Their first stop was in San Polo, where the Rialto Bridge spanned the Grand Canal just as it has since 1172, when the first boat bridge was built. Up until the nineteenth century the Rialto was the only link between the two sides of the city. As they crossed, shops on either side of the bridge were opening, their doors thrown wide and tourist-friendly signs put in windows and beside doorways.
The Banco Veneziana was just past the Erberia, an outdoor market that dated back to the time of Casanova. Here were sold herbs and all manner of produce brought in each morning from the small out islands that dotted the lagoon. The bright spicy scents of green herbs mingled with the heady odors of blood oranges, castradure (baby artichokes) and spareselle (pencil-thin asparagus), as well as perfumed sprays of fresh flowers. As they worked their way through the happily chattering crowds, Jenny, clearly uncomfortable, kept an eye out for tails, which was made more difficult amid the dense bustle of the wholesalers, packing up to make room for the arriving retailers.
The bank was in an arcaded building of the Venetian-Byzantine style-the front was a mass of slender arched and columned windows-that had been rebuilt following the great fire of 1514 that had devastated it as it swept through the city. Like many buildings in Venice, the architecture was full of ornamental filigrees, intricately carved stone statues and stylized Gothic cornerstones. Inside, marble walls rose up to a domed ceiling into which had been set a marvelous mosaic of Venetian ships at full sail.
Behind the high banquette, they found a slim, middle-aged gentleman. Bravo spoke to him for a moment, and he handed over a form on which Bravo was required to write nothing more than the account number he had decoded from his father's dog-eared notebook, not even his name.
The banker took the form and disappeared for not more than three minutes. When he returned, he opened a section of the banquette. He allowed Bravo through, but not Jenny. He was polite and apologetic, but quite firm.
'I trust you understand, signorina,' he said. 'It is the policy of the bank to allow entrance only to the account holder. It is a question of possible coercion, you see.'
'I understand completely, signore,' she said with a smile. And to Bravo, 'I'll be outside, looking for our friend.' She meant Michael Berio, whom she suspected of following them.
Bravo nodded. 'I won't be long.'
The banker led him across the marble floor, up a staircase into a small hushed anteroom. Beyond was the massive open door to the safety deposit boxes. Of course, the vaults of Venetian banks would be upstairs, rather than downstairs, to protect against the periodic floods.
The banker left him in a small chamber-one of six that lined the left-hand side of the anteroom-and some moments later returned with a long gray metal box, which he put on the table in front of Bravo.
'I will be just outside, signore,' he said. 'You need only to call me when you are finished.' He left without a backward glance.
Bravo sat staring at the box for a moment. In his mind's eye he saw his father seated where he himself now sat, the open box before him, filling it in his mathematically precise fashion. Bravo reached out, put his arms around the box, as if he could feel the last traces of his father. Then, with a convulsive gesture, he threw open the lid.
Jenny stood in the shadows beneath the bank's arcade, peering out at the glare. She leaned nonchalantly against one of the arches and made a good show of looking bored as she sipped a small cup of blood-orange juice she had purchased from a cart just opposite. She savored the sweet-tart taste but nothing else. As her eyes worked the people criss-crossing the campo, she felt a kind of depression weighing on her, as well as a dull headache, as if Dex's ghost were sitting on her head.
The deeper she got into this assignment, the worse she felt. She asked herself again why she had taken it, but the answer was as obvious as it was deflating: Dex had asked her to take it, and she never refused him anything. Hadn't he proved that he knew what was best for her? That had included, she'd assumed, this assignment guarding his son, but assumptions never took into consideration the curve balls reality threw at you. And Braverman Shaw had turned out to be one helluva curve ball. I can't let it go on like this. When am I going to tell him the truth? she asked herself. You have to let it go on like this, she answered herself. The moment you tell him, everything will blow up in your face and you'll have lost him.
'Have you spotted Berio?'
Jenny whirled, startled. 'Um, no, but that doesn't mean he isn't here somewhere, spying on us.'
'He only wants to protect us.'
They began to walk toward the Dorsoduro, leaving the knots of people behind. Their footsteps echoed off the walls and narrow cobblestone streets, whose colors were made illusory by the reflections from the canals.
'What was in the account?' Jenny asked.
'One hundred thousand dollars,' Bravo said.
She gave a low whistle. 'Wow.'
'And this.' After a quick check of the immediate environment, he pulled out the SIG Sauer P220. 'It's fully loaded with .38s ammo.'
Her eyes opened wide. 'Damn, that semiautomatic could win a war.'
'I guess that's what my father had in mind,' he said, pocketing the weapon.
'Do you know how to use that? Maybe you ought to give the gun to me.'
'I can shoot an apple off your head at a hundred paces.' He laughed. 'Don't worry, my father made sure I had plenty of practice with handguns.'
For a city that prided itself in architectural marvels, the Church of l'Angelo Nicolo` was remarkably plain. Founded in the sixth century by a group of displaced Genoese, it reflected to this day their essential poverty. Apart from a much needed renovation in the fourteenth century, including what became its signature triple-bay gemel window and the installation of a beautiful portico in the fifteenth century, it remained essentially as it had at its founding.
'Stuck away in this backwater sestiere, it was so far out of the mainstream of Venice's religious life that it had been systematically denied donations from wealthy parishioners and patrons,' Bravo said. 'Instead, L'Angelo Nicolo` became the de facto sanctuary for the pinzocchere-religious zealots-who sought to do penance within its walls.'
'How did it survive?' Jenny asked.
'Good question. One answer is Santa Marina Maggiore, the nunnery built just behind. Apparently, it was money from the nuns that paid for the renovation.'
'That must have cost a fortune,' Jenny said. 'I'd love to ask the nuns how they managed such an amazing feat.'
The interior was cool and gray and beautiful, the Tiepolo painting of San Nicolo` awe-inspiring. They stood beneath the central apse surmounted by a Byzantine cornice from the seventh century. At this hour, they were virtually the only people in the church, but now and again they could hear small echoes of hushed voices like the lapping of canal water, a door opening or closing, shoe soles padding along the stone flagging.
Bravo saw a small figure coming through the apse, a priest, who he stopped.
'Excuse me, father, does this coin have any significance for you?'
The priest was an ancient man with a deeply creased face, his skin burnished by the elements to the texture of fine leather. His long white hair and beard were in need of barbering-in fact, he looked more like a mendicant for whom the area was named than a member of the Church. Despite his extreme age, his blue eyes- as electric as Bravo's own-were so clear and penetrating that they seemed to pierce straight through to Bravo's core. After a long, contemplative look, the priest smiled and took the coin. His fingers, too, belied his years, for they were as straight as those of any man one third his age-in fact, save for the skin of his face, he exhibited none of the telltale signs of time's ravages.
The unknown priest gave the front of the coin only a cursory glance, then his fingers, still as deft as a conjuror's, flipped it onto its reverse. He nodded to himself, then looked up, his eyes, bright with secret knowledge, might have contained a touch of humor or satisfaction.
'Wait here, please, signore,' he said, bobbing his head.
He went off with the coin and soon disappeared behind a column. Silence, and the dust floating down from on high. Light splayed across the floor, colored by the marble, conjuring up the bouquets of flowers in the Erberia.
