The Thief Lord (9 page)

17 Victor's Trace

Victor's head hurt for three days. But what hurt more than the bumps on his skull was his injured pride. Taken for a ride by a bunch of kids! He ground his teeth every time he thought about it. The
Carabinieri
had dragged him to the police station like a common criminal. They had treated him like a child snatcher and when, full of rage, Victor wanted to show them his detective's ID, he realized that the little brats had robbed him as well.

Well, that was it! He would have no more pity for them. Enough was enough!

While Victor cooled the lumps on his head with ice and warmed his sick tortoise with an infrared light, he thought about nothing else except how to find that gang again. He recalled every single thing Bo had told him until one phrase rang in his brain as clear as the church bell chiming across the square.

Movie theater.
We live in a movie theater.

What if it was true after all? What if it wasn't some childish fantasy? Victor hadn't told the police anything about Bo's strange clue, although they were now also looking for the children, since it was clear that they had stolen his wallet and that he really was a detective. But Victor didn't want the police to catch the little thieves. Oh no, I'll find them myself, he thought as he sat on the carpet, tickling his tortoises' crinkly heads. They'll soon learn that I'm not the idiot they think I am!

Oh rats! One of the tortoises was really sneezing quite worryingly. If he wasn't mistaken, that was probably Paula. The vet had assured him that Paula couldn't pass her cold on to Lando, which was why Victor had left them in the same carton. He'd brought them in from the balcony, where the nights were now growing ever colder, and he had even made them a house under his desk.

A movie theater...

What had Bo said? Yes: The seats were missing and the projector was gone. So it had to be an abandoned movie theater, of course, one that had been closed down and forgotten about by the owner. There weren't many movie theaters in Venice. Victor opened the current telephone book as well as last year's edition, then called every movie theater he could find. In most cases he was asked whether he wanted to book a ticket, but in one of them, the Fantasia, no one answered the phone. Another movie theater had no address listed next to its name. This one was called the Stella and the number only appeared in the older telephone book.

The Stella and the Fantasia. Well, that gives us two possibilities, Victor thought before reheating yesterday's risotto. Then he took the sniveling tortoise to the vet again. On the way back he took a detour to the Fantasia.

The movie theater was just opening for the afternoon show when Victor arrived. There wasn't really a big crowd. The only ones in line for tickets were two children and a young couple who immediately vanished inside the dark auditorium. Victor approached the ticket booth and cleared his throat.

"Front or back?" said the lady in the booth popping a piece of chewing gum into her mouth. "Where do you want to sit?"

"Nowhere," Victor replied. "But I would like to know whether you have heard of a movie theater called the Stella?"

The ticket lady blew a large chewing-gum bubble with her brightly painted lips and let it pop. "The Stella? That's been closed for a few months now."

Victor's heart leaped. "Yes, I thought so," he said. He answered the ticket lady's baffled look with a satisfied smile. "Do you happen to know the address?" He rested the box with the sick tortoise on the counter next to the register.

The ticket lady let another gum bubble pop and eyed the box curiously. "What have you got in there?"

"A sniffy tortoise," Victor answered. "But she's getting better already. So, do you know the address?"

"Can I have a look?" the lady asked.

Victor sighed and pulled away the towel, which kept out the cold. Paula, startled, lifted her wrinkly head and blinked a few times before hiding inside her shell.

"Cute!" the lady cooed, throwing her chewing gum into the wastebasket. "No, I don't know the address, but you could ask Dottor Massimo. He's the owner of this movie theater and the Stella belongs to him as well. So he should know where it is, right?"

"Presumably." Victor produced his notebook. "And where can I find Dottor Massimo?"

"Fondamenta Bollani," the lady answered, yawning. "I don't know the number, but his is the biggest house around there. He's a very rich man, our owner is. He only keeps the movie theaters for fun, although he still closed down the Stella."

"Really?" Victor mumbled. He carefully placed the towel over Paula's box again. "Well, I may just pay Dottor Massimo a visit. Or perhaps you have his telephone number?"

The lady scribbled the number on a piece of paper, which she pushed toward Victor. "When you talk to him," she said, "could you please tell him that the show was nearly sold out? Otherwise he may just close down the Fantasia as well."

