Friends In High Places

by Donna Leon

  Still not looking at him, Patta nodded, either in acknowledgement or thanks.

  After a full minute had passed, Brunetti asked, ‘Was it in Jesolo itself or out on the Lido?’

  Patta looked at Brunetti and shook his head, a fighter shaking off a soft blow. ‘What?’

  ‘Where it happened, sir. Was it Jesolo or Jesolo Lido?’

  ‘On the Lido.’

  ‘And where was he when he was . . .’ Brunetti began, intending to use the word ‘arrested’. Instead he said, ‘. . . detained?’

  ‘I just told you,’ Patta snapped in a voice that showed how close he was to anger. ‘Lido di Jesolo.’

  ‘But in what place, sir? A bar? A disco?’

  Patta closed his eyes, and Brunetti wondered how much time he must have spent thinking about all of this, recalling events in his son’s life.

  ‘At a place called Luxor, a disco,’ he finally said.

  A small ‘Ah’ escaped Brunetti’s lips, but that was enough to force Patta to open his eyes. ‘What?’

  Brunetti dismissed the question. ‘I knew someone once who used to go there,’ he said.

  As his formless hope died, Patta turned his attention away.

  ‘Have you called a lawyer, sir?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Yes. Donatini.’ Brunetti hid his surprise in a curt nod, as if the lawyer most often called upon to defend those accused of Mafia association was an obvious choice for Patta.

  ‘I’d be glad, Commissario . . .’ Patta began and stopped as he considered how best to put it.

  ‘I’ll give it some more thought, sir,’ Brunetti interrupted. ‘And I’ll say nothing about this to anyone, of course.’ Much as he despised many of the things Patta did, there was no way he could allow the man the embarrassment of having to ask him to keep silent about this.

  Patta responded to the finality in Brunetti’s voice and pushed himself to his feet. He went with Brunetti to the door and opened it for him. He did not offer to shake hands, but he did utter a curt ‘Thank you’ before going back into his office and closing the door.

  Brunetti saw that Signorina Elettra was at her desk, though the files and papers had been replaced by what looked suspiciously thick and glossy enough to be the spring fashion issue of Vogue.

  ‘His son?’ she asked, looking up from the magazine.

  It escaped before he could stop himself. ‘Do you have his office wired?’ He had meant it as a joke, but when he heard himself asking the question, he wasn’t all that sure that he did.

  ‘No. He had a call from the boy this morning, sounding very nervous, then one from the Jesolo police. And as soon as he’d spoken to them, he asked me to get him Donatini’s number.’ Brunetti wondered if he could ask her to give up secretarial work and join the force. But he knew she’d die before she’d wear the uniform.

  ‘Do you know him?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Who, Donatini or the boy?’

  ‘Either. Both.’

  ‘I know them both,’ she said, then added casually, ‘they’re both shits, but Donatini dresses better.’

  ‘Did he tell you what it’s about?’ he asked with a backward nod of his head towards Patta’s office.

  ‘No,’ she said with no trace of disappointment. ‘If it was rape, it would have been in the papers. So I guess it’s drugs. Donatini ought to be good enough to get him off.’

  ‘Do you think he’s capable of rape?’

  ‘Who, Roberto?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She considered this for a second and then said, ‘No, I suppose not. He’s arrogant and self-important, but I don’t think he’s completely bad.’

  Something led Brunetti to ask, ‘And Donatini?’

  Without hesitation, she answered, ‘He’d do anything.’

  ‘I didn’t know you knew him.’

  She glanced down at the magazine and turned a page, making it look like an idle gesture. ‘Yes.’ She turned another page.

  ‘He asked me to help him.’

  ‘The Vice-Questore?’ she asked, looking up in surprise.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And are you going to?’

  ‘If I can,’ Brunetti answered.

  She looked at him for a long time, then turned her attention back to the page below her. ‘I don’t think grey is much longer for this world,’ she said. ‘We’re all tired of wearing it.’

  She was wearing a peach-coloured silk blouse with a high-collared black jacket in what he thought he recognized as raw silk.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ he said, wished her a good evening, and went back up to his office.

