He was dimly conscious of a hand being placed on his left shoulder; thinking it was Paola, coming back to him from Henry James, he placed his own on top of it and gave it a small squeeze. The hand was pulled roughly from under his, and he opened his eyes to see Vasco in front of him, face blank with shock.
‘I thought you were my wife,’ was all Brunetti could think to say, turning his head to where Paola sat, observing the two men without appearing to find them more interesting than her book.
‘We were talking before he fell asleep,’ she told Vasco, who blinked while he processed this and then smiled and leaned down to clap Brunetti on the shoulder.
‘You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve seen in this place,’ he said. He held up some sheets of paper, saying, ‘I’ve got copies of their passports.’ He went into the Director’s office.
Brunetti got to his feet and followed him.
Two papers lay on the desk, and two men looked up at him, the one in the photo and a younger man with hair that came to his collar and little evidence of a neck. ‘They came in together,’ Vasco said.
Brunetti picked up the first: ‘Antonio Terrasini,’ he read, ‘born in Plati.’ He looked at Vasco. ‘Where’s that?’
‘I thought you might want to know,’ he answered, smiling. ‘I had the girls check. Aspromonte, just above the National Park.’
‘What’s a Calabrian doing here?’
‘I’m Pugliese,’ Vasco said neutrally. ‘Might as well ask me the same question.’
‘Sorry,’ Brunetti said, setting the first paper down and picking up the other. ‘Giuseppe Strega,’ he read. ‘Born in the same town, but eight years later.’
Vasco said, ‘I noticed. The girls at the front desk share your curiosity about the first one, though I suspect for different reasons: they think he’s handsome. Both of them, in fact.’ Vasco took the papers back and studied the faces, Terrasini with the angled eyebrows over almond-shaped eyes and the other with wings of poet’s hair sweeping in from both sides of his face. ‘I don’t see it, myself,’ Vasco said and let the papers fall to the desk.
Neither did Brunetti, who said, ‘Strange creatures, women.’ Then he finally asked, ‘Why’s he a bastard?’
‘Because he’s a bad loser,’ Vasco answered. ‘None of them likes to lose. Though I think some of them don’t really care one way or the other, only they can’t let themselves know they think that.’ He looked at Brunetti to see whether he was following, and at his nod continued.
‘One night he lost, must have been close to fifty thousand Euros. I’m not sure exactly how much, but the other man on security called me and told me there was a heavy loser at one of the blackjack tables and he was afraid there was going to be trouble. That’s where the ones who think they’re smart always believe they’re going to win: counting cards, this system, that system. They’re all crazy: we always win.’ He saw Brunetti’s expression and said, ‘Sorry, doesn’t matter, does it? Anyway, when I got there I spotted him right away: guy looked like a ticking bomb. You could feel the energy coming from him, like from a furnace.
‘I saw there weren’t many chips in front of him, so I figured I’d stay around and be there when he finally lost it all. Took him two hands to do that, and as soon as the croupier raked them in, he started shouting, saying the deck was stacked, that he’d see the croupier never dealt another hand.’
Vasco gave a shrug that indicated irritation and resignation. ‘Doesn’t happen often, but when it does, they always say the same things. Make the same threats.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Giulio — the guy who called me — was on the other side of him by then, so we came up to him together and. . well, we helped him from the table and to the stairs. And then downstairs. He quietened down some on the way, but we still thought we should get rid of him.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes. We waited while he got his coat, and then we walked — escorted — him to the front door.’
‘He say anything? Threaten you?’
‘No, but you should have felt him,’ Vasco began and then, as if he recalled the way Brunetti had touched his hand, said, ‘I mean, you should have seen him. It’s like electricity was going through him. So we took him to the door, calling him “Signore” and being extra-polite to him, the way we have to be, and then we waited until he walked away.’
‘And then?’
‘And then we went back and put him on the list.’
‘The list?’
‘The list of people who can’t come back. If they behave like that, or if someone in their family calls up and gives their name and tells us not to let them in, then we bar them.’ Again, that shrug. ‘Not that it makes any difference. They can go to Campione, to Jesolo, or there’s plenty of houses here in the city where they can gamble, especially since the Chinese got here. But at least we got rid of him.’
‘How long ago did this happen?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I don’t remember exactly: the date should be there,’ he said, pointing to the paper on the desk: ‘Yes, the twentieth of November.’
‘What about the one who was with him?’
‘I didn’t know at the time that they had come in together. I was told, later, when I went down to bar him. I don’t remember seeing the other guy.’
‘Is he barred, too?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No reason to do it,’ Vasco said.
‘May I take these?’ Brunetti asked, indicating the photocopies.
‘Of course. I told you I owed you a favour.’
‘Would you do me another one?’ Brunetti asked.
‘If I can.’
‘Lift the ban on him and call me if he comes in.’
‘If you give me your phone number, I will,’ Vasco replied. ‘I’ll tell the girls at the desk to call you if I’m not here.’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti said and then thought to ask, ‘You think they can be trusted? If they think the guy is so attractive?’
Vasco’s smile bloomed. ‘I told them it was you who arrested those two shits upstairs. You can trust them with anything now.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Besides,’ Vasco said, picking up the papers and handing them to Brunetti, ‘they’re gamblers: none of the girls would touch either of them with a boathook.’
13
The next morning, Brunetti went into Signorina Elettra’s office carrying the photocopies. As if in visual harmony with the papers, she was wearing black and white, a pair of what looked like black Levi’s — though black Levi’s that had spent some time in a tailor’s hands — and a turtleneck so white it made him nervous that there might be some latent smudge on the documents. She studied the copies of the passport photos of the two men, looking back and forth from one to the other, and finally said, ‘Handsome devils, aren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered, wondering why it seemed to be every woman’s first reaction to these men. Perhaps they were good looking, but one of them was suspected of being involved in a murder, and the only thing women had to say about them was that they were good looking. It was enough to make a man question his belief in the basic good sense of women. His better self prevented him from adding to the list of charges the fact that they were from the South and one of them, at least, had the surname of a well-known Camorra family.
‘I wondered if you had access, or could have access, to the files of the Ministry of the Interior,’ Brunetti said with the calm of the habitual criminal. ‘The passport files.’