Текст книги "Alibi"

Автор книги: Joseph Kanon

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CHAPTER FIVE

I caught the traghetto that crossed the Grand Canal to the Gritti and then headed toward San Moise. A few days, Joe had said—maybe he had already gone. But the Bauer still had a Sullivan registered, and while I was using the house phone to call him, I spotted him at breakfast in the dining room facing the rio.

“Late start?” I said, going up to the table.

“Late night. You just caught me. Sit, but don’t expect too much.” He rubbed his temples, wishing away the hangover.

“Thanks.” I took a cornetti from the bread basket in front of him. “Eat something. It helps.”

“Did I call you or did you call me?”

“I called you. I need a favor.”

“Too late. I go back to Verona at fourteen hundred.”

“That’s where I need the favor.”

He raised his eyebrows over the coffee cup.

“Could you run a check on somebody? See what you’ve got hiding in the files?”

“Italian?”

I took out the photograph.

“Isn’t this the guy from the other day? You always run a check on your friends?”

“He’s not a friend.”

“Bad boy?”

“I think so.”

“What’d he do?”

“Cooperated with the SS rounding up Jews.”

“He wouldn’t be the first. They insisted, you know.”

“I don’t think it was like that. I think he helped.”

“Adam, for chrissake, if I had a nickel for everybody who—”

“I know. Frau Schmidt telling on the neighbors. This is something else. He’s a doctor. Old family. He had a choice.”

“Army?”

“No. Probably too old. Maybe too smart.”

“So?”

“So, what else? This stuff—it usually doesn’t happen just once. You know. It’s part of who you are.”

“Fascist?”

“Maybe, but not only that. I mean, what the hell, the mailman probably had a party card. Did he work with the Germans? What did he do? Sort of thing you might turn up in your files.”

“Might.” He looked again at the picture. “You have a name?”

I took out a pen and started writing. “He may have used another. That’s why the picture—in case somebody might spot him.”

“Somebody like who?”

“Come on, Joe, we worked the same street. You must have somebody just looking at pictures to see what he can see. An old partisan, maybe. Somebody looking to get even.”

Joe took a sip of coffee. “Is that what you’re looking to do?”

I met his gaze over the cup. “He wants to marry my mother.”

“Jesus, Adam, we’re not a fucking reference bureau. If you don’t like him—”

“He’s a bad guy. I just want to know how bad.”

“Look, let me explain something to you. This isn’t Frankfurt. The setup’s different here. We’re not trying to punish anybody. The Italians are supposed to be the victims, the good guys. We don’t keep those kinds of files on them. And the Italians, they don’t want to know. They settle things privately. It’s what they’re good at. Since fucking Rome. Some Fascist prick set up a partisan ambush? They don’t bother with a trial. They just stick him with a shiv some night and go about their business. You see Mussolini in the dock? Just strung him up at a gas station. They don’t want us running trials here. They take care of their own.”

“So what are you doing here then?”

“German trials. The Germans want trials. Or maybe we want them to have them. Anyway, they do. And when the evidence is here, we have to come get it. Kesselring did a lot here before they transferred him back. Just wiped people out. So things get lost in Germany, we find something else here. It doesn’t matter where he did it as long as he did it. It’s the Germans we’re after, not your mother’s boyfriend.” He put the picture back on the table.

“So let’s see, that means you’ve got the German army files—what they didn’t take. They take much?”

“Some.”

“And you’ve probably got that cross-referenced with the Salò government files—liaison reports anyway. SS? Nobody kept files like they did, we know that. So what do we have? The army worked with Italians, so there’d be sheets on them there. Secret police reports, for sure. SS would have their own little black book of informers. Somebody like Gianni, they’d probably give him a file all his own, wouldn’t they?”

Joe raised his eyes again. “Yes.”

“In other words, the German files have got practically everything we want to know about the Italians, wouldn’t you say? Except what they said to each other. And all I want to know is what he said to the Germans. What they had to say about him.”

“An Italian civilian? We’re not here for that. They’re our friends.”

“Yeah, well, so are the Germans now.”

“We’re not supposed to use the files this way.”

“What are you talking about? That’s all we did.”

“You’re not in the army anymore. And he’s Italian. We’re not supposed to—”

“Jesus Christ, Joe, the old man is lying there in a hospital bed and this guy fingers him. In a hospital bed. How much protection is he supposed to have?”

Joe said nothing for a minute, then pocketed the paper and photograph.

“All right. All I’m saying is, this isn’t Frankfurt. We may not have anything.”

“If you don’t, you don’t. I’ll bet you’ve got a Herr Kroger.” Our assistant, for whom the files were a series of live wires running from connection to connection, the whole a wonderful bright web in his brain.

“Soriano,” Joe said, nodding. “Signora. Pretty good, too.”

“Put her on it. She’ll know right away if it’s worth a little sniffing. I don’t want to tie you up with this.”

Joe grinned. “No, just use my best snoop. You don’t change.” He patted the pocket with the photograph. “You really love this guy, huh? What if I come up dry?”

