It was about a half-hour's ride from the ferry dock by the Palazzo dell'Immacolatella in Napoly to the jewellery company in Portici. Giancarlo had a big smile on his face as the motorcycle sped along the raised highway, and Luca was excited, too. His brown eyes were wider than ever as he looked around at the buildings and vehicles passing by them, in this place that was so flat and open compared to the cliffs and narrow streets of Portorosso and Genova. And then, too, there was the double cone of Mount Vesuvio, looming over the landscape.

"My book said it erupted less than twenty years ago!" Luca shouted to Alberto over the windo and motoro. "It destroyed three towns and wrecked stuff in a fourth. You should ask your grandma about it! Maybe she remembers!"

She probably did, and the idea that there was a volcano right there that had actually spewed out lava, and that people Alberto knew could have seen it... that was pretty neat. But Alberto was absolutely determined not to enjoy himself today, so he just grunted.

"What's this book you've got?" Giancarlo wanted to know.

Luca pulled it out of his backpack. "It's all about things to see in Napoli! There's a whole chapter on Pompei, and there's a page here about the Castel dell'Ovo. It says a wizard buried a magical egg under it, and if the egg is broken the castle will fall down!"

"Well, maybe we can all get together again and I can show you some of those things," Giancarlo suggested. "What do you think of that, Alberto?"

"Mike and Carlotta already said they'd take us places," said Alberto.

Luca swallowed, and made an effort to dampen his own enthusiasm. "Yeah. They did."

Alberto wondered if he ought to feel bad about that. Luca had come along on this trip mostly to keep Alberto company, that was true, but he'd also been very excited about all the stuff he'd read in that book. It would be mean of Alberto to ruin things for him... but at the same time, Alberto absolutely did not want his father to think everything was just okay now.

It was just for today, Alberto reminded himself. He just had to get through today, and then wouldn't have to see Giancarlo again for the rest of the trip. He hoped.

For a moment there was no sound but the rumble of vehicle engines and the roar of the wind in everybody's ears. Then Giancarlo said, "you like them, huh?"

"They're very nice, Sir," said Luca.

"A lot of the family think they're pretty strange," Giancarlo said, then shrugged. "I guess they would have thought Maria and I were strange, too," he added, barely audible over the other noise.

The Palazzo del Corallo itself was a three-storey pink building, with an impressive facade of white columns and ornate balcony railings. The large windows in front were open to let the sunlight in, and so that passers-by could see the showroom inside. Across the base of the balcony, just above the columns, were the words Fratelli Rossi Coralli e Cammei. Early as it still was, cars were already there, with well-dressed people arriving and heading for the building.

Giancarlo stopped the motorcycle, leaving the boys' ears ringing from the sudden cessation of the engine noise, and waved to a man with a thin brown moustache. "Buongiorno, Signor Rossi!" he called out.

"Buongiorno, Gianni!" the man replied. "These your boys?"

Giancarlo nodded proudly. "I'm gonna give them a tour."

He started the bike again and took it around the east side of the building, into a narrow lane bordered by a call covered with advertising posters on one side and an enclosed courtyard on the other. The yard contained a few small garden planters, surrounding a parking area for employees of the jewellery company. Several men were present here, smoking cigarettes and chatting in a corner. They were dressed in much more ordinary clothes than the fancy suit Signor Rossi had been wearing, and waved to Giancarlo as he climbed off the motorcycle. Alberto dug around in his ear, and after a moment the ringing faded.

"Okay," said Giancarlo, taking the box of shells and coral from Luca. "This way!"

There was a door in the back of the building, but Giancarlo led the boys back to the front and up the steps to the glass entrance door. When they stepped inside, onto a fancy tile floor that clicked under their shoes, they immediately attracted the attention of a woman with bleach-blonde hair, who'd been putting things into a glass display case. She frowned disapprovingly.

"Deliveries go around the back, Trombetta," she said. "You know that."

"No, Patrizia, it's okay," said Signor Rossi, popping up from behind another case. "He's here to show his sons around the place."

Patrizia looked down at the boys, making a very Ercole-like face, as if they smelled bad. She was wearing a pink skirt suit, and her hair was piled up on top of her head and had the curious property of not moving at all, even when she turned her head suddenly. It made Alberto wonder if it were fake, and whether it would make a sound if he knocked on it.

Luca waved awkwardly. "Actually," he said, "I'm just Alberto's friend."

Giancarlo put his hands on Alberto's shoulders. "This is Alberto."

