by Donna Leon
Brunetti had observed the Mafia and its close relatives, the N’Dragheta and the Camorra, grow ever more powerful, moving from the dark corners of his investigations until they were now the Prime Mover in the universe of crime. Like that French nobleman in the book he had read as a boy — The Scarlet Pimpernel. He tried to recall the poem describing those who tried to find and destroy him: ‘They seek him here, They seek him there, Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.’
Or was the Lernean Hydra a better image, impossible to destroy because of its many heads? He remembered the joyous feeding frenzy of the press after the arrests of Riina, Provenzano, Lo Piccolo, the suggestion endlessly repeated that finally the government had been triumphant in its long battle against organized crime. As if the death of the president of General Motors or British Petroleum would bring those monoliths to their knees. Had no one ever heard of vice-presidents?
If anything, the arrests of those dinosaurs would give opportunities for younger men, university-trained men, better able to direct their organizations like the multinational corporations they had become. And, he could never forget, the arrests of two of those men had taken place at about the same time as the indulto, that beneficent wave of the legal wand that had set free more than 24,000 criminals, many of them the foot soldiers of the Mafia. Ah, how accommodating the law could be, when it was in the hands of those who best knew how to use it.
16
Brunetti decided it would be better to talk to Patta about Guarino, but when he arrived at the Questura, the guard at the entrance told him the Vice-Questore had left an hour before. Relieved, he went up to his office and called Vianello to ask him to come up. When the Inspector arrived, Brunetti told him about going out to Marghera and seeing Guarino, lying dead on his back in the field.
‘Where had they moved him from?’ Vianello asked immediately.
‘There’s no way of knowing. The men who found him walked around him as if they were at a picnic.’
‘Convenient,’ Vianello observed.
‘Before you begin with conspiracy theories,’ Brunetti — who had already begun to do so — said, but Vianello cut him short.
‘You trust this Ribasso?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Then not telling him you put a name to the man in the photo Guarino sent you doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Habit.’
‘Habit?’
‘Or territoriality,’ Brunetti compromised.
‘Lot of that around,’ Vianello observed, then added, ‘Nadia says it’s because of the goats.’
‘What goats? What are you talking about?’
‘Well, inheritance, really, who we leave the goats to or who gets them after we die.’ Had Vianello suddenly taken leave of his senses, or was Nadia using the garden behind their apartment for something other than flowers?
‘I think you better tell me in a way I can understand, Lorenzo,’ he said, welcoming the diversion.
‘You know Nadia reads, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and the verb forced his thoughts to another woman who read.
‘Well, she’s been reading an introduction to anthropology, or something like that. Sociology, maybe. She talks about it at dinner.’
‘Talks about what?’
‘Lately she’s been reading about inheritance rules and behaviour, as I said. Anyway, there’s this theory about why men are so aggressive and competitive — about why so many of us are bastards. She says it’s because we want to have access to the most fertile females.’
Brunetti propped his elbows on his desk and sank his head in his hands, moaning. He had wanted diversion, but not this.
‘All right, all right. But you needed the introduction,’ Vianello protested. ‘Once they get the most fertile females, they impregnate them, and that way they’re sure that the children who inherit the goats are really their own.’ Vianello looked across the desk to see if Brunetti was following, but he still had his head buried in his hands. ‘It made sense to me when she explained it, Guido. We all want our stuff to go to our kids, not to some cuckoo.’
Brunetti’s continuing silence — at least he had stopped moaning — forced Vianello to add, ‘So that’s why men compete. Evolution’s programmed it into us.’
‘Because of the goats?’ Brunetti raised his head to ask.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you mind if we talk about this some other time?’
‘As you will.’
Their light-heartedness seemed suddenly out of tune to Brunetti, who looked at the papers on his desk, at a loss what to say. Vianello got to his feet, said something about having to talk to Pucetti, and left. Brunetti continued to look at the papers.
