Liquid Desires (40 page)

Violetta, with one eye on Bernardo as he was being secured in the stretcher, continued her explanation.

“Annabella knew I would despise Lorenzo for what he did to Flavia, for the way he had deceived us both! And I do!” Tears streamed down her face. “And I despise myself most of all! Can you imagine how I feel? Poor Flavia! My poor daughter! We're as guilty of her death as if we had pushed her into the Grand Canal. I hope you and the Contessa are satisfied! I can imagine how she'll gloat—along with her lackey, Silvestro Occhipinti.”

“Occhipinti?”

“Of course! He's been poking around just the way you have. He came to see me. He wanted to know where he could find Flavia—other than at her own house, that is. But I refused to tell him. He said he would find out.”

“When was this?”

“The morning of Flavia's last visit here.”

19

While the medics were taking Bernardo out to the ambulance with Violetta following anxiously behind, Urbino called the Palazzo Brollo. There was no answer.

He went out into the garden. Bernardo was now in the ambulance, and Violetta was standing on the water steps in the wind and rain as the boat prepared to leave.

When the ambulance went into the choppy waters of the Grand Canal, Urbino's water taxi eased back to the landing and he got in. Urbino told the
motoscafista
to take him to the Palazzo Brollo. As the motorboat pulled away, he had a distorted glimpse of Violetta standing in the rain.

The storm had passed its worst point, and the sky was starting to lighten slightly, even with the coming of night. In less than ten minutes the water taxi arrived in the canal behind the Palazzo Brollo. Urbino rang the bell, praying that Annabella was there. Even if Lorenzo was home too, he would insist on talking to Annabella.

The door opened and a pale Annabella stood there against the dark hallway. She seemed to be in a daze.

“Your work is finished, signore,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically thick, as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. It was also higher, no longer the suffocated whisper it had been before. “Everybody is miserable. Miserable or dead—or miserable and dying!”

“Is your brother here?”

She ignored the question and said, “You want to know about Violetta, don't you? Yes, I went to see that bitch. I told her all about her precious little daughter and my brother. Oh, yes, I know everything! I know what Lorenzo did to Flavia! I knew it back then!” She seemed proud of it. “But it took that whore of a Flavia to make me realize that Lorenzo had carried on even with Violetta! Flavia wasn't trying to keep her voice down that night, screaming at Lorenzo, accusing him of everything under the sun! Every time I told him what I'd heard Flavia say, he would deny it—until tonight! He must have known he couldn't lie forever! Not with me! Not with me!” The unrestrained emotion behind Annabella's words struck Urbino as almost orgasmic. “Ah,” she said, drawing the word out as if it had more than one syllable, “I've been a fool all these years!
Both
sisters!”

A perverse jealousy throbbed in Annabella's bloodshot blue eyes.

“Did you attack Bernardo Volpi an hour ago?”

“Attack Bernardo? I want him to live to a hundred so that Violetta will have to take care of him. She's probably waiting for him to die so that she can marry Lorenzo.” She leaned against the doorframe and laughed. “No, I didn't attack Bernardo, but I didn't spare any words telling him what kind of a woman he had married. Much better it would have been for Violetta if I
had
attacked and killed him instead of telling him the truth.”

There was one more thing Urbino wanted to know. It was about Silvestro Occhipinti.

“That silly little man from Asolo?” Annabella answered. “The one who's always mumbling nonsense? I heard that Violetta had hopes he would marry her in the old days, but he must have seen through her.”

“Have you seen him recently?”

“Yes. The day Flavia drowned like Regina. In the morning. I told him where Flavia was staying. I called up Ladislao Mirko to tell him that an old man might be coming by the pensione. He didn't think it was important until two days ago—Friday. He wanted to know who ‘the skinny old man' was. I told him. Ha! Do you think an old codger like that would believe he had a chance with Flavia? But who knows? Maybe she ended up liking older men after Lorenzo!”

Annabella laughed hysterically until tears rolled down her sallow cheeks. Urbino couldn't imagine flowers or anything else blooming under her baleful touch.

