The Death Artist (42 page)

“Uh-huh.” She hadn’t told him why she was now going. If he knew about the Saint Sebastian collage–that her life was clearly in danger–he’d never let her go. And maybe he’d be right. But she had to go. She was determined to beat the death artist at his game.

Richard was using the metal file now, dragging it across his thumbnail, squaring it off. A picture winked in her mind: Holding Elena’s hand at the coroner’s office, the girl’s nails, blunt-cut. Kate shook her head, tried to dislodge the image, but it wouldn’t let go. “Richard.
Please.
Stop doing that.”

“What?”

“Your
nails.
It’s . . . bothering me.”

Richard dropped the nail clipper onto the bed, frowned.

“I’m just a little tense.” She balled up a pair of panty hose, shoved them into her bag.

Richard got his arm around her shoulders. “You’ve got to relax, sweetheart.”

“I’m trying to.”

He massaged her neck with his fingers. “You sure you don’t want me to try and cancel everything, come with you?”

Kate touched his cheek. “No. You’d better not.” Would she like him to come? More than anything. But not since the death artist had contacted her. “I’ll bring back a stack of art catalogs for you to drool over.”

“Great.” He kissed her cheek. “And hurry back. I’ll miss you.”

Still, to Maureen Slattery, the jewel glowed bright. As the vaporetto glided down the Grand Canal, she couldn’t get enough of the cerulean blue sky, the dark emerald waters, the gilded palazzos. If only the Italian
polizia
weren’t hovering over them.

Marcarini and Passatta. After much discussion between the various law enforcement agencies, it was decided that the two cops would be assigned to guard Kate on a twenty-four-hour basis, with bihourly check-ins to both the Italian police and Interpol. In Slattery’s mind, they were Macaroni and Pasta. Marcarini was in his late twenties, dark, cute; Passatta was maybe forty, handsome, unsmiling, chain-smoking, nervous. Both spoke English, occasionally haltingly.

The day was warm, moist, a slightly sweet-rotten smell in the air.

“Fucking beautiful,” said Slattery.

“Uh-huh,” said Kate, staring out at the palazzos that lined the canal.

“Something bothering you, McKinnon? You haven’t said more than two words since we landed.”

“Yes. There’s plenty to bother me, Maureen.” Kate gave her a look.

“Oh, right. Sorry. I got overwhelmed by the place.”

“Forgiven,” said Kate, staring into the dark Venetian waters. She could feel the death artist’s presence everywhere she turned. Was she imagining it? She didn’t think so.

The vaporetto deposited them at San Marco.

Slattery took in the Basilica, the Doges’ Palace, the amazing square. “How the hell does this place stay afloat?”

“It has been here for centuries, signorina,” said Passatta, a scowl on his lips. “I think it will remain standing–at least until you are to leave,”

“Thanks, pal.” Slattery smiled.

Marcarini and Passatta escorted them to the Gritti Palace–one of the oldest, most luxurious hotels in Venice, and the site of Kate and Richard’s honeymoon–then set up camp just outside their door.

The porter laid Kate’s and Maureen’s bags onto waiting stands. Kate handed him a twenty-thousand-lire note.

Slattery surveyed the sumptuous room, the picture-perfect view through the open window: the Grand Canal, gondolas, churches. “Oh my God. I’ve fucking died and gone to heaven. It’d be like a dream, except for those meatball cops on our heels. Although they’re both good-looking, especially Macaroni.”

“Macaroni?” said Kate, smiling for the first time.

“Yeah,” said Slattery. “And the sourpuss is Pasta.”

Kate laughed, happy that Slattery was along, that she was not alone. “All Italian cops are handsome. It’s part of the job description.” She moved into the other rooms. “Maureen. Come in here.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Slattery, standing at the entrance to the marble-and-gilt bathroom. “It’s bigger than my entire apartment.”

“We have to check in with Mead.” Kate lifted the hotel phone. “Oh. Typical. The lines are out.”

“In a fancy place like this?”

“The phones in Italy work about half the time. In Venice, less.” She tried her cell phone. “Shit, I forgot to charge it.”

“Call him later,” said Slattery. “Hey, who gets the big bed?”

