Susan Anderson - Death of a Serpent

“Have you entertained strangers recently?”

“Admit a stranger? Never. Unless he has a recommendation from someone we trust, a member of the city council, for instance. That’s different.”

“So you reject?”

“All the time.”

“Make a list of the rejected in the last few months,” Serafina said.

Rosa pulled the cord.

“Get Scarpo,” she said to the maid.

• • •

Candlelight reflected from the bumpy surface of Scarpo’s pate. It reminded Serafina of a scarred cabbage. He wore red suspenders and his stomach was a flat rock. The butt of a revolver stuck out of his belt. A shepherd’s knife hung from the other side. He bowed to Rosa, nodded to Serafina, arranged himself in the chair facing La Signura.

Serafina smelled week-old sweat. What is it about him? She said, “Rosa tells me you turn men away all the time. Can you describe any of them?”

He snapped his braces, directing his gaze toward Rosa. “There is one who keeps coming back, Signura, a stranger, he has a funny smell, not from around here. Pigheaded, too. Returns many times. Wears a brown cloak and hat. The other day he’s in town when I go to the smith.”

Serafina asked, “Same man? You’re sure?”

He shrugged. “Same smell.”

“When did you last see him?”

Scarpo sucked his mustache. “Remember, Signura? Middle of last week. I wait for him to finish his business. I sniff. I think, that smell. It’s the same one who comes around here. I wait. He talks, talks, talks with the smith. I wait more. Same man I tell ‘no girls for you tonight.’ And something else I note: he wears gloves. Not cold.”

“That’s one, Scarpo,” Serafina said. She ran a hand through her hair and wrote down Scarpo’s description of the gloved stranger. When finished, she frowned at the page.

“Write what the man tells you and be done with it. You can rely on Scarpo. Whatever he says, take it. Customers arrive soon and you are slow as usual. Even as a child, you ate the cannoli like a toothless hag.” Rosa looked at Scarpo, waved her pinched fingers in Serafina’s direction. “She doesn’t change, that one. When we were children, she always had to have the last bite and there I sat, wishing I had more while she poked and played and dreamed.”

Serafina chewed her cheek.

“Well, what is it? Slower than a child eating spinach, you are.”

She told them about the begging monk she’d seen last week. “Smelled of foreign dung. Said he was from a monastery north of Naples. Didn’t like my questions.”

Scarpo shook his head. “Not a monk, the stranger. And not begging.”

“I want to know about all of the others you’ve told to leave. And anything else unusual that comes into your head-men walking outside or in the back, someone sneaking in the shadows, anyone who picked a fight or followed you in the Centru .”

“Well, there’s another, he limps, one of Don Tigro’s men. Keeps asking for a turn, such like that. You told me, ‘Nothing on the house,’ Signura, you know the one I mean.”

Rosa nodded. “The snake. Of course.” She snapped her fingers at Serafina. “Add him to the list.”

“Whatever you wish, sweetness.” Scarpo described a few first time customers who, because the prostitutes did not like their demands, were not allowed to return. When he’d finished, Serafina had seven descriptions.

“What about Falco? He’s your client. Has he ever given trouble?”

“Who?” Rosa glared. “No client called Falco.”

“At the wake I saw him with a few of your prostitutes. Two in particular: a redhead and a blonde. But the rest of your women gathered round them. They formed a group.”

Rosa shook her head, hunched her shoulders, and looked at Scarpo who said he didn’t remember him.

“Addled, your brain, Fina. Not my customer.”

Serafina rolled her eyes. “Did any of these men return, other than the blond stranger?”

Scarpo considered, shook his head, stood. “Getting late, Signura.”

“Thank you, Scarpo.” She glared at Serafina.

• • •

After he’d gone, Rosa said, “You’ve no sense of time, of right and wrong. Scarpo-”

“I don’t have a sense of right and wrong? What about your sense of right and wrong when my daughter came to you?”

“We’ve been over this before. She needed-”

“Don’t you tell me what she needed. She needed her mother. She needed her family. She needed sense knocked into her.” She stopped, gazed at the dark. “After Giorgio’s funeral, I don’t know, I just couldn’t do any more about her. I must take care of the other children. Better not to think of Carmela.”

Rosa bent to Serafina, handing her a linen. “My mouth is shut, but it’s an effort. More Marsala?”

Serafina shook her head and blew her nose.

“All right. Let me say it one more time. If she knocked on my door again, I wouldn’t be so beguiled. Such a darling, except for her tongue, of course. Too much like yours.” Rosa paused. “Yes, I want you to find the killer. And, yes, I should have sent for you when Carmela knocked on my door. I was wrong. Forgive me, but that was almost four years ago and you never mention her name.”

Rosa, for once, was right. Better not to think of her, Carmela. Sometimes life was just too crowded with the right things to do. Let the images float away. After all, Carmela chose her life. She wasn’t in danger, was she? She couldn’t be dead, could she?

“Stop staring into space and blow your nose. Take all the time you need. Only, mind the hour.”

“I’ll take plenty of time, don’t you fret. I have questions and more questions, questions galore. I might need to return.” Serafina chewed on the inside of her cheek and looked at the list. “Two of these descriptions, the brown-cloaked stranger and the one who limps-I have a feeling about these men.”

“Plenty of brown-cloaked strangers,” Rosa said.

“And there’s another.” Serafina brought up Falco’s name.

“Again we’re back to him? Like a cur and a bone. Falco, slippery: about to kiss my hand when someone tapped him on the shoulder and he was off like a cat hunting prey. But he’s not a customer. Nothing more.”

“Then how does he know your women?”

“A fantasy you entertain. Not a customer.”

Serafina nodded.

“Not a customer,” Rosa said again. Her cheeks puffed.

She told Rosa about her affair with him. “It was years ago. Both in school. Stopped studying, so infatuated I was with him.”

“Let me understand. A flirtation you had with him years ago. He’s the one who stopped it, and that’s why you don’t trust him?” Rosa’s eyes twinkled.

Serafina narrowed her shoulders, leaned over the madam’s desk so that their faces almost touched. “A customer, Falco.”

The madam’s face purpled. “Not a customer, Falco.”

“I saw him cooing with your women.”

“A fast worker, Falco.”

“Behind my back, he was dating other women. Betrothed besides, and I never knew it,” Serafina said.

“Like half the men in Sicily.”

“But there was something about him, about the way it ended.”

“Tell me,” Rosa said.

“I saw him kissing another woman. He was in disguise, wearing a cheap actor’s wig.”

“That’s good.” Rosa grinned. “And you remember this from school? Tell me more of the story, oh wizard.”

Serafina touched her temples. “And when I called out his name, he stopped kissing the little vixen, turned to me, doffed his cap, and bowed.”

Rosa laughed so hard she cried.

Serafina frowned. “Handy with a blade, Falco. Passable actor. Plays to the cheap seats.”

Rosa wiped her eyes. “Better than dolci, that story. So add him to the list, but circle Brown Cloak and Limping Cobra.”