Surviving Venice

by Anna E Bendewald

  The doctor moved to the door, ushering them to the nurse waiting in the hall. “No one’s diet is sufficient nowadays.”

  “No. No shot.” She looked pleadingly at Juliette.

  “Just the blood draw for now, per favore, Doctor G,” Juliette said.

  The nurse led Rapheilli to the lab, and the doctor followed along with Gina saying, “The fetus requires large quantities of specific nutrients like folic acid and iron, and I’m certain you’re not getting near enough.”

  “You can draw blood, but that’s all today.” Gina’s voice was firm. This wisp of a flower girl was no pushover.

  Raphielli didn’t see what all the fuss was about. She sat in a little chair, propped her arm on a desk, rolled up her sleeve, let the nurse tie a rubber band around her forearm, squeezed the foam ball as directed, and looked away as a fat needle attached to a port was inserted into her vein.

  Gina gave her a sympathetic look. “I can watch other people give blood, but I can’t watch anything that’s done to me.”

  Raphielli tried to think about something other than the sensations caused by the fat needle in her arm as the nurse swapped out full vials and attached empty ones to the port to fill with blood. After four vials, another nurse asked if she wanted her vitamin shot in her arm or hip. “I guess the arm’s easiest.”

  “There’s not much fat there, so it’ll hurt more, and you may have some weakness in that arm for a day or so.”

  “Ooh, then let’s do my hip. I’ve got plenty of fat there.”

  After the port was removed, Raphielli got up to join the other nurse just past the counter at the side of the small space, and Gina took her place in the chair, looking away while the nurse prepped her arm. Raphielli felt Gina watching her as she unzipped the side of her pants and tugged until one haunch was exposed. Raphielli watched as vial after vial of blood was taken from Gina, and then felt a bit woozy, so she looked away to stare at the sign about hand washing. The doctor came in and moved to the cupboards in the back of the small room with a comment. “Good place to have your shot Raphielli, smart girl.”

  Raphielli hadn’t meant to turn around, but when she did, she saw the doctor pop a little vial into Gina’s empty port and plunge something into her vein. He popped it out and whisked it away as Gina turned her head accusingly.

  “Eh! What was that?” she cried.

  He gave her an innocent look. “Did I bump you? I can take this out. You look like you’re fading.” He offered her a distracted but sympathetic smile as he removed her port. “Hold this cotton ball right there.”

  “What did you just do?” she demanded.

  “That was the last one,” the nurse said over her shoulder as she labeled a vial of Gina’s blood. “Oh, grazie, Doctor. Let me just get a Band-Aid and…”

  “No, not you.” Gina waved her off. “Doctor G, what did you just do? Show me what you just did.”

  He opened his hands and looked surprised. “Nothing. I may have bumped your arm. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s very tight quarters in here with five of us,” the other nurse said as she withdrew the long needle from Raphielli’s hip and applied a cotton ball. “Here, press on this till I get you a Band-Aid.”

  Raphielli was about to tell Gina that she was right, but her mind literally yelled, Shut Up! She felt her heart begin to gallop, and the voice yelled, Act calm!

  The doctor was saying, “I just came in to get a box of cervical brushes, we’re out in room four.” He plucked one from the open shelf then left the room.

  “Sorry, Doctor,” Gina’s nurse called. “I thought I’d stocked the rooms.”

  “Hey, come back here, Doctor!” Gina raised her voice. “I turned around and saw you taking something out of my thingy!”

  The doctor didn’t come back, and Raphielli’s nurse said soothingly, “After a blood draw, you’re both bound to be woozy. I’ll get you some juice and you can lie down. We’ll keep you under observation till we get your blood sugar back up and can proceed with the exams.”

  Gina’s nurse said, “Your first trimester may be a dizzy one as your progesterone surges. They call it ‘pregnancy dementia’ or ‘baby brain.’”

  “I’m not dizzy and I don’t have…”

  The nurses exchanged understanding looks as Raphielli struggled to get her tight pants zipped up and Gina’s nurse finished helpfully, “Baby brain.”

