Caterina put on a special dinner for us. There were no other hotel guests at dinner, just relatives. It was weird suddenly meeting about ten more relatives. Some of them didn't speak English, so Charlie and me sat next to Santo. He interpreted for us when the oldies got excited and broke into streams of Italian. Everyone talked and ate and drank at the same time. The long table overflowed with loads of different dishes; I wished we'd eat like this at home.
Santo was glad we played real football. I didn't tell him I barracked for Manchester United; he might want me to barrack for an Italian team. He was very polite for someone who'd played such a devious trick. I was warming to him, even though he'd made me worry about catching a contagious disease.
Charlie and me had to answer lots and lots of questions. Even before we'd finished the main meal, I'd repeated sixty times how old I was, my favorite sport and my favorite place in Italy. I reckoned you didn't really know someone just because you knew a bunch of facts about them. Important stuff was that you didn't hog the ball in a game, because you wanted to win the game more than you wanted to score a goal. Or whether you could crack a joke in some boring class with some boring teacher and make the class and the teacher laugh. Or whether, at school, you took the punishment alone when only you got caught pulling out the leads for the DVD player, because no one wanted to watch a dumb documentary about rare frogs.
Everyone sitting at the table told us what we must see in Venice. I kept my mouth shut. They wouldn't want to hear that I wasn't interested in checking out art, churches, towers or islands, because I liked doing, not looking. Mom and Dad were going to some boring modern art museum first, because a wonderful exhibition was about to finish.
We were lucky to be able to help Santo with his job, because we might find bad guys, crime and action.
***
The next morning, after breakfast, Charlie and me met Santo in the hotel foyer. He wore a police uniform; it wasn't as good as the Carabinieri uniform, but I didn't mind because he'd arranged for us to go on his police boat.
Caterina came out of her office to say goodbye. "Santo will show you the real Venice. When you're out and about, look past the historical buildings and the tourists. Look for the ordinary and you'll see Venice is a city of people without the cars."
Frowning, I whispered, "I don't want ordinary. I want action!"
She patted me on the head as if I were four years old. After we said goodbye to Caterina and she was too far away to hear, I asked Santo, "What sort of criminals do you catch?"
"We have very little crime." He stood taller and smiled down at me. "Venice is a pleasant place with pleasant people. Sorry, Max."
"So what do you do?" I asked as we left the hotel and went out into a stone-paved courtyard.
"Yeah," repeated Charlie, "what do you do?"
Charlie and me stopped walking and waited for his answer. The courtyard was empty, except for a couple of pigeons. Still it felt like the different-colored two-storey houses surrounding us were leaning in to listen.
"I keep my finger on the pulse of Venice. I talk to the residents." Santo stuck his chin in the air and kept walking.
Charlie frowned and ran to keep up with him. "So you're a public relations officer?"
Santo shook his head. "No, no. It's my job to look out for the detail that doesn't make sense."
"Have you ever solved a crime?" I had to know the truth. All my dreams of seeing real action and catching real bad guys weren't sounding too likely.
Santo looked uncomfortable for a second before he rubbed his chin. "We don't have much day-to-day crime, but three years ago there was a clever theft of twelve priceless paintings. I'm surprised no one has made a movie about it."
"Really?" I said too loud as we entered a narrow alley. "Were you on duty?"
Santo laughed. "The night it happened no one realized there was a robbery. This is what we think happened. The mastermind of the robbery knew that every year a very famous composer, who owned a palace on the Grand Canal, hosted a big New Year's Eve party."
"Mozart?" I asked as Santo opened a big iron gate for us.
Charlie elbowed me. "He's dead!"
"The composer's name is Pierre." Santo continued. "I suspect the mastermind even went to one of those parties and that was where he got the idea. We are sure that over a year before the thefts, he began to plan. He arranged for his own people to work in the organizations that looked after the New Year's Eve party. Pierre used the same businesses every year, because they knew what to do and they understood his taste."
I nodded, but part of me wondered if he was making up a good story.
"The accomplices took all sorts of jobs. One did the flowers, a couple were involved with the catering, two helped set up the orchestra and the most important person of all was in charge of security."
We stepped out into Piazza San Marco. It was early, so there were lots of pigeons and hardly any people. "Wow!" I wanted to run through the middle of the piazza and make the pigeons fly off, but Santo headed away from the piazza. "Are they in jail now?" I asked.
Charlie elbowed me again. "Don't jump to the end. I want to hear the story as it happened."
Santo grinned. He loved that we couldn't wait to hear the whole story - I could tell. He continued, "The brilliant part was that none of the accomplices knew the others were accomplices before the night of the theft. They each had a job to do and they did it. On the night, they identified each other by a silver ring they wore on the middle finger of their right hand."
"You must have caught them, if you know that!"
"No," said Santo, "I worked that out from the security tapes." He sighed. "Anyway, what we think happened is that the man in charge of security was able to deactivate the alarms protecting the stolen paintings. He did it one by one during the course of the night. Nothing was done in a hurry. It was done slowly and carefully."
Charlie sounded impatient. "So how did they take the paintings without anyone noticing?"
"When the alarm had been switched off, the lookouts who were security guards made sure no one was nearby and the painting, including the frame, was switched. We're pretty sure copies were made up and they were brought in by either the men who set up the orchestra or the caterers."
"When did the owner of the palace discover the paintings were fakes?"
"Over a week later. When there was no trace of the thieves. They'd all left their jobs and they'd used fake names and identities. We had no leads at all. The mastermind, whoever he was, was very clever."
"Does that mean you didn't see the detail that didn't make sense?" I asked.