STELLA DIDN’T GET far. She reached the corner of the hotel and a hand reached out, snatching her off her feet. A man tried to bear hug her and drag her away, but she stomped on his foot. He bellowed and, when his grip relaxed for a split second, she threw her elbow back, connecting with his face. She got a glimpse of rage and blood before sprinting away.
She expected him to be hard on her heels and she ran as fast as her galoshes would allow. The man was big, not as tall as Nicky, but tall enough that he should be able to catch her easily, but she didn’t hear splashing behind her. Instead, a scream in German burst out and echoed around the narrow passage she’d darted into.
“Schieße!” The voice was young, angry, and shocked. Peiper’s boy.
Something had happened. She could get away.
Stella ran into a crowded street filled with shoppers, out for the first time in days. She tried to squeeze by them but ended up running headlong into baskets laden with fruit, bread, and cheese. People screamed at her, grabbing at her arms and handbag and shouting for the carabinieri. She didn’t stop and shoved when she had to shove.
As she ran, a screech of pain burst out behind her. She glanced back and caught a glimpse of the boy bowling over an elderly woman and tumbling to his knees. Attention turned from Stella to him.
“Thank you,” Stella whispered as she took a hard right and left the shopping street, leaving the shouts and complaints behind.
She had no idea where she was until she hit a small bridge. She remembered it and the small canal. It was directly behind the hotel. She could get to the Grand Canal now and maybe grab a taxi.
When she reached the other side, she heard a gasp. Looking over her shoulder as she ran she saw the boy hitting the bridge. The slippery little bastard had gotten away.
“Halte sie auf!” yelled a man. Peiper.
The boy came charging after her, but he was bloody and limping. Stella ran into a main street, darting this way and that, hoping that she was choosing wisely and not leading herself right back at them. Her lungs were burning the same as her feet, but she didn’t stop or even slow down. She couldn’t. The pain didn’t matter.
Then she heard a clamor in the distance. Engines, whistles, and the general buzz of people. The Grand Canal. It had to be. She ran for the noise. There was safety in numbers. Perhaps she could get lost in the crowd.
She emerged onto Campo San Silvestro and found a little market had popped up. She weaved through the stalls and thought she had lost the boy and Peiper until she heard a shout of outrage behind her. She was careful this time not to shove or do anything to give herself away and ran through easily without a single applecart upset.
Running off the square, she was so close to the vaporetto stop she could hear the engine revving. Was the vaporetto coming in to the stop or leaving? Stella didn’t know what she was hoping for. She just ran.
There it was. A vaporetto, pointing left and leaving the dock. Stella put on speed. She didn’t think. Not one single thought went through her head. She just reacted, racing down to the end of the dock and jumping for the boat’s gateway. She didn’t notice the chain that had been strung across it and, when she jumped, she hit it. The chain took her out at the knees. She struck a passenger first and then the deck with her outstretched arms. Her push thrust the passenger, a sizable man, into the other passengers, taking them down like bowling pins. Everyone was screaming, including Stella. The pain seared through her arms and knees, but she scrambled to her feet, gasping and looking back. There he was, the boy, running on the dock. Just when she thought he couldn’t possibly do anything to catch her, he launched himself at the side of the vaporetto.
The boy banged into the solid side but managed to grab onto the railing. He dangled off the side, yelling an odd collection of German and English curse words. Stella ran over, their eyes met and she had a moment. Just one small moment of doubt, but then she did what she never imagined she’d do to a child. She hammered his fingers with her fists. He screamed and slipped. She almost had him off. Almost. People grabbed her from behind, dragging her away.
“No!” she screamed. “He’s dangerous!”
Stella got pulled off her feet as they dragged her backward and two men in work clothes hoisted the boy over the side. He collapsed onto the deck, screeching in rage and clutching his hands to his chest. Stella fought the people holding her and struggled to her feet. A woman rammed into her, screaming and pointing off the vaporetto. Behind them on the dock, Peiper yelled and pointed a pistol at them. Everyone went down. Everyone, except the boy. He jumped to his feet and pulled a small handgun. The passengers panicked, scrambling away from him and dragging Stella along in the crush.
