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.
'I'm waiting,' she said, and 'Oh!' when she saw Marco.
Benito shook his head at the question in her glance. 'Not now. Later, promise. Gotta find that blond you're droolin' after.'
She looked incensed. 'I ain't drooling after him! I just think he's--nice.'
'Yeah, and Valentina just sings cute little ballads. You know where he is?'
She sniffed. 'I shouldn't tell you. . . .'
'Oh c'mon! Look--I promise I'll give you that blue scarf of mine--just tell.'
'Well, all right. He's in Antonio's over on the Rio della Frescada. I just run a message over there and I saw him. I think he's going to be there awhile.'
'Hot damn!' Benito jumped to his feet, and skipped a little along the edge of the coppo tiles while Marco held his breath, expecting him to fall. 'Bright-eyes, you just made my day!'
* * *
Benito had traded on the fact that he was a known runner in order to get into Antonio's. It wasn't a place Marco would have walked into by choice. The few faces he could see looked full of secrets, and unfriendly. They approached the table that Aldanto had taken, off in the darkest corner of the room, Benito with all the aplomb of someone who had every right to be there, even if he was only fourteen years old. Marco just trailed along behind, invisible for all the attention anyone paid him. The place was as dark as Barducci's had been well lit; talk was murmurous, and there was no one entertaining. Marco was not at all sure he wanted to be here.
'Milord--' Benito had reached Aldanto's table, and the man looked up when he spoke. Marco had no difficulty in recognizing the Caesare Aldanto from Ferrara. Older, harder--but the same man. 'Milord, I got a message for you--but--it ain't public.'
Aldanto looked at him. Startled at first, then appraisingly. He signaled a waiter, and spoke softly into the man's ear; the man murmured something in reply, picked up the dishes that had been on Aldanto's table, and motioned them to follow.
