Black Bridge (23 page)

He stared down from a bridge into a canal. Boats desperately in need of paint and repair were tied along the opposite bank. Laundry was strung across the front of a building, its bright colors and geometrical shapes making a contrast with the worn and faded stone. Ivy cascaded down a wall. The water, iridescent with oil, darkly mirrored the scene.

He peered down into its shallow depths. He could make out various forms lurking beneath the surface, teasing him with their distorted appearances. As he knew from low tides and the occasional draining of the canals, they were the most mundane of objects. Umbrellas, carriage wheels, dolls, delivery crates. But hidden as they were beneath the surface they often led to wild imaginings.

He kept looking into the water until he was startled to see his own reflection peering back at him.

Back at the Palazzo Uccello he learned that Gemelli had been trying to get in touch with him.

“It's about Rosa Gava Casarotto-Re,” Gemelli said when Urbino called him. “We've talked with the carabinieri in Taormina. She died ten years ago the twenty-ninth of October. You were right. The same day Gava died. And complete respiratory failure just like Gava. Death by natural cause was the official verdict. But something puzzling to my way of thinking. Why did the woman run out of her medication? Her inhaler was empty and no bottles, empty or otherwise, were found. And no traces of the medication were in her system. Strange, isn't it? And something else. It's about Gava. Something happened to him later the same day.”

Before Gemelli told him what it was, Urbino knew. He now remembered something else about Taormina that had been at the back of his mind, something the Contessa had mentioned two weeks ago at Florian's when she was praising Bobo's vigor.

“He almost drowned in the sea,” Gemelli said. “Fortunately, Casarotto-Re was with him. Seems as if he's not all bad. He saved Gava from certain death. But what the two men were doing swimming right after the woman's death is beyond me.”

20

“Barbara isn't here,” Bobo said to Urbino that afternoon from behind a cloud of smoke. Bobo, Festa, and Peppino were in possession of the
salotto blu
. Bobo, dressed in a stylishly cut tweed suit and looking as if he had recovered completely from his recent indisposition, reclined on the sofa. Festa was standing beneath the Veronese, smoking one of Bobo's Gauloises in a long holder. Peppino dozed on one of the Louis Quinze chairs.

Urbino had the distinct impression that he had interrupted an important discussion.

“She's at the Municipality with Harriet double-checking on the procession tonight,” Bobo further clarified, getting up. He looked at Festa. “Perhaps we should go into the garden now. Peppino has been getting a little restless.”

Peppino, hearing his name, lifted an eyelid and went back to sleep. Festa picked him up.

“I'm afraid it looks like rain,” Urbino said.

“We won't melt!” Festa said coldly. “Let's go, Bobo.”

“Rain!” Bobo said enthusiastically. “That will be marvelous for the procession. How atmospheric!” He recited an appropriate quotation from D'Annunzio about inclement weather, then said: “Indulge in whatever you like, Urbino.” He indicated the low table crowded with covered dishes, plates, two champagne glasses, and a bottle of Dom Pérignon. “There's only a swallow of champagne left, I'm afraid, but just as well, I suppose, with that troublesome toe of yours. Barbara said she won't be back until six. I don't know if you want to hang around that long.”

When Bobo and Festa had gone, Urbino uncovered a few of the dishes, discovering some of the choicest morsels from the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini kitchen and larder. He spread some beluga caviar on a cracker and washed it down with the remnants of the Dom Pérignon.

He looked through the window of the
salotto
into the garden where he saw Bobo and Festa walking slowly past the stone lions. He slipped up to the next floor and went into Bobo's room. Urbino, who had stayed in the room on numerous occasions himself, noticed a new addition on the wall: a portrait of the Contessa reclining against Tunisian cushions. It had formerly hung in the library.

What he hoped to find in Bobo's room he didn't know. Something. Anything. The police had already gone through the room, and in any case Bobo was too sly a man to leave anything incriminating around. He would either have it on his person or would have destroyed it.

