Frail Barrier (25 page)

‘What a disappointment for you. For us all. Pasquale will take you back. It won't delay us.'

‘No, please. That will make me feel guilty.'

‘We certainly don't want that,' the contessa observed.

‘I'll have a Fernet Branca here at the Gritti,' Urbino went on, ‘and rest for a while. Fernet Branca soothes my stomach. Then I'll call a taxi.'

He stepped out on the hotel's landing platform.

‘Enjoy yourselves,' he said to them in a quiet voice. ‘I'll be fine.'

‘I hope so,' the contessa said as Pasquale started to maneuver the boat away from the landing. ‘Now that I look at you more closely, I agree with Ausonio. You look very poorly. Quite haggard.'

And, in this manner, the contessa managed to both retaliate against Urbino for his deception of her and collaborate in his own deception of Hollander.

Urbino did have a Fernet Branca on the Gritti terrace, as he had told the others that he would do. He also stayed there for a short while looking out at the Grand Canal. But he didn't call a water taxi when he left the hotel.

Instead he took the
traghetto
across the water to keep the appointment he had set up with the estate agent handling the resale of Zoll's apartment.

She was a tall, middle-aged woman who spoke excellent English. She was waiting for him in the
calle
outside the courtyard of the building.

When they were going up the stone staircase, Urbino said, ‘As I mentioned on the phone, I would appreciate it if you didn't say anything to your client about it. I'm here on behalf of someone who prefers to keep her interest in the apartment unknown unless she decides to buy. She knows Mr. Hollander and, well, it could be embarrassing.'

‘I understand completely, signore. In any case, it isn't our policy to let clients know every time someone is looking at a property. It can get their hopes up unreasonably. But your friend could have come herself. We wouldn't have revealed her identity any more than we will yours.'

‘She might come at a later date, but she's busy at the moment. I know what she's looking for, and can save her time.'

When they entered the apartment, Urbino examined some of the details of the foyer while the woman went into the salon and drew aside the drapes and opened the doors to the balcony. Fortunately, she was the type who left the client alone after mentioning a few things about the disposition of the rooms, the renovations, and the furniture and items that would be sold with the apartment. Or perhaps she realized, from what he had already said, that Urbino was the type of client who wanted to be left to himself. Whichever it was, she said that he was free to look around and then she went out on the balcony.

Urbino wasn't looking for anything in particular. He had no intention of opening the doors of all the armoires and cabinets in the bedrooms or raising the lids of the eighteenth-century chests across from the balcony. Neither did he have the time to do it.

But he had faith in his powers of observation, and perhaps even more faith in the law that the world revealed itself in plain sight and not in hidden corners.

The apartment had been thoroughly cleaned since he had been there with Hollander. This might have been significant if cleaning a property were not something invariably done before it was shown.

The urn with Zoll's ashes was no longer on the mantelpiece, and the breviary, the carriage clock, and the Pietro Longhi painting had been removed. Hollander must have taken these items, as well as some others that Urbino wasn't aware of, back to the Gritti Palace where the hotel would have put them in a secure place.

There was some disorder in the apartment that hadn't been there before. It wasn't a matter of a commode with marquetry of different woods that was no longer precisely aligned with the small tapestry above it or a carved mahogany armchair that was now eater-cornered in the salon instead of being directly against the wall.

It was less obvious things than these. The books in the dark-wood case in the salon, which he had previously noted had been arranged neatly, gave evidence of having been disturbed. All of the books were still upright, but some of them were pushed to the back of the bookcase, while others occupied their original position closer to the front. Also, some of them had been turned upside down so that they were not uniform with the others and their titles could not be easily read.

In addition, the escritoire in the large bedroom no longer impressed him with its neatness that had betokened an organized owner. Instead, the pieces of stationery, letters, postcards, and colored index cards, which he wished he had the time and opportunity to examine, were haphazardly scrambled among the various pigeonholes. Previously they had been placed in much more orderly fashion. He risked pulling out a few items. For his efforts he found a thank-you note, in French, from someone named Sabine, for a dinner Zoll had given at the Danieli last Christmas, and a postcard that showed the leaning campanile of Santo Stefano, with nothing written on it. There was also a crossword puzzle in German, ripped from a newspaper, and completed in pencil.

One of Urbino's favorite Poe tales was ‘The Purloined Letter,' with its philosophy of the best place to hide something being in plain sight. One of his cases had resolved itself along these lines, and he regretted he couldn't put it to the test again by examining all the items in Zoll's escritoire, but he restrained himself.

The misplaced books and the disarray of the escritoire suggested that someone had been searching the apartment. The most likely person was, of course, Hollander, but Urbino warned himself against moving from an assumption to a fact.

The apartment had been cleaned. Workers could often not resist taking something, and usually what they took was something small that wouldn't be easily or quickly missed. It was also possible that in the process of cleaning and temporarily moving pieces of furniture, books had fallen or been removed, and the items in the pigeonholes of the escritoire had cascaded out only to be stuffed back in somewhat haphazardly.

Once again, as inevitably happened in his investigations, Urbino was faced with several possible explanations for something that might – or might not be – of great significance. As he was considering these possible explanations on his way out to the balcony where the agent was standing at the balustrade looking out at the Grand Canal, his eye became caught by something.

It was a collection of watercolors hanging on the salon wall to one side of the foyer. He had noted them before, but something drew him back to examine them again.

Six medium-sized watercolors were arranged in three horizontal rows to form a pattern of an inverted pyramid. They were rather amateurish in their renditions of Venetian scenes but they had a certain charm. The fact that an art connoisseur like Zoll had presumably bought and arranged these less than accomplished watercolors revealed a sentimental side to the man.

But it wasn't what the watercolors seemed to say about Zoll that struck Urbino. He was far less interested in them as a group, no matter how nicely arranged they were, than he was in one particular watercolor.

