A Venetian Reckoning

by Donna Leon

  I couldn't speak the language, but I could count; I knew that when that got sent back to my aunt, it would be less than thirty dollars. That's not a lot for an old woman and a baby to live on, not even in Brazil.'

  There was a knock and then the door opened. Brunetti went over and took a tin tray from Gravini. As he went back to Mara, she pulled the third chair between them and motioned to Brunetti to set the tray down there. They both stirred sugar into their coffee. He nodded down at the sandwiches that lay on the plate, but she shook her head.

  'Not until I finish,' she said, and sipped at her coffee. 'I wasn't stupid; I knew the choices I had. So I went to work at the bar. It was hard the first couple of times, but then I got used to it. That was two years ago.'

  'What happened between then and now? To bring you to Mestre?' Brunetti asked.

  'I got sick. Pneumonia, I think. I hate this cold weather,' she said, shivering unconsciously at the there thought of it 'While I was in the hospital, the bar burned down. Someone said it was arson. I don't know. I hope it was. But when it was time for me to get out, Franco', she said, nodding off to her left, as if she knew Franco was in the next cell, came and paid the bill and brought me back here. I've been working for him ever since.' She finished her coffee and set the cup back on the tray.

  It was a story Brunetti had heard more times than he cared to remember, but this was the first time he'd heard it told with not even a trace of self-pity, with no attempt to turn the teller into an unwilling victim of overwhelming forces.

  'Did he', Brunetti asked, nodding his head towards the same wall, though Franco, as it happened, was lodged behind the opposite one, 'have anything to do with the bar in Milan or the one where you work now? Or with Eduardo?'

  She stared down at the floor. 'I don't know.' Brunetti said nothing and she finally added, 'I think he bought me. Or bought my contract.' She looked up then and asked, 'Why do you want to know?'

  Brunetti saw no reason to lie to her. 'We found the phone number of the bar where you're working now in the course of another investigation. We're trying to find out how they're related.'

  'What's the other investigation?' she asked.

  'I can't tell you that,' Brunetti said. 'But, so far, it has nothing to do with you or Eduardo or anything about that.'

  'Can I ask you a question?' she said.

  Whenever Chiara asked him that, Brunetti was in the habit of telling her that she couldn't very well ask him an answer but, instead, he said, 'Of course.'

  'Does it have anything to do with...' she began and then paused, looking for the right word. 'Well, with some of us who have died?'

  'I don't know who you mean by "us",' Brunetti said.

  'Whores,' she explained.

  'No.' His answer was instant and she believed him. 'Why do you ask?'

  'No special reason. We hear things.' She reached out and picked up a sandwich, bit delicately at one end, and men brushed absently at the crumbs that cascaded down the front of her blouse.

  'What sort of things do you hear?'

  'Just things,' she said, taking another bite.

  'Mara,' he began, not certain what tone to use. 'If there's something you'd like to tell me, or ask me, it will rest between us.' Then, before she could speak, he added, 'Not if it's about a crime. But if you just want to tell me something or find out about something, it's between us.'

  'Not official?'

  'No, not official.'

  'What's your name?' she asked.

  'Guido,' he answered.

  She smiled at the thought that he had used his own name. 'Guido the Plumber?' He nodded.

  She took another bite and, still chewing, said, 'We hear things,' then looked down and brushed at the new crumbs. 'You know, the word travels, when things happen. So we hear things, but it's hard, ever, to be sure where we heard it or who said it.'

  'What is it you heard, Mara?'

  'That someone had been killing us.' As soon as she said it, she shook her head. 'No, that's wrong. Not killing us. But we've been dying.'

  ‘I don't understand the difference,' Brunetti said.

  'There was that young one. I can't remember her name, the little Yugoslavian. She killed herself in the summer and then Anja, the one from Bulgaria, she got it out in the field. I didn't know the little one, out I did know Anja. She'd go with anyone.'

  Brunetti remembered these crimes and remembered that the police had never even discovered the victims' names.

  'And then that truck.' She paused and looked at him. The conjunction of words struck a chord, but Brunetti could produce no clear memory.