A leather address book lay on the night table. It was of fine Florentine design, similar to the one he had seen in Gava's hotel suite. He looked through it. The police must have made a copy of its contents. The Moss and Creel names didn't appear, nor was there an entry for Marco Zeoli or John Flint, although there was one for Oriana. The nib of a fountain pen had made a neat black line through Orlando's name. Festa had obviously changed her address many times, for addresses were crossed out and new ones put in so often that Bobo had had to move to the back of the book. All the earlier entries had been under “L.” Harriet's address in the ghetto was entered.

A footstep sounded in the hall. He put the address book down. He hadn't thought through what he would do or say if Bobo caught him. But the footsteps passed. Most likely Mauro or Lucia. Urbino breathed more easily and continued his search.

There were numerous volumes of D'Annunzio's and Bobo's own books. A large envelope was stuffed with reviews of Bobo's performances and books and publicity clippings, with photographs that showed how little he had changed over the past fifteen years. One clipping was of the demonstration in Milan several years ago that Bobo had mentioned:
FEMINISTS DELAY D
'
ANNUNZIO PERFORMANCE
. The account held nothing of significance.

Piled up beneath one of the ceramic palm trees were several video cassettes of Bobo's performances, one of them of the opening night of
Pomegranate
at the Teatro del Ridotto. Urbino became increasingly nervous that Bobo and Festa would return from the garden and he started to hurry. Rings and cuff links sparkled at him from a small coffer, designer suits and jackets and shirts in the armoire wafted Bobo's scent at Urbino, a combination of expensive cologne and cigarettes; socks, underwear, and shirts displayed their neat folds from the Florentine-papered drawers. Pairs upon pairs of shoes on trees were arranged in a row in a corner. The laundry hamper was empty.

No diary, no money, no passport or identity papers, no letters, no postcards. He was about to leave when he thought of something. Bobo's toiletry kit. He found it on the shelf in the armoire. Sleeping pills, sedatives, throat lozenges—what seemed to be a gross of these—scissors, nail clippers. Then, beneath the other things, was something that gave him considerable pleasure if not the enlightenment he was seeking. It was a tube of paste used to affix dentures more firmly.

He didn't want to risk looking through Bobo's bathroom. He was already pressing his luck. He slipped out of the room and down the hall.

Harriet's former room was obviously still in the process of being cleaned. The window was open, the shutters thrown back. The furnishings were simple and tasteful, having been collected from other rooms to suit Harriet's unpretentious taste. The most unusual piece was an Empire escritoire that used to be in the morning room. Its drawers and pigeonholes held nothing. The blotter was slightly soiled, but there were no doodles or mysterious lines of script that might be conveniently held up to a mirror to spell out the incriminating name or number.

The armoire was empty except for hangers. The bookshelf contained nothing but a map of Venice that could be bought at any kiosk in the city. He unfolded it. The Ca' da Capo-Zendrini on the Grand Canal was marked with a neat “X” as were the Palazzo Uccello and what Urbino realized was Marco Zeoli's apartment. He refolded the map and put it back.

Regretting that he hadn't looked through Harriet's room immediately after she had moved out, he went to the open window and peered out from behind the curtains. The garden was below. Urbino searched in vain for any sign of Bobo and Festa on the paths or among the boxwood and laurel.

He was about to go back downstairs when he heard Festa's voice floating up to him as clear and distinct as a bell. They must have been in the pergola, one of the few concealed spots in the garden. The fact that Festa's voice, then Bobo's quick response, came so distinctly was not a result of their loudness—for they were in fact quite low—but of the peculiar acoustics of the Contessa's garden, something Urbino had noted before but forgotten. The couple's voices soon faded away, but he had heard enough. It set him to thinking of the night of the Contessa's gala, the night Orlando had fallen ill. Bobo and Festa emerged from the pergola and started to walk back to the palazzo, still engaged in what seemed to be intimate conversation, which he could no longer hear.

