Alibi: A Novel (14 page)

At four Claudia still wasn’t back at the Accademia. “She’s not here,” a secretary said in Italian, and when I looked at my watch with a teasing raised eyebrow and said, “Some lunch,” she said, “No, she is no longer employed here.”

“Since when?” I said, but she pretended not to understand and shrugged, so I went back out to Calle Pisani and stood for a minute waiting, as if someone were going to come out and explain it to me. Why would she quit? Jobs were hard to get. For a panicked second I wondered if she’d gone to Rome after all, taking off like a startled bird, still surprised at herself. An afternoon train, a note pinned to the dressmaker’s dummy. But that wasn’t like her. I thought of her that first time at Bertie’s party, as straightforward as her suit, and then with Gianni, her hands at his face. No strategic retreats, no notes. She’d be at home, looking out the window at San Isepo. She wouldn’t have left. Not alone.

I started for the vaporetto, then stopped and headed back to my mother’s to pick up some clothes. I had only a few things at Claudia’s, and I wasn’t just staying the night anymore. Angelina surprised me with a message to call Joe Sullivan. I hadn’t expected to hear back for days and I didn’t want to take the time to call now—it could take up to an hour just to get through—but since Claudia didn’t have a phone, there wasn’t much choice. The phone had one of those elaborate receivers you saw in old movies and the sound was usually scratchy, but for once the lines were free.

“You rang a bell with Rosa,” he said.

“Who?”

“Signora Soriano. Herr Kroger.”

“Ah. What kind of bell?”

“She knew the name. Now she’s running around trying to put things together. I wish you could see her. Fucking purring. Like a cat with a ball of yarn.”

“Knew his name how?”

“Company he kept. Not that that means anything. Lots of bad company in Italy these last few years. Hard to avoid.”

“And he didn’t?”

“No, but it’s hard to say. You ever hear of the Villa Raspelli?”

“No.”

“It’s a kind of rest home over on Lake Garda. Some banker’s house. They made it into a recovery center for SS brass. Nice. Your man must have made a few house calls there. Rosa remembered the name.”

“He was an SS doctor?”

“Don’t run away with yourself. He was a doctor. The patients were SS. How exactly that fits together, I don’t know.”

“I can guess. What else has she got?”

“I didn’t say she had anything. But if there
is
, she’ll find it. Like I say, she’s purring. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. A few days, okay? She wants to give it to you personally, which means she wants a trip to Venice, but what the hell. If anybody deserves—”

“But why does she
think
there’s anything?”

“I don’t know. She just said Villa Raspelli and then went down the rabbit hole, the way she does. She finds anything, I’ll have her call. This number always good?”

I looked at the phone, the only one I had access to. “Yes.”

“Meanwhile, don’t start packing for Nuremberg, okay? Sit tight.”

“Thanks, Joe. I owe you.”

“Not yet, you don’t. I mean, he’s a fucking doctor. Who else do you call when you’re sick?”

“But they called him, Joe. Not anybody. Him.”

I heard nothing for a minute, just some breathing over the line.

“Why do you think that was?” I said.

Again silence, then a small sigh. “Maybe he’s good at what he does.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, turning my head toward the door, where my mother was standing, cheeks still red from outside. She gave me a tentative smile and crossed the room to the drinks tray.

“He speak kraut?” Joe was saying.

“I don’t know,” I said, distracted.

“That might explain it. Krauts like that, speak the language.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

This time he didn’t even bother to answer. “I’ll have her call. Soriano, don’t forget.”

“I won’t. Thanks, Joe.”

“Who’s Joe?” my mother said as I hung up, her back to me, fixing a drink. At this distance she seemed small, her shoulders as narrow as a girl’s. Who was Joe? An investigator. A rat chaser. Someone who knew about Gianni.

“An army buddy,” I said.

“In Venice? That’s nice.”

“In Verona.”

“Still. Want one?” she said, turning. “I know it’s early, but the fitting was hell. Nobody ever says how exhausting it is, just standing. But wait till you see it—so pretty. It’s got beads along here,” she said, drawing her hand along an imaginary neckline. “Oh, but you don’t care a bit, do you? Half the time you don’t even notice what people have on. What’s in the bag?” She nodded to the small satchel I’d packed with clothes. “Moving out?” Her voice light, her eyes fixed on mine.