“All yours,” said Kate.

The facade of the Venice Police Headquarters was all sculpture and gilt, although more than half the gilding had worn off, with mold climbing up the bottom third of the building.

Inside, Kate and Slattery were treated to an endurance test called Italian time. Almost an hour’s wait. Then another hour with some sort of higher-up, though they couldn’t figure out who or what he was supposed to do, and he never told them, the three of them sitting around sipping espressos while he recounted a memorable visit to the Big Apple, years ago. Then another hour-long tour of the station.

Outside, finally, Marcarini and Passatta still glued to their sides, Kate attempted to shed some of her gloom as she and Slattery crossed over the Rialto Bridge, passing through an assortment of colorful markets and shops. But everywhere she looked, shadows won over light, alleys were ominous rather than charming.

Slattery didn’t seem to notice. She took it all in like a kid at Disneyland. “What’s this church?”

Kate looked up. “Oh. Saint Zachary’s. It’s a little Renaissance church. God. It feels like centuries ago that I came here to look at the Bellini.”

“The
who
?”

“Giovanni Bellini. One of the greatest Venetian painters ever, and one of my personal favorites.”

“Can we go in?”

Kate sighed. “We don’t have much time, Slattery. We’ve got to get over to the Biennale, and–”

“Come on, McKinnon. This may be my one and only trip to Venice.” She gave Kate a pleading look.

“All right,” said Kate. They were, after all, in one of the great art cities of the world.

“You call this little?” said Slattery, stepping through the doors, taking in the high vaulted ceiling, decorated pillars, patterned marble floors, carved pews, paintings everywhere.

“For Italy it is.” Kate shivered. Though ornate, the church was dark and damp.

Slattery kneeled, crossed herself. “Habit.”

Marcarini and Passatta lingered beside the front door as Kate led Slattery down the north aisle to the second altar.

“This is it? The Bellini?”

“Yes. But hold on.” Kate signaled the sacristan, who ambled slowly toward them, his robed form casting a long shadow.

Kate felt another chill. Was it only the dampness?

She folded several thousand lire into the sacristan’s hand. A moment later, he threw a switch. Giovanni Bellini’s masterpiece burst out of the dreary shadows, illuminated in all its splendor.

“Wow,” said Slattery. “It’s amazing. The way he’s painted his own pillars beside the real ones and the dome in there looks just like a miniversion of a real one, and all the figures sitting inside like that.”

“Hey, you have the makings of a real art historian, Maureen.”

“No shit?” Slattery slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oops.”

“Don’t worry. God’s not listening.” Kate wondered if he ever did.

Maureen moved closer to Bellini’s fictive church-within-a-church painting. “I don’t know how these guys did it. I mean, I can’t even draw a straight line.”

“Well, they were trained from a very young age, in work-shops, apprenticed to great artists where they learned everything from mixing the master’s colors for him to washing his brushes to painting minor parts of the background.”

“Art slaves, huh?”

“You got it. But in Giovanni Bellini’s case, his father, Jacopo, who was also a great painter, taught both him and his brother, Gentile.”

Passatta and Marcarini, straining to listen, had moved into the aisle beside Kate and Slattery.

“You teach the art, signorina?” asked Marcarini.

“Sort of,” said Kate.

“Not
sort of
,” said Slattery. “She’s famous.”

Passatta raised an eyebrow.

Slattery leaned on the rail, staring up at the Virgin. “She’s so beautiful, and it all looks so real. Like you could just walk right into it, and sit down on the Madonna’s lap.”

“That’s what Renaissance painting was all about,” said Kate. “Rounded form and deep, deep space. Inviting the viewer into rooms and through windows. Perspective had only recently been rediscovered.”

“Who lost it?”

“A lot of things were lost in the Dark Ages,” said Kate, peering into the shadows and recesses of Bellini’s painting.
The Dark Ages
. Exactly what it had felt like this past couple of weeks.

Marcarini and Passatta lagged behind as Kate led them back to St. Mark’s Square.

The Doges’ Palace was glittering gold in the afternoon light.

“I think jet lag is starting to set in,” said Slattery. “Can we sit a minute?”

