by Donna Leon
Brunetti sat quietly, thinking of the ease with which both of his children were sure to find jobs when they finished their studies. It didn’t matter at all what they chose to study: from Archaeology to Zoology, the name Falier, lurking in their background, was sure to win them entry anywhere.
Sounding suddenly tired, Patta said, ‘That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I’d like you to help me.’
‘I’d be happy to, sir,’ Brunetti answered, relieved that Patta had not dressed this up with talk of making it a ‘special assignment’.
‘I’d like you to ask Signorina Elettra to try to find out if there’s something wrong with the boy.’
‘Signorina Elettra, sir?’
‘Of course. Who else can find out these things?’
So much for their elaborate manoeuvres to keep Patta from knowing what was going on in his own office; so much for their quiet sense of superiority to the dullard from the South who had no idea of what was going on and how things really worked at the Questura.
‘If you’ll write down the parents’ names and the boy’s, and their address, I’m sure she’d take a look, sir,’ Brunetti said.
‘Good,’ Patta said. He opened the drawer of his desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. Quickly, he wrote the names and the address on it, then looked up at Brunetti, who was leaning forward to take it. ‘And,’ Patta began, paper still under his hand, ‘if it turns out there’s nothing wrong with the boy – that he has no real problems – then would you ask her to have a look at the parents?’ In response to Brunetti’s evident surprise, Patta said, ‘If there’s a problem with the boy, then I don’t want to cause them more trouble.’
‘And if there isn’t?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Then I’d be very interested in getting something I can use to threaten them with,’ Patta explained. In an even more severe voice, he added, ‘He can’t do that to my wife.’
Brunetti, in response said, ‘I can’t remember the name of the company Rullo’s the director of.’
Patta looked up at him sharply, unable to erase the suspicion from his face. ‘Why do you want the name?’
‘It might be profitable for her to have a look at everything while she’s at it.’
Patta picked up the pen again and stared at Brunetti for a long time, then lowered his head and wrote the name of the company on the paper. He slid it across his desk.
Brunetti took it but did not look at it. He wished his superior good morning and went out into Signorina Elettra’s office to ask her if she would be willing to do Vice-Questore Patta a favour.
10
Signorina Elettra seemed pleased to be asked to help the Vice-Questore, but when Brunetti gave her the sheet of paper, she said, very softly, ‘Umberto Rullo? I know the name.’ She bent the fingers of her right hand and pressed them to her face for a moment, then sat in quiet consideration. ‘Umberto Rullo,’ she repeated.
Years ago, Brunetti had seen a painting – he could no longer remember who had painted it – of Santa Caterina di Siena in Contemplation of the Divine Essence of God. She too was seated, her right hand to her cheek, as she stared out of a window. Beyond her the Divine Essence was to be sought in the gentle hills of Tuscany. Signorina Elettra, however, contemplated nothing more than the façade of an apparently deserted building on the other side of Rio di San Lorenzo. Santa Caterina had been draped in the tasteful black and white of the Dominicans. Signorina Elettra, coincidentally, had that day chosen the same colours, a voluminous white silk shirt with black tuxedo studs as buttons, tucked into a pair of slender black cashmere toreador slacks.
Santa Caterina had carried what looked like a handbag, a touch that Brunetti, at the time, had thought made the painting look very modern. Only later did he learn that it was made of the skin of the dragon she was believed to have vanquished. Signorina Elettra’s bag hung on a thin leather strap from the back of her chair. Brunetti restrained his curiosity as to the origin of the leather: Signorina Elettra would never purchase anything made from the skin of an endangered species.
She broke out of her trance and asked, ‘Wasn’t he involved in the bankruptcy of that plastics factory? Ten years ago? Fifteen?’
