Alibi: A Novel Read online

  “We’re not supposed to use the files this way.”

  “What are you talking about? That’s all we did.”

  “You’re not in the army anymore. And he’s Italian. We’re not supposed to—”

  “Jesus Christ, Joe, the old man is lying there in a hospital bed and this guy fingers him. In a hospital bed. How much protection is he supposed to have?”

  Joe said nothing for a minute, then pocketed the paper and photograph.

  “All right. All I’m saying is, this isn’t Frankfurt. We may not have anything.”

  “If you don’t, you don’t. I’ll bet you’ve got a Herr Kroger.” Our assistant, for whom the files were a series of live wires running from connection to connection, the whole a wonderful bright web in his brain.

  “Soriano,” Joe said, nodding. “Signora. Pretty good, too.”

  “Put her on it. She’ll know right away if it’s worth a little sniffing. I don’t want to tie you up with this.”

  Joe grinned. “No, just use my best snoop. You don’t change.” He patted the pocket with the photograph. “You really love this guy, huh? What if I come up dry?”

  “There has to be something. A man who’d do that—it’s never just once.”

  “And you’re sure he did?”

  “There was an eyewitness.”

  “And you’re sure—”

  “She was the old man’s daughter.”

  “Oh, she was,” Joe said, looking at me. “Then she’d know.”

  “Yes, she would,” I said, staring back.

  Joe sighed and put his napkin on the table. “Well, this was fun. Just like old times. You have a phone here?”

  “On the paper. I’ll come to Verona if—”

  “No, you don’t want to come anywhere near me. It’s not Frankfurt, remember? Anyway, I’m not as much fun as I used to be. Can I ask you something? This guy, does he know that you know?”

  I looked at him, surprised that this hadn’t occurred to me, then nodded. Of course he knew. Claudia would have told me.

  “Some fucking wedding,” Joe said.

  I walked back, taking the wide swing over the Accademia bridge, then sat for a while in the Campo San Ivo. There was a shaft of sun in the square, and some bundled-up old people sat on benches with their faces turned to it. At the end of the campo boats swept by on the Grand Canal. Where my mother had come to be happy. So special it seemed not just outside the war but outside time. But that had been another trick of the light, like the hypnotic movement of the water. Nowhere was outside. And now everything here would be Gianni, every detail a daily reminder. Gothic arched windows, flowerpots on terraces, the view from the Monaco lounge. She’d be miserable and, stubbornly, she’d refuse to go. The leaving itself could be easy. My mother had always lived a gypsy life of suitcases and short-term leases. A few days would do it. Bertie could deal with the house. Mimi could make the public excuses. And she’d be out of it. If she’d go.

  I saw her face for a second as she’d turned from the door this morning, wounded. By me, every word a kind of betrayal. What would it look like now, knowing I’d asked for his file? But what was the alternative? If he’d lie about the hospital, what else would he lie about? What was the point of finding out later, when she was already trapped, crushed by the disappointment of it? The sooner, the better. She might listen to Bertie. A calm meeting, moving her gently from point to point until she saw. It was just a question of making her see.

  I got up and started back to the house. We’d both apologize. We’d tiptoe around it. She’d ask what Claudia had actually said, what she’d seen. We’d talk.

  But when I got to the house, she’d already gone out. “A fitting, for the dress,” Angelina said. “She left a message.”

  I went over to the table and took the paper out of the silver dish. “Don’t forget to call Gianni,” it read, as if nothing had been said at all.

