With an unshakable certainty, he knew that this story was what Frieda was searching all around Burano and Venice for.
His mind went back, as it was doing so often now, to the night of Frieda’s party. When he had asked her if she were planning to write something about Burano, she had said, rather mysteriously, that she was working on something that was sure to interest him even more. And then she had glanced at Habib.
It didn’t take too much effort to figure out that she must have been referring to what he had just read, with its distorted, camouflaged similarities to his relationship with Habib. It had only been after her party, however, that he had told her the circumstances of his first meeting with Habib in the Fez medina. The story’s conception, if not its composition, seemed to have come before either of the two murders as well as before his own confidences.
The story spoke of responsibility and all too clearly and painfully of Habib’s vulnerability. The boy in it had trusted not wisely, but too well, and had ended up dead because of it.
How had the story ended up in Habib’s possession? Frieda hadn’t given it to him. If she had, she wouldn’t think she had lost it.
Did the story have anything to do with how Habib had rushed out of the Palazzo Uccello, apparently in search of something to show him? Something that, once shown, would spoil everything, as he had said? And could all of this be related to the altercation at Giorgio’s apartment that the neighbors heard before Habib was arrested?
The German dictionary indicated that Habib had been reading the story. How far had he gotten, and how much had he understood?
And why hadn’t he told him about it? It appeared as if he had been trying to conceal it beneath the divan.
Could he have taken it from the Casa Verde? Habib might not be a murderer, but was he a thief?
Urbino cried out a silent protest.
There were holes everywhere, holes that could never contribute to any design, it seemed to him, no matter how skillfully and patiently one plied the needle. They were holes big enough to fall into.
He was overwhelmed with an even greater urgency than before to help Habib.
If to help was to harm, as the tale said in its sinister way, then they were already doomed.
3
Urbino had never gone to the Questura with more trepidation and anger than he did at four that afternoon. He didn’t know if all the alcohol he had drunk was going to prove to be a handicap or not, but at the moment he was grateful for its comfort. He felt forlorn as he sat in Gemelli’s outer office, the valise for Habib on the floor beside him.
Fortunately, Commissario Gemelli didn’t keep him waiting long.
As soon as Urbino seated himself on the other side of the metal desk, Gemelli switched on the tape recorder. He was a dark, good-looking man in his early fifties, with a military bearing.
“We meet again, Macintyre. Too bad our paths don’t cross socially as well.”
He picked up a crushed pack of cigarettes and gestured with it in Urbino’s direction.
“Still not smoking? Even now?”
He took a cigarette out, smoothed it, and lit it. Gulls screeched outside the windows.
“You’re not looking well. Much worse than your Moroccan friend, as a matter of fact. But perhaps that’s not so strange considering the difference in your ages. How well do you know Laroussi?”
Habib had always been happy that his name sounded Italian. It made him feel less a stranger in the country. But he wouldn’t be pleased with Gemelli’s tone. No sooner did Urbino think this, than he reminded himself that by now Habib had probably become all too familiar with the commissario’s tone.
“Quite well.”
“And for how long?”
“Sixteen months.”
Gemelli took a drag on his cigarette.
“What exactly is the nature of your relationship?”
“As you just said, Habib Laroussi’s my friend.”
“Friends across the ages and across the seas, but, obviously in this case, not across the sexes.”
Urbino remained silent for a few moments, then said, “Call it a very particular friendship.”
“I assume you want to help your particular friend, Macintyre. Going all evasive isn’t the way.”
“He could be further endangered if I’m not careful about what I say and how I say it. I wouldn’t withhold any information that I believed would be of help to him, no matter what it might be, but I have no intention of telling you anything that might be used against him.”
“So we’ll call your relationship with Laroussi a particular friendship. Knowing you as I do, it tells me enough, but only for the moment, I assure you. How did you meet?”
Urbino told him the story he had told Frieda, about how Habib had come to his rescue when he had been mugged in the Fez medina. He could see from Gemelli’s expression that he was even more skeptical of Habib’s motives than Frieda had been.
When he finished, Gemelli said, “The oldest scam in the book. Two guys working over the dupe. The bad one and the good one. And you showered Laroussi with all your trust and a good deal of money. You were ripe for the picking as soon as you stepped into that Arab street looking like someone from the pages of L’Uomo Vogue.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“I am? Tell me. What did the Fez police say when you filed a report?”
Urbino shifted uneasily in his seat.
“I didn’t go to the police.”
“Indeed? And why not?”
Urbino wanted to shout that he hadn’t gone because the police there were even ten times worse than Gemelli himself was, which was pretty bad to begin with. But he kept his silence.
“Let me answer for you. You didn’t because Laroussi said it wasn’t a good idea. They would harass him, he said, and he didn’t want them to bother you either. You had your wallet, he pointed out. There was no need to get the police involved. Something like that, was it?”
Urbino said nothing. Gemelli shook his head.
“I thought you were a smart guy, Macintyre. Who’s smarter? You or Laroussi, who’s now here in Italy and living with you at the Palazzo Uccello as your very particular friend? Oh, but I forget. He’s not there at the moment, is he? He’s being detained on suspicion of murder in his own private little cell. On very strong suspicion.”
