5 - Her Deadly Mischief (3 page)

Corsi bolted from the auditorium like a rabbit pursued by hounds. Torani tarried to discuss when performances might be allowed to resume.

I was delighted to see my manservant, Benito, materialize out of the darkening shadows with my cloak and other outdoor attire. It had been a harrowing evening, and I was more than ready to set off for home. I hoped that Titolino’s cough had abated and Liya was snuggled in our warm bed where I would soon join her.

As I readied myself for the chilly autumn night, I couldn’t resist dallying a bit to give Messer Grande a stealthy inspection. The current chief constable had been appointed last spring. Unlike his weasel of a predecessor with whom I had sparred on several occasions, this Messer Grande seemed positively benign.

I put his age at five-and-forty: his gray hair dressed in tight waves swept back from a lengthening forehead, and a spider’s web of wrinkles surrounded his eyes. He’d once been a handsome man, spare and tallish, and was impressive still. I’d noted that this man who carried the august title of Messer Grande smiled a great deal more than either clerks or government officials were wont to do. In fact, it was his disposition that warmed me to him. So far, he had addressed everyone in a completely natural manner far removed from the studied arrogance of his predecessor.

Settling my hands in my muff of soft miniver, I idly wondered if he practiced Freemasonry. Among their oath-bound secrets of Hiram and Boaz, the brethren were said to preach the equality of men and other revolutionary principles.

Benito and I had passed through the swinging doors to the foyer when a burst of noise echoed off the pink marble walls and columns. Gasps, exclamations, and shrieks emanated from a stairway that led to the upper levels. Messer Grande and Maestro Torani came running, followed by several constables. Another pair of their fellow officers stumbled down the stairs into the foyer. One carried a struggling child slung over his shoulder like a sack of rice; the boy’s feet in tiny buckled shoes pummeled his chest. His captor had to fight to retain his grasp. The other constable sprinted toward us and came to rest before his chief.

“Excellency,” he said between panting breaths. “We found this…this person shut up in a cloakroom in the fourth-tier corridor.”

“Ow!” His partner stopped short and clapped one wrist to his mouth. “I’ll be damned,” came his muffled cry, “the little monster’s drawn blood.”

A gruff voice answered in a shout, “Put me down, I say. Unhand me this minute or I’ll take an even bigger chunk out of you. I’m quite capable of walking on my own.”

The constable roughly lowered his burden to the terrazzo floor.

Benito clucked his tongue disapprovingly, thinking the officer had manhandled a boy barely out of the nursery. My hearing and vision were sharper.

This was not a child, but a small misshapen man who looked every bit as disgusted as he sounded. As he gazed up at his captor with hands on hips, the biggest thing about him seemed to be his head. Beneath his tangled bagwig, his forehead bulged like the egg of some giant bird, and his lantern jaw held a set of teeth that looked like he could eat nails for breakfast. With short arms and legs that joined his torso at an odd angle, he could have been a troll straight out of the stories my childhood nurse used to frighten me with.

“Shut up in a cloakroom, you say?” Messer Grande’s eyes glittered with intense interest.

“Hung from a peg and bellowing like a bull calf. Still, we almost didn’t hear him because the door was shut and somebody had thrown a thick cloak over him.”

Behind his hand, Messer Grande issued a series of terse instructions. His man removed his uniform jacket and went back into the auditorium. Through the glass oval of the door, I saw him move through the dimness to cover Zulietta’s corpse with his jacket.

Messer Grande approached the constable who was wrapping a cloth around his bleeding wrist and the dwarf who was still remonstrating with him.

“Something’s happened here and I must find my mistress. She’ll be worried sick wondering what’s become of me.” The little man whirled as he sensed Messer Grande loom up behind him. Completely undaunted by the chief’s official robes, he asked, “Is this big oaf yours? Because if he is, I want to lodge a complaint.”

Messer Grande was unruffled; I thought I even glimpsed a fleeting grin stretching his lips. Looking the little man up and down, he asked, “Your name, Signore?”

Before he answered, the angry newcomer straightened his blue waistcoat and jacket, smoothed his pleated neckcloth, and proudly stretched to his full, but minuscule, height. Fascinated, I couldn’t resist drawing near the curious scene. Neither could Maestro Torani. Benito hung back, curling his middle fingers into his palm and aiming the others in an age-old gesture meant to ward off the evil eye.

“My name is Giacomo Michele Gaetano Brosco,” the dwarf said brusquely. “But if you are asking what I am called, it is Pamarino.”

“Who is this mistress you speak of?”

“Zulietta Giardino.”