Urbino turned quickly from the window and bumped with considerable force into a corner of the armoire. It was proof of the force with which he hit it that not only did he get an excruciating pain in his shoulder but that the armoire shifted ever so slightly. And when it did, he heard a rush of sound as of something slipping and sliding. The sound, which came from behind the armoire, moved to the floor and stopped. He rubbed his shoulder and looked behind the armoire. A small space was visible where it didn't quite meet the wall, a space that his collision had obviously made wider. He looked down at the floor behind the armoire and saw a thin, dark rectangular object. His hand was too large to fit in the space. He pushed the armoire farther from the wall so that he could put his hand in. It touched and then grasped paper.

He withdrew the object. It was a large envelope not at all unlike the one he had just found in Bobo's room. Inside were what he had found in Bobo's envelope. Clippings. And each of them was autographed with an intimacy. If the clippings had shown naked men and women instead of ones fashionably dressed, they couldn't have been more revealing.

Things slotted into place. He folded the envelope of clippings and stuffed them in the inside pocket of his jacket.

He hurried from the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini before Bobo and Festa could see him. He had to call Gemelli.

PART FOUR

The Isle of the Dead

1

Everyone had been provided with votive candles or lamps. Urbino turned around to look behind him when he was halfway across the bridge. A string of lights snaked back to Venice. The city itself lay dark and sleeping beneath a low sky. The weather had become overcast, but the night had turned warm, sending fog drifting in from the lagoon.

Ahead of him the Contessa, dressed in black with silver trim, was helped by Bobo over the pontoon bridge. Her step was firm, but careful, and she held her candle in front of her, although lanterns illuminated the way.

How many of this small procession really wanted to be there? To judge by their expressions and the way they plodded along, certainly not the priest who had officiated at midnight mass at the nearby Church of the Gesuiti or the scattering of city officials.

Festa, sans Peppino, had the air of someone suffering through it all only for the pleasure it gave to rivet her kohl-rimmed eyes at the Contessa's and Bobo's backs in anticipation of a misstep by one or both of them.

Oriana had begged off, but Flint was there with a bouquet of violets for her parents' grave pressed against his dark velvet jacket. His countenence was suitably solemn as if he expected his picture to be taken at any moment.

Zeoli, his long face in a scowl, stepped over the planks with the caution of a man who knew from professional experience the indignities caused by injured limbs. Harriet, whom he occasionally helped to make her timid way, was so be-scarfed, behatted, and be-gloved that she was barely recognizable except for the fearful eyes that contemplated the invading fog as if it were a pestilential vapor.

The only people, other than the Contessa, who seemed to be in the spirit of things were half a dozen hobbling women in widow's weeds who clearly preferred the damp and the fog to sleepless hours in front of their heaters.

And so they all slowly made their way to the island of the dead, whose brick walls, cypresses, and coffin runway, wreathed with fog, were barely visible in the near distance.

2

The procession, stately when it had crept across the bridge of boats, scattered soon after reaching the island. The officials, after enduring the priest's benediction, were now slipping out of the church to their waiting boats. The widows, for whom the fog and darkness presented little problem given their familiarity with the cemetery, moved off in a flock with their flowers and spades and lamps.

“Urbino,” Bobo whispered, “I must talk with you. Join Father Vida and me in the Cappella Emiliana. Excuse us, Barbara.”

Bobo drew Father Vida into the chapel and started to speak to him enthusiastically. When Urbino joined them, Bobo turned to him and said in English: “I'll speak quickly. I'm sure we're being observed. No, don't look around. Our good priest here doesn't understand a scrap of English, but I'll throw out some words about the chapel to confuse him or whoever else might be listening. I got another blackmail note! Mauro found it in the little courtyard by the outside door an hour ago when someone rang the bell. I haven't told Barbara.
Gugliemo dei Grigi
!” he threw in, naming the artist who had designed the chapel. The Contessa glanced at them nervously from where she was standing with Harriet and Zeoli. “And no, I haven't even had a chance to tell the police—
1530
!
Tutto marmo!
A map of the cemetery was attached. I'm to go to a place marked on it. Somewhere on the other side. The grave of the Baron Corvo. I assume it's supposed to be ironic or something, since Rolfe gave himself the name and title.
Ruskin
! Leave us here in the chapel and don't attract any attention, but follow me to the grave. Do you know where it is?
Gotica
!”