“I think the three of them should remain here with you, Master Clockmaker, while I conduct my search.”
“They will remain here, but I will accompany you. You do not have to worry about them fleeing the premises.”
Mister Diamond held his hands together, in front of his chest, agitated fingers wriggling like spider legs. “Very well.”
Master Branch gestured toward the stairs. “Shall we start with my quarters?” The two of them left, and Giuseppe listened to them moving about overhead. No one said anything, and Frederick did not meet Giuseppe’s or Hannah’s eyes, either.
Some time later, they came back downstairs, and made a search of the shop. Mister Diamond appeared to be growing increasingly frustrated, and began to curse each time he opened a cupboard or a drawer and found it empty. They moved into the back workroom.
“Where does that door go?” they heard him ask.
“The cellar,” Master Branch said. “But we never go down there. The stairs are too difficult for me.”
“Then don’t you mean you never go down there?” Mister Diamond said. They heard the cellar door open, and then footsteps descending. Giuseppe found his heart was pounding even though he knew there was nothing down there.
Mister Diamond seemed to take longer than needed and, when he returned, announced, “Well, someone’s been working in your cellar, Master Branch.”
“I have used it in the past,” Master Branch said.
They came out into the front room, and Master Branch cast a suspicious glance at Frederick as he showed Mister Diamond to the door. “I trust we can put this matter behind us?”
“Hardly.” Mister Diamond snorted. “This matter is anything but settled.”
“The guild has cooperated with you,” Master Branch said. “And even after this search you have produced no evidence. Perhaps if you could put forward any witnesses to corroborate your account —?”
“I already told you, there were no other witnesses.”
A shared look flashed between Giuseppe, Frederick, and Hannah. Why would he lie about the other two men who were there?
“Then I believe we are done,” Master Branch said. “Whether you choose to let the matter rest or not.”
Mister Diamond screwed up his mouth in a frown. “We shall see,” he said, and stormed from the shop, slamming the door behind him.
After he left, the four of them stood for a moment before Frederick spoke.
“Thank you for standing up for me, sir.”
Master Branch did not look kindly on his apprentice. “Think nothing of it. Any theft by an apprentice would, of course, bar him for life from joining the guild, and I know you would never jeopardize that for yourself.” He turned to Hannah and Giuseppe. “I trust neither of you would do anything that might imperil Frederick’s standing, either, would you?”
Hannah shook her head.
“No, sir,” Giuseppe said.
“Good. And now, I think I shall go upstairs. I arose so early this morning, I feel the need for a nap. Try and keep quiet, whatever you do, and lock up the shop if you leave.”
“We will,” Frederick said.
Master Branch left them, and a pall of silence spread out from his wake that lasted several moments before the three of them shuffled through the front door. The noises on the street broke the silence between them, and Frederick was the first one to speak.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“We already forgave you,” Hannah said.
“And that doesn’t change just ’cause we got caught,” Giuseppe said.
Frederick relaxed and smiled. “Thanks.”
“We’re going to help you find it,” Hannah said. “So we can return it.”
“It shouldn’t be hard,” Giuseppe said. “I mean, it’s the middle of the day, and that thing doesn’t exactly blend in.”
“You’re right,” Frederick said. “Let’s ask around if anyone’s seen it.”
Evening came, and they had not yet found even a trace of the clockwork man. The three of them stood perplexed on the sidewalk as Basket Street shopkeepers closed up their storefronts around them. The tantalizing smell of supper meat cooking over an open flame drifted around them. All afternoon Giuseppe had managed to avoid being seen by any of the buskers, but he knew the popular corners and had avoided them. Once or twice he had had to duck into an alley, or take Frederick and Hannah down a lesser-traveled byway, but so far he felt safe.
“It’s like it just disappeared,” Hannah said. “How could it?”
“It couldn’t,” Frederick said. “But it is a clever device. Apparently it doesn’t want to be found.”
“Wait. You mean it’s hiding?” Giuseppe had assumed all day they were looking for a metal man running amok.
