Transient Desires
Page 20
The younger man turned back towards the bar and went inside, preventing Brunetti from suggesting they sit at a table on the terrace, where there was still a slice of sunlight. Duso stood at the bar and waited for Brunetti to join him. When he did, Duso turned to the barman and ordered a coffee.
Brunetti nodded to the barman.
The coffees came almost immediately, and both of them added sugar and stirred. Duso took a small sip of his, replaced the cup in his saucer, and opened another packet of sugar. He held it above and spilled some in, stirred it around, and drank the coffee.
From beside him, Brunetti saw the young man’s left eyebrow rise. Duso slid his cup and saucer away with a delicate push of his forefinger, as though to suggest the coffee had offended him by being too strong. Then he turned to face Brunetti, waiting for him to speak.
Brunetti decided to tell the truth. ‘I told you I went to see Borgato.’ Duso nodded. ‘From what I saw, I’d say it’s dangerous for Marcello to be around him.’
Duso considered this for a long time and finally could do no better than ask, ‘Even though he’s his uncle?’
Brunetti took another sip of his coffee and set the cup down. He said nothing.
‘Didn’t you hear me, Commissario?’ Duso finally asked.
Brunetti turned to Duso. ‘Yes, I did. But we both know that means nothing.’
‘It means they’re part of the same family,’ Duso said defensively, trying to sound offended.
‘And this is Italy, the home of the united family, where everyone lives only to be of service to his relatives,’ Brunetti said roughly. To relieve the tension, he asked the barman for two glasses of water and remained silent until they came. He drank half of his and set the glass down on the counter, then pushed the other closer to Duso.
Brunetti watched the younger man drink down the water as though it were an August day and he’d not had anything to drink for hours. He had not protested about Brunetti’s remarks on families.
‘Your friends call you Berto, don’t they?’ Brunetti surprised them both by asking.
Duso was so startled by the question that it took him some time before he could nod, then smile. ‘I couldn’t pronounce my name – my own name – until I was four, but by then everyone called me “Berto” so it was too late.’ He gave Brunetti another lopsided smile and shrugged.
‘Good,’ Brunetti said, patting Duso on the shoulder. ‘It’s much easier to talk to a Berto than to a Filiberto.’
The smile slid back as Duso said, ‘It’s a lot easier to be called Berto, too. Believe me.’
‘I do,’ Brunetti said and extended his hand. ‘Guido,’ he said, and Duso responded with both his hand and ‘Berto.’
Brunetti was surprised at the realization that he had not calculated this last scene in an attempt to end Duso’s reticence. Young enough to be his son, Duso had not hidden his love for Marcello from him and given him a clearer sense of the tangled wires connecting Marcello to his uncle.
‘Will you tell me more?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes,’ Duso replied. Then, looking around, he added, ‘But not here. Let’s walk down to San Basilio.’ He pushed himself away from the bar and went out to the broad riva. Brunetti followed after putting a few coins on the counter.
The day was cool; it had rained in the night, the air was still fresh, and the view across to the Giudecca was radiantly clear. Fewer cruise ships were coming now, but still there were two in port. Someone had mentioned it at the Questura that day, adding, ‘I’d hoped they’d all been killed off,’ only quickly to hold up his hands at the shocked faces around him to add, ‘I meant the ships. I meant the ships, not those poor devils on them.’
Duso set off slowly, and Brunetti adjusted his pace to his. At the bottom of the bridge, Brunetti decided not to wait for the other man to begin and so asked, ‘Has Marcello ever talked about having to work at night?’
‘For his uncle, you mean?’ Duso asked.
Recognizing Duso’s question for what it was, an attempt to delay – if he was lucky, postpone – further questions, Brunetti said, ‘Yes,’ and immediately repeated the question, ‘Has he ever talked about it?’ Duso kept walking at the same slow pace, unlike some people who tried to walk faster to escape questions. And the need to answer them.
