The Thief Lord

Mr. Hartlieb adjusted his tie. "It has cost us a lot of money to trace the boys this far, Mr. Getz," he said, "and I can assure you that they are here. Somewhere ..."

"...in this filth!" Mrs. Hartlieb finished her husband's sentence for him.

"Well, at least there aren't any cars here to run them over," Victor said under his breath. He looked up at the street map on his wall and stared at the maze of lanes and canals that made Venice so unique. Then turning back to look at his desk, deep in thought, he started scratching doodles onto its surface with his letter opener.

Mr. Hartlieb cleared his throat. "Mr. Getz...will you take the case on?"

Victor looked once more at the photograph of the two very different faces -- the tall, serious boy and the carefree smile of the younger one. And then he nodded. "Yes, I'll take it," he said. "I will find them. They look a little too young to be coping on their own. Tell me, did you ever run away as children?"

"For heaven's sake, of course I didn't!" Esther Hartlieb looked flabbergasted. Her husband just shook his head as if it was the strangest thing he'd ever heard.

"Well, I did." Victor wedged the photograph under the winged lion. "But I was by myself. I didn't have a brother, big or small, to look after me...Well, leave me your address and telephone number, and let's talk about my fee."

As the Hartliebs struggled back down the narrow staircase, Victor stepped on to the balcony. A cold wind whipped at his face, bearing the salty tang of the nearby sea. Shivering, he leaned against the balustrade and watched the Hartliebs step onto a bridge a few houses further down the canal. It was a pretty bridge, but the couple seemed not to take any notice of it. They rushed across it sullenly, without even a glance at the scrawny dog barking at them from a passing barge. And -- of course -- they didn't spit into the canal, like Victor always did.

"Well, who says you have to like your clients," the detective muttered to himself. He leaned over a cardboard box on the floor of the balcony, out of which the heads of two tortoises were peeking. "Parents like that are still better than no parents at all, right? What do you think? Don't tortoises have parents?"

Victor looked through the balustrade at the canal below, and at the houses, whose stony feet were washed by the water day in, day out. He had lived in Venice for more than fifteen years and he still didn't know all the city's nooks and crannies -- but then again no one did. The job wouldn't be easy, particularly if the boys didn't want to be found. There were so many hiding places, and so many narrow alleys with names no one could remember -- some of them with no names at all. Boarded-up churches, deserted houses...the whole city was one huge invitation to play hide-and-seek.

Well, I've always liked playing hide-and-seek, thought Victor, and so far I've found everyone I've ever looked for. The two boys had already been coping alone for eight weeks. Eight weeks! When he had run away from home he had only managed to cope with his freedom for one afternoon. At dusk, he had slunk back home, feeling sad and sorry for himself.

The tortoises nibbled at the lettuce leaf Victor was holding out to them. "I think I'd better take you inside tonight," he said. "This wind tastes of winter."

Lando and Paula looked at him through their lashless eyes. He sometimes got them mixed up but they didn't seem to mind. He had found them one day at the fish market, where he had gone in search of a client's Persian cat. Once Victor had managed to fish the pedigreed cat out of a barrel full of stinking sardines and stowed her in a scratch-safe box, he had discovered the two tortoises. They had been meandering between all the human feet, completely oblivious to the world. When Victor picked them up they quickly retreated into their shells.

"Where shall I start?" Victor wondered. "In the orphanages? The hospitals? They're such sad places. But maybe I don't need to begin there -- the Hartliebs have probably done that already." He leaned over the balcony and spat into the dark canal.

Bo and Prosper. Nice names, he thought, even if they are a little unusual.

2 Three Children

The Hartliebs had been right: Prosper and Bo had indeed managed to get to Venice. They had traveled a long way, squatting in rattling trains, hiding from conductors and nosy old ladies. They had locked themselves into stinking toilets, slept in dark corners, squeezed tightly together, hungry, tired and frozen. But they had done it, and they were still together.

At exactly the same time their aunt Esther was sitting down on a chair in front of Victor Getz's desk, the two boys were standing in a doorway just a few steps from the Rialto Bridge. The cold wind blew in their faces -- there was no doubt about it, the warm days were gone.

Esther had been wrong about one thing: Prosper and Bo were not alone. There was a girl with them. She was slender and had brown hair, which she wore in a long, thin braid that went right down to her hips and looked like a long stinger. It had given her her nickname: Hornet. She never answered to anything else.

The girl was frowning as she stared at a crumpled piece of paper. People pushed past her, ramming their full shopping bags into her back. "I think we've got everything," she said in a quiet, slightly hoarse voice. Prosper had liked that voice as soon as he'd heard Hornet speak, even before he'd been able to understand much of what she was saying. At first he remembered just the few words of Italian that his mother had taught him along with her stories of Venice, but he'd had to learn fast. "Now there's just the batteries for Mosca. Where can we get those?"

Prosper pushed his bangs out of his face. "There's a hardware store back in that side alley," he said. He saw that Bo was hunching up his shoulders against the cold, so he turned up his brother's collar. The children pushed back into the crowd. It was market day at the Rialto and the narrow alleys were even more crowded than usual. Men and women, young and old, were squashed between the stalls, most of them laden with bags and parcels, everyone trying to squeeze past one another. There were old ladies, who had probably never left the city, weaving their way around the tourists. The air smelled of fish, autumn flowers, and dried mushrooms.

"Hornet?" Bo reached for her hand and gave her his sweetest smile. "Will you buy me one of those little cakes over there?"

Hornet pinched his cheek affectionately and shook her head. "No!" she said firmly, pulling him along.

The hardware store Prosper had discovered was tiny. In its window, between coffee machines and toasters, stood a few toys. Bo gazed at them, his mouth open. "But I'm hungry," he moaned, pressing his hands against the glass.

"You're always hungry," Prosper smiled. He opened the door and stayed with Bo near the entrance while Hornet walked up to the counter.

The girl addressed an elderly lady who had her back turned to the counter and was dusting some radios. "Scusi, I need batteries. Two. For a small radio."

The lady packed the batteries in a paper bag and pushed a handful of candy across the counter. "What a sweet boy," she said, winking at Bo. "Fair as an angel. Is he your brother?"

Hornet shook her head, "No, they're my cousins. They're just visiting."

Prosper pushed Bo behind his back, but the boy slipped through his brother's arms and snatched the candy from the counter. "Grazie!" he said. He smiled at the old lady and hopped back to Prosper.