‘She turned out to be the wrong woman.’
‘And the third time?’
‘That was a case in Pordenone,’ he said in his most distant voice. ‘But someone called them, and the place was empty when we got there.’
‘Ah,’ she said with winsome longing. ‘I did want to know.’
‘Sorry I can’t help,’ he said.
She set her empty glass on the bar and rose up on her toes to kiss his cheek. ‘All things considered, I’m rather glad you can’t,’ she said, then, ‘Shall we go back and lose the rest of our money?’
12
They went back inside, content to remain behind the groups crowding around tables, both of them paying more attention to the people playing than to what they won or lost. Like Santa Caterina di Alessandria, the young man was still bound to his wheeclass="underline" Brunetti found him so immeasurably sad that he could no longer bear to watch him. He should be out chasing girls, cheering on some stupid soccer team or wild rock band, mountain climbing, doing something — anything — excessive and rash and foolish that would consume his youthful energy and leave joyful memories.
He grabbed Paola’s elbow and all but pulled her into the next room, where people sat around an oval table, tipping up the corners of cards to take a furtive glance. Brunetti remembered the bars of his youth, where rough-looking workers congregated after work to play endless hands of scopa. He recalled the tiny flare-topped glasses of red wine, so dark it appeared black, that each man kept to his right and at which he sipped between hands. The level of liquid seemed never to decrease, and Brunetti could not remember that any of them ever ordered more than one glass a night. They played with exuberance, slapping winning cards down with a mighty thump that made the legs of the table tremble, sometimes leaning forward with a joyous hoot to pull towards them the evening’s winnings. What had that been then, a hundred lire, enough to pay for the wine of the other players?
He remembered the shouts of encouragement from the men standing at the bar, the billiard players resting on their cues while they gazed at the men who were enjoying a different game, often commenting on its progress. Some of the men at the table had washed their faces and put on their good jackets before they came; others arrived straight from work still in their dark blue boiler suits and heavy boots. Where had those clothes and those boots gone? What, in fact, had happened to all the men who worked with their bodies and their hands? Had they been replaced by the smooth types who kept the exclusive shops and boutiques and who looked as though they would collapse under a heavy weight or before a heavy wind?
He felt the pressure of Paola’s arm around his waist. ‘How much more of this do we have to do?’ she asked. He looked at his watch and saw that it was already after midnight. ‘Maybe he came only that one night,’ she suggested, then tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a yawn.
Brunetti looked out over the heads of the people surrounding the tables. These people could be in bed, reading: they could be in bed, doing other things. But they were here, watching little balls and pieces of paper and little white cubes carry away what they had worked weeks, perhaps years, to earn. ‘You’re right,’ he said, bending to kiss the top of her head. ‘I promised you a good time, and here we are, doing this.’
He felt, rather than saw, her shrug.
‘I want to find the Director, show him the picture, see if he recognizes the man. Want to come with me or do you want to wait here?’
Rather than answer, she turned and started towards the door that led to the stairs. He followed. Downstairs, she sat on a bench opposite the door of the Director’s office, opened her bag, pulled out a book and her glasses, and began to read.
Brunetti knocked on the door, but no one responded. He went back to the reception desk and asked to speak to the man in charge of security, who arrived a minute later in response to a discreet phone call. Claudio Vasco was a tall man a few years younger than Brunetti who wore a dinner jacket so elegant he might well have shared a tailor with Commissaria Griffoni. Hired to replace one of the men who had been arrested, he shook hands and smiled when Brunetti gave his name.
Vasco led him down the hall, past Paola, who did not bother to look up from her book, and into the Director’s office. Not bothering to sit down, he studied the photo, and Brunetti, watching him, could all but see his mental fingers flicking through a file of faces. Vasco let the hand holding the photo fall to his side and looked at Brunetti. ‘Is it true you’re the one who arrested those two up there?’ he asked, raising his eyes towards the ceiling and the floor above, where the two croupiers were at work.
‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered.
Vasco smiled and handed the photo back to Brunetti. ‘Then I owe you a favour. I just hope you frightened those two bastards enough to keep them honest for a while.’
‘Not permanently?’
Vasco looked at Brunetti as though he had started speaking the language of the birds. ‘Them? It’s just a matter of time until they think of some new system, or one of them wants to go to the Seychelles for vacation. We spend more time watching them than we do the clients,’ he said tiredly. He nodded at the photo and said, ‘He’s been here a few times, once with another guy. Your man’s maybe thirty, a bit shorter han you, and thinner.’
‘And the other?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I don’t remember him well,’ Vasco said. ‘All my attention went to this one,’ he said, giving the photo a backward flick with the fingers of his left hand.
Brunetti raised an eyebrow but Vasco said only, ‘I’ll tell you about it after I find the registration.’ Brunetti knew records were kept of everyone who came to the Casinò, but he had no idea how long they had to be kept on file.
‘As I said, I owe you a favour, Commissario.’ He headed towards the door, turned and added, ‘Even if I didn’t, I’d be happy to help you find this bastard, especially if I knew it would get him into trouble.’ Vasco gave a smile that made him ten years younger and was gone, leaving the office door open.
Through the opening Brunetti could see Paola, who had not looked up either at their approach or Vasco’s departure. He went into the corridor and sat down next to her. ‘What are you reading, sweetie?’ he asked in a deep voice.
Ignoring him, she turned a page.
He moved closer and stuck his head between her and the page. ‘What’s that, Princess who?’
‘Casamassima,’ she said and slid away from him.
‘Is it good?’ he asked, sliding up against her.
‘Riveting,’ she answered, and, seeing that she had run out of bench, turned away from him.
‘You read a lot of books, angel?’ he persisted in the same intrusive, raspy voice, the voice of every crazy talker who comes to sit next to a person on the vaporetto.
‘I read a lot of books, yes,’ she said, then politely, ‘My husband is a policeman, so maybe you better leave me alone.’
‘You don’t have to be unfriendly, angel,’ he whined.
‘I know. But I have his gun in my purse, and I’m going to shoot you with it if you don’t leave me alone.’
‘Oh,’ Brunetti said and moved away from her. Sliding back to the other end of the bench, he crossed his legs and looked at the print of the Rialto Bridge on the wall opposite them. Paola turned a page and returned to London.
He shifted lower and rested his head against the wall. He considered whether Guarino might deliberately have misled him into thinking that the man lived near here. Perhaps Guarino feared that Brunetti’s participation would compromise the Carabinieris’ control of the investigation. Perhaps he was uncertain where his colleague’s real allegiance lay. And who could fault him for that? Brunetti had but to think of Lieutenant Scarpa to recall that safety’s best part was in seeming trust. And poor Alvise, six months working with Scarpa, learning to seek his praise. And so now Alvise was not to be trusted, not only because of his innate stupidity but because his silly little head had been turned by the attentions of the Lieutenant and he was now sure to rush to him with anything he learned.