The Disappearance of Grace (12 page)

“Can you help me find her, Mr. Graham? And can you promise me you won't tell the army what's happening? Not quite yet anyway.”

He turns to peer out the window onto the canal.

“I understand your frustration in the matter, Captain. But it's really a police issue now. Had you come to me first, I would have sent you here. Should she become detained by the police for any reason, or should she be officially reported missing, then the embassy will do everything in its power to cooperate with local authorities and Interpol.” Turning to me. “But until that time, her
disappearance
, as you call it, is still a local police matter. And you really need to check in with your commanding officers, explain the situation.”

I stand.

“The detective believes she ran off on her own. Some people witnessed us arguing in a café yesterday afternoon, and that's what he bases his assumption on. But I don't believe that Grace has left me. She would never do that.”

“Yes, that would be a difficult pill to swallow. Especially in your condition.” The smile once more paints his face. “It's been a long day, Captain. I really should be getting home. Is there anything I can do for you while you wait and see what transpires over the course of the next forty-eight hours? Can we give you a lift back to your apartment?”

I shake my head.

“No, thank you. I have my eyesight back for now. I'll see myself home.”

“Literally, I suppose,” Graham says going for the stairs. But before descending them, he turns to me once more. “Captain,” he says, his brow scrunched with concern. “Please don't do anything foolish. The police will do everything in their power to see that Grace is located. The best thing for you is to go home and get some rest. Should Grace go officially missing, you'll need all the rest you can get.”

“I will,” I tell him. But it's a lie and he knows it.

“Glad to hear it,” he says, no doubt just to play along. “Enjoy the rest of your stay in lovely Venice.”

“Forget you, pal,” I whisper under my breath. But the sound of his patent leather soles on the stair treads blocks it out.

Chapter 26

BY THE TIME I make my way back down the stairs and into the main reception area, I can see that the precinct has been reduced to a nighttime skeleton crew. I guess Venice was never known as a beehive for major crimes like kidnapping, rape and murder. Focusing my eyes on the detective's office situated at the end of the open square-shaped room, I see the image of two men standing, talking. Rather, I see parts of their torsos through the glass light embedded into the wood door.

The detective and Dave Graham from the US Embassy.

Talking isn't the right word. They seem to be arguing, the detective waving his hands up and down animatedly, as if to stress his point. I can only wonder if they're arguing about me. About Grace. Maybe they're arguing over where to go for a drink and dinner. Maybe they're not even arguing.

I know the detective expects me to return to his office so that he can once more assume the responsibility of escorting an emotionally charged, part-time-blind man back to his hotel. But I'm not blind right now. I can see. Seeing means I'm not helpless. It means I can do something. I can try and find my Grace.

Directly before me: the front doors to the precinct.

I turn away from the detective's office, descend the small flight of stairs and head out into the night.

Chapter 27

STANDING OUT ON THE cobbled walk, I spot the No. 1 vaporetti water-bus just as it's about to leave the bobbing dockside stop. I pay my five Euros at the window and hop on just as it's pulling away, squeezing in amongst annoyed tourists and evening commuters. I try and balance myself in the never-ending wake of the Grand Canal while the boat heads deeper into the city. At the stop for Piazza San Marco, I get off, crossing over the very short but precarious steel-plated gangplank along with half the boat's passengers. I follow the crowd through several passages and over two or three narrow pedestrian bridges that span thin feeder canals until I come to a large building that's set on a foundation of arches and pillars.

I make my through the open arch and enter into the piazza.

This is the first time since I've been to Venice that I have actually laid functioning eyes on the ancient cathedral, its now lamp-lit Asian inspired stone exterior, tall arches and minarets. I've walked on the hard cobblestones, but never actually seen them. I've felt and rubbed up against the hordes of tourists, but I have never looked at them. Nor have I seen the pigeons that are so docile, they are not afraid to land on your shoulder if you allow them to.

I don't waste any
seeing
time.

For now, my eyes function properly. But I have no idea how long the seeing is going to last. If I lose my sight here, I will have no way of getting home through the Venice maze of alleys and walkways in the dark.

I head directly for the cathedral and the cafe located to my direct right alongside the basin. As always, the place is full. Every single one of the two dozen or so tables is occupied with patrons eating and drinking under the electric lights and the heat from the tall, gas-powered braziers set in between the tables.

I have no idea what I'm looking for.

The truth is that I'm living a fantasy. I half expect Grace to still be seated at the table we occupied this afternoon. I expect to see her face ignite with a relieved smile when she sees me. For her to stand up, hold out her open arms to me.

“Where have you been, baby?” she'd say, as if I were the one who went missing. “I was worried sick…Worried. Sick.”

But she's not sitting at that table.

Another couple is sitting there instead. A young, well-dressed couple. They speak English with an American accent. They sound like they're from New York City. I imagine that they are enjoying their honeymoon.

I move on past the tables, scanning the cobbles as if Grace left something behind for me to find later on. Something that would tell me that I'm not crazy in thinking she was abducted by a man in a long brown overcoat. I scan the ground, but I see nothing. Only cigarette butts, paper wrappers, discarded chewing gum, ticket stubs, bits of food that's fallen from the tables, and the few pigeons who brave the stomping feet of many café patrons.

When I raise my head, he's standing at the far end of the outdoor café.

The overcoated man. He's standing under a black lamp, bathed in an inverted arc of white lamplight. He's lost his sunglasses, so he stares at me with eyes that are glossy black, even from a distance of thirty feet. I feel my heart drop into my stomach and my temples begin to pound when I begin moving towards him. But from the moment I start walking, he takes a step back and disappears into the darkness, like he was never there in the first place.

