“No, I’d die of shame.”
“Wanna go get Benny and raid your kitchen for some of that tiramisu?”
“Absolutely. Right after I take off these shoes.”
After they stripped off their costumes and put on their flannel pajamas, they took a very interested Benny off to the kitchen where they liberated a big silver tureen from one of the refrigerators and ladled big mounds of tiramisu into bowls.
Around mouthfuls, they told Benny about the party.
She rolled her eyes. “Yep, sex on display, that’s what I wanted to avoid.”
“Mercifully, they were all wearing masks, or I’d never be able to look at these people around town.”
“Cardinal Negrali tried to kill me, and a man shoved him off a balcony. He’s dead.”
Paloma’s spoon hung in the air. “How’d I miss that?”
“Were you watching the last aerial act?”
“I sure was!”
“And the skin show in the fishtanks?”
“That was so cool. I wonder if they were really under water.”
“That’s how. The Carnevale people got the body out of sight and called the police.”
Paloma thoughtfully spooned tiramisu into her mouth.
“That last big firework was scary,” Benny said. “I heard that one from inside. We lost lights temporarily.”
Just then, all the lights went out.
“Like this,” Benny said.
They heard a man’s voice echo from far off. “Raphielli? Sorry to disturb. Could you come here for a moment?”
All three of them to put their bowls down and crouched behind the big kitchen island like caught children. Then Paloma scrambled to the light panel and tried the switches. Nothing.
“Raphielli?” The man’s voice was louder.
“Let’s get out of here,” she whispered. She thought of the spider-filled crustacean-scuttling secret passage off of the back pantry and shuddered.
“We’re buried in the center of the palazzo,” Benny said. “Which way?”
“Follow me!” Paloma hissed.
“Can you run?” Raphielli asked.
“Watch me!” she yelped, and they ran after her.
“Raphielli?” the man’s voice echoed through a hall by the butler’s pantry.
They ran silently in their slippers, and then a set of footsteps started to pound behind them. Paloma banked around a doorway into the Baùtta Room so quickly, yanking Benny behind her, that Raphielli had to grab the doorjamb and slide around with her slippered feet to keep from overshooting the door.
Paloma raced across the room and straight for the dark maw of the fireplace. “Stay right behind me!” she said. Reaching up, she started to climb an iron-rungged ladder inside the chimney. She disappeared upward, and then Benny was gone, too.
Raphielli grabbed the rungs and started climbing as the man laughed from across the great room. “What are you doing? You’ll get stuck. Come on down, I won’t hurt you.”
Raphielli climbed as fast as she could, reaching for rungs in the dark, and the man below started to climb, too. She had just reached some sort of a deck in the darkness as a bullet clanged off the metal flue next to her. Paloma pulled her to safety on a deck, which turned out to be a floor. They were inside the corridor Paloma and Zelph had described. Why’s he shooting at me? Who wants me dead? Is this “Kill Raphielli” night?
“Stay low and hug the left wall,” Paloma hissed in a whisper. “If you go too far to the right side of the passage, you could fall down a chimney. There are lots and lots of them.”
With that, they ran and ran and ran the length of the palace, dodging around warm spots where lazy smoke billowed upward in columns like ghosts. They heard the man with the gun behind them and at one point it sounded like he fell. Paloma led them off into a recessed chamber and skidded to a stop.
“Careful, I have to feel my way. Got it!” she whispered triumphantly as she reached up into the darkness. “Don’t bang your head, we’re going to crawl up this master flue. It’ll take us to the roof. Benny, you first. Push the door at the top, it’ll swing up and over. Don’t pinch your fingers. Elli, go up after her. Don’t look down. It’s quite a fall down to your palazzo’s sub-floor.”
“Why are you bringing up the rear?” Raphielli asked.
“I’m going to lock the damper behind us. Now go!”
