2 - Painted Veil, page 18
part #2 of Tito Amato Mystery Series
Pincas covered his face with his hands and rocked on his bowed legs. He seemed about to collapse. Baruch hurried to his side with the brandy. This time Pincas drank a bit and allowed himself to be supported back to the table. He continued in a grim voice.
“Those two didn’t stop at angry words. They pummeled each other and yelled odious names. At one point, Luca had Isacco pinned against the wall and was beating his head against the plaster. The boy thought Luca was angry enough to kill him so he grabbed something off a shelf and brought it down on Luca’s head.”
I heard an odd hissing noise. It was Liya, ramrod straight with Fortunata on her lap, shaking her head and expelling her breath through clenched lips.
As Pincas paused to take another sip of brandy, I spoke up. “This object. Was it a statue by any chance?”
“Why, yes.” Pincas gave me a vague look. “Some sort of bronze, Isacco said.”
“Did Isacco take it away with him?” Liya asked, staring at her father intently.
“No, my dear. Our cousin panicked. When Luca fell back, blood streaming from his head, Isacco bolted. He ran straight back to the ghetto as fast as his legs would carry him. By the time he got to me, he was in a terrible state. He didn’t know if Luca was alive or dead or what should be done about either eventuality. He wanted me to go back to the theater with him.”
Gussie wrinkled his brow. “But, how could you get through the gates and over the bridge? Wasn’t it after dark by then?”
The Jews traded uneasy glances among themselves. Baruch finally answered, “There are ways. Boats can be hidden. Guards can be bribed.”
Pincas quickly resumed his tale. “I didn’t know what to do, but I had pledged to Isacco’s father that I would look after him as my own son. Isacco was determined to go back, that meant I had to go with him. We approached the Teatro San Marco with care, but there was no one about. The place was dark and shut up tight. It was then that Isacco showed me another secret he’d been keeping. At a back door covered by a portico, he pulled a wicked-looking dagger out of his waistcoat. I didn’t even know he carried a weapon! He forced the door latch as if he had been breaking into buildings all his life.” Tears started down the Jew’s cheeks. “Oh, how will I ever tell his father about all of this? He will never understand how I let this happen.”
“Papa! We’ll worry about that later.” Liya’s jaw was shaking but her voice was steady. “Tell us what happened next. Did you find Luca?”
Pincas took a long, deep breath. “No, we found nothing. No Luca, no statue, nothing.”
“Did you search the studio?” I asked.
“Most certainly. I was shaking in my boots, but Isacco had regained his courage. After we had ascertained that the theater was empty, he lit a few lamps and we went over the studio inch by inch. There was blood where Luca had fallen. Someone had tried to clean it up but had left a damp smear. And there were other drops of fresh blood scattered around the studio. Isacco was heartened by that. He said it meant Luca had been alive when he’d run away.” Pincas fumbled for more brandy. “‘A dead man doesn’t bleed,’ he told me.”
I thought back to Luca’s body on the table in the Doge’s storeroom. “Pincas, could Isacco have set on Luca after he fell. Strangled him perhaps, and not remembered in his rage and fear?”
“I don’t see how. If Isacco had strangled Luca, he would have had blood all over his hands and cuffs. I didn’t see a drop on him. Why?”
Liya sat as still and silent as a statue while I briefly described the head wound and the unmistakable signs of strangulation on Luca’s corpse. Baruch appeared puzzled, but Pincas and Gussie were nodding their heads.
“Don’t you see, brother?” The clothing dealer smacked the palm of his hand on the table, startling Fortunata into a wailing cry. “That’s our man,” he said as he gathered his squalling daughter into his arms. “The man who choked the life out of Luca after Isacco left him on the floor of the studio.”
I leaned forward. “Do you mean to say that whoever finished Luca and tossed his body in the lagoon also penned the pamphlet that incited tonight’s riot?”
