The Pigeon Project (33 page)

He listened and waited, hypnotized by her breasts shaking gently beneath the white silk dress. She had finished an anecdote and was drinking from her second martini.

“Fascinating,” he said to her. “Miss Fantoni, I’d be honored if I could take you to dinner from here.”

“Thank you, but no. I’m tired.” She set down her empty glass. “I think I’ll just go up to my suite, order lightly from room service, and get to sleep early. Maybe I’ll be free to leave this wretched city tomorrow.”

“Could I see you up to your room?”

She eyed him. “Whatever for? That’s not necessary.”

He saw that she might slip away. Boldness, boldness. “It is necessary for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that every added moment I’m with you enriches my life. I’ve carried you in my head so long, enjoyed the pleasure of your presence in my head so long, loved you in my secret heart so endlessly, that now in person I cannot let you go.”

She stared at him with disbelief. “That dialogue,” she said. “You sound like a fugitive from a Pirandello play.” She was on her feet. “I’m sorry, young man. Take your play and your amorous heart elsewhere. I wish you luck. Good evening.”

She was gone.

And he, finished reliving the humiliation of her arrogant rejection, was trudging through the Piazza San Marco toward his lonely apartment, still lusting for the gorgeous bitch. But it was hopeless. There was no way he might ever seduce her.

Five minutes later, he had reached his place, climbed the stairs to his first-floor apartment, mournfully inserted the key, and gone into his long hallway. As he began to remove his suit jacket, he noticed to his surprise that he had left the lights on in his living room. Stepping to the archway, he saw his open bedroom door and was surprised again that the lights were on there too. It was unlike him to have left the lights on when he had gone to work late this morning.

Then he heard a voice from the bedroom. Startled, a little frightened, not knowing where to turn, he heard the same voice a second time, and he recognized it. Timothy Jordan’s voice. At once, he remembered. So obsessed had he been with the conquest of Teresa Fantoni, his effort, his failure, that he had altogether forgotten his brief meeting with Jordan early in the afternoon. It came back to him now. Jordan had wanted to borrow his apartment for the night, to spend the night here in privacy with a friend, and he had said he would not need his apartment tonight and had given Jordan his extra key.

He realized he could not hang around any longer. Jordan was probably in bed with a woman, and his own presence would embarrass them both. He looked at the bedroom entrance wistfully. At least, Jordan was being luckier than he had been.

About to turn away, Oreste Memo heard a second voice, a deeper, older voice, and it was male.

Next he heard both voices. Both male.

How strange. Tim Jordan was no queer. Memo knew of his continuing affair with his assistant, Marisa Girardi. Then what was this all about?

Automatically, Oreste Memo had moved into his living room, and the voices from the bedroom were clear and distinct.

They were discussing something about traveling.

Memo realized that this was none of his business. He had no right to invade their privacy. Even though this was his apartment, he had lent it in good faith to a friend. He had turned to leave quietly when a snatch of conversation held him in his tracks.

“… and then you will be safely in Paris,” Jordan was saying. “What will you do next? Wait for the Gerontology Congress to convene? Or immediately announce to the world that you’ve discovered the formula?”

“I will convene a press conference immediately,” the older voice was saying. “I’ll make my announcement of the discovery of C-98, read to the world the paper I had intended to read to the Congress—in fact, pass out copies of it—and I’ll clarify it all by answering questions. But we’re skipping too far ahead, Tim. First, I’ve got to get out of here before the police and the Russians have me.”

“All right, Professor MacDonald,” said Jordan, rustling some kind of paper. “Assuming Bruno comes through, let’s go over this map again and show you how to get to Paris.”

Oreste Memo, wavering with disbelief in the middle of his living room, continued to listen. If there had been any confusion in his mind at the start, it was soon dispelled. For after they had methodically gone over the professor’s escape route, they began to discuss in a relaxed way the potentials of the professor’s discovery.

Memo felt the goose pimples growing on his arms and chest, and understood the implications of what he had been hearing.

Filled with purpose, he turned away and tiptoed out of the room.

He knew what he would do at once.

At last, he had his Open Sesame.