  Raphielli was staring at Gina, willing her to be silent. When Gina caught sight of her, she blinked, gave her a questioning look, and stopped making a fuss. Raphielli jerked her head to the door, scooped up their purses from the hooks on the wall, and held her hand out. Gina got up and came over to her.

  The oblivious nurse asked, “What juice do you like? Apple? Or we have orange-cranberry?”

  Raphielli grabbed Gina’s hand and said in as casual a voice as she could muster, “Can we sit with Juliette? We’re just really excited. Can Juliette have juice too? I think we’ll all take apple. Three apples, per favore.”

  When her nurse turned to dispose of her supplies in the receptacles on the wall, Raphielli practically jerked Gina off her feet as she hauled her out of the room and speed-walked her past a room where the contessa was talking to someone they couldn’t see. The doctor? Don’t say anything! Run!

  They burst out of the doctor’s suite and Raphielli looked at the elevator’s indicator. The carriage was down on the first floor. “We’re not waiting here.” She pulled Gina toward a la scala sign. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she hissed through her teeth.

  “We need to get Juliette.”

  “No, we need to grab a water taxi.”

  “But it’s freezing outside and raining,” Gina objected.

  “Our adrenaline should keep us warm, or maybe he shot you with antifreeze.”

  “You saw?”

  “Sì.”

  “That bastard! I’m calling a lawyer!”

  “I’ve got a handful of people I trust, and right now I’m calling one of them.”

  “The police?”

  “Er, no.”

  If they hadn’t been dizzy before, running top speed in circles down flights of stairs did it. They staggered out onto a slim calle and moved with unsteady strides to the nearest taxi pier, clutching at the posts to keep from falling into the choppy water.

  Raphielli flagged the driver of the first taxi acqueo in line. The boat was small and, sadly, didn’t have an interior cabin, but right behind the driver was a hard canopy with a zippered canvas enclosure around the vinyl passenger seat. She clambered aboard and helped Gina in while directing the driver over her shoulder, “Scortini Palazzo, per favore.” He nodded and lazily turned the wheel. “The photos will not be good today.”

  She stuffed Gina under the canopy behind the canvas drape and then tapped him on the shoulder. “We don’t want a sightseeing cruise, we’ve got an emergency. Get through this traffic and I’ll give you a terrific tip.”

  “Terrific?” He looked at them like they were schoolgirls pulling a prank.

  “I’m Raphielli Scortini and I’ll make it worth your while,” she said.

  He shrilled his horn and yelled at other drivers to move as he pulled away from the pier.

  Raphielli nudged Gina. “Call Juliette, tell her to get to my place, top speed. Then get Vincenzo over to my place, now!”

  Gina reached into her sleek little bag and then with the phone pressed to her ear she called to the driver, “Do you have a blanket?”

  He pointed to a small lap blanket folded on a shelf in the enclosure. Gina snatched it up, draped it over the shoulders of her thin blouse, and hugged it close. “Anything else?”

  He shook his head and throttled forward to shoot between boats, and the girls had to grab for railings to keep from being pitched onto the soaking floor. Raphielli wiped the rain off her phone and stabbed a speed-dial icon.

  Gina yelled into her phone, “Juliette! Get over to Scortini palazzo right away! Don’t tell anyone but your driver. We’ll meet you
there. I’m calling Vincenzo.”

  “Ciao Bella,” said the smooth voice in Raphielli’s ear.

  “Gio, I’m in trouble!”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in a taxi heading home, and I need to know what you know about my father confessor.”

  He groaned loudly enough to be heard over the boat engine. “Cardinal Negrali and his outfit make la Cosa Nostra look like school children pushing each other around for marbles.”

  “You know this for a fact?”

  “You’re a Catholic, how can you not know how powerful they are?”

  “Well, faith…damn it.”

  “You drank the Kool-Aid.”

  “For all I know, they just gave me a hypodermic full of Kool-Aid in my hip.”

  “What? Who? What have they done to you? All that shit about bloodlines, why would they mess with you? You’re only related to Salvio by marriage.”