Stella frantically looked for an escape, maybe off the bow. But that’s where every other passenger was going. The door to the helm was open and people got shoved in with the captain. The engine revved to a painful level and the vaporetto turned sharply to the right. It was fast, so fast that people were thrown across the deck into the railing. Several went tumbling over, screaming into the canal. A huge impact listed the boat farther and Stella thought for a moment that the vaporetto would flip over. She slid across the deck, ramming into screaming people, not three feet from the boy, who fired into the ceiling, sending splinters raining down on them.
Then the vaporetto violently flipped back upright, throwing everyone from the railing to the deck. Stella fought to get on her feet, but two more impacts knocked her down. More people went over. The captain was hitting the horn. There was a tremendous grinding bang and black smoke flooded the deck. Someone screamed, “Fuoco!”
Stella didn’t have a clue what that was, but from the panic that ensued she knew it wasn’t a good thing. She scrambled for the opposite railing. The boy saw her and fired again. For a second, she thought he must’ve hit her. He was so close, not five feet. But a woman beside her screeched and collapsed. The workmen went for the boy, but he pointed his weapon at them. Stella reached the railing and looked out at a traffic jam of epic proportions. The vaporetto turning into the canal’s traffic so suddenly had caused a chain reaction. It was a sea of accidents. Looking back she knew what “Fuoco” was. Fire. Flames were shooting off the back of the vaporetto and spewing the noxious black smoke. It rolled over them in waves. She could see the boy and then she couldn’t.
Stella spotted Peiper climbing onto a boat and then another, using them as stepping stones to get to them. Behind him was another man and, if anything, he was angrier than Peiper. Blood coated the lower half of his face and his nose was crooked sideways. He had to be the man who grabbed her. Stella wasn’t sure who she was more afraid of. All she knew was that she had to get off that boat.
She turned back and climbed over the railing. If she jumped far enough, she could make it onto the small deck of a taxi. If not, she’d be in the water.
“Please help me,” she prayed as she took a flying leap.
Stella hit the bow of the taxi. It was wet and slippery. She would’ve slid right off if her arm hadn’t hit the flood lamp on the tip of the bow. She grabbed it and kept herself out of the water. The captain was screaming at her. She got her feet under her and her galoshes came in handy. Their sticky rubber got her traction and she stood up in time to see the boy get to the vaporetto railing. He aimed his weapon at her and the captain stopped screaming at her and ducked. Stella leapt at the next boat deck and the boy fired. It struck the taxi or so she assumed from the captain’s yelling. She leapt from boat to boat across the Grand Canal with the boy behind her, but he was slow, his leg injured. She kept moving, jumping this way and that. The boy fired again and again, missing her. She hoped, despite the screams, that he didn’t hit anyone else, but she couldn’t stop to look.
She reached a gondola with a crouching gondolier in the passenger cabin, leapt onto its bow, and ran down the length of it as the boy fired twice more, hitting a pylon and pinging off the gondola a foot ahead of her. She jumped from the gondola to the dock and ran down the length of it, searching for the exit. In her panic, she passed it and had to climb over the fencing and landed painfully on her hip. The boy fired again. The bullet splintered the fence and grazed her shoulder. She clamped a hand over the wound and clambered to her feet, running for a small alley, but it was the wrong way. She had to get to the train station. The Rialto. That was the closest bridge. It wasn’t far. She could make it.
Stella ran through the warren of streets and back alleys, hoping she wasn’t getting turned around. The boy was behind her. She could hear his gasping and the occasional screams he caused. She found a wider street and ran down it toward a bridge she knew. She bumped into the wall, gasping so hard she could barely get enough air. A boat’s prow pulled up under the bridge. Maybe she could get on it, but she remembered there wasn’t a dock. That was okay. She jumped before. She could do it again. She ran for the bridge, turning to the right of it with every intention of leaping on that boat. She didn’t care where it was going as long as it was going away from that boy.
