“Antonio knows, then, that you are running off with Shylock’s daughter? Or shall I tell him?”

“Tell him. He will congratulate me on my cleverness.”

“And Shylock knows?”

“Are you blackmailing me?”

“Yes, of course. Do keep up, Lorenzo. We’ll never accomplish any proper skullduggery if I have to keep reviewing the bloody process.”

I could tell he was scowling, even in the fractured moonlight. “What do you want?”

“I need to speak with Bassanio, now, here, secretly, and I need you to endorse my proposal to him, which does nothing but further his interest and my own.”

“I cannot promise that he will go along. Why would he trust you? You’re a Jew, aren’t you?”

“Just like your Jessica. Go tell him that you met a man who can tell him which casket will win his lady.”

“I know about the caskets,” said Lorenzo. “You’re talking nonsense. I’ve told him to find another rich girl.” Lorenzo, evidently, was not party to Antonio’s inner circle or the greater conspiracy with Iago. He might not even know about Drool and Jeff.

“Tell Bassanio,” said I. “He will want to see me. I will wait for him here.”

“Convey my message to Jessica and no word to Shylock, then?” said Lorenzo, letting a hand fall inside his doublet, from which he pulled the hilt of a dagger just far enough for me to see that he had it. Apparently, like most of the merchants I had met in Venice, to Lorenzo the law was a necessary restriction to facilitate trade, but beyond that applied only to the stevedores and tradesmen when it came to weapons or honor.

“Not a word to Shylock,” said I.

Lorenzo marched up the stairs from the landing, across the courtyard, and back into the brothel, casting glances back my way as he went, as if he’d forgotten something. Which, of course, he had. He’d dropped his note to Jessica when he reached for his dagger, thinking, perhaps, he’d tucked it into his doublet. I picked it up from the cobblestones and was surprised by a gondolier who was poling his boat under the bridge, a lantern at its bow casting an orange sphere of light around it as it passed by. I nodded to the boatman, and he to me.

“Buona sera, signor,” said he, with a smile, seeing he’d startled me.

“Buona sera,” I said, pulling my hat from my coat and bowing over it. When the boatman saw the hat, the smile fell from his lips and I tucked it away again. “Aren’t you supposed to be bloody singing?” said I. “Marauding through the canals like a cutpurse, thou sneaky ship rat! Vermin!”

“Jew!” barked the boatman.

“That’s not even a proper insult, that’s just looking at something and saying what it is, thou pole-pushing wank-wally!”