Dressed for Death (19 page)

Padovani offered some peppers to
Brunetti and took some himself. ‘The last thing I know about him at first hand
was that he was mixed up with an accountant from Treviso. But Franco could
never keep himself from straying, and the accountant threw him out. Beat him
up, I think, and threw him out. I don’t know when he started with the
transvestism; that sort of thing has never interested me in the least. In fact,
I suppose I don’t understand it. If you want a woman, then have a woman.’

‘Maybe it’s a way to deceive
yourself that it is a woman,’ Brunetti suggested, using Paola’s theory and
thinking, now, that it made sense.

‘Perhaps. But how sad, eh?’
Padovani moved his plate to the side and sat back. ‘I mean, we deceive
ourselves all the time, about whether we love someone, or why we do, or why we
tell the lies we do. But you’d think we could at least be honest with ourselves
about who we want to go to bed with. It seems little enough, that.’ He picked
up the salad and sprinkled salt on it, poured olive oil liberally over the
leaves, then added a large splash of vinegar.

Brunetti handed him his plate and
accepted the clean salad plate he was given in its place. Padovani pushed the
bowl towards him. ‘Help yourself. There’s no dessert. Only fruit.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t have to go
to any trouble,’ Brunetti said, and Padovani laughed.

‘Well, I really did have all of
this in the house. Except for the fruit.’

Brunetti took a very small
portion of salad; Padovani took even less.

‘What else do you know about Crespo?’
Brunetti asked.

‘I heard that he was dressing up,
calling himself Francesca. But I didn’t know he’d finished on Via Cappuccina.
Or is it the public parks in Mestre?’ he asked.

‘Both,’ Brunetti answered. ‘And I
don’t know that he has finished there. The address he gave is a very nice one,
and his name is outside the door.’

‘Anyone’s name can be on the
door. Depends on who pays the rent,’ Padovani said, apparently more practised
in these things.

‘I suppose you’re right,’
Brunetti said.

‘I don’t know much more about
him. He’s not a bad person, at least he wasn’t when I knew him. But sneaky and
easily led. Things like that don’t change, so he’s likely to lie to you if he
sees any advantage in doing so.’

‘Like most of the people I deal
with,’ Brunetti said.

Padovani smiled and added, ‘Like
most of the people we all deal with all of the time.’

Brunetti had to laugh at the grim
truth of this.

‘I’ll get the fruit,’ Padovani
said, stacking their salad plates and taking them from the table. He was back quickly
with a pale-blue ceramic bowl that held six perfect peaches. He passed Brunetti
another of the small plates and set the bowl in front of him. Brunetti took one
of the peaches and began to peel it with his knife and fork.

‘What can you tell me about
Santomauro?’ he asked as he peeled the peach, keeping his eyes on that.

‘You mean the president, or
whatever he calls himself, of the Lega della Moralità?’ Padovani asked, making
his voice richly sombre as he pronounced the last words.

‘Yes.’

‘I know enough about him to
assure you that, in certain circles, the announcement of the Lega and its
purpose was met with the same sort of peals of delight with which we used to
watch Rock Hudson make his assault upon the virtue of Doris Day or with which
we now watch some of the more belligerent film appearances of certain living
actors, both our own and American.’

‘You mean it’s common knowledge?’

‘Well, it is and it isn’t. To
most of us, it is, but we still respect the rules of gentlemen, unlike the
politicians, and we do not tell tales out of school about one another. If we
did, there’d be no one left to run the government or, for that fact, the
Vatican.’

Brunetti was glad to see the real
Padovani resurfacing, well, the airy chatterer that he had been led to believe
was the real Padovani.

‘But something like the Lega?
Could he get away with something as blatant as that?’

‘That’s an excellent question.
But, if you look back into the history of the Lega, I believe you will find
that, in the days of its infancy, Santomauro was no more than the
eminence
grise
of the movement. In fact, I don’t think his name was associated with
it, not in any official capacity, until two years ago, and he didn’t become
prominent until last year, when he was elected hostess or governess, or
whatever their leader is called.
Gran priore?
Something pretentious like
that.’

‘But why didn’t anyone say
something then?’

‘I think it’s because most prefer
to treat the Lega as a joke. I think that’s a very serious mistake.’ There was
a note of uncharacteristic seriousness in his voice.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because I think the political
wave of the future is groups like the Lega, groups which aim at fragmenting
larger groups, breaking larger units into smaller. Just look at Eastern Europe
and Yugoslavia. Look at our own political
leghe,
wanting to chop Italy
back up into a lot of smaller, independent units.’

‘Could you be making too much of
this, Damiano?’

‘Of course, I could be. The Lega
della Moralità could just as easily be a bunch of harmless old ladies who like
to meet together and talk about how good the old times were. But who has an
idea of how many members they have? What their real goal is?’

