Alibi: A Novel by Joseph Kanon Page A

way she looks at you.”
    “Does she?” I said, grinning.
    “Don’t gloat.” She looked at me and laughed.
    Then my mother was there and Claudia was put aside. There was someone she wanted me to meet. Mimi wanted to know about the caviar, which you couldn’t get in London now for love or money. Gianni knew a man who got it from Russia somehow. I smiled, thinking about the old Venetian trading routes, evidently still going strong. We had more champagne. My mother was happy. Where was Claudia?
    I started down the stairs to check and stopped halfway, spotting her over the rail. There was no one else in the hall, and in the quiet she was standing at the water entrance, brooding, looking across the moldy landing stage to the canal. My mother had had the arched doorway opened and the steps lined with torches, in case anyone wanted to arrive by water, but no one had. Instead the lights flickered on the lonely utility boat we kept there and a jumble of paving stones covered with a tarp, once intended to repair the landing steps but abandoned by the marchesa until some money was found. In the cold, Claudia’s breath steamed.
    “Get lost?” I said, coming up to her.
    “It’s like a dungeon. So damp.”
    “I know. Even at low tide the steps get covered now. Come on, you’ll catch cold.”
    “What did she say about me?”
    “Mimi? She likes the way you look at me.”
    “Oh yes? Well, it’s the suit.” She reached out, smoothing my lapel.
    “Ah,” I said, leaning over to kiss her.
    “Wait. They’ll see,” she said, glancing into the hall.
    I reached over and closed the door. “Better?”
    We kissed for a few minutes, her hand at the back of my neck. Through the door we could hear the party going on, making it all somehow like sneaking kisses in a closet. Then after a while the sounds receded, as if we had left the house, and all we could hear wasthe slap of water against the landing stairs and our own breathing, loud in our ears, almost panting. The torches sputtered, making shadows.
    “We don’t have to stay.”
    “No, how can we leave? They saw me.”
    “We can take the boat.”
    “Oh, yes. On the lagoon. In the night.”
    “Just follow the channel markers,” I said, still kissing her.
    She stopped, pushing me away and breathing deeply, then smiled. “You’re the one who wanted me to come.”
    I leaned my face into her neck. “I don’t know what I was thinking. We’ll stay here until the torches go. Look what they do to your skin,” I said, taking her chin and tilting her head so that her neck was caught in the light, golden. “Bertie says you’re complicated.”
    “No, you,” she said, arching her neck as I kissed it. “You make it complicated. I was happy in the hotel. Everything was simple. Now look.” She pulled away, smiling. “We have to see Mama. Am I all right?” she said, touching her face. “Smeared?”
    I took out a handkerchief. “Here, blot. Then you’re perfect.”
    “See if there’s anyone out there. Think how it looks, coming out of the boat room.”
    I laughed but peeked first, then motioned her forward to the stairs.
    Either we had become accustomed to the torchlight or the electricity had finally come back at full strength, but the piano nobile seemed brighter than before, the big chandeliers blazing. My mother saw us over Gianni’s shoulder and smiled, breaking away from the group.
    “Darling, at last. I was wondering where—”
    “Claudia, you know my mother. And this is Dr. Maglione,” I said, but I saw that she knew him too. Her eyes went suddenly wide in recognition, then closed down, her whole face twisting. She glared at me, accusing, as if I had set a trap, then turned back to Gianni, breathing heavily, someone recovering from being kicked. The moment was one-sided. Gianni, smiling broadly, didn’t know who she was.
    “How nice you could come,” my mother said, playing hostess, but Claudia ignored her, moving closer to Gianni and speaking Italian, her