Page 98 of Casanova LLC

We sipped and I watched him out of the corner of my eye.

I’d told him all about the deal. I’d told him what was expected of me and what I stood to gain. I hadn’t yet mentioned that it could mean the end of our line, that, given the privilege of money and choice, I might choose to leave Ca’ Casanova behind for good. But I wasn’t sure it needed to be said aloud. He’d only nodded at the news. Now, being here, sipping Craven’s champagne, I was having second thoughts. “So you’re okay with this?” I asked him in Italian, when what I really wanted was for him to ask me that.

“Okay? What is okay?” he answered in Italian, understanding that I wanted this to be a private conversation. “You do as we have done for centuries, Young Bull. When opportunity, she knocks, do we not open the door?”

“Sure. Right.”

I think he heard the hesitation in my voice, because he turned to me. “You deserve to have your art recognized. You are a man of many talents and you are being called upon to use them for your benefit for once. A nice change, no?”

“But that’s just it. Why does it have to come at the cost of entrapping a woman?”

“Entrapping? Ragazzo mio. He is entrapping her. And this woman, whoever she is, you think she will not find another wealthy man to make up for her loss? These people, they change partners like we change our underwears.”

“But what if she?—”

A woman appeared. She was obviously one of Richard’s: meticulously coiffed, fire-engine lipsticked, stilettoed, and a body that was better suited naked. I started to introduce us, but she was already walking on, sighing the word, “Follow.” As if she were tossing a cigarette to the curb. She wove through the room and approached Craven, who was laughing with the man next to him. She tapped him on the shoulder and whispered in his ear. He turned to greet me. Actually took a step toward me, like I was someone who belonged here.

“Ah! Vianello.” He shook my hand and patted my shoulder. “Glad you could make it.” He didn’t look at Jacopo so much as peripherally take note of him. “And what is this?”

“My uncle. Allow me to introduce you.”

“No need. The great Jacopo.” He pronounced the J. “An honor to be in the presence of such a legendary lover.” I stiffened; I hadn’t realized his “digging” had been that deep. “You must be very proud of your nephew.”

Jacopo answered with one word and it had the tonal weight of fuck you. “Sempre.”

Richard turned back to the man standing next to him. “John. This is one talented fucking artist. You know how much I hate that landscape shit. Dime a dozen. But this bastard. He got me, he really did. Remember, I told you about him first. Vianello. V-i-a-n-e-l-l-o. I give it six months and you won’t be able to beg me for one of his canvases. Come see ‘em when we’re back from Necker.” Done, apparently, with John, he turned back to me and started walking. “K, let’s get this party started. You come too, Jacopo. Just swing that big ol’ dick over your shoulder and follow me.”As we walked away, he leaned into me. “You two ever tag team women?—”

“No. And I’d appreciate it if you left him out of this. He’s retired now. He’s a very private?—”

“Totally, totally. Just one question: Is the Princess Diana story true?”

“You said shovels. Sounds more like you used a backhoe.”

“Just like to know who I’m dealing with. And up popped this magnificent creature”—he jerked a thumb behind us at my uncle—“like a regular old Jacopo-In-The-Box. Ha!”

“The J is pronounced with a Y sound, by the way.”

He pushed my shoulder. “I know! I’m just jerking you off. Sorry, yerking you off.” Laughing, he looked back at Jacopo. “You can take a joke, right? You’re Italian!”

Jacopo smiled. “Sì. But it has to be funny, right?”

Craven snapped his fingers. “Yes! There we go. Don’t take any of my shit. Love this fucking guy. Would you be my uncle?”

Fortunately, neither of us had to respond because we had just arrived at a large canvas of…I honestly wasn’t sure what. Paint. But standing in front of it was a perfectly sculpted woman in a perfectly fitted blouse and skirt. From behind, she was a knockout. But I knew better than anyone that a body like that was hardly a guarantee of a face to match.

“Baby.” Craven’s tone downshifted, like a synchronized transmission, to something gentler, slightly playful. “I want you to meet someone.”

And she turned.

She looked directly at me, and here’s what happened. I couldn’t make this up.

Lives flashed before my eyes. For a second or eternity, I was no longer here. She, her, that face, was everywhere I had ever been, in any time I had ever existed. Flashcards of incarnations. Her face lit by fire light, candlelight, gas light. Framed by a wimple, a bonnet, a veil. She lay under me, with straw under her; above me, with beams of charred oak above her. I saw her reflected in the mirror of a shaving stand while I took her from behind in a coaching inn on what I somehow knew was the road to Scotland. I saw her with a baby at her breast. I saw her in a cotton shift in a sunny farmhouse kitchen preparing breakfast; I could smell it. We stood at each other’s side in a cemetery, in mourning blacks, rain pouring down; I heard thunder. I saw her singing along while I played the guitar in a field of new mown hay. I saw that face old, weathered, and worn; and beautiful.

I went into shock. That’s the only word for it. As I stood there staring at her, there was talking around me, Richard nudging her into a guessing game about who I was, giving her three chances, being teasing and cajoling and insufferable as far as I could tell.

Her eyes kept flicking between me and Richard and every word that was coming out of her was enshrined in the most alluring mouth I had ever seen. My initial wave of sentimentalism (if that’s what it could be called) was now being supplanted by lust…and the realization of what I had been commissioned to do tonight. I wanted to reach out and shake Richard’s hand and say, “Thank you, you fucking idiot.”

The next time she spoke, I actually heard her voice. “I give up! Tell me.”

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