He was about to turn away when he was startled to see Lorenzo Brollo's face staring at him from within a cracked mirror in a far corner of the dark hall. The face was immobile, the eyes sharp and glaring. In the few moments before Annabella closed the door, Urbino couldn't decide whether he was looking at Brollo's actual reflection or the reflection of a portrait that had gone unnoticed on his other visits. Whichever it was, the eyes stared unblinkingly into Urbino's, as haughty as ever.

Turning his back on the dark and twisted emotions of the Palazzo Brollo, Urbino told the
motoscafista
to take him as quickly as possible to the Casa Trieste. The puzzle pieces were all finally coming together.

20

“Mirko's not here,” Agata said when Urbino got to the Casa Trieste fifteen minutes later. “He left about two hours ago, not long after you were here.”

“Do you know where he went?”

The woman shook her head and was about to close the door.

“By the way, Agata, did you ever notice a bottle of pills anywhere in Flavia Brollo's room when you were cleaning it?”

“Pills? I don't think so.”

Urbino asked if he could use the pensione phone and waited until he heard Agata sweeping before he dialed. He first called the Contessa and, in a low voice, asked her to have Milo wait with the car in Bassano for the next train from Venice, which was leaving in an hour. Then he asked if she had seen Occhipinti that day.

“No, but he called a few hours ago. I've been trying to contact you. He said that he hadn't told me everything. He was at the Casa Trieste before Tuesday.”

“Just what I thought.”

“He said he didn't like lying to me, that he was ready to tell the whole truth, but that he wanted to tell you and me together. What's going on, Urbino? I'm frightened. Are you coming here because of Silvestro? Or is it Madge Lennox? She went by in a taxi a little while ago in the direction of La Pippa.”

“I'll explain everything later, Barbara, but you can stop worrying about Alvise. He wasn't Flavia's father. No, that's all I have time to tell you now, but please stay at La Muta.”

Urbino next called Occhipinti, letting the phone ring a long time. When no one picked up, he called the Questura.

Commissario Gemelli hadn't returned. Urbino, speaking softly so that Agata wouldn't hear, told the duty officer what had happened at the Ca' Volpi, what he had learned from Violetta Volpi and Annabella Brollo, and what he knew about Silvestro Occhipinti in relation to Flavia Brollo and her death. He said that he was going to Asolo to Occhipinti's apartment and gave the exact address on the Via Browning. The Questura should alert the carabinieri in Asolo and try to locate Ladislao Mirko. Praying that when Gemelli got all this information he would realize, as Urbino himself did, how urgent the situation was, Urbino went through everything again with the duty officer as the minutes flew by.

Urbino went out into the little square. As he hurried into the
calle
that would eventually take him back to where the boat was waiting, he realized how much danger he was in. He felt it much more keenly now than ever before.

The
calle
was deserted, filled with puddles from the recent storm. Urbino quickened his step, as much out of apprehensiveness as urgency. He was reminded of how he had been mugged not far from here, and he still wasn't sure whether it had been a random attack or not. Quick footsteps came from what he thought was ahead of him. When he turned the corner, however, no one was there. Water dripped from the eaves of the buildings onto the pavement.

Suddenly Urbino heard a shout and a dark object came crashing down in front of him, within inches of hitting him in the head. It smashed on the pavement. Pieces of earthenware, soil, and the leaves and flowers of a geranium were scattered on the stones.

“
Mi dispiace
, signore.” A woman looked down from an open window. Two pots of geraniums remained on her sill. “I'm planning to put up wires to keep the pots from falling,” she went on nervously. “Are you all right?”

Urbino said he was fine and ran to the waiting boat. Ten minutes later, thanks to the Rio Nuovo shortcut, Urbino was walking up the steps of the Santa Lucia train station. As he looked at the sky above the modern white building, it was as if some visual residue of the recent lightning were flashing “Fathers often use too much force.” Urbino had come full circle since more than two weeks ago when, sitting on the veranda of the Grand Hotel des Bains, he had remembered those words from a previous Biennale d'Arte. They meant something very much different to him now than they had then. From now on they would be associated with a cycle of violence that he feared might not yet be over.

