The Girl of his Dreams

by Donna Leon

  More importantly, use it to lead a conversation away from where you do not want it to go.

  While Fornari continued speaking, Brunetti considered the possibility that Fornari's daughter knew something her father did not want Brunetti to know. He nodded towards Fornari, not really listening, though he thought he heard the man begin a sentence with, 'Once, when Matteo was a child ...'

  Suddenly Brunetti was overcome by the temptation to do something he would despise himself for doing, something, in fact, that he had promised himself he would never do and then, after those times when he had done it, had promised himself he would never do again. Informers were everywhere: the police had them inside the Mafia; the Mafia had them even at the highest level of the magistratura; the military was full of them, as no doubt was industry. But no one had so far bothered to penetrate the world of teenagers and bring from it reliable information. He foresaw no danger to his own children in asking them to supply information about Fornari's, but the essence of danger was that it was unforeseen, wasn't it?

  When he tuned back in, Fornari was coming to the end of a story about one of his children: Brunetti did not know which one. Brunetti smiled, then got to his feet and extended his hand to Fornari. ‘I suppose they're all much the same,' he said. 'They just don't pay attention to the same things we do.' He hoped it was an appropriate response to whatever story Fornari had been telling, and from the man's reaction it appeared that it was.

  They shook hands, Brunetti thanked him for taking the time to speak to him, asked him to extend the same thanks to his wife, and left the apartment. On the way downstairs, he wondered which of his children he was willing to turn into a spy and how he would deal with Paola when she found out.

  27

  When he reached the calle, Brunetti turned to the right and, more from habit than conscious thought, started back the way he had come. He was halfway down Calle degli Avvocati when he changed his mind and decided to take the vaporetto back to the Questura. He turned abruptly, and when he did he noticed a sudden motion on the left about ten metres away as something slipped back around the corner of Calle Pesaro. Reminded of the sensation that he had been followed from the Questura, Brunetti decided to abandon caution and took off at a fast run towards the corner.

  When he wheeled around it, he saw motion ahead as someone, perhaps a woman, ran down the other side of the bridge and to the right into Calle dell’Albero. Brunetti followed over the bridge, down the riva and left at the end. He paused only long enough to look down the calle at the right, which he knew to be a dead end.

  And heard retreating footsteps. He followed them: the walls of the buildings on either side grew closer together as the calk narrowed, and then ahead of him he saw the tall metal doors of a palazzo. For a moment, he wondered if he had been imagining it all, but then he heard a sound on the left. He moved forward slowly, and as he walked he unbuttoned his jacket to put his pistol within reach.

  He saw it then, in a doorway on the left, and at first it looked to him like a discarded overcoat or a garbage bag over which someone had tossed an old sweater. He approached, and the object moved, backed up somehow to get closer to the door, then slid silently to the right and pressed up against the wall.

  Brunetti was still not sure what sort of creature he had cornered. He bent down to take a closer look, and it erupted in his direction, crashing against his legs. Instinctively, Brunetti grabbed at it, but it was like holding an eel or some sort of wild animal. It thrashed, and then two skinny legs began to kick at him.

  Knowing then at least what manner of being he was dealing with, Brunetti lifted it from the ground and turned it so that the feet were facing away from him and would perhaps do less damage. Then he wrapped his arms around the upper part and pulled it to his chest, muttering the sort of things he had said to their dogs when he was a boy.

  It's all right. It's all right. I'm not going to hurt you.' It kicked a few more times. Brunetti heard gasps, but gradually they subsided and the kicking stopped. It hung limp in his arms. 'I'm going to put you down now,' Brunetti said. 'Be careful where you put your feet, and don't fall.' The creature remained limp and unresponsive.

  'Do you understand?'

  Something under the hood of a dirty sports jacket nodded, and Brunetti lowered it to the ground. He felt the feet touch the ground one after the other, and, his hands still on the arms, he felt the entire body grow tense and prepare to flee. Effortlessly, he picked the child up again and said, 'Don't try to run away again. I'm much faster than you are.'

