The Alchemist's Pursuit

10

The wider calle brought me, of course, to the watersteps and Number 96, whose welcoming lantern still burned, for it was not yet midnight. The land door opens into the waterfront loggia, where half a dozen boatmen sat huddled around a brazier. Their gondolas nodded among the mooring posts outside the arches. Ripples slapped.

Violetta would not be back yet from the musical salon at Ca' Grimini, and she would not return alone anyway, so normally I would have gone right on by, walking to the far end of the gallery and then negotiating the ledge to the narrower calle and Ca' Barbolano. That would have required me to run the gauntlet of the boatmen's foul ribaldry, of course, but anyone who worries about gondoliers' manners should never visit Venice. What made me hesitate was not fear of ridicule but the thought of Alessa. Although she had refused to share information with us over dinner, she had now had many hours to reconsider. Ignoring several boatmen's offers to row me to much better establishments, I opened the door and went in.

The entrance is a cosy parlor, illuminated by numerous lamps and warmed in winter by a toasty fire, mainly for the benefit of skimpily dressed hostesses. The decor is heavy on red and gold and gilt-framed paintings of nudes that never saw the inside of Titian's studio. The air was weighty with wine and perfume, and sounds of drunken revelry were audible beyond the door at the back, which leads through to ground floor rooms for those who are short of either time or money and thus cannot afford to linger. The staircase in the corner leads to the owners' apartments on the piano nobile and then on up to a second commercial area, of higher delights and much higher prices.

Uttering cries of joy, two girls on duty jumped up to greet me. I rewarded them with a polite smile and headed to the stairs, where scar-faced Antonio perched awkwardly on a stool. On my admittedly rare visits to the brothel when it is open for business, I had never seen the chief guard displayed so prominently. Obviously security was tighter than usual at Number 96 and perhaps at every brothel in the city. Word gets around. Because of the temperature, he was stripped down to a shirt and breeches, which made him look even meaner than he does when respectably dressed, while the contrast with his two delectable companions emphasized his nightmare ugliness. He knows me, but he eyed me distrustfully on principle.

"She's still out?" I asked.

Antonio nodded.

"With someone known to you? Not masked, I hope."

"Of course," he growled. "Think I'm stupid? And we don't admit friars."

So many words had gotten around, and perhaps Honeycat would have to hunt outdoors from now on, as the Maestro's quatrain suggested.

"I need to speak with Alessa."

He frowned and then shrugged. Antonio's shrugs create drafts. "She's upstairs. I'll ask." He went, striding two treads at a time.

"You're Violetta's doorman aren't you?" asked the taller of the two seminudes. She advanced predatorily.

"You should try a little variety," the other suggested, starting a flanking maneuver.

"You're much too cute to waste on just her."

"Beware!" I cried, retreating into a corner. "Think what Violetta will do to you if you molest my innocence."

"On, now I have heard everything!"

"Shameless! Who's going to tell her?"

"I'm here on business!" I protested.

"So are we."

I was saved from an unmentionable fate by a blast of cold air from the outer door, wafting in a couple of drunken sailors, masked for Carnival and eager to open negotiations. While the girls were deftly removing the men's masks and boosting their ardor, Antonio came clattering down the stairs and beckoned me. I followed him up to where a second bravo guarded the door to the piano nobile.

Antonio introduced us while he fumbled for the key. "Luigi… Alfeo… Alfeo's all right. A friend." Once inside, he led the way along a dark corridor to Alessa's door, where he paused, as if suddenly uncertain. "She's not herself."

"What way not herself?"

"She's pretty drunk."

"Violetta would murder me."

The big man chuckled. "So she would." He stalked away.

A faint wedge of light showed under the door. As Venice sinks slowly into the mud of the lagoon, its doors and windows-even its walls-forswear right angles in favor of ideas of their own. I tried the handle and went in. Alessa lacks Violetta's flair for artistic arrangement and her apartment is overly cluttered with expensive knickknackery. I picked my way in near darkness through this forest of glass, ceramic, and plaster until I found her in an armchair in her salotto, huddled close to a dying fire and clad in a loose robe that no respectable lady would wear even when alone. Her hair was unbound, dangling everywhere, her face paint messed. Fortunately the single lamp on the mantel shed very little light on her shame, but the reek of wine confirmed what Antonio had told me. First Matteo and now Alessa-Honeycat was doing good things for the vintners of Venice.

