The Girl of his Dreams - Brunetti 17

by Donna Leon

  Brunetti did not want to know more than that. He changed the subject by asking, 'So Antonio became the heir?'

  'Yes’

  'Were they close?'

  'Very. Or at least that's what the articles that appeared at the time said. "Brothers who were blood brothers," all those things the sentimental press loves.'

  'Blood brothers?'

  'Antonio went out there to visit him, it seems, and while he was with the tribe he went through some sort of ritual that made him a member, along with his brother.' She paused, trying to recall some of the things she had read and apparently not thought it necessary to copy. 'Learning how to hunt with a bow and arrow - all that Tarzan sort of thing that boys like,' she said. 'It was never clear if the brother who's missing - Claudio - got the ritual scars on his cheeks, but both of them did the tattoos and ate the honey-covered larvae.' She gave a delicate shiver at the thought of it, or at the thought of either.

  'Tattoos?' Brunetti asked.

  'You know the sort of thing. We have to look at them all summer. Those bands on the arms and legs: woven and geometric. You see them all over.'

  Indeed. And in photos hanging on the walls of apartments. Reddish hair, all fluffed out and making his head look bigger, and tattoos on his arms that looked like stripes. 'Tiger man,' Brunetti said out loud.

  'What?' she asked, and then more politely, ‘I beg your pardon.'

  'Are there any photos of him?' 'Too many’ she said tiredly.

  'Go and print me some of them’ he said. 'Please, now.' He reached for the phone to call for a boat and a car and then for Vianello to go with him.

  30

  'So you think he's tiger man?' Vianello asked when Brunetti finished repeating what Signorina Elettra had told him. They were on one side of the deck of the police boat, heading towards Piazzale Roma, where Brunetti hoped the car he had called for would be waiting. Foa cut the boat suddenly to the left to avoid hitting a sandalo carrying four people and a dog that pulled too quickly in front of them. Foa sounded his horn twice and shouted something to the man at the helm, but he didn't even glance in their direction.

  'And you think that's enough to let you go after him?' Vianello asked, his voice rising in volume as he neared the end of the sentence, almost shouting by the time he reached the last word. The Inspector threw both hands towards heaven, as if wanting to pass his question on to some higher authority than the man standing beside him.

  Brunetti let his glance drift away from Vianello's face and toward the facade of the buildings on the left side of the canal. He noticed that the palazzo to the right of the Faliers' was finally being restored. He had been at school with the son of the former owners, remembered when the father had gambled the palazzo away in some private gambling club, after which the entire family had had to move. Though they'd been good friends, Brunetti had never heard from the boy again.

  'Well?' Vianello called Brunetti's attention back by asking. When Brunetti did not respond, the Inspector went on, 'Even if what you say is true, and this boy he called the tiger man did do something to the Gypsy girl, we've got no chance of proving it. Do you hear me, Guido; no chance. Zero.'

  Brunetti's attention started to wander to the buildings behind Vianello, but the Inspector called it back by placing his hand on Brunetti's arm. 'Guido, this is suicide for you. You go out there, and let's say you manage to convince this kid's parents to bring him in to talk about "tiger man".' To express his opinion of the probable consequences of this, Vianello closed his eyes, and Brunetti saw the muscles of his jaw draw tight.

  'So you've got an under-age witness - and I'm sure the kid's family will have a long accumulation of arrests and convictions - and you're going to get this kid - and may I interject here what you told me, that the kid barely speaks Italian? - and you're going to get this kid to bring testimony against the son of the Minister of the Interior?'

  The boat suddenly veered into a cross-wave, knocking both of them against the railing. Foa pulled the wheel back and turned his eyes forward again.

  Brunetti opened his mouth to suggest they go down into the cabin before continuing this conversation, but Vianello rode right over him, 'And you think you'll find a prosecuting magistrate - whose career depends, as I hardly need to point out to you, upon that same Minister - and you think this prosecuting magistrate is going to work to get a conviction?' He pushed his face closer to Brunetti and added, 'On this testimony?' Then, as if that question were not sufficiently devastating, he added, 'On this evidence?'