After a few steps, Duso said, ‘Yes. Once.’ No sooner had he said that than he added, ‘At least that’s what I think he was talking about.’
‘When?’ Brunetti asked.
Duso stopped walking and turned to look at the houses on the other side of the canal. Brunetti paused beside him, silent.
‘About two months ago.’ He waited for a moment and said, surprised not to have thought of it until then, ‘It was the night of Ferragosto, so the city was quiet: everyone was away on vacation. Marcello called me at four in the morning and told me he was outside my apartment and asked if he could come up.’ Before Brunetti could ask, Duso said, ‘He didn’t want the other people who live in my building to hear the bell and wonder what was going on.’
Duso gave a sigh, as would a person who suddenly realized just how very tired he was, and went on. ‘I went downstairs in my bare feet and let him in. He was wet. Not just wet. Soaked.’ Duso turned and started to walk again; Brunetti moved up to his side as they continued.
‘He came in and stood there, dripping on the floor. If he moved, his shoes squished. When we got up to my apartment, I bent down and took his shoes off, then his socks. He was shaking so much I told him to go and take a shower to get warm. But he went over and sat on my sofa and asked – like he was a guest in my house – if he could have something hot to drink. I knew he loved hot chocolate, so I asked him if that’s what he wanted.’ As Duso had spoken, his steps had slowed even more, weighed down by memory.
He stopped but continued looking ahead, down towards San Basilio and, beyond that, the offices of the port, and beyond them, the docks for the cruise ships. ‘I left him there and went into the kitchen to make the hot chocolate. It took a couple of minutes, and when I came back with it, he was lying on the sofa, crying. Like a little kid, sobbing like his heart was broken. And shivering.
‘I went and got a blanket. It was still very hot, and I don’t have air conditioning, but he was shivering like it was winter. I helped him get his clothes off and wrapped him in the blanket and made him sit up. I asked him what was wrong, and he tried to make a joke. It was terrible: he showed me his watch. It was one I gave him for his birthday, but it wasn’t waterproof, and he showed it to me and said he was crying because he ruined the watch in the water. And then he started to cry again, harder, and all I could think of to do was give him the hot chocolate, but he drank it too fast and burned his mouth, so I took it back and blew on it until it was cool enough for him to drink.’ Duso looked at his feet and saw that one of his shoes was untied. He knelt and tied it, and Brunetti saw that he double knotted it, the way his mother-in-law had taught his own children to tie theirs.
Duso stood but remained still. ‘I sat down beside him and asked him to tell me what was wrong. All he did was shake his head and keep drinking the chocolate. He’d take a sip and shake his head and take another sip and shake his head again. When it was gone, he held the cup like he didn’t know what do with it, so I took it and put it on the floor.’
Duso looked down at the pavement, as if he needed to see where the cup was so he wouldn’t knock it over. ‘He was still sort of crying, sort of hiccuping and wiping his eyes and nose on the blanket.
‘I asked him again to tell me what was wrong, but the only thing he said was, “We killed them. We killed them.” And then he started to cry again.’
Duso resumed walking, Brunetti at his side. They passed the pizzeria where he and Paola often went with the kids, the restaurant, the post office, and were almost at the end of the riva. Duso stopped in front of the almost invisible entrance to the supermarket.
After a long time, Duso said, ‘That’s all that happened. Marcello fell asleep sitting up. I pushed him over and pulled a pillow under his head, got him another blanket. And I went back to my room and lay awake, thinking about Marcello and how much I love him.’ He gave an enormous shrug and let out a sigh.
‘I guess I fell asleep. When I woke up, he was gone. He’d left the blankets on the sofa. His shoes were by the door, he’d taken a pair of mine; they’re a size bigger, so he could wear them. And he’d taken an old sweater I’ve had forever.’
‘When did you see him again?’
‘Oh, about a week later. We went out for pizza with some friends,’ he said, pointing back towards OKE. ‘We could sit outside in the evening.’