  The tension relaxed and Brunetti lowered the child once more. The top of the hood came a few centimetres above Brunetti's belt. 'I'm going to let go and move away from you.' He did just that and then spoke to the back of the jacket. 'When you want, you can talk to me.'

  There was no response. 'Is that why you were following me?' he asked. 'Do you want to talk to me?'

  He saw a motion of the head, but it could have meant anything. 'All right. Then let's talk.'

  A small, dirty hand came out of the sleeve of the jacket and motioned Brunetti to move farther away. Because the calle was a dead end and he was blocking the exit, he did this, moving back a full two paces. 'All right, I'm far enough away from you now. So we can talk.'

  Brunetti leaned back against the wall of a building and folded his arms. He looked at the wall opposite him, though his attention was entirely on the child.

  After what could have been a minute but might have been more, the child turned around. In the shadow created by the hood, Brunetti could make out eyes and mouth but not much more. He put his hands in his pockets and took another step away from the child, leaving an opening in front of him large enough for the child to try to bolt through. He watched as the child considered doing this and then discarded the idea.

  The child slipped the same hand that had done the waving into the front pocket of the jacket. When it came out, the child took one step towards Brunetti and opened the ringers. In the palm Brunetti saw some small objects. He took a slow step closer, then leaned forward to see better. There was a ring and a cuff link.

  Brunetti crouched down and extended his hand towards the child, who took one small step towards him. Brunetti saw that it was a boy, looking no older than eight, though he knew that the dead girl's brother was twelve. The boy let the jewellery drop into Brunetti's outstretched palm.

  He pulled the objects closer and looked at them. The silver of the cuff link surrounded a small rectangle of lapis lazuli. Even Brunetti could see that the red stone in the ring was only a piece of glass. He glanced at the child, who was looking at him. 'Who sent you?' Brunetti asked.

  'Mamma’ the child answered in a very light voice.

  Brunetti nodded. 'You're a good boy,' he said. 'And very brave.' He didn't know how much of this the boy would understand, but when he saw the answering smile, he knew. 'And very clever,' Brunetti added, tapping the side of his own head, and the smile grew larger.

  'What happened?' Brunetti asked. When the child did not answer, Brunetti asked, 'That night, what happened?'

  'The tiger man,' the boy said.

  Brunetti cocked his head to one side to show his confusion. 'What tiger man?' he asked.

  'In the house’ the child said, waving his hand in the general direction of the houses to Brunetti's left, where stood Palazzo Benzon and the home of Giorgio Fornari.

  Brunetti raised his palms in the universal sign of confusion. 'I don't know a tiger man’ he said. 'What did he do?'

  'He saw us. He came in. No clothes. Tiger man’ To show what he meant, the boy stuck his ringers in his hair and ruffled it out above his head, then made cutting motions, first with one hand, then with the other, at the top of his arms. "Tiger. Bad tiger. Loud noise. Tiger noise.'

  'Did the tiger man give you these?' Brunetti asked, holding the jewellery out towards the boy.

  The boy's face grew cloudy with confusion. 'No, no’ he said with a violent shake of his head. 'We take. Tiger man see.' His eyes contracted
as though he were trying to remember something, or trying not to remember something. Then he said, 'Ariana. He took Ariana’ To show Brunetti what he meant, he stuck his arms out in front of him and pretended to pick something up. 'Like you do me’ he said, making it clear and raising his hands with the emptiness suspended between them. He froze.

  Brunetti waited.

  'Door. Ariana out door’ he said, pushing his arms away from him violently and letting his hands fly open. Brunetti saw that the boy was crying.

  His knees had begun to ache, but he remained crouched down, afraid of the effect on the child if he suddenly got to his feet. He let the boy cry for some time, and when he seemed calmer, Brunetti asked, 'Who was with you?'

  'Xenia’ he said, raising one of his out-thrust hands to the level of his shoulder.

  'Did she see the tiger man?'

  The boy nodded.

  'Did she see what he did?'

  He nodded again.

  'Does your mother know about this?' Brunetti asked.

