by Donna Leon
'Then to see that they are punished?' Brunetti suggested. Vengeance was usually attractive to the victims of crime.
The Count shrugged this away then turned towards his nephew. Because Brunetti was blocked from seeing the young man's face, he had no idea of what passed between them, but when the Count turned around, he asked, 'What sort of things do you want to know?'
If you have ever had business dealings with...' and here Brunetti paused, not certain which euphemism to use. 'Have you ever dealt with companies or persons who later proved to be criminals?'
'Do you mean the Mafia?' the Count asked. 'Yes.'
'Then why not just say it, for God's sake?'
At his uncle's explosion, Maurizio took a step towards him, one hand raised to the level of his waist, but a glance from the Count stopped him. He lowered his hand and stepped back.
The Mafia, then,' Brunetti said. "Have you ever had dealings with it?'
'Not that I know of’ the Count answered.
'Have any companies you've done business with been involved in criminal activity?'
'Where do you live, on the moon?' the Count suddenly demanded, his face flushing red with anger. 'Of course I deal with companies involved in criminal activity. This is Italy. There's no other way to do business.'
'Could you be more specific, sir?' Brunetti asked.
The Count threw up his hands in what seemed like disgust at Brunetti's ignorance. 'I buy raw materials from a company that has been fined for dumping mercury into the Volga River. The president of one of my suppliers is in jail in Singapore for employing ten-year-olds and making them work fourteen-hour days. Another one, the vice-president of a refinery in Poland, has been arrested on drug charges.' As he spoke, the Count paced back and forth in front of the empty fireplace. He stopped in front of Brunetti and demanded, 'Do you want more?'
'They all seem very far away’ Brunetti said mildly.
'Far away?'
'Far away from here. I had something in mind a little closer, perhaps in Italy.'
The Count appeared utterly at a loss how to take what Brunetti said, whether to respond with anger or information. Maurizio chose this moment to interrupt. 'We had some trouble, about three years ago, with a supplier in Naples.' Brunetti gave him a quizzical glance and the young man continued, lie was providing engine parts for our trucks, but they turned out to have been stolen from shipments made through the port of Naples’ 'What happened?7
'We changed supplier’ Maurizio explained. 'Was it a large contract?'Brunetti asked. 'Large enough’ the Count interrupted. 'How large?' Brunetti asked. 'About fifty million lire a month.' 'Were there bad feelings? Threats?' Brunetti asked.
The Count shrugged. There were words, but no threats.' 'Why?'
The Count took so long in answering this that Brunetti was finally prompted to repeat the question. 'Why?'
‘I recommended him to another trucking company.'
'A competitor?'Brunetti asked.
'Everyone's a competitor’ the Count said.
'Was there ever any other trouble? Perhaps with an employee? Did one of them perhaps have connections to the Mafia?'
'No’ Maurizio interrupted before his uncle could answer.
Brunetti had been watching the Count when he asked the question, and he saw his surprise at the young man's response.
Calmly, he repeated the question directly to the Count. 'Were you aware of an employee who had criminal connections?'
He shook his head. 'No. No.'
Before Brunetti could ask another question, the Countess spoke. 'He was my baby. I loved him so much’ By the time he glanced down at her, she had stopped talking and was again pulling the smooth beads between her fingers.
The Count leaned down and caressed her thin cheek, but she gave no indication that she was aware of his touch, or of his presence. ‘I think this has gone on long enough’ he said, straightening up.
There was still one thing Brunetti wanted. ‘Do you have his passport?'
When the Count failed to answer, Maurizio asked, 'Roberto's?' At Brunetti's nod, he said, 'Of course.'
Is it here?'
'Yes, it's in his room. I saw it there when we were ... When we cleaned it’
'Would you get it for me?'
Maurizio gave a puzzled glance at the Count, who remained motionless and silent.
Maurizio excused himself and for a full three minutes the two men listened to the whispered Ave Marias of the Countess, words repeated and repeated as the beads clicked together.
Maurizio returned and handed the passport to Brunetti.
'Would you like me to sign a receipt for this?' he asked.
The Count dismissed the suggestion with a wave, and Brunetti slipped the passport into the pocket of his jacket without bothering to examine it.
Suddenly the whispered voice of the Countess grew in volume. 'We gave him everything. He was everything to me’ she said, but this again was followed by a return to the words of the Ave Maria.
‘I think this is more than enough for my wife’ the Count said, glancing towards her with eyes that tightened with grief, the first emotion Brunetti had seen the man display.
'Yes’ Brunetti agreed and turned to leave.
‘I’ll see you out’ the Count volunteered. Out of the corner of his eye, Brunetti saw Maurizio glance across at him sharply, but the Count seemed not to notice and turned towards the door, which he held open for Brunetti.
'Thank you’ Brunetti said, intending the remark for all of the people in the room, though he doubted that one of them had even known he was there.
The Count led him down the hall and opened the front door of the apartment.
'Is there anything else you can think of, Signor Conte? Anything that might help us?' Brunetti asked.
'No, nothing can help any more’ he answered, almost as if he were talking to himself.
