The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt

caretaker invariably came to the bar at predictable hours, and if I returned on Friday afternoon, I might be able to talk to him. When I came back on Friday, I met the ex-caretaker, but he said he was no longer in touch with the owner and that, as far as he knew, nobody had been allowed into the garden for years.
     
     
    I was on the point of leaving when I noticed a carabiniere standing at the bar having a drink. He was in full uniform—white shirt, blue tie, and dark blue suit with wide, bright red stripes down the sides of the trouser legs. I had been mildly surprised by the sight of the two uniformed carabinieri casually smoking cigarettes while standing guard at the Fenice some days before. But drinking in a bar? Even for the famously nonmilitary Italians, this seemed beyond the pale. That is, until I realized that the carabiniere was the same man who had been the vaporetto conductor earlier in the week.
     
     
    Looking at him more carefully now, I saw that his shirt was a bit rumpled, his tie soiled and askew, and his suit in need of a few repairs and a good dry cleaning. The scuffed black shoes were, if I was not mistaken, the same ones he had worn as a vaporetto conductor. It was all becoming a little clearer, and a week later it became clearer still, when I was on my way to an appointment on the Giudecca and saw him sitting at a table outside a quayside wine bar. This time he was decked out in naval dress whites and the same black shoes. I was about half an hour early for my appointment, so I took a seat at the table next to him and ordered a beer. When the man turned my way, I nodded and said, “Buon giorno, Capitano.”
     
     
    He saluted and then put out his hand. “Capitano Mario Moro!”
     
     
    “Nice to meet you,” I said. “Wasn’t that you I saw at the vaporetto stop the other day?”
     
     
    “At Palanca? Yes, it was! Sometimes I’m over at the Redentore stop, or Zitelle.” He gestured with his beer bottle at the location of the other two stops farther down the quay.
     
     
    “And then again on Friday,” I said, “if I’m not mistaken, I did see you here at the wine bar in a carabiniere uniform, didn’t I?”
     
     
    He snapped to attention in his chair again and saluted.
     
     
    “Today,” I said, “I take it you’re a naval man.”
     
     
    “Yes!” he said. “But tomorrow . . . tomorrow . . . !”
     
     
    “What’s tomorrow?”
     
     
    He leaned toward me, his eyes wide. “Guardia di Finanza!” The financial police.
     
     
    “Splendid!” I said. “And what color is that one?”
     
     
    He drew back, surprised at my ignorance. “Gray, of course,” he said.
     
     
    “Yes, of course. And where does it go from there? I mean, what others have you got?”
     
     
    “Very many,” he said. “Many, many.”
     
     
    “Soldier?”
     
     
    “But of course!”
     
     
    “Airman?”
     
     
    “Yes. That, too.”
     
     
    “And what about fireman?”
     
     
    Suddenly he jumped up, turned on his heel, and strutted off, disappearing into a passageway between two buildings. A man sitting at another table had watched the whole exchange.
     
     
    “Maybe I shouldn’t have been so inquisitive,” I said. “I hope I didn’t offend him.”
     
     
    “I don’t think you did,” the man said. “Mario doesn’t take offense that easily.”
     
     
    “What made him leave so quickly?”
     
     
    The man cast a glance in the direction Mario had gone. “I don’t know,” he said. “Mario’s in his own world. He’s an electrician, you know, and a very good one. He does little jobs for people here on the Giudecca. And if you saw him at work, especially before ten in the morning, before he’s had a beer, you wouldn’t notice much unusual about him—although one time when he came to my house to repair some wiring, he was dressed as a prison guard. He’s been wearing those uniforms as long as I can remember.”
     
     
    “Where does he get them?”
     
     
    “People