The Medici Dagger

“Sorry,” I said. “I guess I was lost.”

“And now you’re found?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Thanks.”

“Hey, Spitfire . . . before you go . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I’m, uh, tamer now. Maybe when you get back . . .”

A second’s hesitation on my part and she knew.

“Well then,” she finished. “I guess I’m entitled to hang up first.”

Before I could answer, she did.

I replaced the phone in its cradle. . . .Werner Krell and his father.Me and mine. Leonardo.There had been five men. There were two left. Under different circumstances, would Krell and I have drained an ale in honor of our dead fathers and Leonardo’s genius? Would we have wept together for our missing mothers, whose forgotten voices would never comfort us?

And if we’d met on a battlefield in the middle of the century, who would have pulled the trigger first?

It was dark and raining when my plane fell out of the sky onto the tarmac at Malpensa Airport in Milan. An hour later I was up in the ether again, eastbound for Venice on a miniature version of the aircraft I had just deplaned.

I steadied my nerves on the short flight to Marco Polo Airport by thinking about those carved Russian dolls that open up one inside the other until at the center is a tiny doll that looks like something from a Barbie tea set. I pictured myself on a plane that opened to reveal smaller and smaller planes, me shrinking and boarding until, at last, I climbed into a plane the size of a mallard, which headed skyward and got into formation with a flock of other ducks. Damn, I’d been in the air too long.

Soon, my luggage and I were on the ground and in a private taxi cruising through choppy water into the Grand Canal. It had rained and the air felt thick and electric.

Leah had booked me into the Gritti Palace—a regal hotel that overlooked the grand canal and was a home of the doge, in the sixteenth century, Venice’s most powerful official.

The door to my room was ajar, the bellhop just setting out a basket of fruit. The high-ceilinged suite was large and replete with antiques, a huge Oriental rug, and an ornate chandelier. I was pleasantly surprised, having stayed in hotels that boasted opulent lobbies but were otherwise ordinary. Leah had done well.

I slipped the bellhop some money and he backed out graciously.

After a shower I unpacked, lit my candle, and climbed into bed.

My mother and father would have loved Venice. We could have stayed right here. I would have dug my bare toes into the soft couch cushions, peered up at the patterns on the high ceiling, and listened as my dad delighted me and Mom with stories of the proud and the poor who had crossed these canals and streets, their splendid canvases tucked under their paint-stained arms.

My elegant room suddenly felt empty and the night too vast.

A piece of chocolate in the shape of a dove, wrapped in orange and white aluminum foil, sat on the oversized feather pillow next to me. I picked it up and sniffed: Grand Marnier.

I lay on my side flying the dove back and forth in the flickering light, aching for my stolen past, longing for daylight and a chance to lay a knee on evil’s chest. Nolo Tecci. Werner Krell.

The candle’s flame softened the chocolate bird.

Ahh, vengeance.

The next morning, I followed my only lead. At nine on the dot, I was standing in the marble-tiled reception area on the third floor of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, facing a sixty-year-old secretary with voluminous dark brown hair and thick eyebrows. Her excellent English accompanied a restrained professional demeanor that belied a tension which could not be concealed.

Though my pulse was pounding, I plowed ahead, smiling at her like I was hands-down the nicest guy she was going to meet that day. I explained that I’d come from California to speak to the person to whom Signore Arrezione, the bookseller, might have shown the page of Leonardo’s notes.

“Are you a reporter?” she asked, her face taut.

“No,” I answered. “I’m not.”

She eyed me warily, her big brows almost touching.

I opened my jacket. “See? No recorder, no paper, no pencil. I’m not a reporter. I’m not even a good speller.”

I detected a momentary thaw in her countenance.

“Are you with an official organization?” she asked. “The police?”

“Actually, I’m a stuntman.”

She looked puzzled. “In the movies?”

“Bad spellers don’t have many options,” I said, smiling. She thawed a little more.

The secretary glanced behind her at a man’s figure, still as a store dummy, curtained by a smoked-glass door. When her eyes met mine again I knew I’d lost my advantage. “I cannot help you,” she said.

I leaned in a little closer. “Signorina Rossi—”