“I see.” Messer Grande cocked his head thoughtfully. “And how do you serve Signorina Giardino?”

“I have the honor of arranging any service she requires. I am her constant companion.”

“You supervise her household?”

“To be sure.” Pamarino inclined his head regally.

“Escort her through the city?”

“Wherever she goes, I am at her side. My lady has so many admirers I am often called upon to fend off annoyance.”

“Are you now?” Messer Grande narrowed his eyes skeptically.

“I carry an iron-knobbed walking stick for the purpose,” Pamarino continued in a dry tone.

“I see. You’re quite the
cavaliere servente
, then. I suppose you call her gondola when required?”

“Of course.”

“And carry her calling cards?”

“Yes.”

“And extra handkerchiefs?”

“One must be prepared.”

“And pimp for her?”

The dwarf drew his chin back and his hands balled into fists. If he’d been conversing with any other man, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him erupt into a rage of flying feet and fists. Instead, he merely replied icily, “You are misinformed, Excellency. My mistress is no pavement tart. Since half of Venice is madly in love with her, I must constantly chase callers from the door. The messages I refuse in just one week could paper the walls of this theater.”

Messer Grande nodded, sighed, then said in a more kindly tone, “I’m afraid I have bad news for you.”

“What?” Pamarino’s eyes, small and the ochre color of mud, popped wide open. “Has something happened to my mistress?”

“This way, if you please.” Flanked by constables lighting the way, Messer Grande conducted Pamarino through the dark auditorium. As soon as the dwarf caught sight of the body beneath the brass-buttoned jacket, he vaulted an overturned bench to reach it.

He must have recognized the vivid blue of her skirts for he uttered a guttural cry as he dropped to the floor on hands and knees. In the twinkling of an eye, he had pulled the covering from Zulietta’s still form.

Even knowing exactly what lay beneath the jacket, I still felt a jolt when I again saw the beautiful death-struck face, the pallid whiteness of neck and shoulders. How much more shocked her faithful servant must have been. Pamarino rocked on his knees, cried hot tears. He shook and slavered.

Above him, Messer Grande explained that Zulietta had been stabbed, then fallen or been pushed over the box railing. I wasn’t certain the little man heard until Messer Grande himself guided the dwarf away. Drooping forward over a bench with his face pressed into a bent arm, Pamarino continued to sob as the chief constable repeated his tale.

Torani, Benito, and I traded uncomfortable looks as the dwarf gradually collected himself.

When Pamarino came to his feet, he had just one thing to say. “Pino. Alessio Pino. He did this. He killed her.”

“Were you in the box?” Messer Grande asked quickly. “Was Alessio Pino there?”

“My mistress was supposed to meet Alessio in his box half an hour before curtain time, but we were late. Since this was an important night, she had dressed with great care and changed her mind about her gown several times. All the way to the theater, she’d muttered and grumbled, fearing that Alessio would be angry. But when we arrived, we found the box locked and empty. Alessio was late, too.”

Messer Grande narrowed his eyes. “How did you get in?”

“Alessio had given my mistress his key. Apparently, he had an errand to perform before the opera began and suspected he might be delayed.”

Ah, I thought, that accounted for the key in Zulietta’s pocket.

“What was this errand?” Messer Grande asked.

Pamarino shook his head. “My mistress seemed to know, but the details weren’t explained to me. In all her fretting, she mentioned a tavern. Something to do with the sea—I can’t recall the exact name.”

Torani and I were standing shoulder to shoulder. I cupped my hand and whispered, “Do you think he means the Pearl of the Waves, just across the square?”

“He must,” my old maestro replied. “There’s no other tavern nearby with a name that would fit.”

“What happened then?” asked Messer Grande.

“We waited. My mistress ordered that the curtains remain closed, and we sat in silence while the orchestra played the overture. I was getting bored, so I put my eye to the slit and watched the woman in the golden gown. As she droned on and on, my mistress became more upset. She paced the box, talking to herself. ‘What is keeping him,’ she kept saying, ‘Alessio will ruin everything.’ Next came a flourish of trumpets and the castrato—that one there—paraded out like he owned the stage.”

The little man drew breath as if to shout, but only a moan escaped his lips. “My mistress could stand no more. ‘Pamarino,’ she said, ‘Alessio must have concluded his meeting and returned to the theater by now. Someone has detained him. One of his friends is bending his ear over some nonsense. Search the lobby and the corridors and fetch him to me at once.’”

“You left the box?” Messer Grande prompted.

Pamarino twisted his thick neck like a man in physical pain. “If only I had stayed put…if only I had disobeyed her command just that once. But I didn’t. I opened the door and started toward the stairs. I made it only as far as the public cloakroom.”

