The Gondola Scam

by Jonathan Gash

  "Those " I indicated with a jerk of my head but didn't dare look.

  'The birds?"

  There was this stall selling dead seagulls and bald quail dangling on hooks.

  "Poor dear! Is it the price? We might get one cheaper round the corner.'

  "No, love. It's just—"

  "Ah. Simpatico!" She hugged my arm as if enormously pleased, then remembered and dragged me among barrows to confront a granite statue of a little burdened bloke carrying steps which led up to the Egyptian granite rostrum.

  "Our laws used to be proclaimed here. He's the Gobbo."

  The statue looked knackered, humping that enormous weight. She was smiling and reached out to pat him. We had to shove aside a heap of old vegetable boxes.

  "When I was a little girl I felt so sorry for him." She told me how in the old days wrongdoers had to run the gauntlet naked from St. Mark's Basilica to touch the Gobbo.

  ''He's a lovely old thing. If the bad men reached him, all was forgotten. For a statue to do so much good!"

  "And if they didn't?"

  "Ah, well." She was thinking of my faintness at the sight of the hanging seagulls and decided the fewer explanations the better. "Now we go to our beautiful fish market!"

  I didn't quite make that, and had to wait shakily at the San Giacomo church for her after only a brief glance at the masses of stalls covered with eels, squids, every sort of glistening fish imaginable, crabs, shellfish. I know that grub turns a lot of people on. I mean, Cosima made a breathless return, hugely pleased with herself and carrying a parcel. "What a pity you wouldn't come with me, Lovejoy! They're lovely fish today, but the prices! Scandalous!"

  The single arch of the Rialto Bridge has been severely criticized over the centuries, but as I paused to give it a last look I couldn't help thinking that Antonio da Ponte didn’t do too bad a job. Cosima stood by me, looking.

  "Is it true about Michelangelo?" I asked her. I wasn't worried about her answer, but asking some daft question gave me time to glance casually at the motorboat idling near the Riva del Ferro.

  "Competing to design the Ponte? Yes. But he didn't get the contract."

  "Why not?"

  She gave that lovely tilted Latin shrug I keep trying to imitate. "He wasn't Venetian, of course."

  Of course. We had coffee in a campo near the Formosa church. Cosima told me how they used to have bullfights in the campo spaces between the canals. I don't know how much I took in of all she told me that day, but I wish now I'd burned every word into my brain. All I did was gaze at her lovely animated face, watch her delectable mouth move, and try to suppress the craving growing in me. The trouble is that hunger comes stealing into you when you least expect it. All I hoped was that her bloke wasn't an all-in wrestler, and that he wouldn't show.

  She took us on a detour and paused at a sottoportego, a little alley going under a building. Politely she asked me to wait a moment please. I said of course, and watched her go through into a small courtyard beyond. She'd probably gone inside to make a discreet check that he hadn't arrived yet. Okay, so I was second fiddle. So what? Where was the harm? There was one of those disused wellheads in the campo's center so characteristic of Venice's tiny open spaces. While I waited, I had a smile watching a pigeon bathe beneath a water tap. I wouldn't have smiled if I'd known what was coming.

  The motorboat idling by the Riva del Ferro was on my mind. It had been a weird pastel blue, with a thickset bloke at the wheel. And I was nearly certain that the affluent older woman seated in the center was the rich cocktail bird who had argued with me in the hotel bar last night The boat wasn't going anywhere, just idling. And again she had given me that incisive stare. Now, a bloke staring at a bird is merely being his usual magpie self. But a bird ogling a bloke is either in heat or on the warpath. And us complete strangers.

  Five minutes later, Cosima appeared without her fish parcel. We solemnly linked arms and walked on like repleted lovers at peace with the world.

  14

  At ten o'clock that night I ambled down the Riva degli Schiavoni, in absolute paradise. It had been a magic day. Magic.

  Cosima's bloke hadn't shown after all. Real luck, that. A whole day going about with Cosima, and she had taken me back to her place—a cramped little third-floor flat, through the sottoportego as I'd guessed. I'd had her bloke's supper. Odd, but she'd enjoyed the whole bit, cooking shyly but with that determination women get. I didn't look, just read and watched her telly, occasionally calling out questions about things that caught my attention. She said the inky stuff she served the seppia fish in was the right color, and gave me polenta which she made herself. It was good stuff. I told her she was hired, and made her laugh. And she even promised to show me some of the lagoon's outer islands tomorrow. Magic.

