scandal. Now that they’re united, someone would start to talk about throwing the Americans out, not just waiting for them to leave on their own. But here in Italy, no one cares what gets dumped, anywhere, so all they have to do is remove the identification. Then, if what they dump is found, it can’t be tied to anyone, everyone can deny all knowledge, and no one will care enough to find out. And no one here is going to talk about throwing the Americans out.’
‘But they haven’t removed all identification,’ Ambrogiani corrected.
‘Maybe they thought they’d get it covered before anyone found it. It’s easy enough to bring in a bulldozer and finish piling the dirt over it. It looked like they were running out of room there, anyway.’
‘Why not just ship it back to America?’
Brunetti gave him a long look. Surely, he couldn’t be this innocent. ‘We try to unload ours on Third World countries, Giancarlo. To the Americans, maybe we’re a Third World country. Or maybe all countries that aren’t America are Third World.’
Ambrogiani muttered something under his breath.
Up ahead of them, the traffic slowed at the toll booms at the end of the
‘See what you can find but about Gamberetto, and I’ll speak to a few people here.’
‘Should I call you?’
‘Not from the base.’ Brunetti scribbled his home number on a piece of paper and handed it to the other man. ‘This is my own number. You can get me there early in the morning or at night. Call from a phone booth, I think.’
‘Yes,’ Ambrogiani agreed, voice sombre, as if this small suggestion had suddenly warned him of the magnitude of what they were involved with.
Brunetti opened the door and got out of the car. He came around to the other side and leaned down towards the open window. ‘Thanks, Giancarlo.’
They shook hands through the open window, saying nothing more, and Brunetti crossed the road to the station while Ambrogiani drove away.
By the time he got to his house, his feet hurt from the new shoes that Ambrogiani had bought for him in a place on the motorway. A hundred and sixty thousand lire and they hurt his feet! As soon as he got inside the door, he kicked them off, then walked towards the bathroom, peeling off his clothing as he walked, dropping it carelessly behind him. He stood in the shower for a long time, soaping his body repeatedly, rubbing at his feet and between his toes with a cloth, rinsing and washing them again and again. He dried himself and sat on the edge of the tub to examine his feet closely. Though they were red from the hot water and scrubbing, he saw no sign of rash or burning on them; they felt like feet, though he wasn’t at all sure how feet were supposed to feel.
He wrapped a second towel around himself and went towards the bedroom. As he did, he heard Paola call from the kitchen, ‘This place doesn’t come with maid service, Guido’ Her voice was raised over the rush of water into the washing-machine.
He ignored her, went to the closet and got dressed, sitting on the bed while he pulled on a new pair of socks, again examining his feet. They still looked like feet. He pulled a pair of brown shoes from the bottom of the closet, tied them, and walked down towards the kitchen. As soon as she heard him coming, she continued, ‘How do you expect me to get the kids to pick up after themselves if you drop things anywhere you want?’
When he walked into the kitchen, he found her kneeling in front of the washing-machine, thumb poised over the button that turned it on and off. Through the clear glass window, he could see a sodden heap of clothes being swirled first one way, then another.
‘What’s the matter with that thing?’ he asked.
She didn’t look up at him as she answered, kept her mesmerized stare on the swirling clothing. ‘It’s unbalanced somehow. If I put towels in it, anything that absorbs a lot of water, the weight of the initial spin tilts it out of balance, and it blows out all of the electricity in the house. So I’ve got to wait for it to start, see that it doesn’t happen. If it does, then I’ve got to turn it off before it happens and wring the clothes out.’
‘Paola, do you have to do this every time you do a wash?’
‘No. Only if there are towels or those flannel sheets from Chiara’s bed,’ She stopped talking here, raised her thumb over the button as the machine made a click. Suddenly, it jolted into sudden motion and the clothing inside began to spin around, pressed against the side of the swirling drum. Paola got to her feet, smiled, and said, ‘Well, no trouble that time.’
‘How long has it been like that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Couple of years.’
‘And you have to do that every time you do a wash?’
‘If I wash towels. I told you.’ She smiled, irritation forgotten. ‘Where have you been since the crack of dawn? Did you have anything to eat?’
‘Up at Lake Barcis.’
‘Doing what, playing army? Your clothes were filthy. It looks like you’ve been rolling around in the dirt.’
‘I have been rolling around in the dirt,’ he began and told her about his day with Ambrogiani. It took a long time because he had to keep going back to explain about Kayman, his son, the way the boy’s medical records had been lost, the medical journal that he had received in the post. And, finally, he told her about the drugs that had been hidden in Foster’s apartment.
When he finished, Paola asked, ‘And they told those people that their son was allergic to something from a tree? That everything was all right?’ He nodded and she exploded. ‘Bastards! And what happens when the boy develops other symptoms? What do they tell the parents then?’