* * *

She had unlocked the door of her Gritti Palace suite, and she was wearing a pale blue dressing gown over some kind of short shift of a nightgown, and to Oreste Memo she looked like a sexy Roman goddess.

Teresa Fantoni stared at him, as if to discern whether he was drunk, and then, assured that he was not, she said curtly, “Don’t just stand there. Come in. I can’t have the whole hotel see me this way.”

He came into her darkened suite, only one dim lamp on in her sitting room. His eyes held on her, penetrated the transparency of her garments. His eyes lovingly raped her as she closed the door and came before him.

“This is utter madness,” she said, unamused. “I can’t believe it. Is this one of your jokes, a ruse to get up here?”

“It is true. Every word I told you on the phone is true,” he said.

He had called her, after leaving his apartment. He had rushed to the nearest public telephone and called her at the Gritti, and caught her in bed just as she was trying to fall asleep. He had burst out to her, almost uncontrolled, the news that what they had heard from the Contessa De Marchi last night was all true, exactly as she had told it. Minutes ago, he had met the scientist who had discovered the Fountain of Youth. He couldn’t tell her more now—he was on a public phone, there were others around him—but he would tell her all about it if he could see her privately, come up to her suite. With some hesitation, she had finally told him to come right over.

They stood facing each other in the sitting room of her suite. She was studying him, her cat’s eyes probing. “I still find it hard to take seriously,” she said. “You’re making this up.”

“I tell you it is true,” he persisted. “By accident, after leaving you before, I ran into him, heard him speak of his youth formula. The scientist, his name is Professor MacDonald. His formula is called C-98.”

“I don’t think you’re inventive enough to make that up.”

“Believe me!”

“This MacDonald, he’s here in Venice?”

“Right here. He’s a fugitive. Let me explain as much as I heard. I gather—I’m not sure—he must have made his discovery while visiting the Soviet Union, got out to Venice, and the Soviets asked our Communist government, our police, to get hold of him and return him. MacDonald is trapped, seeking a means to escape.”

“So he’s here,” she said slowly. “He could give anyone the formula to keep that person young.”

“No question.”

She moved closer to Memo. “Where is he?” He swallowed. “I-I can’t tell you. I’ve sworn to a friend of his not to tell anyone. But listen, I can speak to him, to my friend, and have him intercede for you. I can perhaps arrange for you to be one of the first to be given youth.”

She appeared overcome with emotion. “Oh, Oreste, you are so kind, so good to me.” She was against him, her arms around his neck. She pressed her warm lips on his. “Thank you,” she murmured.

For Oreste Memo, the moment he had dreamed of, the incredibility of it, was overwhelming. He felt the stirring between his legs, the immediate expanding and growing of it pressed against her.

She clung to him tightly. Her lips touched his ear. He felt her warm breath as she whispered, “Not only are you kind to me, darling, but you are passionate.”

“Teresa,” he exhaled, “I want you.” She hugged him tighter. “Do you, darling? Do you really want me?”

The fragrance of her body, the softness of her limbs was almost too much to bear. “More than anything in the world,” he gasped.

She released him, stepped back, untied her dressing gown, pulled it off, and let it drop to the carpet. She was wearing an entirely transparent nightgown that hung loosely to her knees. He could see the roundness of the firm protruding breasts and the brown circles of nipples, and he could see the broad patch of her vaginal mound, and he began to quiver.

“Oh, God, you’re beautiful,” he breathed. “I love you…”

He reached for her, but she stepped back. “Take off your jacket. There. Now let me help you off with your shirt.”

As she unbuttoned his shirt, he kicked off his shoes, loosened his belt, and stepped out of his trousers. He stood in his distended bikini briefs, breathing heavily.

She touched his shoulder. “Come, Oreste, dear, let’s go to bed.”

To bed with Teresa Fantoni! To bed with the female every male on earth worshiped! It was difficult walking as he went into the bedroom after her. Like the sitting room, the bedroom was darkened except for one dim lamp, on the stand beside the bed. She flung back the quilted cover all the way, pulled up her nightgown and was out of it, and threw herself on the bed, on her back.

“What’s holding you, my baby?” she called out.

