Anonymous Venetian (12 page)

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.

From behind him and off to his
right, he could hear the faint hum of traffic as cars continued to stream past
on the
tangenziale
of the autostrada. Though he knew it was unlikely,
Brunetti felt as though their fumes were all being blown down here, so dense
and tight was the breezeless air. He crossed a street, another, and then
another, and then he began to notice the traffic. There were the cars, gliding
along slowly, windows raised, heads turned to the kerb as the drivers inspected
the other traffic.

Brunetti saw that he was not the
only pedestrian here, but he was one of very few wearing a shirt and tie, and
he seemed to be the only one not standing still.

‘
Ciao
,
bello.’

‘Cosa vuoi, amore?’

‘Ti factio tutto che vuoi, caro.’

The offers came at him from
almost every form he passed, offers of delight, joy, bliss. The voices
suggested undreamed of pleasures, promised him the realization of every
fantasy. He paused under a street light and was immediately approached by a
tall blonde in a white miniskirt and very little else.

‘Fifty thousand,’ she said. She
smiled, as if that would serve as greater inducement. The smile showed her
teeth.

‘I want a man,’ Brunetti said.

She turned away without a word
and walked towards the kerb. She leaned towards a passing Audi and called out
the same price. The car kept moving. Brunetti stayed where he was, and she
turned back towards him. ‘Forty,’ she said.

‘I want a man.’

‘They cost a lot more, and there’s
nothing they can do for you that I can’t,
bello
.’ She showed him her
teeth again.

‘I want them to look at a
picture,’ Brunetti said.

‘Gesù Bambino
,’ she muttered under her breath,
‘not one of those.’ Then, louder, ‘It’ll cost you extra. With them. I do
everything for one price.’

‘I want them to look at the
picture of a man and tell me if they recognize him.’

‘Police?’ she asked.

He nodded.

‘I thought so,’ she said. ‘They’re
up the street, the boys, on the other side of Piazzale Leonardo da Vinci.’

‘Thank you,’ Brunetti said and
continued walking up the street. At the next kerb, he looked back and saw the
blonde climbing into the passenger seat of a dark blue Volvo.

Another few minutes brought him
to the open Piazzale. He crossed it, having no trouble making his way between
the crawling cars, and saw a cluster of forms leaning up against a low wall on
the other side.

As he drew near, he heard more
voices, tenor voices, call out the same offers and promise the same pleasures.
So much bliss to be had here.

He approached the group and saw
much that he had seen while walking from the station: mouths made larger by red
lipstick and all turned up in smiles meant to be inviting; clouds of bleached
hair; legs, thighs, and bosoms which looked every bit as real as those he had
seen before.

Two of them came and fluttered
around him, moths to the flame of his power to pay.

‘Anything you want, sweetie. No
rubbers. Just the real thing.’

‘My car’s around the corner,
caro.
You name it, I’ll do it.’

From the pack leaning against the
low wall that ran along one side of the Piazzale, a voice called out to the
second one, ‘Ask him if he’d like you both, Paolina.’ Then, to Brunetti
directly, ‘They’re fabulous if you take them together,
amore;
make you a
sandwich you’ll never forget.’ That was enough to set the others off into peals
of laughter, laughter that was deep and had nothing of the feminine in it.

Brunetti spoke to the one called
Paolina. ‘I’d like you to look at a picture of a man and tell me if you
recognize him.’

Paolina turned back to the group
and shouted, ‘It’s a cop, little girls. And he wants me to look at some
pictures.’

A chorus of shouts came back: ‘Tell
him the real thing’s better than dirty pictures, Paolina.’ ‘Cops don’t even
know the difference.’ ‘A cop? Make him pay double.’

Brunetti waited until they had
run out of things to say and asked, ‘Will you look at the picture?’

‘What’s in it for me if I do?’
Paolina asked, and his companion laughed to see his friend being so tough with
a policeman.

‘It’s a picture of the man we
found out in the field on Monday.’ Before Paolina could pretend ignorance,
Brunetti added, ‘I’m sure you all know about him and what happened to him. We’d
like to identify him so we can find the person who killed him. I think you men
can understand why that’s important.’

He noticed that Paolina and his
friend were dressed almost identically, each in tight tube tops and short
skirts that showed sleek, muscular legs. Both wore high-heeled shoes with
needle toes; neither could ever hope to outrun an assailant.

Paolina’s friend, whose
daffodil-yellow wig cascaded to his shoulders, said, ‘All right, let’s see it,’
and held out his hand. Though the man’s feet were disguised in those shoes,
nothing could disguise the breadth and thickness of his hand.

Brunetti pulled the drawing from
his pocket and handed it to him. ‘Thank you, Signore,’ Brunetti said. The man
gave him an uncomprehending look, as though Brunetti had begun to speak in
tongues. The two men bent over the drawing, talking together in what Brunetti
thought might be Sardinian dialect.