Of course, that was where Brunetti had read the name: the factory up near Udine. Children in the area with contaminated blood – he couldn’t remember the name of the chemical in the drinking water. And something about doctors being able to wash their blood clean? Barrels of contaminated waste buried near the factory. And when the Guardia di Finanza went in and sequestered their accounts, they found that the owner was a Panamanian company with an office in Luxembourg that was itself owned by a Nigerian company based in the British West Indies, which in turn … Ultimately they failed to find an owner. Rullo claimed, and then proved, that he was the manager, received a salary just as everyone else did, and knew nothing about who owned the company. He was an insignificant cog who did his job in seeing that orders were filled and employees paid.
The judges bought it. Or were bought themselves. The abandoned factory stood in the middle of a fenced-off field, and the water in at least twenty nearby towns was contaminated and unfit for human consumption.
And now Rullo was again in charge of a company that worked with chemicals.
‘His son and his family live below the Vice-Questore,’ Brunetti said. Signorina Elettra gave a slow shake of her head, as if receiving bad news. ‘Their little boy’s been insulting the Vice-Questore’s wife for months, even hit her with his schoolbag.’
Signorina Elettra failed to hide her astonishment at this. ‘But she’s a sweet woman,’ she said indignantly.
Although surprised to hear her say this, Brunetti had no evidence that it was not true.
‘It’s probably better to start with the boy,’ he suggested. ‘If there’s something seriously wrong with him, the Vice-Questore told me he wouldn’t proceed.’
‘Why ever not?’ Signorina Elettra asked.
Brunetti formulated an answer that would not be too shocking to her. ‘Perhaps he believes the boy’s sufficient trouble for them to have to deal with.’
He watched her as understanding dawned. ‘Good heavens,’ she finally said. She looked over at the door to Patta’s office, quite as if she’d never seen it standing there in the wall, and asked, ‘Whoever would have thought it?’
Brunetti believed it unseemly to comment and thus answered, ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’
He had no idea what power Umberto Rullo might wield: apparently he had enough to have slipped free of any accusations – well, condemnation – relating to the factory near Udine. Rullo Junior certainly invested his father’s name with magic powers sufficient to quell a mere Vice-Questore di Polizia, and a Southerner at that. Brunetti was surprised at how offensive this abuse of power was to him, as if his profession, his honour, his life had been called into question by nothing more than a veiled threat by some fool who thought he had access to power superior to that at the disposal of Dottore Patta.
He stopped short in the middle of the flight of stairs, startled by the power of his response, especially after his own rush of relief – he could admit this at least to himself – at the knowledge of what power the Falier name could wield. What was it his friend Giulio always said in Neapolitan? ‘Votta ‘a petrella e annasconne ‘a manella.’ Throw the stone and then hide the hand. Indeed.
On his desk, Brunetti found the scheduling rosters for the next month and spent an hour looking them over and making changes, some to keep men who disliked one another from being on patrol together, twice to place women officers in charge of patrols, rather than leaving them in the Questura to push papers around, and once to cancel a disciplinary measure against one of the pilots, who had used his police launch to take a tourist to the hospital when he saw her lying on the pavement, her husband waving to him for help. She’d tripped on the pavement and dislodged, not broken, her ankle, but there was no way the pilot could have known that, and so Brunetti countermanded the measure and then noticed with delight that it had be
en initiated by Lieutenant Scarpa.
It was Thursday, and so the children were at lunch at their grandparents’ home. Paola had taken that opportunity to organize a tutorial session with the only doctoral candidate she had that year. Brunetti went downstairs to ask Vianello if he wanted to go to lunch.
It was an uncommonly warm day, the third in a series of uncommonly warm days, and they decided to walk down to the campo in front of the entrance to the Arsenale to see if they could have lunch outside. On the way, he told Vianello about Patta’s request and his concern that the parents not be further burdened if the son were in some way …
‘Special?’ Vianello supplied the word.
‘If he has serious problems, yes,’ Brunetti confirmed.
They passed the church of San Martino and found themselves in front of the lions that guarded the entrance to the Arsenale. Brunetti stopped in front of them, as he had been doing since he was a boy. They looked the same as ever, two of them quite respectable and the one on the far right still looking guilty about having eaten a Christian. It had done him precious little good, so thin was he. The one lounging on the lintel above the door looked more robust: he’d have to be; his wings alone did not look strong enough to have carried him up there.