Victor looked around the empty foyer, smiling. "I see what you mean! The line stretches right back down the alley." Then he went to find a pay phone. The battery of his cell phone had gone dead again. He should never have bought the stupid thing.

A booming voice grunted,
"Pronto,"
into Victor's ear.

"Am I speaking to Dottor Massimo, the owner of the old Stella movie theater?" Victor asked. Paula rustled around in her box as if looking for a way out of her boring cardboard prison.

"Yes, indeed," Dottor Massimo answered. "Are you interested? Then do come along. Fondamenta Bollani, 223. I'm free for about another half hour."

Then there was a loud
click
in Victor's ear. He gave the receiver a surprised look. Well, he certainly doesn't waste time, Victor thought as he squeezed himself out of the phone booth. Half an hour, and the next
vaporetto
stop was miles away. Well, it would have to be his aching feet again.

Dottor Massimo's house was not only the biggest house on the Fondamenta Bollani, it was also the most magnificent. Victor stood admiring the front of the house for a second -- its ornate columns and balconies and how the wrought-iron bars in front of the ground-floor windows wound and intertwined, turning into the shapes of flowers and leaves.

A maid opened the door. She led Victor past the columns and into the courtyard from where a steep and impressive staircase led up to the first floor. The girl walked up the stairs so quickly that Victor hardly got a chance to look around. When he leaned over the balustrade to take another look at the fountain in the courtyard, his guide turned around impatiently. "Dottor Massimo is only free for another ten minutes," she declared pertly.

Victor could not stop himself from asking, "And what urgent appointment does the
dottore
have to keep?"

The girl gave Victor a surprised look as if he had just asked her about the color of Dottor Massimo's underpants. Victor followed after her, just fast enough for him not to lose her in the labyrinth of corridors and doors. All this for an address. I should have just phoned him again.

Finally, when he had gotten quite out of breath and Paula had probably grown quite seasick in her box, the girl stopped and knocked on a door fit for a giant.

"Yes?" came the same booming voice that had barked at Victor from the telephone. Dottor Massimo was sitting behind a massive desk in a study that was bigger than Victor's whole apartment. He received his visitor with a cool, appraising look.

Victor coughed politely. He felt ridiculous in this magnificent room, with his tortoise box under his arm and shoes that showed quite clearly that he did a lot of walking for a living. "Good day to you,
Dottore,"
he said. "Victor Getz. We just spoke on the phone. Unfortunately, you hung up so quickly that I didn't get a chance to explain what I wanted. I'm not exactly interested in buying your movie theater, but -- "

Before Victor could go on, a door opened behind him. "Father," a boy's voice said, "I think the cat's sick..."

"Scipio!" Dottor Massimo's face turned purple with anger. "Can't you see I have a visitor? How often do I have to tell you to knock? What if the gentlemen from Rome had been here already? How would it look if my son barged into our meeting because of a sick cat?"

Victor turned around and looked into a pair of frightened black eyes. "She's really not well," Dottor Massimo's son murmured. He quickly lowered his head, but Victor had already recognized him. His hair was tied back in a tight little ponytail and his eyes didn't look quite as arrogant as they had before, but there could be no doubt: This was the boy who had so innocently asked Victor the time, just before he and his friends had tricked him.

The world was full of surprises.

"She's probably unwell because she's just had kittens," Dottor Massimo said in a bored voice. "It's not worth calling a vet. If she dies you'll get a new one." And then ignoring his son, the
dottore
turned to Victor again. "Do continue, Signor...?"

"Getz," Victor repeated. Scipio was still standing behind him, stiff and silent. "As I said, I am not interested in buying the Stella." Victor could see from the corner of his eye how Scipio jumped at the mention of the movie theater's name. "I'm writing an article about the city's movie theaters and I would like to include the Stella. So I would like your permission to have a look around there."

"Interesting," the
dottore
said, glancing out of the window to where a water taxi had just pulled up on the canal. "Please excuse me, I believe my guests from Rome are here. Naturally you have my permission to look around the Stella. It is in the Calle del Paradiso. I'd be grateful if you'd say that it's to this city's shame that such a wonderful movie theater had to be closed. Apparently we only cater to the interests of tourists these days."

