The Bellini Card

75

Yashim was not certain that the pitiful figure in his cloak would live to see Dorsoduro, but Palewski was right: he was still alive when they carried him into the signora’s kitchen and laid him down on a pallet of straw.

The signora took one look and raised her hands. “In my house! He will bring disease to us all.”

Yashim said, “He isn’t ill. He’s starved. Bring me some hot water and a towel. I will wash him.”

To Palewski, it was an almost biblical scene: the smoky, blackened room, the emaciated figure on the pallet, and Yashim carefully wiping away the sweat and dirt.

“A little soup, signora, if you don’t mind. Not too hot.”

Palewski knelt to hold the man upright, while Yashim put the spoon to his lips. He swallowed, weakly.

“If it hadn’t been for that appointment-” Palewski frowned and shook his head. “What happened in that room, Yashim? Who is this man?”

He looked down, into his face. The eyes were closed; he was asleep already. He looked better clean: his hair in little golden tufts, his ears surprisingly delicate and small, with three little moles on the tip; you could see the veins in his forehead.

“Scrubbed up well, at least.”

Yashim rocked back on his heels. He took a small leather bag from his pocket and fished in it for a pinch of latakia tobacco, which he rolled up in a spill of rice paper. He touched the end to a brand and smoked it, in silence.

“As to that,” he said finally, blowing a perfect ring into the air, “I have few ideas. I don’t think he is the killer. It is possible that he painted the murder scene, in which case he may have more to tell us presently. If he recovers.”

He paused and glanced at his friend. “But if he’s not the killer,” he began, then shook his head. “I don’t like it, Palewski. It’s getting-very close.”

Palewski’s shoulders jerked. “Close-to what?”

Yashim pointed a finger. “To you. First Barbieri, then Eletro.”

“But Boschini-the man in the canal. I–I hadn’t had any contact with him.”

“No, you weren’t given the chance.” Yashim took a whiff of his tobacco.

“Do you think it’s time to call it quits? Get back to Istanbul. Admit defeat.” Palewski laid the man down gently on the pallet and drew Yashim’s cloak up to his chin. “That painting seemed such a simple solution to my troubles, once.”

Yashim nodded. “I think we should plan to stay a little longer,” he said. “Someone offered a Bellini for sale. The sultan got to hear of it, at least, so I assumed that the painting was available. But you haven’t heard a thing in ten days.”

“No. And everyone keeps getting killed.”

Yashim held up his hand. “How did the sultan pick up the rumor? Who told him?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Let’s say it was your friend Alfredo. He created the whole scenario in order to get somebody out here-and double-cross him.”

“So there never was a Bellini?”

Yashim looked puzzled. “I don’t know. Someone was supposed to come to Venice. But then-why are people being killed?”

“Why do people get killed? Over money, or women.”

“Or because they know too much.”

Palewski started.

“Alfredo knew where to find me,” he said slowly. “The day after we saw the painting he was waiting by Florian, in the piazza.”

“Go on.”

“I’d simply told Ruggerio to meet me there for lunch. He was there, too, at a table.”

“I see. So Ruggerio told Alfredo where he could find you.”

“Yes. Maybe. It might have been a coincidence.”

Yashim flicked the end of his cigarette into the fire. “Perhaps. But one of them seems to have guessed something else: that you were not Signor Brett. Why else would they take Maria to be questioned?”

“Maybe the gang just wanted to be sure who they were dealing with. To be sure I could come through with the money.”

“No. A courtesan deals in ducats, not thousands in silver. They took Maria because they wanted a confession. Something intimate. They already suspected who you really were.”

Yashim found himself examining his friend. He saw a perfectly plausible visitor to Venice, like any other: well dressed, acceptably a la mode. Signor Brett, connoisseur!

“Are you-” He blushed. “Are you circumcised, Palewski?”

“No.”

Yashim glanced away, baffled, and his eye fell on something on the floor beside Palewski’s chair.

He sighed heavily. “Let me see your hat.”

“My hat?”

“There.” Yashim held the hat by the brim and invited Palewski to look inside.

“Well, I’m-! But I made no secret of the fact that I’d been in Istanbul.”

“That’s right-but casual visitors don’t get their hats in Istanbul. I wouldn’t buy my pantaloons in Venice, either. It isn’t conclusive, of course, but it would have raised Ruggerio’s suspicions.”

“Suspicions of what, Yashim? I don’t understand.”

“That you were the man from Istanbul.”

“The man from Istanbul,” Palewski echoed.

“Why would it matter so much to Ruggerio that you came from Istanbul?” Yashim tapped the hat against his palm. “There could be two possibilities. Either he was expecting someone from Istanbul-and couldn’t be sure if you were the one. He might have expected someone like me. Or-pah.” He shook his head and murmured, “Olmaz.”

“Impossible?” Palewski echoed.

Yashim’s eyes narrowed. “No. Ruggerio could also have been confused because he didn’t expect anyone from Istanbul.”

Palewski wrinkled his nose. “It’s been a trying day so far, Yashim. You’re getting tangled up in a double negative, or whatever. I mean to say, you can’t not expect someone to come from Istanbul. It may be unlikely, but that’s not the same thing, is it? Why shouldn’t Ruggerio expect someone to come from Istanbul?”

Yashim nodded and pinched his lip.

“Only one reason that I can see,” he said. “Because that someone was already here.”

Palewski folded his arms.

Yashim stared absently at his friend.

“In the painting. The man with the red arms. Did you notice anything else about him? Something odd?”

“Odd? I don’t think so. It’s very small.”

Yashim was on his feet. He dragged the painting from the wall.

“When I first saw it, I had the impression that the killer was a foreigner. Not Venetian, I mean.” Yashim squatted and squinted at the tiny figures. “I think I was right. Look.”

Palewski frowned at the painting. “Not much to him, is there? Except, well…”

“Well?”

“He’s shaven-headed, isn’t he? Except for the sort of topknot.”

“The topknot, exactly. And if I’m right, and he came from Istanbul?”

“In Istanbul,” Palewski said thoughtfully, “I’d take him for a Tatar.”

The Tatars were consummate horsemen from the steppe and for centuries they had been the Ottomans’ closest allies. But the Russians had seized their Crimean homeland. Since then many had fled the rule of the infidel czar, settling instead in the Ottoman Empire across the sea.

“He could be one of those Crimean exiles you see around,” Palewski continued. “Most of them come from the Black Sea coast, nowadays. It could be that-or a loose brushstroke.”

“Our painter is nothing if not precise.”

“But Venice is hardly awash with Tatars, Yashim. He’d stick out a mile.” He looked at his friend. “Unless he wore a hat.”

“Another hat.”

Palewski stood by the fire, his hands tucked behind his back.

“Why didn’t the Tatar see the man who painted him? He must have been in the same apartment.”

Yashim glanced at the sleeping figure on the mattress. “But we didn’t see him, either, did we?”