5 - Her Deadly Mischief (25 page)

“So Zulietta offered you a pension instead.”

“A slap in the face! After all I’d endured to ensure her success! Can you imagine what it felt like to know she gave her body to those who were my inferior in every way except height?” In a flash, his manner had changed from agonized to angry. “I swore a holy oath to myself—if I couldn’t make the voyage to America, neither would Zulietta. Neither would any of them. But I had to fashion a plan that would leave me free to enjoy my triumph. I glued a silly smile on my face and bided my time, nursing the pretense that I applauded Zulietta’s selfish schemes. When La Samsona’s jewels were about to be snatched, I knew I had to act. My plan to destroy Zulietta and her sentimental suitor took final shape when I learned that Alessio would be late for the opera due to his meeting with the sea captain.”

I recalled the tale Alessio had told—something didn’t fit. “I thought no one besides the people involved knew anything about that meeting.”

He shook his head. “People see me, yet they don’t—little Pamarino, always underfoot. Put yourself in my place. What would you do to gain information?” He went on without waiting for an answer. “I fit my smallness into small places and kept my ears open. I was actually under Zulietta’s bed when Alessio gave her his box key and explained that he would join her at the theater once he’d arranged the passage to America.

“Perfect, I thought—Zulietta alone in the box on opening night. The entire audience would have eyes and ears for nothing except the performance. I could leave her on some pretext and hurry to the cloakroom to don my disguise and stilts that I would stash there earlier in the day—if any servants happened to see me re-enter the box, they would describe a tall man in a
bauta
, not Zulietta’s four-foot companion. In my mask, I could take her by complete surprise and plunge my dagger home before she even uttered a scream. On my way out, I would lock the box using the key Alessio had supplied.”

I was beginning to fathom the depth of the dwarf’s hatred for Alessio. From the little man’s point of view, his plan made inexorable sense. Attempting to quell my disgust at his triumphant tone, I continued with his train of thought, “You must have originally intended to stage your capture as soon as you returned to the cloakroom. As you hung from the hook, you were going to make a racket loud enough for every footman on the fourth tier to come running. Once freed, you would report that Alessio Pino clonked you on the head. Desperate with worry over your mistress, you would lead the witnesses to the Pino box, which would of course be locked. Receiving no answer to your knocking, you would insist that the door be broken down. In the curtained box, they would find one murdered courtesan. The obvious suspect—Alessio Pino. You had even arranged for him to be delayed so he wouldn’t show up and ruin your plans.”

A look of confusion passed over the dwarf’s face at my last observation, but then he nodded with a thin smile. “You do love to tease out secrets, don’t you?”

I went on, “But something you weren’t expecting happened. Zulietta fought like a tigress, pulling the box curtain down and finally tumbling over the railing. Now the entire theater was on the alert, and Alessio’s key was in Zulietta’s pocket on the floor of the pit. That’s when our eyes met across the auditorium—that fateful moment that led Messer Grande to draw me into his investigation.” I leaned forward, forearms on the railing. “I confess I’m puzzled—how did you come to have a duplicate key? And why did you use it?”

“You’ve put your finger on my mistake,” Pamarino replied. “It was easy to borrow the key once it was in Zulietta’s hands—too easy. Every time I saw it laying on her dressing table, I got to thinking an extra key might come in handy, so one day, I took it to the ironsmith. In the end, the duplicate just caused problems. Standing there in that box, my crime exposed to the world, I must have gone mad for a moment. You say our eyes met—not really—I wasn’t aware of you at all. The only thing in my mind was escape. I hardly remember leaving the box—I suppose I locked it because I’d rehearsed the movements in my head so many times. I barely made it to the cloakroom before people began pouring out into the corridor. I thought it better to wait to make my presence known until the tumult died—”

Pamarino fell silent and swayed slightly. The organ had stopped playing. Its final chord echoed off the walls and lingered under the soaring curves of the Basilica’s five domes. He raised the pistol which had sunk to his side while he’d been talking. “Get up. Time to go.”

“Wait,” I cried, still striving for delay. Though I knew the answer perfectly well, I asked, “What about poor Sary? Why did you need to kill her?”

“She had something that belonged to me, and very unwisely refused to give up its hiding place. She paid with her life.”