  Brunetti put his hand into the pocket of his jacket and fingered the cuff link and the ring. He had seen Fornari's nervousness, he had seen the rage in the small boy's face, the primitive lust for vengeance given full rein by the fact that his mother longed for it, too. This was evidence, but evidence that no court would credit, indeed, that no court would hear. In the halls of justice, where 'The law is equal for all', Brunetti's impressions were entirely without weight and entirely without merit. As he knew, and as Vianello had just reminded him, the law wanted evidence, not the opinion of a man who had run to ground a child half crazed with fear and then held him in the air until he told his story. Brunetti could imagine what any defence lawyer, let alone one who was defending the son of a cabinet minister, would do to a construction such as this.

  ‘I want to be sure,' Brunetti said.

  'Sure about what?'

  'Sure that what the boy told me is true.'

  Vianello lost all patience. 'Can't you understand that whether it's true or not doesn't matter, not in the least?' He grabbed Brunetti by the arm and pulled him down the three steps and into the cabin of the boat. When they were seated opposite one another, the Inspector went on. 'The kid could be telling the truth - for all I know, he is

  - but that doesn't make any difference, Guido. You've got the child of a Gypsy with a long criminal record bringing a charge against the son of the Minister of the Interior.'

  'You've told me that three times already, Lorenzo,' Brunetti said tiredly.

  'I'll tell you three more times if it will make you listen to me,' Vianello shot back. He paused for a long time and then, in a milder voice, went on, 'You might want to commit professional suicide, but I don't.'

  'No one's asking you to.'

  'I'm on my way out to this Gypsy camp with you, aren't I? I'm going out there with you while you talk to someone that Patta has told you not to talk to.'

  'He never said that specifically,' Brunetti protested, splitting hairs.

  'He didn't have to, for God's sake. He told you to leave this alone, and the first thing you do is run out there, without any authorization and in open defiance of your superior's orders - our superior's orders - to talk to people he's told you to leave alone.'

  "The boy and the other sister were there that night. They saw what happened.'

  'And you think their parents will let them talk to you, or to a judge?'

  'The mother wants vengeance as much as the boy does. Probably more.'

  'So now we're vigilantes, helping the Gypsies against the rest of the world?' Vianello hid his exasperation by looking away from Brunetti, raising his head and closing his eyes for a moment, as if pleading with patience to return to him.

  The boat began to slow and Brunetti saw that they had arrived at Piazzale Roma. He got to his feet and pushed open one side of the swinging doors. 'You can go back with Foa, then’ he said, then started up the steps to the deck.

  As he got to the top, he heard Vianello coming up the steps behind him, 'Oh, for God's sake, stop being such a prima donna, Guido’ the Inspector said in his most disgruntled voice.

  Today there was a new driver but, like the other, this one knew the way to the camp and remarked during the trip on how often he had taken people there. He chatted amiably on the way, and Vianello and Brunetti decided to accept the interlude his monologue offered rather than continue with their own conversation.

  Brunetti had heard it all before, so he paid little attention, allowing himself the p
leasure of watching the still-unfolding springtime that surrounded them once they left the city. Like most urban people, Brunetti romanticized the country and rural life. Once, when the family was eating roast chicken and Chiara, in one of her vegetarian phases, had asked him if he had ever killed a chicken, Brunetti had answered that he had never killed anything. He could not remember where the discussion had gone from there: to wherever most futile discussions went, he supposed.

  The car turned, slowed, and stopped, and the driver got out to open the gate. Once inside, he got out again and closed it, then pulled around in a wide half-circle and parked facing the gate, as if eager to get all this taken care of so they could leave again.

  'Wait here’ Brunetti said, leaning forward to touch him on the shoulder. He and Vianello got out of the car and closed the doors. No one was visible: no men sat on the steps of the caravans that day.

  The blue Mercedes, Brunetti saw at once, was gone, as was the roulotte in which he had seen the female forms appear and disappear and into which Rocich had returned after every meeting. None of the towed cars had returned to their places in front of the roulottes: the unattached caravans remained in the back line like pieces on a chessboard upon which some of the pawns had been sacrificed.