Almost there. Ten feet. Five. A head emerged over the top of the stone walkway. Peiper looked right at her, a smile in his eyes. Stella skidded to a halt so fast she fell backward to the ground. Scrambling to her feet, she turned to run back to another alley, but the boy was on her. He rammed her into a wall. She shoved his chest, but he had her by the collar with the pistol in her face. They rolled along the wall, fighting for control, until they were almost at the alley.
“Where is it?” the boy hissed at her through bloody teeth.
“I don’t have it!”
Peiper screamed at them and they both looked. He was trying to climb onto the walkway but couldn’t get a grip on the damp stone. A window flung open above them and a woman looked out. She screamed and more windows opened. The Italians were yelling. Stella didn’t know what they were saying, but she had no doubt they would be coming to get the hated German boat thief.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t have it!”
“Sie hat es!” yelled Peiper.
The boy stuck the pistol’s muzzle under her chin, jamming it into her throat. His other hand searched around her body, paying particular attention to her breasts. They were eye to eye and she saw his expression change. She didn’t have it and his disappointment was immense.
“Where is it?” he hissed.
“I don’t have it. It’s gone. Hidden. You’ll never find it.”
“You must have it.”
Stella pushed her head forward, burying the barrel painfully in her throat, so that the tip of her nose touched his. “You were at our hotel. You must’ve searched it. You know we don’t have it.”
“Haben Sie es?” yelled Peiper.
“Nein!”
“Töte sie!”
The boy’s eyes went wide and Stella looked at Peiper’s malicious face that was now over the edge. He was smiling. “Kill her!”
“No,” whispered Stella. “I don’t have it. I don’t.”
“I have to get it.”
“I can’t give it to you. It’s not in my power.”
He wasn’t going to do it. Shooting at her from a distance was one thing. Up close and in her face was different. She eased her free hand up. If she could just reach her hatpin.
“Shoot her now, Gerhard!”
“I…”
“The man has the diary. Her death will break him!”
Stella stared into his eyes and slid her hand up to her face. A few more inches. “He doesn’t have it. I promise you he doesn’t.”
He believed her and relaxed his grip. Stella went for her pin. Peiper must’ve seen it.
“She killed Gabriele!” yelled Peiper. “Shoot her!”
The boy’s face changed to something savage. “My mother,” he hissed and pulled the trigger.
The pistol clicked. Nothing. Stella opened her eyes to see Gerhard’s astonishment and a hand coming around the corner. Before she could react, a pistol butt cracked the boy on the temple and he went down without uttering a single syllable. Peiper screamed and the man with the bloody face grabbed Stella, dragging her around the corner and kicking the boy’s pistol into the alley. He pushed her against the wall with a hand over her mouth and leaned over to fire at Peiper.
Peiper fired back but his shots were wild, up high, pinging off the third stories of the surrounding buildings or shattering against the stone walk. One lady bravely leaned out her window and winged a frying pan in Peiper’s direction. Others followed suit and Stella was sure she saw a couple of bricks and a jam jar go by. From the sound of Peiper’s yelling, something connected.
Several men ran down the alley armed with oars and some fish pikes. The man with the bloody face spoke in fluent Italian to them. She caught enough to know he was telling them that the German who stole the boat was shooting up their beloved city again and something about her, which they accepted readily. As he spoke, his Italian was perfect, but Stella instinctively knew he wasn’t Italian. Something was just slightly off in his inflection.
The Italians discussed something quickly and the man kept his hand firmly over her mouth no matter how much she struggled and clawed at it. Then he leaned over and whispered, “Shut up and I’ll let go.”
Stella nodded and he released her before firing around the corner as the Italian men ran into the alley. Stella could only assume they were insane, but she didn’t stick around to see what happened. The moment he released her face, she snaked down out of his grasp, scooped up the boy’s pistol, and ran for it.