"Alberto Marcovaldo," said Alberto. It would be so easy, he thought again, to say Scorfano and ruin everything... so easy, in fact, that for a moment he wasn't entirely sure he hadn't. Especially when he felt his father's grip on him abruptly tighten in surprise.

"Yes. Well," said Giancarlo, quickly removing his hands. "Boys, this is Patrizia Gargiulo – she manages the showroom and sales parts of the business. Marcello Rossi and his brother Milo own the company."

"Hello, Sir," said Luca.

"Hi, there," said Signor Rossi. "Let's see what Signor Trombetta has for us today, hmm?"

Giancarlo scooped up the box, which he'd put on a case while he'd introduced the boys, and handed it over for his boss to look through the contents. At a first glance, at least, the man seemed very pleased with what he found.

"Not a chip on any of them," Giancarlo promised.

Rossi nodded. "Show the boys around. I'll meet you in my office after, and we can figure out what these are worth." He headed towards a flight of stairs, stepping over the rope that kept customers from climbing it and then vanishing as the steps turned a corner.

Patrizia still didn't look like she thought this was a good idea. "Don't touch anything," she told the boys, and returned to her work.

"Come and see this one, it's my favourite," said Giancarlo. In a tall case in the centre of the room, surrounded by smaller items of jewellery, was a perfect oblong about four centimetres across, carved with a depiction of a palace. Windows, statues, and even individual stones in the walls had been painstakingly scratched through the white outer layer of the shell, revealing various amounts of the pink underneath, and then everything polished to a smooth finish.

"Wow," said Luca. "Did you bring them that shell?"

"I certainly did!" Giancarlo bragged. "They're working on two more like that, with different landmarks – they're going in a tiara for the Queen of Danimarca, all from shells I found! I also sold them the coral over here." He led the way to another case, displaying earrings and necklaces made of bright red coral beads. "None of it's dyed. I only bring them the best."

Luca was enthralled, but he always was when he was seeing or learning something new. Alberto remembered feeling very much the same when he'd seen the artifacts in the naval museum in Lione. Knowing that Alberto's father was the one who'd found that old bell or the beautiful ship's figurehead had made him seem so cool, like a treasure hunter. This was very similar, just a different kind of treasure... and yet it really wasn't the same at all.

A lot had happened since then, and Alberto now knew that as well as being a treasure hunter and adventurer, Giancarlo Scorfano was a liar, a thief, a gambler, and an alcoholic. At the time he'd learned about it, Alberto hadn't even known what those things really meant but he'd felt like they were bad. Most had turned out to be worse than he'd imagined.

"Alberto, look," said Luca, pointing at a large cameo with an image of a mermaid on a rock – this was a mythical creature Luca had learned about in Genova, and the two boys figured it had originated with somebody seeing a sea monster lady only half in the water. The depiction was very detailed, with the curls of her hair and the scales of her tail carefully delineated. The artist had even cut through the white shell to different depths, so that the scales appeared to be slightly different colours.

"That's another one of mine," Giancarlo said with a grin. "Do you want to see the workshops? Come on, this way."

The boys followed him through a door marked Solo Dipendenti, and down a flight of stairs. Halfway down the steps, they could already hear buzzing and hammering sounds, and at the bottom they passed through another door into a busy room with rows and rows of work desks. Since it was still early, the place wasn't entirely up and running yet, but a few men were already at work. They had miniature hand and power tools to carve little pieces of agate or shell into cameos, or to shape coral into beads.

"Be very quiet," Giancarlo warned them. "If you scare somebody they could ruin a piece."

They therefore kept silent as they walked up the rows of desks. The carvings were so tiny, the men working on them had magnifying lenses attached to their glasses or held in a hand. On the walls above the desks were pinned pieces of paper with drawings of faces, flowers, animals, and other subjects for carvings. As they passed, some of the workers glanced up, but they just nodded and smiled at Giancarlo, as if he were well-known here.

"Cameo carving around here is as old as Ancient Greece," Giancarlo told the boys, speaking just barely above a whisper. "You want to see the city, I can take you up to the archaeological museum, and you can see the Tazza Farnese. It's over two thousand years old! A lot of places nowadays dye the shells and just mould layers of glass to get the same effect, but the Fratelli Rossi company does it all by hand with natural materials."