“What happened?”

Pamarino stared at Messer Grande. Everyone else stared at the dwarf. The constables’ few candles cast long wavering shadows that stretched behind Pamarino toward the darkened stage. The grief he wore like a suit of armor, his form so outlandish—both made the dwarf seem very alone though almost a dozen men surrounded him.

“I was grabbed from behind. Someone wrestled me into the cloakroom and knocked me out with a sharp blow.” Pamarino patted the brown wig covering his crown. “When I came to myself, I was dangling in the dark, barely able to breathe.” With a lurch, he hopped off the bench and squinted toward the fourth tier.

“It must have been Alessio,” he continued in a savage whisper.

“Did you recognize him?”

“How could I? He came at me from behind.”

“Was there anyone else in the corridor?”

“With him singing?” Pamarino jabbed a finger toward me. “Of course not. They were all drooling over the box railings. But you must believe me…” Desperation was evident in the little man’s tone. “It had to be Alessio Pino. He got me out of the way so there would be no one to protect my mistress. Then he returned to the box and set on her with a vengeance.”

Messer Grande spread his hands. “But why? Why would a young man of Alessio Pino’s standing brawl with his mistress like the lowest pimp and his tattery whore? At the opera, for God’s sake! And ending in murder!”

Pamarino’s gaze never wavered. He kept his eyes trained on the gaping maw of the dark box. “It was that damned wager,” he said. “I knew it would lead to nothing but misery.”

Chapter Three

“It was to be my mistress’ greatest triumph,” Pamarino said, staring moodily into the glass of brandy Torani had fetched from his personal stock in his office.

The wagon from the charnel house had come and gone. The dwarf and Messer Grande sat on benches facing each other. The rest of us stood, clustered within the ring of yellow candlelight that created a glowing cave within the vast, black, now chilly theater. From the shadows came the rustlings of rats.

“She made the wager with one of her rivals,” the dwarf continued. “Perhaps you’ve heard of La Samsona, the painted giantess.”

We all nodded. La Samsona had taken an unconventional route to her present career. She had once been famous as a festival strongwoman. This seasoned courtesan stood a head taller than most men and possessed a statuesque form that she clothed in the latest French fashion and further gilded with a fortune in pearls and diamonds. It was a son of a former Doge who had furnished her ticket off the carnival platform. When he was done with her, she’d proved that the power of her wits matched the strength of her muscles. With great animation and gaiety, she embarked on a series of advantageous liaisons that made her one of the most talked about women in Venice.

“La Samsona pretended to be my mistress’ bosom friend,” said Pamarino, “but she didn’t fool me. I could see through her charming smiles, straight into her canker of a heart. She was jealous of my mistress and coveted any man who courted her favor. Not too long ago, La Samsona accompanied us on a stroll in the Erberia when His Excellency, Signor—”

A cunning look glinted in the dwarf’s eyes. “The name itself is of no importance. Let me tell it this way—my mistress was admiring a pineapple, wondering if such an exotic delicacy could possibly be worth the price, when a gentleman gallantly purchased it and had his footman carry it to our lodgings on a silk pillow. Later, my mistress sent me around with a very pretty note of thanks even as she instructed me to refuse any requests the gentleman might feel a fruit from a tropical isle might entitle him to. To make a long story short, he did as he was wont, I did as I’d been ordered, and who do you suppose squired La Samsona to the next masquerade ball?”

Pamarino rocked slightly forward and back as he answered his own question. “The gentleman of the pineapple, of course, though La Samsona had shown no partiality toward him before. When she saw he fancied my mistress, she set out to captivate him. She succeeded for a few short weeks, but his ardor cooled rather quickly. I understand she at least managed to induce him to settle her milliner’s bill. It must have run a hundred—”

Messer Grande cut him off with an impatient gesture. “Enough of pineapples and the price of hats. Get to the nature of this wager between Zulietta and La Samsona.”

“Begging your pardon, Excellency, I’ll go straight to the point. The wager was based on this simple happenstance—both ladies had set their sights firmly on Alessio Pino.” Pamarino turned his head and spat, then rubbed a stubby hand across his mouth as if he could wipe the hated name from his lips. “Why don’t women see that only treachery can lay behind an exterior as handsome as his?”

Beside me, Maestro Torani shook his head. “They see but cannot help themselves,” he whispered. “Poor creatures—the stories I could tell.”

I made a mental note to worm some of these stories out of Torani as Pamarino went on.