“No. Just a change.”

“Ah,” she said. We never talked about the nights away, the unused bed. I was simply “out late.” “Did you call Gianni?” Offhand, as if it were an afterthought.

“No.”

“Darling, I wish you would. It would mean so much to him.” She put down the drink and walked toward me. “Think what it’s like for him.”

“What what’s like?”

She sighed. “Well, you, I suppose. I wish I knew why you’ve taken—”

“Then listen to me. Please. It’s important.”

“We’ve had this conversation, I think, haven’t we?”

“Then let’s have it again.”

“Adam, I don’t care what happened a long time ago—”

“A year, year and a half.”

“I know him now.”

“You think you do. People don’t change.”

She looked up at me, her eyes softer. “You don’t, anyway. So stubborn. What a stubborn little boy you were. Always going to set things right. Always so sure. Even in the sandbox.”

“What sandbox? You never took me to a sandbox.”

She smiled. “Well, how would you know? Anyway, I remember
seeing
you in a sandbox. I suppose some child had taken a toy or something, I don’t know. And there you were on your high horse, all three feet of you. Pointing. ‘It’s not fair, it’s not fair!’ Just outraged.”

“Well, it probably wasn’t fair,” I said, smiling a little now too.

“Probably,” she said. She reached up and brushed the hair back from my forehead. “But you’re not a little boy anymore. And nothing is fair. Nothing in this world. There’s only—getting along.”

I took her hand, moving it down from my hair.

“We’re not talking about something that happened in a sandbox,” I said. “People died.”

“Because of him. You think that.”

“Yes.”

She put her hands on my upper arms. “Then talk to him. Let him explain.”

“Mother—”

“Come to dinner.”

I looked at her, disconcerted. A social occasion, to iron out the wrinkles.

“No,” I said, pulling away, then stopped, caught by the hurt expression in her eyes. “Anyway, I can’t,” I said.

“Yes, I forgot,” she said, nodding to the bag. “Tomorrow, perhaps.” A hostess taking in a polite excuse.

“No, not tomorrow either.”

“Really, Adam,” she said with a nervous giggle. “He’ll think—”

I looked at her, not saying anything.

“We can’t go on this way,” she said. “It’s important. To sit down at a table together.”

“Like a family.”

“Yes, like a family. You know, you’re all I have,” she said quietly. Then she turned away, her voice changing, back to Neverland again. “Well, another day. Goodness, look at the time. I’d better run a bath. You won’t be too late tonight, will you, darling?” Ignoring the satchel.

“Not too late,” I said, ignoring it too.

It was dark by the time I got to Claudia’s, and she was in fact staring out at San Isepo, just as I’d imagined.

“You’ll go blind,” I said, flicking on the light. “Everything okay?” I put the satchel near the bed.

She said nothing, smoking and staring out the window.

“I went by the Accademia. They said you’d left. Quit.”

“No, dismissed,” she said after another minute’s silence. “In the fire. Isn’t that right?”

“Fired,” I said automatically. “What happened?”

“My services are no longer required. Signora Ricci told me. The director didn’t bother coming down. He had Signora Ricci do it.”

“But why?”

“Why do you think? A word in the ear. It’s so different in America?”

“Whose ear?”

“The director’s, I suppose. Anyway, someone’s. So now it’s begun. But so quick.”

“Now what’s begun?”

“To get rid of me. Now that I’ve exposed him, what else can he do? Kill me, like my father? He’d like that, but now it’s not legal.”

“You think Gianni had you fired?”

“I know it.”

“I’ll talk to him,” I said, angry.

“No, it doesn’t work that way. He won’t know anything about it. No one will. But I’ll be gone.”

“Then how do you know it was him?”

“I saw his face.”

“When?”

She turned away from the window and put out the cigarette. “I’m embarrassed to tell you. It was—I don’t know, just something I did. Not thinking. I just went.”

“Where?”

“To the hospital. Signora Ricci told me to leave and I
knew
. Not the end of the week, leave today. I knew what it meant. Who else would do this? Make me go away, that’s what he wants now. No more—incidents. I thought, he can do this, make trouble for me just by picking up the phone. But I can make trouble for him too—I know what he did. So I went there, all the way to Campo Zanipolo, and then I thought, what am I doing? I’m going to run into the hospital? They’ll think he’s right, a crazy. But what do you do? Take your purse from the desk and thank Signora Ricci and just disappear? That’s what he wants.”