“The duplicate key, perhaps? I noticed that something was different in Zulietta’s foyer. It finally dawned on me that your trunk had been removed. Perhaps Sary had become suspicious enough to search the contents before you came for it. But if that’s the case, why on earth would you leave an incriminating item in your baggage?”

Pamarino screwed up his face. Was it undiluted resentment? Or regret over his own blunder? He motioned for me to stand. “No more questions—I’ve already said enough. We’re going to walk toward the front—slowly, calmly. Once you’re through the main entrance, you won’t see me again. I know another way out.” He underscored his words by nudging my back with the pistol, then tucked it under his jacket.

We walked. Out of the chapel. Down a row of columns; right turn at the north aisle. A few more people had entered the Basilica to gawk at its treasures. At least one had come to pray. An elderly woman, bent over her beads, was kneeling at the end of a bench under the Pentecost Dome. With my senses heightened by fear for Titolino, I noted the extraneous details of her humped back and the wiry gray hair escaping from under her lace
zendale
.

Just as we reached the vestibule that passed between a pair of staircases leading up to the galleries, a man’s voice hailed me.

“Hey, there! It’s Tito Amato, isn’t it?” A spry old gentleman clattered down the last few steps. “I haven’t seen you in ages.”

As Pamarino drew a sharp breath, I recognized a musician friend of my father’s from years back. He must have been the organist who’d been playing the dirge-like piece in the loft. “Signor Angelini!” I raised my hands to ward him off, but he trotted forward, wrinkled face filled with good cheer.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Pamarino’s pistol fly up. “You’ve deceived me. I warned you—no tricks—no lawmen.”

“No, no,” I cried. “It’s not a trick. This man is a friend.”

“You may be a fool, but I’m not.” Pamarino took aim at the harmless organist who’d finally halted in his tracks. Angelini’s mouth formed a perfect oval of terror.

How could things go wrong so suddenly and completely? Swiftly, I kicked my foot upwards with as much force as I could muster. I connected with the dwarf’s wrist. He grunted and the pistol went sailing into space. But not before he’d pulled back on the hammer.

An orange flash exploded near my head, and a shot rang out. Across the aisle, the bullet chewed a chunk of marble out of a fluted column. Surprised shrieks, male and female, echoed off the walls. As I reeled back, I saw Signor Angelini fall flat to the floor, alive and waving all four extremities. Thank the merciful Lord! But Pamarino was fleeing toward the back of the Basilica.

I had to stop him. He was the only one who could lead me to Titolino.

I lost a few precious seconds in the struggle to regain my balance. Once I had my feet pointed the right way, swiftly skimming the floor tiles, a strange sight met my eyes. Beneath the golden mosaics of the central dome, the hunchbacked woman was in full pursuit of the murderous dwarf. Her knees pumped under her brown skirts, and her lace shawl streaked behind her. The priest coming back through the sacristy door froze in shock at the scene.

“Halt,” the woman shouted in deep, resonating tones. “In the name of the Doge.”

That was no woman. I recognized the voice. It was Messer Grande, and now I saw his right hand waving a pistol.

Pamarino did stop for a brief moment. In the light shed by the candles on the high altar, he whirled this way and that, a goblin possessed by pain and hatred. Our eyes met—no mistake this time—and he glared at me with all the fury that must have been building since the day he was first taunted for his misshapen little body.

Messer Grande had almost reached him. I lengthened my strides, lungs bursting.

The dwarf refused to be taken so easily. The glint of metal flashed in his hand—my dagger—the one he had taken from me in the chapel. He sprinted the few steps to the startled priest. Jerking the man’s arm behind him, Pamarino held the blade to his flank. Forcing the priest backward, the dwarf retreated toward the sacristy door.

Oh, no! He meant to make a hostage of this man of God. But the priest either found a scrap of courage or collapsed entirely. He folded suddenly forward, pulling Pamarino off his feet. For a moment they struggled as a single, writhing creature.

Then the dwarf broke free. Rocking back on his knees, he threw up an arm, dagger in hand. Messer Grande raised his pistol.

“No—oo!” I screamed on a desperate breath.

The powder flashed, the shot was away. My heart contracted as the dwarf’s body stiffened upright, then toppled heavily onto the moaning, black-robed priest.

I was upon them in an instant. Messer Grande had pulled off his gray wig and was shrugging out of the vest that created his humped backbone. He regarded his smoking pistol, then me. He said numbly, “Tito, I had to fire. I couldn’t let him kill again.”