“There has to be something. A man who’d do that—it’s never just once.”

“And you’re sure he did?”

“There was an eyewitness.”

“And you’re sure—”

“She was the old man’s daughter.”

“Oh, she was,” Joe said, looking at me. “Then she’d know.”

“Yes, she would,” I said, staring back.

Joe sighed and put his napkin on the table. “Well, this was fun. Just like old times. You have a phone here?”

“On the paper. I’ll come to Verona if—”

“No, you don’t want to come anywhere near me. It’s not Frankfurt, remember? Anyway, I’m not as much fun as I used to be. Can I ask you something? This guy, does he know that you know?”

I looked at him, surprised that this hadn’t occurred to me, then nodded. Of course he knew. Claudia would have told me.

“Some fucking wedding,” Joe said.

I walked back, taking the wide swing over the Accademia bridge, then sat for a while in the Campo San Ivo. There was a shaft of sun in the square, and some bundled-up old people sat on benches with their faces turned to it. At the end of the campo boats swept by on the Grand Canal. Where my mother had come to be happy. So special it seemed not just outside the war but outside time. But that had been another trick of the light, like the hypnotic movement of the water. Nowhere was outside. And now everything here would be Gianni, every detail a daily reminder. Gothic arched windows, flowerpots on terraces, the view from the Monaco lounge. She’d be miserable and, stubbornly, she’d refuse to go. The leaving itself could be easy. My mother had always lived a gypsy life of suitcases and short-term leases. A few days would do it. Bertie could deal with the house. Mimi could make the public excuses. And she’d be out of it. If she’d go.

I saw her face for a second as she’d turned from the door this morning, wounded. By me, every word a kind of betrayal. What would it look like now, knowing I’d asked for his file? But what was the alternative? If he’d lie about the hospital, what else would he lie about? What was the point of finding out later, when she was already trapped, crushed by the disappointment of it? The sooner, the better. She might listen to Bertie. A calm meeting, moving her gently from point to point until she saw. It was just a question of making her see.

I got up and started back to the house. We’d both apologize. We’d tiptoe around it. She’d ask what Claudia had actually said, what she’d seen. We’d talk.

But when I got to the house, she’d already gone out. “A fitting, for the dress,” Angelina said. “She left a message.”

I went over to the table and took the paper out of the silver dish. “Don’t forget to call Gianni,” it read, as if nothing had been said at all.

Claudia wasn’t at the Accademia, so I walked toward the Rialto and then, on a whim, went to the library and spent a few hours leafing through a bound volume of Il Gazzettino. The first roundup had been in December ’43, but Claudia hadn’t been taken until later—fall, after a few months hiding on the Lido. I started with July, piecing together bits of Italian until word blocks began to fall into place, the way menus become familiar. Gianni’s name never came up. But why would it? Claudia wasn’t there either, or Abramo Grassini. Not even the word Ebreo. No one had combed through the hospital, looking for victims. No one had been transported. August. Nothing had happened. La Serenissima had survived the occupation doing what it always had—entertaining visitors. The violinists in San Marco would have played waltzes. Not many photographs, only the occasional officer in gray in the background, taking coffee. September. The war was happening somewhere else, troops fighting in the south, only partisan bands in the Veneto. A train derailed near Verona, a munitions depot blown up—cowardly acts designed to thwart the Italian war effort (had the typographer set this with a straight face?), Communist-inspired, probably Milanese. The Communists, in fact, were behind everything, the real threat, more insidious than the advancing Allies or the protective Germans. The monsignor called for peace, an end to criminal acts. But even the partisans were somewhere else, at the other end of the bridge across the lagoon. In Venice, nothing happened.

I started to close the book, letting the pages fall on one another, backward through the summer, and suddenly there he was, same face, receding hair. I stopped and flipped until I came back to the photograph. Not Gianni, the older brother. Gustavo Paolo Lorenzo, known as Paolo. Dead in the war, Gianni had said, but not exactly in the front lines, according to Il Gazzettino. A car accident near Asolo, where he was staying or living—my Italian wasn’t nuanced enough to tell. Odd to think of any Venetian in a car, much less dying in one. Is that why Gianni had given him a better end? I looked at the photograph again—Gianni’s eyes, spaced wide over the same high nose, a subtly different mouth, the whole look older, not quite as personable. Had they been close? I read through the obituary, looking for some sense of their lives together, but the article was respectful and dull. A long genealogy, a list of charitable associations, but evidently no profession. Only second sons had to think of it. The lucky older brother, who’d lived on what was left. An ordinary, conventional life. The only hint of flair had been a youthful enthusiasm for auto racing—and, the piece did not say but implied, look where that had led. No other passengers in the wreck. Mourned by his many friends and colleagues.

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.”

Gianni turned in his seat, then got up slowly, hesitant, not sure how to react. It was, as Claudia had said, a kind of fear. But of what? An awkward moment in a restaurant? Her face had hardened, and she was glaring at him. For a few seconds nobody moved, not even the maitre d’, waiting to see how we wanted to be seated.