He sounded very proud of himself, Alberto thought, like he was part of something really special here. Alberto knew that feeling, too... he felt that sometimes when he was fishing with Massimo, or making deliveries. It was the sense of being useful, that people recognized and appreciated what you did and you were part of something bigger and more important than yourself. It was a good feeling, one Alberto hadn't had nearly enough of in his life until he'd moved in with Massimo.

Probably not one Giancarlo felt very often, either.

At the end of the room was a row of tables where jewelers were putting the finished cameos into their settings. The carvers had all been men and so were most of these – except one. This was a tall, wiry woman in her early thirties, with short dark hair and a polka-dot kerchief tied around her neck. She was bent over a piece, using tweezers to place tiny glittering gems into settings around a cameo portrait.

When she realized she had visitors, the woman raised her head, took her reading glasses off, and smiled.

"Ciao, Gianni," she said.

"Morning, Polly," Giancarlo replied. "Guess who I brought to visit!"

Polly put her tools down and turned her chair. She looked at both boys in turn, but focused on one. "You must be Alberto, right?"

Alberto blinked. The last several times he'd met somebody his father knew, they'd had no idea Giancarlo had any children. The only exception had been Signor Rossi earlier, and he'd assumed Signor Rossi only knew because Giancarlo had to ask permission to bring them here. "He told you about me?" Alberto asked.

"Of course he did," said Polly. "He said you lived up in Liguria with your Mamma's family, but he'd see if he could get you to come and visit this summer. You look just like your father."

Alberto looked up at Giancarlo, who was grinning.

"Right the first time," Giancarlo told Polly. "And this is his friend Luca. Boys, this is Policarpa Sorrentino. She's the only woman who works here, and the only one who's allowed to set diamonds."

"I've been looking forward to meeting you," Polly said.

Then Alberto understood. This trip hadn't been about Giancarlo wanting to show off his work, the job he'd managed to hold for almost a year now while staying out of trouble – although he had. This was also, and mostly, about wanting to impress this woman. Giancarlo was introducing Alberto because he wanted Polly to think he was a good father.

In that moment, as that idea rankled, Alberto realized there was more than one thing he could say here to ruin everything. He could call himself Alberto Scorfano and give his father's secret away, but he still wasn't going to do that. He had another option.

"Huh," he said. "I never heard of you." Alberto glanced up at his father, then looked Polly right in the eye and asked innocently, "are you married? The girlfriend in Barecellona was married."

It shouldn't have been so gratifying to watch the colour drain from Giancarlo's face. Luca covered his mouth with both hands, while Giancarlo froze as if he'd turned to stone. For a moment even his eyes didn't move, but remained perfectly locked on Alberto's face.

"No... no, I'm not married," said Polly cautiously. She looked at Giancarlo for an explanation.

Giancarlo laughed nervously, his cheeks turning from white to pink with embarrassment. "He's talking about Teresa," he said. "She's just a friend."

"A friend who didn't want her husband to know you'd been there," Alberto reminded him.

"Alberto!" Luca grabbed his arm. "Maybe you shouldn't..."

"No," Alberto interrupted him. "I think I should."

Around them, the room was slowly falling silent as workers put down their tools and looked up, aware that something potentially scandalous was happening. Polly sent glares to several of them, and then turned her chair around again. The first time she'd done this, it had made a scrape noise, but that had been barely audible over the sounds of people working. Now it was so loud it seemed to echo, and effectively silenced everybody who hadn't already been quiet.

"I have to get back to work," she declared, for the benefit of the entire room. "We can talk later, Gianni." Her voice promised it would not be a pleasant talk.

Alberto smirked.

"Right," said Giancarlo, who had turned even redder as he realized everybody in the room was looking at him. "Well. Come on, ragazzi, let's go get some soda pop or something." He put his hat on, grabbed Alberto's wrist, and marched up the stairs, leaving Luca to run after them. There were several disappointed sighs from the other jewellers and carvers.

The stairs took them back up the showroom. Giancarlo smiled and waved at Patrizia as if nothing were wrong. She looked like she wanted to say something in reply, but then the bell on the door jingled as customers came in, and she had to go talk to them instead. Giancarlo shooed the boys up the steps and around the corner into a long hallway with doors off both sides of it. This had no windows and was lit by bulbs, even in the daytime. There, Giancarlo quite literally cornered Alberto, with his hands on the wall on both sides of him to block any escape.

"What the hell did you say that for?" he demanded.

"Because it was true!" huffed Alberto.

"That was..." Giancarlo shook a finger in his son's face, sputtering with rage as he fought for words. "You did that on purpose!"

"I sure did!" Alberto agreed.

