Celsi stared in amazement at bookshelves behind me and let out a long breath. "So-o-o? You think he's come back? Strangling the girls? That doesn't sound like young Zorzi. He used to hump them to death… I speak figuratively and with sinful envy. What do you want to know?"
"Everything, fair exchange."
"Nostradamus going soft in his old age? If he's willing to tell all, he can't know much. Well, let's see. Start with Gentile. Had a few uncles but no brothers, sisters, or cousins. A carefully husbanded tribe, the San Marco Michiels-they have always believed in keeping the family fortune intact. Gentile was publicly devout, straitlaced, sanctimonious. An obnoxious tyrannical prude, in fact."
"The sort who won't let his wife look out any window that overlooks a street?"
"Exactly. Gentile married Alina Orio-eccentric sort of woman. She lost five brothers to the plague, them and their families, extremely careless of her. That wiped out a whole branch of the Orio clan, so she ended up with all the property, very odd. Four sons and a daughter survived infancy."
"I heard three sons."
"Don't interrupt me when I'm gossiping. I might miss out a juicy bit. Bernardo was going to be the politician. Of course he wasn't even thirty then, but he'd already made a major speech in the Great Council, opposing a change in the salt tax that his father had supported in the Senate. Got a response from the doge himself, tremendous honor that, for a nipper! The patricide put the whole family in the lazaretto, of course, but Bernardo wouldn't give up; he kept on attending Great Council meetings. So they tried electing him to trivial offices and he accepted and worked hard at them. He's started making speeches again, and it looks as if they're about ready to forgive him. He's been nominated for several meaningful jobs lately, and come near to winning a couple of times. He won't want the old scandal dug up."
"What is he now?"
Celsi closed his eyes for a moment to think, then twinkled them at me. "Inspector of meats!" This was one minor politician he was recalling, out of hundreds, a fine feat of memory.
"Then, Domenico's the businessman. Doesn't attend the wind factory unless there's some critical vote coming up. He's a genius at buying up estates on the mainland, tidying them up, and selling them at a spanking profit. Dull, like all men who make money. Only those who make art or history are interesting, Alfeo dear. Dom's not the sort to hide a murderer-no profit in that. Has a couple of children by a long-term mistress.
"Next was Timoteo. He inherited his father's acid piety, but he seems to have meant it. He renounced his share and entered the cloister."
"He's a monk?" I spoke a little too eagerly.
Carlo Celsi has extremely sensitive antenna. He eyed me suspiciously.
"A friar. And a priest also, as I recall. Why?"
"Just wondered. The other brothers form a fraterna?" I asked, being as innocent as possible. I had caught a faint whiff of motive…
This time the old gossip missed my eagerness. "So far as I know. They have to go to law to disenfranchise, you know."
I nodded. "And the daughter?"
"Oh, they packed her off into a cloister years ago. That costs money too, but it's cheaper than providing a dowry. Did you hear the size of dowry old-"
I headed off his digression. "Which leaves only the infamous Zorzi."
"Correct."
"Obviously the last, since the rest had been named in alphabetical order. Or the sons had. What was the daughter's name?"
"Don't remember. Your brilliance is exceeded only by your personal charm. Zorzi! Oh, Zorzi was a hellion!" Celsi said admiringly. "If he hadn't been a nobleman's son he'd have been swept up by the Ten and banished for licentious living. Apollo he was, to look at, and he never seemed to be short of money. He and his father fought like cat and dog all the time, with the old man always threatening to disinherit him if he didn't reform his ways. That was why he came under suspicion, I think."
"Remind me about the murder."
"You were a teenager. Don't tell me you didn't lap up all the gory details!"
"Yes, but you always know more than anyone else."
Celsi snorted but looked pleased. "Christmas, a stormy night, and the Basilica atrium is black as tar at the best of times. Families reuniting as the women arrived from their section and the men from the nave, lamps being waved about… complete confusion. A lot of people even wondered if Gentile Michiel had been the wrong victim; he just didn't seem important enough for such a shocking crime. Right man or wrong, someone stuck a knife in his kidney. No one saw who it was. He was dead by the time they brought in a surgeon to try stitching him up, the killer long gone."
He shrugged. "A couple of days later Zorzi saw which way the wind was blowing and raised his sails in the nick of time. The Ten condemned him and put a price on his head. They did it with all the trimmings-placards posted at the Porta della Carta, the public crier marching around with his scarlet coat and his trumpeters. Now you're going to tell me Zorzi's come back and is slaughtering courtesans?"
"How much of a price?"
Celsi's curly silver beard twisted around a smile. "Trust Nostradamus! Old miser. A thousand ducats, no matter where he's caught. That's on top of the usual five hundred for handing in the head of an exile who sneaks back incognito. Has he come back? Truly?"
It was my turn to sing now, but I squeezed in one more question. "If the Mass was a formal state gathering, how did a kid like Zorzi ever get admitted? He couldn't have been a member of the Great Council at nineteen."
Celsi shrugged. "He could have, but he wasn't. I don't remember anybody asking how he got in. It would have been easy enough. It was dark, a melee. Gentile would be wearing his red senatorial robes, so his black ones would be stored in a chest at home somewhere, I expect." He scratched his beard. "I'm sure the Ten had good reason to declare the boy guilty. Probably witnesses recognized him. You really think he was innocent?"
"I don't. And if the Maestro does, he hasn't told me about it."
"What leads you to think he's come back?"
As I told him, I realized how weak our case still was. "Three demimonde have been killed in the last three weeks, all in the same way, all old enough to have been in the trade eight years ago. No signs of other violence, meaning rape, and no robbery, so the motive's a mystery. All of them seem to have been expecting an old friend, and at least one of those had claimed to be Honeycat, which was Zorzi's love name. He had a birthmark to justify it, in a confidential location."
"Pah! I wouldn't waste spittle on that evidence."
"And the Council of Ten has warned us to stop prying into the murders."
Celsi sniffed disapprovingly. "Better. That is odd, I grant you. I know how often the Three take credit that really belongs to Nostradamus-and to you, too, dear boy, of course. Why try to block you on this one, mm?"
"They want to take Zorzi Michiel themselves?"
"Perhaps. But three dead courtesans are a serious matter. The state needs the taxes those women pay; the Ten can't want the trade shut down. It's a pity…"
He eyed one of his bookshelves, then heaved his portly frame upright and went to fetch a leather-bound ledger. He spread it on his lap, with the edge tucked under his paunch, and started thumbing through it. "My version of the Golden Book," he muttered. "I call it the Brass Book. You must be in here somewhere, everyone is. Yes, thought so. It's a pity the Devil finally took old Agostino Foscari. He would often drop a hint or two if I asked him nicely." He frowned at me. "Why're you looking like that?"
Because I had thought of something, and since I had not yet had time to report my idea to Nostradamus, I did not want or need to share it with Celsi. "Procurator Agostino Foscari? He died last fall, didn't he? Why him?"
Of course I couldn't deceive an expert. My host beamed like an antique cherub. "You still owe me a few secrets, dear boy. Out with it."