"Why was it closed down?" Victor asked.

Scipio was still standing at the door, listening intently to what Victor and his father were discussing.

"An expert from the mainland declared it unsafe!" Dottor Massimo got up from behind his desk. He went over to a cabinet and opened one its many drawers. "Unsafe! The whole city is unsafe!" he declared arrogantly. "Now they've ordered an extortionately expensive renovation. Where is that key? My manager brought it to me months ago." He rummaged impatiently through the drawer. "Scipio, come and help me, since you're just standing there like a lemon."

Victor got the impression that Scipio had just decided to sneak away. He already had the doorknob in his hands, but when the
dottore
waved toward him, he pushed past Victor and walked, pale-faced and hesitant, toward his father.

"Dottore!"
the maid put her head around the door. "Your guests from Rome are waiting. Will you receive the gentlemen in the library or shall I bring them up?"

"I'll come to the library," Dottor Massimo answered curtly. "Scipio, will you ask Mr. Getz to sign a receipt for the key? You can manage to do that, I hope? There should be a tag on the key ring with the name of the movie theater."

"I know," Scipio muttered without looking at his father.

"Do send me a copy of your article, as soon as it is published," the
dottore
said, already striding past Victor and out of the office.

There was a deathly silence, now that he had left the room. Scipio stood next to the open drawer and watched Victor like a mouse would watch a cat. Then he suddenly made a dash for the door.

"Hold it!" Victor called, standing in the boy's way. "Where are you going? To warn your friends? That won't be necessary. I don't intend to hand them over to the police, even though you did steal my wallet. I'm not even interested in the fact that you're obviously keeping a little gang in your father's dilapidated movie theater. I don't care! I'm only interested in the two brothers -- the ones you have taken in. Prosper and Bo."

Scipio stared at him wordlessly. Then he whispered contemptuously, "You rotten snoop!" before leaning forward and giving the carpet on which Victor was standing such a sharp tug that the detective lost his balance and landed with a crash on his backside. He still managed to hold on to the box with the tortoise. Quick as a flash, Scipio shot past him and ran toward the door. Victor threw himself to the side to grab hold of the boy's legs, but Scipio just jumped over him and vanished before Victor could get back on his feet.

Fuming with frustration, Victor charged after him as quickly as his short legs would carry him. But when he reached the top of the stairs, panting heavily, Scipio was already leaping down the last steps.

"Stop, you little rat!" Victor bellowed after him. His voice boomed through the huge house so loudly that two maids came running across the courtyard. "Stop!" Victor bent over the balustrade and suddenly felt distinctly nauseous when he saw the drop below. "I WILL FIND YOU, do you hear!"

But Scipio just made a face and ran out of the house.

18 Alarm!

"Well, let's go through it once more," Mosca muttered, pouring over the floor plan the Conte had given them. "We've seen three people entering and leaving the place so far: the fat housekeeper, her husband, and the lady with the dyed-blonde hair."

"Signora Ida Spavento," Riccio explained. "At first we thought the fat one was the
signora
and the blonde her daughter. But the man who runs the newsstand on the Campo Santa Margherita likes to talk a lot. He told me that the younger one is Ida Spavento and the fat one only looks after the house. Signora Spavento lives alone and she travels a lot. The newspaper man said she's a photographer. He showed me a magazine with pictures of Venice that she had taken. She comes and goes at different times. But the housekeeper goes home between six and seven every evening like clockwork and her husband usually arrives around midday but he never stays for long. Just as well -- he looks as if he eats children for breakfast."

"Yeah, he does!" Mosca said, grinning.

Riccio continued, "So there's always someone in the house during the day. And the evenings," he sighed, "are the same. Signora Spavento obviously only likes going out during the day. But at least she goes to bed early. The light in her bedroom is out by ten o'clock at the latest."

"If that really is her bedroom," Hornet said. She didn't sound very convinced. "If, if, if!
If
the wing is on the first floor.
If
Signora Spavento sleeps on the second floor.
If
there really is no alarm system. There are too many 'ifs' for my liking. And what about the dogs?"