  Brunetti and Vianello walked over to the leader's caravan. They stood in front of it. At that instant, as if it were a sudden eruption of birdcall, the varied tones of different telefonini could be heard from the row of roulottes. Brunetti distinguished four different calls, and then silence fell.

  A few minutes passed, and then the door of the roulotte opened. From it came Tanovic. He gave an easy smile which made Brunetti uncomfortable.

  'Ah, Mr Policeman,' the man said as he came down the steps. With a nod to Vianello, he added, 'And Mr Assistant Policeman.' He walked up to them, smiling, but he did not extend his hand, nor did the other two men.

  'Why you come to visit us again?' He looked behind him and ran his eyes down the line of cars, turning in a full circle to study the entire line. 'To take more cars?' As he asked this, voice light and joking, Brunetti saw the rancour in his eyes that eliminated all humour.

  'No, I've come to speak to Signor Rocich,' Brunetti said, then pointed to the place where the car and roulotte had been parked. 'But I see they're gone. Do you know where?'

  The man smiled again. 'Ah, very difficult to tell, Mr Policeman.' He leaned forward and spread his smile upon Vianello, who remained stony-faced. 'My people are, what you call us - nomads - we go places, no one know where we go, when we go.' He smiled again, but his voice had turned sour. 'No one care.'

  'I've got his licence plate number,' Brunetti said. 'Perhaps the road police could help me locate him.'

  The man's smile grew stronger, but even less friendly. 'Old car. Old number. No help, I think.'

  'What does that mean,' Brunetti asked. '"Old car"?'

  'Have new car, new number.'

  'What kind of new car?'

  'Good car. Not Italian shit car. Real car, German car.' 'What kind?'

  The man raised a hand in the air to dismiss the very idea that a car could have a name. 'Big car, German car, new car.' Just as Brunetti was getting ready to speak, he added, 'New number.'

  ‘I see,' Brunetti said. 'Then we'll have to check the vehicle registration office, won't we?'

  'Ah, private sale. With friend. No change papers: car still belong friend. Hard to find, I think,' he said with another smile.

  'What's the name of his friend?' Brunetti asked.

  He shrugged eloquently. 'He no tell me. Just friend. But very big car. Very expensive.'

  'Where did he get the money to buy this car?'

  'Ah, he get money from other friend.'

  'A Gy—' Brunetti began, but then remembered in time to ask, 'A friend here among the Rom?'

  'You can say Gypsy to me, Mr Policeman,' the man said, no longer attempting to filter the venom in his voice.

  'From a Gypsy friend, then?' Brunetti asked.

  'No, from gadje man. He met man in Venice, and he ask him for money. Man very generous; he give much money. Buy car,' he concluded. He raised one hand in the air and waved it delicately back and forth, saying in English, 'Bye bye.'

  'What man?' Brunetti asked.

  'Man his son tell him.'

  'And this man gave him the money for the car?'

  A nod. A smile. 'And more.'

  'Do you know how much more?'

  'He no tell. Maybe afraid tell Gypsy because I steal, eh?' His smile had grown malevolent.

  Brunetti turned away so quickly that he bumped into Vianello, who stepped back. 'Let's go,' Brunetti said, starting towards the car.

  The man let them reach the car before he called after them, 'Mr Policeman, he gave me something for you.' The man's Italian flowed easily in this sentence, as if he had tired of playing the role of the bumbling Gypsy.

  Brunetti, one hand on the handle of the door, looked back at the other man. The Gypsy slid his open hand into the pocket of his jacket and pulled it out a fist, which he extended towards Brunetti.

  ‘I Gypsy, but I no steal this,' he said as he moved his closed hand from side to side. He and Brunetti faced one another across a distance of three metres. He held his fist up higher. 'You want?' he asked.