  When he said nothing, she continued, 'One of the girls said she'd heard - she couldn't remember where — that the girls were coming down here. I forget from where.’

  'To work as prostitutes?’ he asked and immediately regretted the question.

  She pulled back from him and stopped speaking. The expression in her eyes changed as veils were lowered, ‘I don't remember.’

  Her voice told Brunetti that he had lost her, that his question had severed the fine thread that held them together momentarily.

  'Did you ever say anything about this?’ he asked.

  'To the police?’ she finished the question for him with a snort of disbelief. She tossed the remnant of sandwich she still held down on to the tray. 'Are you going to charge me with anything?’ she asked.

  'No,' Brunetti said.

  Then can I go?' The woman he'd spoken to was gone, replaced by the whore who had taken him back to her room.

  'Yes, you're free to go whenever you want' Before she could get to her feet Brunetti asked, 'Is it safe for you to leave before he does?' — again nodding towards the wall behind which Franco was not

  'Him,' she said, purring out her cheeks with contempt

  Brunetti went over to the door, and tapped on it "The signorina is leaving now,' he said, when Gravini opened the door.

  She picked up her jacket, passed in front of Brunetti, and left without saying a word. When she was gone, Brunetti looked at Gravini. 'Thanks for the coffee,' he said, taking back the file which Gravini was still holding.

  'It's nothing, dottore.'

  'If you'll get the tray, I'll talk to the man now.'

  'Should I get some more cigarettes, sir? Or coffee?' Gravini asked.

  'No, I don't think so. Not until I get my 50,000 lire from Franco,' Brunetti said and let himself into the room.

  One glance was enough to tell Brunetti all he needed to know about Franco: Franco was a tough guy, Franco ate nails, Franco wasn't afraid of cops. But from the papers in his hand and from what della Corte had said, Brunetti knew that Franco was a heroin addict who had been in police custody for more than ten hours.

  'Good morning, Signor Silvestri,’ Brunetti said pleasantly, quite as though he'd come to talk of the weekend soccer results.

  Silvestri unfolded his arms and looked at Brunetti, recognizing him immediately. 'Plumber,’ he said and spat on the floor.

  'Please, Signor Silvestri,' Brunetti said padendy as he pulled out one of the two empty chairs and sat. He opened the file again and looked down at the papers, flipped the top sheet over and looked at the one beneath it. 'Assault, and living off the earnings of a whore, and I notice here that you were arrested for selling drugs in, let me see', he said, flipping back to the first page and reading the date, 'January of last year. Now, two charges of accepting money offered to a prostitute will cause you a certain amount of trouble, but I suspect that...'

  Silvestri cut him off. 'Look, let's get on with it, all right, Mr Plumber? Charge me, and I'll call my lawyer, and then he'll come down here and get me out.' Brunetti glanced idly in his direction and noticed the way Silvestri held his hands clenched together at his sides, saw the thin film of perspiration on his brow.

  'I'd certainly be more than happy to do that, Signor Silvestri, but I'm afraid what we have here is a far more serious matter than any of the charges in your file.' Brunetti closed the file and tapped it against
his knee. 'In fact, it's something far beyond the competence of the city police force.'

  'What's that supposed to mean?' As Brunetti watched, the other man forced himself to relax his hands, open them, and place them casually, palms down, on his lap.

  'It means that, for some time, the bar you frequent with your, ah, with your colleagues has been under surveillance, and they've had a tap on the phone.'

  They?' Silvestri asked.

  'SISMI,' Brunetti explained. 'Specifically the antiterrorism squad.'

  'Anti-terrorism?' Silvestri repeated stupidly.

  'Yes, it seems that the bar was used by some of the people involved in the bombing of the museum in Florence’ Brunetti said, inventing as he went along, ‘I suppose I shouldn't tell you this, but as you seem to be caught up in it, I don't see why we shouldn't speak of it'

  'Florence?' Silvestri could do no more than repeat what he heard.

