by Donna Leon
‘Mr Gamberetto?’ Brunetti inquired politely.
‘Yeah, he’s the fellow’s got the haulage contract from the post. His trucks pull in, here twice a week and take away the restricted stuff. You know, the medical waste from the hospital, and from the dental clinic. I think he picks up stuff from the motor pool, too. The oil they take out of the transformers and from the oil changes they do. The trucks don’t have his name on them or anything, but they have this red stripe down the side, and that’s the kind of trucks I saw up by Lake Barcis that day.’ He paused and grew reflective. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it that day, when Foster asked me. But Danny had just gone up to Germany, and I guess I wasn’t thinking all that clear.’
‘You work in the contracting office, don’t you, Sergeant?’ Ambrogiani asked.
If the American found it strange that Ambrogiani would know this, he gave no sign of it. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Do you ever have occasion to speak to this Mr Gamberetto?’
‘Nope. Never laid eyes on the man. I just know his name from seeing the contract in the office.’
‘Doesn’t he come in to sign the contract?’ Ambrogiani asked.
‘No, one of the officers goes out to his office. I imagine he gets a free lunch out of him, then comes back with the signed contract, and we process it.’ Brunetti didn’t have to look at Ambrogiani to know he was thinking that someone might be getting a lot more out of Mr Gamberetto than a free lunch.
‘Is that the only contract Mr Gamberetto has?’
‘No, sir. He’s got the contract to build the new hospital. That was supposed to start a while back, but then we had the Gulf War, and all building projects got put on hold. But it looks like things are beginning to loosen up, and I imagine work will begin in the spring, soon as the ground is ready to be broke open.’
‘Is it a big contract?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Certainly sounds like it, a hospital.’
‘I don’t remember the exact figures, it’s been so long since we handled the contract, but I think it was something in the neighbourhood of ten million dollars. But that was three years ago, when it was signed. I imagine it’s increased a fair bit since then.’
‘Yes, I should certainly think so,’ Brunetti said. Suddenly they all turned towards the sound of wild barking from the house. As they watched, the front door opened a crack and a large black dog came catapulting from the door and down the steps. Barking dementedly, she ran directly to Kayman and jumped up at him, licking at his face. She turned to the two men, checked them over, then ran off a few metres to squat on the grass and relieve herself. That done, she was back at Kayman, leaping up, aiming her nose at his.
‘Get down, Kitty Kat,’ he said, no firmness at all in his voice. She soared up again and made contact. ‘Get down now, girl. Stop that.’ She ignored him, ran off, the better to gain momentum for her next leap, turned, and raced back. ‘Bad dog,’ Kayman said in a tone that meant the opposite. He pushed the dog down with both hands and latched them in the fur at her neck, where he began to scratch her roughly. ‘Sorry. I wanted to get away without her. Once she sees me get into the car, she goes crazy if she can’t come along. Loves the car.’
‘I don’t want to keep you, Sergeant. You’ve been very helpful,’ Brunetti said, putting out his hand. The dog followed his hand with her eyes, tongue lolling to the left of her mouth. Kayman freed one hand and shook Brunetti’s hand, but he did it awkwardly, still bent down over the dog. He shook Ambrogiani’s, then, when they turned away and went back towards the gate, he opened the door to the car and allowed the dog to leap in ahead of him.
As the car backed towards them, Brunetti stood by the metal gate. He waved to Sergeant Kayman to indicate that he would see to closing the gate and did just that. The American waited long enough to see that the gate was closed, put his car in gear, and drove off slowly. The last they saw was the head of the dog, poking out of the rear window of the car, nose prodding at the wind.
* * * *
20
As the head of the dog disappeared up the narrow road, Ambrogiani turned to Brunetti and asked, ‘Well?’
Brunetti began to walk towards the parked car. When they were both inside and the doors closed, Ambrogiani sat behind the wheel without starting the engine.
‘Big job, building a hospital,’ Brunetti finally said. ‘Big job for Signor Gamberetto.’
‘Very,’ the other agreed.
‘The name mean anything to you?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ Ambrogiani said, then added, ‘he’s someone we’ve been told to stay away from.’
When Brunetti gave him a puzzled glance, Ambrogiani explained, ‘Well, it’s never been given as a specific order - nothing like that ever is - but the word has filtered down that Signor Gamberetto and his affairs are not to be examined too closely.’
‘Or else?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Oh,’ Ambrogiani said with a bitter chuckle, ‘It’s never as crude as that. It is simply suggested, and anyone who has any sense understands what it means.’
‘And stays away from Signor Gamberetto?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Interesting,’ Brunetti offered.
‘Very.’
‘So you treat him like he’s just a simple businessman with dealings in the area?’
Ambrogiani nodded.
‘And by Lake Barcis, it seems.’
‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it?’
‘You think you could find out about him?’
