looked suspiciously thick and glossy enough to be the spring fashion issue of
‘His son?’ she asked, looking up from the magazine.
It escaped before he could stop himself. ‘Do you have his office wired?’ He had meant it as a joke, but when he heard himself asking the question, he wasn’t all that sure that he did.
‘No. He had a call from the boy this morning, sounding very nervous, then one from the Jesolo police. And as soon as he’d spoken to them, he asked me to get him Donatini’s number.’ Brunetti wondered if he could ask her to give up secretarial work and join the force. But he knew she’d die before she’d wear the uniform.
‘Do you know him?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Who, Donatini or the boy?’
‘Either. Both.’
‘I know them both,’ she said, then added casually, ‘They’re both shits, but Donatini dresses better.’
‘Did he tell you what it’s about?’ he asked with a backward nod of his head towards Patta’s office.
‘No,’ she said with no trace of disappointment. ‘If it was rape, it would have been in the papers. So I guess it’s drugs. Donatini ought to be good enough to get him off.’
‘Do you think he’s capable of rape?’
‘Who, Roberto?’
‘Yes.’
She considered this for a second and then said, ‘No, I suppose not. He’s arrogant and self-important, but I don’t think he’s completely bad.’
Something led Brunetti to ask, ‘And Donatini?’
Without hesitation, she answered, ‘He’d do anything.’
‘I didn’t know you knew him.’
She glanced down at the magazine and turned a page, making it look like an idle gesture. ‘Yes.’ She turned another page.
‘He asked me to help him.’
‘The Vice-Questore?’ she asked, looking up in surprise.
‘Yes,’
‘And are you going to?’
‘If I can,’ Brunetti answered.
She looked at him for a long time, then turned her attention back to the page below her. ‘I don’t think grey is much longer for this world,’ she said. ‘We’re all tired of wearing it.’
She was wearing a peach-coloured silk blouse with a high-collared black jacket in what he thought he recognized as raw silk.
‘You’re probably right,’ he said, wished her a good evening, and went back up to his office.
10
He had to call Information to get the number of Luxor, but when he dialled it, whoever answered the phone at the disco told him that Signor Bertocco was not there and refused to give his home number. Brunetti did not say it was the police calling. Instead, he called Information again and was given Luca’s home number without any difficulty at all.
‘Self-important fool,’ Brunetti muttered as he dialled the number.
It was picked up on the third ring and a deep voice with a rough edge said, ‘Bertocco.’
The formality of the answering voice disappeared, replaced with real warmth. ‘Fine, Guido. I haven’t heard from you in ages. How are you, and Paola, and the kids?’
‘Everyone’s fine.’
‘You’ve finally decided to accept my offer and come out and dance till you drop?’
Brunetti laughed at this, a joke that had run for more than a decade. ‘No, I’m afraid I have to disappoint you again, Luca. Much as you know how I long to come and dance till dawn among people as young as my own children, Paola refuses to allow it.’
‘The smoke?’ Luca asked. ‘Thinks it’s bad for your health?’
‘No, the music, I think, but for the same reason.’
There was a brief pause, after which Luca said, ‘She’s probably right.’ When Brunetti said nothing more he asked, ‘Then why are you calling? About the boy who was arrested?’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti said, not even pretending to be surprised that Luca knew about it already.
‘He’s your boss’s son, isn’t he?’
‘You seem to know everything.’
‘A man who runs five discos, three hotels, and six bars has to know everything, especially about the people who get themselves arrested in any of those places.’
‘What do you know about the boy?’
‘Only what the police tell me.’
‘Which police? The ones who arrested him or the ones who work for you?’
The silence that followed his question reminded Brunetti, not only that he had gone too far, but also that, however much Luca was a friend, he would always view Brunetti as a policeman.
‘I’m not sure how to answer that, Guido,’ Luca finally said. His voice was interrupted by the explosive bark of a heavy smoker.
The coughing went on for a long time. Brunetti waited for it to stop, and when it did, he said, ‘I’m sorry, Luca. It was a bad joke.’
‘It’s nothing, Guido. Believe me, anyone who’s involved with the public as much as I am needs all the help they can get from the police. And they’re glad to get all the help they can from me.’
Brunetti, thinking of small envelopes changing hands discreetly in city offices, asked, ‘What sort of help?’
‘I’ve got private guards who work the parking lots of the discos.’
‘What for?’ he asked, thinking of muggers and the vulnerability of the kids who staggered out at three in the morning.
‘To take their car keys away from them.’
‘And no one complains?’
‘Who’s to complain? Their parents, that I stop them from driving off dead drunk or out of their minds on drugs? Or the police, because I stop them from slamming into the trees at the side of the highways?’
‘No, I suppose not. I didn’t think.’
‘It means they don’t get woken up at three to go out to watch bodies being cut out of cars. Believe me, the police are very happy to give me any help they can.’ He paused and Brunetti listened to the sharp snap of a match as Luca lit a cigarette and took the first deep breath. ‘What is it you’d like me to do – get this hushed up?’
‘Could you?’
If shrugs made sounds, Brunetti heard one on the phone. Finally Luca said, ‘I won’t answer that until I know whether you want me to or not.’
‘No, not hushed up in the sense that it disappears. But I would like you to keep it out of the papers if it’s possible.’
Luca paused before he answered this. ‘I spend a lot of money on advertising,’ he said at last.
‘Does that translate as yes?’
Luca laughed outright until the laugh turned into a deep, penetrating cough. When he could speak again, he said, ‘You always want things to be so clear, Guido. I don’t know how Paola stands it.’
‘It makes things easier for me when they are.’
‘As a policeman?’
‘As everything.’
‘All right, then. You can consider it as meaning yes. I can keep it out of the local papers, and I doubt that the big ones would be interested.’
