwork. All of Venice breathed a sigh of relief over the gesture, and the controversy receded as gently as the evening tide.
There was also speculation about where Anna Rolfe would stay in Venice. The Gazzettino reported that the Hotel Monaco, the Grand Canal, and the Gritti Palace were locked in a titanic struggle to attract her, while the Nuova Venezia suggested that Miss Rolfe would avoid the distractions of a hotel by accepting an invitation to stay at a privately owned palazzo. As it turned out, neither newspaper was correct, because at midday on a rainy Friday, the day before the performance, Anna and Gabriel arrived by water taxi at the private dock of the Luna Hotel Baglioni, a quiet esta
blishment on the Calle dell’Ascencione, not far from the tourist mayhem of the Piazza San Marco.
Anna appeared briefly at the front desk and was greeted by the hotel’s shining senior staff. She introduced Gabriel as Monsieur Michel Dumont, her friend and personal assistant. As if to reinforce this image, Gabriel made a point of carrying two violins into the lobby. In French-accented English, he reiterated Miss Rolfe’s desire for complete privacy. The chief concierge, a polished man called Signore Brunetti, assured him that Miss Rolfe’s presence in the hotel would be the most closely guarded secret in Venice. Gabriel thanked him warmly and signed the registry.
“Miss Rolfe will be staying in the Giorgione suite on the fifth floor. It’s one of our finest rooms. Your room is right next door. I trust these arrangements are satisfactory?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Allow me to personally escort you and Miss Rolfe to your suite.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Do you require help with your luggage, Monsieur Dumont?”
“No, I can manage, thank you.”
“As you wish,” said Signore Brunetti, and sadly the concierge surrendered the keys.
IN a quiet backwater of the sestieri of Santa Marco stands the tiny establishment of Rossetti & Rossetti Fine Jewelry, specializing in antique and one-of-a-kind pieces. Like most Venetian shopkeepers, Signore Rossetti closes his business at one o’clock each afternoon for lunch and reopens at four in time for the evening trade. Well aware of this fact, the Englishman pressed the security buzzer at five minutes till one and waited for Rossetti to open the door.
It was a small shop, no larger than the kitchen in the Englishman’s Corsican villa. Passing through the doorway, he was immediately confronted by a horseshoe-shaped glass display counter. When the door closed behind him and the dead bolt snapped into place, the Englishman had the sensation of being imprisoned in a crystal vault. He unbuttoned his macintosh and placed his briefcase on the scuffed wood floor.
Signore Aldo Rossetti stood motionless as a footman behind the counter, dressed in a neatly pressed double-breasted suit and a banker’s somber tie. A pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses clung to the tip of his regal nose. Behind him was a tall case of deeply varnished wood with shallow drawers and small brass knobs. Judging from Rossetti’s uncompromising stance, the case might have contained secret documents he was sworn to protect at all costs. The deep silence of the room was broken only by the ticking of an antique clock. Rossetti shook the Englishman’s hand sadly, as though his visitor had come to confess unforgivable sins.
“I was about to leave for lunch,” Rossetti said, and at that moment, as if to accentuate his point, the antique clock on the wall behind him tolled one o’clock.
“This won’t take long. I’m here to collect the signet ring for Signore Bull.”
“The signet?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“For Signore Bull?”
“I believe he told you that I was coming.”
Rossetti tilted his head backward and peered at the Englishman as though he were an item of questionable value and provenance. Satisfied, he lowered his head and came round from behind the counter to change the sign in the window from OPEN to CLOSED.
UPSTAIRS was a small private office. Rossetti settled himself behind the desk and invited the Englishman to sit in the little armchair next to the window.
“I received a call a short time ago from a porter at the Luna Hotel Baglioni,” Rossetti said. “The violinist and a friend have just checked in. Do you know the Baglioni?”
The Englishman shook his head.
Like most Venetians, Rossetti kept a map of the city within easy reach, if only to give assistance to a foreign tourist hopelessly lost in its labyrinthine alleys. Rossetti’s looked as though it had been purchased during the rule of the last doge—a dog-eared, tattered affair, with Scotch tape along the splitting seams, so old it had lost all color. He spread it across his desk, smoothing it with both hands, as though it showed the location of buried treasure.
“The Luna Hotel Baglioni is here”—a tap on the map with the tip of his delicate forefinger—“on the Calle dell’-Ascencione, a few steps from the San Marco vaporetto stop. The Calle dell’Ascencione is very narrow, no bigger than this street. There’s a private dock in the Rio della Zecca. It will be impossible for you to watch the front and the back of the hotel on your own.”
