Read Online Liquid Desires by Edward Sklepowich - Free Book Online Page B

say, Urbino?”
    The only comfort Urbino got was knowing that Evangeline couldn’t possibly be behind all this.
    â€œEvie still thinks about you,” Eugene went on. “Mentions your name all the time. Has a soft spot in her heart, she does. Drives old Reid up the wall.”
    Evangeline’s pretty oval face swam before Urbino’s eyes. He hadn’t seen her in ten years, and that had been only briefly on a visit to New Orleans to see his great-aunts. Evangeline had looked just as lovely as ever. She had been with her parents and her father’s two brothers—in other words, very much within the deep bosom of the Hennepin family from which Urbino had tried to help her escape. Back when they had first met, Evangeline had wanted and needed Urbino as a counterweight to the Hennepins, but ultimately she had been too much of one not to leave him standing alone against the family.
    Pushing away thoughts of Evangeline, Urbino tried to deflect Eugene’s attention to the Palazzo Dario with its multicolored marble facade. Eugene suspiciously eyed the building, whose outside walls inclined to the left at a noticeable angle.
    â€œLooks like it’s ready to fall over, like half this town! Don’t know how you stand it. Is it always so jam-packed? Just look at all the people! I’m surprised the whole place doesn’t just sink plumb out of sight! But I’m not so sure all this would bother Evie one little—”
    â€œThat building there,” Urbino said, indicating a large, low white building with gold-and-white-striped wooden poles in front of a water terrace where people were lounging, “is the Palazzo Guggenheim.”
    Urbino hoped that the interest Eugene had expressed yesterday in Peggy Guggenheim would get him off the topic of Evangeline.
    â€œNothing much to the top of it,” Eugene said in a disappointed tone. “Matter of fact, looks like the whole damn top was sliced right off.”
    â€œThat’s because it was never finished. It’s called the ‘Unfinished Palace.’ It would have been the biggest palazzo on the Grand Canal.”
    â€œWhat happened? Run out of money?”
    â€œThat’s one story. Another one is that the family who owned that palazzo”—he pointed to the Palazzo Grande on the other side of the Grand Canal—“objected. They didn’t want their view of the lagoon taken away.”
    Eugene looked skeptical.
    â€œMust have been the money. Would have cost a bundle even in those days. How much did Guggenheim fork over?”
    â€œSixty thousand dollars.”
    â€œA steal!”
    â€œThat was back in 1948 though.”
    As the boat went under the Accademia Bridge and approached the vaporetto station where a crowd was waiting, Eugene looked as if he were doing some mental calculations.
    â€œEven back then, it was a steal.” He nodded in satisfaction. “Now there was a businesswoman—even if she did get a palace without a top floor.”

11
    The front room of Zuin’s gallery in a little courtyard behind the Accademia was filled with objects from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, among them Victorian photogravures of Venice, statuary and sculpture, and period furniture.
    â€œDo you think these are fancy enough for May-Foy, Urbino?” Eugene asked as he peered at two eighteenth-century gilded chairs with a carved doge’s hat decorating the backrests. “You know how picayunish she can be.”
    May-Foy—actually Ma Foi—was Eugene’s wife back in Louisiana. Thinking of May-Foy’s ornate sitting room in which she spent almost all her waking hours, Urbino, who was examining a sixteenth-century glass reliquary inset with jewels, assured Eugene that the Brustolons would do.
    â€œI don’t know, though,” Eugene said, shaking his head. “Seems kind of funny to bring chairs back from Italy.”
    Zuin, today sporting a lavender pocket