Kate and Slattery settled onto a bench with a view of the square. Slattery ordered a cappuccino. Kate, a double espresso. Marcarini leaned against a pillar, a few feet away; Passatta was in the arcade, puffing on a cigarette; neither man took his eyes off of Kate. But Kate didn’t get a chance to relax. One after another, people were stopping by, New Yorkers mostly, here for the Biennale. Each time someone approached, she flinched. So did Marcarini and Passatta.

“Jeez, do you know everyone in the
world,
McKinnon?”

“Only in Venice. And only this week. They’re all collectors or artists or art writers.” She paid the check. “Come on. Before your jet lag totally gets hold of you. I’ve got to see the exhibition and Willie’s paintings.”

But that wasn’t all. Kate knew the death artist expected her to be there–and she did not want to disappoint him.

The International Venice Biennale was like a world’s fair, without the rides, without the kids, without the fun, held every other year in the Giardini–a large park away from the main tourist attractions of the city. A number of old buildings were turned into national pavilions, crammed with each country’s artists of the moment. Hordes of sophisticated Europeans and Americans could be seen racing around with shopping bags sagging under the weight of giveaway art catalogs as they scurried from one pavilion to the next, afraid they might be missing something or someone, worried they had not been invited to the right parties. The exhibition remained on view for months. But only the opening days counted. After that, well,
anyone
could go see the art.

Kate and Slattery had been moving with the crowd, Marcarini and Passatta glued to their sides, the odd quartet going from one pavilion to the next, attempting to take in the scope of this helter-skelter exhibition, most of it dark and depressing–large-scale photographs of genitalia and corpses, dismembered animals in formaldehyde, cluttered installations of indecipherable political content–all of it in direct contrast with the flat-out beauty of Venice. The creepiness of the show had added to Kate’s paranoia–everyone was a potential threat; friendly faces were filled with menace.

The American Pavilion, formally an Italian bank, was large but unimpressive, and so crammed with installations–artworks made up of found and created objects that scattered across floors and walls without much visible coherence–that it was almost impossible to figure out where one work ended and another began. Willie’s pieces stood out not only because they were good, but because they hung, like traditional paintings, on a wall. At the moment there were several people standing in front of them. Raphael Perez was holding court.

“WLK Hand is one of our most gifted young artists.”

Kate noticed Willie practically hiding behind a pillar, but Perez waved him over insistently.

Willie took a shy bow, mumbled, “Thanks.”

“That’s Willie Handley,” said Kate.

“He’s cute,” said Slattery.

“You never met him?”

“No. Wasn’t me who questioned him in relation to the Solana murder.”

For a split second it was all there in front of Kate’s eyes: Elena, dead on the floor, the bloody Picasso painting on her cheek, and the thought that the death artist was here, somewhere, waiting. She peered down the center aisle at people ducking in and out of booths like animals in search of prey, imagined him grabbing her from behind, slitting her throat. A breath; an inchoate, reflexive cry.

“
What
? What is it?” Slattery stiffened, was immediately scoping the area. Marcarini and Passatta did the same.

Kate forced the images away. “Nothing. I’m fine.” She took Slattery by the arm. “Come. I’ll introduce you to Willie.”

They caught up to him as he was making his escape from Perez.

Kate kissed Willie’s cheek. “You have the best paintings in the show.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, even though they’re, like, the
only
paintings in the show.” Willie looked at the floor. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“I wasn’t sure either. But I’m glad I am. I’m proud of you. Your paintings are really beautiful.”

“Yeah. Very cool,” Slattery added.

Willie regarded her oddly. This was not one of Kate’s typical friends.

Perez sidled over. Kate started, jumpy.

“Proud of our boy?” Perez asked.

Kate eyed the young curator.
Could he be the one
?

Slattery noticed, her cop instinct clicking in, her hand idling over her pocket, the gun inside.

Kate threw her a look, the slightest nod to indicate it was okay–she thought.

Perez slid his arm around Willie’s shoulders. Willie shrugged it off. “I can’t stand around in front of my own paintings all day.” He headed quickly into another stall, this one plastered–walls, floors, ceiling–with pornographic images of women cut from magazines, scrawled over with contradictory antiwomen, antipornography statements.