With the poker and a couple of logs from the scuttle, I gave the fire new life. Then I pulled up a chair, laid my forearms on my knees, and looked across at Alessa. Her eyes had been following me, but so far she had not spoken a word.

"Well?" I said. "Violetta isn't here. You are ready to tell me Honeycat's name."

She shook her head and held out her goblet. I confirmed that the bottle on the floor beside her was empty, found another, opened it, poured her a drink, and returned to my post. "Well?" I said again.

"He didn't do it." She spoke with the fastidious care of the very drunk. "Not Honeycat I knew. Ish a common enough pet name." She turned her gaze on the fire and fell silent.

"Tell me about the Honeycat you knew." In vino veritas.

"He was lovely," she told the fire. "He was young and dish-gush-tingly rich. He was fun. He was joy. Very few giovani we look forward to, Alfeo, but I adored Honeycat. We'd fight over him, us girls. Rich, noble, handsome. Knew his classics: Ovid, Plato, and all the rest. He was a lover. He lived to make love. Never tired. Mosht greedy men are rough-bang, bang, bang. Not Honeycat. Was patient, clever.

"He had a red birthmark. Down here… Looked like a cat, so 'course he wash known ash Honeycat. He'd arrive in his gondola at noon, take me to a dinner, then a ball. Senators, procurators, and their wives. Dance till midnight. Oh, he could dance! Then back here and row the boat till dawn. Over and over. Don't know how he did it. Felt I ought to be paying him, not him me. Sometimes we'd throw parties for him-two, three girls, and he'd go all night, never sleep. Always left a present, diamond ring, pearls…"

"Go on," I said. "I want to hear more about this prodigy." His name! What was his name?

"Getting old, Alfeo." She sighed. "Even the nights were bright back then. Did I ever tell you about the time the doge-"

"Tell me about Honeycat, Alessa."

"Ashk Violetta."

"She never met him."

"Lucia in'rodushed them."

"Yes?" I clamped my lips shut because they were trying to snarl. This was what I feared most.

"She was fifteen. Sweet as a rosebud." Silence. All this time Alessa had been speaking to the fire, not me.

"How old was he?"

"Mm? 'Bout nineteen."

Aha! Now I had a lead, because his birth would be recorded in the Golden Book.

"He lined her up right away," Alessa mumbled. "Violetta. Three days in the country at one of his family's places. Right after the funeral. Oh, I was jealous! She'd have come back hundreds of ducats richer after that." Laughter made Alessa's breasts gyrate like gypsy dancers. "Tired, but richer."

What funeral?

"She told me she didn't know Honeycat."

Again that earthquake laugh. "No. We never told. A girl had to discover the mark for herself."

"And Violetta didn't?"

"He never showed up for her. Was the day he ran."

"Ran?" I held myself back from physical assault with an effort. "Alessa, what was his name?"

She drained her glass. "Didn't kill anyone. He wouldn't. All Honeycat ever wanted was girls, girls, girls. Wouldn't've harmed a flea."

I slid to my knees beside her and ran a hand up her arm. "Tell me his name, Alessa. The Honeycat you knew? Not the killer, the one you knew?"

For a moment I thought she still wouldn't. Then she hurled the empty glass into the fire. "Michiel!" she said. "Zorzi Michiel!" She began to weep, great convulsive sobs.

Zorzi Michiel? Oh my God!

No wonder Vasco had warned me off.

I had what I had come for, and the implications were too staggering to think about right then. I stood up.

"Thank you, Alessa. Come along. I'll see you to bed."

She took my hands like a child, but I had to haul her upright. I put one of her arms around my neck and half walked, half carried her to her bedroom. As I said, she would still be worth a tumble, but in that condition she did not tempt me at all. I tucked her in, pecked a kiss on her forehead, and left.

Downstairs, I warned Antonio that Alessa's door was not locked; he said he would see to it. So I emerged into the loggia and the bleak night wind. There was no sign of the cat. Rather than risk the ledge, I paid one of the boatmen a couple of soldi to ferry me sixty feet or so back to Ca' Barbolano.

Zorzi Michiel, the patricide, the worst criminal in a hundred years! And I had been totally wrong about the Council of Ten.