Liquid Desires (19 page)

Urbino had filled out several forms for the police, but the police seemed almost resigned. Another mugging to add to the string of others this summer. Urbino had tried to convince them that this mugging, however, might not be part of the pattern, but what did he have as proof except his own suspicion?

Urbino was just as distraught at the loss of the album as he was by having been physically attacked—perhaps even more. The police were alerting sweepers and trash collectors, since the muggers might have tossed away the scrapbook if it was worthless to them. But this was too much to hope for. Urbino was afraid the muggers hadn't just been after his wallet but rather the scrapbook. The man restricting him had been determined that his accomplice take it.

Urbino ended up being fifteen minutes late for his appointment with Novembrini at seven-thirty. Campo Santa Margherita, which the area's residents used as an extension of their homes, especially during the
passeggiata
that so amused Eugene, was filled with locals. Its comfortable, unpretentious rhythm helped soothe Urbino somewhat as he sat across from Bruno Novembrini at the outdoor café.

Novembrini's handsome, bony face was heavily lined with fatigue this early evening, giving him an even more rakish look, especially with the dark shadow of his beard gleaming in places with spikes of gray. Urbino could easily imagine Novembrini as a model for those darkly handsome, vaguely sinister men whom virginal heroines fall in love with in bodice-ripper romances. Almost invariably this kind of man ended up being—in fiction, at least—well intentioned. What had Flavia's relationship been with the older Novembrini? Had she found the glowering artist abusive or kindly intentioned in the end? And just how virginal and vulnerable had she actually been? If appearances meant anything, she hadn't been virginal at all; yet Urbino knew only too well that appearances often were the very greatest deceivers.

“I'd like to get this over with,” Novembrini said in his low, mellifluous voice. “I'm doing this at Massimo Zuin's urging. He thinks it might help me to talk about Flavia with someone who—who wasn't involved in any way with her. I've been keeping a lot to myself and he thinks it's taking its toll. But first you should tell me exactly why you want to know more about Flavia. Is it really because of the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, as you said when we talked before?”

Novembrini opened a sketchbook and took a pencil from his pocket.

“Would you mind if I sketched you while we're talking? It helps my thoughts along.”

Urbino explained why he needed to know more about Flavia. He told Novembrini how she had insisted that the Conte da Capo-Zendrini was her father and how Urbino suspected that her death not only had something to do with her accusation but wasn't suicide at all, let alone an accident.

Novembrini just listened, squinting against the smoke from the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He busied himself with his pencil, looking back and forth between Urbino's face and the sketchbook. He took the cigarette from his mouth and put it on the edge of the table.

“Murder? Would it shock you if I said I wish I could believe it?” Novembrini said. “Maybe then I wouldn't feel guilty about her having committed suicide. But suicide or not, it's her father and her father's sister who should feel the most guilty. Flavia never felt loved by either of them. She said that Lorenzo resented her after her mother's death. But this is the first I've ever heard of anything about the Conte da Capo-Zendrini—or any other man. She never said anything like that to me.”

Novembrini frowned. Did it bother him that Flavia hadn't told him about the Conte da Capo-Zendrini? The artist studied Urbino's face for several moments, but didn't return right away to his sketch. A burning odor hit Urbino's nostrils. Novembrini reached down for his cigarette, which had scorched the tablecloth, and took a long drag, trying, not very hard, to blow the smoke away from Urbino.

“I honestly don't know anything about it,” Novembrini said, looking down at the sketch again and making a few strokes.

“How long did you know Flavia?”

“Almost two years. I met her at Zuin's. She came in with her aunt—not Lorenzo's sister but her mother's, Violetta Volpi. She's a painter, most of it imitation Munch. She's envious of me, although she should just turn a cold eye on her own work to see why she never even made it as far as the Aperto.”

The Aperto, an exhibit devoted to up and coming artists, was mounted every Biennale at the rope works near the Arsenal.

