Death Under the Venice Moon (10 page)

"Whoa! What was that all about? Your kid sounded pretty ticked off. What's going on?"

"Yes, I know. Long story. Cruz, that actor in the movie with Kyle, well, they can't find him. Supposedly I was the last one to see him. A trespasser took a picture of the two of us on the speedboat, and now the newspapers think I was doing…wait. Wait. Why are we talking about me? I asked if you are in Europe yet." Silence. "Larry?"

"I'm in Innsbruck."

Something in his voice changed. It wasn't surprise or anger, not regret either, yet it was something I felt deep inside me, and it didn't feel good. A premonition, a shadow on my heart, that was what it felt like.

Curse Cruz and that lying concierge.

"I'm at the hotel. I'm meeting with the lawyer in forty-five minutes. Apparently there's more to it than Olivia said. She doesn't just have an expired passport. She has no passport at all, and she was arrested for something else. I want to give her a chance to explain before I pass judgment." Why did I feel like that last remark was directed at me? "I think Austria and Italy are on the same time, so I can call you when I get back. I'm thankful Bonnie found me a lawyer who speaks English. Look, I don't know what kind of trouble you've gotten yourself into, but I don't recall Kyle being so frustrated before. At least not with his mother. I'm here if you need to talk or if you need to get away from Venice. Unfortunately, I can't come to rescue you."

"Rescue me?" Blood rushed to my face. Sudden waves of perspiration made the layers of makeup itch. I was ready to scream. "What makes you think I need rescuing? I'll have you know…" I looked for tissues, anything to wipe my face. "Damn. Perspiration is running off me like snow melting in the sun. I need to get a towel, wait." Holding the cell, I walked to the bathroom, mad as hell, but not at Larry.

"Lella, are you having hot flashes?"

What? "Huh, sort of. Why do you ask?"

"I noticed changes in the last few months. I remember when my mother and a colleague went through menopause. Pretty intense. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why should I tell you? What difference does it make? What? You'll kiss it all away?"

He laughed, that low, intimate laugh I loved so much. "It may not work, but I'm willing to try, kiss you all over, as long as it takes."

And just like that, I felt better. I sat on the edge of the bathtub, wiped the sticky mess off my skin, and listened to Larry breathe. "Truce?" I asked.

"Truce. But I want to hear this story about the speedboat. I thought you didn't like boats in general."

"I hate them. We weren't really on the boat. It was just on top of the bow. It's not what you think. Go. Talk to the lawyer. See your daughter then call me back. Maybe by then Cruz will have shown up, and Kyle's mood will have improved."

I hung up and went back to the bedroom at the same time Kyle did. He looked more preoccupied than before, and it was my fault. I felt terrible.

"How is Larry?" he asked.

"Fine, I think. He just landed in Innsbruck."

He looked at me, seeming a little puzzled. "Innsbruck, Austria? Is he a skier or something?"

"No. He's here to escort his daughter home." I wasn't going to say more. Kyle had enough on his plate without adding other people's problems to the pot. "Were you able to talk to Pia?" I tried to make small talk.

He stared at me for what seemed like forever. "Mom, you know what? I just realized you have a knack for making people disappear."

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, first it was your friend Ruby in what seems like a lifetime ago. And now, you arrive in Italy on a whim, and within forty-eight hours of landing on Italian soil, two people you never met before have also disappeared."

"What are you talking about?"

"Let's analyze this." My God, he was serious. "You meet Cruz late one evening, and no one has seen him since. Pia Bartolomei also cannot be found, and you were the last to see her."

"Whoa, that is so unfair. First, you don't know for sure I was the last one to see either one. For all we know, they could be in Las Vegas right this minute, getting married."

He shook his head and rolled his eyes. He wasn't buying it. If my own son could think that for a minute, what would the outsiders and the media make of these…coincidences?

"Roberto is filing a missing person report with the Chioggia police department, or whatever the hell they call it in this country. You'll probably need to go there and be interviewed."

"About what?" If his intention was to make me nervous, he succeeded.