'Should you think of anything or remember anything, I'd like you to call me.'
'There's nothing to remember’ he answered, pushing the door closed before Brunetti could say anything further.
Brunetti waited until after dinner to examine Roberto's passport The first thing he noted was its thickness: an expandable accordion page was glued to the back and folded inside the cover. Brunetti pulled it open, pulled it out to his arm's length, and looked at the various visas, their many languages and designs. He turned it over and found more stamps on the back. He folded the paper back in place, then opened the passport to the front page.
Issued six years ago and renewed every year until Roberto's disappearance, the passport gave Roberto's date of birth, height, weight, and permanent residence. Brunetti turned to the first pages of the passport: there were of course no stamps from the EC member nations, but there were for the United States, followed by those for Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina. Then immediately following in chronological order, Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania. After that, chronological order broke down, as though the customs officers had simply stamped the document at any convenient page it happened to fall open to.
Brunetti went into the kitchen to get paper and pen, then began to list Roberto's trips in strict chronological order. After fifteen minutes, he had. two sheets of paper covered with columns of places and dates, all complicated by the many insertions he had to make when he came upon stamps that had been made at random.
After noting down the places and dates of all of the stamps, he recopied the list in a more ordered form, this time covering three sheets of paper. The last place Roberto had visited, ten days before the date of his kidnapping, was Poland, which he had entered via Warsaw airport. His exit visa showed that he had stayed only a day. Before that, three weeks before his kidnapping, he had travelled to two countries whose names were given in Cyrillic letters and which Brunetti took to be Belorussia and Tadzhikistan.
He went down the corridor and stood at the door of Paola's study. She looked up at him over the top of her glasses. ‘Yes?' 'How's your Russian?'
'Do you m
ean my boyfriend or my language?' she asked, setting down her pen and removing her glasses.
'No, what you do with your boyfriend is your own business’ he said with a smile. 'Your language’
'Somewhere between Pushkin and road signs, I'd say’
'City names?' he asked.
She stretched out her hand towards the passport he held up in front of him. He went over to the desk, handed her the passport, and went to stand behind her, absently brushing a piece of woollen thread from the shoulder of her sweater.
Taking the passport’ she asked, 'Which one?'
In the back, on that extra page’
She opened the passport and pulled the page out to its full length. 'Brest.'
'Where is it?'
'Belorussia.'
'We have an atlas?' Brunetti asked.
'In Chiara's room, I think.'
By the time he was back, she had copied out the names of the cities and countries on a piece of paper. When he placed the book beside her, she said, 'Even before we bother to look, we ought to see what year it was printed’
'Why?'
'Lots of the names have been changed. Not only countries, but cities.'
She took the book and opened it to the title page.
'Maybe this will do’ she said. 'It's last year's edition.' She turned to the index, looking for Belorussia, then flipped back to the map.
For a moment, they studied the map of the small country lodged in between Poland and Greater Russia. 'If s one of what are now called "breakaway republics"
‘Pity it's only the Russians who get to break away,' Brunetti said, imagining what glory it would be for northern Italy to be free of Rome.
Paola, used to this, ignored him. She replaced her glasses and bent down over the map. She placed a finger on a name, 'Here's the first one. On the border with Poland.' Keeping her finger mere, she continued to study the map. After a few moments, she used her other hand to point to another place. 'Here's the second. It seems to be only a hundred kilometres from the other’
Brunetti placed the open page of the passport beside her and looked again at the visas. The numbers and dates were written in Western style. 'Same day,' he said.
'Meaning?'
That he went by land from Poland to Belorussia and stayed there only one day, perhaps even less, before coming back’
Is that strange? You said he was a sort of errand boy for the business. Maybe he had to deliver a contract or make a pick-up.'
'Hmm’ Brunetti agreed. He reached down and picked up the atlas and began to turn pages.
'What are you looking for?'
‘I’d like to know what route he'd take to get back here’ he answered, studying the map of Eastern
Europe and running his finger across the most likely route. ‘Probably Poland and then Romania, if he was driving’
Paola interrupted him. 'Roberto doesn't sound like someone who'd travel by bus.'
Brunetti grunted, finger still on the map. 'And then Austria and down through Tarvisio and Udine.'
'Do you think it's important?' Brunetti shrugged.
Losing interest, Paola folded the long page back into the passport and handed it up to Brunetti. If it is important, then I'm sorry you'll never know. He'll never tell you,' she said and turned her attention to the book that lay open in front of her.
"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio’ he dropped on her, a phrase she had used with him more than once.
'And what does that mean?' she asked, smiling up at him, glad he'd won a round.
'I mean that this is the age of plastic’
'Plastic?' she repeated, lost.
'And computers.'
When Paola still failed to understand, he smiled and said, his voice the perfect imitation of a television announcer's, 'Never leave home without your American Express card’ As he saw comprehension dawning in her eyes, he added, 'And then I can follow your movements on . . .' and Paola, understanding at last, joined him in finishing the sentence, 'Signorina Elettra's computer’
21
'Of course you can charge prostitutes on your credit card’ Signorina Elettra insisted to an astonished Brunetti. He stood beside her desk two days later, holding a four-page printout of the charges made to Roberto Lorenzoni's three credit cards in me two months before his kidnapping.
