My annoyance with Taverner mighthave eased up by the time we got to Venice if it hadn’t been for the house. I was expecting a typical Venetian property, tall and narrow, with worn brick or sooty ochre plaster—something nondescript that would blend in with the neighbors. Instead, we got a miniature palazzo, or close enough as made no difference. It was three stories and as wide as it was tall, washed in dark rose paint. The ground floor had stout oak doors that looked like they’d been there since Savonarola was pitching bonfires in Florence, but the windows on the floors above were elegantly framed in dark green trim. A set of French doors led onto a tiny balcony that was dripping in vines. Here and there a few early pink blossoms shoved their heads above the window boxes.
I scanned the building for security. No cameras, just the heavy wooden doors and metal bars at the windows. They were laid in a decorative pattern of running squares, but they’dkeep intruders out as long as they weren’t rusted through. We’d have to station doorbell cameras at strategic spots. No problem—I hadn’t expected state-of-the-art security from a VRBO. What I had expected was discretion. The house was easily the prettiest in the Campo Santa Margherita, and I didn’t like it. Pretty got you noticed.
The others weren’t bothered. Helen was busy throwing open the shutters to let in the afternoon light while Mary Alice was chattering with Signora Bevilacqua as our hostess pointed out the features of the apartment in rapid-fire Italian. She was older than the pyramids, Signora Bevilacqua, with a flame-red wig and a face powdered to a dead white, punctuated by a thick pair of false eyelashes and a slash of cherry pink lipstick. She wore vintage Chanel which she probably bought from Coco herself back in the day, and she had pearls in her ears the size of ripe grapes.
“The wi-fi, sometimes she works, sometimes she does not,” the signora said. The Venetian dialect looks like Italian on paper, but to the ear it sounds like a different language. Where Italian is staccato, Venetian is curvy and lyrical. It is musical if you like your music Baroque. Mary Alice seemed to be understanding about one word in twelve, but with hand gestures and facial expressions, she was catching the gist. They discussed the hot water situation—unpredictable at best—and where to buy the best bread. The signora produced a list with her recommendations and turned to plant two cherry kisses on Taverner’s cheeks.
I turned away. “Let’s get unpacked and set up. It’s going to be a long night.”
—
Mary Alice and Akiko baggedthe largest bedroom at the back of the house while Nat and Helen took smaller private singles on the floor above, and Minka grabbed the tiny maid’s room behind the kitchen. That left a double for Taverner and me to share. It was just above the salon and had the same view of the campo. Shutters had been thrown open and I could hear kids knocking around a soccer ball as the afternoon waned. Taverner was smart enough to make himself scarce while I unpacked. He headed for the kitchen, banging and chopping and stirring as I threw my stuff into a wardrobe that looked as old as the house and went back downstairs with a notebook.
Akiko eyed it. “Keeping it old-school. I approve.”
“I think better when I can doodle,” I told her. I also think better when I can smoke, so I took a chair near the open windows and put my lighter to good use. I flicked the ashes into a handy potted plant until Mary Alice pursed her lips and brought me a saucer to use as an ashtray. I jotted a few questions for research, then marked them out, feeling an itch I couldn’t scratch.
“What?” Mary Alice asked. She has always been the most in tune with my moods and the least likely to judge them.
I blew out a mouthful of smoke. “We’re on the run again with no real clue as to how to find the woman who wants us dead. Helen is barely speaking to me because I got her house burned down. I am sharing a room with a man I am currently annoyed with, and I killed a man in front of his teddy bear.”
“Which of those things is a now problem?”
“Finding Galina,” I said promptly.
“I might have an idea,” she replied. I gave her a hopeful look, but she made a vague gesture with her hand. “Later. What’s going on with you and Taverner?”
I shrugged. “The same stuff we’ve been fighting over for forty years. I won’t let my guard down, blah blah. Commitment issues. Blah.”
“He’s not wrong,” she says, and it’s a testimony to how much I love her that I didn’t punch her right in the mouth.
Instead, I gave her a warning look. “Mary Alice.”
“Seriously, Billie. I don’t understand what your problem is right now. He’s been helpful so far. He’s kept us fed and he’s the one who figured out the clue in Pasha’s diary. You should be thanking that man with home cooking and blow jobs, but instead you’re pouting like a teenage girl left home on prom night.”
“Taverner and I haven’t worked together in a long time,” I reminded her. “And I don’t like mixing business and pleasure. I never did.”
“What are you so afraid of?”
She didn’t really expect me to answer that. She knew better. Instead, she waited while I took another long drag on my cigarette and stubbed it out carefully on the saucer she’d brought.
I sat back in my chair and looked at her until she cracked with a sigh. “Fine. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. Our hunch to come here was right. I found her boy.”
She tapped on her phone before handing it over. I scrolled the site she’d pulled up. It was the official site of the Gran Teatro La Fenice, the tiny jewel box of a theatre that housed Venice’s opera company. It was over the top, a pink velvetconfection with gilded frosting. I’d been there once, a lifetime ago, when I was scouting a target. I’d sat through an excruciatingDie Meistersingerbut I’d enjoyed the people watching.
“I always thought it looks like a Baroque bordello,” I said, passing the phone back. “What did you find out?”
She tapped again. “I have been scrolling the calendar. Next week they are mountingFaustby Gounod.”
“Never heard it,” I told her.
She rolled her eyes. “Of course you haven’t. You’re still listening to Cher on the original vinyl.” Mary Alice played viola in an amateur chamber orchestra and loved anything written before 1900. I preferred Southern swamp rock and Fleetwood Mac. She went on. “It’s not a bad work if you like your opera a little on the avant-garde side. But I am bringing it to your attention because I have scoured the cast lists for every performance of every opera, and I found something quite interesting.” She paused for dramatic effect. “It’s the story of Faust’s bargain with the devil. And the role of Valentin, brother of the heroine, Marguerite, is being sung by—drumroll, please—the very baritone we’ve been looking for. Wolfgang Praetorius.”
“Damn,” I murmured, impressed.
Mary Alice cocked her head. “Now go make up with your boyfriend. It smells like dinner is ready and I could eat a cactus, I’m so hungry.”
—