Marco smiled. It was best to be able to do something. “Well, now that you’re back, you can go out again. Stick with Caesare, Benito. He’s going to get to his contacts—but he might be the reason someone snatched Maria. I’m going to see if I can get Tonio to take me around to some of my ‘patients.’ I can get the bargees and boat-people looking too.”
Benito stood up from the chair he’d flopped into. “Well, the other thing you could try is to stop by and see Kat. She’s that ‘Spook’ I told you about. She has some contacts in among the Strega, I think. I was going to, but I’ll be with Caesare. If you get a chance, go to Campo San Felice between seven and half past. She always wears a hooded cloak and she’s got a shabby gondola. Anyway, just ask if her name is Kat and tell her you’re my brother. Stick with Tonio if you can, Brother. I’m nervous about you being alone out there.”
“I’ll probably have my shadow, anyway.”
“That you will,” said Caesare grimly. “I don’t want anyone on my back trail on this venture. You go out first.”
They went their various ways. By the late afternoon, it seemed as if half of Venice was looking for Maria.
* * *
Maria was sitting in the one place that no one could go looking. And she didn’t know for sure that anyone was looking for her.
“Are you ready to talk yet, sweetie?” asked her persecutor from the night before. The light was better now and she could see him clearly. She took in the details of his heavy-set face and his dress. He wore well-to-do merchant clothes. And, unlike the slave-warder’s disinterest, his eyes roamed her naked body with an unpleasant eagerness.
He turned to the warder. “Take her out of there. Give her a smock and put her in the ‘interview’ room. We’ll have some wine and some food.”
Maria behaved herself when the slave-warder let her out. She was quiet and submissive, putting on the slave-smock when she was told to. She knew that this wasn’t the time to try anything. She hobbled her shackled way along to a room off the passage.
The room was bare. Except for two chairs and a small table. “Sit.” There was a mug of wine and a plate of pasta on the table.
She sat. He sat down across from her.
“Taste your wine.”
The devil will let me have a sip and then take it away from me, she thought. She took the mug and drained it. It was cheap raw strong red wine. And there was a lot of it.
“That was stupid, but predictable,” said her interrogator, with a horrible smugness. “That was a lot of wine on an empty stomach. Which is what I wanted you to have, but I thought I’d have to persuade you. Now, I want answers. You might as well give them to me. Even if I have to take them out of you with pain, I’m going to get them. If I get them . . . I’ll have them let you go.”
The wine burned in her stomach. It might have been his intent to get her drunk, but it did lend her some courage. And heaven knew she needed it right now. Somehow his calmness was more unnerving than shouted threats. “How about some more of that wine?” she said with an assumption of casualness.
Without any warning he hit her. Hard. A stinging openhanded slap that rocked her head back. Maria tasted blood. Put her hand to her cheek. The speed and sheer violence of it left her huddling back in her seat with a little whimper of pain.
“Don’t play games with me, bitch,” he hissed. “You’ll lose.”
Chapter 55
Marco loitered around the edge of the Campo San Felice. This was stupid. How was he supposed to recognize this “Kat”? He’d been here ten minutes now, and had seen two old men manhandling a barge, and a solitary gondola going past without stopping. It wasn’t much of a description to go on. A shabby gondola and a woman wearing a hooded cloak. This was a depressing waste of time.