  Claudia wasn’t at the Accademia, so I walked toward the Rialto and then, on a whim, went to the library and spent a few hours leafing through a bound volume of Il Gazzettino. The first roundup had been in December ’43, but Claudia hadn’t been taken until later—fall, after a few months hiding on the Lido. I started with July, piecing together bits of Italian until word blocks began to fall into place, the way menus become familiar. Gianni’s name never came up. But why would it? Claudia wasn’t there either, or Abramo Grassini. Not even the word Ebreo. No one had combed through the hospital, looking for victims. No one had been transported. August. Nothing had happened. La Serenissima had survived the occupation doing what it always had—entertaining visitors. The violinists in San Marco would have played waltzes. Not many photographs, only the occasional officer in gray in the background, taking coffee. September. The war was happening somewhere else, troops fighting in the south, only partisan bands in the Veneto. A train derailed near Verona, a munitions depot blown up—cowardly acts designed to thwart the Italian war effort (had the typographer set this with a straight face?), Communist-inspired, probably Milanese. The Communists, in fact, were behind everything, the real threat, more insidious than the advancing Allies or the protective Germans. The monsignor called for peace, an end to criminal acts. But even the partisans were somewhere else, at the other end of the bridge across the lagoon. In Venice, nothing happened.

  I started to close the book, letting the pages fall on one another, backward through the summer, and suddenly there he was, same face, receding hair. I stopped and flipped until I came back to the photograph. Not Gianni, the older brother. Gustavo Paolo Lorenzo, known as Paolo. Dead in the war, Gianni had said, but not exactly in the front lines, according to Il Gazzettino. A car accident near Asolo, where he was staying or living—my Italian wasn’t nuanced enough to tell. Odd to think of any Venetian in a car, much less dying in one. Is that why Gianni had given him a better end? I looked at the photograph again—Gianni’s eyes, spaced wide over the same high nose, a subtly different mouth, the whole look older, not quite as personable. Had they been close? I read through the obituary, looking for some sense of their lives together, but the article was respectful and dull. A long genealogy, a list of charitable associations, but evidently no profession. Only second sons had to think of it. The lucky older brother, who’d lived on what was left. An ordinary, conventional life. The only hint of flair had been a youthful enthusiasm for auto racing—and, the piece did not say but implied, look where that had led. No other passengers in the wreck. Mourned by his many friends and colleagues.

  At four Claudia still wasn’t back at the Accademia. “She’s not here,” a secretary said in Italian, and when I looked at my watch with a teasing raised eyebrow and said, “Some lunch,” she said, “No, she is no longer employed here.”

  “Since when?” I said, but she pretended not to understand and shrugged, so I went back out to Calle Pisani and stood for a minute waiting, as if someone were going to come out and explain it to me. Why would she quit? Jobs were hard to get. For a panicked second I wondered if she’d gone to Rome after all, taking off like a startled bird, still surprised at herself. An afternoon train, a note pinned to the dressmaker’s dummy. But that wasn’t like her. I thought of her that first time at Bertie’s party, as straightforward as her suit, and then with Gianni, her hands at his face. No strategic retreats, no notes. She’d be at home, looking out the window at San Isepo. She wouldn’t have left. Not alone.

  I started for the vaporetto, then stopped and headed back to my mother’s to pick up some clothes. I had only a few things at Claudia’s, and I wasn’t just staying the night anymore. Angelina surprised me with a message to call Joe Sullivan. I hadn’t expected to hear back for days and I didn’t want to take the time to call now—it could take up to an hour just to get through—but since Claudia didn’t have a phone, there wasn’t much choice. The phone had one of those elaborate receivers you saw in old movies and the sound was usually scratchy, but for once the lines were free.

  “You rang a bell with Rosa,” he said.

/>   “Who?”

  “Signora Soriano. Herr Kroger.”

  “Ah. What kind of bell?”

  “She knew the name. Now she’s running around trying to put things together. I wish you could see her. Fucking purring. Like a cat with a ball of yarn.”

  “Knew his name how?”

  “Company he kept. Not that that means anything. Lots of bad company in Italy these last few years. Hard to avoid.”

  “And he didn’t?”

  “No, but it’s hard to say. You ever hear of the Villa Raspelli?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a kind of rest home over on Lake Garda. Some banker’s house. They made it into a recovery center for SS brass. Nice. Your man must have made a few house calls there. Rosa remembered the name.”

  “He was an SS doctor?”

  “Don’t run away with yourself. He was a doctor. The patients were SS. How exactly that fits together, I don’t know.”

  “I can guess. What else has she got?”

