The Thief Lord

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."

"Your tortoises, of course!" Scipio wandered into Victor's office and sat down on one of the visitor's chairs. Victor went into the kitchen to fetch some lettuce for his pets.

"Weren't you surprised when I appeared so suddenly in front of Barbarossa's shop?" Scipio called after him. "You walked past me on the Accademia Bridge. Only you were so lost in your own thoughts that you didn't see me. So I decided to shadow you, just for the fun of it. Admit it, you didn't notice a thing. That proves what a first-rate detective I would be."

"It proves nothing," Victor grumbled as he squatted down next to the tortoises' box. "It only proves that you seem to think the job of a detective is jam-packed with all sorts of excitement. The truth is, it's mostly boring."

Victor flung the lettuce at his tortoises and stood up. "And anyway, I can't pay you much."

"Doesn't matter. I don't need much."

"You'll soon get bored."

"We'll see."

With a sigh Victor dropped into his desk chair. "I'm not having your name on the sign."