“Yes. Tell me, are you that Joe Buckley?”
“The one and only,” Buckley said, smiling broadly. It was always a pleasure to meet a fan.
“I have read some of your writings, you know.” It was said almost shyly. “Are you trying to find news of the diplomatic reception?”
“Yes, I am. Are you with the French embassy?”
“I am, indeed. A humble clerk, which is why I must wait outside with the other servants. The Venetians are most strict about such things.”
“I noticed. Their people are a lot less talkative than most, too.” Buckley waved up at the doorway, where the bouncers had relaxed back into their formation. He noticed that no one else was trying to gatecrash.
“Ah, that is because they are not ordinary servants on these doors. I think it would take an uncommon sort of fellow to get past such as they.” Ducos leaned close. “Agents of the State Inquisition,” he whispered.
“No kidding?” Buckley said, raising his eyebrows. That was unusual. Not just rent-a-cops on the door, but the genuine article. Secret police, at that. He suddenly had a burning desire to get inside, and a crushing disappointment that he wouldn’t.
Still, he might see what he could do here. “The French embassy, you say? A clerk? Tell me, what exactly does a clerk do in an embassy? And why don’t we find somewhere out of the cold night air? My treat.”
“That does indeed seem like a most convivial suggestion.” Ducos beamed. “I warn you, though, I know very few secrets, and I am duty bound not to divulge what paltry things I do know.”
Yes, he could salvage something from this evening after all. A clerk would be bound to know a thing or two he could print. Buckley looked around for the nearest taverna.
Chapter 18
As they left the end of the receiving line the Stones came over to Mazzare.
“Father?” said Tom, “Do we, uh, mingle now?”
It was all Mazzare could do not to break into laughter. Tom Stone was wearing a face that said Beam me up, Scotty—which completed the remarkable picture he made in the suit he was wearing. After their marriage, Tom’s wife Magda had fallen on the purple velvet drapes at Lothlorien, declaring them too good for mere curtains. How she had gotten a jacket and britches out of them was nobody’s business but her own, but the tie-dyed vest and canary-yellow shirt made the whole ensemble truly eye-watering.
And . . .
As nothing next to the Venetians. Nearly two months of the year were Carnevale to these people, and conspicuous consumption their national religion. Between the cloth-of-gold and other bright colors, the room looked like a mating dance for birds of paradise. Stoner, if anything, blended in fairly well with the other dowdy birds from northern Europe.
If Tom had been used to being the most garishly dressed individual in any given room, he was going down in purple-velvet flames tonight. “How are you bearing up?” Mazzare asked.
“Oh, fine,” Stone said, frowning the question back at Mazzare.
“Fine too,” said Mazzare, suddenly slightly embarrassed. “I thought you’d find this sort of thing, oh, I don’t know—” He waved a hand in the air, and was startled when a glass of wine was put into it by a passing servant.
Stone snagged a drink for himself. “Formal?” He shrugged. “Sure. But, you know, folks seem friendly enough. And, frankly, once you’ve negotiated the hierarchies and pecking orders of a typical commune full of anarchists and individualists, this sort of thing—” He snapped his fingers for it, ducal display and noble hauteur and all.
“I suppose it must come as something of a relief to have rules to follow.”
Stoner grinned. “Sure, man. Hippies take vacations from disorder in the army. Two weeks of drill and discipline and orders and we’re refreshed and ready for another year of letting it all hang out.”
Jones had walked up to catch the tail end of the joke. “Speaking of things hanging out, I just got taken aside by one of the Sestieri’s men.”
“Who?” Stoner asked.
“Henchman of one of the—well, I guess ‘town fathers’ does as well as any other way to put it. He wanted a word about the boys. Frank, to be precise.”