“I do say it.” The Jew’s voice rose in his excitement. “It’s as plain as day. Luca must have been dazed from Isacco’s blow, but he was still conscious. There is no need to strangle an unconscious man. Luca must have been able to tell his second attacker about the fight with Isacco. Perhaps Luca was begging for help or expected someone to give chase or… I don’t know. The important thing is that the actual killer must have known that it was Isacco who’d bashed Luca over the head.”
“I say, Tito,” Gussie said. “Pincas’ theory makes a good deal of sense. It would take a wicked mind, but what better way to focus public inquiry than to blame someone with half-truths—someone from a group that people already suspect of something else?”
I pictured a faceless devil: strong hands locked around Luca’s throat while the bloodied painter gasped for breath, frantic feet running to find something to cover his hideous deed, back bent to the task of dragging Luca’s lifeless body swathed in royal purple through the theater corridors. A man who could do all that would surely not lack the villainy to manufacture a scapegoat, but a new wrinkle occurred to me. “No matter how cunning the pamphlet’s accusation of Isacco was, it would not have provoked a riot and a mob hanging unless the populace had already been worked up about the wells going bad. I can’t see the murderer running around Venice poisoning wells. It’s too far-fetched.”
Pincas shook his head. “He didn’t have to. Our man is clever and knows how to turn events to his advantage. He would hardly be the first to blame the Jews for Venice’s ills. The situation with the wells simply provided an opportunity.”
“As did the half-dead painter,” whispered Gussie.
“None of which tells us why this clever someone strangled Luca,” I answered.
“Perhaps Isacco wasn’t Luca’s only business partner,” ventured Pincas.
I nodded, giving the pensive and unusually restrained Liya a long look. “Yes. Our painter friend wore many masks. I see that I will have to give all of Luca’s associates a harder look.”
Chapter 19
The longer I pondered Pincas’ argument, the unhappier I became. Luca was killed, or at least rendered helpless, in my own theater. The faceless devil of my imagination might very well be someone I worked with every day. Like fireworks exploding against the night sky, the faces of possible killers sprang to my mind. Towering over them was my old colleague, Maestro Torani. The director had lied about knowing Luca’s mother. What other connection to Luca might he be concealing? Was his original request for me to find the missing painter, and later Luca’s killer, just an elaborate charade to deflect suspicion should the need ever arise? At the time, I thought that Torani had accepted my report of Luca’s departure from Venice far too readily. Now I wondered if the director had been expecting his amateur sleuth to fall for the rumors blaming a Jew and hand the authorities a murderer whom no one of influence would rise to defend.
And what about the Ministro, Signor Morelli? His tavern meetings with Luca had not occurred to discuss stage settings for the next opera. The nobleman who took such pains to present himself as a leading patrician was, in reality, barely hanging on to his ancestral palazzo. Thanks to Gussie’s keen observation, I knew that Leonardo Morelli was staring an impoverished Barnabotti existence straight in the face. He and the lovely Isabella could be just one onerous tax away from pure ruin. How Morelli’s financial difficulties might tie in with Luca’s murder, I knew not, but I thought it worthwhile to investigate.
My thoughts grew grimmer and grimmer. I remembered Rosa’s fit of pique at being rebuffed by Florio. Could her wounded vanity have led her to take revenge on another potential lover who had rejected her advances? I found Rosa’s hysterical fear of the murderer’s return roughly as believable as the simpering persona she often used on the stage. I realized that the delicate singer could not have lugged Luca’s body to the lagoon, and besides she was with Emma during the argument in Luca’s studio, but Rosa would not have committed the deed herself. The contralto had a captivating way about her, and Bassano Gritti was only the latest in a long line of amorosi ready to do her bidding.
And Aldo—why was he turning handsprings to avoid my questions? I’d worked with the man for years. I knew him for a hotheaded taskmaster, but he was reliable in his work and could be surprisingly gentle when the demands of a production were not hard upon him. What was he hiding and why the discreet gondola ride with Torani?
Even the nattering clerk Carpani and his disparaging remarks about Jews popped into my head. Ever since the Ministro had installed Carpani as his general factotum around the theater, I had suspected that the clerk reported on a number of points besides expenditures. Was he simply Morelli’s tool, or had his snooping uncovered traces of Luca’s scheming—traces that he decided to confront the scene painter about on his own?
