The Thief Lord (26 page)

52 Everything Will Work Out Fine -- or Will it?

Esther Hartlieb did not fly home as scheduled. Her husband boarded the plane alone, while she was visiting the Doge's Palace with Barbarossa. The day after that she picked up Ernesto again -- for a trip to the glassblowers on Murano. First, however, she took him shopping, and when Barbarossa returned to the Casa Spavento that evening, he was wearing the most expensive clothes one could buy in Venice for a child of his age.

He strutted into the living room, as proud as a peacock. The others were all squatting on the carpet and playing cards with Ida. "You really are a pair of extraordinary idiots," Barbarossa said to Prosper and Bo. "You have the amazing luck to have such a rich aunt and you run away from her as if the devil himself was after you. Your brains must be the size of a pea."

"And you, Ernesto," Ida replied, "probably have a wallet where other people have a heart."

Barbarossa just shrugged impassively and reached into his elegant new jacket. "Speaking of wallets," he said, producing a well-filled billfold, "I would like to ask one of you to regularly check on my shop over the next few months, in return for an appropriate fee, of course. You know, keep an eye on it, and clean it -- that sort of thing. And I also urgently need a saleswoman who knows her job and hasn't got her fingers in the till all the time. That won't be easy, but I have complete confidence in you."

They all looked at him in total surprise.

"You think we're all your servants now?" Riccio replied angrily. "Why don't you do it yourself?"

Barbarossa's mouth screwed into a very pompous expression.

"Because, you spiky airhead, tomorrow I will be boarding a plane with Signora Hartlieb," he replied with a swagger. "And my place of residence will be outside this country. My future foster mother will call Sister Ida tonight and ask for her approval of my adoption by the Hartliebs. A lawyer has also been hired, who will remove any remaining legal obstacles. My future parents don't know about my shop, and I would like it to stay that way. I will try to open an account into which the earnings may be deposited. After all, I do not intend to live off allowance alone."

Riccio was so startled he dropped his cards. Mosca took the opportunity to quickly check Riccio's hand.

"Congratulations, Barbarino," said Hornet. "Seems like you've got quite a pleasant life ahead of you."

Barbarossa just shrugged disdainfully.

"Well," he said, casting a disgusted glance around Ida's living room, "more comfortable than yours, that's for sure." Then he turned on his heels and strutted out of the room. Bo stuck out his tongue as the redhead left. The others gazed thoughtfully at their cards. "Ida," Mosca said finally, "Riccio and I are leaving as well, probably at the end of next week or so. Riccio has found an empty warehouse, over in Castello. It's right by the water, and there are even moorings for my boat."

Ida fiddled with her earrings. This time they were tiny golden fish with eyes of red glass.

"How are you going to get by?" she asked. "Life in Venice is quite expensive. The Thief Lord won't be looking after you anymore. Are you going to start stealing again?"

Riccio fiddled with his cards, pretending not to have heard Ida's question. Mosca, however, shook his head.

"No way. We've still got some money to start with from our last deal with Barbarossa. If that's not fake money as well."

Ida nodded. Then she turned to the other three, Prosper, Bo, and Hornet, one by one.

"What about you?" she asked. "You're not going to leave me all at once too, are you? Who's going to eat all the food Lucia has bought? Who's going to tease her dogs, read my books, and play cards with me?"

Hornet smiled. Bo knelt down next to Ida. "We'll stay with you," he said, placing one of his kittens on her lap. "Hornet told me she wants to live here forever."

"Bo!" Hornet went bright red with embarrassment.

Ida, however, let out a big sigh. "Well, I'm relieved!" she said. Then she leaned over toward Bo and whispered, "What about your brother?"

Prosper looked at them sheepishly.

"He wants to stay too," Bo whispered back. "But he's too shy to ask you."

With a groan, Prosper buried his face in his hands.

"Well, it's just as well that he has a brother who can do the talking for him," Ida smiled. "So, Ida and Hornet, Prosper and Bo. That makes four!" she said. "A good number, especially for playing cards. But we may have to explain to Bo again that he can't keep making up his own rules."

The next day, Barbarossa got on to a plane, just as he had planned. Of course Ida had promptly approved of the adoption and Esther Hartlieb's lawyer had sorted out the rest.