The Englishman leaned over the map for a closer look. “You have a suggestion?”
“Perhaps I can use my resources to keep watch on the violinist. If she moves, I can alert you.”
“You have someone inside the hotel?”
Rossetti lifted an eyebrow and dipped his head, a neutral gesture, neither in the affirmative or the negative, which said he wished to discuss the matter no further.
“I assume there will be an additional fee for this service?”
“For Don Orsati? It will be my pleasure.”
“Tell me how it would work.”
“There are places you can wait around the hotel without drawing attention to yourself. The Piazza San Marco, of course. The cafés along the Calle Marzo. The Fontamenta delle Farine overlooking the canal.” Rossetti noted each location with an amiable tap on the map. “I assume you have a mobile telephone?”
The Englishman tapped his coat pocket.
“Give me the number and stay close to the hotel. When they move, someone will telephone you.”
He was reluctant to enter into a partnership with Rossetti, but unfortunately the Italian was correct. There was no way he could watch the hotel on his own. He recited his telephone number, and Rossetti jotted it down.
“Of course, there is a chance the violinist will remain in her hotel until the performance at the San Rocco,” said Rossetti. “If that’s the case, you’ll have no choice but to carry out your assignment then.”
“You have a ticket?”
Rossetti removed the ticket from his top drawer and placed it carefully on the desktop. Then, using the thumb and forefinger of each hand, he slid it gently forward. The Englishman picked up the ticket and turned it over in his hands. Rossetti looked out his window while his customer inspected the merchandise, confident he would find it satisfactory.
“It’s real? Not a forgery?”
“Oh, yes, quite real, I assure you. And quite difficult to come by. In fact, I was tempted to keep it for myself. You see, I’ve always been a fan of Miss Rolfe. Such passion. Such a pity she has to—” Rossetti cut himself off. “Do you know the San Rocco?”
The Englishman pocketed the ticket and shook his head. Rossetti turned his attention back to his map. “The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is located here, across the Grand Canal in the sestieri of San Polo and Santa Croce, just to the south of the Frari church. San Rocco was the patron saint of contagious diseases, and the scuola was originally built as a charitable institution for the sick. The construction was financed by donations from wealthy Venetians who believed they could avoid the Black Death by giving money to the scuola.”
If the assassin found this piece of Venetian history the slightest bit interesting, he gave no sign of it. Undeterred, the little Italian jeweler made a church steeple of his fingers and carried on with his lecture.
“The scuola has two primary levels, the ground-floor hall and the upper hall. In 1564, Tintoretto was commissioned to decorate the walls and the ceilings of the buildings. It took him twenty-three years to complete his task.” He paused for a moment to consider this fact, then added: “Can you imagine a man of such patience? I would hate to match wits with such a man.”
“Where will the concert be? In the ground-floor hall or the upper hall?”
“The upper hall, of course. It’s reached by a wide marble staircase designed and built by Scarpagnino. The walls there are decorated with paintings of the Black Death. It’s quite moving.”
“And if I’m forced to carry out the assignment inside the upper hall?”
Ro
ssetti pressed his church steeple to his lips and whispered a silent petition. “If you have no other choice, then you will have no trouble making your way down the staircase and out the front entrance. From there you can vanish into the alleys of San Polo, and no one will find you.” He paused a moment, then said: “But as a Venetian, I implore you to find some other way. It would be a tragedy if you damaged one of the Tintorettos.”
“Tell me about the area around the San Rocco.”
“The church and the scuola share a small square. Behind them is a canal, the Rio della Frescada, which gives access to both structures. There are only two ways for Miss Rolfe to reach the San Rocco on the night of the concert, on foot or by water taxi. If she walks, she will be exposed for long periods of time. She will also have to cross the Grand Canal at some point, either by vaporetto or traghetto.”
“Could she cross by bridge?”
Rossetti considered this question carefully. “I suppose she could cross the Rialto Bridge or the Academia Bridge, but it would add a great deal of distance to her journey. If I were a gambling man, I would wager that Miss Rolfe will take a water taxi from the dock of the hotel directly to the San Rocco.”
“And if she does?”
“The Rio della Frescada is a very narrow canal. There are four bridges between the entrance on the Grand Canal and the landing for the San Rocco. You will have ample opportunity there. As the Americans like to say, it will be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
The Englishman cast the Italian a dismissive look that said no job could be so crudely described, especially when the target was under professional protection.
“Don Orsati said you would require weaponry. A handgun and perhaps something with a little more fire-power in the event things don’t go as planned.”