Unfortunately, the demands of the opera did not leave me many free hours to ponder these questions or to trace the scurrilous pamphlet to its source. Gussie, more at liberty than I, took on the chore.
The day after the fire, I slept the morning and afternoon away and awoke with an aching, swollen throat that would barely give passage to a reedy whisper. Annetta supplied warm cloths to wrap around my neck, and Benito brewed endless pots of his famous tea, a soothing concoction laced with brandy, honey, and more esoteric ingredients that he had always refused to reveal. When I reached the theater for the last prova, my throat had opened a bit, but I was still incapable of projecting a song past the footlamps. Torani was furious.
“Cesare opens tomorrow night,” Torani barked as he paced a small cleared circle in the downstage wing. “You know how important this opera is—the company’s entire future rests on it. You shouldn’t be risking so much as a chill and yet you go charging into a smoky fire as if your lungs are made of leather.”
I swallowed painfully, not a little disconcerted by the numerous pairs of eyes staring at me. Stagehands and singers alike had interrupted their routines to watch Torani upbraid his former primo uomo. Emma tossed her head and swept her leopard cape across her shoulder. “I think Tito acted bravely. He should be applauded, not criticized.” The soprano started to do just that, but when no one else followed her lead and Rosa gave her a withering stare, Emma turned her clapping into hand wringing and tried to blend back into the ring of onlookers. I was only glad that Florio wasn’t around to witness my disgrace. As usual, the pampered star was secluded in his dressing room, nursing his own precious throat.
Torani wasn’t finished with me. By the time he came to the end of his tirade, I was feeling much the same as when my father had beaten me for putting a toad in the choirmaster’s organ when I was eight years old. There was no one who could step in and sing the part of Ptolemy. Opera companies of the day spent money on cloud machines and flying chariots, not extra singers to cover emergencies. Thus, Maestro Torani could only allow me to rest my voice by miming my way through the prova and hope that I would recover sufficiently to sing on opening night.
After the curtain went up, Florio reacted to my indisposition much as I expected. He swanned around the stage, delivering his arias with many a mocking glance sent my way, but somewhere during the third act, he took a more kindly tone. We exited together and, as we waited in the wings for our next cue, he asked, “You really can’t sing?”
Surprised, I whispered, “No. If I were able, I would be singing my part. I certainly wouldn’t inconvenience everyone like this if I could help it.”
A puzzled look settled on Florio’s round face. He swept the plumes of his headdress off his forehead. “Then this is not a trick? A stratagem?”
“A trick? Whatever for?”
He shrugged. “To obtain an eleventh hour salary increase. Or to snatch a bit of my glory.” His plump lips stretched into a smile. “I’ve known singers to employ any number of tricks to draw attention away from me and back to themselves. I can’t really blame them. It must be frustrating to be upstaged by the world’s greatest singer. But faking a sore throat—I would expect a clever fellow like you to show more ingenuity. So I’ve been thinking—poor Tito must actually be in pain.”
I’m afraid I must have opened and closed my mouth like a wooden character in a marionette show. Florio was just too much! What a sad, lonely life he must lead. I answered with all the offended dignity my injured windpipe would allow, “Yes, Francesco. My throat is burned raw and it hurts even to whisper, but I will try my best to sing tomorrow night. I owe my colleagues and the audience that has paid to see us no less.”
Florio cocked his head from side to side like a dog who hears a sound beyond human capacity. The singer regarded me so long that he almost missed his next entrance.
I wasn’t alone in the wings very long. While I was absorbed in the intricacies of a duet between Niccolo and Rosa, Carpani drifted up behind me. He started to lean against a board and canvas flat whose front represented a tent in Caesar’s camp, but a gruff warning from an alert stagehand changed his mind.
“You know His Excellency the Ministro is very angry with you.” The clerk’s tone was severe but his mouth held the hint of a smirk.