‘What do you think?’ Vianello asked, stopping at one of the outdoor tables. Brunetti noticed that there were no tablecloths and, even stranger, no tourists.
‘Inside,’ Brunetti said. They were here, and since they were on duty all day long, the Ministry of the Interior would pay for their lunch.
Brunetti pushed open the door and entered and found people sitting at six tables.
The owner, Luca, came out of the kitchen, saw them, and stopped. A strange look passed across his round face, something more than surprise, almost disappointment at the sight of a pair of regular guests with one of whom he was on a first-name basis. For the first time in the years since he’d known him, Brunetti noticed the horizontal lines of age on Luca’s forehead.
‘Ciao, Luca,’ Vianello said, removing his hat and looking round. Brunetti smiled and made for the far corner, where they usually sat. Vianello passed a menu to Brunetti. It was a show gesture and meaningless: Brunetti always ate paccheri with tuna, olives and pomodorini, and Vianello always asked for pasta alla Norma.
Luca came to their table with small steps, a towel held in both his hands.
‘Buondí, signori,’ he said as he approached, failing to call Vianello by his first name. Luca usually went through the formality of writing down their order, but he had brought no pad with him. He stood beside the table, trying to strangle the towel, and shifted his weight a few times but said nothing more.
Finally Brunetti asked, ‘What’s wrong, Luca?’ Then, hoping to ease the situation with a joke, he added, ‘We’re not here to arrest you. Don’t worry.’
Luca’s face did not move, but he stopped trying to throttle the towel.
This time, Vianello asked, ‘What’s wrong, Luca? Has something happened?’
‘You don’t know?’ the owner finally asked. ‘Didn’t you read Il Gazzettino today?’
‘No,’ Brunetti answered. He looked across the table and raised his chin to Vianello.
Vianello shook his head.
Luca shifted his weight a few more times. Finally he said, ‘It’s in the kitchen; let me get it.’ He turned and walked to the kitchen, pushed open the door, and disappeared.
The men exchanged confused looks and Vianello said, ‘I hope they didn’t catch him not giving a receipt.’
‘No, he always gives them to clients,’ Brunetti said, however strange that was in a restaurant.
In a moment, the doors swung open and Luca reappeared, bearing the second, local, section, with the famous dark blue masthead.
He handed Brunetti the paper. Brunetti spread it flat on the table between him and Vianello so that both could read the headlines. Brunetti, attracted by the largest headline, began to read about the possible failure of yet another bank but was distracted by Vianello’s whispered ‘Oddio.’
Brunetti looked at his friend, who pointed to a headline reading, ‘La Questura non paga trenta mila Euro.’ And then, in smaller letters: ‘Ristorante non accetta la Polizia.’ He read on. The owner of a restaurant in Chioggia where the local police were in the habit of taking their midday meal, which the police paid for those in service, was owed more than thirty thousand Euros by the Questura and had refused to accept any more police as guests unless they paid for the meal themselves. He told the reporter that the officers were free to take the bills to the Questura themselves and ask for payment, but he was having no more of it.
Brunetti looked up at Luca, then at Vianello. ‘We’ll pay, Luca. Don’t worry.’
‘It’s not you, Commissario,’ he began and then, as if afraid he’d offended Vianello, ‘or you, Lorenzo. It’s the others. They come in and think they can still eat here and not bother to pay. This isn’t a kitchen run by Caritas,’ he said, then, as if realizing what he must sound like, he added, voice growing stronger with each sentence, ‘I’m owed more than fifteen thousand Euros. That’s enough. No more.’
Vianello put his hand on the man’s arm and said his name. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll pay you. And when we get back, we’ll report to the Vice-Questore what the new rules are.’ Either his touch or his words managed to quiet the other man, but to be certain, Vianello added, ‘All right, Luca?’
The owner picked up the newspaper, folded it, and nodded. ‘One paccheri and one Norma, right?’
