The Bellini Card (5 page)

I
T
had been a man, certainly. The image was still lingering in Palewski’s mind as he sat in his apartment at the Pensione Inghilterra watching the reflected light from the water ripple across the façade of the building opposite. He turned his head. Involuntarily he saw, again, the mat of dark hair and the whole revolving, bulbous mass of the dead man’s face sliding beneath the surface. The boatman, prodding with his sweep, had brought up the corpse in a roil of bubbles and guided it toward the nearest quay. Palewski had not stayed to see more.

He took a sip of tea. It was barely warm, and with a shudder of disgust he stood up, crossed the room, and emptied his cup out the window. He heard it patter into the water down below.

He set the cup back on its saucer and rang his bell.

“I am going out,” he told the valet.

At Florian he ordered wine and a dish of polenta, which arrived smothered in onions and anchovies and put him in a better mood. He asked for grappa. He’d been hungry, thirsty, and thrown by that horrible
unexpected corpse floating in the water. Who knew how the poor fellow had got there? Missed his step in the dark, maybe. One thing you could say about Venice: it would never do to trip in the street.

He leaned back and began to survey the square for the first time. At one end, beyond the enormous tower that reminded him, once again, of Cracow, stood a squat church, like a pig in rut. The arcades that lined the piazza on three sides were pretty fine. The pigeons were returning to their roosts with the dusk; little fires were springing up across the piazza, and the air had begun to fill with the scent of roasted chestnuts. It was after nine.

“Permesso?”

The man had his hand on the back of a chair. Palewski raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

The stranger pulled out the chair and sat down. He put his forearms on the table.

“Parlite Italiano?
Good. My English is poor, Signor Brett.”

His frank blue eyes looked Palewski in the face. He was a big man in his early fifties, Palewski judged, with a fine head of black hair. How the devil did he know his name?

“And you are, Signor—?”

“Brunelli.” He put out his hand. “Commissario. You are welcome to Venice.”

Palewski blinked and shook hands.

“The boy at the Inghilterra said you had come out,” Brunelli explained. “And I needed a little air. Perhaps a grappa, too.”

He clicked his fingers and the waiter came forward.

“Grappa—
due
. The polenta is good here, Signor Brett.”

“Thank you, I’ve eaten,” Palewski replied. He eyed the commissario uncertainly. He had told the valet he was going out, nothing more. “How did you know I’d be here?”

Brunelli shrugged lightly. “On their first night in Venice, everyone comes to Florian. Or Quadri,” he added. The waiter laid the glasses on the table. Brunelli took a sip. “Or have you perhaps been to Venice before?”

“It’s my first time, Commissario.” Some functionary of the police, evidently; for a few moments Palewski had allowed himself to forget that he was in Habsburg territory.

He downed his grappa and called for the bill. “Do excuse me, I’d like to walk a little.”

Brunelli rose to his feet with surprising lightness for a large man.

“Let me walk a little way with you, signore,” he said. “I will show you the pillars of St. Mark.”

Palewski bowed stiffly. The evening was warm but his hands were cold, and he could feel the beating of his heart.

“You were in Istanbul?” the commissario remarked casually, as they strolled along the arcade toward St. Mark’s.

The ship’s manifest, of course, would have given this man his name and his port of embarkation.

“I went to buy a statue,” Palewski said. He and Yashim had devised this story together. “For a collector in New York.”

“Did you have any luck?”

“Not yet. Ottoman bureaucracy is very slow.”

The policeman nodded. “Here it is the same. Vienna is a long way away.”

Palewski did not reply. He had recognized, with a shock, the gray-coated Habsburg sentries strutting outside the government buildings at the far end of the piazza. It had been many years since he had seen the uniform: columns of soldiers in greatcoats, marching through snow. Vienna seemed uncomfortably close.

“You deal in artwork, Signor Brett.” The commissario sighed. “And in Venice?”

“And in Venice, yes. There is a lot to see.”

They turned in front of the basilica and began to walk toward the water.

“A strange thought, Signor Brett, that our Tiepolos and Titians may end up in the land of beavers and savage Indians.”

“Would you rather see them in Vienna, Commissario?” Palewski tried, and failed, to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Brunelli’s voice came from behind. “Stop where you are!”

Palewski turned around slowly.

Brunelli was shaking his head. “The pillars,” he said. “It is very bad luck to pass between them.”

“Between them?” Palewski echoed. “Why?”

Brunelli smiled. “Venice is an old city, Signor Brett. Not like New York.”

Palewski looked up at the pillars. They were not matched, one green-gray, the other of red granite. On top of the green pillar stood a small winged lion, the symbol of St. Mark, the patron saint of Venice.

“In former days,” Brunelli explained, “this is where we executed our criminals and traitors. Their heads went on a pillar over there, by the entrance to the church, until they began to stink.”

They skirted the pillars and came down to the waterfront. “The Republic was finished off when I was three years old,” Brunelli added. “Many people—my family among them—had great hopes of Napoleon. In the end, he destroyed some churches and stole some of our treasures.”

“Treasures, perhaps, the Venetians had stolen from others.”

“Yes,” Brunelli said mildly. “Perhaps that is exactly what I mean. We rob, and we are robbed. This is the great game of history, Signor Brett. It is played out over our heads—like a meeting of the gods, painted on a ceiling by Tiepolo.” He drew a breath, like a whistle. “It may be different in America, of course.”

He blew on his hands, to cool them.

“In the meantime, the people still need justice—and protection.” Brunelli turned his head and stared out toward the island of Giudecca, across the darkening water.

“This morning,” Palewski said slowly, “I saw a body in the canal.”

“Yes. That is what I came to talk to you about.”

