When that didn’t come, he continued. ‘That meant it was an angel, not a Christ Child. The patch covered the place where the wings had been, where they had been taken out, who knows when, and covered up so that it would look like a Christ Child.’
‘Why?’
‘Because there have always been more angels than Christs. So the removal of the wings. . .’ Lele’s voice trailed off.
‘Gave him a promotion?’ Brunetti asked, understanding.
Lele’s shout of laughter filled the gallery. ‘Yes, that’s it. He was promoted to Christ, and the promotion meant he’d earn a lot more money when he was sold.’
‘But the dealer showed you?’
‘That’s what I’m getting at, Guido. He told me by not telling me, just by showing me that tiny patch, and he would have done the same with any one of us.’
‘But not a casual client?’ Brunetti suggested.
‘Perhaps not,’ Lele agreed. ‘The patch was so well done, and the paint covered it so perfectly, that very few people would have noticed it. Or if they had noticed it, would not have known what it meant.’
‘Would you have?’
Lele nodded quickly. ‘Eventually, yes, I would have noticed it, if I had taken it home and lived with it.’
‘But not the casual buyer?’
‘No, probably not.’
‘Then why did he show you?’
‘Because he thought I might still like to buy the piece. And because it’s important to us to know that, at least among ourselves, we won’t lie or cheat or try to pass something off as what we know it isn’t.’
‘Is there a moral in all of this, Lele?’ Brunetti asked with a smile. Since his childhood, there had often been a lesson hidden in what Lele had told him.
‘I’m not sure if it’s a moral, Guido, but Semenzato is not a member of the club. He isn’t one of us.’
‘And who made that decision, he or you?’
‘I don’t think anyone ever really decided it. And I’ve certainly never heard anything about him directly.’ Lele, a man of images and not of words, looked out of the wide gallery window and studied the patterns of light on the canal beyond. ‘It’s more a question that he was never assumed to be one of us than that he was consciously excluded.’
‘Who else knows this?’
‘You’re the first person I’ve told about the majolica. And I’m not sure that anyone can be said to “know” this, at least not at any level he’d be aware of. It’s just something that we all understand.’
‘About him?’
With a laugh, Lele said, ‘About most of the antique dealers in the country, if you want the truth.’ Then, more soberly, he added, ‘And, yes, about him, too.’
‘Not the best recommendation for the director of one of the leading museums in Italy, is it?’ Brunetti asked. ‘It would make a person reluctant to buy a polychrome Madonna from him.’
With another loud burst of laughter, Lele said, ‘You should meet some of the others. I wouldn’t buy a plastic hairbrush from most of them.’ Both laughed at that for a moment, but then Lele asked, serious now, ‘Why are you interested in him?’
Part of Brunetti’s sworn trust as an officer of the law was never to reveal police information to anyone unauthorized to hear it. ‘Someone doesn’t want him to talk about the China exhibition, the one held here five years ago.’
‘Um?’ Lele murmured, asking for more information.
‘The person who arranged the show had an appointment to see him, but she was beaten, badly beaten, and told not to keep it.’
‘Dottoressa Lynch?’ Lele asked.
Brunetti nodded.
‘Have you spoken to Semenzato?’ Lele asked.
‘No. I don’t want to call any attention to him. Let whoever did this believe the warning worked.’
Lele nodded and rubbed his hand lightly across his lips, something he always did when trying to work out a problem.
‘Could you ask around, Lele? See if there’s any talk about him?’
‘What kind of talk?’
‘I don’t know. Debts, perhaps. Women. Whether you can get an idea of who that dealer was, or any other people he might know who are involved in . . .’ He trailed off, not sure what to name it.
‘He’s bound to know everyone in the trade.’
‘I know that. But I want to know whether he’s involved with anything illegal.’ When Lele didn’t answer, Brunetti said, ‘I’m not even sure what that means, and I’m not sure you can find it out.’
‘I can find out anything,’ Lele said dispassionately; it was a statement of fact, not a boast. He said nothing for a moment, hand still rubbing lightly back and forth on his compressed lips. Finally, he took his hand down and said, ‘All right. I know a few people I can ask, but I’ll need a day or two. One of the men I need to talk to is in Burma. I’ll call you by the end of the week. Is that all right?’
‘It’s fine, Lele. I don’t know how to thank you.’
The painter dismissed this with a wave of his hand. ‘Don’t thank me until I find out something.’
‘If there is anything,’ Brunetti added, as if to disarm the antipathy he had sensed in Lele towards the museum director.
‘Oh, there’s always something.’
* * * *
Chapter Six
When he left Lele’s gallery, he turned left and ducked into the underpass that led out to the Zattere, the long, open fondamenta that ran alongside the canal of the Giudecca. Across the water he saw the church of the Zittelle and then, further along, that of the Redentore, their domes soaring up above them. A strong wind came in from the east, stirring up whitecaps that knocked and bounced the vaporetti around like toys in a tub. Even at this distance, he could hear the thundering reverberation as one of them crashed against its mooring, saw it buck and tear at the rope that held it to the dock. He pulled up his collar and let the wind push him forward, keeping to the right, close against the buildings, to avoid the spray that spewed up from the embankment. Il Cucciolo, the waterside bar where he and Paola had spent so many hours during the first weeks after their meeting, was open, but the vast wooden deck in front of it, built out over the water, was completely empty, stripped of tables, chairs and umbrellas. To Brunetti, the first real sign of spring was the day when those tables and chairs appeared after their winter’s hibernation. Today, the thought made him shiver. The bar was open, but he avoided it, for the waiters were the rudest in the city, their arrogant slowness tolerable only in exchange for idle hours in the sun.
A hundred metres along, past the church of the Gesuati, he pulled open the glass door and slipped into the welcoming warmth of Nico’s bar. He stamped his feet a few times, unbuttoned his coat, and approached the counter. He ordered a grog and watched the waiter hold a glass under the spigot of the espresso machine and shoot it full of steam that quickly condensed to boiling water. Rum, a slice of lemon, a generous dash of something from a bottle, and then the barman placed it in front of him. Three sugars, and Brunetti had found salvation. He stirred the drink slowly, cheered by the aromatic steam that rose up softly from it. Like most drinks, it didn’t taste as good as it smelled, but Brunetti had grown so accustomed to this truth that he was no longer disappointed by it.