Antonio Marcoli shouted “Pull!”
Marius pulled. The boxes shot into the air.
Now, Massimo had paid attention to his Archimedes. He’d figured out where to sit so as to balance the boxes exactly. What he hadn’t counted on was having the leg of the crane he was sitting on, left loose as it was, suddenly jerk under him like a spooked mustang. He also hadn’t counted on this happening without sufficient warning. He really, really, hadn’t counted on losing his balance.
His weight came off the spar, the spar shot into the air, and, in a neat demonstration of angular momentum, inertia, and slapstick comedy, Massimo was turned end-for-end in the air and landed head-first on the cobbles. Meanwhile, the boxes swung on the end of the tackle and plunged into the water between boat and wharf. Marius, ordered to pull on the rope, kept trying to do so—instead of just being sensible and letting go. All that he accomplished was being slammed into his boss’ back. Marius fell, still holding the rope, and sent Antonio Marcoli flying into the water.
There was a thud down below, and then a splash. Frank ran over. “What happened?” he called down into the boats,
“The messer hit the boat and then fell in!” came the reply. They were fending their boats away from the wharf, peering into the water.
Frank looked. No sign of Messer Marcoli. There! Bubbles were rising. He looked again. Perhaps three feet to the water. He sat on the wharf, pulled off his boots, and let himself down into the river.
And was brought up short with a jar. It was only three feet deep! Frank felt around in the brown and turbid water and—there! He grabbed a handful of clothes and heaved. Marcoli came up, flailing and gasping, wild-eyed and obviously stunned. He coughed once, twice, and then began to retch. Frank tried to turn him over, put himself under, and then stood up with an arm under Marcoli, letting him throw up what looked like a gallon and a half of the Brenta’s finest mud.
And then a groan. Frank tried to help Marcoli to a standing position, and was rewarded with a choked-off half-scream.
“My leg!” Marcoli screeched. He drew in a ragged breath between gritted teeth. “Broken, I think.”
Frank looked up. The rest of the Marcolis were still standing on the wharf. Frank realized that he’d moved faster than all of them. A fact that was not, he was pleased to see, lost on a radiantly smiling Giovanna.
He shoots, he scores!
That was habit, though, more than anything else. Whatever else Frank had to worry about in the world, gaining Giovanna’s approval was no longer one of them. He knew damn good and well that if he proposed to her she’d say “yes” before he even finished the sentence. She’d told him so. Three times already.
Still, it was hard not to crow with glee. Saved by the bell! He was sorry Messer Marcoli had gotten hurt, of course, and hoped the injury wouldn’t be too serious.
Just serious enough to scuttle this whole crazy expedition. That’s all Frank asked for. By nightfall, Gerry would have found their dad. Whatever his quirks, Tom Stone just had a naturally calming influence on the people around him. Between him and the leader of the pack being laid up with a busted leg . . .
What could go wrong?
* * *
By the time they finally got Antonio Marcoli into a bed at the inn they’d be staying at that night, Gerry was back.
“Dad’s gone. He and Madga both. Got called back to Venice.” The youngest of the three Stone brothers looked miserable. “I can’t believe it. We must have passed them on the river, going the other way. Nobody even noticed.”
Frank sighed and ran fingers through his air. “All right. Bad luck, that’s all. Look at it this way. Every project gets its fair share of bad luck. So we just got ours. From here on . . .”
He couldn’t finish the sentence. It was too asinine, under any circumstances, much less these.
Combine The Marcoli Bunch with “project” and you just automatically raised bad luck by an order of magnitude. By now, Frank was pretty sure that was a law of nature.