Anonymous Venetian aka Dressed for Death

by Donna Leon

  Reality, as is ever its wont, was discovered to be somewhat different. His family had retreated to the terrace which was filled with the first cool of early evening. Chiara looked up from her book, said ‘Ciao, Papà,’ tilted her chin to receive his kiss, and then dived back into the pages. Raffi looked up from that month’s issue of Gente Uomo, repeated Chiara’s greeting, and then himself dived back to a consideration of the compelling need for linen. Paola, seeing his state, got to her feet, put her arms around him, and kissed him on the lips.

  ‘Guido, go take a shower, and I’ll get you something to drink.’ A bell pealed out, somewhere to the left of them, Raffi flipped a page, and Brunetti reached up to loosen his tie.

  ‘Put a hibiscus in it,’ he said and turned to go take his shower.

  Twenty minutes later, he sat, dressed in loose cotton pants and a linen shirt, with his bare feet up on the railing of the terrace, and told Paola about the day. The children had disappeared, no doubt off in pursuit of some dutiful and obedient activity.

  ‘Santomauro?’ she asked. ‘Giancarlo Santomauro?’

  ‘The very one.’

  ‘How delicious,’ she said, voice rich with real delight. ‘I wish I’d never had to promise you I wouldn’t talk about what you tell me; this one is wonderful.’ And she repeated Santomauro’s name.

  ‘You don’t tell people, do you, Paola?’ he asked, though he knew he shouldn’t.

  She started to shoot back an angry answer, but then she leaned over and put her hand on his knee. ‘No, Guido. I’ve never repeated anything. And never will.’

  ‘I’m sorry I asked,’ he said, looking down and sipping at his Campari soda.

  ‘Do you know his wife?’ she asked, veering back to the original topic.

  ‘I think I was introduced to her once, at a concert somewhere, a couple of years ago. But I don’t think I’d remember her if I saw her again. What’s she like?’

  Paola sipped at her drink, then placed the glass on the top of the railing, something she was repeatedly forbidding the children to do. ‘Well,’ she began, considering how most acidly to answer the question. ‘If I were Signor, no, Avvocato Santomauro and I were given the choice between my tall, thin, impeccably well-dressed wife, she of the Margaret Thatcher coiffure, to make no mention of disposition, and a young boy, regardless of his height, hair or disposition, there is no doubt that my arms would reach out and embrace that boy.’

  ‘How do you know her?’ Brunetti asked, as ever ignoring the rhetoric and attending to the substance.

  ‘She’s a client of Biba’s,’ she said, naming a friend of hers who was a jeweller. ‘I’ve met her a few times in the shop, and then I met them at my parents’ place at one of those dinners you didn’t go to.’ Figuring that this was a way of getting back at him for having asked if she told people what he said to her, Brunetti let it pass.

  ‘What are they like together?’

  ‘She does all the talking, and he just stands around and glowers, as if there were nothing and no one within a radius of ten kilometres who could ever possibly measure up to his high standards. I always thought they were a pair of sanctimonious, self-important bigots. All I had to do was listen to her talk for five minutes, and I knew it: she’s like a minor character in a Dickens novel, one of the pious, malevolent ones. Because she did all the talking, I was never sure about him, had to go on instinct, but I’m very pleased to learn that I was right.’

  ‘Paola,’ he cautioned, ‘I have no reason to believe he was there for any other reason than to give Crespo legal advice.’

  ‘And he had to take his shoes off to do that?’ she asked with a snort of disbelief. ‘Guido, please come back to this century, all right? Avvocato Santomauro was there for one reason only, and it had nothing to do with his profession, not unless he has worked out a very interesting payment plan for Signor Crespo.’

  Paola, he had learned over the course of more than two decades, had the tendency to Go Too Far. He was uncertain, even after all this time, whether this was a vice or a virtue, but there was no doubt that it was an irremovable part of her character. She even got a certain wild look in her eye when she was planning to Go Too Far, which look he saw there now. He had no idea what form it would take, but he knew it was coming.

  ‘Do you think he’s arranged the same payment plan for the Patriarch?’

  In those same decades, he had also learned that the only way to deal with her tendency was to ignore her completely. ‘As I was saying,’ Brunetti continued, ‘the fact that he was in the apartment proves nothing.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, or I’d have to worry every time I saw him coming out of the Patriarchal Palace or the Basilica, wouldn’t I?’

  He did no more than glance in her direction.

  ‘All right, Guido, he was there on business, legal business.’ She allowed a few moments to pass and then added, in a completely different voice, so as to alert him that she was now going to behave and treat this seriously, ‘But you said that Crespo recognized the man in the picture.’

  ‘I think he did, the first time, but by the time he looked up at me, he’d had a second to recover, so his expression was perfectly natural.’

  ‘Then the man in the picture could be anyone, couldn’t he? Another whore, even a client? Have you thought about that, Guido, that he might be a client who likes to dress up as a woman when he, well, when he goes to see these other men?’

