Part 18 (1/2)

Brunetti said nothing.

'I don't know who he is or where he calls from. But he calls me every month or so and tells me where to pick them up. They're already broken in. I just have to get them and set them to work.'

'And the money?'

Silvestri said nothing. Brunetti turned and headed towards the door.

'I give it to a woman. Every month. When he calls me, he tells me where to meet the woman, and when, and I give her the money.'

'How much?'

'All of it.'

'All of what?'

'Everything that's left after I pay for the rooms and pay the girls.'

'How much is that?'

'It depends,' he said evasively.

'You're wasting my time, Silvestri,' Brunetti said, unleas.h.i.+ng his anger.

'Some months it's 40 or 50 million. Some months it's less.' Which, to Brunetti, meant that some months it was more.

'Who's the woman?'

'I don't know. I've never seen her.'

'What do you mean?'

'He tells me where her car will be parked. It's a white Mercedes. I have to come at it from behind, open the back door, and put the money on the back seat. Then she drives away.'

'And you've never seen her?'

'She wears a scarf. And sungla.s.ses.'

is she tall? Thin? White? Black?-Blonde? Old? Come on, Silvestri, you don't have to see a woman's face to know this.'

'She's not short, but I don't know what colour hair she has. I've never seen her face, but I don't think she's old.'

'What licence plates does the car have?' 'I don't know.' 'Didn't you see it?'

'No. I always do it at night, and the lights in the car are off.' He was sure Silvestri was lying, but Brunetti could also sense that he was near the end of what he would tell.

'Where do you meet her?'

'On the street. Mestre. Once in Treviso. Different places. He tells me where to go when he calls.'

'And the girls. How do you pick them up?'

'Same way. He tells me a street corner and how many there'll be, and I meet them with my car.'

'Who brings them?'

'No one. I get there, and they're waiting.' 'Just like that? Like sheep?'

'They know better than to try anything,' Silvestri said, voice suddenly savage. 'Where do they come from?'

'All over.'

'What does that them?' 'Lots of cities. Different countries.' 'How do they get here?' 'What do you mean?'

'How do they come to be part of your... part of your delivery?'

'They're just wh.o.r.es. How do you expect me to know? For Christ's sake, I don't talk to them.' Suddenly Silvestri jammed his hands into his pockets and demanded, 'When are you going to get me out of here?'

'How many have there been?'

'No more,' Silvestri shouted, getting up from the chair and moving towards Brunetti. 'No more. Get me out of here.'

Brunetti didn't move and Silvestri backed off a few steps. Brunetti tapped on the door, which was quickly opened by Gravini. Stepping out in the hall, Brunetti waited while the officer closed the door, then said, '”wait an hour and a half, men let him go.'

'Yes, sir,' Gravini said and saluted the back of his superior as Brunetti walked away.

22.

His session with Mara and her pimp hadn't put Brunetti in the most favourable of moods for dealing with Signora Trevisan and her late husband's business partner, to call Martucci by but one of the offices he filled, but he made the necessary phone call to the widow, insisting that it was imperative to the progress of his investigation that he have a few words with her and, if possible, with Signor Martucci. Their separate accounts of where they had been the night Trevisan was murdered had been checked: Signora Trevisan s maid confirmed that her mistress had not gone out that evening, and a friend of Martucci s had phoned him at 9.30 and found him at home.

Long experience had told Brunetti that it was always best to allow people to select the place in which they were to be interviewed: they invariably selected the place in which they felt most comfortable, and thus they enjoyed the erroneous belief that control of location equalled control of content. Predictably, Signora Trevisan selected her home, where Brunetti arrived at the precise hour, 5.30. His spirit still roughened from his encounter with Franco Silvestri, Brunetti was predisposed to disapprove of whatever hospitality might be offered him: a c.o.c.ktail would be too cosmopolitan, tea too pretentious.

But after Signora Trevisan, today dressed in sober navy blue, led him into a sitting room that contained too few chairs and too much taste, Brunetti realized he had presumed too much upon his sense of his own importance and that he was to be treated as an intruder, not a representative of the state. The widow offered him her hand, and Martucci stood when she led Brunetti into the room, but neither bothered to rise above the bare requirement of civility. Their solemn manner and long faces, Brunetti suspected, were meant to demonstrate the grief he was intruding upon, shared grief at the departure of a beloved husband and friend. But Brunetti had been rendered sceptical of both by his conversation with Judge Beniamin, and perhaps he had been rendered sceptical of humanity in general by his brief conversation with Franco Silvestri.

Quickly, Brunetti reeled off his formulaic thanks for their having agreed to talk to him. Martucci nodded; Signora Trevisan gave no sign of having heard him.

'Signora Trevisan,' Brunetti began, 'I would like to obtain some information about your husband's finances.' She said nothing, asked for no explanation. 'Could you tell me what becomes of your husband's law practice?'

'You can ask me about that,' Martucci interrupted.

'I did, two days ago,' Brunetti said. 'You told me very little.'

'We've had more information since then,' Martucci said.

'Does that mean you've read the will?' Brunetti asked, quiedy pleased to see how much his tastelessness surprised them both.

Martucci's voice remained calm and polite. 'Signora Trevisan has asked me to serve as her lawyer in the settling of her husband's estate, if that's what you mean.'