  He nodded.

  'Will she talk to me?'

  The boy stared at Brunetti for some time and then shook his head.

  'Because of your father?' The boy shrugged.

  'Why are you in the city?' Brunetti asked. 'Work’ the boy said, and Brunetti was left speechless at the use of the word.

  'Will you tell your mother that you talked to me?' 'Yes. She want.'

  'Does she want anything else?' Brunetti asked.

  'Tiger man. Tiger man die’ the boy said fiercely, and Brunetti realized it was not only the boy's mother who wanted him dead. 'Like Ariana’ the boy said with adult savagery.

  Brunetti had had enough. He spread his fingers on the ground in front of him and pushed off, rising slowly to his feet. He heard his right knee creak. As he had feared, the boy took two steps backwards and raised an involuntary arm across his face.

  Brunetti backed farther away. ‘I won't hurt you.' The boy let his arm fall to his side.

  'You can go now, if you like’ he said. The boy at first seemed not to understand, so Brunetti turned and walked to the end of the calle, where it formed a T junction with Calle dell'Albero. Brunetti called back to the boy. 'I'm going back to the Questura. Tell your mother I would like to talk to her.'

  The boy had materialized around the corner behind him. He shook his head at Brunetti's request, but he said nothing.

  Pressing his back against the wall of the building opposite Brunetti, the boy squeezed past him. He turned left into the calle, heading towards the bridge they had both run down.

  He paused at the bottom but did not look back at Brunetti. As the boy put his foot on the first step, Brunetti called after him. 'You're a good boy.' The boy ran up the bridge and disappeared down the other side.

  28

  '"Tiger man"?' Vianello repeated after Brunetti told him about his meeting with the Fornaris and the child. 'He didn't give you any better idea of what he was talking about?'

  'No. Nothing. Someone who looked like a tiger to him - came in while they were inside the place and picked the little girl up and threw her out the door.' Brunetti paused, ran a hand through his hair, and added, 'At least that's what it sounded like.'

  'And for this the boy wants to kill him?'

  'There was a door to the terrace in the parents' bedroom,' Brunetti reminded him. 'She could have fallen off and slid down the roof from there.'

  'You might be right about that,' Vianello conceded, ‘But I don't remember seeing a tiger skin.'

  'Don't be literal-minded, Lorenzo. He's a child. Who knows what he means by a tiger man? It could be someone in striped pyjamas; it could be someone who yelled at them in a deep voice’

  Vianello considered this, then added, 'We don't even know if the kid's using the right word, do we?' When Brunetti said nothing, Vianello said, 'You told me he barely spoke Italian. You think he'd know the word?'

  Brunetti thought the boy's understanding of Italian was more than adequate, though what Vianello said might be true. Then he remembered the way the boy had fluffed out his hair like the head of a beast and had made those motions to suggest a tiger's stripes. But the world of a child's imagination did not have to correspond to an adult's.

  'Poor devil’ Vianello said.

  'You mean the kid?' Brunetti asked.

  'Of course I mean the kid’ Vianello said quickly. 'How old is he? Twelve? He ought to be in school, not coming to the city to go to work by breaking into houses.' Brunetti restrained himself from commenting on the inconsistency of Vianello's opinions and waited for him to continue.

  'He's a kid’ the Inspector repeated indignantly. 'He's not doing these things because it's his idea to do them.' He threw up his hands in disgust and made an angry noise in his throat.

  'It sounds as if you do have a certain sympathy for at least one of them’ Brunetti observed, but he smiled after he said it, and Vianello did not take offence.

  'Well, you know how it is: it's always easy to have sympathy in a particular case. It's when we look at things in general that we lump them all together and say those things. Stupid things.' Presumably, Vianello meant the things he had said earlier, which would make this an apology or something close to one.

  'It's just that I get crazy, not being able to do anything’

  Vianello went on, and Brunetti remained silent. 1 was talking to Pucetti before I came up. They had a call from that grocery store over by the Miracoli. Seems they had a drug addict in there this morning, waving a metal rod and threatening to break the place up if they didn't give him money.'

