Joseph Kanon - Alibi

“You mean they might still come?” I said.

“No, it’s late. I thought if the boat were missing, it would be a clue. They won’t come here now. They need to leave Venice. And who helps them? Foreigners? No. Old comrades. You know Moretti worked on the boats. We know where to look. But still, lock the gate.”

“Yes,” I said, stepping past him to pull it shut, making a loud clang with the latch. I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead. Any noise echoed here. You could hear the boat rocking against its mooring. Why not breathing, the faintest movement?

“A beautiful thing,” Cavallini said, still looking up at the gondola. “To find an old one in this condition.”

“The marchesa never takes it out,” I said, but I wasn’t looking at it. Claudia had glanced, just once, toward the pile and now was signaling me, eyes large and panicky, forcing me to look there too. At first it just seemed a thin shadow on the gray stones, but then I saw that it was moving, growing longer, coming toward us. Dark blood, seeping out from under the tarp to follow gravity to the stairs, impossible to miss if Cavallini turned his head.

Claudia stared at me, and for an instant I stopped breathing, because we both saw that in another minute it would be too late. If we stepped back now, we could stay free, still unsuspecting visitors in someone else’s fight. Moretti might die anyway. But if we hid them, we became them, the same in Cavallini’s eyes.

The blood, viscous, moved a little, just a trickle, almost at my shoe now. There would be no story that would distance us and make sense. We’d have to go through with all the rest, save them. When all we had to do to save ourselves was to let it happen. Claudia could do it alone, look down at the blood in horror until Cavallini noticed, but she was waiting for me. We’d do this together too. The same room. Just a trickle this time, not a red splotch on a white dress shirt, but the same pulsing in the head, jumping off the end. They couldn’t stay. He’d die. There was only the impossible trip across the lagoon. And nowhere to go after, no alibi. Unless we stepped back now, pointed to the blood, surprised, and stayed safe. I breathed out.

I moved between Claudia and the pile and put my hand on Cavallini’s shoulder. “Can we ask your men to search?” I said. “I really think Claudia would feel better.”

He looked down from the gondola, but at Claudia, not me, missing the blood. I moved us toward the door. Don’t turn now. A trickle. Would anyone see it if he wasn’t looking? But nobody missed blood. The eye went to it, an instinct.

“Of course,” Cavallini was saying.

Claudia glanced at me for a second, dismayed, then slipped into her part. “And the closets? I know it’s foolish,” she said, leaving for the hall.

“Not at all,” Cavallini said as I turned out the lights and closed the inside door behind me.

He used two of his men, who made a halfhearted show of poking in closets and looking behind shower curtains. I followed with Cavallini, but in my mind I saw the trickle growing thicker, a red stream running over the stone floor, down the mossy steps, spreading out into the canal, a giant stain. In the middle of the search, Angelina came home and had to be calmed down, so we went through her room too. The men covered every inch of Ca’ Venti, all of it innocent, nothing to connect us except the blood spreading on the floor downstairs. The one place they didn’t search, because Cavallini had already been there.

At the door he offered to leave one of his men. “If it would make you feel safer.”

A guard outside, listening. “Do you think we need it?”

He made a dismissive gesture with his eyebrows. “No. To be frank with you, I need every man tonight. You know how it is. But if the signora-”

“She’ll be all right. I’ll lock the doors, both of them. She just needs rest. If we can get Angelina to bed. I’ve never seen her so jumpy. You’d think she’d robbed a bank.”

“Her brother,” he said.

“What?”

“Well, not banks, the black market. During the war. Of course, not now. But she thinks we still want him. I’ll tell you something,” he said, almost winking. “We never did. It was the only way then. I bought from him myself.” He looked at me. “We have our own ways here.”

A message? A reminder? Or maybe nothing at all. I heard a creak, someone moving, and felt my scalp itch, every sound in the house now a finger pointing at me. A single groan would do it, while he was still in the house.

“Thank you for coming,” Claudia said. “With your arm-”

“It’s nothing,” he said, moving the sling, a demonstration.

“Still,” I said. “A bullet wound, that’s never just a scratch.”

“No.” He lifted his head. “Did you hear something?”

A gasp of pain, unmistakable, maybe Moretti clutching his stomach. I felt my hand move, a tic. Say anything.

“The house. It makes noises,” I said casually, trying to sound unconcerned.

Cavallini listened for another minute, then reached for the doorknob. “These old houses,” he said, turning it. “With me, pipes. All night.” He shook his head. “Venice.” Not bothering to say more, as if we could hear the city sinking around us.

When the door closed, I leaned against it, breathing, listening for footsteps. Claudia didn’t move either, frozen for a minute by relief. I put a finger to my lips, stepping closer to her so that we couldn’t be heard.

“Go get Angelina settled,” I said. “Tell her I’ll lock up. Keep a light on in the bedroom so it looks like we’re still up.” I switched off the hall lights, something Cavallini’s men would see from the calle, and walked with Claudia in the dark toward the stairs, turning on a small night-light on the hall table. “Check the canal from upstairs-see if any boats are waiting. I’ll get them ready. We can’t wait too long.”

She stopped, placing her hand on the banister. “If we do this, the rest was all for nothing. We can’t explain this.” She clutched my arm. “We can still-there’s nothing to connect us. Let them steal the boat.”

“And just turn away.”

“It’s our lives.”

“Theirs too.” I took her shoulders, steadying her. “All we have to do is get him to the Lido. Then we’re done with it. We’re finally done with it.”

She looked down, then turned to the stairs. “We’re never done with it.” She paused. “What do I tell Angelina?”

“Tell her Cavallini’s watching the house. That’ll keep her in bed.” She started up the stairs. “Not too long, okay? Just keep one light on, so they think we’re here.”

We waited another twenty minutes, cleaning the water entrance and listening for any signs of activity on the canal. A water taxi passed, cutting through to the Giudecca channel, but otherwise it was quiet, a backwater. I swung the boat around from the mooring pole. The canal itself was dark, the moon covered by convenient clouds. Moretti was still conscious, able to crawl into the boat without our having to lift him, but he was gasping, obviously in pain. He lay down in the front, Rosa next to him. Claudia threw in the wad of bloody towels. “We can’t keep these in the house. Here, get under this,” she said, spreading the tarp over them, imagining it could hide them if we were stopped. Behind us, the pile of paving stones was bare.

I pulled the gate just to the point before it would click shut, so that it looked closed from the water. We glided away from the house, hugging the edge of the canal. If the police were anywhere, they’d be in the Giudecca channel, but if they’d given up, it was still our best route out, so I decided to check. I pushed against the building wall, letting us float quietly toward the end of the canal. The daytime traffic was gone. It might be worth a chance, a quick dash to San Giorgio, then behind the island, the way we’d gone with Gianni. We had almost passed under the Zattere bridge into the open water when I saw it, an idling boat with a blue light. Waiting to see if anyone came out. I grabbed a mooring pole and held the boat back until it began to pivot, twisting around in the other direction. With the police boat patrolling, we’d have to keep the motor off. We could make our way back down the Fornace by pushing against the side, but farther on some boats were moored and we’d have to swing out, using the oars on both sides, Indians in a canoe.