‘Did he ever say anything about it?’
Duso shook the idea away with a sudden motion of his head.
‘Never?’ Brunetti prodded
Duso refused to answer.
‘Did he change in any way?’
‘Not that anyone else would notice.’
‘But you did?’
Duso nodded.
‘How?’
‘He didn’t talk as much as he used to, and he didn’t seem to have as much fun with the things we did.’
Brunetti wondered what else might have happened that night in Duso’s apartment, but then he remembered the way Duso had spoken of the love he had for his friend, and he cast away the idea, ashamed of his curiosity.
Before Brunetti could say anything, Duso smiled and reached out to touch his arm. The younger man let some time pass and then said, ‘That’s all.’ He turned and started back in the direction from which he had come. Brunetti went in the other direction, turned right, and started for home.
Brunetti dawdled on the way, wanting to have time to think through his meeting with Duso. Poor boy, he thought, to be in love with his best friend. Especially with – what was it people used to say when he was younger? – ‘A love that dared not speak its name’?
In recent years, Brunetti had come to wish that some sorts of love would decide to speak their names a bit less loudly. Did people not realize how tiresome so much of this conversation was to anyone who thought the sexual behaviour of other people was not a matter to discuss or judge?
Brunetti could barely imagine what ideas about sex Pietro Borgato carried around in his head, but he was sure there was no room for a man who loved another man, especially if that man was Pietro Borgato’s nephew. Brunetti had felt the radiant violence in the man: his own performance as a weakling had certainly allowed Borgato to surge on unhindered by any fear of opposition or concern that he might be revealing too much of himself. It was only the mention of the involvement of the Guardia Costiera that had tamed his ascending anger and turned him into the semblance of a reasonable man.
When an inattentive Brunetti found himself in Campo San Barnaba, he decided not to stop to see if his parents-in-law were home. He wanted to continue walking, have time to consider a possible link between the story Nieddu had told him of the women tossed overboard and Marcello Vio’s desperate visit to his friend’s home.
Brunetti’s phone rang, and he saw Griffoni’s name.
‘Si?’ he answered.
‘Alaimo’s clean,’ she said with no introduction.
‘What?’
‘I called some people at home.’
‘In Naples?’
‘It’s home when I need it to be,’ she said. ‘Yes, Naples.’ Then, sounding curious and not offended, she asked, ‘Why do you need to know?’
‘I don’t need to know, Claudia. I just like to know how these family things work.’
‘How did you know it was family?’
‘I figured they’d be the ones you trusted most, or at least the first ones you’d call.’
She laughed. Then she said, ‘I have a cousin who’s a Carabiniere. Maggiore. He works at the Port, so he knows a lot of things.’
‘And he knew Alaimo?’
‘No, he knew his father, who was also a carabiniere. He was having a coffee in a bar, years ago – Alaimo was still a kid – when a man walked in, pulled out a pistol and shot him in the head. Twice. The man was gone from the bar even before Alaimo’s father hit the ground.’
Brunetti waited for her to say more.
‘Years later, a pentito gave the police the name of the murderer, but he’d already been killed.’ Brunetti was struck by the casual way she said this, as though Mafia wars were a part of everyday life. Perhaps the Mafia attack on her own father, years ago, allowed her to sound casual about such things.
Brunetti said nothing, and she continued, ‘Alaimo, the one who was murdered, had three sons, all kids then: one’s already a colonel in the Carabinieri; the second is a magistrate; and the third is the one we met.’
She went silent again, prompting Brunetti to ask, ‘And?’
‘And they’re religious, all three of them, about what they do.’ Before Brunetti could ask how she knew this, Griffoni said, ‘I asked around, and so did other people for me. Believe me, he’s clean.’
‘As to his being religious, there’s still the fake aunt at San Gregorio Armeno, isn’t there?’ he asked, not that he doubted what she’d told him but simply to clarify things fully.