They climbed through more spider webs than Raphielli thought possible. Benny didn’t complain, but she was making a high keening sound like, “Ieeeessh-eeee-iiii-ieesh!” as she went. This air tunnel had stayed cold for so long, it was now a thriving habitat for the critters they brushed past. Almost to the top, winter-stunned bats started flapping confusedly around and Benny slipped back a rung, kicked Raphielli who caught her, and they both would have plummeted downward if she hadn’t been clinging to each rung with a death grip.
Benny continued climbing and then bumped her head. “Found the door at the top.” She said to herself, “Swing it up and out, don’t pinch my fingers…” And then the cloudy night sky was above them and the clang of the door roused more bats. A whole colony of the flapping furry creatures took to the sky, and the three of them staggered out onto the cold rooftop near the greenhouse. Paloma threw the door shut and fiddled with a latch before standing up.
“He can’t get up?” Benny asked.
“No, I bolted it. But we can’t get down.”
Raphielli started across the roof. “We have two elevators. The freight one is over here.” They tried the button, but nothing happened. They ran to the formal elevator, but it didn’t respond, either.
“I don’t suppose either of you has your cell phone in your pajama pocket?” Raphielli asked.
They shook their heads, and clouds of soot and crawly things fell out.
“No one knows we’re up here, and it’ll be hours before the French contingent comes home. We have to warn them.”
“How long till the sun comes up?”
“A couple hours.”
“Think anyone can hear us?”
They hurried across the rooftop to the edge nearest the canal and formal entrance. Way off to the side they saw a lone staff person from the party crew talking to someone inside the palazzo’s theatre door.
“Hey! Call the police!” they screamed, but the man went inside the theatre.
“Where’s the goddamn security?” Paloma howled.
“Inside the venue? Cuz apparently the one Marilynn hired to guard your wing is trying to kill you,” Benny said.
“Hey! Help!” Raphielli yelled. “We need something to wave to get someone’s attention.”
They looked around and then, in a fit of desperation, even in the February cold, Raphielli unbuttoned her flannel pajama jacket, whipped it off, and began waving it as high as she could over the edge of the roof. “Help! Help us!”
Benny looked at the rigging on the corner of the roof. “Hey, we can zipline down.”
“Not with my hip,” Paloma protested.
“If you fell you’d die or lose the baby for sure,” Raphielli said and continued waving.
“I’ve ziplined before,” Benny said eagerly.
“Take my word for it,” Raphielli said, “the performers came down like lightning. Those cables are deceptively steep. HELP, ANYBODY!” She waved her arms frantically above her head.
A dark figure appeared from the shadows below. It was Gio. He waved.
“There’s a hit man inside!” Raphielli screamed down, too intent on communicating to think about covering her breasts with her jacket.
He raised his hand telling her to stay put and jogged toward the theatre. Raphielli put her top back on, and in less than a minute Gio came running back out with police, who all looked up.
“Oh! The police were here investigating Negrali’s death at the party,” she said.
“There’s Luigi!” Benny yelled.
Paloma said, “Now, they’ll get in and get the fucker with the gun.”
Raphie
lli flubbered her lips and stomped off toward the elevator to wait. “My ex-father confessor just tried to throw me to my death! What’s going on here? I’m not a Verona and just a damned Scortini by marriage!”
Gina had spent a quiet evening watching Ivar and Leonardo play chess, and then playing several hands of gin rummy with them. The pope had worked on his speech. When Ghost and Mister Fox had arrived around midnight, Alberto and the Swiss Guards showed them all to the pope’s study where they were deep in the planning of whatever was going to happen in Rome. Ivar had excused himself to bed about a half hour before Vincenzo and Juliette came home with the bodyguard.
“Our boat was blown up. Our new driver was killed,” Vincenzo declared.
“How did that happen?” Leonardo gasped.
“According to the fire department, it was a fireworks misfire.”
“I’m just glad you two are home safe,” Gina said.