  She gripped her phone and hung onto the railing as they took a bone-jarring couple of bounces across the wakes of another boat. The spray felt like ice on her soaked skin. “Hang on a sec, Gio.” She pulled her phone away and yelled to the driver, “I’ll give you two hundred euros for your coat!” He hauled it off and tossed it into her waiting hands. When she pulled it on, it felt like an electric blanket. She put the phone back to her ear and heard Gio cheer, “That’s my girl!”

  “Gio, I’m pregnant.”

  “You? You’re…you are. I’m a father again?”

  She ignored his question and blurted, “Can you come to my home right away?”

  “Sì, I’m over on the Lido.” She heard him say, “Primo, call Drea. We’re leaving subito adesso.” Into the phone, he said, “I’ll be right there.”

  “Grazie!” She clicked off the call and tried to zip the coat, but instead had to grab the back of the passenger seat with both hands as the driver throttled back and then reversed, trying to turn into a narrow canal. Both girls were thrown to the wet floor where water sloshed over them as they tried to help each other up. The driver cursed as they drifted toward a flotilla of rain-slickered gondolas and a commercial vessel stacked with cargo. Their drift halted in a crescendo of prayers by their rain-soaked driver, and both girls were back on their feet. Gina had taken a hard fall and her knees were bleeding, but she didn’t seem to notice. She’d lost her blanket, which swirled in the water on the floor at her feet.

  Raphielli now felt certain she hadn’t been suffering PTSD. She was being hunted, and so were the Veronas. She thought about the bloodlines and the fact that both of these old Italian families had been choked down to one son—highly unusual. She put a foot up to brace herself as the boat roared forward again and juggled her phone to call Alphonso. When he picked up, she said, “Grab five hundred euros out of the safe and come to the front door to pay my driver!”

  The driver’s head swiveled in her direction, and he was grinning from ear to ear.

  “What’s going on?” Alphonso asked.

  “We have a situation,” she answered.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Mateo had been waiting for Doctor G to call. Juliette Verona’s mysterious appointment could mean one of two things. One was almost too good to hope for: that she was bringing Giselle in for a prenatal exam. Or two—and there was nothing Mateo wanted to hear less—that Gabrieli had gotten Juliette pregnant before he died. Of course, the good doctor was ready to exterminate either child over a period of time so it would appear to be a natural miscarriage. He’d employed the technique successfully over the years with Juliette, who suspected nothing. It had been some sort of fluke that Vincenzo had survived. Doctor G had been planning to smother him immediately after birth but had never gotten alone time with the baby. The nurses and every nun in Catholicdom had swarmed Vincenzo in the delivery room as if he were the second coming of Christ.

  The phone shrilled, and Mateo juggled it as he grabbed it. “Pronto.”

  “Okay, the playing field has changed. La contessa kept her appointment, but she wasn’t sneaking Giselle in as I’d hoped.” Doctor G sounded uncharacteristically excited.

  “Then what?”

  “She brought Raphielli Scortini. Raphielli’s pregnant! Salvio wasn’t as estranged from her as we believed, or he took her one last time before he was killed! We have another Child of Sinope! Two Madonnas!”

  “Wonderful news!” Mateo recalled that Salvio had gone to the Scortini Palazzo on that final night but hadn’t killed her. Had he decided to try again for a child? Mateo cursed the fact that he knew next to nothing about that little convent girl. “We have two children to carry on the holy lineage. If, God forbid, we should fail to get a hold of Benadetta, we’d still be back in business. I could snatch Raphielli and hold her until the baby is born then send it off to be raised where no one would look...Nautilus Island.”

  “Over in Maine with Nejla? Excellent idea. I’ll set up regular appointments and get control of her,” the doctor was saying.

  Mateo felt wary. “I had no idea Raphielli was so close to the Veronas.

  “We have another issue.”

  “Oh?”

  “Juliette had another girl with her—also pregnant.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Juliette says it’s a Verona.”

  Mateo saw red as he realized what Doctor G was saying. “God damned it! Vincenzo got another girl pregnant?”

  “Apparently. Juliette was very clear this girl is carrying a Verona baby.”

  “He doesn’t get his wife pregnant for years, and now he gets her and another woman pregnant?”

