AHMM, December 2007 Read online

  "This morning, were you alone in your room until you left the Ca’ Renaldo?"

  "Of course, I live alone. Who would I entertain at such an hour?"

  I shrugged. “We have several ladies available for an evening's hire."

  "I don't choose my bedmates from the gutter.” His mouth curled in a sneer. “Now, if you'll excuse me, important work awaits."

  * * * *

  I made my way to a noisy square in the shadow of the Rialto Bridge, brain in a whirl and stomach rumbling. I knew a cafe where my credit was good, but as it happened, I wasn't forced to add to my tab. Signor Bianchi had just sat down to a mammoth plate of macaroni, full wineglass at hand. Excellent. The news grubber owed me a meal.

  "Another of the same,” I called to the waiter as I flopped onto the bench.

  "Ah, Nicco, how goes our quest?” asked Bianchi.

  "Our quest? I'm the one that's been burning shoe leather all day."

  "I haven't slighted my part.” The journalist produced a rolled sheaf of paper and shook it at me like a schoolmaster's rod.

  "What's that?” I asked, helping myself to a gulp of his wine.

  "An article for the Mondo Morale. A paean of praise to the chief of Venice's constabulary and his efforts to make our city a model of order and safety."

  I raised my eyebrows. “Have you taken leave of your senses? A lazier, more corrupt official than the current Messer Grande would be hard to find."

  He shoveled in another spoonful of macaroni, chewed, and then answered judiciously. “Favors beget favors. After he's read this, Messer Grande will be more likely to listen to our theory about who killed Tartini."

  "Except that we don't have a theory.” I gave Bianchi an abbreviated version of my progress, or lack of it.

  He pulled at his red nose. “Pisani's a weasel. If there's any justice in this world, he should be the killer."

  "Pisani may embody all that is wrong with our ailing city, but I don't believe he murdered Tartini. He's too much of a coward."

  "Then who? No one else held a grain of ill will toward the old man."

  "Tartini made a pest of himself at the bookshop."

  Bianchi rolled his eyes and threw back a gulp of wine.

  "Then there's his copying business,” I continued. “What if Tartini sold information meant for selected eyes only?"

  "You may have something there,” the journalist answered slowly. “But the old man kept no records. How would you track down an angry customer?"

  Bianchi applied himself to his macaroni. I did the same when the waiter arrived with my steaming bowl. Once I'd downed every bite and soaked up the remains of the garlic-drenched sauce with a hunk of bread, I sat back with a sigh. The cafe was low ceilinged and crowded. Countrymen who'd ferried vegetables to market rubbed shoulders with clerks who tallied figures at the warehouses that received goods from the four points of the compass.

  Just inside the door, a copyist had set up a portable writing desk that could have been Signor Tartini's. I watched him work with a heavy heart. A Turk with his head wrapped in white muslin stood over his shoulder, jabbering in the traders’ lingua franca. The copyist stopped writing several times to ask questions. After the letter was completed to the Turk's satisfaction, the copyist applied blotting sand and waved the paper through the air. The Turk's fist flew to his eye and a new round of jabbering began. A grain of sand must have lodged in his eye.

  I sat forward, nerves on the alert. Several scenes from the morning came back to me, and I suddenly began to wonder if I'd been lied to.

  "What is it, Nicco?” asked Bianchi.

  "I'm not sure,” I replied. “Let's get back to the Ca’ Renaldo. There's something I must do, and I may need your help."

  * * * *

  The next hour did not go as smoothly as planned. I thought it would be an easy matter to climb over my balcony railing and lower myself to the ledge that ran around the building. During my student days at the University of Padua, I'd often snuck out for a night of carousing using just such a maneuver. I'd conveniently forgotten my creaky knees and my old shoulder injury.

  In the end, I went fishing. A broken stickpin made a serviceable hook, yarn was obtained from a generous signora down the hall, and Bianchi located a broom handle for a pole. With the journalist clutching my waistband, I leaned over the railing and cast my line. My target was a ball of crumpled paper on the ledge beyond Marina's window.