I run.

I run in the direction of the lamp, and when an unknowing café patron pulls out his chair, I run directly into it, sending him and myself onto the pavement.

The man lies quietly on the ground while I roll onto my knees, peering out in the direction of the lamp. The overcoat man is nowhere to be found now. The scattering of people who were sharing the table with the man I ran into are trying to help him back up onto his feet. They are speaking German or Swiss, I can't really tell. They are shooting me angry looks.

My eyes are beginning to lose their focus.

My sight is beginning to fade in and out like it's controlled not by my brain but by a pair of batteries that are rapidly losing their juice. I've caught the attention of the entire café now. Or so it seems. Some of the people have gotten up from their tables and are approaching me. Someone takes a picture of me, the flash blinding me more than I already am.

My sight has disappeared entirely when I feel a pair of strong arms attempt to lift me up off the cobbles, as if to drag me away.

Chapter 28

“PLEASE,” HE SAYS, “JUST try to walk without running into something or scaring someone else away.”

I know the voice.

It's the waiter who helped me out earlier this afternoon. Once more he's leading me through the dining room of the quiet indoor café to the back, where the office is. He sets me down in a chair and gets me a drink of sherry, which he puts in front of me, placing my right hand around the stem. As if I need him to do this for me.

“Drink,” he insists. “It will calm you down.”

I do it.

I allow the alcohol to settle in before saying anything.

“What's your name?” I ask after a time.

“Giovanni,” he answers. “Why did you come back here?”

“I saw him, Giovanni,” I say. “I saw the man who took my wife.”

“What did he look like?”

“He's a tall man in a long brown overcoat. This afternoon he was wearing sunglasses. But tonight he was without them. He has black eyes. Striking black eyes, as if there is no retina. Do you know the man?”

“I see lots of men come and go through this café every day. Inside and outside. He could be anyone.”

“You would know him if you saw him. He is memorable. Like a dead man who is alive for only one purpose. To steal my Grace.”

He pours me another sherry, tells me to drink.

“And what is your name?” he poses.

I tell him.

“Nick,” he says. “It's possible I know this man. I recall a man who matches that description standing around the café this morning, this afternoon and tonight. Never does he sit down to eat or drink. But always just standing. Like he is expecting someone.”

“Like me, for instance, Giovanni.”

“Yes, like you, Nick.”

I drink the sherry, set down the now empty glass. Looking up into the light, I discover that my blindness is no longer absolute. I'm not enveloped in darkness like I was during the blind periods. Instead, I am seeing shapes and the blurry movement of those shapes. It's as if every time I experience a bout of eyesight, a little bit of the blindness disappears.

“I take it you have been talking with the police,” Giovanni adds. “They have been here off and on all afternoon. And someone from the US Embassy. A well-dressed American who was accompanied by the detective.”

I recall Dave Graham. He never mentioned his visiting this café. Why would the distinguished diplomat keep that kind of information from me? And why would he come here at all if he was so convinced that Grace's disappearance was simply a police matter?

The calming effects of the sherry are kicking in enough to slow my beating heart to almost normal levels. That's when something dawns on me.

“Giovanni,” I say. “Why are you helping me like this? Why not just call the police and be done with me?”

He goes silent for a moment. Through a hazy blur I see him fill the sherry glass once more. Only, instead of handing it to me, he drinks it down. Setting the empty glass onto the desk, he exhales.

“Because I found something,” he says. “Something that must be very important to you. But before I show it to you, I suggest another sherry.”

Chapter 29

FIRST I DRINK DOWN another glass of sherry. Then, after setting the now empty glass back onto the desk, Giovanni asks me to hold out my hand. Palm up.

I do it.

He sets something into my hand. It's small and hard. A metal band topped with a stone. An engagement ring. Grace's engagement band.

My heart skips a beat.

“Where did you find it?” I ask.

“The question, Captain Angel, is
why
did I find it?”

I grip the ring in the palm of my fisted hand, like it's all that I have left of Grace.

“What are you suggesting?” I say.

“If your wife—”

“—fiancée.”

“Si, if your fiancée was taken from you by this man we have both seen, perhaps it is possible she slipped off her ring and dropped it, hoping that someone would find it and report it missing. It would be like her way of screaming for help. Like she was leaving you a marker. Like someone who is lost in the forest might leave behind a handkerchief or a piece of clothing. Something that tells you she's become lost and wants to be found.”

I squeeze the ring harder, if that's at all possible. In my mind I see her being dragged away while she struggles to free the ring from her finger. I try and put out of my mind any thoughts that suggest Grace knew she was going to die, and that's why she left the ring behind. For me to have something to remember her by.

“Of course, there is another possibility,” Giovanni goes on.

“What is it?”

“If your fiancée wasn't abducted…if she was merely leaving you…then perhaps she removed the ring from her finger and dropped it onto the cobblestones before walking away for good. A final, physical act that would represent the end.”

I loosen my grip on the ring while my heart once more goes south. But I must admit, as painful as it is to hear what he's suggesting, he still makes perfect sense. I recall just yesterday afternoon when the ring fell to the cobbles beside the table we occupied inside a different square further up the Grand Canal. I recall how I was able to recognize the sound of the metal smacking against the stone. That wasn't the case in San Marco, which is always crowded, always loud, always confusing and distracting. Even for a blind man.