A Very Venetian Murder Read online

  During his reading and sightseeing, Frost had become fascinated by the Doges, the ducal rulers of the Venetian Republic from the eighth century until its collapse in 1797. The Doges, 118 of them, had been a quirky lot, with endless foibles and eccentricities.

  Frost had started his education with John Julius Norwich’s A History of Venice and then, with ambition exceeding ability, had tackled Andrea Da Mosto’s I Dogi di Venezia, a massive Italian text. This was slow going, given Reuben’s embryonic knowledge of the language, and he finally concluded that he could only make limited use of the Da Mosto.

  Part of Reuben’s fascination with the Doges came from his amusing discovery that there were similarities between the Dogeship and the position he had once held as the Executive Partner of Chase & Ward, his old law firm. Each Doge had possessed the trappings of power, starting with the extraordinary Doges’ Palace, just as Chase & Ward’s Executive Partner occupied a breathtaking corner suite overlooking New York harbor. And deference was paid by the colleagues of each. Yet, when all was said and done, both were essentially figureheads. The Doge had been checked and contained by the so-called Council of Ten and the Grand Council of 1,500-plus; Reuben and his successors at the law firm had been kept within bounds by an informal executive committee and ever shifting alliances and coalitions among the partners.

  A newly elected Doge had been required to sign a promissione, carefully spelling out what he could and could not do. There was no such formality at Chase & Ward, but there did not have to be. A new Executive Partner and those around him implicitly knew what the boundaries of his power were: to make decisions that had to be made but that no one else really cared about; to build a broad consensus on those issues considered important; to preside at meetings of the partners; and to represent the firm to the outside world when a front man was needed. If the Doge had been a “gilded icon,” as one historian had described him, the Executive Partner was somewhat the same, though without a great deal of gilt and with a following that paid him something less than full respect; he was more anodized than gilded.

  Thus predisposed to the Doges, Reuben had decided, as Da Mosto had, to study them through their tombs and monuments. This would goad him to revisit favorites among the city’s churches. It also would provide an excuse for dipping again into John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice, which contained comments, often enraged ones, on many of the Doges’ monuments. He found the Victorian essayist amusing, more often than not unintentionally so.

  Reuben had an old green book bag in which he carried his guidebooks.* He now pulled out Norwich’s history and James Morris’ The World of Venice. While he made notes, the pool area began to fill up. He recognized guests from past years (the September crowd at the Cipriani being a faithful one): the chic Austrian woman and her elderly male companion who arrived and departed separately, convincing Frost that their annual visit was a tryst; a young, outgoing American investment banker, who Frost was sure must be very successful, since the hotel was not exactly priced for the young, and his wife, a painter; a well-known British actor and his wife, she a Labour Member of Parliament; an American woman who owned a restaurant in San Diego, a boring chatterbox; and a peppy, dwarfish man who exercised by walking in quick-step around the pool, furiously smoking an especially obnoxious cigar almost as large as he was. The guests mostly seemed “acquainted with luxury,” as one guide described the hotel’s clientele. Or, as the local Tourist Board would call them, “elite” tourists, which meant simply that they stayed at least overnight, ate in restaurants and went shopping occasionally.

  With the Baxter dinner in prospect, some new faces had gathered at poolside: a chummy group that Frost guessed were store buyers from the States; the wife of one New York leveraged-buyout artist and the ex-wife of another, whom Reuben recognized; and (he was almost sure he remembered correctly) an editor of Vogue. All sat around idly, many reading trashy best-sellers; as was often the case, almost no one ventured into the pool.

  A couple passed along the walk near where he was sitting and noticed him. It was the Spencers, Colin and Edith, from London. She taught mathematics at the University of London, he English literature at Oxford. (Cynthia called them the “brainy Brits”.) They had been coming to the Cipriani as long as the Frosts for what they termed the “pricey part” of their annual holiday. After several years of nodding and smiling, the Spencers and the Frosts had become acquainted, at least to the extent of trading observations about changes in the hotel and hints about local restaurants. The Spencers shared Reuben and Cynthia’s protective concern about the Cipriani and like them were leery of innovation; horror had struck, for example, the year they had found that the staff’s uniforms had been changed from smart, nautical white to a dismal brown, looking like “something that wretched costume designer at your ballet company might have done” as Reuben had grumped to Cynthia at the time.