Maybe Alberto should have been terrified right now, but he wasn't. He felt like he was ten feet tall. No matter how angry Giancarlo was, there was nothing he could do to change what had just happened. Even if he managed to convince Polly that Alberto had been lying, she would never completely trust him again, and he knew it. Last year, Giancarlo had threatened to take Alberto away, to Scozia or Olanda or somewhere else, and he could have done it if he'd really wanted to because he'd been entirely in charge of the situation. This time, Alberto was the one in charge, just like he'd been the day he'd walked away in the rain.

Giancarlo sucked in a breath through his teeth, looking so furious he might actually explode. Alberto braced himself, but then Luca dashed over to duck under Giancarlo's arm and stand between the two of them, holding up his backpack like a shield. This seemed to startled Gianarlo and he straightened up a bit, but the tense standoff lingered a few moments longer, until a door opened further up the hallway and a man came out.

"Ciao, Sandro!" called out the voice of Signor Rossi.

"Ciao, Marcello," the man named Sandro replied. "Scuzi, gentlemen," he added, passing by Giancarlo and the boys on his way to the stairs.

That brought Signor Rossi out into the hallway to see who else was there. Giancarlo quickly stepped away from the two boys.

"Oh, Trombetta," said Signor Rossi. "I wasn't expecting you to be finished so quickly. How did the boys like our workshops?"

Nobody answered for a moment, but then Luca plucked up his courage. "It's very..." he squeaked, then stopped, coughed twice, and continued in his normal voice. "It was very interesting, Sir. Signora Trota back home likes to make jewellery out of shells, but she uses the whole shell. This is much more delicate." Whether the crack had been due to puberty or anxiety was impossible to say.

Rossi nodded. "We've got a few less-expensive pieces, if either of you would like to take a gift home for your mothers," he suggested.

"Thank you," said Luca, "but my Mom doesn't really wear things like that."

"My mom is dead," said Alberto flatly.

Rossi blinked, startled, as he realized something was wrong. He looked at Giancarlo for an explanation.

Giancarlo smiled awkwardly. "Let me show you those specimens," he said. "Boys, you just wait right here and keep quiet. Don't get into trouble," he added with a glare at Alberto.

Alberto glared right back.

Rossi let Giancarlo into his office and the door shut behind them. Luca gave a sigh of relief, and sat down on a bench.

"Why did you say that?" he asked Alberto. "You only made him mad."

"I said it because it's true," Alberto declared. "That woman deserved to know he's a liar. Teresa already knew and she put up with him anyway, so that's her fault." Policarpa Sorrentino actually looked a bit like Teresa, Alberto thought... they were about the same height, and they both had dark hair, almost black, and brown eyes. "I had it under control."

Luca nodded. "We should have gone to Pompei," he said glumly.

They waited in the hall. When Alberto went up to Rossi's office door and put his ear to it, he could hear voices talking about prices and the quality of the shells, discussing things like translucency and bloom and other words Alberto weren't sure of the meaning of. Luca pulled out his book again and searched through it for a section he hadn't already read.

It didn't take long for Alberto to get bored with eavesdropping. He didn't have a book with him and wouldn't have felt like reading if he had – he'd gotten a lot better at it, but it still wasn't exactly fun like it was for Luca. Instead, he wandered towards the stairs.

"Your dad said to stay where we are," Luca reminded him.

"I'm not gonna go far," Alberto grumbled. Of course... he could. Nonna Sofia had given him money for the telephone, and he also had the money Massimo had given him for the train. He could take Luca and go all the way home if he really wanted, but he still wasn't that desperate. The Gennaris still liked him, the rest of the family seemed mostly okay, and Luca would be disappointed if they never got to see anything from his book. The whole trip could still be salvaged at least a little. He just had to get through the rest of the day, and then he was pretty sure Giancarlo would never want to see him again.

There were stairs at both ends of the hallway, which turned two corners and then met in the middle, on a landing above the showroom. Alberto could lurk on the steps and see some of what was going on, while the people below wouldn't see him unless they looked for him. There were customers there now looking at the jewellery – a man was in the middle of draping a pendant around a woman's neck to show her how it looked in a mirror, and Patrizia was chatting with a man who was looking at the case of things made from Giancarlo's shells. The man's back was to Alberto, but Patrizia was smiling and Alberto got the impression they were flirting. He couldn't tell for sure, because they weren't speaking Italian. Instead, it was something with thick vowels and rolled r's that he thought was probably French, but he wasn't certain.