“Urbino!” It was Eugene. “I thought you'd never get here! I called Countess Barbara and she said you were takin' the next train up to see her. Thought I'd join you if you don't mind. I've got something to tell you. It's goin' to disappoint the hell out of you though. Ha, ha!”

“I'm in a hurry, Eugene. The train leaves in a few minutes.”

“Let's get goin' then! I want to see Countess Barbara once more before I leave. I'm off to Rome tomorrow morning.”

Urbino and Eugene made their way up the steps of the station, where groups of youths, many with backpacks, were lounging.

“Tomorrow?”

“Afraid so. Got to catch up with Evie. Don't look like the two of you are goin' to get together here in Venice. Who would've thought that spunky little sister of mine would be the one to get cold feet? She went to Rome today. But you ain't free and clear entirely—not by a long shot! There's a method in the girl's madness.”

Urbino forged ahead of Eugene through the open doors of the station. The odors of sweat and wet clothing assaulted him.

“What do you mean?” Urbino called back over his shoulder.

Eugene was trying to keep up with him and was short of breath.

“Slow down, Urbino! What do I mean? I mean that Evie wants you to come to Rome. Neutral territory, she calls it. I said she should meet you in Switzerland then! The problem is she didn't think she should come here, seein' it's your home now and all. But Rome's different. I think she's a mite suspicious of Venice. Could be because of some of the things I've been tellin' her about what's been goin' on here. She didn't take to the story of that girl who ended up dead. Bawled me out, too, about buyin' you that picture of her. Anyway, Evie said something about a promise you made to her back in the good old days—something about a cemetery!”

Urbino remembered. In the early months of their marriage he had promised to take Evangeline to Keats' and Shelley's graves at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. Evangeline loved the Romantic poets and had read about pilgrimages to this particular cemetery by devotees. The trip to Rome had been postponed, however, from their first anniversary to their second, until it was beyond all possibility as their marriage soured, failed, and then quickly ended after Urbino had discovered Evangeline and her cousin Reid together.

“Evie's just as strange as you are when it comes to cemeteries! You know how much she loves St. Louis Cemetery. Anyway, I said I'd tell you, and now you can do as you see fit. We're stayin' at the Boston Hotel for a week. I'd be happy to see you down there but don't think I'm pressin' you anymore. To be honest, Urbino, maybe my little sister is givin' you the kind of test you can't win. She's a crafty one.”

Urbino checked the announcement board to see if the Bassano train was leaving from the usual track.

“I don't know if I can get down to Rome, Eugene. I don't know if I
should
. It might be better to leave things the way they are, but I'll think about it.”

On his way to Asolo like this, with his mind filled with speculation and uneasiness, was no time to consider the possibility of a reunion with Evangeline and what it might mean. Reflection about that would have to come later.

“Well, you just think about it then. Meanwhile I guess I can make my good-byes tonight to Sylvester,” Eugene said. “I just might rent his villa next year. How would you like that, Urbino? Me and your Countess hobnobbing it up in Asolo.”

As they hurried to the Bassano del Grappa train, Eugene painted a detailed, rosy picture of what life might be like for him and Countess Barbara in the hills of Asolo.

21

When Urbino and Eugene arrived at Bassano, the Contessa's Bentley was waiting. The Contessa hadn't listened to Urbino. She hadn't stayed at La Muta but had come to meet him.

“What a delightful surprise,
caro!
” the Contessa said. “You've brought our dear Eugene with you.”

On the way to Asolo, the Contessa and Eugene dominated the conversation while Urbino withdrew into himself, looking out the window and making only obligatory responses. The Contessa's eyes slid in his direction many times, but Urbino was sure that Eugene detected nothing amiss in her attention. All the while, Urbino knew that she was agonizing over what might happen next, although she was certainly relieved to know that Alvise hadn't been Flavia's father after all.

At one point, hurrying to speak in a convenient interval in Eugene's monologue, she said, “I must say that you've been in a brown study since Bassano, Urbino.”