  Nothing happened much after that. No, honestly. I really didn't lay a finger on her, and she showed no sign of dragging me into the closed room beyond the tiny kitchen, stripping me naked, and savagely wreaking her crazed lust on my poor defenseless unprotected body. And neither of us said it was a long walk back for me to the hotel. Or said how lonely beds are on your own. I definitely have nothing to report. Which is how I came to be ambling home along the Riva beneath its double rows of lamps in the night mist.

  An odd thing, though. A boat started up suddenly as I neared the Victor Emmanuel statue. It sounded familiar, like Cesare's, but it tore off towards the Arsenale before I could see whose it was. That’s the trouble with standing in a well-lit place, even if it is the mist-shrouded waterfront of the Venice lagoon. You can't see them, but they can see you. Daft as a brush, I thought nothing of it at the time. One boat in a nation of boats is nothing, right?

  That night I fell asleep blissfully happy. Well, I would have done but for a silly game I used to play which sometimes comes back to me at the oddest times, like a daft jingle you can't get rid of. The game's called Edgar Allan Poe. He once said the ingredients of a good con trick are minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity, audacity, nonchalance, originality, impertinence—and grin! That's nine ingredients. In my game, you must assume that Poe was wrong. You are allowed only three of his nine, so which six ingredients do you chuck out? I always end up with minuteness, nonchalance, and the grin. Except I tossed and turned most of the night, ecstatically happy with memories of Cosima but playing my stupid game over and over in my head. It's usually a sign I'm worried, but what the hell could I possibly be worrying about? Cosima liked me. I was almost sure she did.

  An hour before dawn it came to me. The worrying thing was that nobody was grinning at all, except me.

  And when I woke and went down to breakfast at eight o'clock, Nancy, David, Agnes, and Doris had booked out. Not a word. It happens. And anyway nothing to do with my main problem. Right?

  Cosima and I were down for an airport run for an incoming flight that day. There would be no afternoon arrival, so I suggested she take the morning off; but to my delight she said no, she'd come and we would do the run jointly with Cesare.

  While I waited for her to arrive after breakfast, I chatted with Cesare, whose boat had been moored by then. Today he was at the Riva near where the big tugboats berth against those creaking, wobbling posts.

  "Got a fact, Cesare?" I said to lessen his sourness.

  "Yours are never worth any money, Lovejoy."

  That was a bit rough, but I trotted out a cracker.

  "Turner the painter did a watercolor of the Rialto Bridge. It's lost."

  He nodded. "Worth a fortune, eh?"

  "Two fortunes. Your fact?"

  He looked over the water. "Every year, Lovejoy, people drown at night in the lagoon."

  I thought. "That's not worth much."

  "It may be worth more than you know."

  Narked, I started to say something but chewed the sentence off. I shrugged and strolled over to watch the people embarking at the waterbus, nearly falling over that old geezer who sits there selling lottery tickets. White beard, tatty cap, his clubfoot thrust out to trip
the unwary. I'd made him laugh the day before by nicknaming him Ivan the Terrible. He always looks asleep, but he's not. Rustle a banknote within ten yards and his eyes are wide awake.

  The Riva seemed to be filling early today. The San Zaccaria waterbus stop was thronged with people trying to get off. Cosima would arrive from the direction of St. Mark's, so I walked past that daft statue as far as the bridge over the del Vin canal and stood watching.

  My jubilation of the previous night had dissipated in the strange problem of Nancy. I had asked the reception clerk earlier if he had a message for me but no luck. That narked me. Nancy might at least have dropped me a line or two, even if it was only a "See you again sometime." I decided that was typical of women's callousness and leaned over the bridge parapet to see one of the pavement artists at work, a bearded lad with a small patient dog. Cosima couldn't miss me even in the crowd, stuck up here.

  The bearded artist was really quite good and I became interested. He seemed to specialize in views of the Salute church and the San Giorgio Maggiore, both easily visible from here, but he was not averse to dashing off the odd portrait masterpiece in charcoal. He was doing one now, of a black girl. I recognized her. She sat on the little campstool, aware of her attractiveness and the interest of the crowd. A movie character, Cosima had said. Yet another.

