The Thief Lord

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.