‘She’s his aunt. Well, sort of an aunt. It’s very Neapolitan.’
‘Meaning?’
‘His uncle married a woman from Manila, and it’s her aunt who’s the Abbadessa.’ She paused a moment, as one does before the punchline of a joke. ‘Crocifissa?’
‘Abbadessa Crocifissa?’ Brunetti asked, taking another poke.
‘Yes.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti responded. ‘So we can trust him?’
‘If what I’ve heard from my friends and my family is true, we can trust him absolutely.’
‘When do we do that?’
There was a brief hesitation before Griffoni said, ‘We have an appointment with him at eleven on Monday morning.’
‘Good,’ Brunetti responded. ‘Let’s meet at nine, at the Questura. Then Foa can take us there.’
‘Aye, aye, Signore,’ she said in English and then was gone.
23
On Monday morning, a message from Signorina Elettra was waiting for Brunetti when he opened his email. It confirmed, giving specific dates and actions, what Griffoni’s friends and family had stated: Alaimo was clean.
Brunetti told Griffoni about this when she came down to his office and then told her about his conversation with Mr Watson. When Griffoni asked how the young woman was, Brunetti could do no more than raise his hand and let it fall to his knee, repeating what his mother had always said in times of uncertainty: “We are all in God’s hands.”
Griffoni let a long time pass and then sat up and all but shook herself free of the effect of Brunetti’s last remarks.
‘I confessed,’ she said.
‘What do you mean? To whom?’
‘To Alaimo,’ she said, at first avoiding Brunetti’s eyes. ‘About his aunt. And my conclusion.’
‘Ah,’ Brunetti let escape him. ‘How did he react?’
‘He was . . .’ she began. ‘He was gracious.’
Brunetti forbore saying something to the effect that his years in the North might well have accustomed Alaimo to being treated with suspicion and merely nodded to show he had heard her.
They spent some time, now that they viewed Alaimo in the light reflected from Griffoni’s relatives, in thinking of how they could involve him in their investigation of Borgato. It took them little time to decide to tell Alaimo what they knew and then try to persuade him to help them learn more.
Griffoni agreed with Brunetti that they needed to connect the murder of the Nigerian women – of which there was no evidence, no date, no location, no information save the wandering talk of an African prostitute who was probably mad – with Vio’s desperate night-time visit to his friend. Once that was done, they would have a witness who was not mad. Nor dead.
‘Alaimo will know if women are being brought in this way,’ Griffoni said. ‘Up here, I mean. It’s common enough in the South.’
Brunetti found no adequate response and got to his feet to start down to Foa and the launch.
Twenty minutes later, Foa glided them to a stop in front of the Capitaneria; a young man in a white uniform came out of the front door and walked across the riva on time to catch the mooring rope Foa tossed him. Some sort of nautical sign must have passed between them because he made no attempt to moor the boat, simply hauled on it, keeping the boat close to the riva while the two passengers disembarked.
He passed the rope back to Foa and saluted the two commissari, then led them back to the building and opened the door to let them enter.
They were quickly at Alaimo’s office, where he got to his feet as they were ushered in and came around his desk towards them. His smile was warmer, if anything, than last time. Alaimo went first to Griffoni and shook her hand, saying, ‘Ah, Claudia, if only I’d known when you came the first time. Think of the time we could have saved.’
‘Ignazio,’ she answered, ‘caution’s a habit it’s hard to lose.’
‘Especially when one is dealing with a Neapolitan,’ he said and released her hand.
She laughed at that and, turning to Brunetti said, ‘Guido, this is Ignazio, who, as it turns out – at least when he’s in Naples – plays tennis with my cousin’s husband.’
Brunetti was amazed: was this, in Naples, the basis upon which friendships were formed and trust given? He permitted himself a tiny, faintly inquisitive, ‘Ah.’
‘And who was stationed here . . .’ she went on.