“Massimo carries her work. Your relative bought one—a portrait of a girl standing by a pool of water. Violetta painted a whole series like that. Flavia didn't like any of them. They reminded her of her mother's death. To give Violetta credit, though, she was devoted to Flavia. Although Flavia sometimes said that Violetta might have resented her mother a little—because her mother was so beautiful and Violetta knew Lorenzo first—she never doubted her love. And if Flavia needed anything she needed love—deep love—not just affection, and certainly not just sex.” Novembrini paused before saying, “I tried to be the kind of man she seemed to need. I loved her but I must have failed her somehow. She used to say that she trusted me a long time before she loved me. I've thought about that a lot since she died. I think that for her, trust was just about everything. If I ever violated her trust, I knew that she would be destroyed—and I never did.”

Where, Urbino asked himself, did the dark-haired young woman he had seen with Novembrini at the café before Flavia had died and whose show of affection Novembrini had checked fit into this picture?

“So why did she slash the painting?”

Novembrini, who should have expected the question, seemed surprised. He put down the sketch pad.

“I said that I never violated her trust, but that's not the same as her thinking I had. About two weeks ago she started accusing me of seeing someone else and saying that I had been lying to her. A friend of hers put the idea in her head. Ladislao Mirko, the weird guy who runs the pensione I mentioned when we first talked. I never took to him. He's a real loser.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Not all that much. Just what Flavia and—and one or two of her friends told me about him.”

“What friends?”

“I don't remember their names now. Just friends.”

“What did they say?”

“That Mirko and his mother and father drifted in from Trieste about fifteen years ago. His mother ran off a few years later and his father eventually ended up overdosing on drugs or drinking himself to death. Obviously these things run in families. Mirko's pathetic. All he probably ever thinks about is where he's going to get his next hit.” Novembrini inhaled deeply on the cigarette. “He was jealous of Flavia and me. Can't blame him. Just look at him—ugly and emaciated! I couldn't say the slightest thing against him to Flavia, though. She was loyal to him, and she believed she had no reason to question his own loyalty. I said to her once that Mirko wanted nothing more than to get his hands all over her. She slapped me. ‘Sex has nothing to do with Mirko and me,' she said. But I had my doubts—I mean, where
he
was concerned. He was just burning to be more than friends with her.”

Obviously no love was lost between Novembrini and Mirko.

“‘Beauty and the Beast,' I used to call them to myself,” Novembrini went on. “I envisioned a painting on the subject, using them both as models but, needless to say, I never mentioned it to Flavia.”

Novembrini finished his wine and poured more into his glass and Urbino's from the carafe.

“But we're getting off the point, aren't we? I don't know anything about Flavia's mother and the Conte da Capo-Zendrini. Why she would have told you and the Contessa—and even Ladislao Mirko—and not me, I don't know. She made it very clear to me, though, that she hated Brollo.”

Novembrini looked off into the thinning crowd in Campo Santa Margherita.

“What did she say about him?”

“Oh, she didn't mince any words. She despised him. When I asked her why, she would just refuse to say. I assumed it was because of how he might have treated her mother, because Flavia had only good things to say about her.”

“Can't you remember anything specific about what she said about Brollo?”

“That's just it. She never was specific. I just knew she hated him. I did get the impression, though, that she was holding back when she talked about him, as if she were afraid of what she might say—or even do—if she let herself go. She was capable of sudden, violent emotions.”

“Do you mean something other than slashing the painting?”

Novembrini spent a few minutes working on the sketch before answering.

“I'll tell you something only because maybe it will help you see why I'm afraid that she committed suicide. A couple of times when she was spending the night, she became hysterical. All I did was look at her in a way that let her know what was on my mind—which wasn't just to turn out the lights and go to sleep. When I went closer to her to try to calm her, she slapped me and either ran from the apartment or locked herself in the bathroom for hours. She never wanted to talk about why she reacted the way she did. Most other times we had no problems when it came to sex.”

“What state of mind was Flavia in when you saw her last?”

“You're not fooling me, Macintyre! What you really want to know is when I last saw Flavia. Well, it was a good week before she died, right after the slashing. I told her that I wouldn't tell anyone that she had done it but that she should consider getting some help. She just laughed as if it were a joke, but I was serious. Her mother wasn't all that emotionally balanced.”