  10

  HE HAD TO call Information to get the number of Luxor, but when he dialled it, whoever answered the phone at the disco told him that Signor Bertocco was not there and refused to give his home number. Brunetti did not say it was the police calling. Instead, he called Information again and was given Luca’s home number without any difficulty at all.

  ‘Self-important fool,’ Brunetti muttered as he dialled the number.

  It was picked up on the third ring and a deep voice with a rough edge said, ‘Bertocco.’

  ‘Ciao, Luca, it’s Guido Brunetti. How are you?’

  The formality of the answering voice disappeared, replaced with real warmth. ‘Fine, Guido. I haven’t heard from you in ages. How are you, and Paola, and the kids?’

  ‘Everyone’s fine.’

  ‘You’ve finally decided to accept my offer and come out and dance till you drop?’

  Brunetti laughed at this, a joke that had run for more than a decade. ‘No, I’m afraid I have to disappoint you again, Luca. Much as you know how I long to come and dance till dawn among people as young as my own children, Paola refuses to allow it.’

  ‘The smoke?’ Luca asked. ‘Thinks it’s bad for your health?’

  ‘No, the music, I think, but for the same reason.’

  There was a brief pause, after which Luca said, ‘She’s probably right.’ When Brunetti said nothing more he asked, ‘Then why are you calling? About the boy who was arrested?’

  ‘Yes,’ Brunetti said, not even pretending to be surprised that Luca knew about it already.

  ‘He’s your boss’s son, isn’t he?’

  ‘You seem to know everything.’

  ‘A man who runs five discos, three hotels, and six bars has to know everything, especially about the people who get themselves arrested in any of those places.’

  ‘What do you know about the boy?’

  ‘Only what the police tell me.’

  ‘Which police? The ones who arrested him or the ones who work for you?’

  The silence that followed his question reminded Brunetti, not only that he had gone too far, but also that, however much Luca was a friend, he would always view Brunetti as a policeman.

  ‘I’m not sure how to answer that, Guido,’ Luca finally said. His voice was interrupted by the explosive bark of a heavy smoker.

  The coughing went on for a long time. Brunetti waited for it to stop, and when it did, he said, ‘I’m sorry, Luca. It was a bad joke.’

  ‘It’s nothing, Guido. Believe me, anyone who’s involved with the public as much as I am needs all the help they can get from the police. And they’re glad to get all the help they can from me.’

  Brunetti, thinking of small envelopes changing hands discreetly in city offices, asked, ‘What sort of help?’

  ‘I’ve got private guards who work the parking lots of the discos.’

  ‘What for?’ he asked, thinking of muggers and the vulnerability of the kids who staggered out at three in the morning.

  ‘To take their car keys away from them.’

  ‘And no one complains?’

  ‘Who’s to complain? Their parents, that I stop them from driving off dead drunk or out of their minds on drugs? Or the police, because I stop them from slamming into the trees at the side of the highways?’

  ‘No, I suppose not. I didn’t think.’

  ‘It means they don’t get wo
ken up at three to go out to watch bodies being cut out of cars. Believe me, the police are very happy to give me any help they can.’ He paused and Brunetti listened to the sharp snap of a match as Luca lit a cigarette and took the first deep breath. ‘What is it you’d like me to do – get this hushed up?’

  ‘Could you?’

  If shrugs made sounds, Brunetti heard one on the phone. Finally Luca said, ‘I won’t answer that until I know whether you want me to or not.’

  ‘No, not hushed up in the sense that it disappears. But I would like you to keep it out of the papers if it’s possible.’

  Luca paused before he answered this. ‘I spend a lot of money on advertising,’ he said at last.

  ‘Does that translate as yes?’

  Luca laughed outright until the laugh turned into a deep, penetrating cough. When he could speak again, he said, ‘You always want things to be so clear, Guido. I don’t know how Paola stands it.’

  ‘It makes things easier for me when they are.’

  ‘As a policeman?’

  ‘As everything.’