His phone rang. It was Paola, reminding him that she had to attend the farewell dinner for a retiring colleague that evening and that the kids were attending a horror film festival and would not be there for dinner, either. Before he could ask, she told him she’d leave him something in the oven.
He thanked her, then asked, remembering the Conte’s request and his failure to pursue it, ‘Did your father say anything about Cataldo?’
‘The last time I spoke to my mother, she said she thought he was going to turn him down, but she didn’t know why.’ Then she added, ‘You know my father enjoys talking to you, so pretend you’re his concerned son-in-law and call him and ask. Please, Guido.’
‘I am his concerned son-in-law,’ Brunetti found himself protesting.
‘Guido,’ she said, with a long pause after his name. ‘You know you never take any interest — or at least you never voice any interest — in his business dealings. I’m sure he’d be glad to hear you finally doing so.’
Brunetti’s position vis-à-vis his father-in-law’s business dealings was an uneasy one. Because Brunetti’s own children would some day inherit the Falier fortune, any display of curiosity on Brunetti’s part, no matter how innocent, was open to the interpretation of self-interest: even the idea caused Brunetti a certain embarrassment.
Asking about Cataldo, he realized, as Paola waited for his response, was complicated, for the man was married to a woman who had so interested Brunetti that he had not managed to disguise that fac-t. ‘All right,’ he forced himself to say, ‘I’ll call him.’
‘Good,’ she said and was gone.
Left with the phone still in his hand, Brunetti dialled the number of his father-in-law’s office, gave his name, and asked to speak to Conte Falier. This time there were none of the usual clicks, hums, or delays, and within seconds he heard the Conte’s voice, ‘Guido, how good of you to call. You’re fine? The kids?’ Someone unfamiliar with their family, and with the fact that Paola spoke to her parents every day, would no doubt believe a significant time had passed since the Conte had last had news of the family.
‘Everyone’s fine, thank you,’ Brunetti answered. Then, with no preamble, ‘I wondered if you’d decided what to do about that investment. I’m sorry I never got back to you, but I haven’t heard anything, certainly nothing you didn’t already know.’ The habit of discretion while speaking on the phone had so seeped into Brunetti’s bones that, even in what was no more than an expression of interest in the doings of a member of his family, he followed the drill of using no names and giving as little information as possible.
‘That’s all right, Guido,’ his father-in-law’s voice broke into his reflections. ‘I’ve decided what to do.’ After a pause, he added, ‘If you like, I can tell you more about it. Are you free for an hour or so?’
With the prospect of an empty house before him, Brunetti said he was, and the Conte went on, ‘I’d like to go and have another look at a painting I saw last night. If you’re interested, you could come along. Tell me what you think of it.’
‘Gladly. Where should we meet?’
‘Why not San Bortolo? We can go together from there.’
They agreed on seven-thirty, the Conte certain that the dealer would stay open if he called and asked. Brunetti glanced at his watch and
saw that there was time to attend to some of the papers that had rained on to his desk that day. He collared his wandering attention and read on. In less than an hour, one entire pile had moved from right to left, though Brunetti, however proud of his industry, remembered little of what he had read. He got up and walked to his window and stared at the church across the canal without really seeing it. He retied his shoes, opened the door to the armadio to look for the wool-lined boots that had lain there, abandoned, for years: he’d last worn them during a particularly high acqua alta. He had noticed, months ago, that one of them was covered in mould, and he now took the opportunity to put them both in the wastebasket, hoping he would not be trapped at the Questura by another flood and find himself without boots. He hoped even more that Signorina Elettra would not discover that he had put rubber in the paper garbage.
Back at his desk, he had a look at the staffing plan and saw that Alvise was scheduled to be at the front desk all of next week. He switched this around and sent him out on patrol with Riverre.
Finally it was time to go. He decided to walk, something he regretted as soon as he turned into Borgoloco S. Lorenzo and the temperature skidded down, leaving him wishing he had taken the scarf from the armadio. The wind abated as he entered Campo Santa Maria Formosa, but when he saw the ice splashed on the pavement around the fountain, he felt still colder.