“I’m beginning to think so,” Frederick said. “You two can go back to the shop. Or go home, if you like, Hannah. I’ll keep looking.”
“No,” Hannah said. “We’ll help you.”
“Didn’t you say you wanted to go up to Twine’s mansion this evening?” Frederick asked.
Hannah shook her head. “Don’t worry about that.”
Giuseppe ran down all the places they had been, and all the places they had not. He was all for helping Frederick, but knowing now that this clockwork contraption might be deliberately lying low somewhere, just tick-tocking away, made the job of finding it seem impossible. And he was getting tired of the looks they received when they asked people in the different neighborhoods if they had seen a metal man with a bronze head running around.
“Well,” Giuseppe said. “Where would a clockwork man go to hide?”
“I’m not sure,” Frederick said. “But we haven’t been down to the Quay yet.”
“There’s plenty of warehouses and buildings down there,” Hannah said.
They turned south and headed down the street toward the River Delilah. Along the way Giuseppe watched the pedestrians, and passed a few open corners, spots he could have turned into money farms if he had the green violin. His old fiddle was back at Frederick’s, down in the cellar where he had left it in the commotion.
“Giuseppe, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” Frederick’s tone was softer. “That song you were playing the other night, up in Hannah’s apartment.”
“What about it?”
“I’ve heard it before. My mother used to sing it to me, except I can’t remember the words.”
“I don’t know the words, either,” Giuseppe said. “I heard it years ago when Stephano first brought me here.”
“Where did you hear it?” Frederick asked.
“A lady was humming it out a hospital window.”
Frederick stopped and grabbed Giuseppe by the arm. “What?” he asked.
Hannah was looking at Giuseppe, too.
Giuseppe glanced back and forth between them. “What is it?”
“Which hospital?” Frederick asked.
“I don’t know. The one on Orchard Street, maybe. Why?”
Frederick looked at Hannah.
“It could be,” she said.
Giuseppe spread his hands out. “What could be?”
“My mother,” Frederick said. He looked back up Basket Street, and seemed ready to take a step in that direction.
“Do you want to go now?” Hannah asked.
“No.” Frederick turned south again. “No, we have to find the Magnus head first.”
They continued down the street, and Giuseppe wondered what that meant, but then he remembered the conversation he had overheard when Frederick had asked Hannah to go to a hospital to find out about his mother.
Halfway to the Quay, dusk firmly settled, Giuseppe turned his collar down. The crowds on the street were thinning, and the shadows were blooming, and he felt more confident. But then he saw them.
Ezio and Paolo. Up ahead, they stalked the road toward him amid a throng of pedestrians. Giuseppe stopped, Paolo looked his way, and Giuseppe ducked out of the crowd against a nearby building. Frederick and Hannah s
topped and looked at him.
“Keep walking,” Giuseppe said.
“What?” Hannah asked.
“You’re drawing attention, keep walking!”
The two moved on with puzzled expressions and backward glances. Giuseppe tried to be as flat as he could, and scanned for escape routes. The city blocks here were tightly clustered, barely inches between buildings, so no alleys. He could make a run back up Basket Street, but they would follow him. Had Paolo seen him?
Frederick and Hannah had stopped a few yards on, looking confused but unconcerned, like a couple of chickens pecking the dirt around the chopping block.
And then Paolo and Ezio appeared over their shoulders. They grinned at Giuseppe, and he ran. Frederick and Hannah called after him, but he kept running, and over his shoulder saw Paolo and Ezio closing fast.
Then, right in front of him, a farmer backed his cart of apples up to a grocer’s stall, cutting him off. He skidded and tried to circle around, but slipped on the curb. Paolo and Ezio were on him like two wild dogs on a bone.
They beat him, a hail of fists, kicks to his side and stomach. Giuseppe tasted blood, gasped for air. Their fingers dug into his skin, and they twisted his arms back to the breaking point.
“You’re not getting away this time,” Paolo laughed.
Ezio hissed in his ear, “You’re dead, you know.”
