“What do you want, Reb?” She spoke perfect English without an accent. It threw me.
“World peace . . . and a pony,” I replied.
“I’m not laughing.”
“Why don’t you have an accent?” I asked. “I thought you were Italian.”
“I’m going to hang up in three seconds if you don’t tell me what you want.”
“I thought maybe you could help—”
“What do you need?” I heard the maid’s hamper squeaking down the hall. A thousand dollars a day and they had squeaky hampers.
Silence. I was getting nowhere. “Okay,” I offered. “I’ll help you.”
“How?”
“I know who’s trying to find the Medici Dagger.”
A gasp and then a whispered “Who?”
“Look,” I said, “could we meet somewhere?”
I heard squeaking wheels again, closer. There was a knock at my door.
“How do you say ‘wait’ . . . in Italian?” I asked.
I put the phone to my chest and shouted at the door,
The maid hesitated before saying,
“I’m sorry,” I said. “The maid was at the door.”
“You told her to wait five hundred minutes.”
“I did? I meant fifteen.” We were both quiet for a few seconds while I figured out how to recover. Finally I said, “Do you think she’ll do it?”
I heard a mini-chuckle over the phone.
“I may not be able to help you,” I said.“But at least I’m not scared.” That wasn’t true, but she didn’t know it. “Will you meet me somewhere? I promise nothing bad will happen. Are you hungry? I could buy you some lunch. How about . . . what’s the name of that place on Torcello Island. That inn?”
“You mean Locanda Cipriani?”
“That’s the place. A ferry takes you there from—”
“In front of the Hotel Danieli, I know,” she said. I could feel her on the edge of commitment and didn’t dare say a word. “All right,” she said firmly. “I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes. That’s not five hundred.”
She hung up.
I combed my hair, brushed my teeth, threw on my jacket, grabbed my red backpack, and headed out.
It was a short walk to the Danieli, a huge place that looked like a cake that had won a bake-off for the most intricate icing. All of Venice looked that way to me, as though a giant pastry chef had gone wild with a frosting bag. Spires and arches and bridges, double- and triple-deckers with cutouts and dollops and swirls. I could picture the chef in his baker’s whites leaning over his creation, eyes twinkling, squeezing the last of the icing out of the big cloth bag, then bellowing,
I took my post across the street from the Danieli, wishing I’d found out what my mysterious informer looked like, figuring that Francesca must have told her what she knew about me. I played a little game, trying to pick her out. Using the Sherlock Holmes method, I checked out the females in the crowd. Holmes just kept ruling things out until he arrived at a conclusion, and then, if there was only onething left, it had to be right—no matter how improbable. I had used this method countless times to find missing socks.
The teenage girl with the platform shoes? The tour guide with the red umbrella? The fiftyish lady in the elegant suit? Maybe. One of those two girls striding arm in arm? No way. How about bushy brows, like Francesca? I kept looking.
Then someone tapped on my shoulder. She was a slight woman, maybe thirty, in a long print skirt, light-blue jacket, and dark sunglasses, with a scarf nearly covering her straight, shoulder-length black hair. She had high cheekbones, a thin nose, and a wide mouth with full red lips. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“Reb?” she asked, fingering the strap on her huge shoulder bag.
I swallowed hard and stuck out my hand.
She gave it a rigid shake. Her small hand was cold from fear. I wondered what had motivated this frightened woman to come out in broad daylight to have lunch with a stranger.
I asked her name.
“Antonia.” Her voice had a smoky quality, like a young Lauren Bacall.
“Thank you for coming, Antonia,” I said, attempting to see her eyes through her dark glasses. “If you want to stand here and talk for a while . . . if that would make you more comfortable . . .”
“I’m in danger,” she whispered. “Serious danger.”
“I believe you,” I said, forcing myself to maintain eye contact, rather than check around for anyone who might
