And nobody has any idea …
The poem on the back of Dante’s death mask still played in Langdon’s mind, and he wondered where the verses would lead them. He had the transcription of the poem in his pocket, but the plaster mask itself—at Sienna’s suggestion—Langdon had wrapped in newspaper and discreetly sealed inside a self-serve locker in the train station. Although an egregiously inadequate resting place for such a precious artifact, the locker was certainly far safer than carrying the priceless plaster mask around a water-filled city.
“Robert?” Sienna was up ahead with Ferris, motioning toward the water taxis. “We don’t have much time.”
Langdon hurried toward them, although as an architecture enthusiast, he found it almost unthinkable to rush a trip along the Grand Canal. Few Venetian experiences were more pleasurable than boarding vaporetto no. 1—the city’s primary open-air water bus—preferably at night, and sitting up front in the open air as the floodlit cathedrals and palaces drifted past.
No vaporetto today, Langdon thought. The vaporetti water buses were notoriously slow, and water taxi would be a faster option. Unfortunately, the taxi queue outside the train station looked interminable at the moment.
Ferris, in no apparent mood to wait, quickly took matters into his own hands. With a generous stack of bills, he quickly summoned over a water limousine—a highly polished Veneziano Convertible made of South African mahogany. While the elegant craft was certainly overkill, the journey would be both private and swift—a mere fifteen minutes along the Grand Canal to St. Mark’s Square.
Their driver was a strikingly handsome man in a tailored Armani suit. He looked more like a movie star than a skipper, but this was, after all, Venice, the land of Italian elegance.
“Maurizio Pimponi,” the man said, winking at Sienna as he welcomed them all aboard. “Prosecco? Limoncello? Champagne?”
“No, grazie,” Sienna replied, instructing him in rapid-fire Italian to get them to St. Mark’s Square as fast as he possibly could.
“Ma certo!” Maurizio winked again. “My boat, she is the fastest in all of Venezia …”