  The hook fell short. Again and again. Frustration mounting, I slung one leg over the scrolled iron railing. With Bianchi balancing my weight, I hovered in the muggy air over the canal and put my good arm into play. The stickpin glinted as it arced toward my treasure.

  Success at last. The hook landed beyond the paper and snagged it as I drew the hook along the ledge. Barely daring to breathe, I reeled in the yarn hand over hand until the crumpled ball was nearly in my grasp. Bianchi snatched it away and ran inside. By the time I'd untangled myself from the railing, he had the brief letter spread out on my table.

  Ca’ Renaldo, July 6, 1778

  Dear Signor Querini,

  You will find me on the steps of the Basilica tonight after the nine o'clock bell. I'm aflame with desire. Don't disappoint me.

  Your loving friend,

  Marina

  Bianchi scratched his head. “This is what you risked your neck for? A note of assignation?"

  "It's worth it, don't you think?"

  He read through the note again. “Why? Is Signor Querini the murderer?"

  I shook my head emphatically. “It's not the name, it's the date. Today's date. Marina did enter Tartini's room this morning. And not only to treat him to some peaches."

  * * * *

  Dusk was falling. I'd just closed the drapes over my long window and lit some candles when Marina knocked at my door. Her gown of French blue wasn't overly clean, but she was still a vision, with her dark hair swept up by gold pins and a fichu of silk gauze arranged over her bosom. A drawstring bag of the same fabric as her dress dangled gracefully from her wrist.

  "Mimmo said you wanted to see me,” she cooed in dulcet tones. “I have an appointment later, but I can always spare an hour for my handsome neighbor."

  "Oh,” I said, settling myself in my one good armchair. “Are you meeting Signor Querini?"

  She raised a sharp eyebrow. “You're very well informed about my business."

  "You informed me yourself. In this letter.” I pulled the crumpled, folded sheet from my waistcoat pocket.

  Marina crossed the room in a flash. Her small hand darted toward the letter; this time I was ready.

  I grabbed her wrist. She raked the nails of her other hand across my cheek. After a short struggle, the harlot was in the chair with me standing above her.

  "Why did you kill Tartini?” I asked.

  Except for her flaming dark eyes, Marina showed no emotion. She pressed her lips in a firm line.

  "You lied to me, Marina. You took Tartini the peaches, but you also asked him to write out a note. You must have stood right above him, smiling, teasing the old fellow with a glimpse of your nightshift. Were you pressing up against him? Grains of blotting sand lodged in your shawl, you know. One of them blew in my eye this morning."

  She released the strings of her bag and drew out a handkerchief. Dabbing at her tearless cheeks, she replied, “So I had Tartini write out a message of a personal nature that I didn't want to share with you or anyone el—"

  "Not a very important message,” I cut in. “Since you went straight to your room and tossed it away."

  "What of it? I'm entitled to change my mind if I want. The only thing that matters is that Tartini was alive when I left his room...” She paused to sniff disdainfully. “He was slicing into a peach. Drool was running down his chin."

  I shook my head. “Poor Tartini never got a bite. When he bent to fold the paper for the sealing wax, you bashed his head. Then you pulled him out of his chair and arranged the scene to look as if he'd slipped and fallen. But you made a
mistake. In your haste, you crammed his shoes on the wrong feet."

  She rose in a whoosh of satin skirts. “How imaginative you are, Nicco. You ought to turn your hand to writing for the stage. Preposterous comedies would be right in your line. You could have tiny women wielding huge clubs and stalking giants."

  "You didn't need a club. You used this.” I ripped her bag from her wrist and shook the limp sack in her face. “This is empty now, but this morning it was full of coins. A perfect cosh and one you could easily swing."

  She drew herself up. “I'm going now. Don't try and stop me."

  "All I want is an explanation, Marina."

  She stepped toward the door.

  I couldn't compel her to talk, but I had one last card to play. “Why on earth would you kill such a harmless old gentleman like Tartini? Surely he never hurt a flea."

  "Harmless?” She turned. Her gorgon stare could have terrified an army. “You really have no idea, do you? Arcangelo Tartini was a monster."

  "Had he written other letters for you?” I asked quickly. “Secret letters that he shared with someone else?"

  I could barely hear her answer: “Not my letter. Antonio's."

