be a threat. It was imperative to demonstrate that my real concern was for her safety. It was, but I was worried about me, too. And I needed to know what she knew.
“I want to know why you’re in danger,” I said. “So I can help you if I can. I’m not out to hurt you. Maybe you’d feel safer here than on a boat.”
I could sense her stare though I couldn’t see her eyes. She turned on her heel and started walking quickly across the street. “Let’s go.”
I noticed her running shoes as I caught up to her. Together we walked briskly to the boat dock. She looked nervously over her shoulder a couple of times.
After exchanging a few words in Italian with a uniformed hotel employee, Antonia said, “The boat for the restaurant left at noon. We can either take the ferry or get a private water taxi. A taxi is much more expensive.”
“Taxi,” I told the guy, handing him some money. One was just making its way in.
Antonia made a deal with the driver, a stocky man with a big nose and a cigarette hanging off his lower lip. We boarded and found seats at the back in the open air as we headed out into the lagoon.
“So . . . Antonia,” I said over the rumble of the motor. “Would you take your sunglasses off? I can’t see your eyes.”
She stared at me. Though masked by her shades, the penetration was palpable.
I looked away, scanned the other boats. Taxi, taxi, taxi, ferry. Black and silver yacht maybe three hundred yards off to the right.
“Well . . . are you hungry?” I asked her, trying to break ground. “I’m starving.”
“Who
“I . . . I’m nobody.” The words burst from the marrow of my being. I was stunned.
“Do you always ooze melancholy?” she asked matter-of-factly.
“What are you talking about, melancholy?” I recoiled. “You don’t know me from the driver.”
“Uh-huh,” she said to herself. “All right, so tell me. What do you do?”
The yacht was closer now, maybe two hundred yards. Sharp-looking boat.
“I’m . . . a Hollywood stuntman. Please don’t give me grief about that.”
“What an odd thing to say.”
“What?”
“You have no sense of value in what you do.”
“I didn’t say that. In fact I may be the best in the whole damn business.”
“Oh great . . . an enigma. In Beatle boots, no less.”
The wind picked up. Antonia cinched her scarf down, slid away from me.
“Enigma. I’m not the one hiding out under the scarf and shades,” I said.
I needed to get what I could out of this girl and get the hell away from her. She was a pain in the ass. She hooked a finger over the bridge of her glasses and pulled them down a half inch. I still couldn’t quite see her eyes, but she looked mad. Good, but mad.
“So,” I said. “When Fausto Arrezione discovered Leonardo’s notes, he called you at the Gallerie.”
She pushed her glasses back with one finger. “That’s right.”
“But he died in the fire, which I think we can safely say at this point was not an accident. It had to do with Leonardo’s notes and somebody who wanted them very badly.”
The wind whipped up. We were accelerating.
“Tell me who,” she insisted. “Wait . . . why are we heading into the gulf?” She pointed to the left. “Torcello’s over there.”
The boat picked up more speed. I glanced at our driver. He was looking off the starboard bow, a walkie-talkie to his mouth. I followed the direction of his gaze. The black and silver yacht. It was pointed at us a hundred yards away and our boat was heading right for it. I squinted. Three men in dark clothes and sunglasses on the deck. A guy in an Aloha shirt at the wheel. Someone next to him with a handheld radio to his ear, looking through binoculars in our direction.
I stood up. Antonia looked up at me, terrified.“What’s happening?”
I made for the cabin.
“Reb!” she shouted after me.
“Get down on the deck now!” I ordered her. The yacht was fifty yards away.
“Oh my God!” she gasped. “What are you going to do?”
“Just get down!”
She hit the deck as I stepped into the cabin behind the driver. He spotted me and threw an elbow at my face. I caught it on my forearm, but he quickly launched a side-kick at my stomach. I saw it coming and stepped around it, laying a good straight-arm punch into his ribs. He groaned and dropped the walkie-talkie. It skittered across the floor, sputtering Italian.