Vincenzo beckoned Leonardo. “I’m running behind schedule and need to get changed before I fly to Rome.” They headed up the stairs to Vincenzo’s room.
Leonardo blew a kiss goodnight to Gina. “Once he’s packed, I’m going to bed. See you in the morning.”
Juliette turned to Gina. “Come while I get changed and I will tell you all about the ball.”
“Did anyone kiss you?”
“I was kissed more than once, and I saw the largest penis you could imagine.”
“Really?” Gina almost tripped as she followed the contessa up the stairs. “Up close?”
“Too close, if you must know.”
“Whose was it?”
“I have no idea.”
“Did you see any balls at the ball?”
“No.”
After the pope, Vincenzo, Ghost, Mister Fox, and their security contingent departed for Rome, the palazzo was completely quiet. Everyone was asleep, and staff was in the staff housing on the far side of the palazzo. Gina sat with Juliette in a windowed room designed to view the city. Gina was bundled in a thick cotton nightgown, plush robe, and slippers, while Juliette wore dove grey silk pajamas with matching a grey robe and fancy grey slippers with a low heel. She looked divine.
The night had become cloudy and snow was starting to fall when Juliette stopped mid-sentence and put a finger to her lips. A question died on Gina’s lips as Juliette slipped her feet out of her slippers. She jerked Gina out of her chair just as Gina saw the silhouettes of two male figures in the hall motioning to each other.
She and Juliette ran out the door on the other end of the room, down a long flight of stairs, and down a long hall. As they got to the hall with the suits of armor, Juliette grabbed a long sword off a stand with her left hand, palmed a smaller blade in her right, then froze behind a big suit of armor. She hissed, “Get up those stairs to Vincenzo’s room! Bolt the door!”
Gina ran on alone as two men brandishing guns burst into the hall of armor. She started up the stairs as fast as she could run. Vincenzo’s room was one of the only rooms with a solid bolt and it was at the top of these stairs. From below she heard a man’s scream as he went tumbling and his gun went flying. She turned and saw there was a dagger in his leg. Juliette stepped out of hiding and with one stroke of her sword she took the right arm off the man who was whirling to shoot her with a gun held in his right hand. Blood flew in an arc across the white marble space as he fell.
The man with the dagger in his leg wrenched it out, got back on his feet, and raced after Gina. She ran top speed and could hear him and Juliette giving chase. Even with his injury, the man was demonically fast. Gina got to the top of the stairs and was reaching for the doorknob of Vincenzo’s room where Leonardo lay sleeping when she felt her head yanked back. He has me! No! She tucked in her chin and used the only move that came naturally. She ducked backward, grabbed hold of his shirt and jacket as he raised the dagger, then spun and used her momentum to throw him off balance. He crashed into the big stained glass window next to them, which promptly swung open. The man hovered in the air for a moment before he fell to the calle stones below. The sound of his impact was grotesque even if not very loud.
Leonardo came out of Vincenzo’s door and looked at the window. “Ugh, it’s freezing out. Must V open every window in the house?” He saw Gina and Juliette, gave them a sleepy look, mumbled, “Wake me for the pope’s speech, okay?” and sleepwalked back to bed.
“Come Gina, we will keep Leonardo company as we call the police.”
“What about the man in the hall of armor?”
“He is bleeding to death from his brachial artery.”
“Juliette, are you a warrior?”
“No. Tonight was poor form on my part. I am tired.” Juliette took her into Vincenzo’s room and shot the oversized bolt. Gina crawled into bed beside Leonardo as Juliette called the police, then alerted the staff that there were intruders in the house, and instructing them to lock themselves in their rooms. Leo roused, held Gina close and said, “You’re safe. I got you. I don’t want you to go home ever again, I want you to live with us.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” She slid her arms around him and snuggled close. “Say, did you know our child is a descendant of Saint Mark through Juliette?”
He shrugged. “Every person on this planet comes from an ancient lineage. I’m not going to love our baby any differently because of a blood line.”