‘And a bottle of still mineral water,’ Vianello added and patted Luca’s arm again. The owner tucked the newspaper away and headed to another table where a woman was signalling him to bring the bill.
While they were waiting for their lunch, Vianello said, ‘I hope the boy turns out not to have problems. Serious ones.’ He tore open a package of breadsticks and broke one into four or five pieces, which he placed in a row beside his fork, then ignored. ‘It must be terrible.’ He pushed two of the breadstick pieces a bit to the right, then put his forefinger on the bottom of one of them and tipped the other end up from the table. Letting it fall back down, he continued, ‘To have a child you know is bad, really bad, not just high-spirited and a pest.’ There was a long pause.
‘Have you ever known one?’ Brunetti asked, for he had not.
Vianello nodded and prised the second piece of breadstick into the air, then let it drop immediately. ‘A boy in the house opposite ours when I was growing up,’ he said. ‘No one liked him, not even his parents, at least not all that much.’
Luca approached and set the water on the table and said it would be a few more minutes until their pasta was ready. Brunetti glanced at his face and noticed that the horizontal lines were less evident. ‘What became of him?’ he asked Vianello.
‘I don’t know. They moved away when he was about fifteen, and I never saw him again.’ Vianello poured them each a glass of water and pulled out another breadstick. He ate this one.
Luca returned with their pasta, said he hoped they’d like it, and went back to the kitchen. Brunetti speared one of the paccheri, added a cube of tuna, and tried it. Maybe a little too salty this time, but still wonderful.
‘With some kids,’ Vianello continued, ‘especially little boys, it’s hard to tell. Most of them grow up to be normal people, but some don’t, I guess.’ He ate some pasta then set his fork down. He looked across at his friend. ‘After all, the people we work with – the ones we arrest – they have to come from somewhere, don’t they? I mean, they have to start to be bad. Or something has to affect them.’
‘I’ve started to think that maybe they’re born that way,’ Brunetti said, his own fork suspended in the air over his plate. ‘I wonder if that’s what the Calvinists meant when they talked about predestination. It’s just a question of what a society thinks. We want physical reasons for everything, and they wanted spiritual ones, so they said you were born saved or damned, and there was nothing you could do about it.’ He s
hrugged and set his fork down on his plate, drank some more water, wiped his lips.
When Vianello demonstrated no desire to discuss the varieties of religious experience, Brunetti thought he’d take further advantage of his friend’s good sense and said, ‘I’d like to have your opinion about something else, Lorenzo,’ using his first name and thus signalling that this was a personal matter.
Had Vianello been a deer grazing in a forest, he could have been no more alert to the change in the normal sounds around him. He raised his head quickly from what he was eating, set his fork down, and gave his attention to his friend.
‘It’s about a man I know, a friend, someone I’ve known for years,’ Brunetti began. He gave a quick tilt of his head to acknowledge how vague this sounded. ‘He’s really a friend of my father-in-law: his oldest friend; Spanish by birth. He’s about the same age, gay, and wants to adopt a younger man – much younger.’ He stopped to assess Vianello’s reaction, waiting long enough to give him a chance to respond.
‘How much difference in age?’ Vianello asked.
Brunetti looked down at the sauce left on his plate and was reminded of how much he disliked having plates from which he’d finished eating sitting in front of him.
‘At least forty years,’ he answered.
‘You said he’s a friend of your father-in-law?’
Brunetti nodded.
‘Same class?’
‘He’s from an aristocratic family, wealthy. And he seems to be very wealthy himself.’
‘Where’d the money come from?’ Vianello asked.
‘He made a lot of money in South America, but he left and came back to Europe and became an art dealer.’
‘And the man he wants to adopt?’
‘I saw him once, at a dinner, but didn’t speak to him.’
Vianello turned away, but it was only to signal Luca and ask him to bring them two coffees. When he turned back to Brunetti, he asked, ‘Do you think it’s his class, as well as his age?’
‘That makes him want to adopt instead of marry?’