“Was Flavia taking any medication?”

“I doubt it. She made a big fuss about taking aspirin and she hardly ever touched alcohol.”

“Did she ever mention a doctor she might have been going to?”

“Flavia hated doctors. She would have had to be dying to let one come near her.”

Novembrini's dark, deep-set eyes seemed touched by sadness and regret. He drained his glass and stood up.

“I have to be getting back. Zuin and I are having dinner with a buyer. Take this.” Novembrini ripped off the sketch he had been doing of Urbino and handed it to him. “You'll have to forgive me. I got carried away by your nose. I made it a bit more prominent than it actually is,” he said with a smile.

“Before you go, could you tell me if you know anything about a scrapbook Flavia kept?”

“A scrapbook? She never mentioned she had one. Good day!”

Novembrini strode off into the
campo
in the direction of San Pantalon.

Urbino looked at Novembrini's sketch. It was a good likeness, capturing Urbino's sharp features and even the bruise under his eye, but Novembrini was right about the nose. The sketch looked not a little like Pinocchio after a few of his lies.

Urbino went into the café and called the police. No, he was told, they hadn't found the muggers and the scrapbook hadn't turned up. The officer assured him that he would be notified as soon as they learned anything and that the scrapbook would be returned to him immediately, if it were found.

Urbino rang off, not feeling in any way encouraged. He was afraid Flavia's scrapbook, along with whatever vital information it might contain, was lost to him forever.

As he was walking back to the Palazzo Uccello, he paused in the middle of a small bridge over a side canal. He stood there musing for several minutes, enjoying the relative calm and quiet and watching two young boys play by the canal bank with their dog.

He thought about what he had learned from Bruno Novembrini about Flavia—how she had felt unloved by both Lorenzo and Lorenzo's sister, how Lorenzo had resented her after her mother's death, how she had apparently loved and admired Violetta Volpi, her mother's sister. There seemed no doubt in Novembrini's mind that his former girlfriend had hated Lorenzo, but yet she had never gíven him any indication that she thought Lorenzo wasn't her father or had ever said anything about the Conte da Capo-Zendrini. Had she been afraid to tell Novembrini? And what about Flavia's hysterical reaction to the looks Novembrini gave her—looks that indicated he wanted to have sex with her? Once again Urbino wondered about the possible role of the dark-haired young woman.

Urbino felt he had learned a lot from Novembrini, but he wasn't clear as to what it might all mean. And neither was he satisfied that Novembrini had been completely honest, that he hadn't held back something vital. The artist had had a strange relationship with his model, but was it a relationship that could have ended in his murdering her? Novembrini claimed not to have seen her for a week before her death but perhaps he had—on the night she died.

Last week at the café by the Accademia Bridge, Novembrini had seemed afraid of giving Urbino any information about Flavia. Should Urbino assume he was any the less afraid now that she was dead? Perhaps Novembrini was only feeding him the information he wanted him to know for his own reasons.

Urbino was pulled away from his speculations by the sight of a man crossing another bridge about thirty meters farther along the same canal. He was small, wore a straw hat, and walked with quick steps behind a group of tourists.

“Signor Occhipinti!” Urbino called.

The man halted momentarily and light reflected off the surface of his spectacles. Then the man quickened his pace and went down the steps of the bridge and disappeared down a
calle
.

14

Back at the Palazzo Uccello, Urbino opened the glass doors of one of the bookcases in the library and took out his copy of the catalog of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. He turned to pages 71 and 72.

On one side of the page was a color reproduction of Yves Tanguy's
The Sun in Its Casket
—or, as it was more correctly but less disturbingly translated,
The Sun in Its Jewel Case
. One of the words of the painting's original French title described a small jewel coffer or “casket,” but most Americans thought it meant a coffin. The Tanguy, one of the paintings Eugene had passed by in silence and with disdain last week, was a bizarre landscape of amorphous, deliquescent forms that teased with an elusive meaning. The dominant image was a yellow tapered column with long stickline protrusions. Vague shapes on the point of becoming human or forever losing any resemblance to humanity were scattered and embedded in the sand around the yellow object.