  I questioned her with my gaze.

  "My father owns a lace factory, prosperous and very respectable. You would recognize the name, but I won't tell you. I use my mother's family name now."

  "Yes,” I prompted.

  "Papa has never been satisfied. All my life, he's always lusted for more than we had. For months, he pressed the elector of the lace guild to ask for my hand in marriage. Otho Taliferro was a widower with a factory to rival Papa's. When he finally made his proposal, all I heard for weeks was how a merger of the two businesses would make both families rich.” She fell silent, gazing into space with a faraway look.

  "Who was Antonio?"

  "Antonio was a young man who owned a barge. He picked up our cartons of finished lace and delivered them to the docks.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “Antonio was my love. We were planning to run away before Papa could marry me off to Otho."

  "Let me guess. Antonio had Tartini write a letter."

  She nodded. “Antonio worked hard, but he wasn't educated. Once he'd planned the details of our elopement, he had to smuggle a letter into the house. Papa had become suspicious, you see, and wouldn't let me out on the water landing.” Real tears coursed down her cheeks. “If only Antonio hadn't hired Tartini to write that letter."

  "What happened?"

  "I received a letter. So did Papa. He gave Tartini a handsome reward for alerting him to Antonio's plan, then had Antonio beaten and run out of Venice. I thought my lover might sneak back. I waited and hoped, but he didn't return."

  "Did you marry the widower?"

  "No, I was going to have a baby. Four months along ... too late to hide. Papa was angrier than I'd ever seen him. He turned me out in disgrace. The nuns at the Pieta took me in for a while, but then I got sick and lost the baby. After that, the only thing I lived for was finding the man who'd betrayed me. It took a few months, but I finally tracked the old bastard to the Ca’ Renaldo and began planning my revenge.” A harsh cry sounded in her throat. “I killed Tartini just like he deserved, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it, Nicco. All you have is a scrap of paper that proves nothing."

  I took a shuddering breath, reflecting on the millwheel of the criminal court that pulverized the wronged as completely as the evil. “I'm sorry,” I said. “Truly sorry, Marina."

  The window drapes parted just as the young harlot tossed her head and flounced toward the door. Bianchi stepped over the low windowsill that separated the balcony from my room. Messer Grande, red-robed and severe, followed. “I've heard enough, Ziani. My sbirri will take it from here."

  * * * *

  I made myself go to the hanging. As Marina's cart trundled across the jetty toward the gallows set up between the columns of the Lion and the Saint, I waved frantically, hoping she would see at least one caring face in the jeering crowd. It was not to be. Marina kept her chin lowered and eyes trained on her bound wrists.

  After the hangman had tossed her small body onto the waiting charnel wagon and my bloodthirsty neighbors had gone home to their dinners, I wandered along the waterfront. On the lagoon, wavelets frisked in the summer breeze, and gulls made sweeping arcs against a cerulean sky. Venice was putting on her best show, but it barely registered with me. My heart ached as steadily as my knees and my shoulder. Perhaps I was getting too old to chase down ruffians and match wits with the vagaries of justice. I would never trade on the Ziani name as Carlo Pisani had suggested, but maybe, just maybe, I should find another line of work. One that would take me far from the Ca’ Renaldo.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Beverle Graves Myers

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER by Willie Rose

  Each letter consistently represents another. The quotation is from a short mystery story. Arranging the answer letters in alphabetical order gives a clue to the title of the story.

  PCL ZWMT LE VTHT, DBF WK FCTJB'K KDYT ZCBU KC LBFTHJKDBF NVP IHWAT HDKTJ FHCE ZWYT D JKCBT ICAT BCMTARTH. NWBKTH KDYTJ KVT EZDIT CS IHWAT...

  —TMT SWJVTH

  CIPHER ANSWER: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Fiction: CAR TROUBLE by Jas. R. Petrin

  "This time,” Skig said, “tell you what. Try not to make it stand up at the back, some kind of antenna sticking outta my head."

  "It's just the way your hair goes, dear. Nothing I can do. You should be glad to have hair on the top of your head. Some men your age are ready for a comb-over."