She only made it a short two blocks before he caught up with her, but instead of grabbing her and throwing her against a wall again, he took her hand and ran ahead, dragging her along behind him. He was fast, a real runner, and she could barely keep her feet. She kept trying to whack him with the pistol but couldn’t make contact.
“Stop!” she yelled. “Let go.”
After a few blocks, she managed to twist her arm out of his grasp and darted away down a side street. That time she didn’t make it a whole block before he had her. She raised the pistol, but he easily pinned it to her side. “Mrs. Myna, please.”
He towered over her, his nose at an unnatural angle with blood still slick on his chin, and his brown eyes met hers.
So familiar. The eyes. The hat. The wide expressive mouth filled with straight teeth. The man on the bridge. The one who’d watched her shove the boy, Gerhard, into the canal.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
He glanced around and tipped his hat, revealing a full crop of dark blond hair. “Don’t you recognize me?” he asked in a British accent. “Not at all?”
“You were on the bridge the other night.”
“Very good.”
“But who are you?”
He smiled, crinkling his eyes, and a thrill of recognition went through her. But it couldn’t be.
His accent changed, still British but different. “Mr. Leonard Bast, lately of London, at your service.”
“But…how…” She couldn’t understand what she was seeing. He was Mr. Bast the portly writer, but he’d lost fifty pounds and a mustache. Plus, he’d grown hair and gotten a set of lovely teeth.
“I’ll explain later, but right now I need you to stop fighting me. We need to get you out of Venice immediately.”
“We? Who are—”
“Lord Bickford sent me.”
The name sparked a memory in Stella, but she couldn’t place it. “But what about my husband? Douglas. He’s Nicolas Lawrence.”
“I know who you both are and I have every reason to think that he’ll be at the station.”
Should she trust this man? He wasn’t anyone she knew. Even his name was a mystery. But what else could she do? She couldn’t get away. She couldn’t even raise her arm.
“What’s your name?”
“Mrs. Lawrence, you disappoint me. Do you really expect me to tell you the truth?”
“I guess not.”
“Then come on. Peiper may get past those men so we haven’t much time to put some distance between us.”
She went with him, thinking at the very least she’d make it to Santa Lucia. If she could just get there, she could think of something then. She shoved the small pistol in her pocket as they ran through a multitude of streets before reaching the Rialto bridge. But then he inexplicably stopped at a restaurant near the bridge and walked in, trailing Stella behind him. He spoke Italian and the owner rushed out to give them the most comfy chairs. His wife exclaimed over Mr. Bast’s crooked nose, gave him a hot towel and ran off to make them tiny cups of espresso.
“What did you say to them?” whispered Stella.
“Hold on a moment.” He opened the steaming towel, put it over his nose, and wrenched it straight with a grinding crack.
“Oh, my God.”
Mr. Bast soaked up the blood streaming out of his nose. “That’s better. Now tell me what you heard.”
“Oh, my God,” she said. “Your nose…oh, my God.”
“I assure you that no one said that.” He grinned at her with bloody teeth.
“I don’t know.”
He waited.
“Maybe that I’m your wife and a man did something. You mentioned a gun.”
Mr. Bast smiled. “Very good. I said that the mad German had attacked us and asked for help. You are Italian by the way and so am I.”
“Okay. Let’s go. I have to get to the station.”
He pointed at his still bloody face. “Do you want to attract attention?”
“No.”
“Then give me a moment to blend back in.” He wiped his face with the towel. Once his nose stopped bleeding and the crust of blood was gone, a slit below his lip started oozing again. The owner’s wife rushed out, took the towel and gave him a new one. There was a short conversation about his scarf and coat. Then the lady took both into the back.
Bast smiled at Stella. ““They’re very sympathetic.”
“Nobody’s crazy about Peiper.”
Mr. Bast’s face darkened and he pressed the fresh towel to the slit a second before the blood dripped off his chin. “I only wish I’d hit him.”
“Maybe you did.”
“No.” He sounded certain, but Stella still had hope. Hope was essential in such situations.
“Let me see your shoulder,” he said.