Rough cord snagged Giuseppe’s wrists as they tied his hands behind his back. Then Frederick and Hannah came running up. Frederick had picked up a length of wood somewhere, and he seemed ready to fight with it, but Hannah held him back. They looked helpless. Paolo and Ezio spun Giuseppe around, and marched him up the street.
Giuseppe heard Hannah cry, “Somebody, help!”
But he knew no one would.
No one ever did.
“So where’ve you been, Giu?” Paolo asked. “We’ve been looking for you for days now. Ever since you gave Stephano the slip.”
Giuseppe said nothing. He spat blood on the cobblestones, and felt one of his eyes swelling. A few pedestrians offered looks of concern as he staggered past them, but no one said anything or asked any questions. Some looked away as soon as they saw him.
“I’d say my piece if I was you,” Ezio said. “You can’t talk with your throat cut.”
Giuseppe had nothing to say because he felt nothing. A numbness spread over him with each step toward Crosby Street, as if his will were bleeding out, leaving a trail of it in the street.
A few blocks from Stephano’s lair, Paolo asked, “What do you want to do with him?”
“We’ll stick him in the rat cellar till Stephano gets back,” Ezio said. “That way —”
There was a thud, and Ezio lurched forward with a grunt and fell to the ground. Giuseppe turned and saw Pietro standing behind him with a crowbar.
“Hey!” Paolo shouted.
Pietro swung the crowbar, and Paolo went down, clutching his knee and howling.
“Run!” Pietro shouted. The crowbar clanged on the street, and Pietro disappeared down a nearby alley.
Giuseppe bolted in the opposite direction just as Ezio struggled to his feet.
It was hard to run, one good eye and his hands tied behind his back. He bumped into corners and stumbled often. He would not escape hampered like this, and he knew it even as he ran. He had nowhere to go, no place to hide. Ezio chased him, screaming obscenities, and Giuseppe laughed at himself for even trying, but he ran just the same, just to keep from giving up. What was Pietro thinking? He had bought Giuseppe one last race through the city, but at what cost to himself? Paolo had probably already caught him.
Giuseppe rounded a corner wide and glimpsed the Old Rock Church. Yellow light from inside warmed the windows. Giuseppe sprinted for the churchyard, and dove among the tombstones, white in the blue dusk. Ezio charged in after him. He was breathing hard, moving among the graves.
“Where are you?” Ezio shouted.
Giuseppe hunkered down.
“I used to think you were a smart one, Giu. But you’re dumb as a dead dog, ain’t you?”
Giuseppe moved away from the voice, snakelike through the grass.
“Do you want me to hurt you?”
All Ezio had to do was take a few more steps and he would see Giuseppe there on the ground. Coming here was a mistake. There was only one gate, and Giuseppe was trapped. Unless he could make it around to the church doors. Would Ezio follow him into the chapel? Stephano might have hurt Reverend Grey, but Ezio would not dare. The old man was Giuseppe’s last hope.
He struggled up to one knee and dashed around the side of the building, scraping his arm on the rough stone. A moment later he turned the corner on the front of the church. The wooden doors opened like arms, and Giuseppe sprinted right between them. He raced down the aisle between the pews up to the front of the chapel where an array of candles flickered as one.
“Hello?” he shouted.
Ezio burst into the church but stopped near the door. He looked around, panting. “Think you can hide in here?”
“Reverend Grey?” Giuseppe called.
“Hello?” came a reply.
Giuseppe turned as the reverend entered the chapel from a side room.
“Giuseppe!” The old man smiled. Then he noticed Ezio. “Giuseppe, is everything all right? My goodness, your eye! And you’re tied up!”
“I’m sorry, Reverend. I didn’t mean to come here.”
The old man rushed over to him and worked at the cords behind his back. “I’m glad you did.” Then he turned to Ezio. “You’d best get out of my church, young man.”
Ezio shrugged and stood his ground, guarding the door.
The bindings fell free, and Giuseppe rubbed his wrists where the rope had scraped them raw. “Thank you.”
The reverend’s eyes flicked to Ezio. “Which one is this?”
