Read Online Home Before Dark by Charles Maclean - Free Book Online Page A

to feel stuffed. He looked
at his watch: five to eight. He asked for the coffee and his
check to be brought at the same time. Then, as the waiter
turned away, he called him back.
'And, signore, a slice of your chocolate torta…’ He shrugged
and gave a self-indulgent little smile. 'What the hell.’
    It was in an empty courtyard off one of the narrow back
streets behind the Piazza Antinori that he caught up with
Jimmy Macchado. He was halfway in the door of the
apartment when Ward called out, 'Hi, you don’t know me
. . .’ Stepping from the shadows with his hands up, big
friendly smile. 'But when I passed you just then, I thought,
hey, seen that face before. Aren’t you a friend of Sam
Metcalf . . . ?’
They’d taken it from there. Small world, fellow Americans
abroad, dear old Florence, everybody knows everybody . . .
and so on. He found it came naturally to him playing the
flirtatious straight guy – hesitant, sincere, butch-lite practically
irresistible to Jimmy’s kind.
His mistake, the dumb schmuck, was going on about how
he’d love to invite him in, only it wasn’t his place … he was
just cat-sitting for a friend. Had to water the plants too, every
other day, for a month.
By the time Ward got to see that there was nothing in the
tote bag but the desperate-playboy robe, it was too late to let
him go.
The voice, lime-green against the blue rhombus that turned
slowly between his ears, kept asking the annoying question,
why?
Jimmy was begging for it, that’s why.
C’mon, you can do better than that.
You really want to know?
You’re dying to tell me . . . what didya have to kill him for,
Ward?
He was getting lime-green needles now. He picked up a
spoon and began working his way methodically through the
chocolate cake.
He couldn’t let him go because, one, the little cocksucker’d
seen his face. Two, it was obvious that Sam had told Jimmy
everything. And, three, the added bonus, he’d given him an
address for her in Venice – a small hotel on the island of
Burano.
He didn’t want to talk about this any more.
    Ward slung his rucksack over one shoulder and set off down
Via del Moro. It had been hot and stuffy in the restaurant
and he was glad to breathe the slightly fresher air of the
streets. He crossed to the opposite sidewalk and lingered for
a moment in an unlit doorway. It was here that he’d witnessed,
it seemed like only yesterday, Sophie and her old man saying
goodbye for the last time.
The word goodbye had taste and weight … it felt like
something oily slipping through his fingers. One day he hoped
to tell Ed about the love he felt for his daughter. Try to make
him understand that he and Soph were meant.
At the corner with Via del Sole, he looked back again and
saw that a black Mercedes cab had pulled up in front of
Garga. He waited to see who would get out.
It wasn’t the Listers. He continued on his way, making a
nostalgic detour that took him past the Badia, the church
where Dante supposedly first set eyes on his Beatrice. He
had left himself plenty of time to walk to the railroad station
and still catch the night train to Venice.
Venice
    'Notice anything going on in this one?’ I asked Will.
The sketchbook lay on the table between us, open at an
exterior view of the house. I drew his attention to an attic
dormer with the shutters thrown back revealing a half-open
sash window.
The same dormer I’d seen come to life on the homebeforedark website.
'You may need a magnifying glass,’ I said.
Will gave me a disparaging look over the top of his glasses,
then pushed them up onto his forehead and bent low to
examine the drawing.
'Isn’t that someone standing there,’ he said, 'a figure behind
the casement?’
I nodded. 'What was Sophie’s state of mind when she drew
this?’
He sat back in his chair, considering. 'You say the drawings
are based on a website this friend of hers claims Sophie left
on her laptop?’
'A virtual house. I haven’t seen inside yet, but the facades
are identical.’