by Donna Leon
“Florence?” Silvestri could do no more than repeat what he heard.
“Yes, from what little I’ve been told, the phone in the bar has been used to pass on messages. Those boys have had a tap on it for a month or so. Everything according to the rules—orders from a judge.” Brunetti waved the folder in the air. “When my men arrested you last night, I tried to tell those others that you were just a little fish, one of ours, but they won’t listen to me.”
“What does that mean?” Silvestri asked in a voice from which all anger had disappeared.
“It means they’re going to hold you on the antiterrorism law.” Brunetti closed the file and got to his feet. “It’s just a misunderstanding between services, you understand, Signor Silvestri. They’ll hold you for forty-eight hours.”
“But my lawyer?”
“You can call him then, Signor Silvestri. It’ll only be forty-eight hours, and you’ve already passed,” Brunetti began, pushing back his cuff to look at his watch, “ten of them. So you just have to wait a day and a half, and you’ll be free to call your lawyer, and I’m sure he’ll have you out of here in no time at all.” Brunetti smiled.
“Why are you here?” Silvestri asked, suspicious.
“Since it was one of my men who arrested you, I felt that, well, I felt that I was the one, you might say, to get you into this, so I thought the least I could do was come by and explain it to you. I’ve dealt with the fellows from SISMI before,” Brunetti said wearily, “and there’s no talking sense to them. The law says they can keep you for forty-eight hours without notifying anyone, and I guess we’ll just have to live with it.” He looked down at his watch again. “It’ll pass like nothing, Signor Silvestri, I’m sure. If you’d like any magazines, just let my man outside know, all right?” Saying that, Brunetti got to his feet and started toward the door.
“Please,” Silvestri said, certainly the first time in his life he’d addressed that word to a policeman. “Please don’t go.”
Brunetti turned around and tilted his head to one side in open curiosity. “Have you thought of some magazines you’d like? Panorama? Architectural Digest? Famiglia Christiana?”
“What do you want?” Silvestri said, voice harsh but not with anger. The sweat on his brow stood out in thick beads.
Brunetti saw that there was no further necessity to play with him. So much for tough Franco, hard as nails.
Voice severe and level, Brunetti demanded, “Who calls you on the phone in that bar, and who do you call?”
Silvestri ran both hands up across his face and through his thick hair, plastering his forelock to his skull. He rubbed his mouth with one hand, pulling repeatedly at the edge, as if attempting to remove a stain. “There’s a man who calls and tells me when new girls will arrive.”
Brunetti said nothing.
“I don’t know who he is or where he calls from. But he calls me every month or so and tells me where to pick them up. They’re already broken in. I just have to get them and set them to work.”
“And the money?”
Silvestri said nothing. Brunetti turned and headed toward the door.
“I give it to a woman. Every month. When he calls me, he tells me where to meet the woman, and when, and I give her the money.”
“How much?”
“All of it.”
“All of what?”
“Everything that’s left after I pay for the rooms and pay the girls.”
“How much is that?”
“It depends,” he said evasively.
“You’re wasting my time, Silvestri,” Brunetti said, unleashing his anger.
“Some months it’s forty or fifty million. Some months it’s less.” Which, to Brunetti, meant that some months it was more.
“Who’s the woman?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her.”
“What do you mean?”
“He tells me where her car will be parked. It’s a white Mercedes. I have to come at it from behind, open the back door, and put the money on the backseat. Then she drives away.”
“And you’ve never seen her?”
“She wears a scarf. And sunglasses.”
“Is she tall? Thin? White? Black? Blonde? Old? Come on, Silvestri, you don’t have to see a woman’s face to know this.”
“She’s not short, but I don’t know what color hair she has. I’ve never seen her face, but I don’t think she’s old.”
“What license plates does the car have?”
“I don’t know.”
“Didn’t you see it?”
“No. I always do it at night, and the lights in the car are off.” He was sure Silvestri was lying, but Brunetti could also sense that he was near the end of what he would tell.
“Where do you meet her?”
“On the street. Mestre. Once in Treviso. Different places. He tells me where to go when he calls.”
“And the girls. How do you pick them up?”
“Same way. He tells me a street corner and how many there’ll be, and I meet them with my car.”
“Who brings them?”
“No one. I get there, and they’re waiting.”
“Just like that? Like sheep?”
“They know better than to try anything,” Silvestri said, voice suddenly savage.
“Where do they come from?”
“All over.”
“What does that mean?”
“Lots of cities. Different countries.”
“How do they get here?”
“What do you mean?”
“How do they come to be part of your … part of your delivery?”
“They’re just whores. How do you expect me to know? For Christ’s sake, I don’t talk to them.” Suddenly Silvestri jammed his hands into his pockets and demanded, “When are you going to get me out of here?”
“How many have there been?”
“No more,” Silvestri shouted, getting up from the chair and moving toward Brunetti. “No more. Get me out of here.”
Brunetti didn’t move, and Silvestri backed off a few steps. Brunetti tapped on the door, which was quickly opened by Gravini. Stepping out in the corridor, Brunetti waited while the officer closed the door, then said, “Wait an hour and a half, then let him go.”