  Somebody made a remark, pointing at the sketch. The artist was provoked by that. It's just the way artists are, but this one was especially vehement and gave the critical bystander a mouthful, which made us all laugh. To prove a point he pulled out an unfinished sketch and held it up, gesticulating with his charcoal. There was a lot of good-natured backchat, but I didn't care about joining in. All I cared about was hurtling down the bridge steps, suddenly and breathless, getting hold of that unfinished sketch.

  "The sketch almost finished and she runs off," the artist was complaining. "All my time and genius wasted! Leaving me unpaid! Because of thoughtless comments such as yours!"

  "Finish it," somebody suggested, amid chatter. "Then sell it."

  "Who to? Who would buy—"

  "Me, signore," I interrupted, winded but struggling to sound casual.

  "Ah!" the crowd exclaimed, interest quickening. I grinned amiably.

  The artist was delighted. "You know the sitter, signore?"

  "Afraid not." I made a comedy out of the denial and people laughed because anybody could tell the sketch was of a lovely bird. "But you have caught a certain light—"

  "I'll finish it for you—"

  "No. That would be a mistake. I prefer it as it is." I had the sense to apologize to the black girl for interrupting. Amid the babble of conversation I paid the artist a full fee and went to sit on the bridge steps to examine the unfinished sketch. Old Ivan the Terrible cackled a laugh nearby. The old devil was watching.

  "Such bad luck with the girls that you have to fall for a portrait?"

  "Shut your gums, silly old sod."

  It was definitely Nancy. I didn't want to ask the bearded artist when he had sketched her, because the presence of the girl now posing for him made me somehow uneasy. I was worrying sick about possibilities. Suppose Nancy had waited on the Riva to be collected. It might have occurred to her to have herself drawn . . . perhaps intending it as a souvenir? Or as a present she could leave me at the hotel? That was like Nancy. Which raised the interesting question of why she had done neither, and left it in the hands of a complaining and unpaid artist. So she must have left it in a rush, under sudden compulsion. David's special “assignment.”

  ''Buon giorno, Lovejoy."

  "Eh? Oh."

  Cosimo was standing there smiling, absolutely dazzling. Hastily I scrambled to my feet, trying to roll the sketch up so she wouldn't see. I didn't want her, of all people, thinking I was loose or immoral or anything. We descended the bridge steps and moved along the Riva to where Cesare's boat was moored.

  "Thank you for yesterday, love," I said. "Cesare's ready."

  "Not at all, Lovejoy." She eyed the scroll I was clutching. "Souvenir?"

  "Only a little sketch of the airport." My eyes were downcast and soulful. "Where I first saw you."

  She paused. "Oh, Lovejoy!" She said my name as if I was nothing but trouble. "What sort of man are you?'

  "Erm, only ordinary. What do you mean, love?'

  Her enormous eyes made me dizzy. It was like looking down two deep wells. "I feel so foolish. Sometimes you're just absurd."

  "Absurd?" I was just going to give her a mouthful when we heard Cesare yelling angrily and saw him at the jetty pointing at his watch. We walked along and boarded, a bit guiltily I thought, though God knows why either of us should feel guilty for nothing. Cesare's attitude hadn't improved. Cosima's brilliant mood had dulled somewhat. I sat there seething.

  Absurd? Me?

  Bloody cheek. That's the trouble with women. No judgment of character.

  Somebody once said that death and Venice go together. Soon I would learn the hard way that they were right. If I'd had half the sense I was born with, I'd have stopped daydreaming about sex and the precious ancient glass of the ancient glass factories, because all the clues were there for the asking. But, me being me and having only the brains of a rocking horse, I ignored all the portents and simply sat in Cesare's boat and was wafted graciously to the Marco Polo.

  At the airport Cosima bustled about with her clipboard in the arrivals hall. I stood like a suspect while she checked my three badges and my Cosol Tours placard.

  I said lightly, "Here, Cosima. What's happened to Agnes? You know, David thingy's elderly bird. The hotel said she'd booked out."

  Cosima pursed her lips, pushing me into a more favorable position along the row of tour operators' reception stalls opposite the Customs exit. "They were recalled."

