For the moment, though, she decided there was no point in trying to deny the existence of the radio. She’d tell Father Mazzare about it afterward, of course. But whatever damage was done—if any—was already done.
Sharon nodded. “Yes, we have a radio here. We can reach as far as Grantville, most evenings. Sometimes as far as Magdeburg. Through relays, as far as Luebeck and Wismar with no more than a day’s delay.”
“And Hamburg?” Cavriani asked. He was all business now. “Hamburg is, ah, very important.”
Sharon thought about it. They got only condensed news reports, down here, of the progress of the war. But with spring coming, nobody had any doubt at all that the League of Ostend was going to try to finally capture Luebeck and Amsterdam. Nor that, if they failed, Gustav Adolf’s counterattack would roll over a good chunk of northwestern Germany, in the middle of which—right smack in the middle—sat the still-neutral city of Hamburg.
She shrugged. “Impossible to say, at the moment. But even using couriers, I’d think no more than a few days’ delay. Why? What are you thinking of, messer Cavriani?” She had a feeling she knew what was coming.
“Well, if we had advance news of cargoes, ahead of anyone else . . .” Cavriani grinned, looking more sharklike by the second. “You might find that you could make some very good trades in futures.”
“And get yourself hanged!” Luzzatto snapped. “Some of those cargoes will be underwritten with state bonds. Insider trading”—again, an English term—”is illegal where state bonds are concerned. And the penalty is death.”
“But the ladies have diplomatic immunity—” Cavriani began.
“You don’t!” Luzzatto said forcefully. “More to the point, I don’t—and I won’t even be able to get away from it the way you might, with enough money. A Jew on the run in Italy is as good as a dead man.”
“Who’ll know?” Cavriani said, brightly. “Besides, we can just make discreet enquiries and make sure we don’t play a trade on anything with state bonds riding on it.”
Luzzatto seemed to relax. Apparently, Cavriani’s willingness to avoid anything that involved state bonds—whatever those were, exactly—was enough to mollify the agent. Sharon had been in Venice long enough to understand how the city worked, that way. Crossing the Council of Ten was a desperate business. Whereas simply crossing commercial rivals, while it had its own dangers, was more or less taken for granted.
Sharon was impressed with Cavriani already. As far as she could tell, no one so far had thought of that as a way of making money out of radio. No need to tell Cavriani that, through relays, they had radio all the way to the embassy in London—overlooking the main commercial port, at that—and in Amsterdam as well.
“Would this enhance our working capital?” Madga asked. “Maybe we could use this to generate quick cash flow?” From the tone of her voice, Magda was starting to get into the excitement of the scheme. She smelled money in the air. And for all that Magda was happily married to a hippie, she’d been brought up the daughter of a hardnosed German merchant.
“Oh, certainly,” said Cavriani, leaning forward. “Now, Signora Stone, here’s what we do to begin with.”
Sharon demoted herself to note taker for what followed. It seemed Magda had found a kindred spirit in Cavriani. About halfway through, just as the German hausfrau and the Venetian wheeler-dealer were concocting a scheme that would, if Sharon followed it right, involve them selling futures to themselves in a cargo they’d never actually need or want and which would never come within five hundred miles of Venice, she stole a look at Luzzatto who had become almost invisible in his own office.
His shrug and upturned eyes spoke volumes. But so did the sly smile on his face.
Sharon wondered about that. Mostly, though, she wondered at herself. Unlike Magda, Sharon had been brought up in the household of a doctor. To be sure, her father had always provided well for his family. But he could have provided even better if he’d been willing to forego his ghetto practice for more lucrative work. He hadn’t, because money had never been the principal motive in the life of James Nichols.