“Yes, sir,” Gravini said and saluted the back of his superior as Brunetti walked away.
22
His session with Mara and her pimp hadn’t put Brunetti in the most favorable of moods for dealing with Signora Trevisan and her late husband’s business partner, to call Martucci by but one of the offices he filled, but he made the necessary phone call to the widow, insisting that it was imperative to the progress of his investigation that he have a few words with her and, if possible, with Signor Martucci. Their separate accounts of where they had been the night Trevisan was murdered had been checked: Signora Trevisan’s maid confirmed that her mistress had not gone out that evening, and a friend of Martucci’s had phoned him at nine-thirty and found him at home.
Long experience had told Brunetti that it was always best to allow people to select the place in which they were to be interviewed; they invariably selected the place in which they felt most comfortable, and thus they enjoyed the erroneous belief that control of location equaled control of content. Predictably, Signora Trevisan selected her home, where Brunetti arrived at the precise hour, five-thirty. His spirit still roughened from his encounter with Franco Silvestri, Brunetti was predisposed to disapprove of whatever hospitality might be offered him: a cocktail would be too cosmopolitan, tea too pretentious.
But after Signora Trevisan, today dressed in sober navy blue, led him into a sitting room that contained too few chairs and too much taste, Brunetti realized that he had presumed too much upon his sense of his own importance and that he was to be treated as an intruder, not a representative of the state. The widow offered him her hand, and Martucci stood when she led Brunetti into the room, but neither bothered to rise above the barest requirements of civility. Their
solemn manner and long faces, Brunetti suspected, were meant to demonstrate the grief he was intruding upon, shared grief at the departure of a beloved husband and friend. But Brunetti had been rendered skeptical of both by his conversation with Judge Beniamin, and perhaps he had been rendered skeptical of humanity in general by his brief conversation with Franco Silvestri.
Quickly, Brunetti reeled off his formulaic thanks for their having agreed to talk to him. Martucci nodded; Signora Trevisan gave no sign of having heard him.
“Signora Trevisan,” Brunetti began, “I would like to obtain some information about your husband’s finances.” She said nothing, asked for no explanation. “Could you tell me what becomes of your husband’s law practice?”
“You can ask me about that,” Martucci interrupted.
“I did, two days ago,” Brunetti said. “You told me very little.”
“We’ve had more information since then,” Martucci said.
“Does that mean you’ve read the will?” Brunetti asked, quietly pleased to see how much his tastelessness surprised them both.
Martucci’s voice remained calm and polite. “Signora Trevisan has asked me to serve as her lawyer in the settling of her husband’s estate, if that’s what you mean.”
“That answer will do as well as another, I suppose,” Brunetti said, interested that Martucci could not easily be baited. It must come of practicing corporate law, Brunetti reflected, where everyone’s forced to be polite. Brunetti continued, “What happens to the law firm?”
“Signora Trevisan retains sixty percent.”
Brunetti said nothing for so long that Martucci was forced to add, “And I retain forty.”
“May I ask when this will was drawn up?”
“Two years ago,” Martucci answered with no hesitation.
“And when did you join Signor Trevisan’s firm, Avvocato Martucci?”
Signora Trevisan turned her very pale eyes on Brunetti and spoke for the first time since they had come into the room. “Commissario, before you become too exercised in pursuit of your own vulgar curiosity, might I inquire as to the final goal of these questions?”
“If they have a goal, Signora, it is in gaining information to help in finding the person who murdered your husband.”
“It would seem to me,” she began, propping her elbows on the arms of her chair and pressing her hands into a steeple in front of her, “that this would be true only if some connection existed between the conditions of his will and his murder. Or am I being too simpleminded for you?” When Brunetti failed to answer immediately, she graced him with a sliver of a smile. “It is possible for things to be too simpleminded for you, isn’t it, Commissario?”
“I’m certain it is, Signora,” Brunetti said, glad he had managed to provoke at least one of them. “Hence I like to ask questions with simple answers. This one has a number—how long Signor Martucci worked for your husband.”
“Two years,” Martucci answered.
Brunetti turned his attention back to the lawyer, intent on him now, and asked, “And if I might ask about the other dispositions of the will?”
Martucci started to answer, but Signora Trevisan held up a hand to silence him. “I’ll answer this, Avvocato.” Then, turning to Brunetti, she said, “The bulk of Carlo’s property, as is entirely common under the law, is left to me, as his widow, and to his children in equal shares. There are some other bequests to relatives and friends, but the bulk comes to us. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”
“Yes, Signora, it does.”
Martucci shifted in his seat, preparing to rise, and said, “If that’s all you came for—”
“I have some other questions,” Brunetti said, turning to Signora Trevisan, “for you, Signora.”
She nodded without bothering to answer him and sent a calming glance in Martucci’s direction.
“Do you have a car?”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand your question,” she said after a short pause.
Brunetti repeated, “Do you have a car?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t see what sense this makes,” Martucci interrupted.
Ignoring him, Signora Trevisan said, “It’s a BMW Three years old. Green.”
