CB18 About Face (2009) (6 page)

‘Who is he?’

Guarino raised a hand, as if to push the question away. ‘We don’t know. He said the man never used a name and he never asked. There were bills of lading in case the trucks were stopped, but everything written on them was fake. He told me that. The destination, what was in the trucks.’

‘And what
was
in the trucks?’

‘That doesn’t matter. I’m here because he was murdered.’

‘Am I supposed to believe the two things aren’t related?’ Brunetti asked.

‘No. But I’m asking you to help me find his killer. The other case doesn’t concern you.’

‘And neither does his murder,’ Brunetti said mildly. ‘My superior saw to that when it happened: he decided it was a territorial matter, and the case belonged to Mestre, which has administrative control over Tessera.’ Brunetti filled his voice with deliberate punctiliousness.

Guarino got to his feet, but all he did was walk over to the window, as Brunetti did in moments of difficulty. He stared at the church, and Brunetti stared at the wall.

Guarino came back to his chair and sat down again. ‘The only thing he ever said about this man was that he was young – about thirty – good looking, and dressed like he had money. I think “flashy” was the word he used.’

Brunetti stopped himself from saying that most Italian men of thirty were good looking and dressed like they had money. He asked, instead, ‘How did he know he lives here?’ He was finding it difficult to disguise his mounting displeasure at Guarino’s reluctance to provide specific information.

‘Trust me. He lives here.’

‘I’m not sure they’re the same thing,’ Brunetti said.

‘What aren’t?’

‘Trusting you and trusting the information you’ve got.’

The
Maggiore
considered this. ‘One time when this man was out in Tessera, he got a call on his
telefonino
just as they were going into the office. He went back into the corridor to talk to whoever it was, but he didn’t close the door. He was giving directions to someone, and he told them to take the Number One to San Marcuola and to call him when he got off, and he’d meet him there.’

‘He was sure about San Marcuola?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes.’

Guarino glanced at Brunetti and smiled again. ‘I think we should stop sparring with one another now,’ he said. He sat up straighter and asked, ‘Shall we begin all over again, Guido?’ At Brunetti’s nod, he said, ‘My name is Filippo.’ He offered the name as if it were a peace offering, and Brunetti decided to accept it as such.

‘And the dead man’s name?’ asked a relentless Brunetti.

Guarino did not hesitate. ‘Ranzato. Stefano Ranzato.’

It took Guarino some time to explain in greater detail Ranzato’s descent from entrepreneur to tax evader to police spy. And from there to corpse. When he had finished, Brunetti asked, quite as though the
Maggiore
had not already refused to answer the question, ‘And what was in the trucks?’

This, Brunetti realized, was the moment of truth. Either Guarino would tell him or he would not, and Brunetti was by now very curious which choice the other man would make.

‘He never knew,’ Guarino said, then seeing Brunetti’s expression, he added, ‘At least that’s what he told me. He was never told, and the drivers never said anything. He’d get a call, and then he’d send his trucks where he was told to send them. Everything in order: bills of lading. He said very often things seemed legitimate to him, shipping from a factory to a train or from a warehouse to Trieste or Genova. And he said at the beginning it was a lifesaver’ – Brunetti heard him stumble over that word – ‘for him because it was all off the books.’ Brunetti had the feeling that Guarino would be perfectly content to sit there for ever, talking about the dead man’s business.

‘None of this explains why you’re here, though, does it?’ Brunetti interrupted to ask. Instead of answering, Guarino said, ‘I think it’s a wild goose chase.’ ‘Try to be a little more specific, and then perhaps we’ll see about that,’ Brunetti suggested.

Guarino, looking suddenly tired, said, ‘I work for Patta.’ Then he added, by way of explanation, ‘Sometimes I think everyone works for Patta. I didn’t know his name until today, when I met him, but I recognized him immediately. He’s my boss, and he’s most of the bosses I’ve ever had. Yours just happens to be called Patta.’

‘I’ve had a few who don’t have the same name,’ Brunetti said, but added, ‘just the same nature.’ Guarino’s answering smile helped both of them relax again.

Relieved to see that Brunetti understood, Guarino went on, ‘Mine – my Patta, that is – sent me here to find the man who got the phone call at Ranzato’s office.’