‘Well, I think I could try.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that, if he’s a medium-sized fish, then I’ll be able to find out about him. But if he’s a big fish, then there won’t be much to find out. Or what I do find out will tell me that he’s no more than a respectable local businessman, well-connected politically. And that will merely confirm what we know already, that he is a man with Friends in High Places.’
‘Mafia?’
Ambrogiani shrugged one shoulder by way of answer.
‘Even up here?’
‘Why not? They’ve got to go somewhere. All they do is kill one another down South. How many murders have there been so far this year? Two hundred? Two hundred and fifty? So they’ve started moving up here.’
‘The government?’
Ambrogiani gave the special snort of disgust that Italians reserve for use only when speaking of their government. ‘Who can tell them apart anymore, Mafia and government?’
This vision was more severe than Brunetti’s, but perhaps the nationwide network of the Carabinieri had access to more information than he did.
‘What about you?’ Ambrogiani asked.
‘I can make some phone calls when I get back. Call in some favours.’ He didn’t tell Ambrogiani of the one call he thought would be most successful, one that had nothing to do with calling in a favour; quite the opposite.
They sat there for a long time. Finally, Ambrogiani reached forward and opened the glove compartment. He began to rifle though the stack of maps that lay inside until he finally pulled one out. ‘Have you got time?’ he asked.
‘Yes. How long will it take to get there?’
Instead of answering, Ambrogiani pulled open a map and spread it open in front of him, braced against the steering wheel. With a thick finger, he roved around the map until he found what he was looking for. ‘Here it is. Lake Barcis.’ His finger snaked to the right on the lake and then cut sharply down in a straight line leading to Pordenone. ‘An hour and a half. Maybe two. Most of it is autostrada. What do you say?’
By way of answer, Brunetti reached behind him and pulled his seat belt across his chest, snapping it into place between the seats.
Two hours later, they were driving up the snake-like road that led to Lake Barcis, one of at least twenty cars caught behind an immense gravel-filled truck that crawled along at about ten kilometres an hour, forcing Ambrogiani constantly to switch gears from second to first as they stopped on curves to allow the truck to manoeu
vre its way around them. Every so often, a car swept past them on the left, then cut narrowly between two of the cars crammed behind the truck, forcing an opening with its front end and horn. Occasionally, a car pulled sharply to the right and sought a parking space on the too-narrow shoulder. The driver would pop out, pull open the bonnet, and sometimes make the mistake of opening the radiator.
Brunetti wanted to suggest that they pull over, since they were in no hurry, had no destination, but, even though he wasn’t really a driver, he knew enough not to suggest what to do. After about twenty minutes of this, the truck pulled off the road into a long parking area, no doubt designed for just this purpose, and the cars shot past, some waving their thanks, most not bothering. Ten minutes later, they pulled into the small town of Barcis, and Ambrogiani turned off to the left and down a sharp driveway that led to the lake.
Ambrogiani hauled himself out of the car, obviously rattled by the drive. ‘Let’s have something to drink,’ he said, walking towards a café that filled an enormous veranda behind one of the buildings beside the lake. He pulled out a chair at one of the umbrella-shaded tables and dropped into it. Before them stretched the lake, water eerily blue, mountains shooting up behind it. A waiter came and took their order, returned a few minutes later with two coffees and two glasses of mineral water.
After Brunetti had finished his coffee and taken a sip of the water, he asked, ‘Well?’
Ambrogiani smiled. ‘Pretty lake, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, beautiful. What are we, tourists?’
‘I suppose so. Pity we can’t stay here and look at the lake all day, isn’t it?’
It unsettled Brunetti not to know if the other man was serious or not But, yes it would be nice. He found himself hoping that the two young Americans had been able to spend the weekend up here, regardless of the reason for their trip. If they were in love, this would be a beautiful place to be. Himself his own editor, he corrected that to read, if they were in love, anywhere would be beautiful.
Brunetti summoned the waiter and paid him. They had decided on the ride up not to call attention to themselves by asking questions about trucks with red stripes turning onto side roads. They were tourists, even if they were in tie and jacket, and tourists certainly had the right to pull off at a picnic site on the way down and look at the mountains as the traffic sped past them. Because he didn’t know how long they would be, he stopped at the counter inside and asked if the barman could make a few sandwiches to take with them. The best he could do was prosciutto and cheese. Ambrogiani nodded, told him to make four and to put in a bottle of red wine and two plastic cups.
With this in hand, they returned to Ambrogiani’s car and drove down the hill, back in the direction of Pordenone. About two kilometres from Barcis, they saw a broad parking area on the right-hand side and pulled into it. Ambrogiani swung the car around so that they could see the road, not the mountains, killed the engine and said, ‘Here we are.’
‘It wasn’t my idea of how I’d spend my Saturday,’ Brunetti admitted.
‘I’ve had worse,’ Ambrogiani said and then talked about a time when he had been assigned to look for a kidnap victim in Aspromonte and had spent three days up in the hills, lying on the ground, watching through a pair of field glasses as people went into and out of a shepherd’s hut.