“Thank you,” Brunetti said, face impassive, and then asked, “Your brother, Signora, does he leave a family?”
“No. He was separated from his wife, and they never had children.”
Martucci interrupted again. “I’m sure your records must tell you that.”
Ignoring him, Brunetti asked, choosing his words carefully, “Did your brother have anything to do with prostitutes?”
Martucci jumped to his feet, but Brunetti ignored him; his attention was riveted on Signora Trevisan. Her head shot up when she heard the question, and then, almost as though listening to an echo of it, she looked away from him for a moment, then brought her eyes back to his. Two very slow beats passed before her face displayed any anger, and then she said in a loud, declamatory voice, “My brother had no need for whores.”
Martucci caught the tail of her anger and used it to swing his own toward Brunetti. “I will not permit you to insult the memory of Signora Trevisan’s brother. Your accusation is disgusting and offensive. We don’t have to listen to your insinuations.” He paused to gather breath, and Brunetti could almost hear his lawyer’s mind spring into action. “Furthermore, your remark is slanderous, and I have Signora Trevisan as a witness to what you’ve said.” Martucci looked from one to the other for a response, but neither had paid the least attention to his explosion.
Brunetti never glanced away from Signora Trevisan, nor did she make any attempt to avoid his eyes. Martucci started to speak again, but then stopped, confused at the attention they seemed to be paying to one another, missing the fact that what engaged them was not the slanderous potential of Brunetti’s last remark but, rather, its exact phrasing.
Brunetti waited until the others realized that he wanted an answer, not righteous indignation. He saw her consider the question and how to answer it. He thought he saw some revelation move from her eyes to her lips, but just as she was about to speak, Martucci started up again, saying, “I demand an apology.” When Brunetti didn’t bother to answer him, Martucci took two steps toward Brunetti until he stood between him and Signora Trevisan, blocking their view of one another. “I demand that you apologize,” he repeated, looking down at Brunetti.
“Of course, of course,” Brunetti said with a singular lack of interest. “You can have as many apologies as you like.” Brunetti got to his feet and stepped to Martucci’s side, but Signora Trevisan had looked away and didn’t bother to look up at him. One glance told him that Martucci’s interruption had served to drive all urge toward confidence from her; Brunetti saw that there was no sense in repeating himself.
“Signora,” he said, “if you decide to answer my question, you’ll find me at the Questura.” Saying nothing else, he stepped around Martucci and left the room, then let himself out of the house.
As he walked home, Brunetti thought about how close he had just come to that moment of contact that he sometimes managed to create between himself and a witness or a suspect, that delicate point of balance when some chance phrase or word would suddenly spur a person to reveal something they had tried to keep hidden. What had she been about to say, and what had Lotto had to do with prostitutes? And the woman in the Mercedes? Was she the woman who had dinner with Favero the night he was killed? Brunetti asked himself what could happen during dinner to make a woman so nervous or forgetful that she would leave behind a pair of glasses worth more than a million lire. And had it been something that happened during dinner or what she knew was going to happen after dinner that had made her nervous? The questions swirled around Brunetti, Furies calling to him and mocking him because he didn’t know the answers and, worse, because he didn’t even know which questions were important.
When he left the Trevisan apartment, Brunetti turned aut
omatically toward the Accademia Bridge and home. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that it took him some time to notice that the street seemed crowded. He glanced down at his watch, puzzled that there should be so many people in this part of the city more than a half hour before the shops closed. He looked at them more carefully and saw that they were Italians: both men and women were too well-dressed and groomed to be anything else.
He abandoned any thought of hurrying and allowed the flow to carry him toward Campo San Stefano. From the bottom of the closest bridge, he heard amplified sound but could not distinguish it clearly.
Down the narrow slot of the last calle the people pulled him and then, suddenly, freed him into the darkening campo. Directly in front of him was the statue Brunetti had always thought of as the Meringue Man, so starkly white and porous was the marble from which he had been carved. Other people, seeing the pile of books that seemed to issue from beneath his coat, called him something more indelicate.
To Brunettis right, a wooden platform had been erected along the side of the church of San Stefano. A few wooden chairs stood on it; the front corners held enormous speakers. From three wooden poles at the back of the platform hung the limp flags bearing the Italian tricolor, the lion of San Marco, and the newly minted symbol of what had once been the Christian Democratic party.
Brunetti moved over closer to the statue and stepped behind the low metal fence that encircled its base. About a hundred people stood in front of the platform; from that group, three men and a woman broke away and walked up the steps of the platform. Loud music suddenly blared forth. Brunetti thought it was the national anthem, but the volume and the static made it difficult to tell.
A man in jeans and a bomber jacket handed a microphone with a long, hanging wire up to one of the men on the platform. He held it at his side for a while, smiled at the crowd, shifted the microphone to his left hand, and shook hands with the other people on the platform. From below, the man in the jacket lifted his hand and made a cutting gesture, but the music didn’t stop.
The man on the platform held the microphone up to his mouth and said something, but the music rode above it and made it incomprehensible. He held the microphone out at arm’s length and tapped at it with one hand, but this came through as six muffled pistol shots.