By any standards, these expenses were tremendous, a total in excess of fifty million lire, more than most people made in a year. The expenses had been converted into lire from a wide range of currencies, both familiar and strange: pounds, dollars, marks, lev, zloti, roubles.
Brunetti was on the third page, looking at the charges from a hotel in St Petersburg. In a period of two days, Roberto had run up more than four million lire in room service. It might have seemed the young man had never left his room, having all meals sent in to him, drinking nothing but champagne, were it not that the printout also listed enormous expenses from restaurants and what sounded like discos or night clubs: Pink Flamingo, Can Can, and Elvis.
'There's nothing else it could be,' Signorina Elettra insisted.
'But Visa?' Brunetti asked, unable to believe what seemed to be staring him in the face.
'The men from the bank did it all the time,' she said. 'In almost all the Eastern countries you can do that now. It goes down as room service or laundry or valet service, depending on how the hotel has decided to list it. But if s just a way they get a cut. And keep an eye on who goes into and out of the hotel.' Seeing that she had caught Brunetti's attention, she continued. 'The lobbies are full of them. They look just like us. Westernized, that is. Armani, Gucci, Gap, and really quite beautiful. One of the vice-presidents told me he'd been approached by one of them, in English. This must have been about four years ago. Perfect English, could have been an Oxford professor. And she was. A professor, that is, at the university there, not at Oxford. She made about fifty thousand lire a month, teaching English poetry. So she decided to supplement her income.'
'And improve her English?' Brunetti asked.
Italian, in this case, I think, sir.'
Brunetti looked back down at the papers. His imagination superimposed upon the information contained in them the map of Eastern Europe which he and Paola had studied two nights before. He followed Roberto's path east, traced the purchase of petrol just at the edge of Czechoslovakia; a new tyre, shockingly expensive, somewhere in Poland, and then more petrol at the city where he'd obtained his entry visa to Belorussia. There was a charge for a hotel room in Minsk, far more expensive than in Rome or Milan, and a very expensive dinner. Three bottles of Burgundy were on the bill - the only word it contained that Brunetti could understand - so it must have been a dinner for more than Roberto alone, probably one of those business dinners he was so richly paid to extend to clients. But in Minsk?
Because this list was in chronological order, Brunetti could also trace Roberto's movements as he made his way back across the continent, following pretty much the path Brunetti had sketched out for him: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and then back down into Italy, where he'd bought fifty-thousand lire in petrol in Tarvisio. Then, about three days before his kidnapping, the charges ended, but not before he had paid more than three hundred thousand lire at a pharmacy near his home.
'What do you think?' Brunetti asked.
‘I think I wouldn't have liked him very much’ Elettra said coolly.
'Why not?'
‘I usually don't like people who don't pay their own bills.' 'And didn't he?'
She flipped the report back to the first page and pointed to the third line, which gave the name of the person to whom the bill was to be sent. 'Lorenzoni Industries’
'It's his company card, then.'
‘For business expenses?' she asked.
Brunetti nodded. It seems like that to me’
'Then what’s this?' she asked, pointing to a charge for two million seven hundred thousand lire from a tailor in Milan. 'Or this?' This t
ime she pointed to a receipt for a seven hundred thousand lire handbag from Bottega Veneta.
'It's his father's company’ Brunetti argued.
She shrugged.
Brunetti wondered why it was that Signorina Elettra, a woman from whom he had not come to expect conventional morality, would find Roberto's behaviour so objectionable.
'Don't you like rich people?' he finally asked. 'Is that it?'
She shook her head. 'No, that's not the case at all. Maybe I just don't like spoiled young men who spend their daddy's money on whores.' She pushed the papers towards him and turned back to her computer.
'Even if he's dead?' Brunetti asked.
'That changes nothing, Dottore.'
Brunetti made no attempt to hide his surprise, perhaps even his disappointment. He took the papers and left.
From the pharmacy he learned that the prescriptions had been written by Roberto's family doctor, no doubt part of the doctor's attempt to treat the symptoms of malaise and general lack of energy. No one in the pharmacy remembered Roberto, nor could they recall having filled the prescriptions.
Feeling himself at a dead end, possessed only of a sense that something was wildly wrong with both the kidnapping and the Lorenzoni family, Brunetti decided to make use of the family he had married into and dialled the Count's number. This time it was his father-in-law who answered.
‘It’s me’ Brunetti said.
'Yes?' the Count asked.
‘I wondered if you'd heard anything else about the Lorenzonis since I spoke to you’
'I've spoken to a number of people’ the Count said. They say the mother's in very bad shape’ In any other person, that would have been a request for gossip, not a statement of fact.
‘Yes, I've seen her.'
'I'm sorry’ the Count said and then added, 'She was a lovely woman. I knew her years ago, before she was married. She was vibrant, funny, wonderfully beautiful’
Surprised at himself for never having asked the history of the family, having allowed his vague sense that they were wealthy to suffice, Brunetti asked, 'Did you know him, as well?'