‘You two do the dishes,’ Paola ordered, ‘and then we’ll play.’ At the first squeak of protest, she wheeled on them. ‘No one’s playing Monopoly on this table until the dishes are off it, washed, and in the cabinet.’ As Raffaele opened his mouth to protest, she turned to him. ‘And if that’s a bourgeois way to look at it, that’s too damn bad. Eating chicken’s pretty bourgeois too, but I didn’t hear any complaints about the chicken. So do the dishes and we’ll play.’
It never failed to amaze Brunetti that she could use that tone with Raffaele and get away with it. Anytime he came close to reprimanding his son, the scene ended with slammed doors and sulks that lasted for days. Knowing he’d been outgunned, Raffaele showed his anger by snatching plates from the table and slapping them down on the counter next to the sink. Brunetti showed his by taking the bottle and his glass into the living room to wait out the inevitable thump and clatter of obedience.
‘At least he’s not building bombs in his bedroom,’ Paola offered as consolation when she came in to join him. From the kitchen, they heard the muted sound that said Raffaele was washing the dishes and the sharp clanks that declared that Chiara was drying them and putting them away. Occasionally there was a sharp burst of laughter.
‘Do you think he’ll be all right?’ he asked.
‘As long as she can still make him laugh, I suppose we don’t have to worry. He’d never do anything bad to Chiara, and I doubt he’d blow anyone up.’ Brunetti wasn’t sure just how this was supposed to serve as sufficient consolation for his concern about his son, but he was willing to accept it as such.
Chiara stuck her head into the room and cried, ‘Raffi’s got the board. Come on, let’s go.’
When he and Paola got there, the Monopoly board was set up in the middle of the kitchen table and Chiara, as she had insisted, was banker, already passing out the small piles of money. By general consent, Paola was forbidden to be banker, as she had been caught too many times, over the course of the years, with her hand in the till. Raffaele, no doubt nervous that accepting the position would leave him open to the accusation of avarice, refused. And Brunetti had enough trouble concentrating on the game without adding the responsibilities of banker, so they always left it to Chiara, who delighted in the counting and collecting, paying and changing.
They rolled to see who went first. Raffaele lost and had to go last, which was enough to make the other three nervous from the beginning. The boy’s need to win at the game frightened Brunetti, and he often played badly to give his son every advantage.
After half an hour, Chiara had all the green: Via Roma, Corso Impero, and Largo Augusto. Raffaele had two reds and needed only Via Marco Polo, which Brunetti owned, to make his set complete. After four more rounds, Brunetti allowed himself to be cajoled into selling the missing red property to Raffaele for Acquedotto and fifty thousand lire. Family rules forbade comment, but that didn’t prevent Chiara from giving her brother a fierce kick under the table.
Raffaele, predictably, protested the injustice. ‘Stop that, Chiara. If he wants to make a bad deal, let him.’ This from the boy who wanted to bring down the entire capitalist system.
Brunetti handed over the deeds and watched as Raffaele immediately built hotels on all three properties. While Raffaele was busy with that, making sure Chiara gave him the proper change, Brunetti noticed Paola calmly sliding a small pile of ten-thousand-lire notes from the banker’s pile to her own. She glanced up, noticed that her husband had seen her stealing from her own children, and gave him a dazzling smile. A policeman, married to a thief, with a computer monster and an anarchist for children.
The next time around, he landed on one of Raffaele’s new hotels and had to hand over everything he owned. Paola suddenly discovered enough cash to build herself six hotels, but at least she had the grace to avoid his eyes as she handed the money to the banker.
He sat back in his chair and watched the game progress toward the ending that his loss to Raffaele had made inescapable. Paola’s elbow began to inch toward the stack of ten-thousand-lire notes, but she was stopped by an icy glare from Chiara. Chiara, in her turn, failed to persuade Raffaele to sell her Parco della Vittoria, landed on the red hotels twice in a row, and went bankrupt. Paola held out for two more turns, until she landed on the hotel on Viale Costantino and couldn’t pay.
The game ended. Raffaele was immediately transformed from a successful captain of empire to the disaffected foe of the ruling class; Chiara went to raid the refrigerator; and Paola yawned and said it was time to go to bed. Brunetti followed her down the hall, reflecting that the commissario of police of the Most Serene Republic had spent yet another evening in the unrelenting pursuit of the person responsible for the death of the most famous musician of the age.
* * * *
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Michele’s call came at one, pulling Brunetti out of a fuddled, restless sleep. He answered on the fourth ring and gave his name.
‘Guido, it’s Michele.’
‘Michele,’ he repeated stupidly, trying to remember if he knew anyone named Michele. He forced his eyes open and remembered. ‘Michele. Michele—good. I’m glad you called.’
He switched the bedside lamp on and sat up against the headboard. Paola slept beside him, rocklike.
‘I spoke to my father, and he remembered everything.’
‘And?’
‘It was just like you said: if there’s anything to know, he’ll know.’
‘Stop gloating and tell me.’
‘There were rumors about Wellauer and the sister who sang in opera, Clemenza. Papa couldn’t remember where, but he knew it started in Germany, where she was singing with him. There was some sort of scene between the wife and La Santina, at a party, after a performance. They insulted each other, and Wellauer left.’ Michele paused for effect. ‘With La Santina. After the performances— my father thinks it was in ‘37 or ‘38—Santina came down here, to Rome, and Wellauer went home to face the music’ Bad as it was, Michele laughed at his own joke. Brunetti didn’t.
‘It seems he managed to patch things up with his wife. Papa suggested there was a lot of patching to do, then and later.’