“Huh?” Stella looked over and saw a hole in her coat sleeve, but no blood. Once she looked, it hurt, and she wished she hadn’t. “Oh, right. It’s fine.”
“He hit you, didn’t he?” asked Bast.
Stella slid her hand under her coat to her shoulder. It was bloody, but nothing like his chin. “I think it’s just a scratch.”
He reached over and shifted her to the side. “Well, you’ve got too extra holes in that lovely new coat. Would you like me to take a look?”
“That will take extra time.”
“Indeed.”
“So no.”
“Drink your espresso.” He checked his watch. “We have time, but with the SS you learn to expect the unexpected.”
“Tell me about it,” said Stella. “How do you know what time I have to be there?”
“Most secrets aren’t really secrets, if you know which keyhole to listen at.”
“You eavesdropped on us?” This offended Stella, but she couldn’t really say why. She’d done worse and imagined she would continue in that vein.
“Not this time, not that I’m above it.” He leaned forward, grinning ear to ear. “There’s not much that I’m above.” He tilted his head to the side and became a bit perplexed. “I can’t think of anything actually.”
“Who are you?”
“We’ve been down this road.”
Stella groaned and looked at her watch. “You are frustrating.”
“You aren’t the first to say so.” He checked his bloody towel and then sipped his espresso, swishing it around to wash away the blood.
“Okay. Who’s Lord Bickford? I know that name.”
“I should say so. The Earl of Bickford is Albert Moore’s father.”
Her mouth dropped. “He sent you?”
“Not officially, but yes. The former ambassador knows what he’s about.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“You will,” he said.
“So he’s not an ambassador anymore? What happened?”
Bast took a slow sip, considered something, and said, “His son and heir turned up nearly beaten to death by Nazi thugs. That has a way of shifting one’s priorities.”
“Albert made it back to England?” asked Stella.
“Yes. He did.”
“Is he all right?”
“He’s not dead. That’s as much as I know.”
Stella checked his eyes and decided that she couldn’t tell if he really knew or not. In the end, it didn’t matter. That was something she could not change. She downed her espresso in one gulp. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
“Be patient.”
She must’ve looked as antsy as she felt because he shook a finger at her. “Don’t make a break for it. You need me.”
Stella wrinkled her nose at him. She wasn’t some incompetent boob. She could do things. She had done things. “Oh, you think so?”
Bast smiled and checked the towel again. The bleeding had slowed but not quite stopped. “As good as you are, I’m better.”
“Good at what?”
He only smiled in response.
“Fine. Can we go?” she asked.
“Enough complaining, seeing as this is your fault.”
She stiffened and got ready to bolt. “My fault? What do you know about it?”
“More than you imagine. I assure you. But I’m not talking about why you’re here in Venice, I’m talking about my face.”
Bast was the man that grabbed her by the hotel in a failed attempt to take her back inside. A member of Spanish royalty happened to be staying on the fifth floor and his plan was to have her seek refuge with him. Bast seemed to think that was something he could pull off and, from his expression, Stella believed him.
“But you fought me off. For someone so small, you are an effective fighter,” he said.
“I wouldn’t have stayed there. I have to get to Nicky.”
He pondered her quietly for a moment. “Yes, I see that now.”
“See what?” she asked.
The owner’s wife came out with a wet cloth in a bowl, dry towels, and a little tin box. She pulled up a chair and they spoke in Italian. Then she checked his wound before cleaning it with the smelly solution in the bowl, dried it, and bandaged his face with a surprisingly discreet amount of cotton and tape.
When she was done, Bast’s injury was obvious but not eye-catching. The owner came out with Bast’s coat and scarf. Both were blood-free and only slightly damp. Bast thanked them profusely and paid them more than they thought he should, but he insisted. There were many cheek kisses and Bast took her hand to escort her out of the restaurant.
Once they were outside, he leaned over, “Take note. That is how it’s done.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Please. I have to go.”
“This is Italy. The trains are always late.” He checked his watch. “You have thirty-five minutes as it is.”
“You don’t know Peiper,” she said. “That might not be enough.”