In the Vatican, Casimir stayed close to Vincenzo and Alberto and well behind the phalanx of Swiss Guards on the walk from the papal apartments to the balcony overlooking Saint Peter’s Square. The sun was blushing over the buildings, and as he stepped out by himself, he reached up and fingered the secret microphone Mister Fox had fastened under his chin. He looked at the little dot on the balcony’s railing and had faith that Ghost’s tiny camera would transmit his image to the farthest regions of the world when the official feeds were cut as they certainly would be.
He had placed Vincenzo just inside the doorway, who was working harder than he’d ever done to send out love in service of God and pope. There was a chance that someone would try to kill him during his speech, but most likely they’d just kill his microphone or disconnect the official cameras mounted on the building. Behind a curtain by the doorway were Ghost and Mister Fox standing by to reset or reboot their equipment when News.va tried to silence his message.
Casimir stepped out, and the crowd below roared as the first rays of sun blinked atop the colonnade and shone on his face.
“May the blessings of our creator be upon us all.” He raised his hands to the crowds below, who reached back to him in a sea of hands and cell phones.
“I welcome the youth of the world and those who are young at heart. It is Ash Wednesday, and humanity must rise from the ashes of our home—our mother earth—that we are currently burning down around us. I have asked that you all watch this message via cell phones or internet connection because there will be an attempt to silence what I am about to say. My last act as pope…”
A collective gasp sounded from below.
“…has been to fulfill my promise to the displaced people of Verdu Mer. We will restore your homes. They are yours. I have signed a decree with the Italian president and Venice’s mayor that the deeds to each of your homes are still in effect.”
“I am under unprecedented attack and therefore must step down as head of the Catholic Church. I beg that the faithful among you undertake the courageous work of reform rather than revolution. I charge that a new College of Cardinals be immediately elected through a blind ballot of ordinary church members from every diocese, and a new college of untouchables begin to dig out the rot, greed, and corruption from within our walls. Our current college has again proven that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Moments ago, I approved a search warrant sought by the Venetian Police Department allowing them complete access to the apartment held for Cardinal Americo Negrali and the Vatican Secret Securities office of Ecclesia Dei.”
A roar of outrage rose from the interior of the Vatican behind him, and Cas
imir heard cardinals yelling at Alberto. “The Holy Father has lost his mind! Get him off that balcony! He’s undermining the Holy Church! Let us through! Cut off his microphone!” There was a shriek of feedback as the News.va’s microphones were cut.
Casimir prayed his little microphone and camera were still functioning and continued. “I leave you with these words: Love is the highest power, the highest good. Only love can save humanity and our world. People must marry whom they love, no matter their sex. When I think of the people who have been murdered for, or committed suicide over the shame of loving someone of their own sex, it breaks my heart, and the deepest part of my soul howls for the loss of them. Look around you. We are overpopulating. Procreate purposefully, but before you do, I beg you to adopt every single child currently without parents. Every single child! Take in your elders. Build community! This life is not just an exile from Heaven to be endured, it is a short sublime adventure of purpose and growth surrounded with wonders and majestic natural beauty. Love one another and put down the fighting over borders and our vanishing resources. Talk to one another, find understanding through discourse. Improve yourself by helping others. Be generous and end the mindless production of material things which man does not need. Cast aside the constant use of money. Barter, trade, and donate your crafts.
Blessed are the humble, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are the compassionate, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the generous, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will save God’s creations.
Then Casimir blew a kiss and said loudly, “Ti amo!” He gave Mister Fox the signal, and Queen’s gospel anthem “All God’s People” rang out across the square below from everyone’s phones and portable speakers. Casimir turned with Alberto and his Swiss Guard, hurrying into the building, which was now a swaying mass of red vestments like dancing painted cobras, and Vatican employees dashing around with phones clamped to their ears looking for where the music was coming from.
Surviving Venice Page 33