It was of a bridge in Dorsoduro, the Ponte Pugni that went over the canal between the Campo Santa Margherita and the Campo San Barnabà. One of the approximately 400 bridges in the city.

The name signed in the lower right-hand corner was a demure but unmistakable ‘Maisie Croy,' the ailing woman who seemed to have such an unusual ability to turn up in the most unexpected of places.

Twenty minutes later Urbino stared down at an inscription carved into the seat of a small white marble stool at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum:

Savor Kindness

Cruelty Is Always

A Possibility Later

It was a good philosophy, except that he found it a bit too optimistic. In his experience, cruelty between people was often more of a probability than a possibility. For the next hour he wandered through the rooms of the palazzo and out on to the water terrace, contemplating the ‘Truism' of the language artist Jenny Holzer.

Kindness and cruelty. Love and hate. So different and yet so related. The first could easily develop into the second, and sometimes the two could even flourish together like two agitated flowers on the same plant.

On some surface level the startling images and forms he encountered throughout the Guggenheim – a naked bride, a tumescent man astride his horse, a woman with her throat cut, and androgynous figures flaunting breasts and penises – made an impression on him. How could they not, despite his familiarity with them from many previous visits? But his thoughts were far away from all these specimens of modern art although, in truth, not far away from the building in which they were displayed.

For the Palazzo Guggenheim was in Dorsoduro, and Dorsoduro was where all the disturbing events beginning with Zoll's death had taken place.

As Urbino sat at the stone balustrade beside the shimmering waters of the Grand Canal, he looked toward the Gritti Palace and Zoll's palazzo apartment a short distance to his right. His imagination populated them and the surrounding area with images as disturbing as the ones safely framed in wood and firmly cast in bronze and iron at the Guggenheim. And the advice he had encountered when first entering the Guggenheim was a silent, but powerful accompaniment to the images he conjured up.

Savor kindness, cruelty is always a possibility later
.

Eleven

‘I take back what I said on the Gritti terrace a few weeks ago, Urbino dear,' Oriana said the next morning in her living room on the Giudecca. ‘You're a very predictable man sometimes. At least to the women you let into your life. Don't you realize that by now?'

She was wearing a kimono in bright lacquer red with black dragons on it. She hadn't yet applied any of her dark mascara and bright red lipstick.

But on her face were her trademark large sunglasses. They were something between a prop and an affectation, but on this morning, they were also something of a necessity. Bright sunlight streamed into the spartan living room from which almost every object vaguely nonutilitarian had been banished. The sunlight reflected off the glass cubes of tables, the chrome tubing, and unadorned white walls.

Little of the décor in the Ca' Borelli living room was to Urbino's taste, but nonetheless he always felt uplifted when he was in it. For beyond its ceiling-high windows was a picture postcard view across the Bacino to the shining domes of the Basilica, the brick Campanile, the rose-colored Doges' Palace, and the sweep of the Riva degli Schiavoni.

‘Predictable?' Urbino said as he seated himself carefully in one of the slingshot chairs.

‘Yes. And as soon as I saw it was you who was ringing my bell at this ungodly hour, I knew why.'

‘You did?'

Urbino shifted himself in the chair. He tried in vain to find a comfortable position.

‘I know you've come for information.' She lit up another cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘You only come to see me for two reasons. For suggestions for Barbara's birthday presents and for information. Since her birthday is a long way off, it's information you want. Let me get some coffee for us and you can start.'

As she was going to the kitchen, she stopped and turned around. ‘But you're looking a little pale, Urbino. Some anisette in your espresso is just what you need. Barbara telephoned last night and told me you felt too ill to go to Torcello. They had a good time, despite it, she said. See how easy it is not to be missed?'

When they were sipping their coffee a few minutes later, Urbino said, ‘It's about Perla Beato that I'm here.'

Oriana nodded as if this, too, had been predictable.

‘I need to know if it's for one of your cases or for your own curiosity,' Oriana said with a direct look.

‘I'm not interested in gossip for gossip's sake.'

‘You can't pull the wool over my eyes! You thrive on gossip. But I'll grant that you're not mean-spirited. So I assume, then, that you're looking into something.'

‘Yes, but don't tell anyone, please.'

Oriana threw her head back in an exaggerated laugh.

‘This is quite amusing. You're asking me to be discreet while at the same time expecting me to be indiscreet. Urbino, I love you! So what is it about Perla that I might know – and might agree to tell you if I do?'

‘Perla's a lovely woman,' Urbino began, ‘and very successful with her business. She does a lot of good with it, I'm sure. And she was –
is
– a nurse. She's always sociable and animated, and—'

‘Let's cut to the chase,' Oriana interrupted. ‘You want to know if she's having any problems with Romolo.'

‘Something like that.'

‘Before I might tell you anything – if there's anything to tell – you have to promise
me
something. Whatever I tell you will go no further. I wouldn't want to cause her or Romolo or anyone else any embarrassment and discomfort.'

‘And neither would I. I'm not the kind of person who would do that unless it was necessary. I mean for the sake of someone who was in a difficult situation. Or if something seriously illegal were involved. So, yes, I promise.'

‘You've provided yourself with more than enough wiggle room.' Oriana sipped her coffee. ‘Well, Perla doesn't seem to be having any problems with Romolo that I can see. But that doesn't mean that he's not having his problems with
her
. Perla's only thirty-four.'

‘And Romolo's almost twice her age.'

‘With a son not much younger.'

‘You're not suggesting …?'

‘Of course not, darling! Rocco is gay, anyway, though Romolo has yet to see it. No, it's someone else.'

‘Maybe you'll feel better about telling me if I ask about one particular person. If it isn't this person, then you don't have to tell me anything more than you already have.'