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"So we're looking for a painting?" confirmed Ringo, pulling the map out of his pocket and flapping it open. He followed John down the front steps of their hotel to the cobbled street below. A Vespa zoomed past, a street vendor hawked his tourist souvenirs, locals bustled past, a bus horn honked; the Italian language rippled around the two Englishmen like a babbling brook around a pair of smooth, grey stones.

"Yeah," replied John, striding down the narrow sidewalk confidently. "But I doubt it's large enough to be on the map."

Burying his nose in the map, Ringo ignored him.

"So, we're here," said Ringo, pointing. "Oof!" he added, crashing into a middle-aged woman in a flower-print dress.

She glared down at the drummer through her cat's-eye glasses. John strolled on, oblivious.

"Sorry," muttered Ringo meekly, looking down at the grimy blocks of grey stone of the sidewalk.

"Guarda dove va!" shouted the woman angrily.

John realized that he was missing his companion and turned to see Ringo's predicament. He smirked and stepped out of the way of other pedestrians to watch the show. The guitarist leaned nonchalantly against the heavy, rusticated blocks of the nearest building.

Another motorbike roared by. Ringo took this opportunity to squeak and dodge around the woman; he raced to catch up with John.

"So where are we?" asked John, peering over Ringo's shoulder at the map.

"Here, I think," said Ringo, pointing to the map. "The Via della Spada, see?"

John pulled a pen out of his pocket and marked the spot Ringo had pointed to.

"You see a painting anywhere?" asked John snidely.

"No," replied Ringo, looking up from the map at John.

John leapt back into the middle of the sidewalk, blocking the path of a rather startled old man.

"'Scuse me, d'you know where we can find 'Young Girl with a Cobra' by Gandalf Slackin'?" he inquired, leaning toward the balding man. The man leaned away, dusting imaginary filth off of his long, black coat.

"Non parle Inglese," sniffed the man. And a good thing, too, hung on the thick summer air as the Italian man carefully sidestepped John and continued down the barely-a-meter-wide sidewalk.

"Wasn't it 'With a Candle'?" asked Ringo.

"That does make more sense," replied John. "Come on, then!"

With a cocky grin, John set off in the direction they'd been going.

"But you don't even know where –" started Ringo helplessly.

"You aren't going to get anything done standing there all day!" called John over his shoulder. Ringo sighed and ran after his bandmate.

"This place looks big and official," said John, staring up at the rusticated façade of the tan, stone palazzo across the street. "And it's open to the public." He pointed at the arched doorway, through which people were steadily trickling into the inner courtyard.

"We're at the intersection of Via della Spada and the Via de Torn- Torub- er, never mind," Ringo informed him, looking up from the map. "But there's also the Via della Vigna Noova, and there's another street here too, but I can't read the name of that one, it's too small."

John scratched the back of his head, looked both ways, and darted across the cobbled street.

"Hey!" complained Ringo, running after him. "That's dangerous! Those motorbikes go about a hundred miles an hour!"

John and Ringo dashed into the palazzo. The cool shade of the hall to the courtyard draped itself over them, sheltering them from the blast of the August sun.

"D'you know where the 'Youngling with Candelabra' is?" John asked a horsey-faced woman passing them.

"The what?" she replied in a heavy American accent.

"Never mind," muttered Ringo, dragging John away. "You can't just keep asking people like that, nobody'll know where it is!" he hissed at the guitarist.

"D'you know where the 'Young Guild with Cocoa' is?" John loudly asked an old man in tweed and a bow tie as the two Beatles passed him through the courtyard.

"Do you mean the 'Young Girl with a Candle?' by Gottfried Schalcken?" inquired the older man, his accent unmistakably posh London.

"Yes! That's it!" exclaimed Ringo, beaming.

"That's in the Palazzo Pitti," replied the man. "I'm afraid you've got a ways to go."

"We have a map," John informed him, yanking the map out of Ringo's back pocket. The drummer yelped in surprise.

The old man took the map in his veined, wrinkled hands and peered at it through thick, tortoiseshell glasses.

"We're here," he said, pulling a fountain pen out of his breast pocket and delicately marking the spot in blue ink, "at the Palazzo Strozzi. I would highly recommend the café's cornetti, if you have the time."

He looked up expectantly. John and Ringo frantically shook their heads. John wiped a bit of sweat from his damp brow.

"No matter," replied the old man, turning back to the map. "You want to go . . . here." The metal tip of his pen drifted just above the map, over the Arno, to a spot bordering a green splotch of park. The man pressed the pen precisely onto the spot, leaving behind a decisive dot.

The old man looked back up at John and Ringo. The pair beamed.

"Ta!" breathed Ringo. John grabbed the map back from the old man.

"Are you trying to complete a paper at the last minute?" asked the old man.

"Nah, we're trying to appease our insane manager," replied Ringo quickly. "You see, I blabbed about drunken elephants while I was asleep and the press hate me, and he cleaned it up, and to fix it I have to vacuum ceilings, but I chose to do this instead."

"Bye, Professor!" said John in a falsetto, twisting his hand at the old man in a royal wave. He grabbed Ringo's hand and dragged the drummer back across the courtyard to the bustling Via de Tornabuoni.

A/N:  Kind of a nothing chapter, but I think there's some fun stuff :0)  Hope you all are enjoying this and "Murder Most Discreet"!