Patrizia opened the cabinet to take an item out for the man to see, and the man turned to look over his shoulder at the case with the coral bead jewellery in it. With his attention focused on that, he didn't notice Alberto – but Alberto definitely saw him, and he could feel his stomach tie itself in a knot. He knew that man.

The man was tall and muscular, with a short dark beard and heavy brows. He was wearing a nice suit and a tie, but the last time Alberto had seen him he'd looked significantly scruffier as he'd climbed into a car on a beach near the Catalan town of Portlligat, leaving Alberto and his father behind with no money and no clothes. Alberto couldn't remember his name, but he knew he was a criminal. What was he doing here, shopping for pretty jewellery at the place where Giancarlo worked? Did he know Giancarlo worked there?

Earlier, Alberto had observed that he had the power to ruin his father's life if he told anyone that Gianni Trombetta the shell diver was really Giancarlo Scorfano the bank robber. This man could do the same thing. He probably wouldn't because he'd participated in that crime himself... but he could.

Very carefully, Alberto backed up the steps until he was sure he was out of sight of the showroom, then hurried back up to Luca, who still had his nose in his book. Alberto pushed the cover down with one hand to look his friend in the face.

"What's wrong?" Luca asked.

"One of the guys from the bank robbery is downstairs," Alberto said. "He's talking to Patrizia."

Luca carefully closed the book. "Why? What's he doing here?"

"I don't know," said Alberto, then an obvious answer occurred to him. "He's a thief. He probably wants to steal something." He looked in both directions, but nobody else was in the hallway.. "He knows what I look like, so I need you to go keep an eye on him. He's got a beard and bushy eyebrows. Let me know if he leaves."

"Got it." Luca put the book back in his bag and stood up. "What are you gonna do?"

Alberto wasn't sure. "I... I'm gonna try to tell my father," he decided.

Luca crept down the steps, while Alberto went up to the door of Signor Rossi's office. He could still hear voices within, although they weren't talking about shells anymore. Signor Rossi was telling a story about something that had happened at his sister's wedding, and Giancarlo was laughing at it. Alberto knocked on the door.

"Who's there?" Rossi asked.

Alberto opened it a bit. "I need to talk to..." he began.

"Alberto!" Giancarlo stood up. "I told you to wait outside."

"I need to talk to you," Alberto repeated.

"Not right this moment, you don't," said his father. He came to try to push Alberto back out into the hall. "Signor Rossi and I are discussing business."

"No you're not, you're talking about a wedding!" said Alberto.

"Were you eavesdropping?" Giancarlo demanded. "Didn't Massimo teach you any manners!"

"You sure..." Alberto began, but then stopped himself and took a deep breath, swallowing the third word that had been waiting in line. "One of your friends from Spagna is downstairs."

Giancarlo, too, nearly said something that wouldn't have helped the situations, but then he seemed to actually hear what Alberto had said. "What, you mean..."

"The French guy," said Alberto. What could he say to get this across without making Signor Rossi suspicious? "You said you used to work with him for Signor D'Auvergne in Lione."

Giancarlo gave him a suspicious look. "You're sure?"

"Absolutely sure," Alberto promised.

"What's going on?" asked Rossi.

"Apparently there's an old friend of mine downstairs," said Giancarlo. "Can we wrap this up?"

"Of course," Rossi said. "Let me just open the safe."

"Grazie." Giancarlo turned back to Alberto. "Can you make sure he doesn't leave before I get to say hello?"

"Luca's doing that," Alberto replied.

Signor Rossi counted out the money and Giancarlo shook his hand and wished him well. Once the office door was closed again, Alberto's father told him to wait at the top of the stairs, but Alberto wasn't going to do that. He quietly followed Giancarlo down, and watched him step over the rope to enter the showroom.

Patrizia said something in French, then switched to Italian. "Signor Trombetta," she said. "Monsieur Godin was just asking where we get such beautiful shells." She sounded very pleasant now, as if she had no problem with Giancarlo's presence in the showroom at all. She then said something to Godin in French, which included the fake name Gianni Tromebetta. Polite greetings were exchanged.

"This is good luck," said Godin, with a much heavier accent than Alberto remembered him having in Spagna. "I am looking for a diver. Are you interested in a job, Signor Trombetta?"

"No, thank you, Monsieur Godin," Giancarlo replied. "I'm quite happy in my current job."

"You haven't even heard what I'm offering," said Godin. "Maybe we can talk about it."