  ‘All right, then. You can consider it as meaning yes. I can keep it out of the local papers, and I doubt that the big ones would be interested.’

  ‘He’s the Vice-Questore of Venice,’ Brunetti said in a perverse burst of local pride.

  ‘I’m afraid that doesn’t mean much to the guys in Rome,’ Luca answered.

  Brunetti considered this. ‘I suppose you’re right.’ Before Luca could agree, Brunetti asked, ‘What do they say about the boy?’

  ‘They’ve got him cold. His fingerprints were all over the small envelopes.’

  ‘Has he been charged yet?’

  ‘No. At least I don’t think so.’

  ‘What are they waiting for?’

  ‘They want him to tell them who he got the stuff from.’

  ‘Don’t they know?’

  ‘Of course they know. But knowing isn’t proving, as I’m sure you’re in a position to understand.’ This last was said not without irony. At times Brunetti thought Italy was a country where everyone knew everything while no one was willing to say anything. In private, everyone was eager to comment with absolute certainty on the secret doings of politicians, Mafia leaders, movie stars; put them into a situation where their remarks might have legal consequences, and Italy turned into the largest clam bed in the world.

  ‘Do you know who it is?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Would you give me his name?’

  ‘I’d rather not. It wouldn’t serve any purpose. There’s someone above him, and then someone else above him.’ Brunetti could hear him lighting another cigarette.

  ‘Will he tell them? The boy?’

  ‘Not if he values his life, he won’t,’ Luca said but immediately added, ‘No, that’s an exaggeration. Not if he wants to avoid being beat up pretty badly.’

  ‘Even in Jesolo?’ Brunetti asked. So big city crime had come to this sleepy Adriatic town.

  ‘Especially in Jesolo, Guido,’ Luca said but offered no explanation.

  ‘So what will happen to him?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘You should be able to answer that better than I can,’ Luca said. ‘If it’s a first offence, they’ll slap his wrist and send him home.’

  ‘He’s already home.’

  ‘I know that. I was speaking figuratively. And the fact that his father is a policeman won’t hurt.’

  ‘Not unless the papers get it.’

  ‘I told you. You can be sure about that.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Brunetti said.

  Luca failed to rise to this. Into the long, growing silence, Brunetti said, ‘And what about you? How are you, Luca?’

  Luca cleared his throat, a wet sound that made Brunetti uncomfortable. ‘The same,’ he finally said and coughed again.

  ‘Maria?’

  ‘That cow,’ Luca said with real anger. ‘All she wants is my money. She’s lucky I let her stay in the house.’

  ‘Luca, she’s the mother of your children.’

  Brunetti could hear Luca fighting the impulse to rage at Brunetti for daring to comment on his life. ‘I don’t want to talk about this with you, Guido.’

  ‘All right, Luca. You know I say it only because I’ve known you a long time.’ He stopped and then added, ‘Known you both.’

  ‘I know that, but things change.’ There was another silence, and then Luca said again, his voice sounding distant, ‘I don’t want to talk about this, Guido.’

  ‘All right,’ Brunetti agreed. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t called for so long.’

  In the easy concession of long friendship, Luca said, ‘I haven’t called, either, have I?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, does it?’ Luca agreed with a laugh that brought back both his old voice and his old cough.

  Encouraged, Brunetti asked, ‘If you hear anything else, will you let me know?’

  ‘Of course,’ Luca agreed.

  Before the other man could hang up, Brunetti asked, ‘Do you know anything else about the men he got it from, and the ones they got it from?’

  Caution returned to Luca’s voice as he asked, ‘What sort of things are you talking about?’

  ‘Whether they . . .’ he was not quite certain how to define what it was they did. ‘Whether they do business in Venice.’

  ‘Ah,’ Luca sighed. ‘From what I understand, there’s not a lot of business for them there. The population’s too old, and it’s too easy for the kids to come out to the mainland to find what they want.’

  Brunetti realized it was nothing more than selfishness that made him so glad to hear this: any man with two teenaged children, no matter how certain he was of their characters and dispositions, would be glad to learn that there was little drug traffic in the city in which they lived.