“My mistress and La Samsona constantly sang Alessio’s praises—a profile like Adonis, the grace of a dancing master, the shoulders of a galley slave. It was enough to make you heave up your dinner. Many mornings they met for breakfast, and over their coffee and buttered toasts, they would argue about which of them might capture his heart. La Samsona was convinced her outsized beauty would carry the day, but my mistress believed that Alessio appreciated finer things and would find La Samsona raucous and vulgar.”

Messer Grande leaned forward on his bench. “Zulietta and La Samsona set themselves quite a challenge. I know Alessio Pino’s reputation. He’s famous for his austere principles, his moral rectitude. He puts in long hours at the family glassworks, rarely gambles, and though a string of women pant at his heels, he has always steered clear of romantic entanglements and kept his name as pure as new-fallen snow.”

“Perhaps that is part of his allure,” Torani observed. “The more inaccessible the fruit, the sweeter its nectar.”

Messer Grande shook his head like a dog emerging from a stream. “Please, we’re not going to discuss pineapples again, are we?” His gaze focused on the grieving dwarf. “Was that the premise of the wager, which woman would be the first to capture Alessio’s affection?”

“As far as it went,” Pamarino replied after another swallow of brandy, “but they agreed that there must be some proof. After all, who can say what really happens behind closed doors? It was decided that only a public display of his patronage would do. I thought it was all nonsense, but I grew so tired of hearing them propose one intrigue after another—”

The dwarf’s words seemed to catch in his throat, and his face contorted in a grimace of misery that made him look more like a gnome than ever.

“God help me,” he cried in a gravelly voice. “I was the one who suggested the opera box. My tongue had barely given voice to the thought when they both hailed it as genius. After arguing over a flurry of details, my mistress and La Samsona settled on a firm agreement. They even called a notary to set it down in writing. The first to join Alessio at the rail of his box at the Teatro San Marco—not merely set foot in the box or join his party for an aria or two, mind you—but the first to sit beside him in a clear demonstration that he was enjoying her favors would win the wager.”

“When did the women strike this bargain?”

He thought a moment. “Just when the wealthy folk were returning from their summer estates. Late August or early September, I suppose.”

“Roughly two months then.”

The dwarf nodded.

After a pensive silence on all sides, Messer Grande observed, “A wager involves a stake. What was the loser to forfeit?”

“Diamonds,” Pamarino replied solemnly. “The winner would lay claim to anything and everything she fancied from the other’s jewel box.”

Torani spoke up again: “Surely the lucky woman would also be acknowledged as the reigning queen of all the courtesans in Venice.”

The dwarf shrugged. “Glory is all very well, but it can’t be sold to put meat on the table. It was diamonds that drove this wager.”

“If I might be excused for interrupting…” I was surprised to hear Benito’s wavering treble speak up. My manservant took a step forward, cocked his head like a puzzled canary, and didn’t continue until Messer Grande nodded his permission.

“Hasn’t Alessio Pino made an open virtue of restraint because of his lengthy betrothal to Maria Albergati?” Benito asked. “They say that Cesare Pino and Signor Albergati wrangled over the match for months. Everyone is speculating why Signor Albergati finally agreed for his noble line to be mixed with that of a common glassmaker. Now that young Maria has come out of the convent and a wedding date is set, her father visibly writhes at the mere mention of the engagement. It is to gain some measure of his respect that Alessio Pino behaves as a model of decorum in all his dealings and appearances in society.”

Benito’s lengthy comment drew a grinning nod from Messer Grande, a hollow laugh from Pamarino, and a questioning look from me.

Ignoring the others, Benito sent me a knowing smile.

In truth, I would never disparage his grasp of the facts: my manservant must be the deepest well of gossip in Venice. I was merely astonished that he bothered to beg leave before he spoke.

People often ask why I tolerate Benito. For one thing, he is a castrato like myself, trained in a Naples conservatory just as I was. Though the stage didn’t suit him, he understands me and the needs of my voice in a way that whole men cannot. And then, I must admit that his irreverence often pleases me. Where good manners and fear of giving offense often render me mute, Benito plunges ahead. Besides, no one, not even Liya, prepares my morning chocolate or calms my stage jitters quite like Benito.

Messer Grande turned to Maestro Torani. “Signor Albergati keeps a box at this theater, does he not?”

“Yes. His grandfather was one of the original subscribers.”

“I didn’t see him here tonight as I looked around the auditorium.”

“You wouldn’t have, Excellency, his box is directly above yours. I recall that it was full, like most of the others. Family, I suppose. I noticed several young people, including one awkward young miss that could be Maria.”

Messer Grande rubbed his chin. “I wonder if Zulietta realized that Alessio’s intended bride might well be watching the culmination of her mischievous wager.”