  'Yes, from what little I've been told, the phone in the bar has been used to pass on messages. Those boys have had a tap on it for a month or so. Everything according to the rules - orders from a judge.' Brunetti waved the folder in the air. 'When my men arrested you last night I tried to tell those others that you were just a little fish, one of ours, but they won't listen to me.'

  'What does that mean?' Silvestri asked in a voice from which all anger had disappeared.

  'It means they're going to hold you under the antiterrorism law.' Brunetti closed the file and got to his feet 'It's just a misunderstanding between services, you understand, Signor Silvestri. They'll hold you for forty-eight hours.'

  'But my lawyer?'

  'You can call him then, Signor Silvestri. It'll only be forty-eight hours and-you've already passed', Brunetti began, pushing back his cuff to look at his watch, 'ten of them. So you just have to wait a day and a half, and you'll be free to call your lawyer, and I'm sure he’ll have you out of here in no time at all.' Brunetti smiled.

  'Why are you here?' Silvestri asked, suspicious.

  'Since it was one of my men who arrested you, I felt that, well, I frit that I was the one, you might say, to get you into this, so I thought the least I could do was come by and explain it to you. I've dealt with the fellows from SISMI before,' Brunetti said wearily, 'and there's no talking sense to them. The law says they can keep you for forty-eight hours without notifying anyone, and I guess we'll just have to live with it.' He looked down at his watch again. 'It'll pass like nothing, Signor Silvestri, I'm sure. If you'd like any magazines, just let my man outside know, all right?' Saying that, Brunetti got to his feet and started towards the door.

  'Please,' Silvestri said, certainly the first time in his life he'd addressed that word to a policeman. 'Please don't go.'

  Brunetti turned round and tilted his head to one side in open curiosity. 'Have you thought of some magazines you'd like? Panorama? Architectural Digest? Famiglia Christiana?

  'What do you want?' Silvestri said, voice harsh but not with anger. The film of sweat on his brow stood out in thick beads.

  Brunetti saw that there was no further necessity to play with him. So much for tough Franco, hard as nails.

  Voice severe and level, Brunetti demanded, 'Who calls you on the phone in that bar and who do you call?'

  Silvestri ran both hands up across his face and through his thick hair, plastering his forelock to his skull. He rubbed his mouth with one hand, pulling repeatedly at the edge, as if attempting to remove a stain. "There's a man who calls and tells me when new girls will arrive.'

  Brunetti said nothing.

  ‘I don't know who he is or where he calls from. But he calls me every month or so and tells me where to pick them up. They're already broken in. I just have to get them and set them to work.'

  'And the money?'

  Silvestri said nothing. Brunetti turned and headed towards the door.

  'I give it to a woman. Every month. When he calls me, he tells me where to meet the woman, and when, and I give her the money.'

  'How much?’

  ‘All of it.'

  'All of what?'

  'Everything that's left after I pay for the rooms and pay the girls.'

  'How much is that?'

  'It depends,' he said evasively.

  'You're wasting my time, Silvestri,' Brunetti said, unleashing his anger.

  'Some months it's 40 or 50 million. Some months it's less.' Which, to Brunetti, meant that some months it was more.

  'Who's the woman?'

  ‘I don't know. I've never seen her.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'He tells me where her car will be parked. It's a white Mercedes. I have to come at it from behind, open the back door, and put the money on the back seat. Then she drives away.'

  'And you've never seen her?'

  'She wears a scarf. And sunglasses.'

  is she tall? Thin? White? Black?-Blonde? Old? Come on, Silvestri, you don't have to see a woman's face to know this.'

  'She's not short, but I don't know what colour hair she has. I've never seen her face, but I don't think she's old.'

  'What licence plates does the car have?' ‘I don't know.' 'Didn't you see it?'

  'No. I always do it at night, and the lights in the car are off.' He was sure Silvestri was lying, but Brunetti could also sense that he was near the end of what he would tell.

  'Where do you meet her?'

  'On the street. Mestre. Once in Treviso. Different places. He tells me where to go when he calls.'

  'And the girls. How do you pick them up?'