  In the sexual supermarket that was modern society, Brunetti knew, the man’s age made him far more likely to be a shopper than a seller. ‘That means we’d be looking for a man who used male prostitutes, rather than a man who was one,’ he said.

  Paola took her drink, swirled it around a few times, and finished it. ‘Well, that would surely be a longer list. And, considering what you’ve just told me about l’Avvocato del Patriarcato, a far more interesting one.’

  ‘Is this another one of your conspiracy theories, Paola, that the city is filled with seemingly happily married men who can’t wait to sneak off into the bushes with one of these transvestites?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Guido, what do you men talk about when you’re together? Soccer? Politics? Don’t you ever hunker down and gossip?’

  ‘About what? The boys on Via Cappuccina?’ He put his glass down with unnecessary force and scratched at his ankle, where one of the night’s first mosquitoes had just bit him.

  ‘I guess it’s because you don’t have gay friends,’ she said equably.

  ‘We have lots of gay friends,’ he said, conscious of the fact that it was only in an argument with Paola that he could be forced to make that statement as a claim to honour.

  ‘Of course we have, but you don’t talk to them, Guido, really talk to them.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do, swap recipes or divulge my beauty secrets?’

  She started to speak, stopped, gave him a long look, and then said, voice absolutely level, ‘I’m not sure if that remark is more offensive than stupid.’

  He scratched at his ankle, thought about what they had both just said. ‘I suppose it was more stupid, but it was pretty offensive, too.’ She gave him a suspicious glance. ‘I’m sorry,’ he added. She smiled.

  ‘All right, tell me what I ought to know about this,’ he asked, scratching again at his ankle.

  ‘What I was trying to tell you was that some of the gays I know say that a lot of the men here are perfectly willing to have sex with them: family men, married men, doctors, lawyers, priests. I imagine there’s a great deal of exaggeration in what they tell me, and not a little vanity, but I also imagine there’s a great deal of truth, as well.’ He thought she was finished, but she added, ‘As a policeman, you’ve probably heard something about this, but I’d suspect that most men wouldn’t want to hear it. Or, if they hear it, not want to believe it.’ She seemed not to be including him in this list, but, of course, there was no way of being sure about that.

  ‘Who is your chief source of information in all of this?’ he asked.
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  ‘Ettore and Basilio,’ she said, naming two of her colleagues at the university. ‘And some of Raffi’s friends have said the same thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Two of Raffi’s friends at the liceo. Don’t look so surprised, Guido. They’re both seventeen.’

  ‘They’re both seventeen and what?’

  ‘And gay, Guido. Gay.’

  ‘Are they close friends?’ he asked before he could prevent himself.

  Suddenly, Paola got to her feet. ‘I’m going to put the water on for the pasta. I think I might want to wait until after dinner to continue this discussion. That might give you some time to think about some of the things you’ve said and some of the assumptions you seem to be making.’ She picked up her glass, took his from his hand, and went back into the house, leaving him to think about his assumptions.

  * * * *

  Dinner was far more peaceful than he had thought it would be, given the abruptness with which Paola had departed to prepare it. She had made a sauce with fresh tuna fish, tomatoes, and peppers, something he was sure she had never made before, and had used the thick Martelli spaghetti he liked so much. After that, there was salad, a piece of pecorino that Raffi’s girlfriend’s parents had brought back from Sardinia, and then fresh peaches. Responding to his fantasy, the children offered to do the dishes, no doubt in preparation for their planned depredations upon his wallet before their departure for the mountains.

  He retreated to the terrace, a small glass of chilled vodka in his hand, and resumed his seat. In the air above and all around him, bats swirled, cutting the sky with their jagged flight. Brunetti liked bats: they gobbled up mosquitoes. After a few minutes, Paola joined him. He offered her the glass and she took a small sip. ‘Is that the bottle in the freezer?’ she asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘Where’d you get it?’

  ‘I suppose you could call it a bribe.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘Donzelli. He asked me if I could arrange the vacation schedule so that he could go to Russia – ex-Russia – on leave. He brought me a bottle when he came back.’

  ‘It’s still Russia.’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘It’s the ex-Soviet Union, but it’s still plain old Russia.’

  ‘Oh. Thank you.’

  She nodded in acknowledgement.

  ‘Do you think they eat anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘Who?’ Paola asked, for once at a loss.

  ‘The bats.’

  ‘I don’t know. Ask Chiara. She generally knows things like that.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what I said before dinner,’ he said, sipping again at his glass.

  He expected a sharp retort from her, but all she said was, ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think you might be right.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘That he might be a client and not one of the whores. I saw his body. I don’t think it’s a body that a man would want to pay to use.’

  ‘What sort of body was it?’

  He took another sip. ‘This is going to sound strange, but when I saw him, I thought how much he looked like me. We’re about the same height, same general build, probably the same age. It was very strange, Paola, to see him lying there, dead.’

  ‘Yes, it must have been,’ she said, but she didn’t say any more than that.

  ‘Are those boys good friends of Raffi’s?’

  ‘One of them is. He helps him with his Italian homework.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Good what, that he helps him with his homework?’