  “Or Gabrieli could have had a mistress, but Juliette didn’t act like that was the case. I didn’t get the chance to gauge how far along either pregnancy is, but I’m trying to get the girls back in the morning. I’ll examine them and determine how far along they are. Either way, I’ll get Raphielli to trust me, and I can take care of the Verona children. It’s the first pregnancy for Giselle and this Gina girl, very common to lose the first baby. I already gave Gina the first micro-dose of the ‘release’ drug, and a few more scant doses will cause the embryo to detach. But I’m more focused on the good news. Suddenly we have two children of Sinope on the way.” He sounded giddy.

  Mateo knew this wasn’t insurmountable. It was just a shock. He hoped the doctor could just terminate the Verona pregnancies. He didn’t want to have to kill anyone, just rid the world of the Catholic parasite. He’d feel a whole lot better if he could discuss these developments with Benjamin.

  “Grazie, Doc. Keep me informed.”

  Mateo called Benjamin’s phone but there was still no answer. The one good development was that the Veronas had hired Noah, one of their most devout Alithiníans, as a boat driver. Currently, Noah was only willing to spy on them and report their movements—he would take no part in harming them. But Mateo was starting to indoctrinate him on the critical mission before them: the Verona line must end if there was to be any hope of world peace. He felt he could turn Noah, and they’d have a leg up on getting rid of Vincenzo, who was going out less and less these days.

  Gina used to think of the Scortini palazzo as eerily romantic and darkly mysterious. Now from the inside, it was just eerie and dark. It felt forbidding and permanent as a grave. An ancient butler and maid had assisted her and Raphielli with towels while Alphonso and Zelph, his look-alike cousin, hovered with blankets.

  Gina was thinking a mile a minute as she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. She wasn’t going to let some chemical kill her baby. She had no idea what had been injected into her vein, and her mind flew over natural compounds that could be a broad antidote. While the little old maid tut-tutted about her bloody knees, Gina asked, “Raphielli, could I have several heads of garlic, a big pot of mint tea, and a jar of honey?”

  “Of course.” Raphielli turned to the old woman. “Rosa, bring them to the receiving room.” The old woman trotted away down a cavernous hall. Raphielli turned back and asked, “What’s that stuff for?”


  “Garlic and honey can fight off almost anything if taken in sufficient quantities early enough. The mint will help keep my stomach settled.”

  Raphielli turned to her butler. “Dante, several guests should be here momentarily.” He nodded and stood at attention at the door as she led the way down eerie marble halls with Alphonso and Zelph at her side. It was like walking into some dark overlord’s version of Versailles. Their footfalls echoed down the silent corridors like kids in a museum past closing hours. Gina eyed the portraits of unattractive and forbidding people who stared down from frames on the walls.

  When they arrived in the receiving room, it looked like someone had put furniture in a mausoleum, for all its cold austerity. Zelph went to start a fire in the enormous fireplace. There were probably eighty floral still-life paintings on the towering walls, all spectacular in their faded glory. The floral-patterned sofas were pretty in a neglected antique sort of way, but the cushions felt like sitting on uneven rocks.

  Rosa, who had more stamina and speed than Gina had estimated, came hustling through a hidden door bearing a tray with a honeypot, a basket of garlic, and a teapot. She set everything before Gina and poured a cup before stepping back into the shadows. Gina pulled the basket onto her lap and began peeling and chewing. She was swallowing the first garlic cloves as everyone arrived in a rush. The man she’d seen in the flower shop, who Horace had called a Mafioso, came running into the room with someone at his heels who had to be his son based on the striking resemblance. They approached Raphielli looking wary. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded and looked relieved, while Alphonso and Zelph went on edge as if the Mafiosos were pets of Raphielli’s who may bite.

  Next, Juliette swept in. “You were in the middle of an appointment! Explain yourselves.” Then she noticed the impeccably dressed Mafioso and assumed the role of mother in the room. “I have not had the pleasure. Juliette Verona. And you are?”

  “Giancarlo Petrosino, and my son Primo.”

  Juliette’s eyes widened. “You gentlemen saved Raphielli from hanging.”