He cut around the church, down to San Lio, through the underpass and out into the campo, where the wind awaited him. As did Conte Orazio Falier, his throat comfortably nestled in a pink woollen scarf few men his age would dare to wear.
The two men kissed, as had become their habit with the passing of the years, and the Conte latched his arm into Brunetti’s, turning him away from the statue of Goldoni and down towards Ponte del’ovo.
‘Tell me about the painting,’ Brunetti said.
The Conte nodded to a man passing by and stopped to shake hands with an elderly woman who looked familiar to Brunetti. ‘It’s nothing special, but there’s something about his face I like.’
‘Where did you see it?’
‘Franco’s. We can talk there,’ the Conte answered as he nodded to an elderly couple.
They neared Campo San Luca, walked past the bar that had replaced Rosa Salva, then over the bridges and down towards what had been done to La Fenice. In front of the theatre they turned to the left, past Antico Martini, both disappointed that the time was not right to slip in for a meal, and into the gallery at the bottom of the bridge. Franco, long known to both of them, waved at the pictures on the wall, inviting them to look, and returned to his book.
His father-in-law took him to stand in front of a portrait Brunetti guessed to be sixteenth-century Veneto. The painting, no more than sixty by fifty centimetres, showed a bearded young man with his right hand placed rather artfully on his heart. His left hand pressed open the pages of a book while he assessed the viewer with intelligent eyes. Behind his right shoulder a window gave on to a view of mountains that made Brunetti think the painter might have been from Conegliano, perhaps from Vittorio Veneto. The subject’s handsome face was painted against a dark brown curtain, contrast provided by the high white collar of his shirt. Beneath it, he wore a red over-garment of some sort, and on top of that a black doublet. Two more flashes of white appeared at his cuffs, fluffy and frilly and very well painted, as were his face and hands.
‘Do you like it?’ the Conte asked.
‘Very much. Do you know anything about it?’
Before answering, the Conte stepped closer to the painting and drew Brunetti’s attention to the coat of arms just beside the subject’s right shoulder. The Conte held his finger in the air above it and turned to Brunetti to ask, ‘Do you think this could have been painted later?’
Brunetti stepped back to allow a longer perspective. He held up a hand to cover the coat of arms and saw that the proportions improved. He studied the portrait for a few moments more, then said, ‘I think so. Yes. But I don’t think I’d notice it unless someone pointed it out to me.’
The Conte gave a murmur of agreement.
‘What do you think happened?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ the Conte answered. ‘There’s really no way to know. But my guess is that this man somehow gained a title after the portrait was finished, so he took it back to the painter and asked him to add the coat of arms.’
‘Like backdating a cheque or a contract, isn’t it?’ Brunetti asked, interested that the impulse towards deceit should have remained so constant over the centuries. Then he said, ‘No new fashions in crime, I suppose.’
‘Is that your way of leading me to a discussion of Cataldo?’ the Conte asked, then quickly added, ‘And I mean that quite seriously, Guido.’
‘No,’ Brunetti said levelly. ‘All I’ve learned is that he’s rich. There’s no suggestion of crime.’ He looked at his father-in-law. ‘Do you know something I don’t?’
The Conte moved aside to look at another painting, a life-sized portrait of a fat-faced woman bedecked in jewels and brocade. ‘If only she weren’t so vulgar,’ he said, glancing back at Brunetti. ‘It’s so beautifully painted, I’d buy it in a minute. But I couldn’t stand to live with her in the house.’ He reached out his hand and literally dragged Brunetti to stand in front of the painting. ‘Could you?’
Fashions in beauty and body size changed over the centuries, Brunetti knew, and so her girth might have been appealing to some seventeenth-century lover or husband. But her look of swinish gluttony would be offensive through the ages. Her skin glistened with grease, not with health; her teeth, however white and even, were those of an eager carnivore; the creases in the fat of her wrists spoke of embedded dirt. The gown from which her bosom spilled did not so much cover her flesh as restrain it from bursting out.