  ‘No, good that he’s Raffi’s friend, or that Raffi’s his.’

  She laughed out loud and shook her head. ‘I will never figure you out, Guido. Never.’ She placed a hand on the back of his neck, leaned forward, and took the drink from his hand. She took another sip and then handed it back to him. ‘You think when you’re finished with this, you could think about letting me pay to use your body?’

  Chapter Ten

  The next two days were much the same, only hotter. Four of the men on Brunetti’s list were still not at the addresses listed for them, nor did the neighbours of either have any idea of where they might be or when they might return. Two knew nothing. Gallo and Scarpa had as little luck, though one of the men on Scarpa’s list did say that the man in the drawing looked faintly familiar, only he wasn’t sure why or where he might have seen him.

  The three men had lunch together in a trattoria near the Questura and discussed what they did and didn’t know.

  ‘Well, he didn’t know how to shave his legs,’ Gallo said, when they seemed to have run out of things to list. Brunetti didn’t know if the sergeant was attempting humour or grasping at straws.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Brunetti asked, finishing his wine and looking around for the waiter so he could ask for the bill.

  ‘His corpse. There were lots of little nicks on his legs, as if he wasn’t too accustomed to shaving them.’

  ‘Would any of us be?’ Brunetti asked, and then clarified the pronoun, ‘Men, I mean.’

  Scarpa smiled into his glass. ‘I’d probably cut my kneecap off. I don’t know how they do it,’ he said, and shook his head at yet another of the wonders of women.

  The waiter came up then with the bill. Sergeant Gallo took it before Brunetti could, pulled out his wallet, and laid some money on top of the bill. Before Brunetti could object, he explained, ‘We’ve been told you’re a guest of the city.’ Brunetti wondered how Patta would feel about such a thing, aside from believing that he didn’t deserve it.

  ‘We’ve exhausted the names on the list,’ Brunetti said. ‘I think that means we’ve got to talk to the ones who aren’t on the list.’

  ‘Do you want me to bring some of them in, sir?’ Gallo asked.

  Brunetti shook his head: that was hardly the best way to encourage them to co-operate. ‘No, I think the best thing is to go and talk to them-’

  Scarpa interrupted. ‘But we haven’t got names and addresses for most of them.’

  ‘Then I suppose I’ll have to go visit them where they work,’ Brunetti explained.

  * * * *

  Via Cappuccina is a broad, tree-lined street that runs from a few blocks to the right of the Mestre train station into the commercial heart of the city. It is lined with shops and small stores, offices and some blocks of apartment buildings; by day, it is a normal street in an entirely normal small Italian city. Children play under the trees and in the small parks that are to be found along its length. Their mothers are generally with them, to warn them about the cars and the traffic, but they are also there to warn them about and keep them safe from some of the other people who gravitate towards Via Cappuccina. The shops close at twelve-thirty, and Via Cappuccina rests for a few hours in the early afternoon. Traffic decreases, the children go home for lunch and a nap; businesses close, and the adults go home to eat and rest. There are fewer children playing in the afternoon, though the traffic returns, and Via Cappuccina fills up with life and motion, as shops and offices reopen.

  Between seven-thirty and eight o’clock in the evening, the shops, offices, and stores close down; the merchants and owners pull down metal shutters, lock them securely, and go home for their evening meal, leaving Via Cappuccina to those who work along it after they leave.

  During the evening, there is still traffic on Via Cappuccina, but no one seems any longer to be in much of a hurry. Cars move along slowly, but parking is no longer a problem, for it is not parking spaces that the drivers are seeking. Italy has become a wealthy nation, so most of the cars are air-conditioned. Because of this, the traffic is even slower, for the windows must now be lowered before a price can be called out or heard, and thus things take more time.

  Some of the cars are new and slick: BMWs, Mercedes, the occasional Ferrari, though they are oddities on Via Cappuccina. Most of the cars are sedate, well-fed sedans, cars for families, the car that takes the children to school in the morning, the car that takes the
family to church on Sunday and then out to the grandparents’ house for dinner. They are generally driven by men who feel more comfortable wearing a suit and tie than anything else, men who have done well as a result of the economic boom that has been so generous to Italy during the last decades.

  With increasing frequency, doctors who deliver babies in the private wards and clinics of Italy, those used by people wealthy enough to avail themselves of private medical care, have had to tell new mothers that both they and their babies are infected with the AIDS virus. Most of these women respond with stupefaction, for these are women faithful to their marriage vows. The answer, they believe, must he in some hideous error in the medical treatment they have received. But perhaps the answer is more easily to be found on Via Cappuccina and the dealings that take place between the drivers of those sober cars and the men and women who crowd the sidewalks.

  Brunetti turned into Via Cappuccina at eleven-thirty that night, walking down from the train station, where he had arrived a few minutes before. He had gone home for dinner, slept for an hour, then dressed himself in what he thought would make him look like something other than a policeman. Scarpa had had smaller copies made of both the drawing and the photographs of the dead man, and Brunetti carried some of these in the inner pocket of his blue linen jacket.