From the rim of darkness, he had been watching her with awe. Venus de Milo summoning him to her bed. He jerked down his briefs and staggered toward her. He knew he was a sight. His penis was standing straight out.

“My, my,” she said, observing it, as he crawled toward her from the foot of the bed. Her legs, knees bent, were high and slightly apart.

“Teresa, my love…”

“Oreste, dear,” she said caressingly, “where is he? Tell your Teresa where he is?”

“What? Who?”

“Professor MacDonald. You know what it means to me.”

“I can’t, I really can’t.”

He tried to separate her legs further, but she brought them together.

“You can, my heart. You can tell your Teresa.”

“I wish I could.” He reached for her knees. “Please, Teresa—”

“No, no. If you cannot trust me when I give myself to you—”

“I trust you, I trust you. Please, Teresa, I’ve got to go into you.”

“You must tell me. I will repeat it to no one.”

“He’s in hiding.” . “Where?”

Inflamed, he pleaded with her. “Teresa, I’m dying, exploding, let me—”

“Where? Just tell me where—”

“Christ, he’s hiding—hiding in my apartment—”

“You darling.”

Her legs opened wide, her red vulva opened wide, and he went down low between her legs, sinking into her, going into her inch by inch, and then rising and falling, pulling and pushing, as she spread beneath him, eyes shut, fingers loosely on his shoulders.

His movements had begun slowly, but gradually, they increased in speed. Several minutes had passed, and he was pumping steadily, steadily, steadily, faster and faster as she lubricated. Again and again he sank into her soft wetness—paradise—his penis seeming to grow to near eruption.

He wanted it to go on forever, locked together like this in animal ecstasy, and then he glimpsed her placid face and once more realized with whom he was having intercourse—and the thought of it was too much. The love muscle between his legs, sliding inside her flesh, cleaving her, expanded once more, could contain itself no longer, and triggered a series of spasmic ejaculations spewing relief. He shuddered, cried out, letting go completely, and was encompassed by a red-hot aura that ever so slowly cooled.

It was over. He was empty. He was weak.

He lay atop hex for minutes, at last rolling over on his side.

“You were a good boy,” she said drowsily. “A very good boy. Now let your Teresa sleep.”

He left the bed, washed, and dressed.

Before departing, he stooped over her on the bed. “Teresa, are you asleep?”

“Ummm.”

“Teresa, I shouldn’t have told you, but I did. I couldn’t help it. But it has got to be our secret, where the professor is.”

“Our secret,” she murmured.

“I’ll ask my friend if he can talk the professor into seeing you.”

“Thanks, darling. Good night.”

He let himself out of her suite, and when he was outside the Gritti, and starting toward the Piazza, he was surprised at his lack of joy over his momentous conquest. Walking along, he wondered why he was not more pleased. After all, he had just laid Teresa Fantoni, the one and only. Then he realized there were two reasons for his lack of excitement. First, the sex act with the goddess had been one-way. She had proved a receptacle, nothing more. The intercourse had come from him alone, with no cooperation from her. In bed, she had not kissed him, touched him in love, not once moved her hips. His Venus de Milo could have been marble. It had been a lousy lay. Its only value was that it could be a conversation piece. That was what she was, that piece—a conversation piece. The second dampener. He had bought it, and paid too much. He had given away MacDonald’s secret refuge, and if Teresa talked loosely tomorrow, there would be trouble.

He was almost at the Piazza, but now he stopped. He must go back to her, awaken her, impress upon her absolutely that she must keep their secret a real secret. Spinning about, he hurriedly retraced his steps toward the Gritti Palace.

As he reached the edge of the square, from which the Santa Maria del Giglio led past the hotel apartments to the hotel, he saw a lone figure emerge from the street.

He stopped in his tracks, his mouth agape.

She was wearing a brimmed hat, loose jacket, fashionable beige pants, and carrying an alligator bag. She was walking briskly.

She was Teresa Fantoni.

He fell back in the shadows, waiting to observe in which direction she would turn. When she turned toward the direction of the Rialto Bridge, he knew where she was going.

* * *

The meeting in the mayor’s office, on the first floor of the Palazzo Farsetti, the city hall, had been in progress for over an hour and was now winding down.