The Good Thief's Guide to Venice Read Online Free Page B

fortune, regrettably.’
    Victoria squealed in frustration and stamped her heel into the ground. It wasn’t her smartest move ever. A cluster of pigeons scattered in a burst of wings, charting a course for her hair. She yelped, flailing her arms like she’d stumbled into a bat cave.
    Once the last of the winged rodents had cleared the air space in the vicinity of her head, she cursed me under her breath and bit down on her lip. ‘You don’t fool me, Charlie. You’ve told me before what that book means to you. What it means for your writing.’
    The joke was Victoria didn’t know the half of it. Stealing the Falcon had involved one of the biggest gambles I’d ever taken. As a professional thief-for-hire, ripping off one’s employer is a dumb move. The chances of being caught are high, because you’re an obvious suspect, and even if nothing can be proven against you, you still risk causing irreparable damage to your reputation. So rule one of the burglary game is never to bite the hand that feeds you. It’s a good rule. A fine one, even. And that’s why I’ve seldom broken it.
    But I broke it for Hammett.
    At the time in question, my client was a bloated old Etonian – a boastful lush who’d inherited a vast and sprawling family estate that happened to include a renowned library of rare volumes. The library was of scant interest to him – in fact, I was reliably informed that the only thing he read for pleasure was the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack . His passion, you see, was cricket, and I’d been hired by a go-between to acquire a piece of memorabilia for his private collection – a bat that had been used by a particular player in a particular Test that I’m not at liberty to mention just now. Needless to say, I stole the bat and I was paid handsomely for my toils, but from the moment I’d heard talk of my client’s library of books, I’d had a hankering to break in and peruse it.
    Several weeks later, when I happened to know that he was in Yorkshire for a County Championship match, I did precisely that, and it’s fair to say the quality of the collection was far beyond anything I could have anticipated. But the greatest surprise was on a shelf high up to my right, where I happened to notice a familiar yellow dust jacket winking out at me. Somewhat breathlessly, I wheeled across a stepladder and took the book down, turning it in my hands and gently opening it to the first printed page where, to my life-long surprise, I found that my hero had signed his name, in his very own hand.
    I wanted to take the book, right there and then, but I reminded myself what a hazardous thing it would be to do, and I reluctantly slipped it back in its place. But from that night on, through the days and weeks that followed, I could think of little else. Ideas of snatching the book plagued me during the day and haunted me in my dreams. I’d swiped plenty of things by then – some for myself, others for clients – and nearly everything had been worth an awful lot of money. But with The Maltese Falcon , it was the first and only time I’d truly known what it meant to covet something. I was obsessed by the book, I couldn’t rest without taking it, and gradually I convinced myself that there was a good chance its theft wouldn’t be noticed by the library’s cricket-obsessed owner. So I broke in, and I nabbed the Falcon , but I also left England for the Continent the very next day, at the start of what was destined to become my roving lifestyle throughout Europe and beyond.
    ‘Oh, I’ll get by,’ I told Victoria, doing my best to rid my mind of the memories I’d just conjured.
    ‘Will you, though?’
    I reached for her chin, lifting it with my thumb. ‘Well, you tell me,’ I said, in what I hoped passed for a carefree tone. ‘How about we head home and you can start reading my new manuscript?’
    A sad smile flirted with her lips. ‘Oh, terrific. No pressure there, then.’
    Reaching for her hand, I swung her arm