Alberto couldn't see the expression on Godin's face, but his voice was blandly polite and sounded as if he were struggling a bit with the language. The latter was not true, and the former must not have been either, because Giancarlo did not refuse again.

"Let me just make a quick telephone call," he said, and returned to the stairs to wave Alberto and Luca back up."

"Who are you going to call?" asked Alberto. "Nonna Sofia?"

"Are you crazy? She'll kill me," Giancarlo hissed. "I'm gonna call somebody to take you two... not back to her place. Where? Oh, of course, out to Leo's. I said I'd take you there." He got them to the top and knelt down in front of another door to pick the lock. When he got it open, this led to a much darker, narrower back stairwell. "Not a word about this to Ma, understand?" Giancarlo asked the boys.

"No, Sir," said Luca.

Another locked door at the bottom opened onto the courtyard and parking lot. Giancarlo left the boys there while he checked the street beyond to make sure there were no more of his old accomplices around, then returned to drag them over to a small shop. There, he pulled out the money Rossi had given him and asked the clerk for change so he could use the telephone.

"I can't open the register without a sale," the young man replied.

Giancarlo grumbled and bought the boys each a bottle of lemonade, then told them to keep a lookout while he went into the phone booth outside. They watched as Giancarlo gave the operator a number, and when somebody answered he said, "hello, I need to speak to Granchio. He works in the drydocks. Tell him it's Trombetta." He reached out and shut the door of the booth so the boys couldn't listen to the rest of the conversation.

Luca found a ledge to pry the cap off his lemonade. "Are you gonna be okay?" he asked Alberto.

Alberto shrugged.

Giancarlo's phone conversation was very brief. Less than a minute later, he opened the door again and came out. "Okay," he said to the boys, putting his hat back on. "I need you two to stay right here and not move from this spot unless you see Godin again or one of the others. Then you hide. Otherwise wait here, and a friend of mine is coming to get you. He'll be here in about half an hour, and he'll drop you off at Leo's. Don't tell anyone what happened today." He pulled the wad out of money out of his pocket again, took one bill off the top of it, and handed the rest to Alberto. "Give that to your grandmother. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir," said Luca.

Alberto looked at the money and entertained a brief fantasy about buying a Vespa and driving back to Portorosso. That would be stealing, though, and unlike his father, Alberto was not a thief. "Got it," he said.

"Great. Right here," Giancarlo repeated, pointing at the pavement at his feet. Then he hurried back towards the jewellery company.

For the second time that day, the boys could only sit and wait.

"You've gotten better at talking to people," Alberto observed. He remembered their first day in Portorosso, when Luca had made him ask Giulia about the race rather than say anything himself. Today he had more than once asked a question of a complete stranger.

"If I get scared, I remind myself it's not nearly as bad as jumping off a cliff or having people all around me with harpoons," Luca said. "I did both of those and I'm okay, so talking to people should be no problem. Silenzio, Bruno!"

"Silenzio, Bruno!" Alberto agreed, raising his bottle of lemonade as if in a toast.

A few more minutes went by. The sun was hot on their faces, making them grateful for the lemonade. There were no clocks where the boys could see them, so they had no idea how much time was left to wait.

"It was nice of your dad to show us the men working," Luca offered. "I can't believe they can carve stuff so small."

Alberto shook his head. "Nothing he did today was nice. All of it was selfish. He only brought us because he wanted to look good for that woman. He bought us drinks because the man wouldn't give him phone money. And he called his friend to get us so that we can take his money home and Godin won't be able to steal it from him. That's all."

"Oh," said Luca, audibly disappointed.

Giancarlo had given no indication what his friend Signor Granchio looked like, so Alberto and Luca carefully watched everybody who came along. Most ignored them, although a few gave disapproving looks to the two boys who were just sitting around drinking lemonade instead of doing something useful. Finally, a small truck pulled up right in front of them, and a man looked out the window.

He appeared to be at least ten years older than Giancarlo, but it was hard to say because he had clearly spent much of his life in the sun – his skin was darkly tanned, almost to the point of being leathery. He had close-cut hair under a grey tweed cap and a tin moustache. He was wearing a pair of blue Genovese overalls and horn-rimmed sunglasses, and he smelled strongly of tobacco smoke.

"Alberto and Luca?" he guessed, looking them over.

"Yes, Sir," said Luca.

"That's us," Alberto agreed.

"Hop in," Signor Granchio said, and opened the door for them to climb into the passenger seat.