A Name in Blood Read Online Free PDF Page A

looking for Menica,’ he said.
    ‘Saw her just now,’ Onorio said. ‘With Gaspare, the little poet. Your biggest fan.’
    ‘I have new admirers who make Gaspare look like a small fish.’
    ‘Do I smell a commission?’
    The waiter laid the plate of ricotta on the table with a loaf of dark bread. Onorio unwrapped the cheese from the oily reeds in which it had matured. He sniffed it, called for wine, and pulled
the bread apart.
    ‘Yes, a commission. But my new admirer will be just as inclined to steal my old works from their current owners,’ Caravaggio said.
    ‘By Jesu, you met the Holy Father himself?’
    Caravaggio smiled. ‘Close enough. The Cardinal-Nephew.’
    Onorio split the bread, passed a piece to Mario and to Caravaggio. ‘Be careful, Michele. That man’s dangerous. Even worse, he’s an art lover.’
    Mario giggled. The wine found its way up his nose and choked him. Onorio slapped his back. Mario blew his nose onto the floor and picked up his bread.
    ‘I’m serious,’ Onorio said. ‘Cardinal Borghese has already told the Cavaliere D’Arpino he owes a ridiculous amount in backtaxes. It’s just to get him to hand
over his art collection, in lieu of payment. Pure robbery.’
    ‘Lucky I don’t own a thing.’
    ‘Pietro, a candle, for God’s sake. I can’t see to pick the weevils out of the bread.’ Onorio spat into the corner. ‘You do have something of which he still
might rob you.’
    ‘My genius? My freedom? Don’t be so dramatic.’
    ‘Your life, Michele. He holds it in that grasping little bureaucrat’s fist of his. Those well-scrubbed fingers will reach out for something they want and, when they do, you might
slip between them and shatter in pieces on the floor.’
    ‘I can wreck my own life. I don’t need papal assistance.’
    ‘Is that why you insulted Ranuccio yesterday?’
    ‘Did I?’
    The waiter brought a candle and another jug of Chianti.
    ‘You had one of your blackouts?’ Onorio said. ‘Yes, you lost a few points at tennis. Hardly surprising, because you were so drunk you could barely stand. Then you told Ranuccio
that if he wanted the money he had won he’d have to sniff for it up your—’
    Caravaggio laughed. ‘Did I?’
    ‘Sniff for your money right up here,’ you said. ‘Come and get it.’ You tried to bend over and show him your ass, but you fell and tore your clothes. I had to carry you
away from there.’
    Mario swallowed a bite of soft cheese. ‘And I had to hold Ranuccio back or he’d have killed you.’
    ‘You?’ Caravaggio slapped Mario’s shoulder. ‘He’s twice your size.’
    ‘I’m a Sicilian. I strike below the belt. The taller he is, the easier for me to deal the fatal blow.’
    ‘Cut off his rotten cazzo and toss it to the pigs for their lunch, my little southern neckbreaker,’ Onorio said.
    They toasted Mario’s deadly blade. Mario wiped his sticky fingers on the bread and took up his goblet. ‘ Cent’anni . A hundred years of health,’ he said.
‘Ranuccio’s cazzo to the pigs.’
    A woman entered the tavern, unveiled. She was small and pretty and her dress was expensive, but it was torn at the shoulder and her gaze was ragged and frenzied.
    ‘Better still, toss his cazzo to her.’ Onorio waved to the woman. She passed between the tables, ignoring the men who seized at her breasts from out of the shadows.
    ‘Have you seen him?’ she said.
    ‘I assume you’re looking for your pimp?’ Onorio said. ‘We left Signor Ranuccio at the French tennis courts not long ago. But I believe he was on his way
elsewhere.’
    ‘Where? I have to find him.’
    Onorio pulled her into the seat beside him. ‘Prudenza, he’s probably with some strumpet. Stay here with us.’
    Caravaggio reached out for the girl’s hair. A strand was plastered across her cheek. It stuck to the corner of her mouth when he pulled it away. She recoiled and lifted her hand to the
spot. Her wrist was wrapped in a soggy strip of cloth. He held the hair in