“The worst,” Giuseppe said.
The reverend scowled. “What would you like me to do?”
What did Giuseppe want him to do? Ezio would eventually have to leave, but he would just bring Stephano back, and no church or reverend could help Giuseppe then. He had been selfish and foolish to come back here.
“I’m sorry. It felt safe, but it isn’t.”
“What do you mean? What isn’t safe?”
“I need to go.”
“Wait,” Reverend Grey said. “Giuseppe, I have to speak with you about something.”
Ezio stepped forward, a lazy glide up the aisle. Giuseppe looked in his eyes. Something was different about them.
“I have to go, Reverend.”
“No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you —”
“Come on, Giu,” Ezio said. “Sorry, Reverend. I just need to speak with Giuseppe outside.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” the reverend shouted. He stood up tall, defiance in his watery eyes. “Get out of my church!”
“Oh, I will, old man.” Ezio pulled a knife from his pocket. A long, slender blade. “Come on, Giu.”
Ezio’s eyes looked flat, dulled, and cruel. There was less feeling in them than in the eyes of the cougar in McCauley Park. At that moment, Giuseppe knew that he would do it. Ezio would kill Reverend Grey.
The reverend glanced at the knife in Ezio’s hand. “Giuseppe, you don’t have to leave,” he said, but there was doubt in his voice.
“I know,” Giuseppe said. “Good-bye, Reverend.”
Before he could reply, Giuseppe marched down the aisle.
Ezio met him halfway. “Do I need the rope?”
“No,” Giuseppe said.
“Good, because I could always come back here if you somehow get loose again.”
“I know.”
They left the chapel, their shadows stretched ahead of them down the front walk. When they reached the street, the reverend appeared in the doorway, a narrow silhouette.
“Be strong, Giuseppe!” he called. “Be strong another day!”
Ezio chuckled.
Giuseppe flailed as he fell through th
e darkness, landing hard. Something popped in his ankle and pain sparks flared in his eyes against the black. A tumble over the floor ended in a pile of putrid rags, and he coughed and sputtered before crying out in pain. Even reaching down to cradle his foot brought a steel-jawed grimace.
“Giu?”
He strained to see in the darkness. “Who’s there?”
“Pietro.”
“Pietro.” Giuseppe winced and shook his head. “That was really stupid, Pietro. And you went and got yourself caught.”
Rats squeaked and scurried around and between them.
“I sorry, Giu.”
Giuseppe felt his swell of anger and frustration collapse. “No. No, I’m sorry. Come over here.”
He heard movement across the floor.
“Where?” Pietro asked.
“Over here.” Giuseppe held out his hand, waved it like a flag. He grazed something in the air, and then felt Pietro grab hold of his fingers. “There you are.”
Pietro settled down beside him. “I no like rats.”
“They’re not so bad. The stories aren’t true.”
“I no like rats.”
They sat together, shoulder to shoulder. Giuseppe’s ankle throbbed. “You were brave, Pietro.”
“I happy you no dead.”
“No. Who told you I was?”
“Stephano tell us you dead. He say he kill you.”
“He didn’t kill me,” Giuseppe said. He looked up, the darkness above the same as the darkness to either side. “I know he made you tell. After you saw me, Stephano made you tell.”
Pietro was quiet. “The day you mad at me, I no have money. Stephano make me to tell him. He say he think you hide extra money someplace.”
“I did. I had a green —” Giuseppe stopped. “Never mind. That’s gone. So’s the boat ticket. It’s all gone.”
“Ticket?”
“Yes, ticket. There’s a boat leaving for Italy in a couple of days. I was going … home.” Giuseppe stopped. “Pietro, talk to me in Italian. Tell me about your home, and then I’ll tell you about mine.”
Pietro paused for a moment, and then began to speak.
He had come from a fishing village on the coast, and Stephano had not bought him as he had Giuseppe. He had stolen Pietro while he played in his yard, as the boy’s mother hung laundry in back. It took only that one moment and a rag to gag him.
The Clockwork Three Page 26