  “What’s new and different?” he asked the Spencers.

  “Nothing, thank God,” Edith Spencer said. “As far as we can see, everything’s much the same. And the place looks wonderful, don’t you think? The gardens seem especially lovely this year.”

  “I agree,” Reuben said. “And I see that many of the old-timers are back.”

  “But what a lot of new ones,” Colin said. “The place is absolutely full up, I’m told. Some Yank dressmaker is throwing a party tomorrow.”

  “The ‘Yank dressmaker’ is Gregg Baxter. Surely you’ve heard of him?” Reuben asked.

  “Oh, indeed,” Edith said. “Even in dowdy England we know that name. But is he really all that prominent in the States?”

  “He’s a very, very hot designer at the moment. Everyone from Mrs. Bush to Madonna wears his clothes. Cynthia tells me the showings last spring of his fall collection caused a sensation. He did something called the Malevich look, based on the work of the Russian constructivist, if you can believe it. The biggest success since St. Laurent was inspired by Mondrian, twenty-five years ago. He does men’s clothes, too. Hasn’t the ‘gray look’ reached London, Colin? Everything a different shade of gray—coat, trousers, shirt, socks, necktie.”

  “Good heavens,” Colin said. “Sounds terribly somber to me. But, Reuben, why is an American giving a bash in Venice? Will you tell me?”

  “You should really ask Cynthia, who knows all the details,” Reuben said. “As I understand it, he’s become interested in the work of a fabric designer here, named Cecilia Scamozzi. We know her a little bit, she’s got one of those fancy local titles. La marchesa Scamozzi. Anyway, Baxter’s announced that he’s using her fabrics in his line for next spring, which he’ll be displaying in New York in another month or so. This party is to drum up interest.

  “If you care, the Paris Tribune says it’s also a declaration of war on his European competition. Baxter’s apparently determined to break into the market over here and challenge Paris and Milan. This party is the kickoff of a huge publicity campaign. And the Europeans are furious because it steals the thunder from their fall shows.”

  “So we’re witnessing the first shots in an international trade war,” Colin said. “Jolly exciting!”

  “Are you going to the party?” Edith asked.

  “In fact, we are.”

  “We’ve heard on the grapevine that Baxter is staying here,” Edith said.

  “So I understand. We met his assistant on the plane coming in from Paris.”

  “They say he and his friends have taken all the rooms up there on the second floor, looking down over the pool.”

  “That’s bad news,” Reuben said.

  “Really? Why ever so?” Colin asked.

  “Cynthia’s a sometime customer of Baxter’s. If he’s staying up there, he’s going to have to raise his prices to pay the bill.”

  Cynthia joined her husband for lunch at their usual table on the terrace next to the pool. Finishing one meal, they intensely discussed the next.

  “I’m not quite ready to start the fish diet yet,” Reuben told his wife. “Let’s t
ry Da Arturo tonight.”

  “Suits me,” she said.

  Reuben made a reservation through the hotel’s other Gianni, the concierge they had known the longest, and then set off on a short excursion to start his quest for Doges’ monuments. He had decided to visit San Francesco della Vigna, which could be reached easily by the number five circolare, the water-bus that stopped near the rear exit of the hotel. The vessel was uncrowded when Reuben boarded. Being (basically) a good citizen, he purchased a ticket. For any lengthy water-bus journey, Reuben did buy a ticket for the two dollars-plus required; going a shorter distance, such as the one-stop trip across to San Giorgio, he did not. It never seemed to matter any more, since the single marinaio on each boat, responsible for checking on fares, almost never did so. Reuben was free to make up his own rules for paying.

