"No, messer. Messer Marcoli wants to tell everyone about the new world coming, and I want people to come and hear him, so I stay."

"How old are you?" Buckley asked, beginning to see his story taking shape and glad he'd followed this whim. "And what's your name?"

"Eight years, I think, and my name is Benito." Benito sniffed, and added a streak of snot to the grime on his already filthy shirtsleeve.

"Does your mama know you're working for Messer Marcoli? Your papa?"

"Messer, I'm an orphan. Messer Marcoli, he feeds some of us and we help him with his papers, si?"

"How many orphans? I mean, kids like you, helping Messer Marcoli?"

"Maybe ten, fifteen. It's not always the same kids. The messer, he is good to us, yes?" Then, suddenly, suspicion was written all over the little face. "What you want to know about Messer Marcoli for, anyhow?" The kid put the sheaf of flyers behind his back, and it was all Buckley could do to keep his face straight.

"It ain't just agents of the authorities who ask questions, kid," he said. He could understand the concern, though. Venice's secret police apparatus might not bother the likes of little Benito. The Council of Ten had bigger fish to fry. But the mercenary soldiers who served the city as its police force were, from the point of view of kids like him, nothing but a goon squad.

"What are you, then?" The insecure little boy had vanished, replaced with a street-smart, hard-boiled little gangster.

"I'm a reporter, Benito. I find out things and write them in a newspaper, like the papers you've got there only bigger, and we sell them. So people can read about things and know what's going on."

"Can't read," Benito said, defiant. Another sniff, another stripe of snot. "Messer Massimo, he's always at us to learn it."

"It's a good thing, Benito. A very good thing."

Another sniff, this time contemptuous. "What's the use of it, eh?"

Hoo-boy. No sense in trying to explain the value of learning for its own sake, or tell him about the wonderful world of books. Cut to the chase, Buckley. "I get paid money because I can read and write."

Head on one side. "For your newspaper?"

"Catch on fast, don't you? Back in the USE, people pay a few pfennigs for every paper they buy. Those pfennigs mount up, and I get enough money to come all the way to Venice looking for new stories to put in the paper." No sense trying to explain syndication, and freelance fees, and staff writers and stringers just yet.

"Stories? You want to ask old Tomaso, when he's sober. He got all kinds of stories about how he's gonna get rich one day." The kid snickered. "And about the real big fish he nearly caught one time. People buy him drinks to get him to tell that one."

Buckley smiled in spite of himself. "Not that kind of story, Benito. True stories, real stories. About people like you, if you'll tell it to me."

"Me?" Benito's eyes were wide. His mouth was open wider still.

"Sure, kid. I mean, not now, you're a busy man, got a lot to do and all. But maybe we could talk after the Committee meeting?"

"You're going to that?"

"Sure I am. That's the story I'm after today, Benito. How the Committee in Venice is getting on."

"Will I be in your story?" Benito asked, now clearly intrigued by the sight of his approaching fifteen minutes of fame.

"Figure you'll get a mention, sure." Buckley made a mental note to focus on Benito and his friends. A thought occurred to him. "Say, that Messer Massimo you mentioned, is he with the Committee?"

Nod. "He's Messer Marcoli's cousin."

"And he's teaching you kids to read?"

"Some of the guys are trying it, a bit. He gives them cakes if they stay for lessons." Sniff. "Me, I never. Figured it was dumb, a guy like me learning to read. Don't wanna be a priest or nothin'. Anyway," he waved the sheaf of flyers, "I gotta job."

Buckley offered up a silent prayer of thanks to whatever the patron saint of journalists was. This one was going to be real, real easy to write. "Say, Benito, before I let you get back to work, you want to know how to do the thing with the flyers? I had to sell papers myself before they let me write in 'em."

That was a little white lie. Joe had distributed flyers for a nightclub a couple of times for a few extra dollars. But it was better to give the kid the idea he was on a career path, here. Do wonders for his self-confidence, with any luck. "Here, gimme a few."

He read one over, and then demonstrated the technique for Benito. Smile, accost, smile, patter, smile and hand over the flyer. There was a rhythm to it, even.

"See?" he said to Benito, after he'd unloaded a dozen or so. "You have to smile and have a little chat with them. They're more likely to take something from you. Lots of confidence, lots of good cheer. They're more likely to buy something from you, too. Go on, kid, give it a try."

A couple of diffident tries and then Benito got the hang of it, getting maybe half the people he approached to take a flyer. Some still tossed the things aside when they'd read them.

"Thank you, Messer . . ." A frown. "I don't know your name."

"Buckley. Joe Buckley."

"Thank you, Messer Buckley. See you at the Committee!"

Buckley grinned. Before he left Benito, he got directions from the kid, but took his time about going there. He had a couple of hours to kill and the Murano glassworks were, if not fascinating, then at least relatively interesting. Until it dawned on him that the bizarre and brightly colored glassware on sale was exactly the kind of thing his mother had liked to annoy his dad by buying. Joe spent a long time after he realized that, staring into the lagoon, homesick as all hell.

Evening was drawing near when he entered the neighborhood where the Marcolis-he had trouble thinking of them as the Venetian "Committee of Correspondence," accustomed as he was to the political machine that operated in Magdeburg-held their meetings in a taverna. As he turned down the street where it was, he noticed something brownish nailed to a wall. He looked closer. It was a severed human ear, just starting to turn maggotty. Choking his lunch back down, Joe walked on hurriedly, sticking to the middle of the street and trying not to make eye contact. Talk about your rough neighborhoods!

He knew he was in the right place as soon as he turned a corner and saw some young guys kicking a soccer ball up and down, although with what level of skill he didn't know. That would be the influence of the Stone boys, he thought. Stone had been a "soccer dad," back up-time. The Venetian precursor of the sport wasn't anything Joe wanted to see up close, though. He was sure it would be best described as a gang fight with a ball in there somewhere.

There was a signboard, a rather nicely lettered one, proclaiming a meeting of the Committee of Correspondence somewhere around to the rear of the big building. Buckley wound his way to the back and went in. Inside, once through a short corridor, was a standard type of Venetian taverna. It was more in the way of a big room attached to the kitchens that was primarily used by family and residents rather than being a public establishment as such, although they had it set up at the moment to serve drink at a temporary counter under the windows along the western wall. Despite being open, the one row of windows didn't really allow that much air into the place. Between the poor circulation and the direct sunlight coming through the windows, the place was on the hot and stuffy side.

And this was still March. Buckley didn't want to think how hot the place would get in midsummer. He got himself a jug of wine and sat down to wait for the show to start.

"Hi, Mr. Buckley, doing a story on us?" It was Ron Stone, coming over from somewhere in back.

"Hi, Ron, yeah, I thought I might."

Ron grinned. "Do we get copy approval?"

Buckley grinned back. "What, you're here five minutes and you're head flack already?"

Ron laughed aloud. "Sort of assistant to the head flack, which is Massimo over there." He pointed to a slightly rounded-looking fellow having an animated discussion with a shock-headed older guy. "That's Messer Marcoli he's talking to," Ron went on. "You want an interview, just ask. We can use all the publicity we can get, I figure."

"Happy to oblige. A lot of my readers are Committee types, or at least sympathetic. They'll want to know what's going on. Say, what's the deal with Massimo teaching little kids to read?"

"Yeah, he's a nice guy about that sort of thing. He covers it all up with a lot of guff about advancing national consciousness, raising the awareness of the Italian masses and all, but I think he's basically in it for the goodness. Get a square meal into the little scamps and hope some of the three Rs takes root."

"He having a lot of success?"

"Some. A lot of the kids, the boys especially, think they'll turn into fags if they can read."