‘So he expects you to go to San Marcuola and stand there and shout Ranzato’s name and see who looks guilty?’

‘No,’ Guarino answered without a smile. He scratched at his ear, and said, ‘None of the men in my squad is Venetian.’ In response to Brunetti’s startled look, he said, ‘Some of us have been working here for years, but it’s not the same as having been born here. You know that. We’ve checked the arrest records for anyone who lives near San Marcuola with a history of violence, but the only two men we’ve found are both in jail. So we need local help, the sort of information you have, or can get, and we can’t.’

‘You don’t know where to look for what you want to know,’ Brunetti said, stretching out a palm in front of him. ‘And I don’t know what was in those trucks,’ he continued, putting out the other. He moved them up and down in a balancing gesture.

Guarino gave him a level glance and then said, ‘I’m not at liberty to discuss that.’

Encouraged by this frankness, Brunetti changed course. ‘Did you speak to his family?’

‘No. His wife’s destroyed by this. The man who did speak to her said he was sure she wasn’t pretending. She had no idea what he was doing, neither did the son, and the daughter goes home only two or three times a year.’ He gave Brunetti a moment to assess this and then added, ‘Ranzato told me they didn’t know, and I believed him. I still do.’

‘When did you speak to him?’ Brunetti asked. ‘The last time, I mean.’

Guarino looked at him directly. ‘The day before he died. Was murdered, that is.’

‘And?’

‘And he said he wanted to stop, that he’d already given us enough information and didn’t want to do it any more.’

Dispassionately, Brunetti observed, ‘From what you’ve told me, it doesn’t sound as if he gave you much information at all.’ Guarino pretended not to have heard this, so Brunetti decided to give him a poke and said, ‘Just as you’re not giving me much.’

Once more, his words bounced off Guarino. Brunetti asked, ‘Did he seem nervous?’

‘No more than he had ever been,’ Guarino answered calmly, adding, almost reluctantly, ‘He wasn’t a brave man.’

‘Few of us are.’

Guarino glanced at him sharply and appeared to shrug the idea away. ‘I don’t know about that,’ the
Maggiore
said, ‘but Ranzato wasn’t.’

‘He had no reason to be, did he?’ Brunetti asked, defending the dead man as much as the principle. ‘He was in over his head: first he cheated on his taxes, which forced him into doing something illegal, then he got caught by the Finanza, who turned him over to the Carabinieri, and they forced him into doing something dangerous. If he had reason to be anything, it wasn’t brave.’

‘You seem awfully sympathetic,’ Guarino said, making it sound like a criticism.

This time it was Brunetti who shrugged and said nothing.

In the face of Brunetti’s silence, Guarino chose to move away from the dead man’s character. ‘I told you. I’m not at liberty to provide you with full information about the cargoes,’ he said with more than a touch of asperity.

Brunetti resisted the urge to observe that everything Guarino had said since they began to talk made that evident. He turned his gaze away from his visitor and stared out the window. For some time, Guarino allowed the joint silence to continue. Brunetti played the conversation back from the beginning, and liked very little of what he heard.

The silence expanded, but Guarino gave no sign of being made nervous by it. After what seemed, even to himself, an inordinately long time, Brunetti removed his feet from the drawer and set them on the floor. He leaned towards the man on the other side of his desk. ‘Are you used to dealing with dull people, Filippo?’

‘Dull?’

‘Dull. Slow to understand.’

Guarino glanced, almost against his will, at Brunetti, who smiled at him blandly and then turned his attention back to he contemplation of the view beyond the window.

Eventually Guarino said, ‘I suppose I am.’

Brunetti said, quite amiably, though without bothering to smile, ‘It must become a habit, after a while.’

‘Believing that everyone is dull?’

‘Something like that, yes, or at least behaving as if they were.’

Guarino considered this. At last he said, ‘Yes, I see. And I’ve insulted you?’

Brunetti’s eyebrows rose and fell as if by their own volition; his right hand sketched a short arc in the air.

‘Indeed,’ Guarino said and went silent.

