Lucifer's Shadow

29 A forced sale

Rizzo cursed his luck. Englishmen seemed to haunt him. The fellow Scacchi had sent seemed at first little more than a youth. Rizzo soon changed his opinion. “Daniel” was not cowed by his threats or concerned about losing the damned instrument. It was as if he recognised Rizzo’s urgent need to get rid of the fiddle and was determined to mark the price down accordingly. That scarcely mattered now. Rizzo had listened to him playing the thing and felt like screaming till his eyes popped out. It was then that he decided he would never touch the cursed instrument again. The only question was how much money he might glean from its immediate sale.

“You say you can talk business,” he grunted. “Well, talk.”

Daniel ceased offering him the violin case and chose instead to place it on the floor between them. “It’s of uncertain value. I don’t know.”

He was, Rizzo thought, not bad at lying, nor as good as he believed. “If you don’t know that, then what do we have to talk about?”

Daniel placed a long, pale hand on his chin, a gesture that reminded Rizzo of Massiter. “I’ve no idea how we might dispose of it.”

Rizzo waved his cigarette in the air. “Your problem, my friend. All I want to know is what you have to offer. Here and now. If we agree a price between us and walk away together? How much will you place in my hand for this thing?”

The young Englishman blinked, clearly thinking. Rizzo wanted rid of the violin at any price, but he wanted his money in hard cash.

“We don’t carry large sums out of habit,” Daniel replied, lying again.

Rizzo took him by the arm, leaned into his face, and breathed a thick cloud of cigarette smoke between them. “Hey. Let’s cut the crap. This isn’t my kind of merchandise, right? But it’s got a value. You said so yourself. Maybe it’s a fake. Maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. Seems to me some clever guy like you could make it look real if you wanted to, anyway. Then what would it be worth?”

“True. But then we take all the risk.”

Rizzo said nothing.

“Say, twenty thousand U.S. dollars,” Daniel suggested. “In cash. This afternoon.”

“No deal. You want to insult me?”

“Not at all. I’d just like us both to win.”

“Yeah.” He even talked like Massiter.

“So what do you want?”

“Gimme fifty grand. Cash. We go pick it up now.”

Daniel grimaced. “We don’t have that kind of money just lying around.”

“So?”

“Let’s say forty thousand. I think we could scrape that together. If you come with me, we could conclude this within the hour.”

Forty thousand dollars. It was still a huge amount. It could set him up in a bar, if he wanted. “That’s a real lot of money for a fake, don’t you think? Daniel?” He wanted the English kid to understand he knew he was being rolled.

“It’s a lot of money,” he agreed. “Do you want it?”

Rizzo scowled at the case on the ground. “We get it now? I come with you?”

“Sure.”

“You carry it,” Rizzo grunted. “I’m sick of the damned thing.”

They walked to the Arsenale stop and caught the first vaporetto to come along. It was, for a change, half-empty. The two men sat on the hard blue seats in the stern, out in the open air. Rizzo let him have the right-hand place, closer to the waterfront of San Marco. Some note of caution sounded in his head saying that he didn’t want to be seen with this odd, devious English kid. But it made no sense. Daniel was the one carrying the violin case, having left the nylon bag in the warehouse. Still, they did not speak. No one could place the two of them together.

Then the boat pulled past La Pietà, and Rizzo’s heart briefly stopped. There was some kind of media gathering outside the church, with photographers and reporters and a crowd of young musicians holding their instruments. This was Massiter’s show; he should have remembered that. His figure was there, in the middle of the crowd. He could so easily have seen the two of them together. And thought what? That his chosen thief and errand boy was sitting in the back of a vaporetto next to some pale-faced kid who happened to have a violin case on his lap. He wasn’t going to worry about it. Massiter had his back to them. If he’d seen something, then those icy grey eyes would surely be bearing down on the stern of the vaporetto that instant. All the same, Rizzo mumbled something about the heat and went to sit inside, between the kid and the exit. It was crazy to multiply the risks.

They got off at San Stae and walked back towards the Rialto. Rizzo had no idea where the old man lived, though it would be easy to find out. The one time they dealt with each other, it happened through an intermediary too. The English kid had indicated Rizzo was to stay out of Scacchi’s house. That was fair enough. But he still wanted to know.

The two of them shared a beer in the tiny bar that sat on the San Cassian campo, opposite the church. He ordered a second. Daniel refused. The place was empty.

“I’ll go and get the money,” the English kid said. “I’ll leave the fiddle here with you. Then come back with the cash. You can go check it in the toilet if you like.”

Rizzo laughed. There was something faintly amusing about Daniel, as if this were all a piece of amateur dramatics.

“Take the thing. Then come back with what you owe me.”

Daniel smiled. “Thanks. It’s nice to be trusted.”

Rizzo took off his sunglasses for the first time since leaving home that morning. He stared at Daniel. “What’s this got to do with trust? If you rip me off, I come and kill you. Don’t you get that?”

The kid went a touch pale, then nodded. Rizzo was glad he understood. “Just bring me the money. Then we never see each other again.”

“OK.” He was out of the door. Rizzo watched him turn left onto the bridge over the narrow rio, then he walked slowly to the front of the bar to see what happened next. It was so easy. Daniel crossed the water, then took out a key and opened the front door of a house set next to a small gift shop. Rizzo stared at the tangle of buildings on the corner. The entrance was humble. But it must lead, he guessed, to a large and ancient palace by the side of the rio. He did not doubt for one moment that Daniel would return with what he was owed.

He went back into the bar and slowly finished the beer. After fifteen minutes, Daniel returned carrying a Standa supermarket bag with a bundle inside, like a set of bricks enclosed tightly in a black plastic bin liner fastened with sticky tape.

The barman watched them from behind the counter. Rizzo ordered a third beer. Daniel declined.

“As I said,” he repeated, “if you want to check it…”

Rizzo shook his head. “We’re done, Daniel. You can go now.”

He left, clearly grateful to be out of the bar. Rizzo took his third beer and sat at one of the outside tables, the bag of money on his lap. The drink was beginning to run around his head a little. He had, he knew, been cheated, but the resentment he felt was purely personal, not financial. It would fade. The money would help.

He admired a young girl who walked past, a picture of Venetian loveliness with long legs and a head of flowing dark hair. Rizzo whistled and laughed as she picked up her pace over the bridge. He felt good. It was too late to find a bank and place the cash in there today, but tomorrow he would do that, and feel very proper and upright as he listened to the manager crawling for his business.

The house intrigued him. He stared at the half-shuttered windows, wishing he could see inside. Perhaps they were playing the newly acquired violin. Perhaps they were working out their potential profit. It didn’t bother him. Something told Rizzo the fiddle was a black thing and that no good was going to come of the transaction just negotiated by Daniel.

Rizzo sat outside the tiny bar, slowly getting drunk, idly watching the house. A tradesman arrived with some food. A man from the gas company called to read the meter. A figure left carrying a shopping bag and set out to cross the square. Rizzo wished he hadn’t drunk so much. Then he laughed, a mirthless, convulsive laugh that led to a brief choking fit.

The barman eyed him. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Rizzo answered. He felt happier than at any time since his visit to the cemetery of San Michele. The violin was gone. In its place was hard money and the scent of change in the hot lagoon air.