Free The Last Gondola by Edward Sklepowich

contacting the Contessa, who was preparing for her opening conversazione . He had no doubt that she was doing what she could for his benefit, and he wondered what had come of the plans she had hinted at. Her own silence, unusual in itself and dispiriting, indicated that she had nothing encouraging to tell him yet.
    Whenever he went for a walk, he kept himself clear of the Ca’ Pozza, and Gildo didn’t, by design or accident, guide the gondola in that direction either. His avoidance of the Ca’ Pozza was perhaps harder than anything else Urbino had to endure during this period, for the old building seemed to be beckoning him from afar with what seemed a promise, at other times a threat.
    To make matters worse, the dream of Possle and the fire haunted him with even greater intensity.
    Urbino, who had tried whatever he could over the past month short of breaking into the Ca’ Pozza, waited, and while he waited, he put his trust in the Contessa—in her and in something he sometimes called fate.
    Then, at eight-fifteen in the morning on Thursday, March 7, the day before the Contessa’s first conversazione , the doorbell of the Palazzo Uccello awoke Urbino from a fitful, troubled sleep and everything started to change.

16
    â€œIt’s a gentleman to see you, Signor Urbino,” Natalia said through the closed door of his bedroom.
    â€œHave him wait in the parlor.”
    Urbino pulled on his dressing gown and dashed water on his face. When he went down to the parlor it was empty. Natalia bustled in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
    â€œI asked him to come in, but he just stood where he was,” she whispered. She looked toward the hallway with a puzzled frown on her round face. “He’s a very strange-looking man. And he didn’t speak one word. Not one. All he did was point at an envelope with your name on it. But he wouldn’t give it to me.”
    She shook her gray head. She had seen a lot of strange things since she had been working for him, she seemed to be saying, but this was the strangest.
    When he went into the hallway, he understood her reaction.
    â€œI’ll take care of it. Thank you.”
    Standing in front of the entrance was a long, lean man with a hard-featured and forbidding face. Black hair streaked with gray was combed back from his forehead. Urbino estimated his age to be in the early sixties. His eyes were large, black, and shining. Something in their look filled Urbino with a vague dread and discomfort. He was dressed from top to toe in black. It accentuated the extreme pallor of his skin and the small white envelope he held out to Urbino. His hand was gnarled with scar tissue as if from a severe burn many years ago. Urbino glanced at his other hand. It, too, was scarred. A stale, unwashed odor struck his nostrils as he moved closer to the man.
    Urbino took the envelope with distaste. It did not go unnoticed.
    His full name, Raphael Urbino Macintyre, was scrawled in dark purple ink on the envelope. He was surprised. Very few people knew that he went by his middle name or that he even had any other.
    â€œWould you please come into the parlor?”
    The man remained silent. A faint smile crept across his thin lips. It did nothing to dispel his gloomy and menacing air. Before Urbino could say or do anything else, the stranger, piercing him with one last look, opened the door, without having said a word, and left, closing it behind him.
    Urbino wasted no time in opening the envelope. Inside was a sheet of white paper of good quality, but yellowed with age. His eyes raced to the signature.
    â€œSamuel Possle”
    The entire message consisted of the day’s date and one sentence:
    â€œBe at the Ca’ Pozza at four-thirty this afternoon.”

17
    It was a summons, not an invitation. But this made little difference to Urbino at the moment. He was about to achieve his goal. And he had the Contessa to thank for it.
    He was reaching for