  I tut-tutted. "Holiday cut short, eh?"

  Cosima said absently, frowning with concentration at the flight indicator, "They flew out during the night."

  "Shame," I said.

  "Film people," she said with a pretty tilted shrug. "Sudden people, non e vero?"

  "Lives not their own," I agreed sympathetically as the concourse filled with our arriving passengers. "Cosol Tours," I started up. "Cosol this way, please."

  15

  The trouble with some people is their heads never switch off. I'm the same. Even kipping's a busy time with me, all manner of guesses and frighteners swarming through a gray matter that's basically angry that the rest of the body's dozing just when it wants to play. What with all this free activity, you'd think I'd be marvelous at planning ahead, a veritable Sherlock Holmes.

  Wrong.

  I'm a duckegg. Absolutely pathetic. There's proof: that bad day at Torcello.

  It was all my idea. I admit that. But having an idea doesn't mean everything that happens is my fault.

  Like I said, Venice is a mass of islands, and Torcello was practically the first of the Venetian islands ever to be colonized by the people fleeing from troubles on the fifth-century mainland. In those early days it was even boss island, with tens of thousands all doing their thing in the new maritime nation. They say it's dying away, but aren't we all? It's the speed that matters.

  Everybody's heard of Torcello and its famous detached campanile (again leaning at a perilous angle) and the lovely wood-domed Santa Fosca church, so I was all agog to catch the vaporetto out and see it for myself. Heartrending to tear myself away from Venice proper, but we needn't be too long about it. In my mind I suppose was the notion of a last fling before I tackled the Palazzo Malcontento. Of course, I was here because I was genuinely interested in justice and truth, in preventing that yellow-suited nerk from committing murder again.

  But everybody deserves a rest now and again. So to think up a day in luscious old Torcello with the delectable Cosima was perfectly reasonable. A well-deserved rest.

  Among the mob I'd handled previously were two Australian blokes, doing Europe on a shilling with Venice their launch-pad. I’d shared a bottle of vino with them in the bar. One w
as a flaxen-haired drifter called Gerry, a real dreamer. Farthing-clever-penny-daft, my old Gran would have called him. He claimed to paint butterflies, and lived this great vision where suddenly the whole world rushed at him demanding canvases covered with acrylic butterflies. I asked him if he ever painted anything else and he looked at me as if I was off my nut. It takes all sorts. His mate Keith was lankier, cooler, more on the make and poisonously practical, daft on engines. Opposite poles attract and all that. Synergism implies difference. So clever old Lovejoy in a drunken stupor put the big dig when the fourth bottle was easier to lift than its predecessors, but they knew nothing about David and Nancy.

  "Never met them, sport," Keith said. That was as far as I got, because Gerry wanted to talk about painting butterflies and Keith about engines.

  "Engines," Keith insisted tipsily. "They're the future. What's missing in Venice, Lovejoy? Answer: engines! What's missing in the air, in Europe, in outer space? Answer: engines! Same in Australia, Africa, India, everywhere!"

  Nodding, I got blearily sloshed. Nancy had gone without trace. I felt so kindly towards this weird pair I got the next bottle, carefully charging it up to Cosol Tours to show off, and bragged to them about Torcello. In a drunken humor I told Gerry I'd heard it was riddled with butterflies and Keith it had lots of old engines.

  I was still part sloshed when for the umpteenth time I fell over Ivan the Terrible near the second bridge along the Riva, scattering his unsold lottery tickets. He was nearly as

  pickled as me, and we exchanged a mouthful of friendly abuse while I helped him to find them in the lamplight.

  "Drunk because you couldn't find your lovely American lady?" he demanded, to rile me. He made a crude gesture.

  "Shut up, you old fool." I paused. "Here, Ivan. How d'you know she was a Yank?"

  "She spoke like one. I'm not yet deaf."

  So he'd seen the whole scenario: Nancy being drawn by the artist, somebody coming urgently for her, the artist shouting rape because his fee went missing.

  "Was he a Yank, too?"

  "The one who took her? One was. But the other." Ivan the Terrible spat into the canal and closed his tatty old case. "One of them pretty-pretty boys from the Malcontento. Suit of many colors. They should all stay in Naples."