“So what did you do?”

“Nothing. I just stood there, by Colleoni on his horse. I didn’t know. Go? Stay? What? And then he came out. Not alone. With two others, out of the hospital. And they cross the campo—talking, you know—and suddenly he comes near and he stops. It was all there, in his face—no surprise, he knew why I was there, expecting it even, and you know what else? A fear. He was afraid. That I was waiting there for him. I wasn’t. Another two minutes and I would have been gone. But he didn’t know that. Remember I said how I should do that, just be there, at his parties, everywhere? He thought I
was
.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. I just looked at him. And him? Nothing, just a look. But it was there, in his face. And the others, the men with him, they don’t understand it at all. Why he’s staring at this woman by Colleoni. Who doesn’t say anything to him either, just a look. And
when they start again, I hear one of them say, ‘Who was that?’ And he says, ‘Nobody.’ And one of them turns back to look and I could see he’s thinking, So why did he stop? But how can Maglione explain it? So it’s the beginning. He wants me dead. Gone, anyway. I saw it there, in his face.”

“In one look,” I said, trying to coax her out of it.

“Yes, one look. I know. I’ve seen it before.”

“Maybe you’re overreacting,” I said gently.

“No, the same. You know how I know? Because it frightened me. The way it always did. Like a knife at your throat—so close, when? So now he’s afraid of me, just the sight of me, and I’m afraid of him. We know each other. Maybe it would have been better if I’d never found him. Now how does it end?”

I went over to her. “You go away and live happily ever after.”

“Ha. Leave. So he wins.”

“No, you do. Just forget about him. Look what it does to you, just passing him in the street. You’re all—”

“What?”

“Nerves.”

She shrugged. “No, I’m better now.” She looked out the window again. “And how is he, I wonder?”

“Claudia—”

“I know. Forget it. All right—forgotten.” She brushed the air with her hand. “But I’m still out of work. No job. Nothing.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, coming nearer. “I’ll take care of you.”

“Like a whore.”

“No,” I said, turning her around, lifting her chin with my finger to make her smile. “Like a mistress.”

“Oh, there’s a difference.”

“Mm. More expensive.”

A small smile. “Yes? How much?” she said, playing back.

I kissed her. “Whatever it takes.”

“Any price—how nice for me,” she said.

“How about dinner at the Danieli?”

She pulled back, smiling. “So that’s my price? A dinner at the Danieli.”

“Why not? You don’t get fired every day.”

In the end we settled for a drink at the Danieli. The big gothic dining room was almost deserted, quiet as a church, waiting for tourists and spring. Waiters stood near the wall gazing toward the lobby. The few diners spoke in whispers. Nobody was celebrating anything. We had a Prosecco in the bar and slipped back out to the Riva.

The moon was out and the air was sharp. We held hands going over the bridge to San Marco, still happy to be out of the hushed dining room.

“I’ll talk to Bertie,” I said. “Maybe he can do something.”

“No. Anyway, I don’t want to go back there.”

“Where, then?”

We were strolling past the empty cafés.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go to Murano and make glass. Maybe Quadri’s,” she said, pointing to the frosted windows. “Somebody must do the dishes.”

“Not tonight,” I said, looking in. An old woman in a fur coat, nursing a drink. Two men at the bar.

We went under the arcade and out of San Marco, past the back basin where the gondolas tied up. Guido’s was a small restaurant, cozy in the winter, with windows overlooking the Rio Fuseri and a long antipasto table filling the far end of the room. In the summer it would be filled with foreigners, sent by the big hotels with walking maps, but now it was only half full, romantic with shaded lamps and a pleasant murmuring of Italian.

Claudia saw them first. I was handing the coats to a waiter near the door, the eager maître d’ hovering nearby, and felt her grab my arm. Gianni’s back was to us, so it was my mother who looked up, startled for a second, then smiled.

“Darling, what a surprise. Look, Gianni, it’s Adam.” She stopped, finally taking in Claudia, her eyes darting nervously to the rest of the
room, uneasy. “I wish I’d known,” she said in her social voice. She motioned her hand over the table, only big enough for two. “But maybe they can move one.”