The boat chugged slowly along the canal as they searched for the blue boat that their kidnapper escaped in. As Arny was about to raise a complaint, Gretta pointed with excitement. "There! Right there by that yellow building." She turned up the throttle and their boat banked and headed across the narrow canal.

The boy was wary at first but he recognized his friend's boat and Gretta was waving some Euros in his face, which he took before giving her the information she wanted. He started his motor and pulled away from them leaving a frothy wake as he sped down the canal.

"You up for a rescue, partner?"

"Can't we call the police and let them handle the whole thing?"

"Sorry, Arny, there would be too many awkward questions... you know."

"Right, your trail of bodies." The look made him blush and he pulled a face, mumbling an apology. "Sorry."

"Me too." She motored across the canal and docked the boat, tossing a line around the small concrete post.

Inside the building they stopped and stood quietly listening. A door closed and the sound of footsteps on the floor above. Gretta stepped to the stair way and glanced up, holding out a hand to keep Arny behind her. A man turned the corner of the landing and jerked to a halt as he saw them. His face shouted a guilty recognition and he turned back the way he'd come.

Vitto skidded to a stop in front of the door to the alloggio, listening. He heard the pursuit and he quickly opened the door, slamming and locking it behind him. Gretta arrived seconds later in the narrow hallway, tried the handle and stepped back to the side.

"You've trapped yourselves in there, fella. It's the only exit so why don't we do some negotiating?"

"We know who you are, Miss Lawrence."

"I'm flattered. Sorry I can't say the same but I know you are working for Bishop Gravestone and that you have some good friends of mine, the Glimbs, in there with you."

"Then you should know that we don't have to negotiate. Any move against us and they pay."

"And if anything happens to either of them, I'll kill you both so, your turn." She drew her gun and spun around as Arny appeared at the top of the stairs and she gave him a Gretta glare, nodding and holding up two fingers. She leaned back to the door. "Well?"

"They give us what we want and we all go our separate ways. Nobody gets hurt."

"That's a bit better but you forget, what you want doesn't belong to you... it's theirs. I like my deal better. You let them go right now and I won't kill you."

At the end of the hall Arny choked and covered his eyes with his hand as he leaned against the wall.

There was some indistinguishable whispering and then it stopped and then the sound of another door opening and closing.

"I have the woman in front of me Miss Lawrence. I am going to open the door and you will drop any weapon and raise your hands above your head."

"The other one has Jeffrey!" Helen shouted, followed by the sound of struggling and a short cry.

"You win." Gretta answered.

The lock clicked and the door opened cautiously exposing Helen first with a thick arm about her neck. The barrel of a gun appeared at her side aiming into the hall. Tino stepped out and looked down the hall at Arny, who hadn't moved, and the look turned to confusion.

"Surprise pal." Gretta dropped down from bracing herself across the ceiling of the narrow hall over the door her legs clamping on Tino's neck and in seconds his eyes were bulging and his fingers scrabbling for purchase on her legs. Helen stumbled away and Arny rushed down the hall to catch her before she fell. Tino dropped his gun and sagged to the floor, black bursts inside his eyes and a rasping cough as he tried to get his breath.

Gretta picked up his gun and held it to his ear, whispering that he would have a much larger ear hole if he tried anything funny. She told him to tell his partner to bring Jeffrey out, that he had managed to out bluff her.

Vitto emerged much as Tino had, his prisoner in front of him and one arm about Jeffrey's neck. He eyed Gretta carefully and his partner, who leaned against the door frame, looking sick.

"Let him go."

Vitto raised his gun and pointed it at Gretta. Her move was so swift he released Jeffrey, waving his weapon in bewilderment. The short bark of her gun seemed very noisy in the cramped little room and the noise of Vitto hitting the floor face first was even louder. He rolled onto one side and a thin river of blood from his eye traversed his cheek in a zig zag line. Jeffrey groaned and gave Gretta an astonished look.

"It was him or me and likely you, Mr. Glimb. I didn't see any upside to that."

Arny came into the room with Helen and steered her into Jeffrey's arms. ''Thank God you're safe, sir." He said, patting the older man's back.

Jeffrey kissed his wife on the cheek and nodded toward Gretta. "I think the thanks belongs to your partner here."

"Arny, where is the other one?"

"Huh?"

"The other guy." She pushed past the group into the hall but Tino was gone. She came back into the room. "Nice work, sidekick."

"I thought he was right out, and how would I hold him anyway? The guy was twice my size."

"Come on, we have to get out of here. There's some bad news you likely haven't heard, Mr. Glimb. The man that started all this, Allen Lockhart, has been killed, probably by our two friends." Helen glanced down at Vitto and her throat seized.

"Can we go please, I don't feel well."

The quartet found the street and saw that their boat was gone. They walked a few blocks over managed to hire a gondola to get them back to The Hotel Ala.

******

Bishop stopped in the large entry hall of his home and the limo driver carrying his bags nearly crashed into the back of him. His new housekeeper hurriedly took his coat and hat and scurried away to hang them up. He stared at the floor where the police had chalked the outlines of the bodies and toward the terrace where his previous maid had been blown through the terrace doors then at the empty column pedestal where the umbrella stand statue of Aphrodite had rested. The driver coughed politely for attention and indicated the luggage.

"Get- whatshername, the housekeeper. She'll show you where it goes." Bishop walked to the stairs and steadied himself on the banister. He recalled the two Russian mobsters and how close he had come to dying right on this very spot.

The driver followed the route the housekeeper had taken and Bishop climbed slowly to his upstairs office. He glanced at his limp arm and gritted his teeth. In the office he paused again, seeing in his mind the body of his aide, Bryce Deadmarsh, the knife protruding from his back. He wiped a hand over his face and moved to the chair behind the desk, sitting with a tired thump.

All the years he had battled Gretta Lawrence, never winning but doggedly trying another day over and over. He thought of all the people spent in his quests for owning things and never attaining them in the end. His fist came down hard on the desk top and the various items kept there jumped and scattered. This time, this time he would succeed!