‘What happened?’Brunetti asked.
‘Oh, we got them.’ And then he laughed. ‘But it was someone else, not the one we were looking for. This girl’s family had never called us, never reported it. They were willing to pay the ransom, only we got there before they had the chance to pay a lira.’
‘What happened to the other one? The one you were looking for?’
‘They killed him. We found him a week after we found the girl. They’d cut his throat. The smell led us to him. And the birds.’
‘Why did they do it?’
‘Probably because we found the girl. We warned her family, when we took her back to them, not to say anything. But someone called the papers, and it was all over the front pages. You know, “Joyous Liberation”, complete, with pictures of her with her mother, eating her first dish of pasta in two months. They must have read about it and figured we were looking for them, getting dose. So they killed him.’
‘Why not just let him go?’ Then, because it had not been said, Brunetti asked, ‘How old was he?’
‘Twelve.’ There followed a long pause, then Ambrogiani answered the first question. ‘Letting him go would be bad business. It would let other people know that if we got close enough, there might be a chance for them. By killing him, they made the message clear: we mean business, and if you don’t pay, we kill.’
Ambrogiani opened the bottle of wine and poured some into the plastic cups. They each ate a sandwich, then, because there was nothing else to do, another. During all of this, Brunetti had kept himself from looking at his watch, knowing that it would be later, the longer he waited. Unable to resist, he looked. Noon. The hours stretched ahead. He rolled down the window, looked over at the mountains for a long time. When he glanced back, Ambrogiani was asleep, head canted to the left, resting against the window. Brunetti watched the traffic going down and coming up the steep gradient. All of the cars looked pretty much the same to him, different only in colour and, if they were moving slowly enough, in number plate.
After an hour, the traffic began to taper off, everyone had stopped to eat. Soon after he noticed this, he heard the sharp exhalation of air from the brakes of a truck and looked up to see a large truck with a red stripe along the side pass down the hill.
He poked Ambrogiani in the arm. The Carabiniere was instantly awake, his hand turning the key. He pulled onto the road and followed the truck. About two kilometres from where they had been parked, the truck signalled and then turned off to the right, disappearing down a narrow dirt-covered road. They drove past, continuing down the hill, but Brunetti saw Ambrogiani reach out to the dashboard and push the button that moved the mileometer back to zero. After he had gone a full kilometre, he pulled off the road and cut the engine.
‘What was the number plate?’
‘Vicenza,’ Brunetti said and pulled out his notebook to write the numbers down while they were still fresh in his memory. ‘What do you think?’
‘We stay here until the truck passes us on the way down or we wait half an hour and go back.’
After half an hour, the truck had not passed the place where they were parked, so Ambrogiani drove back up towards the road the truck had turned into. They passed it and he pulled off to the right a bit beyond it, angling the car in between two cement road markers.
Ambrogiani got out and went around to the boot of the car. He opened it and reached in. Slipped in next to the tyre was a large calibre pistol, which he pushed into the waistband of his trousers. ‘You have one?’ he asked.
Brunetti shook his head. ‘I didn’t bring it today.’
‘I’ve got another one in here. Want it?’
Brunetti shook his head again.
Ambrogiani slammed the boot closed and together they walked across the road and onto the dirt path that led off towards the mountains.
Trucks had worn a double groove into the dirt of the path; with the first heavy rain, the dirt would turn to mud, and the road would be impassable to vehicles the size of the truck they had seen turn into it. After a few hundred metres, the path widened minimally and curved to run alongside a stream that had to be coming down from the lake. Soon the path branched off to the left, leaving the stream and now following a long line of trees. Ahead, the path took another sharp turn to the left and up a sharp incline, where it seemed to come to an end. With no warning, Ambrogiani stepped behind one of the trees and pulled Brunetti after him. With a single motion, the Carabiniere reached inside his jacket and pulled out his gun with one hand and, with the other, gave Brunetti a brutal push in the centre of his back that sent him spinning away, completely off-balance.
Brunetti flailed at the air with his arms, unable to stop
his forward motion. For an instant, he hung between motion and collapse, but then the ground sloped away under him and he knew he was going to fall. As he did, he turned his head and saw Ambrogiani coming directly after him, gun in hand. His heart contracted in sudden terror. He had trusted this man, never stopping to think that the person at the American base who had learned about Foster’s curiosity and who had learned about Doctor Peters’ affair with him could just as easily be an Italian as an American. And he had even offered Brunetti a gun.
He crashed forward onto the ground, stunned, wind knocked from him. He tried to push himself to his knees, he thought of Paola, and he was conscious of the blaze of sunlight all around him. Ambrogiani crashed to the ground beside him, threw an arm over his back, and pushed him back down to the ground. ‘Stay down. Keep your head down,’ he said into Brunetti’s ear, lying beside him, arm across his back.