Dropping to my knees, I shook the dwarf by the shoulders, yelled in his ears, slapped his cheeks. All to no avail.

Pamarino’s stare remained fixed and unblinking.

Chapter Nineteen

“You might as well say it—it’s written all over your face. You think I made an unforgivable mistake.” Messer Grande had traded his disguise for his official scarlet robe. We again stood at his office window, looking down at the Piazza. Night had fallen, and the great square was marked with the fires of braziers and torches. The merry tootling of a brass band came through the glass.

“You couldn’t allow Pamarino to stab the priest,” I replied, keeping my gaze on the dark window. The reflection of my unhappy, drooping features was superimposed on the dancing flames down below. “You acted rightly.”

“Then…you understand?”

I sighed, nodding. I understood that Messer Grande had only been doing his duty, but I doubted that Liya did. She sat in an armchair across the room, face buried in her hands, silently rocking forward and back.

Messer Grande placed his hands on my shoulders. “I believe the boy’s still alive, Tito. The dwarf’s death is known only to a few, mostly priests and constables. They’ll keep quiet as ordered, at least for a while. So will the organist. Poor old Angelini was so shocked, he can barely speak anyway. He hardly expected to face a pistol as he left his afternoon practice in the choir loft.”

I nodded. “We don’t have much time. We must find Titolino before Pamarino’s waiting confederate realizes something has gone wrong.”

The chief constable squeezed my shoulders with both hands. “We will, Tito. By the blood of St. Mark, I’ll pull down every brick in Venice if I have to.”

For my friend’s sake I raised a halfhearted smile. Inside, I felt cold and hollow. Venice was a compact cluster of islands, a mere speck on Alessandro’s maritime maps. But when you’re searching for one little boy, Venice might as well have encompassed a thousand square miles. “Where do we start? We can’t go barging all over the city without a plan.”

“I’ve sent a man to fetch someone who may be able to provide some guidance.” Messer Grande dropped his grasp and massaged his fleshy jawline as if he had a toothache.

I questioned him with my eyes.

“Alessio Pino. We arrested him early this morning as he returned from Murano.”

“Why was he on Murano?”

Messer Grande shrugged. “As usual, the young man keeps his own counsel—for the best, in this case. If he’s arranged passage for the glassworkers, I don’t want to know about it. I was forced to lock him up, but with the dwarf’s admission that he killed both Zulietta and Sary, Alessio is now cleared of all suspicion.”

“He should be relieved. How can he help us, I wonder? And would he even bother? We’ve both caused him a good bit of trouble.”

“Here he is. Ask him yourself.” Messer Grande nodded toward the young man who was entering the office with a wrinkled jacket over his arm.

Alessio’s second stay in the guardhouse had only deepened his brooding good looks. His brown hair curled wildly about his cheeks and his eyes held a haunted expression. Despite his travails, he was willing to try to recall any mention of Pamarino’s activities or associates that he might have overheard during his romance with Zulietta.

Alessio’s arrival roused Liya out of her lassitude. As Messer Grande called for coffee and food to revive our flagging strengths, the four of us gathered around his huge desk to tackle the question of where Pamarino’s confederate might be hiding Titolino.

“I don’t recall the dwarf ever calling any man his friend,” said Alessio. “As per custom, he earned one afternoon and one evening off for each week of service. Zulietta would not have kept him from his leisure, but he generally refused to go abroad in the city without her. The only person outside of Zulietta’s small circle that he ever talked about was a sister, but I don’t recall her name. Elisabetta, perhaps.”

Liya clicked her fingernails on the desktop. “Yes, the sister. Sary mentioned her the day Tito and I visited Zulietta’s rooms. The maid didn’t seem to think much of her—” Liya snatched a breath and brandished a pointed finger. “Estrella! That’s her name, and according to Sary, she works as a common prostitute.”

Alessio nodded excitedly. “You’re right. I caught a glimpse of Estrella once—she’d brought the dwarf a basket of figs for his name day. Now that I recall, she asked for Giacomo. I was astounded to learn that the little demon had a real name, just like any normal person.”

A servant eased in the door bearing tiny cups of black coffee and horn-shaped rolls layered with ham and cheese. His tray had barely touched the desk before Alessio and I tore into both. As I attended to my hunger and thirst, I also tried to piece together information I’d gathered from a host of people during the past several weeks.