  “I didn’t say she had anything. But if there is, she’ll find it. Like I say, she’s purring. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. A few days, okay? She wants to give it to you personally, which means she wants a trip to Venice, but what the hell. If anybody deserves—”

  “But why does she think there’s anything?”

  “I don’t know. She just said Villa Raspelli and then went down the rabbit hole, the way she does. She finds anything, I’ll have her call. This number always good?”

  I looked at the phone, the only one I had access to. “Yes.”

  “Meanwhile, don’t start packing for Nuremberg, okay? Sit tight.”

  “Thanks, Joe. I owe you.”

  “Not yet, you don’t. I mean, he’s a fucking doctor. Who else do you call when you’re sick?”

  “But they called him, Joe. Not anybody. Him.”

  I heard nothing for a minute, just some breathing over the line.

  “Why do you think that was?” I said.

  Again silence, then a small sigh. “Maybe he’s good at what he does.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, turning my head toward the door, where my mother was standing, cheeks still red from outside. She gave me a tentative smile and crossed the room to the drinks tray.

  “He speak kraut?” Joe was saying.

  “I don’t know,” I said, distracted.

  “That might explain it. Krauts like that, speak the language.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  This time he didn’t even bother to answer. “I’ll have her call. Soriano, don’t forget.”

  “I won’t. Thanks, Joe.”

  “Who’s Joe?” my mother said as I hung up, her back to me, fixing a drink. At this distance she seemed small, her shoulders as narrow as a girl’s. Who was Joe? An investigator. A rat chaser. Someone who knew about Gianni.

  “An army buddy,” I said.

  “In Venice? That’s nice.”

  “In Verona.”

  “Still. Want one?” she said, turning. “I know it’s early, but the fitting was hell. Nobody ever says how exhausting it is, just standing. But wait till you see it—so pretty. It’s got beads along here,” she said, drawing her hand along an imaginary neckline. “Oh, but you don’t care a bit, do you? Half the time you don’t even notice what people have on. What’s in the bag?” She nodded to the small satchel I’d packed with clothes. “Moving out?” Her voice light, her eyes fixed on mine.

  “No. Just a change.”

  “Ah,” she said. We never talked about the nights away, the unused bed. I was simply “out late.” “Did you call Gianni?” Offhand, as if it were an afterthought.

  “No.”

  “Darling, I wish you would. It would mean so much to him.” She put down the drink and walked toward me. “Think what it’s like for him.”

  “What what’s like?”

  She sighed. “Well, you, I suppose. I wish I knew why you’ve taken—”

  “Then listen to me. Please. It’s important.”

  “We’ve had this conversation, I think, haven’t we?”

  “Then let’s have it again.”

  “Adam, I don’t care what happened a long time ago—”

  “A year, year and a half.”

  “I know him now.”

  “You think you do. People don’t change.”

  She looked up at me, her eyes softer. “You don’t, anyway. So stubborn. What a stubborn little boy you were. Always going to set things right. Always so sure. Even in the sandbox.”

  “What sandbox? You never took me to a sandbox.”

  She smiled. “Well, how would you know? Anyway, I remember seeing you in a sandbox. I suppose some child had taken a toy or something, I don’t know. And there you were on your high horse, all three feet of you. Pointing. ‘It’s not fair, it’s not fair!’ Just outraged.”

  “Well, it probably wasn’t fair,” I said, smiling a little now too.

  “Probably,” she said. She reached up and brushed the hair back from my forehead. “But you’re not a little boy anymore. And nothing is fair. Nothing in this world. There’s only—getting along.”

  I took her hand, moving it down from my hair.

  “We’re not talking about something that happened in a sandbox,” I said. “People died.”

  “Because of him. You think that.”

  “Yes.”

  She put her hands on my upper arms. “Then talk to him. Let him explain.”

  “Mother—”

  “Come to dinner.”

  I looked at her, disconcerted. A social occasion, to iron out the wrinkles.

  “No,” I said, pulling away, then stopped, caught by the hurt expression in her eyes. “Anyway, I can’t,” I said.

