“How many orphans? I mean, kids like you, helping Messer Marcoli?”
“Maybe ten, fifteen. It’s not always the same kids. The messer, he is good to us, yes?” Then, suddenly, suspicion was written all over the little face. “What you want to know about Messer Marcoli for, anyhow?” The kid put the sheaf of flyers behind his back, and it was all Buckley could do to keep his face straight.
“It ain’t just agents of the authorities who ask questions, kid,” he said. He could understand the concern, though. Venice’s secret police apparatus might not bother the likes of little Benito. The Council of Ten had bigger fish to fry. But the mercenary soldiers who served the city as its police force were, from the point of view of kids like him, nothing but a goon squad.
“What are you, then?” The insecure little boy had vanished, replaced with a street-smart, hard-boiled little gangster.
“I’m a reporter, Benito. I find out things and write them in a newspaper, like the papers you’ve got there only bigger, and we sell them. So people can read about things and know what’s going on.”
“Can’t read,” Benito said, defiant. Another sniff, another stripe of snot. “Messer Massimo, he’s always at us to learn it.”
“It’s a good thing, Benito. A very good thing.”
Another sniff, this time contemptuous. “What’s the use of it, eh?”
Hoo-boy. No sense in trying to explain the value of learning for its own sake, or tell him about the wonderful world of books. Cut to the chase, Buckley. “I get paid money because I can read and write.”
Head on one side. “For your newspaper?”
“Catch on fast, don’t you? Back in the USE, people pay a few pfennigs for every paper they buy. Those pfennigs mount up, and I get enough money to come all the way to Venice looking for new stories to put in the paper.” No sense trying to explain syndication, and freelance fees, and staff writers and stringers just yet.
“Stories? You want to ask old Tomaso, when he’s sober. He got all kinds of stories about how he’s gonna get rich one day.” The kid snickered. “And about the real big fish he nearly caught one time. People buy him drinks to get him to tell that one.”
Buckley smiled in spite of himself. “Not that kind of story, Benito. True stories, real stories. About people like you, if you’ll tell it to me.”
“Me?” Benito’s eyes were wide. His mouth was open wider still.
“Sure, kid. I mean, not now, you’re a busy man, got a lot to do and all. But maybe we could talk after the Committee meeting?”
“You’re going to that?”
“Sure I am. That’s the story I’m after today, Benito. How the Committee in Venice is getting on.”
“Will I be in your story?” Benito asked, now clearly intrigued by the sight of his approaching fifteen minutes of fame.
“Figure you’ll get a mention, sure.” Buckley made a mental note to focus on Benito and his friends. A thought occurred to him. “Say, that Messer Massimo you mentioned, is he with the Committee?”
Nod. “He’s Messer Marcoli’s cousin.”
“And he’s teaching you kids to read?”
“Some of the guys are trying it, a bit. He gives them cakes if they stay for lessons.” Sniff. “Me, I never. Figured it was dumb, a guy like me learning to read. Don’t wanna be a priest or nothin’. Anyway,” he waved the sheaf of flyers, “I gotta job.”
Buckley offered up a silent prayer of thanks to whatever the patron saint of journalists was. This one was going to be real, real easy to write. “Say, Benito, before I let you get back to work, you want to know how to do the thing with the flyers? I had to sell papers myself before they let me write in ’em.”
That was a little white lie. Joe had distributed flyers for a nightclub a couple of times for a few extra dollars. But it was better to give the kid the idea he was on a career path, here. Do wonders for his self-confidence, with any luck. “Here, gimme a few.”