The older one reached over the table and tweaked Benito’s nose. “Where’ve y’ been, cull? Y’ haven’t been here since the Feast started—we was beginnin’ t’ think y’ didn’t love us no more.”
“Out an’ about, earnin’ a wedge or two. You tryin’ t’ get yourselves invited down to the Doge’s torture chambers? What’f there’d been Schiopettieri around?”
“Huh, Schiopettieri are all dead drunk by now. Besides there’s a crow on the door. That’s the latest ballad out of Syracuse.”
“With additions by you, Valentina, I got no doubt,” Benito snorted. “The Servants don’t hold with Moorish music, y’know, and they say the Doge is favoring ’em these days. God rot th’ senile old fool. Ye’re gonna find yourself at nubbing cheat, an’ not because of what y’ do outside the walls.”
“Listen to the kitten, telling the old cats how to prowl!” the younger woman crowed. “Who taught you, hmm? Ins and outs, ups and downs—”
Benito cleared his throat with a sideways glance toward Marco—and only then did the women seem to see him.
“Well! Who’s this? Can’t be related to you, kid—he’s too pretty.”
Marco felt his ears burning.
“This, Valentina, is my brother . . . Marco. You know.”
“Oh-ho. Brought him out of hiding, hmm? And y’ need something, I don’t doubt. Make him someone’s cousin?” Claudia—the older woman—caught Marco’s chin in one long, sharp-nailed hand, and turned his face from side to side, examining it closely. “Just feeding him’d do. I’d think a little flesh on him, and no one’d tumble to ‘im.”
Benito shook his head. “No go. He needs more; needs protection, needs somebody with weight backing ‘im. So I’m askin’—you seen that pretty blond—the one that ain’t from these parts—in here lately?”
Claudia shook her head, letting go of Marco’s chin. “Not me. Valentina-love?”
She too shook her head. “No. Know who would, though—that canal-rat that used’t work for Antonio. Maria Garavelli. She’s living with him, people say.”
“Oh, no—” It was Benito’s turn to shake his head. “Ain’t messin’ with that one. That Maria keeps an eye on ‘im; push him, she’ll know—I damn sure don’t want her knowin’ I’m trying to touch her man. She’s got a nasty way with folks as bothers ‘im.”
“Point,” Valentina agreed. “All right. Best I can say is try that runner-girl of yours, Lola. She’s been doin’ runs down along where he mostly seems t’ hang out—’specially lately.”
* * *
A fistfight broke out across the room, interrupting them. For a few seconds it remained confined to the original two combatants—but a foot in the wrong place tripped one up and sent him into a table and its occupants—and things began to spread from there.
Valentina and Claudia exchanged glances filled with unholy glee.
“Shall we?”
“Let’s—”
With reverent care, they handed their instruments to the bartender, who placed them safely behind the wooden bulwark. They divested themselves of knives—this was a fistfight, after all—then charged into the fray with joyful and total abandon.
“Women,” Benito said, shaking his head ruefully. “Well, at least they’ll come out of that with full pockets. Back way, brother.” Marco followed him outside with no regret.
Benito led the way again, back over the rooftops, climbing towers and balconies, inching over drainpipes and across the support beams of bridges until Marco was well and truly lost yet again. Fatigue was beginning to haze everything, and he hadn’t the least notion where in Venice he could be—except that by the general run of the buildings, they were still in the lower-class section of town. When Benito finally stopped and peered over a roof edge, Marco just sat, closing his eyes and breathing slowly, trying to get his wind back, with a gutter biting into his bony haunches.
“Hi!” he heard Benito call softly, “Lola!”
There was the sound of feet padding over to stand beneath where Benito leaned over the edge. “Benito?” answered a young female voice. “You in trouble?”
“No. Just need to find someone.”
By now Marco had recovered enough to join Benito in peering over the roof edge. On the walkway just below him was a child—certainly younger than Benito, pretty in the way that an alley-kitten is pretty.