"Mother…you were the last one to see Cruz, and by now I'm sure there are many stories floating around. One of the gossip sites labeled you the Black Widow."

I looked at him. He wasn't smiling.

"Don't leave your room. Don't open the door for anyone, and only talk to Larry." He stayed put until my dinner was delivered. Not taking any chances. "Please, Mom, it's very important. It's for your own protection."

And with that Kyle left for the evening, something about Giada possibly returning to Rome the next day. I should have been thankful. Instead I became resentful. I came all the way to Italy for this?
Maledizione
.

Shouldn't blame my son. The poor kid ended up babysitting his own mother. I had to admit that Pia's disappearance puzzled me. Then again, maybe she decided she didn't want to talk to Kyle. What did I know about their relationship? Her behavior when we met led me to assume she was seriously invested in a future with him. Maybe I was the one who knew nothing about young people's affairs of the heart.

Young people? Why limit my shortcomings? I failed in so many ways, on so many levels. All the suspicions and accusations against Larry. Now I found myself as the accused. What was it they called it? Poetic justice? Poetic or not, I didn't like it.

Night descended on Venice, and the irony of the situation wasn't lost. I came here to get away from Larry. Larry was now on European soil. If I so decided, I could get in a car and join him. I would love to be able to jump in Kyle's Ford and drive to Innsbruck—except I was stuck in this strange hotel room with no one to talk to and nothing to do unless I wanted to watch Italian television. Plus, I wouldn't drive on Italian roads.

Black Widow? Kyle said one of the Italian gossip sites labeled me the Black Widow. Why this trend of labeling people? Well, nothing new about that, people have always done it and perhaps with good intentions. Or not.

I remembered visiting my mother in the summer of 1991, and all she could talk about was the Dama Bianca, who was in a coma. Turns out this White Lady, as she was labeled, had been the mistress and later the wife by Mexican marriage of a famous Italian athlete, Fausto Coppi. Coppi was a professional road-racing cyclist, sort of the Lance Armstrong of the fifties, minus the drugs allegations but plus the adulterous relationship. Mother cried a lot while telling me their love story. The perfect tale of star-crossed lovers. I asked her why she was called White Lady, and all my mother could come up with was that the woman was once photographed wearing a white coat. That's it? That's how you label someone for life? Based on what they wear one time?

What was I wearing the evening we went to look at Cruz's speedboat? Nothing black and nothing white. That I knew for sure. Damn, now I understood. They meant Black Widow as in the spider because the females of the species devoured the male after copulation. Oh, no.
What have I gotten myself into?

Poor Kyle must be so embarrassed. And it's all my fault. I should have stayed in California. Spoken to Larry. I sat on the bed in full self-pity mode when my cell rang. What now?

"Hello?"
No, no, say
pronto
. Damn
.

"Lella, are you okay? I can barely hear you."

"Oh, Larry, Kyle told me not to talk to anyone except you, and I didn't know, I was trying to sound…different."

"Well, you succeeded." I sensed he wanted to cheer me up, while he sounded pretty down himself.

"What's happening?" We spoke at the same time.

"You go first," I told him.

"I wish I had something uplifting to report, but—oh, Lella, my Olivia, I didn't even recognize her." He stopped talking. I sensed he was struggling with emotions raging inside.

"Larry, don't take it so hard, you haven't seen each other in two years. And she is so young. Young people seem to blossom in strange ways when parents aren't around." Only ten months for my son, and look at the changes.

"It's not only her appearance, although she looks sick, it's her…attitude. All this time I lived with sunny images of my daughter traveling through Europe with her classmate, learning about cultures and people. Instead she has been surviving on the edge of normal life with some man whose name she won't tell me. She was caught shoplifting. Shoplifting, my little girl." Was he crying? Oh my God, for the first time ever the man I loved, the man who had been there for me every step of the way for the last two years, needed me, and I was sitting in this luxurious prison under orders to stay in the room. It was my turn to be there for him and tell him everything would be okay. Damn. I was going to get myself to Innsbruck. I didn't care what Kyle thought.

"Is she with you? Will you be able to get her back to the States?"

