“Is that part of this master plan you’re working on for the masquerade tonight?”
“It actually is.”
He raises one eyebrow. “Interesting. When do I get let in on it?”
I stretch out in the seat, raising my face to the sunshine. It’s a much prettier blue sky than the mural on the ceiling over the Las Vegas canals, that’s for sure. A few pigeons flutter overhead as I watch, high up in the blue, probably on their way to San Marco to prepare for the lunchtime crowds.
“Luca,” Finch says, and pinches my arm. “When?”
“You see this palazzo coming up?” I ask, and have to smother a yawn afterward. Between the smooth swipes of the oar in the water, the pleasant droning of motorboats up and down the Grand Canal, the warm sun on my face and the echoing warmth of Finch in my arms, I’ve become drowsy with happiness. The Las Vegas canal experience has been successfully expunged.
I have everything I need right here, right now: sunshine, an intellectual puzzle, and, most importantly, Finch.
“What about it?” Finch asks, and I bring my mind back to the task at hand.
“That’s where the masquerade will be tonight,” I tell him, sitting us up a little more as the gondola comes alongside it. “Could you slow down a little, sir?” I ask the old gondolier in my most polite Italian. “Just a little,” I add, when he gives a grumpy grunt.
We slow to a passive-aggressive crawl, which suits my purposes just fine. Finch stares at the building as we pass, and I take my time checking it over for methods of ingress and egress. I’m not sure if my plan—such as it is—will work. And if it doesn’t, Finch and I will need a convenient escape, and perhaps another high-speed train out of town.
The masquerade ball is a private fundraiser for the preservation of Venice. The rich, the connected, the elite and the powerful will be there, including La Contessa—and us. Vitali reached out to some of our associates here in Venice and managed to get Finch and me on the guest list.
Finch gets that lazy, knowing smirk that I love so well. “And is there a particular reason behind those costumes we ordered?”
“There is.” We placed our costume orders at the same time as we shopped for the tuxedos for the opera, though in a very different store than Giorgio Armani: a private atelier of historical carnival costuming.
“And our shadow knows we’ll be at this shindig tonight?” Finch glances back down the canal.
“I’m counting on it.” I have no doubt our IFF shadow will figure it out, if he hasn’t been tipped off already by the mole. Finch is staring hard at the building, hard enough to indicate keen interest, and if our friend is worth his salt, he’ll have noted Finch’s preoccupation.
For good measure, I make sure to turn my attention to the palazzo as well as we drift by. The canal-side exit has a few wooden poles emerging from the water for the mooring of gondolas or motorboats, but it’s not an easily accessible exit. It will probably be closed off tonight. But I’ll trust my instincts. If there are ways into a building, there are ways out. How noisy and noticeable those ways out will become depends on necessity at the time.
“So what exactly is this plan?” Finch asks softly.
“I’m wondering if there’s a way to kill two birds with one stone.”
* * *
I lookat us side by side in the dressing mirror that night, at the glint in Finch’s eye as he smiles in pleasure at his own reflection and then at mine, and wonder if I’mreallyprepared to risk his safety. But if all goes as planned, we’ll be granted an audience with La Contessa, and I’ll be able to dispose of the irritation of our shadow.
What I’m most concerned about, as usual, is Finch. But covered over in his plague doctor neck-to-ankle flared and belted overcoat, and with a long, beaked mask covering the top half of his face, he’ll be very difficult to recognize. It’s not carnival time in Venice, but the ball tonight is carnival-themed anyway; many of the attendees are rich foreigners, and the Venetians are canny enough to know what rich foreigners enjoy. Finch’s plague doctor outfit will be one among many of the same. Our IFF tail will have to pay close attention if he wants to follow Finch through the crowded party.
As for me, I’m peacocking in a red and gold Renaissance tunic, with close-fitting leggings underneath. My mask is a sheer slip of black lace that does nothing to conceal my identity. I don’t want La Contessa to get the wrong idea—that I’m an assassin, for example, trying to get close to her without her knowing. I want to win her trust by appearing completely open.
“You look so damn good,” Finch sighs, pulling off his mask.
“So do you,” I say, ruffling his hair.
Finch grins at me. “Kiss me for luck?”
“We make our own luck,” I remind him, but I kiss him anyway.
Afterward, Finch leans in to the mirror and carefully applies lipstick in a stylized rosebud on his lips. He’s already powdered his face white and drawn in thick lines around his eyes. The makeup is yet another disguise, and I couldn’t say no to him when I saw how delighted he was with the collection of cosmetics at the shop where we bought our costumes.
“Seriously, though,” Finch says, turning to me, “dowe have time for me to suck your dick? Because I think you deserve it, looking like that. I could leave my lipstick all over it, mark you out as mine?” He gives an inviting, seductive smile.
“We don’t have time,” I tell him, although my dick likes the suggestion, and at some stage I amdefinitelygoing to get him to suck me while wearing that garish lipstick. “We should get going.”
Finch groans theatrically, but then dons hisMedico della Pestemask. “You’re sure this will work?”