“You don’t even have circumstantial evidence against him.”
Gemelli gave an unpleasant smile and snuffed out his cigarette in the stub-filled ashtray.
“Don’t be so sure of that.”
Urbino waited for him to say more, but it soon became obvious that he wasn’t going to be sharing this kind of information, if, in fact, he had any. Gemelli lit up another cigarette, went to one of the windows, and pushed aside the curtain.
“Luigi Torino has filed all the papers and is petitioning to have Laroussi released under your supervision, Macintyre, but it’s not going to happen. Not even if the representative from the Moroccan embassy has a letter tomorrow from his ambassador. Laroussi is going to be staying there a while longer.” He paused, still looking down at the canal with its police boats. “A whole lot longer.”
“You can’t keep him there forever. He’s innocent.”
Gemelli dropped the curtain and turned back to Urbino.
“I can’t believe how American you still are after all these years. Let’s assume that he’s as innocent as the lamb you think he is. His chances for staying in Italy are less than zero, with the way things are in the world these days. We know them all too well down in Sicily, believe me, Macintyre.”
“Them?” Urbino repeated with a challenge
“North Africans. Arabs. Muslims. Illegal immigrants.”
“Signor Laroussi is not illegal, and he’s not an immigrant. He has a valid residency permit.”
“Which can be revoked at any time, especially under the circumstances, and even if he is a lamb. Even your own land of freedom isn’t too favorable to his kind. This isn’t America, but it i
sn’t Morocco either. That’s why young men like Laroussi will do anything to get here. And stay. Take his brother, for example.”
Gemelli looked at Urbino closely.
“Which brother? He has two.”
“But he had three.”
Urbino tried to conceal his surprise.
“His brother Lotfi died three years ago,” Gemelli went on. “He was in a small boat with twenty other North Africans. They had got to Malta. From there they were promised passage to the golden shores of Italy by one of our industrious immigration gangs. For a very generous sum, of course. When the Italian coast guard approached, he jumped into the sea, and drowned off the coast of Sicily.”
“How terrible!”
“A common enough story these days. As I said, those people will do anything to get here. I guess Laroussi’s brother didn’t have any luck crossing over to Spain from Morocco.”
Urbino’s heart was pounding. He was a confusion of thoughts and emotions. Gemelli’s revelation put in a new light Habib’s distress over the Albanian woman who he thought had been about to throw herself in the Grand Canal and possibly drown. It also explained his fascination with the article on the accidental deaths of the illegal immigrants in England.
“You’ll never find out who really killed Fratino if you can’t see any farther than your own prejudices!” Urbino broke out.
His anger brought an amused look to Gemelli’s face.
Urbino stood up.
“Look for a link between Fratino’s murder and the death of the former lace maker, Nina Crivelli, two weeks ago on Burano.”
To Urbino’s satisfaction Gemelli now seemed puzzled.
“Are you saying that this woman—what was her name? Crivelli?—was murdered?”
“The medical examiner says it was a massive heart attack, but she was murdered. I’m sure of it.”
“As sure as you are of Laroussi’s innocence? We’ll do some checking up, if only because you’ve been right a few times before. I’ll grant you that. But let me tell you something. You may be opening another can of worms and dumping it right in Laroussi’s plate. Some link between Fratino’s murder and the murder—or so you say—of this lace maker? Laroussi could be that link. Three paintings of Burano were found in Fratino’s apartment. Laroussi admits to having painted them.”
“Admits? I’m surprised you don’t say confesses. Do you have someone who speaks Arabic? Or are you managing to confuse the poor boy completely?”
“He understands us well enough, believe me. But maybe your Torino with his Ermenegildo Zegna suit should have thought of that himself. At any rate, tomorrow or the next day the official from the Moroccan embassy will be arranging for someone from the university here to do the translating.”
“By which time you will have managed to get him to say anything! I want to see him as soon as possible!”
Gemelli took a long drag on his cigarette.
“You know, Macintyre, I actually feel sorry for you. For the first time since we’ve been squaring off against each other. Yes, you can see your particular friend, Laroussi. I’ll make arrangements for tomorrow morning after he meets with the Moroccan official. And I’ll see that your lovely little valise is delivered to him this evening.”
4
Exactly how he got back home Urbino didn’t remember. He had a jumbled impression of squares and bridges, of twisting alleys and dark passageways under buildings, of looming statues and cluttered market stalls. Lone gondoliers at the foot of bridges, desperate for commerce in this period between the New Year and Carnevale, called out “Gondola! Gondola!” mistaking him, perhaps because of his distracted air, for a tourist. He returned the greetings of acquaintances mechanically and hurried on.
The house seemed cold and empty. Serena greeted him at the top of the staircase as she usually did, but even she seemed bewildered. Her plume of a tail drooped at a discouraged angle. He gave her a generous portion of her favorite canned food sent by a friend in London, but she only sniffed at it and padded away.