  'Same way. He tells me a street corner and how many there'll be, and I meet them with my car.'

  'Who brings them?'

  'No one. I get there, and they're waiting.' 'Just like that? Like sheep?'

  'They know better than to try anything,' Silvestri said, voice suddenly savage. 'Where do they come from?'

  ‘All over.’

  'What does that them?' 'Lots of cities. Different countries.' 'How do they get here?' 'What do you mean?'

  'How do they come to be part of your... part of your delivery?'

  'They're just whores. How do you expect me to know? For Christ's sake, I don't talk to them.' Suddenly Silvestri jammed his hands into his pockets and demanded, 'When are you going to get me out of here?'

  'How many have there been?'

  'No more,' Silvestri shouted, getting up from the chair and moving towards Brunetti. 'No more. Get me out of here.’

  Brunetti didn't move and Silvestri backed off a few steps. Brunetti tapped on the door, which was quickly opened by Gravini. Stepping out in the hall, Brunetti waited while the officer closed the door, then said, '"wait an hour and a half, men let him go.'

  'Yes, sir,' Gravini said and saluted the back of his superior as Brunetti walked away.

  22

  His session with Mara and her pimp hadn't put Brunetti in the most favourable of moods for dealing with Signora Trevisan and her late husband's business partner, to call Martucci by but one of the offices he filled, but he made the necessary phone call to the widow, insisting that it was imperative to the progress of his investigation that he have a few words with her and, if possible, with Signor Martucci. Their separate accounts of where they had been the night Trevisan was murdered had been checked: Signora Trevisan s maid confirmed that her mistress had not gone out that evening, and a friend of Martucci s had phoned him at 9.30 and found him at home.

  Long experience had told Brunetti that it was always best to allow people to select the place in which they were to be interviewed: they invariably selected the place in which they felt most comfortable, and thus they enjoyed the erroneous belief that control of location equalled control of content. Predictably, Signora Trevisan selected her home, where Brunetti arrived at the precise hour, 5.30. His spirit still roughened from his encounter with Franco Silvestri, Brunetti was predisposed to disapprove of whatever hospitality might be offered him: a cocktail would be too cosmopolitan, tea too pretentious.

  But after Signora Trevisa
n, today dressed in sober navy blue, led him into a sitting room that contained too few chairs and too much taste, Brunetti realized he had presumed too much upon his sense of his own importance and that he was to be treated as an intruder, not a representative of the state. The widow offered him her hand, and Martucci stood when she led Brunetti into the room, but neither bothered to rise above the bare requirement of civility. Their solemn manner and long faces, Brunetti suspected, were meant to demonstrate the grief he was intruding upon, shared grief at the departure of a beloved husband and friend. But Brunetti had been rendered sceptical of both by his conversation with Judge Beniamin, and perhaps he had been rendered sceptical of humanity in general by his brief conversation with Franco Silvestri.

  Quickly, Brunetti reeled off his formulaic thanks for their having agreed to talk to him. Martucci nodded; Signora Trevisan gave no sign of having heard him.

  'Signora Trevisan,' Brunetti began, ‘I would like to obtain some information about your husband's finances.' She said nothing, asked for no explanation. 'Could you tell me what becomes of your husband's law practice?'

  ‘You can ask me about that,' Martucci interrupted.

  ‘I did, two days ago,' Brunetti said. 'You told me very little.'

  'We've had more information since then,' Martucci said.

  'Does that mean you've read the will?' Brunetti asked, quiedy pleased to see how much his tastelessness surprised them both.

  Martucci's voice remained calm and polite. ‘Signora Trevisan has asked me to serve as her lawyer in the settling of her husband's estate, if that's what you mean.’

  'That answer will do as well as another, I suppose,’ Brunetti said, interested that Martucci could not easily be baited. Must come of practising corporate law, Brunetti reflected, where everyone's forced to be polite. Brunetti continued, 'What happens to the law firm?'

  'Signora Trevisan retains 60 per cent'

  Brunetti said nothing for so long that Martucci was forced to add, 'And I retain 40.’