Dressed for Death (11 page)

‘I think he did, the first time,
but by the time he looked up at me, he’d had a second to recover, so his
expression was perfectly natural.’

‘Then the man in the picture
could be anyone, couldn’t he? Another whore, even a client? Have you thought
about that, Guido, that he might be a client who likes to dress up as a woman
when he, well, when he goes to see these other men?’

In the sexual supermarket that
was modern society, Brunetti knew, the man’s age made him far more likely to be
a shopper than a seller. ‘That means we’d be looking for a man who used male
prostitutes, rather than a man who was one,’ he said.

Paola took her drink, swirled it
around a few times, and finished it. ‘Well, that would surely be a longer list.
And, considering what you’ve just told me about l’Avvocato del Patriarcato, a
far more interesting one.’

‘Is this another one of your
conspiracy theories, Paola, that the city is filled with seemingly happily
married men who can’t wait to sneak off into the bushes with one of these
transvestites?’

‘For God’s sake, Guido, what do
you men talk about when you’re together? Soccer? Politics? Don’t you ever
hunker down and gossip?’

‘About what? The boys on Via
Cappuccina?’ He put his glass down with unnecessary force and scratched at his
ankle, where one of the night’s first mosquitoes had just bit him.

‘I guess it’s because you don’t
have gay friends,’ she said equably.

‘We have lots of gay friends,’ he
said, conscious of the fact that it was only in an argument with Paola that he
could be forced to make that statement as a claim to honour.

‘Of course we have, but you don’t
talk to them, Guido, really talk to them.’

‘What am I supposed to do, swap
recipes or divulge my beauty secrets?’

She started to speak, stopped,
gave him a long look, and then said, voice absolutely level, ‘I’m not sure if
that remark is more offensive than stupid.’

He scratched at his ankle,
thought about what they had both just said. ‘I suppose it was more stupid, but
it was pretty offensive, too.’ She gave him a suspicious glance. ‘I’m sorry,’
he added. She smiled.

‘All right, tell me what I ought
to know about this,’ he asked, scratching again at his ankle.

‘What I was trying to tell you
was that some of the gays I know say that a lot of the men here are perfectly
willing to have sex with them: family men, married men, doctors, lawyers,
priests. I imagine there’s a great deal of exaggeration in what they tell me,
and not a little vanity, but I also imagine there’s a great deal of truth, as
well.’ He thought she was finished, but she added, ‘As a policeman, you’ve probably
heard something about this, but I’d suspect that most men wouldn’t want to hear
it. Or, if they hear it, not want to believe it.’ She seemed not to be
including him in this list, but, of course, there was no way of being sure
about that.

‘Who is your chief source of
information in all of this?’ he asked.

‘Ettore and Basilio,’ she said,
naming two of her colleagues at the university. ‘And some of Raffi’s friends
have said the same thing.’

‘What?’

‘Two of Raffi’s friends at the
liceo.
Don’t look so surprised, Guido. They’re both seventeen.’

‘They’re both seventeen and
what?’

‘And gay, Guido. Gay.’

‘Are they close friends?’ he
asked before he could prevent himself.

Suddenly, Paola got to her feet. ‘I’m
going to put the water on for the pasta. I think I might want to wait until
after dinner to continue this discussion. That might give you some time to
think about some of the things you’ve said and some of the assumptions you seem
to be making.’ She picked up her glass, took his from his hand, and went back
into the house, leaving him to think about his assumptions.

* * * *

Dinner
was far more peaceful than he had thought it would be, given the abruptness
with which Paola had departed to prepare it. She had made a sauce with fresh
tuna fish, tomatoes, and peppers, something he was sure she had never made
before, and had used the thick Martelli spaghetti he liked so much. After that,
there was salad, a piece of
pecorino
that Raffi’s girlfriend’s parents
had brought back from Sardinia, and then fresh peaches. Responding to his
fantasy, the children offered to do the dishes, no doubt in preparation for
their planned depredations upon his wallet before their departure for the
mountains.

He retreated to the terrace, a
small glass of chilled vodka in his hand, and resumed his seat. In the air
above and all around him, bats swirled, cutting the sky with their jagged
flight. Brunetti liked bats: they gobbled up mosquitoes. After a few minutes,
Paola joined him. He offered her the glass and she took a small sip. ‘Is that
the bottle in the freezer?’ she asked.

He nodded.

‘Where’d you get it?’

‘I suppose you could call it a
bribe.’

‘From whom?’

‘Donzelli. He asked me if I could
arrange the vacation schedule so that he could go to Russia - ex-Russia - on
leave. He brought me a bottle when he came back.’

‘It’s still Russia.’

‘Hm?’

‘It’s the ex-Soviet Union, but it’s
still plain old Russia.’

‘Oh. Thank you.’

She nodded in acknowledgement.

‘Do you think they eat anything
else?’ he asked.

‘Who?’ Paola asked, for once at a
loss.

‘The bats.’

‘I don’t know. Ask Chiara. She
generally knows things like that.’

‘I’ve been thinking about what I
said before dinner,’ he said, sipping again at his glass.

He expected a sharp retort from
her, but all she said was, ‘Yes?’

‘I think you might be right.’

‘About what?’

‘That he might be a client and
not one of the whores. I saw his body. I don’t think it’s a body that a man
would want to pay to use.’

‘What sort of body was it?’

He took another sip. ‘This is
going to sound strange, but when I saw him, I thought how much he looked like
me. We’re about the same height, same general build, probably the same age. It
was very strange, Paola, to see him lying there, dead.’

‘Yes, it must have been,’ she
said, but she didn’t say any more than that.

‘Are those boys good friends of
Raffi’s?’

‘One of them is. He helps him
with his Italian homework.’

‘Good.’

‘Good what, that he helps him
with his homework?’

‘No, good that he’s Raffi’s
friend, or that Raffi’s his.’

She laughed out loud and shook
her head. ‘I will never figure you out, Guido. Never.’ She placed a hand on the
back of his neck, leaned forward, and took the drink from his hand. She took
another sip and then handed it back to him. ‘You think when you’re finished
with this, you could think about letting me pay to use your body?’

* * * *

Chapter Ten

The
next two days were much the same, only hotter. Four of the men on Brunetti’s
list were still not at the addresses listed for them, nor did the neighbours of
either have any idea of where they might be or when they might return. Two knew
nothing. Gallo and Scarpa had as little luck, though one of the men on Scarpa’s
list did say that the man in the drawing looked faintly familiar, only he wasn’t
sure why or where he might have seen him.

The three men had lunch together
in a trattoria near the Questura and discussed what they did and didn’t know.

‘Well, he didn’t know how to
shave his legs,’ Gallo said, when they seemed to have run out of things to
list. Brunetti didn’t know if the sergeant was attempting humour or grasping at
straws.

‘Why do you say that?’ Brunetti
asked, finishing his wine and looking around for the waiter so he could ask for
the bill.

‘His corpse. There were lots of
little nicks on his legs, as if he wasn’t too accustomed to shaving them.’

‘Would any of us be?’ Brunetti
asked, and then clarified the pronoun, ‘Men, I mean.’

Scarpa smiled into his glass. ‘I’d
probably cut my kneecap off. I don’t know how they do it,’ he said, and shook
his head at yet another of the wonders of women.

The waiter came up then with the
bill. Sergeant Gallo took it before Brunetti could, pulled out his wallet, and
laid some money on top of the bill. Before Brunetti could object, he explained,
‘We’ve been told you’re a guest of the city.’ Brunetti wondered how Patta would
feel about such a thing, aside from believing that he didn’t deserve it.