Sary had told us Estrella’s brothel was located near the Arsenale, and I’d shared a cup of wine with Pamarino at a tavern near that vast shipyard. So far, so good. He’d been bedding down in a closet at a brothel—the best Estrella could arrange. How had he described her?
My older sister who carried me on her hip as she went about her chores.
What else might she have done for her brother?

I quickly swallowed a mouthful of ham, recalling another memory. “Alessio, what did Estrella look like?”

“About what you would expect. Dark coloring, not particularly tall or well formed. Her face might have been pretty once—now she relies on paint to keep the years at bay.”

“Did any one feature stand out?”

Alessio wrinkled his brow. “Now that you ask, she did have one of those pushed-up noses—”

I clapped my palms together. “Your gondolier told me the woman who slipped him the sleeping powder had a nose like a little pig’s snout.”

“You’ve talked to Guido?”

Liya broke in as I nodded. “Tito, do you think Estrella is Pamarino’s confederate?”

“Who else could it be? All of the acquaintances he had through Zulietta have disappeared, and he must barely know the clowns he started performing with. Just several days ago he was so desperate for work he asked me if I could give him a recommendation. Who would he trust more completely than the sister who practically raised him?” I turned to Alessio. “He sent Estrella to delay your gondolier, and I’d bet my last
soldo
he’s entrusted her with Titolino.”

“And she has orders to kill him if her brother isn’t allowed to escape Venice!” Liya jumped out of her chair and ran around the desk to Messer Grande. Standing over him, she fired a barrage of agitated questions. “Where is this whores’ lair? How fast can you muster a contingent of men? We have to get—”

Messer Grande rose and took my wife’s hands in his. His tone, even and resolute, seemed to calm her even as he delivered bad news. “The quarter surrounding the Arsenale is a veritable labyrinth—secret courtyards, canals that lead in circles, blind alleys. It’s infested with brothels and taverns that hire rooms by the hour. I haven’t heard one scrap of information to tell me which one of those infernal establishments houses Estrella.”

Alessio and I exchanged dark looks. His also held a tinge of pity. “I have no idea,” he said.

I thought furiously, trying not to surrender to the paralyzing fear that radiated from my stomach. What if we couldn’t find Estrella’s brothel before she realized Pamarino wasn’t coming back? Did she also possess a dagger? Or would she use a garrote as her brother had on Sary? I buried my face in my hands. Stop, I ordered myself. Think.

“Tito?” asked Messer Grande. “Anything?” The wily lawman had no plan to offer. Nothing.

My fingers slid slowly down my cheeks. Liya abandoned Messer Grande, gripped one of my arms, and pulled it away. Feeling that my heart must surely break, I looked into her burning eyes and shook my head. “I suppose I could find the tavern Pamarino frequented.”

“It’s a place to start,” my wife said in a determined tone, nodding first at me, then Messer Grande. “We can search house to house, fanning out from there.”

Messer Grande pursed his lips, then sighed. “My dear, once my men enter that quarter, news of our presence will spread like a wind-whipped fire. Unless we are fortunate in the extreme, Estrella will get word of what we’re about and kill the boy straightaway.”

“No, no. This is unbearable.” Liya fell against me, drooping like a withered blossom. “We must think of something else. Can’t we shout Titolino’s name throughout the
calli
? He may hear and call out—”

I clutched her tightly. Another thought had struck me. A mere possibility, but it offered more hope than any of our other options. “We can’t call his name—that would give us away as quickly as a concentrated search. I have a better idea.”

***

A silver wedge of moon rose above the crenellated towers of the Arsenale; its rays illuminated the mist blanketing the waterway that led to the closed gates. Standing in the prow of Luigi’s boat, my cloak unfurling lightly on the breeze, I peered at the neglected buildings that flanked our small flotilla. A century ago, Venice had possessed the greatest shipyard in Europe. Thousands of men had been employed in constructing and maintaining a mighty fleet. Now the Arsenale had dwindled to a skeleton, and the district around it had sunk into squalor, venery, and wretchedness.

“Turn right before you reach the main gates,” called Messer Grande from his gondola that made a close shadow to ours. Instead of his official red, he wore a gray cloak and a tricorne unadorned by lace or cockade. Another boat carrying constables in civilian dress trailed behind. To the casual observer, we could have been…anyone.