“You may assure Signor Morelli that my voice will improve by tomorrow night.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I’ve had years to get to know my voice and its constitution. It won’t be my finest performance, but I will be able to sing.”
Carpani clutched his notebook to his chest and pursed his thin lips. “I confess I don’t understand you, Signor Amato. They say you risked your life to save that woman who makes the masks and headpieces.”
“I suppose I did, but I wasn’t the only one. I had a lot of help rescuing Liya and her sister from the fire.”
“But you put this opera in jeopardy for the sake of a worthless Jew, a person of low degree and lower consequence. I’m amazed that Signor Morelli didn’t order Torani to kick your backside right out the door.”
His callous comment filled me with disgust, but before I could form a reply, a taller figure rounded the flat to loom over the scornful clerk. The Ministro was definitely angry, but his rebuke was not aimed at me. “Signor Carpani,” he said, “you take excessive liberties. It displeases me to hear myself discussed by underlings behind my back. Those who do so will not remain long in my employ.”
The clerk’s face went white and he bowed over his notebook, but Morelli did not stop to hear his stammered apology. The Ministro was touring the backstage area with the Savio and an attractive woman who seemed vaguely familiar. She was tall, dark haired, and so white of complexion that her cheeks could have been sculpted from marble. Her large blue eyes rarely left the Savio’s face though he was obviously trying to show her the finer points of the Teatro San Marco. Strolling arm in arm as if they were promenading on the Riva instead of walking over cables and dodging sandbags, the Savio and his companion disappeared around a tower of machinery followed by a very stiff, upright Morelli.
Carpani, still with his head hanging low, muttered something about needing to see the box office manager, but I forestalled him with a hand on his sleeve and asked, “Who is that woman with the Savio alla Cultura?”
The clerk gave me a mirthless smile and jerked his arm away. “Don’t worry. You will be introduced soon enough,” he whispered before scurrying toward the front of the theater.
The last prova finally concluded after an amazingly smooth performance. The orchestra had provided an inspired accompaniment, the River Nile had behaved itself and carried Caesar’s barge to perfection, and I was the only member of the company not in good voice. Still, Maestro Torani wasn’t happy. With the entire company and crew assembled onstage to receive last words of criticism and advice, Torani prowled the boards like a caged lion. The director subscribed to the old theater adage: bad dress rehearsal, good performance. In this case, it was the reverse that worried him. The opening of Cesare in Egitto would fill the Teatro San Marco with every Venetian of note and all of the foreign dignitaries who had been invited to attend the wedding. From the royal box, the Doge and his advisors would be watching our every move and expecting a triumph worthy of Venice at the height of her past magnificence. If anything went amiss or the box office takings fell short of expectations, we might all be given the boot.
While Torani gave us our instructions in increasingly vehement language, the Savio, his raven-haired companion, and Signor Morelli made a strikingly complacent tableau as they surveyed the company from a sweeping staircase constructed for one of Cleopatra’s grand entrances. Torani’s anxiety seemed to have no effect on the Savio. The old military man turned government minister nodded his head in agreement at many of the director’s points, favored the company with a benign smile, and finally suggested that Torani dismiss us all to a well-deserved rest. As the musicians dispersed, Torani and the Savio were head to head in intense conversation. The mysterious woman and Morelli listened silently. I approached them, still racking my brain for where I might have encountered the Savio’s companion, but Torani gave me a slight shake of his head and led the group offstage toward his office. Balked of my prey, I set out to find Aldo but wasn’t surprised that the stage manager had contrived to be on the highest reach of the catwalk surrounded by his crew.
There was nothing else to do but repair to my dressing room. There I found Gussie passing time by sketching my manservant. Benito had taken a coquettish pose on my dressing table bench. He made to jump up as I came through the door, but Gussie begged for one more moment to finish his drawing. At my nod, Benito settled back into his pose, obviously relishing the opportunity to play artist’s model. I threw Ptolemy’s wig on a trunk in the corner and wearily began to undo the fastenings of my brilliantly sequined costume armor.