"Silly little yappers." Riccio picked a piece of gum from the gap in his teeth. "And they probably belong to the housekeeper. She usually takes them home with her in the evenings."

"Usually!" Hornet rolled her eyes.

"Well, even if she doesn't," Mosca waved his hand dismissively, "then we'll just give them some sausages."

"Well, aren't you the expert!" Hornet muttered. She was fiddling nervously with her braid. She had already stolen lots of things from shops, in
vaporetto
stations, in crowded alleys, but sneaking into a strange house was a completely different kettle of fish. Even if Riccio and Mosca were acting as if it was all just one big adventure for them, Hornet knew they were just as scared as she was. "I wonder where the Conte got that floor plan," Mosca wondered.

Riccio lifted his head. "Wasn't that the bell?"

They all listened. Someone was ringing the bell at the emergency exit.

"That can't be Scipio -- he isn't coming until tomorrow!" Hornet said. "And he usually comes in through his secret entrance anyway."

"I'll ask for the password," said Prosper, jumping up. "Bo, you stay here." The bell kept ringing again and again as Prosper ran down the dark corridor toward the exit. After the incident with the detective, Mosca had drilled a spy-hole into the door, but it was already dark outside, so when Prosper pressed his eye against the hole he could hardly see anything. Rain was pelting against the entrance and someone was hammering against the metal.

"Can't you hear me? Let me in!" a voice pleaded outside. "Won't anybody let me in, darn it!" Prosper thought he heard a sob.

"Scipio?" he asked in disbelief.

"Yes, darn it!" Prosper hastily pushed the bolt aside.

A soaked Scipio stumbled past him. "Lock the door," he panted, "quick!"

Prosper, bewildered, obeyed him. "We thought you wanted to come tomorrow," he said. "Why didn't you creep in your usual way?"

Scipio leaned against the wall, still panting heavily. "You have to leave," he gasped. "Right away. Is everybody here?"

Prosper nodded. "What do you mean?" he asked hoarsely. "What do you mean, we have to leave?"

But Scipio was already running down the dark corridor. Prosper followed him, his heart beating wildly. When Scipio stumbled into the auditorium, the others stared at him as if he were a stranger.

"What happened to you?" Mosca asked, astonished. "Did you fall into a canal? And what's with the fancy clothes?"

"I haven't got time to explain everything to you!" Scipio yelled. His voice cracked with excitement. "The snoop knows you're here. Grab what you need and let's get out of here."

The others looked at him in horror.

"Don't just stare at me!" Scipio screamed. They had never seen him like this before. "He's going to walk through the front door at any minute. We might be able to come back here later, but please, you have to leave now."

Nobody moved. Riccio was staring openmouthed at Scipio. Mosca was frowning and Hornet had put her arm around Bo, who looked very frightened.

Prosper was the first to react. "Get your cats, Bo," he said. "And put your raincoat on. It's pouring outside." Moving fast, he was now stuffing their few belongings into a bag. The spell broken, the others started to hurry as well.

"But where are we going to go?" Riccio called out in despair. "It's raining outside. And it's really cold. I don't understand. How did the snoop find us?"

"Shut up, Riccio!" Hornet barked at him. "I have to think." She took her arm off Bo's shoulders and turned to Mosca. "You go and sit out front in the ticket booth and let us know as soon as you hear anything suspicious. He'll get held up by the garbage we've piled up by the entrance, but not for long."

"On my way." Mosca quickly stuffed the floor plan under his waistband before vanishing through the big double door.

"I'll get the money we've got left," Scipio mumbled, avoiding the others' eyes as he went off after Mosca.

Silently, Bo placed the kittens one by one into the cardboard box. When he saw that Riccio was slumped on his mattress crying, he walked over and, awkwardly, stroked his spiky head.

"Where will we go?" Riccio kept sobbing. "Where, for god's sake, can we go?"

Hornet had to keep wiping tears from her face while she packed her favorite books into a plastic bag. But then she stopped.

"Wait a minute!" she said, turning toward the others. "I just had an absolutely insane idea. Do you want to hear it, or should I shut up?"