  This was a story Brunetti had heard many times, and he feared he already knew the outcome. 'They gave him twenty euros,' Vianello went on, 'and all he did was go to the bar next door and buy a bottle of wine and then sit on the bench in front of the store and start to drink it. That's when the owner called us.' Vianello stretched his legs out and stared at his feet. He too had heard this same story many times.

  'So Pucetti went over. He tried to get Alvise to go with him.' Vianello, gave a deep sigh, and shook his head. 'But he was too busy. So he took Fede and Moretti, and when they got there the guy was still sitting on the bench, like he'd just been passing by and decided to rest a while. The owner identified him, Pucetti wrote out a formal denuncia, and they brought the guy back here. And after two hours we let him go.'

  Vianello appeared to have finished, but then he said, 'It's just like the Mutti guy. He's disappeared. Your friend Zeccardi called earlier.'

  'What did he say?'

  'Mutti was living in Dorsoduro. So the guys from the Finanza paid him a visit, asked to see the financial records of his organization, and he told them to come and see him in the group's office the next day.'

  'And?' Brunetti asked, though, given the context into which Vianello had placed the subject, he was fairly certain what the story would be.

  'They did. And he was gone. The address he gave for the office was a bar, where they'd never heard of him, and when they went back to where he was living, he'd cleared out the place. No one knew where he'd gone.'

  'Raptured?' Brunetti asked, using the English word.

  'What?' Vianello asked.

  'Nothing, nothing,' Brunetti said. 'Bad joke.'

  The prisons were overflowing, Brunetti knew, and the government had had too much flak over the last amnesty to be willing to declare another one so soon, so bulletins from the Ministry discouraged the police from arresting anyone except the most violent criminals. The resulting feeling of impotence, both on the part of the police and on the part of the public, was a cause of simmering anger to both, but there was no way of changing anything.

  'All right,' Brunetti said, pushing himself to his feet. 'This isn't going to help us or get us anywhere, sitting here and moaning.'

  'What do you suggest?'

  'That we go and get a coffee and see about finding a way to get someone to watch the Fornari place.' When he saw Vianello's expression, Brunetti explained, 'I'm curious to see if anyone goes to
see them.'

  'Anyone like who?' asked Vianello, intrigued.

  'That's what I'd like to find out. Because that might tell me why they went.'

  Over coffee, the two men discussed the problem of staffing and logistics but came up with no way to keep the Fornari house under surveillance. Anyone seen lurking in a dead end calle such as that one would soon call attention to himself. They discussed and dismissed every possibility until Vianello was finally forced to ask, 'Who do you think it is that will go calling?' 'The girl's father.'

  The answer appeared to surprise the Inspector. 'You think he cares?'

  'No, but I think he might see it as an opportunity to get some money out of them.'

  'You're assuming he knows what happened to the girl, aren't you?' Vianello asked. 'And that the Fornaris do, too.'

  Before he answered, Brunetti recalled his initial visit, when Fornari's wife had seemed curious to find the police in her house, but hardly worried; and his second, when both she and her husband had given signs of great distress. They must have learned something in the ensuing time: Brunetti wanted to know what it was and who had been the bearer of that information.

  A silence fell between the men as each considered the possibilities of action open to them. After some time, Brunetti said, making it sound the sort of natural everyday thing a father would do, ‘I can ask my kids.'

  'Ask them what?' Vianello said, unable to disguise his astonishment.

  'If they know either of their children. And what they might have heard about them.' Vianello's look was so long and serious that it made Brunetti uncomfortable.

  'They're of an age,' Brunetti said, then added, 'well, close to it.'

  'Thank God mine are still too young,' Vianello said with suspicious blandness.

  'For what?' Brunetti asked, though he knew what was coming.

  'To work for us,' the Inspector said.

  Brunetti resisted the impulse to defend himself. He looked at his watch and saw that it was almost three. ‘I’m going home’ he said, getting to his feet.

  Vianello too had apparently said as much as he chose to say.