had then given allegiance; while the adult man stood arm in arm with a
former mayor of the city, the Minister of the Interior, and the
Patriarch of Venice. Behind them, in an even more elaborate frame,
Perulli's face smiled from the cover of a news magazine that had since
abandoned publication. This photo, and Perulli's need that people see
it, filled Brunetti, against his will, with an enormous sadness.
'Can I offer you something?' Perulli asked from the other side of the
living room, standing in front of a leather sofa and clearly wanting to
settle this before he sat down.
'No, nothing,' Brunetti said. 'Thanks.'
Perulli sat, pulling fussily at both legs of his trousers to keep them
from stretching at the knees, a gesture Brunetti had observed before,
but only in the old. Did he sweep the bottom part of his overcoat
aside before he sat down on the vaporetto?
The don't suppose you want to pretend we're still friends?' Perulli
asked.
The don't want to pretend anything, Augusto,' Brunetti said. The just
want to ask you a few questions, and I'd like you to give me honest
answers.'
'Not like the last time?' Perulli asked with a grin he tried to make
boyish but succeeded only in making sly. It caused Brunetti a moment's
uncertainty: there was something different about Perulli's mouth, about
the way he held it.
'No, not like the last time,' Brunetti said, surprised at how calm he
sounded, calm but tired.
'And if I can't answer them?'
Then tell me so, and I'll go
Perulli nodded, and then said, The didn't have any choice, you know,
Guido.'
Brunetti acted as though the other hadn't spoken and asked, 'Do you
know Fernando Moro?'
He watched Perulli react to the name with something stronger than mere
recognition.
'Yes.'
'How well do you know him?'
'He's a couple of years older than we are, and my father was a friend
of his, so I knew him well enough to say hello to on the street or
maybe go and have a drink with, at least when we were younger. But
certainly not well enough to call him a friend.' Some sense warned
Brunetti what was going to come next, so he was prepared to hear
Perulli say, 'Not like I know you and so did not respond.
'Did you see him in Rome?'
'Socially or professionally?'
'Either.'
'Socially, no, but I might have run into him a few times at
Montecitorio. But we represented different parties, so we didn't work
together.'
'Committees?'
'No, we worked on different ones.'
'What about his reputation?'
'What about it?'
Brunetti restrained the sigh that seeped up from his chest and answered
neutrally, 'As a politician. What did people think of him?'
Perulli uncrossed his long legs and immediately recrossed them the
opposite way. He lowered his head and raised his hand to his right
eyebrow and rubbed at it a few times, something he had always done when
he considered an idea or had to think about his response. Seeing
Perulli's face from this new angle, Brunetti noticed that something was
different about the angle of his cheekbones, which seemed sharper and
more clearly defined than they had been when he was a student. His
voice, when he finally spoke, was mild. 'I'd say people generally
thought he was honest.' He lowered his hand and tried a small smile,
'Perhaps too honest.' He enlarged the smile, that same engaging smile
that girls, then women, had proven unable to resist.
'What does that mean?' Brunetti asked, striving to fight against the
anger he felt growing in response to the sniggling tone of Perulli's
answers.
Perulli didn't answer immediately, and as he thought about what to say
or how to say it, he pursed his lips into a tight little circle a few
times, a gesture Brunetti had never noticed in him before. Finally he
said, 'I suppose it means that he was sometimes difficult to work
with.'