  “Yes, I forgot,” she said, nodding to the bag. “Tomorrow, perhaps.” A hostess taking in a polite excuse.

  “No, not tomorrow either.”

  “Really, Adam,” she said with a nervous giggle. “He’ll think—”

  I looked at her, not saying anything.

  “We can’t go on this way,” she said. “It’s important. To sit down at a table together.”

  “Like a family.”

  “Yes, like a family. You know, you’re all I have,” she said quietly. Then she turned away, her voice changing, back to Neverland again. “Well, another day. Goodness, look at the time. I’d better run a bath. You won’t be too late tonight, will you, darling?” Ignoring the satchel.

  “Not too late,” I said, ignoring it too.

  It was dark by the time I got to Claudia’s, and she was in fact staring out at San Isepo, just as I’d imagined.

  “You’ll go blind,” I said, flicking on the light. “Everything okay?” I put the satchel near the bed.

  She said nothing, smoking and staring out the window.

  “I went by the Accademia. They said you’d left. Quit.”

  “No, dismissed,” she said after another minute’s silence. “In the fire. Isn’t that right?”

  “Fired,” I said automatically. “What happened?”

  “My services are no longer required. Signora Ricci told me. The director didn’t bother coming down. He had Signora Ricci do it.”

  “But why?”

  “Why do you think? A word in the ear. It’s so different in America?”

  “Whose ear?”

  “The director’s, I suppose. Anyway, someone’s. So now it’s begun. But so quick.”

  “Now what’s begun?”

  “To get rid of me. Now that I’ve exposed him, what else can he do? Kill me, like my father? He’d like that, but now it’s not legal.”

  “You think Gianni had you fired?”

  “I know it.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” I said, angry.

  “No, it doesn’t work that way. He won’t know anything about it. No one will. But I’ll be gone.”

  “Then how do you know it was him?”

  “I saw his face.”

  “When?”

  She turned
away from the window and put out the cigarette. “I’m embarrassed to tell you. It was—I don’t know, just something I did. Not thinking. I just went.”

  “Where?”

  “To the hospital. Signora Ricci told me to leave and I knew. Not the end of the week, leave today. I knew what it meant. Who else would do this? Make me go away, that’s what he wants now. No more—incidents. I thought, he can do this, make trouble for me just by picking up the phone. But I can make trouble for him too—I know what he did. So I went there, all the way to Campo Zanipolo, and then I thought, what am I doing? I’m going to run into the hospital? They’ll think he’s right, a crazy. But what do you do? Take your purse from the desk and thank Signora Ricci and just disappear? That’s what he wants.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Nothing. I just stood there, by Colleoni on his horse. I didn’t know. Go? Stay? What? And then he came out. Not alone. With two others, out of the hospital. And they cross the campo—talking, you know—and suddenly he comes near and he stops. It was all there, in his face—no surprise, he knew why I was there, expecting it even, and you know what else? A fear. He was afraid. That I was waiting there for him. I wasn’t. Another two minutes and I would have been gone. But he didn’t know that. Remember I said how I should do that, just be there, at his parties, everywhere? He thought I was.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. I just looked at him. And him? Nothing, just a look. But it was there, in his face. And the others, the men with him, they don’t understand it at all. Why he’s staring at this woman by Colleoni. Who doesn’t say anything to him either, just a look. And when they start again, I hear one of them say, ‘Who was that?’ And he says, ‘Nobody.’ And one of them turns back to look and I could see he’s thinking, So why did he stop? But how can Maglione explain it? So it’s the beginning. He wants me dead. Gone, anyway. I saw it there, in his face.”

  “In one look,” I said, trying to coax her out of it.

  “Yes, one look. I know. I’ve seen it before.”

  “Maybe you’re overreacting,” I said gently.

  “No, the same. You know how I know? Because it frightened me. The way it always did. Like a knife at your throat—so close, when? So now he’s afraid of me, just the sight of me, and I’m afraid of him. We know each other. Maybe it would have been better if I’d never found him. Now how does it end?”