“Adam,” Gianni said. “You brought her here? Why do you do this?” Annoyed, but keeping his voice even so that no one around us heard anything unusual in it. He looked at Claudia. “What do you want?” he said, almost pleading, exasperated.

“From you, nothing.” She turned, gripping my arm more tightly. “Let’s go.”

“Darling,” my mother said, drawing it out so that it was like a hand reaching over, insistent. She looked around the room again, then at me, a signal to behave. “It’s no trouble. About the table.”

Now her voice reached Gianni, stopping the unguarded look on his face and bringing him back too. He stared at Claudia for another second and then nodded to my mother, trying to please her, or deciding that the only way to deal with the situation was to pretend it wasn’t happening.

“Yes, join us,” he said, a little unsteady, still not sure, but gesturing graciously to the table. “I can recommend the polenta. If you like that.” Now even a polite, forced smile.

“With you, never,” Claudia said, her voice low.

Nearby the maître d’ waited. Gianni looked around. No one was paying attention. We were still just a group of foreigners saying hello.

“But perhaps you would rather be alone with your friend,” he said to me.

“Oh darling, this would be such a chance to talk things out,” my mother started, then stopped, caught by Gianni’s sharp glance, the first time I had ever seen him look at her this way.

“Grace,” he said, cutting her off.

“Is that what you want?” I said. “To talk about things? Old times?”

Before he could answer, Claudia said something in Italian, her voice still low but edgy, even the sound of it unpleasant. Gianni’s face clouded. The couple at the next table looked up.

“Adam, don’t,” my mother said. “Please.”

“She lost her job today,” I said to her, then looked again at Gianni. “Want to talk about getting it back?”

“Why Gianni?” my mother said. “What are you talking about?”

“Tell her,” I said to Gianni.

Claudia said something more in Italian, rapid-fire, too fast to catch. Gianni’s face darkened again.

“Enough,” he said in English. “First the father, now your job. Everything that goes wrong in your life you blame on me? Why?”

“You made the call, didn’t you?” I said. “Tell her.” I nodded to my mother, then put my hand on Claudia’s back, ready to go.

“Listen to me,” Gianni said before I could turn, almost in an undertone, just English to the rest of the room. “We are almost finished. We will take our coffee elsewhere. Sit over there with your friend. In a few minutes we’ll be gone. No scenes.”

“Do you think I would stay in the same room with you?” Claudia said to him in English.

“I am sorry for your confusion,” he said deliberately. “A misunderstanding. Some other time we will discuss it.”

“Darling, do please stop,” my mother said. “I don’t know what this is all about. Gianni doesn’t even know her. I told you.”

“Is that right?” Claudia said to him. “You don’t remember me? Shall I describe it for her?”

“Adam, you can see what she’s like,” Gianni said. “Take another table. People are beginning to look.”

“You don’t remember her?” I said.

“Go to the table,” he said in a hard whisper.

“That’s right. You forget things. You don’t remember her father either, your friend from med school. Do you remember the Villa Raspelli? Your friends there? I found somebody today who remembers you.”

“Adam, really—” my mother said, but the rest of it faded, only a sound in the background, because at that instant I saw Gianni’s face shift. Not just a scowl, a narrowing of the eyes, but a look of such pure hatred that for a second I couldn’t breathe, trapped in it, the way a victim must feel just at the end. He wanted me dead. In that one look I saw that everything Claudia had said was true, that he was capable of it. What I hadn’t seen in the photographs or behind the smiles over a lunch table: the eyes of someone who could kill. Steadily, without hesitation, just getting something out of the way. And then it was gone—the eyes blinked, adjusting themselves.

“I remember the Villa Raspelli,” he said, staring at me, then shifted again and bowed, an elaborate courtesy. “I’m sorry you can’t join us. Perhaps another time.” He sat down, turning his back to us. The effect was to make people look at us, wondering why we were still standing there.

“Oh, Adam,” my mother said quietly, dismayed.

“Ask him about it over coffee,” I said to her. “Since he remembers.”

“Sit down,” she said, almost hissing.

“No, we’re leaving,” I said, turning to the puzzled maître d’ for our coats.

“You don’t want a table?” the maître d’ said, flustered, sensing a moment gone wrong.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said, taking the coats. “Tomorrow.”

Since this made no sense to him, he just stood there watching us go. Everyone watched, in fact, except Gianni.

In the street I gulped some air, then helped Claudia into her coat and pulled up the collar. Guido’s had an antique lantern over the door, and we stood in its light for a minute, breathing streams of vapor in the cold air.

“Never mind,” I said. “There’s another place near La Fenice.”

“He thinks I’m following him,” Claudia said.

But it was Gianni who followed us, suddenly opening the door, coatless, and stepping into the lantern light.

“Who told you about Villa Raspelli?” he said.

“What does it matter who? Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“You think you know something. You don’t know anything.”