Palewski had believed himself to be in a northern city, but this Brunelli fenced like a Turk. “I thought you had come to check my bona fides.”

Brunelli nodded. “That is why I was sent. It is not the same thing.”

“I see. You think I knew the man?”

“Did you?”

“I don’t know a soul in Venice. Except now you, Commissario. But the body—was pretty far gone.”

“Unfortunately, yes. But you weren’t there when I arrived.”

Palewski frowned. “It wasn’t my affair. Another gondolier offered to take me to the
pensione.”

“That’s quite all right,” Brunelli assured him. “I wished only to ask. You see, the dead man was an art dealer, like yourself. He had been strangled.”

His lugubrious features softened. “Well, well, Signor Brett.” He clapped him on the arm. “I hope you enjoy your stay in Venice.”

Palewski lingered by the water, watching the lights on the Giudecca and the last of the fishermen returning from the lagoon. Then he turned away and retraced his steps to the
pensione
.

The journey took him longer than he had expected; several times he had to double back when the alleyway he was following ended in a set of worn steps going down into some little canal. He began to wish that he had engaged a gondola at the piazza. He wound through one alley after another, almost blind; such light as there was came from votive candles flickering in their little niches above dark doorways and the occasional oil lamp bracketed to a wall where two alleys joined. Nothing—and everything—looked familiar. He had no idea how far he had wandered from his path when a dim light ahead revealed the entrance to the
pensione
. He fell into it with a flood of relief.

He was already on the stairs when a flunky scuttled forward and presented him with a small envelope addressed to Signor Brett. Surprised, Palewski opened it and pulled out a card with the name Antonio Ruggerio printed on the front. On the back was a short note:

Palewski grunted. “Ruggerio? Who is this man?”

The flunky spread his hands. “Signor Ruggerio is a friend of visitors to Venice, signore. I am sure you will like him very much.”

“Indeed?” Palewski turned and wished the man good night.

“Good night, signore. I hope you enjoy your stay in Venice.”

Palewski had heard that phrase before.

“Me, too,” he muttered, as he climbed the stairs. “Me, too.”

V
ENICE
slept, coiled in its lagoon like a cat in a basket. It had once been a lion of the seas, but now its claws were drawn. To its Austrian masters it was merely a curio, a decaying backwater with an illustrious past and a sullen population.

The lagoon had long since rinsed the dawn when Antonio Ruggerio sprang neatly from his rented gondola and entered the water gate of the Pensione Inghilterra. He was small, dark, and ambitiously dressed, with a flower in his buttonhole and a pair of white gloves in his left hand; in the other he carried a sheaf of papers done up in a leather folder.

He reached the stairs without breaking stride. At the door to Palewski’s apartment he straightened his jacket and ran a hand through his glossy black hair, then knocked.

“Signor Brett! I welcome you to Venice.” He took Palewski’s hand with both of his and pumped it enthusiastically. “So I may introduce myself: Antonio Ruggerio. I hope you are comfortable at the Inghilterra?”

Ruggerio’s eyes swept the room. He knew it too well to linger on the rococo furnishings or the Axminster carpet picked out with an Oriental motif. What interested him—what he understood, almost as a science—was the scattering of personal possessions the American traveler had added to the familiar scene. A good valise, the polished traveling trunk with curiously florid brass corners, the ivory hairbrush on the dressing table, and a magnificent top hat and cane.

“Comfortable enough,” Palewski said cautiously.

“You are here, Signor Brett, at the best time of the year in Venice!” Ruggerio inhaled theatrically: it was a delightful scent, the odor of
money. He would not lie if he could help it. For a wealthy visitor, any time was the best time in Venice.

“What are your plans? Where do you want to go? The Salute? San Marco? Ah, to be for the first time in Venice! Signor Brett, do you know what? I, Antonio Ruggerio, envy you! It is true. The Ruggerios (you will have heard our name spoken, as that of an old family, aristocrats of Venice; between gentlemen I need say no more) have taken every pleasure from this city—but that one. Do you know our little Tiepolino? I will introduce you to him. To Tiziano, too—you call him Titian. What a prospect, signore! For a man like yourself, in the full vigor of his energies, to come to Venice for the first time! I am so proud—and so happy for you.” He bowed with almost comical speed. “Have you eaten some breakfast?”

“Breakfast? I—”

The little man wagged his finger. “I know, I know. A
pensione
break-fast—a little roll, a watery coffee,
e basta!
Come. I will show you how a man should eat in this city.” He made a dive. “Your hat. Your cane. My gondola is down below. We shall go to the Rialto. Like Shakespeare. Come.”

Palewski had adopted the character of an American, but he was not a morning person. Slightly dazed by the fellow’s torrent of words and enthusiasm, he took his hat and cane and followed downstairs to Ruggerio’s boat.

All the way to the Rialto Bridge, seated opposite him on the gondola, Ruggerio radiated good nature and camaraderie, sprinkled with statistics, ancient gossip, and a little sightseeing information. The gondolier, at his bidding, sang several verses of an old song as he rowed them up the Grand Canal.

“He sings of a woman,” Ruggerio explained, quite superfluously as it seemed to Palewski, who supposed most songs were about women. “She is the Queen of Cyprus, Caterina—we will see her picture later. By Bellini. Not a beautiful woman, but a great one. And the painting is a gem of the Renaissance.”

Palewski had started at the mention of Bellini. He wanted to speak, but his new friend was already gesturing out of the window. “Palazzo Mocenigo. Byron lived here. Ah, that was a man. I knew him.”

Palewski raised an eyebrow, and Ruggerio put up a hand. “I am older than you think—but Byron and I, we were both young in those days. We swam together many, many times. Here, in the Grand Canal. My friends say to me—you are crazy, like Byron! Perhaps. What a beautiful man.”