“I think we may well, at that. It seems they want us to buy wholesale.”
“If we do not want to buy retail, ‘with the other peasants,’ ” Magda muttered.
“Did he really say that?”
“Ja, he did! He muttered it, but I heard him. Filthy manners, that swine.”
There was a rumble from the Marines behind them.
“Ma’am?” asked Lieutenant Trumble, “you want we should go back and maybe have a stronger word with the man?”
“Oh, no, Billy,” said Sharon hastily. “That won’t be necessary. He just doesn’t get any more of our business, is all. Bad service, and we tell everyone who wants to hear. Simple.” She smiled at him as brightly as she could, having visions of the repercussions of three of the USE’s uniformed finest turning up to terrorize a respected Venetian merchant house. Billy Trumble would be for diplomacy what a bull would be for a china shop.
Magda sighed. “We go back to the embassy, then, and plan afresh.”
“Well, maybe.” Sharon was seized by a sudden wild impulse. “How about we go do a little personal shopping instead? We’ve got money of our own, after all—and three big strong boys here to carry our purchases. That’s a rare opportunity, let me tell you.”
“Shopping?” Magda looked intrigued.
“Yeah, shopping. We call it retail therapy. Just the thing after a disappointing experience. One of the finer inventions of the twentieth century.”
Magda smiled her agreement. “Shopping!” she said.
Sharon looked back at the Marines. Billy was the only up-timer of the three, and his face was a picture.
* * *
The embassy was quickly settling into a routine of drinks before dinner, which was just getting going when Sharon and Magda got back. The down-time Marines had been introduced to the pleasure of accompanying ladies in a serious retail frenzy; thereby proving, to Sharon’s satisfaction, that blank-faced stoical response was hardwired into the male genetic code. Born three hundred years before the invention of the mall, they had developed the stance and the face without even having to think about it. Sharon had been amused, despite herself. And besides, shopping was just plain fun.
They’d gotten back, squared accounts from their own funds, and changed for dinner.
“Any success, ladies?” Father Mazzare asked.
“Not yet, no,” Sharon said. “Explored a blind alley this morning, and took the rest of the day just exploring. We’re going to get hold of Maestro Luzzatto as soon as we can and work up a real plan of action.”
She and Magda hadn’t just been shopping, actually. They’d crossed and recrossed the Rialto district as they’d picked up souvenirs, clothes and assorted pretties, and watched deals go down left, right and center. Venice was a town that, however tight margins currently were, lived and died by dealing. When the weather was good, Venetians came out and did it in the street, strolling across the piazza and in taprooms and tavernas everywhere. Wander into the right part of town and you heard everything being bought and sold. They’d even taken a look at the Palazzo Ducale, and walked through the Imbroglio, which had given its name to the kind of insanely complicated political and commercial deals that were put together there.
Eavesdropping had been fruitful. Sharon and Magda had gotten some idea of the kind of trading they wanted to do here, and they were already revising their plan of attack.
Tom was over by the fire, sprawled sideways across an armchair and perusing his notes. Given the volume of requests that had poured in as soon as the embassy arrived in Venice, Stoner had decided to postpone setting up his own laboratory in favor of purely educational work. He was about to start his lectures with a series on the practical problems of scaling lab processes to industrial ones, right here in Venice. He would be going to the university in Padua later, to do the more academic stuff on scientific method and real chemistry. He was absorbed in his material, so much so that he wasn’t paying any attention to the room around him.
“I should go reassure my husband,” Magda said. “He seems nervous.”
“I think you’re right,” Sharon agreed. “And Magda?”