But, as the Conte had observed, she was gloriously well painted, with brush strokes that captured the glint of her eyes, the rich abundance of her golden hair, even the plush red brocade of the gown that exposed too much of her bosom.
‘It’s a remarkably modern painting,’ the Conte said and took Brunetti aside to a pair of velvet-covered armchairs that might originally have been made to seat members of the senior clergy.
‘I don’t see it,’ Brunetti said, surprised at how comfortable the formidable chair was. ‘Not modern.’
‘She represents consumption,’ the Conte said, waving back at the painting. ‘Just have a look at the size of her and think of the amount she’s had to eat in her lifetime to create that mass of flesh, to make no mention of what she’d have to eat to maintain it. And look at the colour of those cheeks: that’s a woman much given to drink. Again, just imagine the quantities. And the brocade: how many silkworms perished to produce her dress and mantle, or the silk on her chair? Look at her jewellery. How many men died in the gold mines to produce it? Who died digging out the ruby in the ring? And the bowl of fruit on the table next to her? Who cultivated those peaches? Who made the glass next to the fruit bowl?’
Brunetti looked at the painting with this new optic, seeing it as a manifestation of the wealth that feeds consumption and is in turn fed by it. The Conte was right: it could easily be read this way, but just as easily it could be seen as an example of the skill of the painter and the tastes of his age.
‘And are you going to make some connection in all of this to Cataldo?’ Brunetti asked in a light voice.
‘Consumption, Guido,’ the Conte went on as if Brunetti had not spoken. ‘Consumption. We’re obsessed by it. Our desire is to have not one, but six, televisions. To have a new telefonino every year, perhaps every six months, as new models are produced. And advertised. To upgrade our computers every time there is a new operating system, or every time the screens become bigger, or smaller, or flatter or, for all I know, rounder.’ Brunetti thought of his request for his own computer and wondered where this speech was going.
‘If you’re wondering where all of this is leading,’ the Conte astonished him by saying, ‘it’s leading into t
he garbage.’ The Conte turned to him as though he had just delivered the final proof of the validity of a syllogism or an algebraic formula, and Brunetti stared at him.
The Conte, no mean showman, allowed time to pass. From the other room of the gallery, they heard the owner turn a page of his book.
At last the Conte said, ‘Garbage, Guido. Garbage. That’s what Cataldo wanted to propose to me.’
Brunetti remembered the list of Cataldo’s businesses and began to study them in a new light. ‘Aha,’ he permitted himself to say.
‘You at least did some research on him, didn’t you?’ the Conte asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And you know what businesses he’s involved in?’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti said, ‘at least some of them. Shipping: cargo ships and trucks.’
‘Shipping,’ the Conte repeated. ‘And heavy equipment for excavation,’ he added.’ He has a shipping line, and trucks. And earth-moving equipment. He also — and I found out about this only through my own people, who are sometimes as good as yours — has a waste disposal business that gets rid of all of those things I was just talking about that we don’t want any more: telefonini, computers, fax machines, answering machines.’ The Conte glanced back at the portrait of the woman and said, ‘Most desirable model one year; the next year, useless junk.’
Brunetti, who knew where this was leading, decided to remain silent.
‘That’s the secret, Guido: new model one year, junk the next. Because there are so many of us and because we consume so much junk and throw away so much junk, someone has to be around to pick it up and dispose of it for us. It used to be that people were happy to be handed old junk: our kids took our old computers or our old televisions. But now everyone has to have new junk, their own junk. So now we not only have to pay to buy it; we also have to pay to get rid of it.’ The Conte’s tone was calm, descriptive. Brunetti had heard his daughter and granddaughter give much the same speech, but the Conte’s descendants delivered it with anger, not with his cool dispassion.