Pamarino set his glass down so hard I feared the stem would break. With a wiggle of his legs, which didn’t quite reach the floor, he jumped to his feet and planted himself in front of Messer Grande. Since the chief constable was still seated, the dwarf addressed him face-to-face. “My mistress was well aware of the situation. It made her victory all the sweeter. Not only had she beaten La Samsona, but also Alessio’s high and mighty ideals. It took her several months, but little by little she broke him down. She made him burn with passion for her and only her. He forgot the promises to his father, the melding of the two families. How completely that panting dolt threw his reputation aside and became her slave.”

“And once Zulietta had collected her victory spoils, what then?” Messer Grande asked with cool composure. “How did she expect her lover to react when he learned he’d been the butt of a wager?”

The dwarf’s proud smile fell flat. “That’s it, don’t you see. Someone must have told him about the wager—perhaps that accounts for his secret meeting. Alessio would have been enraged to learn the truth. I can see him now, returning to the theater, furious, determined on revenge. When he saw me leave the box, he got me out of the way and went back to kill my mistress.”

Messer Grande nodded slowly. He rose, snapped his fingers, and whispered a string of orders to a waiting constable. To us he announced in the tones of a Great Council orator, “Everything you heard here is to be kept quiet until I have a man in custody. Understood?”

Solemn nods made the rounds. Unless Alessio Pino had boarded a boat for the mainland, the young glass prince would be in custody by tomorrow morning.

***

Benito and I followed Torani from the theater at a little after two. The maestro’s usual gondolier was waiting on the steps at the water gate, shoulders wrapped in a blanket and tricorne tipped over his face. My boatman had not been so loyal. Though Benito swore he had told Luigi I would soon be coming, my man and his gondola had departed in search of a wench or a warm bed, or both. I would deal with him later.

“You two come with me,” Torani offered. “I’ll see you home.”

I shook my head. The old man was leaning on his stick and his bald head bobbed over the collars of his greatcoat like a cork floating on gentle waves. He looked so tired, a puff of wind could topple him into the canal. “Thank you, Maestro, but you live the opposite way. The night is cool, but fine. We don’t mind walking.”

“Goodnight, then.”

After watching Torani’s gondola slide down the misty canal, Benito and I turned in the direction of the Cannaregio. While a boat could take you anywhere in Venice, so could a maze of
calli
and bridges. We proceeded single file through one of the narrow passages that radiated from the theater. With my foot hobbling me but little, we navigated crooked alleys that almost seemed to double back on themselves and dipped through covered
sortoportegi
where velvety darkness was broken only by vigil candles twinkling in wall shrines. I hoped we might meet a Friulian with a lantern who could light us on our way, but all the lamp carriers for hire were doubtless waiting under the arcades of the Piazza where they could have their pick of patrons.

Benito and I had one bad moment when we topped the peak of a narrow bridge to meet a pair of drunken sailors, Greek by the sound of their accents. As we turned sideways to squeeze past, I smelled tobacco, old sweat, and unnamable spices clinging to their heavy jackets and ragged beards. One was tall with a collection of gold rings pulling his earlobes low; the other had a flat nose and a white scar that crossed one cheek from ear to nose. They asked the way to a tavern I had never heard of. It was innocent enough, but I sensed the prospect of violence. The taller one was hiding something that bulged under his jacket, and he held his shoulder in a tense ball as if he meant to brandish a dagger or bludgeon.

He wasn’t the only one with a weapon. Smiling and describing nearby taverns as if I were mightily pleased to direct good fellows to food and drink, I carefully removed my right hand from the warm fur of my muff and curled it around the hilt of the dagger in my waistcoat. Many years ago, my sailor brother, Alessandro, had furnished me with the weapon and instruction in its use. When the inevitable demand came, I was ready.

With a wordless growl, the tall one raised a short, stout rod above his head. The other pushed his ugly face into mine. “Your purse and your watch,” he ordered on a puff of foul breath. “Make it quick. We’ve a powerful thirst.”

The bridge railing pressed at my back. Using its support, I whipped out my dagger, canted back, and sliced my blade across the ruffian’s unscarred cheek. He clapped his hand to his face with a squeal of pain. Scarlet oozed between his fingers.

At the same time, Benito uttered an impossibly high, unearthly shriek that froze the tall sailor’s bludgeon in mid-swing. Benito followed his yell with a springing jump that drew his legs up into a diamond and caused the sailor’s eyes to pop as if Hell had coughed up one of Satan’s imps. My manservant didn’t waste his opportunity. He slapped the rod from the fellow’s hand. It spun through the air and hit the water with a splash.