believe her. Finally, she picked up the phone and dialed the mayor’s office and asked to speak to “Lucio.” This with two architects from the city planning office standing there with their rulers in their hands. She had a few words with “Lucio” handed the phone to one of them, and said that the mayor wanted to have a word with him.’ Padovani mimicked the whole thing, ending by passing an invisible phone across the table.
‘So the mayor had a few words with them, and they climbed out on the roof and measured the skylights, calculated the fine, and she sent them back to their office with a check in their hands.’ Brunetti threw back his head and laughed so loud that people sitting at other tables looked their way.
‘Wait, it gets better,’ Padovani said. ‘The check was made out to cash, and she never received an acknowledgment that the fine had been paid. And I’m told that the blueprints in the office of deeds at city hall have been changed, and the skylights are on them.’ They laughed together at this victory of ingenuity over authority.
‘Where does all this money come from?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Oh, God, who knows? Where does American money come from? Steel. Railways. You know how it is over there. It doesn’t matter if you murder or rob to get it. The trick is in keeping it for a hundred years, and then you’re aristocrats.’
‘Is that so different from here?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Of course,’ Padovani explained, smiling. ‘Here we have to keep it five hundred years before we’re aristocrats. And there’s another difference. In Italy, you have to be well-dressed. In America, it’s difficult to tell which are the millionaires and which are the servants.’ Remembering Brett’s boots, Brunetti wanted to demur. But there was no stopping Padovani, who was off again. ‘They have a magazine there. I can’t remember which one it is, but each year they publish a list of the richest people in America. Only the names and where the money comes from. I think they must be afraid to publish all their pictures. The ones they do, it’s enough to make a person believe that money really is the root of all evil or, at the very least, bad taste. The women all look as though they’d been hung over open fires and dried. And the men, good God, the men. God, who dresses them? Do you think they
Whatever answer Brunetti might have given was cut short by Antonia’s return. She asked if they wanted fruit or cake for dessert. Nervously, they both said they would forgo dessert and have coffee instead. She didn’t like it, but she cleared the table.
‘But to answer your question,’ Padovani said when she was gone, ‘I don’t know where the money comes from, but there seems to be no end to it. Her uncle was very generous to various hospitals and charities in the city, and she seems to be doing the same, though most of what she gives is specifically for restoration.’
‘Then that would explain the help from “Lucio.”‘
‘Certainly.’
‘What about her personal life?’
Padovani gave him a strange glance, having long since realized how little any of this had to do with the investigation of Wellauer’s death. But that could hardly be enough to stop him from telling what he knew. After all, gossip’s greatest charms was its utter superfluity. ‘Very little. I mean, there’s not much that anyone knows for sure. She seems always to have been of this persuasion, but almost nothing is known about her personal life before she came here.’
‘Which was when?’
‘About seven years ago. That is, that it became her permanent address. She spent years here, with her uncle, when she was a child.’
‘That explains the Veneziano, then.’
Padovani laughed. ‘It is strange to hear someone who isn’t one of us speak it, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
At this point, Antonia returned with the coffees, bringing with her two small glasses of grappa, which she told them were offered with the compliments of the restaurant. Though neither of them wanted the fiery liquid, they made a show of sipping at it and praising its quality. She moved off, suspicious, and Brunetti caught her looking back at them from the door of the kitchen, as if she expected them to pour the grappa into their shoes.
‘What else about her personal life?’ Brunetti asked, frankly curious.
‘She keeps it very personal, I think. I have a friend in New York who went to school with her. Harvard, of course. Then Yale. After which she went to Taiwan and then to the mainland. She was one of the first Western archaeologists to go there. In ‘83 or ‘84, I think. She’d written her first book by then, while she was in Taiwan.’
‘Isn’t she young to have done all this?’
‘Yes, I suppose she is. But she’s very, very good.’
Antonia sailed past them, carrying coffees to the next table, and Brunetti signaled to her, mimed writing the check. She nodded.
‘I hope some of this will be of help to you,’ said Padovani, meaning it.
‘So do I,’ replied Brunetti, unwilling to admit that it wouldn’t, equally unwilling to admit that he was simply interested in the two women.
‘If there’s any other way I can help you, please call,’ Padovani said, then added, ‘We could come here again. But if we do, I insist that you bring along two of your biggest policemen to protect me against . . . Ah, Signora Antonia,’ he said effortlessly as she came up to the table and placed the bill in front of Brunetti. ‘We have eaten superbly well and hope to return as soon as possible.’ The results of this flattery astonished Brunetti. For the first time that afternoon, Antonia smiled at them, a radiant blossoming of pure pleasure that revealed deep dimples at either side of her mouth and perfect, brilliant teeth. Brunetti envied Padovani his technique; it would prove invaluable in questioning suspects.
* * * *
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The intercity train made its way slowly across the causeway that joined Venice to the mainland and was soon