On the boat-taxi to the airport Barbarossa was very quiet, and when Venice disappeared behind the horizon he let out a deep sigh. But when Esther asked him apprehensively whether there was anything wrong he just shook his head and claimed that he had never really liked boat trips. That was how Barbarossa said farewell to Venice, but inside his stubbornly greedy heart, he resolved to return one day in his brand-new life.

Two days and two nights later, as the sun was already disappearing behind the roofs, Mosca and Riccio packed the few belongings they had managed to salvage from the movie theater into Mosca's boat. They said good-bye to Prosper, Bo, Hornet, Ida, and Lucia, who also gave them two plastic bags full of provisions. Then they cast off toward Castello, the poorest part of Venice, but not before giving a promise to get in touch as soon as they were settled.

The other three children missed the two boys badly. Bo cried his eyes out even though Hornet tried to tell him that they were, after all, staying in the same city. To take Bo's mind off things, Victor took him to St. Mark's Square to feed the pigeons. Ida showed Hornet the school she and Prosper would be going to in the spring. But every evening before going to bed, Prosper stared out of the window, wondering what Scipio was up to.

Prosper wasn't the first one to see Scipio again. One evening, as he returned from shadowing someone, Victor went past Barbarossa's shop to put up a sign Ida had written:

Salesperson required, experience preferred. Applications to: Ida Spavento, Campo Santa Margherita 11

The sticky tape kept wrapping itself around his thumbnail and Victor was cursing quietly to himself, when suddenly a tall figure approached him.

"Hi, Victor," the stranger said. "How are you? And how are the others?"

Victor stared at him quite dumbfounded. "Heavens, Scipio! Did you have to creep up on me like that?" he spluttered. "Appearing here like some ghost -- I nearly didn't recognize you in that hat."

"Yes, I know. This hat was the first thing I bought." Scipio lifted it off his black hair. "Since then I've only been greeted
three
times a day as Dottor Massimo."

"Ida wrote a card to your father." Victor tried once more to stick the note to the shop's door. This time it worked. "She wrote that you are fine and that you won't be coming home for the time being. Did you see your father's appeal in the newspaper?"

Scipio nodded. "Yes, yes," he muttered. "Having a son is really quite a nuisance. And now, on top of everything, he's also missing. I went home last night to get my cat. Luckily, nobody saw me."

They both stood silent for a while and gazed up at the moon. Finally Victor said, "Your idea...you know, the one about Barbarossa ... it worked."

"Really?" Scipio put his hat on again and pulled its brim down over his face. "Well, I knew it was brilliant. Are the others still at Ida's?"

"Prosper, Bo, and Hornet are," Victor answered. "Mosca and Riccio are now living in an empty warehouse in Castello. But how are you?"

He looked into Scipio's face carefully. As far as Victor could make out in the dark, the Thief Lord did not really look very happy. He looked rather tired.

"If you're not doing anything right now," Victor continued when Scipio didn't answer immediately, "you could walk with me a little and tell me on the way what you've been doing. It's too cold to be standing around here and I've got to get home. I've been on my feet all day, and I'm starving."

Scipio shrugged. "I'm not doing anything special at the moment," he answered. "And my hotel room is not so cozy that I'd want to get back there in a hurry."

So they set off together toward Victor's place. The air that night was not as icy as it had been on previous evenings; the sky above the old city was so full of stars that the alleys between St. Mark's Square and the Grand Canal were still crowded with people enjoying the sights.

Scipio broke the silence only when they reached the Rialto Bridge.

"I haven't been doing much at all, really," he said as they walked next to each other up the stairs.

A thousand lights twinkled on the water -- the lights of the restaurants along the canal, the lights of the gondolas, of the
vaporetti
weaving their way along the broad waterway. It was hard to tear your eyes from it all. Victor leaned over the parapet. Scipio spat into the canal.

"Victor," he asked, "what do adults do all day?"

"Work," Victor answered, "eat, shop, pay bills, use the phone, read newspapers, drink coffee, sleep."

Scipio sighed. "Not really very exciting," he muttered, resting his arms on the cold stone of the parapet.

"Well," Victor grunted. But he couldn't think of anything else to say.

