The Lizard's Bite

ARMS GINGERLY INTERLOCKED, NIC COSTA AND EMILY Deacon walked the short distance from the small apartment in Castello to the waterfront by Giardini. It was just ten minutes from here to Peroni’s restaurant in the backstreets, beyond the Arsenale. They needed some time to themselves. More than the evening’s dinner with Peroni and Teresa—and Leo Falcone along as self-invited guest—would allow.

Emily wound herself free and took a table outside a small café. They ordered a couple of overpriced coffees, the cost enhanced by the unencumbered view of the lagoon. The deep yellow stain of the sun was now flooding down from the mountains that rippled the distant horizon of terra firma and everything—the lagoon, the city, the reflections of buildings in the dappled water—took on its warm, rich hue. Sometimes, when he was alone with nothing better to do, Costa would catch the slow vaporetto, number one, up the Grand Canal just to catch the moment, and watch the quiet wonder it created in the eyes of his fellow travellers, even, from time to time, a few Venetians.

“Tell me about the case, Nic,” she suggested. “As much as you can. It must be important if they’re cancelling leave.”

Costa couldn’t forget that Emily was making a fundamental shift in her career. Trying to put away her lost career, as an FBI agent kicked out of the Bureau for insubordination, and replace it with a future as an architect, in a foreign country too. All the same, her past still lived with her. She was always curious, always interested in a challenge. It was one of the facets of her complex, multifaceted personality that intrigued him.

“It’s the usual story. A family affair. A man kills his wife. Then either kills himself, or dies accidentally. We don’t know yet.”

“It sounds straightforward.”

But this was Venice, he thought. Or, more accurately, Murano, a place that welcomed the prying eyes of investigators even less.

“I think so. By the way, we have an invitation to a party tomorrow night. Hugo Massiter. The Englishman with the boat. Does the name ring a bell?”

She looked baffled. “No. Should it?”

“Five years ago. There was a scandal.”

“Five years ago I was in Washington trying to be someone else,” she said quickly. “And when aren’t there scandals?”

He must have looked downcast.

“I’m sorry, Nic. Do you really think I should have heard of him?”

“I have,” he replied. “And I want to know the details. Before we meet him again. He sees himself as a player in the city. He’s buying the Arcangeli’s island on Murano, where those people died. Tomorrow night we’re invited to a party there. He’s renovating it apparently. It’s going to be a gallery.”

Emily’s forehead grew even more furrowed. “This is the Isola degli Arcangeli you’re talking about?”

“You’ve heard of that?”

“Anyone who’s studied modern Italian architecture has heard of it. It’s one of the great follies of the twentieth century.” Her blue eyes were bright with anticipation. “That place is supposed to be amazing. They’ve kept the public out for years. I thought it was unsafe.”

“Not with the work Hugo Massiter’s having done.”

“He’s buying it? I would have thought a site like that would end up being the property of the city. It’s a kind of local monument. An odd one, a forgotten one, but all the same . . .”

Costa recalled Massiter’s quiet complaints of penury, and the Englishman’s obvious closeness to local officials.

“Perhaps there was a small arrangement. I don’t know. He certainly hopes to own it now. He seems a little short of cash too. Does that add up?”

“If he’s trying to restore a failed project like that, you bet. I’ve read up on the Isola degli Arcangeli, Nic. Everyone who hopes to get an architecture degree in Italy does. It’s mandatory, an object lesson in what happens when you’re more interested in design than structure. Much of it was judged to be fundamentally unsound from the outset. If I recall correctly, the man who came up with most of the plans wasn’t even a professional architect. A couple of people got badly hurt there in a roof collapse twenty years or so ago. It’s been closed to the public ever since. You have to be talking about a big, big project getting it back to something close to usable.”

Massiter did seem desperate, perhaps in more ways than he was admitting. And he wasn’t bluffing about the deadline to conclude the deal with the Arcangeli either.

“Rich men’s toys,” he murmured.

“Some toy,” she said, eyes glittering. “I’d give anything to see inside. And we’re going to a party there?”

But it was just another old building, he wanted to say. In a city full of them. Nic Costa was no boor. He appreciated Venice. He loved many of the sights. Still, there was something about the place that disturbed him. Nothing moved. Nothing changed in the lethargic melancholy of the lagoon. Even the people seemed to think their small, mundane lives would run on forever, trapped in the bright wash of the sky that flooded over them.

“I must be coming up in the world,” he murmured.

“We must be coming up in the world,” she corrected him quietly.

He brushed aside the soft hair from her cheek, and kissed her again, more slowly this time, pleased to feel her responding.

“We . . .” he whispered, “ . . . must eat.”

“Do we have to?” she murmured.

There was no choice. Falcone had ordered a chair at the table for a reason. Besides, something told Nic Costa he needed to be on his guard. Perhaps for all of them. Peroni was winding down into holiday mode. Falcone seemed to believe everything, while more complex than it appeared at first, would be a piece of cake. To him, Venice was a backwater, a place where a city cop could wipe the floor with the locals. Costa wasn’t so certain.

“We do,” he said. “Just for a while.”