  Brunetti walked towards him, fighting the sudden rigidity of his knees. He stopped close to the man and extended his hand, arm stiff and straight. For a moment he feared the man was going to tell him to say 'please', which Brunetti did not think he would be able to do.

  Brunetti opened his hand and held it palm up.

  The other man brought his fist above Brunetti's and opened the index finger, then the next and then the next. Brunetti felt something drop into his palm. Before he could look, the man said, gesturing at Brunetti's hand. 'Man with money want that. Show boy was there, see all, see all what happen. But Rocich, he say give to you, Mister Policeman.' He let his hand fall to his side, turned and walked back to his roulotte. As he started to climb the steps, Brunetti allowed himself to tilt his palm so that he could see what the man had been told to give him.

  The cuff link was identical to the other: silver border around a small piece of lapis.

  A sharp noise caused Brunetti to flinch, but it was only the sound of the Gypsy slamming the door to his roulotte.

  31

  The lethargy into which Brunetti fell upon his return from the Gypsy encampment lasted three days before Paola asked him about it. They were seated on the terrace, after a dinner that Brunetti had barely touched and he was well into his second glass of grappa with the bottle on the table in the likely event that he wanted a third.

  Gradually, as it grew darker and the evening chill settled in, he told her - all attempt at chronology or sequence ignored - what had happened. If there was any order in the story he told, it was perhaps the mounting importance of impression, the strongest saved for last, which meant the final stories he told described the mother's terrible wailing and the savage expression on the boy's face as he told Brunetti about 'tiger man'.

  Even his final conversation with Fornari and his wife had not left as strong an impression. 'They didn't want to let me in’ Brunetti told her. 'But I told them I'd come back with a warrant.'

  In response to the sudden tightening of her hand on his arm - it was too dark by now for him to distinguish her features, even a motion of her head - he said, 'That was nonsense, of course: no one would have given it to me. So far as we're concerned, so far as the entire magistratura is concerned, the case is closed: the girl died accidentally in a fall after robbing the Fornaris' apartment, and that is that.'

  'But they did let you in?' she asked.

  'Yes. You know how good a liar I am’ Brunetti said.

  'You're not particularly good’ she said, a remark he took as a compliment. 'What happened?'

  'She was nervous; so was he. At first I didn't think they'd have the courage to brazen it out.' And this, he realized, he meant as a compliment.

  'What d
id you say?'

  'That I'd spoken to one of the Gypsies at the camp, and he told me that Rocich claimed he had come into the city and spoken to them.' He recalled his pose during that conversation: the cool bureaucrat come in search of supporting testimony; nothing more.

  Brunetti was silent for some time. He sipped at his grappa, the Tignanello Paola had given him for his birthday. Fine as it was, the taste displeased him, and he set the glass back on the table.

  'It didn't work’ he admitted. 'They said they had no idea who this Rocich was or why someone with that name would want to speak to them.' It had been the woman, Brunetti recalled, who was more vociferous in her protestations: Fornari had stood beside her, shaking his head, capable of speech only when Brunetti asked him a direct question.

  Brunetti uncrossed his legs and stretched them out, then lifted his feet and rested them on the lower rung of the railing of the terrace. As he did so, he remembered how, as young parents, they had been so careful about keeping the door to the terrace locked and allowed the children on to it only when one of them was with them. Even now, after decades in the apartment, Brunetti still avoided peering over the edge and looking down at the ground, four floors below.

  Paola allowed a long time to pass before she asked, 'What do you think happened?'

  Brunetti had thought of little else during the last few days, had made and cancelled and remade the scenario of events, had imagined it this way and imagined it that way, always with the memory of the girl's face at the forefront of his mind. 'Their daughter was there’ he finally said. 'With the boyfriend, probably in her bedroom. They heard noises in the apartment.' He closed his eyes and tried to visualize it. 'Drugged or not drugged, the boy would still see it as his duty to go and find out what it was.'

  'And the stripes?' Paola suddenly asked. 'How did the little boy see them?'

  He turned to face the shadow of her head against the still-fading light. 'They weren't in her bedroom doing their calculus homework, Paola. Remember, her parents were out.'