The blonde held the drawing out
towards Brunetti. ‘No, I don’t recognize him. This the only picture you’ve got
of him?’

‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered, then
asked, ‘Would you mind asking your friends if they recognize him?’ He nodded
towards the group that still hung back against the wall, tossing occasional
remarks at passing cars but keeping their eyes on Brunetti and the two men.

‘Sure. Why not?’ Paolina’s friend
turned back towards the group. Paolina followed him, perhaps nervous at the
risk of spending time alone in the company of a policeman.

The group peeled itself away from
the wall to walk towards them. The one with the drawing stumbled and caught
himself from falling only by clutching on to Paolina’s shoulder. He swore
viciously. The group of bright-coloured men crowded round them, and Brunetti
watched as they handed the drawing round. One of them, a tall, gangly boy in a
red wig, let the picture go, then suddenly grabbed it back and looked at it
again. He pulled at another man, pointed down towards the picture, and said
something to him. The second one shook his head, and the redhead jabbed at the
picture again. The other one still did not agree, and the redhead dismissed him
with an angry flip of his hand. The picture was passed around to a few more of
them, and then Paolina’s friend came back to Brunetti with the redhead walking
at his side.

‘Buona sera
,’ Brunetti said as the redhead
came up. He held out his hand and said, ‘Guido Brunetti.’

The two men stood as if rooted to
the spot by their high heels. Paolina’s friend glanced down at his skirt and
wiped his hand nervously across its front. The redhead put his hand to his
mouth for a moment and then extended it to Brunetti. ‘Roberto Canale,’ he said.
‘Pleased to meet you.’ His grip was firm, his hand warm.

Brunetti held out his hand to the
other, who glanced nervously back to the group and, hearing nothing, took
Brunetti’s hand and shook it. ‘Paolo Mazza.’

Brunetti turned back to the
redhead. ‘Do you recognize the man in the photo, Signor Canale?’ Brunetti
asked.

The redhead looked off to the
side until Mazza said, ‘He’s talking to you, Roberta, don’t you even remember
your name?’

‘Of course I remember my name,’
the redhead said, turning angrily to Mazza. Then, to Brunetti, ‘Yes, I
recognize the man, but I can’t tell you who he is. I can’t even tell you why I
recognize him. He just looks like someone I know.’

Realizing how inadequate this
must sound, Canale explained, ‘You know how it is when you see the man from the
cheese store on the street, and he’s not wearing his apron: you know him but
you don’t know how you know him, and you can’t remember who he is. You know
that you know him, but he’s out of place, so you can’t remember who he is. That’s
how it is with the man in the drawing. I know I know him, or I’ve seen him, the
same way you see the man in the cheese store, but I can’t remember where he’s
supposed to be.’

‘Is he supposed to be here?’
Brunetti asked. When Canale gave him an empty look, he explained, ‘Here on Via
Cappuccina? Is this where you’d expect to see him?’

‘No, no. Not at all. That’s what’s
so strange about it. Wherever it was I saw him, it didn’t have anything to do
with all of this.’ He waved his hands in the air, as if seeking the answer
there. ‘It’s like I saw one of my teachers here. Or the doctor. He’s not
supposed to be here. It’s just a feeling, but it’s very strong,’ Then, seeking
confirmation, he asked Brunetti, ‘Do you understand what I mean?’

‘Yes, I do. Perfectly. I once had
a man stop me on the street in Rome and say hello to me. I knew I knew him, but
I didn’t know why.’ Brunetti smiled, risking it. ‘I’d arrested him two years
before. But in Naples.’

Luckily, both men laughed. Canale
said, ‘May I keep the picture? Maybe it will come back to me if I can, you
know, look at it every once in a while. Maybe that will surprise me into
remembering.’

‘Certainly. I appreciate your
help,’ Brunetti said.

It was Mazza’s turn to risk. ‘Was
he very bad? When you found him?’ He brought his hands together in front of
him, one clutching at the other.

Brunetti nodded.

‘Isn’t it enough they want to
fuck us?’ Canale broke in. ‘Why do they want to kill us, too?’

Though the question was addressed
to powers well beyond those for whom Brunetti worked, he still answered it. ‘I
have no idea.’

* * * *

Chapter Eleven

The
next day, Friday, Brunetti thought he had better make an appearance at the
Venice Questura to see what paperwork and mail had accumulated for him.
Furthermore, he admitted to Paola over coffee that morning, he wanted to see if
there was anything new on ‘Il Caso Patta’.

‘Nothing in
Gente
or
Oggi,’
she contributed, naming the two most famous gossip magazines, then
added, ‘though I’m not sure that Signora Patta rates the attention of either.’

‘Don’t let her hear you say that,’
Brunetti warned, laughing.

‘If I’m a lucky woman, Signora
Patta will never hear me say anything.’ More amiably, she asked, ‘What do you
think Patta will do?’