  At the Celestia stop he disembarked and walked the short distance to the church, its white Palladian front tacked onto a building designed by Jacopo Sansovino, the great sixteenth-century architect and sculptor.

  Doge Andrea Gritti (1523–38), whose severe portrait Reuben remembered from the lobby of the Gritti Palace Hotel, had laid the cornerstone. It thus had seemed only fitting that he should be buried there. Reuben found the tomb at the left of the main altar without difficulty, recalling that the unfortunate Gritti had died, at age eighty-four, of eating too many grilled eels on Christmas Eve. Though he was not yet Gritti’s age, Reuben vowed to watch his vacation diet.

  The monument carried a Latin inscription that referred to Gritti as a “most loved” leader; entirely appropriate, Reuben thought, for the father of at least five illegitimate children. And, come to think of it, Gritti perhaps resembled Bruce Nevins, a Chase & Ward Executive Partner many years back, who had fathered a bastard (in the days when this was thought to be most dishonorable) and probably died of overindulgence of one sort or another, though not gorging on eels. And he, too, had been “much loved” (or as much loved as any Executive Partner ever is).

  Reuben moved down the aisle, seeking the memorial busts of the Contarini, Doge Alvise (1676–84) and his ancestor Doge Francesco (1623–24). He was disappointed. The Contarini family chapel was boarded up, in restauro.

  Thwarted, he strolled back to San Marco. Once in the Piazzetta beyond, he ran head-on into Edgar Filbert, a young partner at Chase & Ward, and Noreen, his wife. Reuben was surprised, since he had not known the couple was planning to be in Venice.

  There were few people at the firm that Reuben did not like, but Edgar, and Noreen for that matter, were among them. Edgar, in or out of the office, had always seemed chronically incapable of hearing any voice other than his own or, if another’s words did evoke a response, it was almost certain to be condescending. And Reuben found insufferable Noreen’s smugness about her children, their home in Westchester and Edgar’s model behavior as a husband.

  Edgar was photographing his wife feeding the pigeons in front of the Marciana Library when Frost saw them. He thought first of fleeing as quickly as he could but Noreen, posing in her tan canvas skirt and a man’s shirt, spied him. She quickly ran over, followed by her husband in his cerise trousers and a polo shirt that was too tight around his expanding middle.

  After expressing mutual surprise at their chance meeting, Filbert asked Frost if his trip wasn’t “awfully strenuous.” “I mean, how does someone of your age manage to get around over here?”

  Before Reuben could sputter out an answer, Noreen had joined in. “Do you spend most of your time at the hotel?” she asked.

  It had never occurred to Reuben that he might be too decrepit to make the annual trip to Venice and he had, by God, been doing it for almost a quarter century. So, trying to conceal his rage, he mumbled quietly that “I do my best to see what I can.” As he glanced toward the two huge columns that stood nearby, it occurred to him that in an earlier day the bodies of executed malefactors were hung from a rope tied between them. He could not resist the thought that such treatment would be appropriate for the Filberts.

  Any notion of entertaining them disappeared as they asked their snide questions; the Frosts’ schedule suddenly filled up with real and fancied engagements in case a get-together was proposed. It wasn’t; the Filberts’ conversation was confined to complaints. This was the second of two days in Venice (between Lake Como and Florence) and the results had not been good. It was too crowded. Too expensive. The shopping opportunities were overrated. The local fish wasn’t fresh. And, without their Hertz car, Venice was too confining. Not a word about any site or object of artistic interest.

  Reuben expressed the hope that the rest of their trip would be more to their liking and beat a hasty retreat. But not before Noreen had asked if Mrs. Frost was spending the afternoon “resting.”

  He hurried off toward the Cipriani’s private dock and caught its motoscafo back to the Giudecca. As he looked out at the beautiful changing light reflected on the facades of the buildings bordering the bacino of San Marco, he reflected with satisfaction that the callow and unseasoned Filberts had been very wrong in their impertinent conclusions. And despite what he had said to them, he fervently hoped that their stay in Florence would be hot, sweaty, crowded and noisy.

