Joseph Kanon - Alibi

“It’s all right!” he shouted before the others could rush up from the dock like startled birds.

I stared at the body, absolutely still now.

He squatted and patted her sides with his good arm until he found her gun, then got up and turned back to us, aiming it.

“She would have used this gun, yes? Now the bullets don’t match when you shoot each other.”

He raised it, and I blew out some air, surprised, almost a laugh, because I knew it must be a joke until I looked at his eyes, dark pools, like the canal water, showing nothing underneath.

“Don’t,” Claudia said, and then all I heard was a roar again, covering everything, even my own gasp, as something slammed into me, a piece of fire, burning flesh, and I fell back, knocked over by the wind, the rush of something I couldn’t hear, and felt the sharp pain as I hit the pavement, a crunch I couldn’t hear either, just felt, another jagged piece of fire, red then black, everything dark, and then no sound at all.

I woke up in Gianni’s hospital with a throbbing in my shoulder. Claudia was standing staring out the window, and for a moment I saw her back on the pier, her body still, looking down at Rosa. What Cavallini had seen too, the gun dangling at her side. But we were here, both of us, no bars on the window, everything crisp white.

“Can you see San Michele?” I said, my voice raspy.

She turned. “You’re awake,” she said, then stopped, hesitant, fingering the opening at her collar.

“The cemetery,” I said, prompting. “It’s bad luck.”

She shook her head. “Not from here. Just the canal.”

“So I’ll live.”

“Does it hurt? They said it would, when you woke up. They’ll give you something for it.” She started toward the door, eager to be doing something.

“In a minute. Tell me first.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. What time is it?”

“Morning. Here, have some water.” She held a glass to my mouth, playing nurse. “They said after today the pain is less. There’s no danger.”

“No, tell me-where’s Cavallini?”

“Somewhere,” she said, waving her hand. “He has a statement for you to sign.” She pointed to a paper on the night table.

“A statement,” I said, trying to make sense of it.

“About what happened. To Rosa.”

Falling forward, her surprised face. I felt the heat spread through my shoulder again-not just pain, memory.

“And the boy,” I said. Another innocent. Moretti. Rosa. Maybe even Gianni, killed for just doing business.

“The boy they know-there were witnesses in the train yards.”

I nodded, the movement setting off another rush of pain in my shoulder.

“A confession,” I said, tired, wanting to slip back into sleep.

Claudia looked at me. “No. Do you want me to read it to you? It’s in Italian.”

“Just tell me.”

“What you said. Rosa forced us to take her in the boat. Then, when we got there, she tried to kill us-leave no witnesses-but you managed to get Moretti’s gun and shoot back.”

“And save us.”

“Yes,” she said. “And save us.”

“From Rosa.”

She said nothing.

“And then Cavallini came. After she was dead. Is that it?”

She looked at me. “Yes. And then it’s over.”

“If we lie for him.”

She picked up the paper. “We have to sign it. It’s what he wants.”

“And make Rosa what?” I turned my head toward the window, a blank sky. They’d both be over on San Michele now, being cut open and drained. “Then what happens?”

“Then it’s finished.”

“And we go away,” I said in a monotone, the practiced response.

She bit her lip. “No, me. I go to Paris, to your mother. So it looks right. It was his idea. It’s family, so no one would think-”

“Who cares what they think?”

“He does. He wants everything to look all right.” Worked out, the last story.

“Instead of the way it is.” I closed my eyes, shutting out the room. I heard the scrape of a chair, her sitting near me.

“Yes,” she said softly, maybe just as exhausted, both of us finally at an end.

A few minutes passed, so quiet I could hear the birds outside.

“What do I say to you?” she said finally.

“Nothing. I was there too.”

“But this time it was just me. Not both. Just me.”

Another silence.

“And after Paris?”

“After, I don’t know.”

“You mean you’re leaving,” I said, my eyes still closed, so that both our voices seemed disembodied.

For a minute she said nothing. “When I had the gun, what did you think?”

“I didn’t know what to think.”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “Why not?”

I opened my eyes and looked at her.

She got up from the chair. “So maybe we’re leaving each other. That’s how it ends.” She went over to the window for her purse.

“And we sign a paper and Cavallini gets away with it.”

“And so do we.”

“You didn’t kill Rosa,” I said. “He did.”

“But he can explain it. I can’t. Do you want to explain it?”

We looked at each other for a minute, then I turned my head. “She wasn’t even part of this. All I asked for was a file.”

“Yes,” Claudia said, then opened her purse. “I forgot. This was at the house. From Germany. It’s what you were waiting for, yes?”

I took the envelope. Army beige. Frankfurt. “Yes.” Thick, something more than a routine no. But late. We didn’t need another story now.

I opened the envelope and flipped past the cover note to the typed pages. Transcripts and memos. Bauer’s interview, chatty and detailed, wanting to cooperate. War stories.

“It’s there?” Claudia said.

I nodded, reading. Everything I’d wanted all along, only thought I knew. The raid on the safe house. Gianni planning it, using young Moretti. Guilty of all of it. And now that it was here, proof on paper, what did it matter? Bauer breaking Marco. Everybody breaks. Getting the names to Gianni, no longer a businessman at arm’s length, part of the chain now, link by link from Paolo’s death. The way I’d known it had to be, laid out in detail, the messenger-I stopped.

“What?” Claudia said.

I looked up but didn’t see her, just a blur. “Nothing,” I said, covering. “He did it. It’s all here.”

“It’s what you wanted? The proof?”

I dropped the papers next to me, not answering.

She put her hand on my arm. “You see. A man like that. How could it be wrong?”

I lay back on the pillow. “He’s not the only one dead now.”

She looked at me for a second, then stood up. “I’ll get the nurse. For your shot.”

She opened the door to Cavallini, but if he’d been listening, he gave no sign, just smiled and walked in as if it were an ordinary hospital visit.

“So, awake,” he said. “Now two of us.” He pointed to his sling, the bandaged arm. “But not a scratch for you-I’m sorry. I meant only to hit the skin, not go into the muscle. You’re in pain?”

“It’s all right,” I said.

“Don’t be foolish. Look at his face. I was going for the nurse,” Claudia said.

“I will only be a minute,” Cavallini said, nodding to the door, a kind of permission to leave. He waited for her to go before turning to me. “I came for the statement. She explained it to you?”

“Rosa tried to kill me. Before you got there.”

“Yes. I saw it from the dock.”

“But I was a better shot.”

He shrugged. “Luckier, perhaps.”

“Why this way?”

“Why? Because it’s best. What purpose does it serve to involve Signora Miller? This way is simple. Everyone understands. The raid on the train, this is typical of her. To rescue her partner.”