The two men sat in companionable silence for a number of minutes until Guarino broke it by saying, ‘I really
do
work for Patta.’ In the face of Brunetti’s failure to respond, Guarino added, ‘Well, my own Patta. And he hasn’t authorized me to tell anyone about what we’re doing.’

Lack of authorization had never worked as a strong impediment to Brunetti’s professional behaviour, and so he said, in an entirely friendly voice, ‘Then you can leave.’

‘What?’

‘You can leave,’ Brunetti repeated, with a wave towards the door just as pleasant as his voice had been. ‘And I’ll go back to doing my job. Which, for the administrative reasons I’ve already explained to you, does not include the investigation of Signor Ranzato’s murder.’ Guarino remained in his chair, and Brunetti said, ‘It’s been very interesting, listening to you, but I don’t have any information to give you, and I don’t see any reason to help you find whatever it is you might really be after.’

Had Brunetti slapped him, Guarino could have been no more astonished. And offended. He started to get to his feet, but then sank back on to the chair and stared at Brunetti. His face flushed a sudden red, either from embarrassment or anger: Brunetti neither knew nor cared. Finally Guarino said, ‘How about we think of someone we both know, and you call this person and I talk to him?’

‘Animal, vegetable, or mineral?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Excuse me?’

‘It’s a game my children used to play. What type of person should we call: a priest, a doctor, a social worker?’

‘A lawyer?’

‘That I trust?’ Brunetti asked, putting an end to that possibility.

‘A journalist?’

After some consideration, Brunetti said, ‘There are a few.’

‘Good, then let’s see if we can find one we know in common.’

‘Who trusts us both?’

‘Yes,’ Guarino answered.

‘And you think that would be enough for me?’ Brunetti asked, injecting disbelief into his voice.

‘That would depend on which journalist, I suppose,’ Guarino said mildly.

After running through a few names that were unknown to one or the other, they discovered that they both knew and trusted Beppe Avisani, an investigative journalist in Rome.

‘Let me call him,’ Guarino said, coming around to stand beside Brunetti.

Brunetti got an outside line on his office phone and dialled Avisani’s number. He pushed the button for the speaker phone.

The phone rang four times, and then the journalist answered with his name.

‘Beppe,
ciao
, it’s me, Filippo,’ Guarino said.

‘Good heavens. Is the Republic in peril and I have just one chance to save it by answering your questions?’ the journalist asked in a falsely ponderous voice. Then, with real warmth, ‘How are you, Filippo? I won’t ask what you’re doing, but how are you?’

‘Fine. You?’

‘As well as can be expected,’ Avisani said, his voice veering towards the despair that Brunetti had so often heard over the years. Then, brightening, he went on, ‘You never call without wanting something, so save us both time and tell me what it is.’ The words were harsh, but the tone was not.

‘I’m here with someone who knows you,’ Guarino said, ‘and I’d like you to tell him that I can be trusted.’

‘You do me too much honour, Filippo,’ Avisani said with arch humility. They heard the sound of paper rustling, and then the voice came through the speaker, saying, ‘
Ciao
, Guido. My phone told me the number was from Venice, and my notebook just told me it’s the Questura, and God knows you’re the only person there who would trust me.’

Brunetti said, ‘Dare I hope you’ll say I’m the only person here you’d trust?’

Avisani laughed. ‘You might not believe this, either of you, but I’ve had stranger calls.’

‘And so?’ Brunetti asked, trying to save time.

‘Trust him,’ the journalist answered without hesitation and without explanation. ‘I’ve known Filippo for a long time, and he’s to be trusted.’

‘That’s all?’ Brunetti asked.

‘That’s enough,’ the journalist said and hung up. Guarino returned to his chair.

‘You realize what was also proven by that call?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes, I know,’ Guarino said: ‘that I can trust you.’ He nodded, seemed to digest this new information, and then went on in a more sober voice, ‘My unit studies organized crime, specifically its penetration north.’ Even though Guarino spoke earnestly and was perhaps finally telling the truth, Brunetti remained cautious. Guarino covered his face with his hands and made a washing gesture. Brunetti thought of racoons, always trying to clean things off. Elusive creatures, racoons.

‘Because the problem is so multifaceted, it’s been decided to try to approach it by applying new techniques.’