Joseph Kanon - Alibi

She studied me, then followed me inside. Claudia was bringing a new cup over from the bar. She handed it to her but didn’t meet her eyes, barely acknowledging her.

“You have to call it off. Cavallini knows. They’ll be waiting for you.”

“What?” she said again, loud this time, so I leaned closer to her to tell her the rest, just a murmur to anyone else, barely audible over the steam hiss of the coffeemaker. She took it in blankly, staring out at the campo. When I finished, she asked for a cigarette and glanced around the room while I lit it for her.

“Calm down,” she said, looking at my fingers, shaking a little.

“It’s the coffee-I’ve been waiting. I was afraid I wouldn’t get to you in time. I didn’t know where you were.”

“You’re panicking,” she said, blowing out smoke.

“No. He knows.”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Stop worrying. It’ll be all right.”

“How can you say that?” Claudia snapped. “How can it be all right?”

“Claudia.”

“You want to drag everyone down with you?” Claudia said, then turned away, a frustrated gesture, as if she were stamping her foot.

“You can’t go through with it now,” I said quietly.

“We have to. They move him tonight. So you had a friendly talk. So he’s wearing a gun. This doesn’t prove anything.”

“You can’t take that chance. You’ve got people to think about. Someone must have talked.”

“Maybe. It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does. I know, everyone just knows his piece. But one piece leads to another. One of the links breaks, the whole thing can fall apart. All it takes is one.”

She took a sip of coffee, slowing the moment. “Only if he really knows what is going to happen.”

I looked at her. “And no one does?”

“It wouldn’t be wise, would it? If someone did talk.”

“You told everybody a different story?” Claudia said. “Including Adam?”

“A man so friendly with the police.”

“You think I’d tell them?”

“The boy didn’t think he was betraying us either. Helping. Medicine.” She drew on the cigarette, then put it out. “I’m never going to be in that house again. Now stop worrying. Maybe Cavallini thinks he knows something, but he doesn’t. I told you we’d be careful.”

“You also said they weren’t expecting you. But they are. They know something ’s happening.”

“That can’t be helped. We always knew there was a risk in getting him.” She looked up. “But not to you. Or you,” she said to Claudia. “So stop scaring yourselves and go home. If it’s true about Cavallini, you don’t want to be seen with me.” She put her hand on my arm. “Just open the gate.”

“If he’s coming at all. Or is that part of the story real?”

She smiled. “Someday I’ll tell you. Tonight you see nothing. Maybe someone was there. Maybe a ghost.” She patted my arm. “Thank you for the warning. I know you meant it for the best.”

“But you don’t believe it.”

“It doesn’t matter if I do. It’s too late to stop it now.”

“Not if you want to stop it.”

She gathered up her shopping bag. “But I don’t. There’s no choice-to save him. Cavallini? I can’t worry about him.”

“You have to. The boy could be killed. Do you want that boy’s death on your hands?”

“Do you?” she said sharply.

In the moment that followed, nobody moved. Then Claudia, who’d been staring out the window listening, stepped away from the counter and put herself between us.

“No. Nobody wants that,” she said gently, making peace. “I’m sorry,” she said to Rosa. “It’s just all nerves with us, worried for you. But if it’s the only way-”

I looked at her, surprised, a sudden turn midstream. Rosa, also surprised, said nothing, just shifted the bag in her hand, waiting.

“Then we’ll leave the gate,” Claudia said. “Our piece.”

Rosa didn’t reply, just nodded and went out the door. I watched her start across the campo, dragging her leg, then turned to Claudia, my face a question mark.

“You can’t stop her,” she said. “You can see that. She’s going to do it no matter what.” She picked up the box. “Have you paid? I still have to drop this at the Europa.” Suddenly business as usual.

“There won’t be any way to connect us,” I said, as if we were still arguing, but Claudia just shrugged, resigned to everything now.

I followed her out and over the bridge to the passage to the Europa, lined with gondoliers, a few of them halfheartedly making a pitch but most just smoking, waiting for tourists from the hotel.

“But she’s so pigheaded,” I said. “What if something goes wrong?”

“Then she’s caught, not you,” Claudia said coolly.

I looked up at her. “And if he’s killed?”

She turned to me, her eyes steady. “Then they’ll never look anywhere else.”

I stood for a moment, vaguely aware of the doorman holding open the door, white gloves on the handles, Claudia walking through, but not really seeing any of it, my stomach lurching as if we had just stepped off something, amazed somehow that no one had noticed us falling.

“Signor,” the doorman said, and then I was in the lobby, watching Claudia hand the box to the man at the front desk, and for an odd moment I felt I was looking at someone else. No longer just covering tracks, wiping away smears of blood. Wishing for someone’s death. So they’d never look anywhere else.

A waiter in the terrace dining room smiled, unaware that anything terrible had happened. Through the window I could see Salute, white and swirling, exactly the way it had been when we’d flirted on the boat, just across the water from where we were now.

Claudia blotted her lipstick at the mirror, then turned and smiled at me. “Okay? You like the dress?” No longer nervous, relieved, as if some unexpected solution had been handed to us, the corner already turned. And hadn’t it? Whatever happened tonight would have nothing to do with us, sitting at the opera. Even if it went wrong. The other solution. Because either way we’d be free.

I nodded, barely seeing it.

“Here, help me with my coat. We don’t want to be late. We want them to see us.”

“Who?”

“The Montanaris.”

“Christ, I forgot. Maybe they won’t be there.”

“You want them to be there. Our witnesses. ‘And was Signor Miller with you? Yes, all evening. And Signora Miller.’ Ha, now what do they say?”

“You’re enjoying yourself.”

“Isn’t that what she wants us to do? As if nothing’s happening?”

She kept her good spirits at the opera, despite my restlessness and despite the Montanaris’ forced cordiality. They must have had the box to themselves since Gianni’s death, because they had already taken Gianni’s front seats and looked awkward when we insisted they keep them. There were vague inquiries about Giulia, the offer of a pair of opera glasses, a halfhearted invitation to join them for champagne at the interval, and then they turned to face the stage, their backs stiff and uncomfortable, self-conscious, as if they felt they were being watched. At least, I thought, they’d remember our being there.

Claudia, using the glasses, spied Bertie and pointed him out, a few seats away from the doge’s box. He was sitting with a priest dressed in satin, and I thought of that first cocktail party, Claudia in simple gray and the priest in scarlet, the best-dressed person in the room. A hundred years ago. I looked at her. She was still scanning the room with the glasses, interested. An evening out, the way it was all supposed to be, while Rosa was doing whatever she was doing. I shifted in my chair. Guns and escape boats and hunched figures darting along the tracks-none of it real somehow, like stories told over drinks.