The Bellini Card

33

Palewski heard the knock on his door and clambered out of bed. It would be Ruggerio, he supposed, as he drew on his dressing gown. Ruggerio pressing the rich American to take him to lunch again.

It took Palewski a moment to place the heavyset man with the crumpled face in his memory.

“Come in, Commissario,” he said, suppressing a guilty start by wrenching the door wide. A wave of yesterday’s unhappiness washed over him: he felt like a hunted and friendless fugitive.

The commissario walked over to the window and stared out at the Grand Canal.

It struck Palewski that Barbieri, too, had been unable to take his eyes off the canal. One might have thought that the novelty would wear off.

“Can I help you, Commissario?”

Brunelli grunted. “For a man who has been in Venice only a few short days you seem to be making quite an impression, Signor Brett.” He turned. “I’m not sure it’s altogether the impression you wanted.”

Palewski frowned and said nothing.

“The other night,” Brunelli continued, “you thought I had come to establish your bona fides. I told you that was why I had been sent but not why I had come. Do you remember?”

“You had a body in the canal. I had seen it pulled out. Wasn’t much help, I’m afraid.”

“It’s not a problem, Signor Brett. Except that now, you see, I have another one.”

“Another one,” Palewski echoed, baffled. It was the commissario’s job, he supposed, to deal with bodies in canals. Why should he come to him?

“This second man, I think, you had already met. Count Barbieri.”

Palewski’s hand flew to his mouth. “Good God-what is the time? I completely forgot-I’m supposed to be seeing him at eleven.”

Brunelli looked into his eyes and slowly shook his head. “Not Barbieri, signore. And, I should add, it is already almost noon.”

If Brett was a liar, he thought, he was very good.

A simpler man-the stadtmeister, for example-might have drawn the obvious conclusion that Signor Brett was not to be trusted. “Let us not delude ourselves,” the stadtmeister might say, “mud sticks for good reason.”

But Brunelli, unlike his boss, was not a simple man. He had spent too many years considering his own motivation to assume that he always understood what motivated other people. He was a Venetian patriot, born and raised on these tightly packed islands, and he believed that Venice in all her grandeur and decay, in all her moods, in both her sweetness and her wickedness, offered him a solid and sufficient stage. Torcello, say, or Burano, or the farther reaches of the lagoon, were in the wings; the mainland was scarcely in the same theater.

He was a Venetian patriot who had taken a vow of allegiance to the Habsburg emperor. The paradox infuriated his son, as he had admitted to the contessa: but Paolo was still simple, because he was young and had not faced choices. Paolo had not taken decisions.

Brunelli took one now.

“Count Barbieri was killed last night, as he left the contessa’s party,” he said. “He was attacked on his gondola, and his head was cut off with a knife.”

Palewski sat down on a chair against the wall. “How perfectly horrible.”

“Barbieri’s head was discovered this morning by a sacristan in the church of San Paolo, not far from here. The sacristan found it on the altar, on a communion plate.”

Palewski stared at the commissario. “On a plate? Like John the Baptist?”

Brunelli grunted. “Yes. I had not thought of it that way.”

“But what could it mean?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

Brunelli took the window seat and he and Palewski leaned forward on their elbows, looking at one another. After a pause they both spoke together:

“You think I-?”

“I don’t think you-”

Palewski was the first to recover. “I didn’t kill Count Barbieri, Commissario. On the contrary, I was hoping to do some business with him.”

“I am thinking of my report,” Brunelli said candidly. “You saw Barbieri at the contessa’s party, then you left, early. Some people-a magistrate, for example-might wonder where you went.”

“I came back here. I felt ill-a touch of sun, I think.”

“Hmmm.” The commissario looked troubled. “I don’t suppose that anyone saw you later?”

“Later? No.” Palewski hesitated. He had a code, and he sensed he should stick to it even when he was in trouble.

Especially, perhaps, when he was in trouble. What good was the code otherwise?

“I’m afraid I can’t prove that I was here,” he said stiffly.

Brunelli sighed. “It’s a shame, Signor Brett.”

Their eyes met. The door to the bedroom opened and a young woman stepped out. She fastened a pin in her hair.

“But I know, Commissario, that this gentleman was here.” She smiled sweetly. “I was with him the whole night.”