  "When I'm ready for it, shoot me."

  Every month they exchanged this banter. Leo Skorzeny sitting on a straight-back chair in Eva Kohl's kitchen, a sheet around him, snippets of his stiff, iron-gray hair on the floor. Eva, retired from hairdressing maybe ten, twelve years now, click-clicking away with her scissors.

  "Tell me about that new car you're buying,” Skig said. He shifted his weight, trying to ease the pain in his gut.

  She laughed. Took a playful snip at the empty air.

  "Not buying—leasing. The way they explained it to me, Mr. Skorzeny, it's cheaper."

  "Smaller payments."

  "That's right."

  "That don't mean it's cheaper. The long run."

  "For me it is. It really is. The salesman told me I'm perfect for a lease. I put on hardly any mileage—mostly just shopping."

  "You bargain down the suggested retail?"

  "The what?” She stopped snipping, puzzled.

  "The price."

  "No. I thought I explained. I'm not buying, I'm leasing."

  Skig closed his eyes, held them shut a second, opened them.

  "You got a good trade?"

  The snipping started again. “My old car still runs well. They're giving me two thousand dollars for it."

  "Your old car's like new. Why not keep driving it?"

  "It isn't all that good. And I feel like a change. Anyway, I've made up my mind. I'm signing the papers this afternoon.” She ran the trimmer over his neck, cold steel humming against his skin, then handed him a fan-shaped hand mirror. She held a second mirror behind his head, left, then right. “How's that?"

  "Perfect,” Leo said, “as always. That's why I come to you."

  "Don't kid. You come here because I'm cheap. And I'm only just down the street from you."

  Before he left, Skig got the name of her dealership.

  * * * *

  He trudged heavily back along the sidewalk, one hand under his billowing sports coat to brace the pain there low in his gut. He would get his car out of the garage, head down to the quack's office, and collect the bad news sure to be waiting for him. All those tests last week. The quacks liked to tell him how lucky he was, that he should be dead by now. Yeah, right. How lucky could you get?

  Skig lived in an old made-over filling station, bought years ago as an in
vestment. He'd converted the office area to a few livable rooms after Jeanette died—couldn't stay in the house and didn't know why. Or maybe he did. Sensing her presence there was still too much for him, and at other times it was just too empty.

  He crossed the large graveled lot, his front yard, fumbled a key out, and heaved open the repair bay door, all blistering paint: no power assist on this baby, built before the friggin’ flood. He backed the Crown Vic into the lot, got out, and hauled the big door down, locked it, then eased back in behind the wheel. He rolled off along Railway Avenue at a sedate five clicks under the limit, windows open to blow the stink off. The Crown Vic still reeked after running off the jetty into the harbor one time, but Skig had no interest in replacing it. Why bother if you were one church service shy of a planting, the way he saw it.

  The clock on the dash said two fifteen. Time enough for that one small matter before he had to be at his appointment.

  He found the lot on Robie, not a first-rate dealership, but not too scuzzy a place. The showroom supported a colossal roof-mounted sign that said HAPPY DAN DUCHEK'S AUTO WORLD, with two sculpted Ds each the size of a grand piano. Another, smaller, sign said WE'RE NOT HAPPY UNTIL YOU ARE! “Right,” Skig muttered as he turned in. He rolled slowly between two rows of gleaming new cars. Bigger than it looked from the street. There was even a detailing shop at the back for well-heeled car enthusiasts, Happy Dan covering all the angles. Skig saw movement in the next row over. An extremely pretty young woman, dressed for the office, talking heatedly with her hands to a young man in sagging-butt pants who stared back at her with lifeless eyes.

  "Don't argue with that one, dear,” Skig cautioned her under his breath, looking for a place to park. Something familiar about the guy.

  He found Happy Dan in the manager's office. Shiny hair. Smile on him like it was wired there. Dan had just unwrapped a tuna sub on his desk and was holding out a coffee mug to the extremely pretty young woman Skig had seen a moment ago. She must have nipped inside while he was parking, now in the process of pouring Dan a fill of seriously black joe from a steaming Pyrex pot. Dan didn't look too happy with her. The guy with the sagging pants was nowhere in sight.