"No, she is at the infirmary of this place where they keep people waiting to go to court. The lawyer's working on getting her a new passport. He thinks we can pay a fine, and they'll release her with the stipulation she must leave the country and never come back."

"She's probably thrilled to do that, isn't she? Going back to California, to be with her family?"

"That's what I thought, but that's not the case. The passport and getting her out of there, that part she likes. Going back to the States? No. She expects me to keep sending her money every time she calls with her little sweet voice and another well-rehearsed story. It isn't going to happen. Oh, damn, I didn't mean to unload my problems on you. Tell me about your day."

"Have you had dinner?"

"What?" The surprise in his voice was real.

"Larry, for you to understand what's happening now, I need to start from when I first arrived in Venice. That's going to take a while, so it would be better if you had some food in your stomach. I'm sure you also have jet lag."

"Lella, Lella, I miss you. I feel better already. Yes, I had some food. So tell me. I can't wait to hear what you got yourself into this time. Where is Kyle?"

"My son is spending the night with a young woman named Giada who happens to be the personal assistant…no, no…I need to start from the beginning."

"Go ahead. I'm resting comfortably on this unusual bed. Sure is different than our beds. No sheets or blankets but this—plump duvet? The cover is like a sheet, and I'm told it's filled with feathers. I sound pretty boring, don't I?"

"You are many things. Boring isn't one of them." I relished the silence we shared, picturing the fluffy duvet sheltering our entwined bodies. A heat wave hit me, but this time it wasn't a hot flash. I told him about Pia and Cruz, about the stranger taking pictures and the astrologer on the Ponte Vecchio, and on and on until I felt exhausted but at peace.

"What can I say? Lella, don't get mad, but Kyle is right. People around you tend to disappear. I find the coincidence plausible because I know you well. However, if I were an Italian man of the law, I would look at you suspiciously. Don't these two people have families? Isn't anyone reporting them missing? If indeed you were the last one to see them both, some detective should be knocking at your door right now and asking you a lot of questions."

I thought about the first time Larry and I met. He was the detective who knocked at my door and asked me a lot of questions.

"Well, thanks a lot for your cheerful outlook. Now I'm not going to be able to sleep. Fortunately, no one knows where to find me. At least I hope they don't. And Kyle said the hotel has a good security staff in place."

"Lella, again, Italian law may be different, but if a detective wants to talk to you, the hotel security isn't going to stop him. I need to take care of Olivia then get myself down to Venice."

I smiled. "You don't even speak Italian. Except for the few bad words you hear me say when I'm mad."

"Wait, California is nine hours behind Austria, right? I'm going to make some calls. Look how well Bonnie's intervention helped with finding the perfect lawyer. You never know. I have a cell phone, and the ring tone is pretty loud."

"Mine plays 'California Girls' when it rings. Kyle's sense of humor. How about yours?"

"Ring, ring. Old-people phone," he joked.

On that note, we said good night. But I couldn't sleep. While I knew very well it would be a stupid move, I really wanted to jump into a car and drive to Innsbruck.
So, what's one more bad decision?

I turned on the television, remembering the news in Italy came on late in the evening. I wasn't familiar with any of the channels. There might have been a program schedule somewhere in the room, but I didn't feel like getting out of bed. I started to click randomly. Lots of musical shows, old American movies…then I recognized the woman on TV from during the morning meeting. She mentioned Kyle York, and there was my gorgeous kid, smiling in one of his file photos. What was she saying? Oh, damn, a front view of the Century Palace, whoever the cameraman was, he or she was following my son, I recognized him from the back, they seem to jog, yes, inside the lobby. Oh my God! It was a video from that morning. There was Kyle arguing with the reporters, the elevator's door opening.

Noooo.

That was me in my bathrobe with the oily hair stuck to my scalp, but wait—my face didn't look so bad. I had the look of a deer caught in the headlights, but all that makeup didn't look half bad. I certainly looked younger. What was I thinking? About how good I looked? I hadn't heard what they were saying. Maybe I could get it on another channel. I resumed clicking fast and furious but finally gave up and went to sleep. Or tried to.