Bridge of Sighs

but just then he noticed the train across the platform, its doors hissing closed. In the nearest car, a man was looking right at him and grinning nastily. At first Noonan didn’t recognize him as Lichtner, who of course was in Venice. They’d run into each other in San Marco the day before he left for New York. Had he followed him here for some reason? Because that’s who it was.
    “Sir,” the woman said firmly. “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”
    “I know that man,” he told her, pointing at Lichtner, but then a strange thing happened. At first he thought Lichtner, not wanting to be seen, had pulled a shade down over the compartment window, but then he realized that the shade had come down over his own left eye. He could still see the man out of his right eye, except he wasn’t grinning anymore and he wasn’t Lichtner either. When that train, too, began to pull away, Noonan became aware of a powerful odor, of something decomposing, pungently, a smell he associated with home and the canals of Venice.

DESTINATION
     
    I SEE HER BIKE first, near the stone pillars that frame the entrance to Whitcombe Park, leaning up against what I still think of as Gabriel Mock’s fence. It gives me a bad moment, seeing only the bike, because bad things happen to children, especially when they don’t think anything will, and Kayla—God love her—is fearless. Also a child who has become, in record time, more dear to me than I can say.
    I pull in at the gate, turn off the ignition and just sit, talking myself out of my unnecessary worry before getting out to look for her. We have forty-five minutes until we need to be at Ikey’s for the unveiling of Sarah’s new, well, painting, I assume, though it’s all very hush-hush. Kayla, having seen whatever it is, has tremendously enjoyed knowing something I don’t. We will drink a glass of celebratory Prosecco, which she has informed me is Italian champagne. Actually, the adults will have a glass, and Kayla will be allowed only half, mixed with some juice.
    I don’t notice old Gabriel Mock sitting in the shade of the pillar until he moves. “Mr. Mock,” I say, climbing out. I study him carefully and his eyes are clear, if a little sleepy, and there’s no sign of a bottle. “Had me a little nap in the shade,” he admits.
    I wonder what he’s doing out here if he’s not “howling,” though it’s none of my business and he has as much right to be here as anybody. More, actually, considering how many hours he’s spent repainting the fence, back when there was a hall for it to surround. “It’s a good day for it,” I say, and it’s true. We’ve been blessed with a beautiful June afternoon. “You walk all the way out here, Mr. Mock?”
    “Partway. Fella give me a lift,” he says. “My regular chauffeur’s off today. You lookin’ for the child belongs to that bike, I bet.”
    I tell him that’s exactly what I’m doing, and that as soon as we’ve found her I’ll give him a lift back into town if he likes.
    “Soon as
you
found her,” Gabriel corrects me, and he remains seated to further drive home that point. “I’m too old to be chasin’ after children, and I never seen legs longer than that girl got. Like a racehorse.”
    I ask if he has any idea where she might be. Whitcombe Park is huge.
    “Out explorin’,” he says unhelpfully. “Lookin’ for caves. Like somebody else used to do. Tole her what I tole you. Don’t go callin’ when you fall in a hole. Up to me, she have to live her whole life down in the dark and damp. Get married down there and raise a whole family under the damn ground.” He peers around at my new van. “That your
ve
hicle?”
    He’s seen it before, a couple of times at least, but obviously forgotten. I nod and tell him again it’s a minivan, that the rear seats fold down into the floor to make room for Kayla’s bike, a feature we’ll need once we’ve located her. In fact she helped me pick it out, lobbying for a deep purple color that wouldn’t have been my choice but that’s been growing on me, as has the van’s other purpose: to allow us to take trips. One of the first things Sarah made clear when she returned was that we’d be showing Kayla more of the world than Thomaston. We’ve already taken her to see the library in nearby Canajoharie, which boasts a marvelous art collection, as well as to several museums and galleries in Albany, and we’re planning a week in Boston this fall. Even Italy