As directed, Luigi piloted the gondola around the tight corner, and I knew that my time was fast approaching. This canal was narrower, and the moldering buildings closed in more tightly. Mooring posts rose from the mist in front of well-worn steps that angled up to badly lit entry doors. Here and there, lamplight outlined a low-hanging balcony. Behind the few undraped windows, I caught glimpses of men and women sharing a drink, a capering dance, or a rough caress.

As we slid under a small bridge, I touched Liya’s amulet that hung at breastbone level beneath my shirt. She hadn’t demanded to join me in the boat as I’d expected, but she had made absolutely certain that I wore her handpicked charms.

“It’s Titolino who’s in danger—not me,” I’d told her before we set off from the gondola basin behind the Piazza.

“Just now, you’re safe beside me, praise the goddess Aradia. But never forget, circumstances can change in the space of a heartbeat.”

“I could fail, is that what you mean?” I realized I was shaking like a man in a fever.

“No, whatever happens, we won’t call it failure. Just be very careful and do your best to bring Titolino back safe and sound.” After a glancing brush of her lips, her little hands had rushed me into the boat, and she went to stand on the quay between Alessio and Benito. I was relieved to see my manservant and my wife lock elbows. As our boat floated forward, the lantern in Luigi’s prow bathed their profiles in a golden glow and ignited the tears sparkling on both of their cheeks.

Now that we had reached our destination, Messer Grande’s whisper mixed with the fetid, salt-drenched mist. “Tito, this is a likely spot.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. The carnival mirth on the Piazza was a faint, distant din, no louder than the soft drip of water off the mist-coated balconies and bridges. With a fervent prayer to Our Lady, I opened my eyes and my mouth and commenced to sing. There was always music on the canals—the gondoliers’ lilting serenades, the sweet strum of a mandolin, a fiddle playing worn-out ditties or even arias from the latest opera—but no one else had ever sung this song on Venice’s waterways. The song that filled the air belonged only to me and Titolino—the song of Firefly and Old King Toad.

That was my plan—the slender reed that held the hope of Titolino’s deliverance. Using lung power that could blister paint on the fifth tier at the opera house, I was going to propel Titolino’s special song between boards and bricks, through crack and chink, and into every corner of every house in this accursed quarter. If fortune favored, Estrella would be otherwise occupied, allowing the boy to reply to my signal with a yell or a shout. Then Messer Grande and his men would storm the house.

I started with the toad’s lines, Titolino’s part, but a sudden gust of wind pulled the mist into ropes and all but snatched the words from my mouth. I began again, deftly lowering and raising pitch to suit first the royal toad, then the mischievous firefly. After each refrain, I paused and our boats floated in silence on the black mirror of the shimmering canal. Though I strained my ears to the utmost, I heard no answering call. We traversed the full length of the canal twice without producing so much as a twitch of a curtain or cracking of a shutter.

“Andrea…it’s not working.” My voice quavered in despair.

Messer Grande spoke across the small space that separated our boats. “Don’t falter, my friend. There are plenty more canals to try. Have Luigi take the next left. That one will be more sheltered from the wind.”

Our boat shot ahead and made the turn. The other two followed at an increasing interval. In the misty shadows, I gathered my strength and sang a few lines of the firefly’s refrain:
“Toad King, Toad King, ready to ride, I’ll light your way as you fly by my side.”

“Louder, Signor Tito. Fill up the sky.” It was Luigi, urging me on from his perch in the stern.

Yes, I was being too tentative, afraid to give myself away as a stage professional. But the stakes would never be higher—I needed to sing as I had never sung in my life. I filled my lungs to their depths, then loosed a new stream of melody. As the notes reverberated off the surrounding stones, I felt the power of the simple folk song well up within me. All the children of Italy who had ever sung the firefly chant as they ran after the bobbing points of light on summer evenings seemed to gaze down from heaven, smiling on my endeavor.

Thus fortified, my song rose higher than the crumbling buildings. Higher than the towers of the Arsenale. As high as the moon, I was convinced, and as wide as the infinite blue-black sky arching above.

At the next turn, Luigi paused. So did I, cocking my head in a wordless blending of hope and dread. I held my breath, listening intently. Was that…? Luigi shook his head; he’d heard nothing. He dipped his oar and pushed forward.