  Instinct told Brunetti that he had got as much as he was going to get from Luca. Knowing the names of the men who sold the drugs wouldn’t make any difference, anyway.

  ‘Thanks, Luca. Take care of yourself.’

  ‘You, too, Guido.’

  That night, talking to Paola after the kids had gone to bed, he told her about the conversation and about Luca’s outburst of rage at the mention of his wife’s name. ‘You’ve never liked him as much as I do,’ Brunetti said, as if that would somehow explain or excuse Luca’s behaviour.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Paola asked, but without rancour.

  They were sitting at opposite ends of the sofa and had put down their books when they began to talk. Brunetti thought about her question for a long time before he answered, ‘I guess it’s supposed to mean that you’d have to be more sympathetic to Maria than to him.’

  ‘But Luca’s right,’ Paola said, turning her head and then her entire body to face him. ‘She is a cow.’

  ‘But I thought you liked her.’

  ‘I do like her,’ Paola insisted. ‘Still, that doesn’t stop Luca from being right in saying she’s a cow. But it was he who turned her into one. When they got married, she was a dentist, but he asked her to stop working. And then after Paolo was born, he told her she didn’t have to go back to work, that he was making enough money with the clubs to support them all well. So she stopped working.’

  ‘So?’ Brunetti interrupted. ‘How does that make him responsible if she’s become a cow?’ Even as he asked the question, he was conscious of both how insulting and how absurd the very word was.

  ‘Because he moved them all out to Jesolo where it would be more convenient for him to oversee the clubs. And she went.’ Her voice grew truculent, reciting the beads of a very old rosary.

  ‘No one held a gun to her head, Paola.’

  ‘Of course no one held a gun to her head: no one had to,’ she fired back. ‘She was in love.’ Seeing his look, she amended this. ‘All right, they were in love.’ She stopped briefly, then continued, ‘So she leaves Venice to go out to live in Jesolo, a summer beach town, for God’s sake, and becomes a housewife and mother.’

&nbs
p; ‘They’re not dirty words, Paola.’

  However fiery the glance this earned, she remained cool. ‘I know they’re not dirty words. I don’t mean to suggest that they are. But she gave up a profession she enjoyed and that she was very good at, and she went out to the middle of nowhere to raise two children and take care of a husband who drank too much and smoked too much and fooled around with too many women.’ Brunetti knew better than to pour oil on these particular flames. He waited for her to continue, and she did.

  ‘So now, after more than twenty years out there, she’s turned into a cow. She’s fat and she’s boring and all she seems able to talk about is her children or her cooking.’ She glanced in Brunetti’s direction, but he still didn’t say anything. ‘How long has it been since we saw them together? Two years? Remember how painful it was the last time, with her hovering around, asking us if we’d like more food or showing us more pictures of their two very unexceptional children?’

  It had been a painful evening for everyone except, strangely enough, Maria, who had seemed unaware of how tedious the others found her behaviour.

  With childlike candour, Brunetti asked, ‘This isn’t turning into an argument, is it?’

  Paola put her head back against the sofa and laughed outright. ‘No, it isn’t.’ She added, ‘I suppose my tone shows how little real sympathy I have for her. And the guilt I feel about that.’ She waited to see how Brunetti reacted to her confession, and then continued, ‘There were a lot of things she could have done, but she chose not to. She refused to have anyone help her with the kids so that she could work even part-time in someone else’s office; then she let her membership in the dental association lapse; then she gradually lost interest in anything that didn’t have to do with the two boys; and then she got fat.’

  When he was sure she was finished, Brunetti observed, ‘I’m not sure how you’re going to take this, but those sound suspiciously like the arguments I’ve heard lots of faithless husbands give.’

  ‘For being faithless?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sure they are.’ Her tone was determined but not in any way angry.

  Clearly she was not going to add to that, so he asked, ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. Life offered her a series of choices that might have made things different, and she made the choices she did. My guess is that each of those choices made the next one inevitable, once she agreed to stop working and to move out of Venice, but she still made them when no one, as you said, was pointing a gun at her head.’