A note from Natalia said that Rebecca had telephoned and would be back at the Hotel d’ Inghilterra at six o’clock. It was twenty-five minutes past five.
After a quick shower, he poured himself a glass of Corvo. He then telephoned Frieda from the library. The pages of her story were still scattered over the surface of the refectory table.
“It’s Urbino. We have to talk,” he said as soon as she had picked up.
“Urbino! I was just thinking about calling you. I need—”
“Did you find what you thought you had left at the Biblioteca Marciana?”
“No, I—”
“I believe I have what you’re looking for. A manila envelope with a story about a prince from a kingdom of ice and snow who kills a jeweler’s son.”
During the long moment of silence that descended on the line to Burano, Urbino could feel the German woman’s surprise. Or was it fear?
“You have it? I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. I have some questions I need to ask you, but not over the phone.”
“I have some questions as well.” She had regained some of her composure. “As well as something to show you. That’s why I was about to telephone you.”
“I’ll come over tonight.”
“No, no! I will come to the Palazzo Uccello. I am having dinner with Marie and Beatrix at their apartment.” The two women had rooms on the Fondamenta Nuove, about a fifteen-minute walk from the Palazzo Uccello. “I will also spend the night with them. I will see you at nine o’clock.”
She hung up before he could tell her that Habib had been arrested. But perhaps she already knew and in her confusion and relief had forgotten to mention it.
5
“What’s going on up there?” was the first thing Rebecca said. “First Marino is attacked. Now Barbara’s boatman has been murdered and Habib is arrested!”
“Everything seems to be falling apart. Marino’s still unconscious. No one knows what’s happened except that his shop was broken into. As for Habib, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He was too weary and preoccupied to go into all the details. He also felt an urgency. He needed information.
“I get the picture. Habib is a convenient scapegoat. His skin color and nationality, not to mention his religion, fit the bill these days. I can imagine how you must be feeling. You know what I think about him. He deserves all the efforts you can make on his behalf. And given the backlash we’ve been seeing against immigrants in this country and against anyone who even looks Arab or is suspected of being Muslim, he’s going to need them. The boy has a temper, yes, but murder!”
“What do you mean about his temper?”
“It’s nothing against him. I just hope he controls it when they interrogate him. He can get very angry. One time on the vaporetto he almost threw a fit when the attendant accused him of trying to get a free ride. Habib couldn’t find his Carta Venezia transport pass. I thought he would push the man into the Canal.”
Like the time in the gold shop in Fez, Urbino thought.
“He has a sense of justice and fairness,” was his only response.
“Of course that’s what I meant. But, Urbino, when you called a few days ago it wasn’t about Habib, was it? This whole thing hadn’t happened yet.”
“It was about Marino. Does he have any connection with Burano?”
“A connection with Burano? Well, he knows Frieda Hensel, of course. They met through Beatrix Bauma, who’s a client.”
“What about lace?”
“Lace? Marino isn’t the type for lace, unless we’re talking about something like that chalice cover you bought from him. Then he’ll sell it for ten times more than he paid. But you know that about Marino. He’s got a good eye for quality and an even better one for money. But now that I think about it, I did see him talking with an old Buranella once or twice. You don’t think she could have a dogaressa’s robe hidden away in a chest somewhere, do you?”
&nbs
p; “Where did you see them?”
“On Burano last month. I went there about the renovation of a building off the square. From the window I saw Marino talking to a woman in the street. She must have been in her seventies. Snow-white hair, glasses, and black, fingerless gloves.”
“Did you mention it to him?”
“Not until the night of Frieda’s party when I saw them talking together again. She approached him as I was ducking into a shop to get Frieda a card. When I came out a few minutes later, she was walking away. I made a joke about how persistent the lace makers were. I explained how I had seen him talking with the same woman in December. He said I was mistaken, and that was that.” She was silent for a few moments. “But I’m sure it was the same woman. She’s rather hard to forget. Just as hard to mistake for someone else as Marino is.”
“Did the woman trace her finger in the air as she spoke?”
“Trace her finger in the air? No, I would have noticed that. But wait a minute! Wasn’t there talk about a lace maker the night of Frieda’s party? Yes, and I remember something about gloves without any fingers. It must be the same woman and”—Rebecca was making quick connections—“could it be the woman who died the same night? Is that why you’re interested in her? But she died before Polidoro was attacked. And before Barbara’s boatman was murdered. What does it all mean?”
“That’s what I need to find out.”
After talking with Rebecca, Urbino called the Venice taxi service and spoke with Natalia’s cousin, who worked for the company. The last time a taxi had been hired either to or from Burano had been by an American more than six months ago.
6
When nine, then nine-thirty had come and gone, and Frieda hadn’t arrived, Urbino suspected she might be paying him back for keeping her waiting at Quadri’s.
Then, at a quarter to ten, the doorbell was pushed several times in rapid intervals.
“Finally!” Frieda cried as soon as he opened the door. She hurried past him. As she came into the light, he saw that she looked frightened. Her blunt haircut was disarrayed. The knees of her red corduroy trousers were soiled. “I’ve been attacked.”
Deadly to the Sight Page 19