In Italy, conspiracy theories are
sucked in with mother’s milk, and no Italian is ever free of the impulse to see
conspiracy everywhere. Consequently, any group that is in any way hesitant to
reveal itself is immediately suspected of all manner of things, as had been the
Jesuits, as are the Jehovah’s Witnesses. As the Jesuits still are, Brunetti
corrected himself. Conspiracy certainly bred secrecy, but Brunetti was not
willing to buy the proposition that it worked the other way, and secrecy
necessitated conspiracy.

‘Well?’ Padovani prodded him.

‘Well what?’

‘How much do you know about the
Lega?’

‘Very little,’ Brunetti admitted.
‘But if I had to be suspicious of them, I wouldn’t look to their goals; I’d
look to their finances.’ During twenty years of police work, Brunetti had come
to form few rules, but one of them was surely that high principles or political
ideals seldom motivated people as strongly as did the desire for money.

‘I doubt that Santomauro would be
interested in anything as prosaic as money.’

‘Dami, everyone is interested in
money, and most people are motivated by it.’

‘Regardless of motive or goal,
you can be sure that if Giancarlo Santomauro is interested in running it, it
stinks. That’s little enough, but it’s certain.’

‘What do you know about his
private life?’ Brunetti asked, thinking of how much more subtle ‘private’
sounded than ‘sexual’, which is what it meant.

‘All I know is what has been
suggested, what has been implied in remarks and comments. You know the way it
is.’ Brunetti nodded. He certainly did. ‘Then what I know, which, I repeat, I
don’t really
know -
though I know - is that he likes little boys, the
younger the better. If you check his past, you’ll see that he used to go to
Bangkok at least once a year. Without the ineffable Signora Santomauro, I
hasten to add. But for the last few years, he has not done so. I have no
explanation for this, but I do know that tastes such as his do not change, they
do not disappear, and they cannot be satisfied in any way other than by what
they desire.’

‘How much of that is, um,
available here?’ Why was it so easy to talk to Paola about some things, so
difficult with other people?

‘A fair bit, though the real
centres are Rome and Milano.’

Brunetti had read about this in
police reports. ‘Films?’

‘Films, certainly, but the real
thing, as well, for those who are prepared to pay. I was about to add, and who
are willing to take the risk, but there really cannot be said to be any risk,
not today.’

Brunetti looked down at his plate
and saw that his peach lay there, peeled but untouched. He didn’t want it. ‘Damiano,
when you say, “little boys”, is there an age you have in mind?’

Padovani suddenly smiled. ‘You
know, Guido, I have the strangest sensation that you are finding all of this
terribly embarrassing.’ Brunetti said nothing.’ “Little” can be twelve, but it
can also be ten.’

‘Oh.’ There was a long pause, and
then Brunetti asked, ‘Are you sure about Santomauro?’

‘I’m sure that’s his reputation,
and it’s not likely to be wrong. But I have no proof, no witnesses, no one who
would ever swear to it.’

Padovani got up from the table
and went across the room to a low sideboard with bottles crowded together on
one side of its surface. ‘Grappa?’ he asked.

‘Please.’

‘I’ve got some lovely
pear-flavoured. Want to try it?’

‘Yes.’

Brunetti joined him on that side
of the room, took the glass Padovani offered him, and went to sit again on the
sofa. Padovani went back to his chair, taking the bottle with him.

Brunetti tasted it. Not pears:
nectar.

‘It’s too weak,’ Brunetti said.

‘The grappa?’ Padovani asked,
confused.

‘No, no, the connection between
Crespo and Santomauro. If Santomauro likes little boys, then Crespo could just
be his client and nothing more.’

‘Entirely possible,’ Padovani
said in a voice that said he thought it wasn’t.

‘Do you know anyone who could
give you more information about either of them?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Santomauro and Crespo?’

‘Yes. And Leonardo Mascari, as
well, if there’s some connection between them.’

Padovani looked down at his
watch. ‘It’s too late to call the people I know.’ Brunetti looked at his watch
and saw that it was only ten-fifteen. Nuns?

Padovani had noticed his glance
and laughed. ‘No, Guido, they’ll all have gone out for the evening, the night.
But I’ll call them from Rome tomorrow and see what they know or can find out.’

‘I’d prefer that neither of the
men know that questions are being asked about them.’ It was polite, but it was
stiff and awkward.

‘Guido, it will be as if gossamer
had been floated in the air. Everyone who knows Santomauro will be delighted to
spread whatever they know or have heard about him, and you can be equally
certain that none of this will get back to him. The very thought that he might
be mixed up in something nasty will be a source of tingly delight to the people
I’m thinking of.’

‘That’s just it, Damiano. I don’t
want there to be any talk, especially that he might be mixed up in anything,
especially something nasty.’ He knew he sounded severe when he said it, so he
smiled and held out his glass for another grappa.

The fop disappeared and the
journalist took his place. ‘All right, Guido. I won’t play around with it, and
perhaps I’ll call different people, but I ought to be able to have some
information about him by Tuesday or Wednesday.’

Padovani poured himself another
glass of grappa and sipped at it. ‘You should look into the Lega, Guido, at
least into its membership.’

‘You’re really worried about it,
aren’t you?’ Brunetti asked.