  That evening, back at the centro storico, the Frosts walked past the church of San Moisè and the Teatro la Fenice, the city’s jewel box of an opera house. As the alleys narrowed, they reached Da Arturo.

  They had never been clear why it was called that, since the genial proprietor was named Ernesto Ballarin. It was he who showed them to a booth in the vest-pocket restaurant, which was barely large enough to hold him, a young waiter and the chef.

  “Ernesto, do you have spaghetti with Gorgonzola tonight?” Reuben asked. “I’ve been waiting a whole year to have it again.”

  “Sì, sì. Spaghetti al Gorgonzola. But let me make another suggestion. The funghi alla Russa.” He described the dish—mushrooms and potatoes in a cream sauce—and Reuben and Cynthia agreed to share one order of spaghetti, one of the mushrooms.

  When it arrived, the pasta lived up to Reuben’s memory of it. “Pretty good macaroni and cheese, what?” he said to Cynthia.

  “Yes!” she said enthusiastically. But they agreed that the funghi were even better.

  At Ernesto’s urging, Reuben and Cynthia each ordered the braciola alla Veneziana, a pork cutlet marinated in vinegar, then breaded and baked. When their orders came, snaked down the narrow aisle by the deft owner, they agreed that he had guided them wisely to the braciola, which had an unusual piquant flavor.

  “Have you seen Gregg Baxter?” Reuben asked his wife as they ate. “I expected a big show around the hotel, but there hasn’t been any sign of him.”

  “I haven’t seen him, either. He’s probably spending all his time at the Palazzo Labia, getting it fixed up for the banquet.”

  They speculated how it would be decorated—apart from the Lhuillier dried flowers that Doris Medford had brought from Paris.

  When their plates were clean, Ernesto asked the Frosts if they wanted dessert.

  “This is one place where I break my rules,” Reuben said. “I’ll have the tiramisù.”

  “Not for me. Just some fragole, strawberries with lemon,” Cynthia said.

  “You don’t know what you’re missing,” Reuben told her. “I’m not an expert on many things, but tiramisù is one of them and, as I’ve told you before, it’s best right here. Ernesto’s really is a ‘pick-me-up’ that deserves the name.”

  The owner spooned a portion of the quintessential Venetian dessert from a large bowl. His version was a soupy mixture of mocha and mascarpone cheese, different from the more solid varieties found elsewhere. It was outrageously delicious, and Ernesto could not resist smiling and looking satisfied as he watched Reuben eat. A second helping was offered but reluctantly declined.

  Outside the restaurant, the narrow, dimly lit calle was deserted, so the Frosts walked along side by side.

  “You know, I never can get over it, Cynthia,” Reuben said, as she took hi
s arm. “Being able to walk here at any hour of the day or night, drunk or sober, hearty or lame, and you feel perfectly safe. When you’re used to being nervous at home about going around the corner to the Korean grocery, it’s a marvelous sensation.”

  “You think the Venetians are less prone to crime than we are?” Cynthia asked. “I wonder.”

  “Maybe the difficulty in escaping from an island city is a deterrent. But then Manhattan’s an island, too.…” Reuben’s voice trailed off.

  “God knows there’s been plenty of violence in Venice’s history,” Reuben continued a moment later. “Take the street Da Arturo is on—the Calle degli Assassini. There has to be a violent history that goes with a name like that.”

  Once the Frosts reached the Campo San Fantin, they were no longer alone. Other pedestrians bustled about and there were drinkers in the Bar al Teatro. Looking up at the illuminated neoclassical facade of La Fenice, Reuben began quietly singing:

  “La donna è mobile,

  Qual piuma al vento.…”

  “I knew you’d sing that when you got near the Fenice,” Cynthia said. “You always do, especially after a little wine.”

  “And why not? It’s one of the greatest arias ever written, and it was first sung right here. You know the story.…”

  “On the day of Rigoletto’s premiere, Verdi held back the orchestra parts for La donna è mobile until late in the afternoon.”