They sauntered on, slowly, across the bridge and into the maze of alleys in which every visitor to Venice gets lost at least once.

"I'll think of something," Scipio said, determination ringing in his voice. "Something exciting and adventurous. Maybe I should go to the airport and get on a plane. Or maybe I could become a treasure hunter. I read about that somewhere. I could also learn to dive ..."

Victor had to grin and Scipio noticed it.

"You're making fun of me," he said angrily.

"No way!" Victor smiled. Treasure hunter, diver -- he had never wanted to be anything like that!

"Go on, admit it, you also like a bit of adventure," Scipio continued more calmly. "After all, you're a detective."

Victor didn't reply. His feet ached, he was tired, and he would have loved to be sitting next to Ida on the couch. Why hadn't he done just that? Instead he had gone traipsing through the night.

They were already crossing the bridge near Victor's house. "You should look in on your old friends sometime," Victor said.

"I will, I will," Scipio said absentmindedly -- as if his thoughts were elsewhere all of a sudden. He stopped abruptly. "Victor!" he said. "I think I've just had another brilliant idea."

"Oh dear," Victor muttered. He stepped wearily toward his front door. "You can tell me about it tomorrow, OK? Why don't you come to Ida's for breakfast? I'll be there, I'm there nearly every day now."

"No, no!" Scipio shook his head vigorously. "I'll tell you right now."

The young man took a deep breath, and for a moment he looked just like the boy he had been, not so long ago. "Listen. You're not really that young anymore ..."

"What do you mean?" Victor spun around indignantly. "If you're saying that I'm not a child in a grown-up body, then you're darn right ..."

"No, don't be silly!" Scipio interrupted impatiently. "But you've been doing detective work for years now. Don't your feet sometimes ache after you've followed someone for hours? Just think how difficult it was to keep up with us ..."

Victor gave him a suspicious look. "I'd rather not," he growled. He was already unlocking the door.

"OK, OK. Fine!" Scipio pushed past him. "But just imagine this. ..." He skipped so nimbly up the stairs that he had Victor completely out of breath just trying to follow him. "Imagine having someone who would do all the running around, the shadowing at night, and everything else that makes your feet ache. Someone..." Scipio stopped in front of Victor's door and spread out his arms triumphantly "... someone like me!"

"What?" Victor, panting heavily, stood in front of him. "What do you mean? You want to work for me?"

"Of course! Isn't that a wonderful idea?" Scipio pointed at Victor's sign, which looked like it needed a good clean. "It could still say Getz at the top and my name would go underneath ..."

Victor was just about to answer when the door opposite opened and his aged neighbor, Signora Grimani, popped her head around the door.

"Signor Getz," she whispered with a curious sideways glance toward Scipio. "I'm so glad I caught you. Would you be so good as to get me a loaf of bread when you're going to the baker's tomorrow? Climbing these stairs is becoming such a burden for me, especially on damp days like these."

"Of course, Signora Grimani," Victor answered, rubbing his nameplate with his sleeve. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

"No, no!" Signora Grimani shook her head. She eyed Scipio furtively, as if he was someone whose name she couldn't recall.

"Dottor Massimo!" she called out suddenly, clinging onto the doorknob. "I saw your picture in the newspaper. And you were on television too. I am really sorry about your son. Has he been found yet?"

"Unfortunately not, Signora," Scipio answered with a grave face. "That is why I am here. Signor Getz has offered to help me with the search."

"Oh, that is good.
Benissimo!
Signor Getz is the most wonderful detective in the whole city! You'll see." Signora Grimani beamed at Victor as if he had just grown a pair of brilliantly white angel's wings.

Victor muttered,
"Buonanotte!
Good night, Signora Grimani!" and pulled Scipio into his apartment before he could start any more rumors.

"Great!" he grumbled while struggling out of his coat. "Soon the whole of Venice will know that Victor Getz is looking for Dottor Massimo's son. What were you thinking?"

"It was a sort of intuition." Scipio hung his hat on Victor's coat rack and looked around. "It's quite cramped," he observed.

"Well, not everyone has their own fountain or ceilings as high as those in the Doge's Palace," Victor grunted back. "It's good enough for me and my tortoises."