Dressed for Death (39 page)

All criminals knew the name of
the prison, the worst in Italy and one from which no one had ever escaped; even
a man as hardened as Malfatti could not disguise his shock. Brunetti waited a
moment, but when Malfatti said nothing, he added, ‘They say no one knows which
are bigger, the cats or the rats.’ Again, he paused.

‘And if I do talk to you?’
Malfatti finally asked.

‘Then I’ll suggest to the judges
that they take that into consideration.’

‘That’s all?’

‘That’s all.’ Brunetti hated
people who killed police, too.

Malfatti took only a moment to
decide.
‘Va bene,’
he said, ‘but I want it in the record that I
volunteered this. I want it put down that, as soon as you arrested me, I was
willing to give you everything.’

Brunetti got to his feet. ‘I’ll
get a secretary,’ he said and went to the door of the cell. He signalled to a
young man who sat at a desk at the end of the hall, who came into the room with
a tape recorder and a pad.

When they were ready, Brunetti
said, ‘Please give your name, place of birth, and present residence.’

‘Malfatti, Pietro. Twenty-eight
September, 1962. Castello 2316.’

It went on like this for an hour,
Malfatti’s voice never displaying any greater involvement than it did when
answering that original question, though the story that emerged was one of
mounting horror.

The original idea could have been
Ravanello’s or Santomauro’s: Malfatti had never cared enough to ask. They had
got his name from the men on Via Cappuccina and had contacted him to ask if he
would be willing to make the collections for them every month in return for a
percentage of the profit. He had never been in doubt as to whether he would
accept their offer, only about the percentage he would get. They had settled at
twelve, though it had taken Malfatti almost an hour of hard bargaining to get
them to go that high.

It was his hopes of increasing
his own take that had led Malfatti to suggest that some of the legitimate
earnings of the Lega be paid out in cheques to people whose names he would
supply. Brunetti cut off Malfatti’s grotesque pride in this scheme by asking, ‘When
did Mascari find out about this?’

‘Three weeks ago. He went to
Ravanello and told him something was wrong with the accounts. He had no idea
that Ravanello knew about it, thought that it was Santomauro. Fool,’ Malfatti
spat in contempt. ‘If he had wanted, he could have got a third out of them, an
easy third.’ He looked back and forth between Brunetti and the secretary,
asking them to share his disgust.

‘And then?’ Brunetti asked,
keeping his own disgust to himself.

‘Santomauro and Ravanello came to
my place about a week before it happened. They wanted me to get rid of him, but
I knew what they were like, so I told them I wouldn’t do it unless they helped.
I’m no fool.’ Again, he looked at the other men for approval. ‘You know what it’s
like with people like that. You do a job for them, you’re never free of them.
The only way to be safe is to make them get their hands dirty, too.’

‘Is that what you told them?’
Brunetti asked.

‘In a way. I told them I’d do it
but that they’d have to help me set it up.’

‘How did they do that?’

‘They had Crespo call Mascari and
say he’d heard he was looking for information about the apartments the Lega
rented and that he lived in one of them. Mascari had the list, so he could
check. When Mascari told him he was leaving for Sicily that evening - we knew
that -Crespo told him he had other information to give him, that he could stop
on the way to the airport.’

‘And?’

‘He agreed.’

‘Was Crespo there?’

‘Oh, no,’ Malfatti said with a
snort of contempt. ‘He was a delicate little bastard. Didn’t want to have
anything to do with it. So he took off - probably went and hit the pavements
early. And we waited for Mascari. He showed up at about seven.’

‘What happened?’

‘I let him in. He thought I was
Crespo, didn’t have any reason not to. I told him to sit down and offered him a
drink, but he said he had a plane to catch and was in a hurry. I asked him
again if he wanted a drink, and when he said no, I said I wanted one and walked
behind him to the table where the drinks were. That’s when I did it.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I hit him.’

‘With what?’

‘An iron bar. The same one I had
today. It’s very good.’

‘How many times did you hit him?’

‘Only once. I didn’t want to get
blood on Crespo’s furniture. And I didn’t want to kill him. I wanted them to do
that.’

‘And did they?’

‘I don’t know. That is, I don’t
know which one of them did it. They were in the bedroom. I called them and we
carried him into the bathroom. He was still alive then; I heard him groan.’

‘Why the bathroom?’

Malfatti’s glance showed that he
was thinking he’d overestimated Brunetti’s intelligence. ‘The blood.’ There was
a long pause, and when Brunetti didn’t say anything, Malfatti continued, ‘We
laid him down on the floor, and then I went back and got the iron bar.
Santomauro had been saying that we needed to destroy his face - we’d planned it
all, put it together like a puzzle, and he had to be unrecognizable so there
would be enough time to change the records in the bank. Anyway, he kept saying
that we had to destroy his face, so I gave him the bar and told him to do it
himself. Then I went back into the living-room and had a cigarette. When I came
back, it was done.’

‘He was dead?’

Malfatti shrugged.

‘Ravanello and Santomauro killed
him?’

‘I’d already done my share.’

‘Then what?’

‘We stripped him and shaved his
legs. Jesus, what a job that was.’

‘Yes, I imagine so,’ Brunetti
permitted himself. ‘And then what?’

‘We put the make-up on him.’
Malfatti paused a moment in thought. ‘No, that’s wrong. They did that before
they hit his face. One of them said it would be easier. Then we put his clothes
back on him and carried him out, like he was drunk. But we didn’t have to
bother; no one saw us. Ravanello and I took him down to Santomauro’s car and
drove him out to the field. I knew about what goes on out there, and I thought
it would be a good place to dump him.’

‘What about the clothes? Where
did you change them?’

‘When we got there, out in
Marghera. We pulled him out of the back seat and stripped him. Then we put
those clothes on him, that red dress and everything, and I carried him over to
a place at the other side of the field and left him there. I stuffed him under
a bush so it would take longer for him to be found.’ Malfatti paused for a
moment, summoning memory. ‘Ravanello stuffed the shoes into my pockets. I
dropped one beside him. They were Ravanello’s idea, the shoes, I think.’

‘What did you do with his
clothes?’

‘I stopped on the way back to
Crespo’s place and put them in a garbage can. It was all right; there was no
blood on them. We were very careful. We wrapped his head in a plastic bag.’

The young officer coughed but
turned his head away so the sound wouldn’t register on the tape.

‘And afterwards?’ Brunetti asked.

‘We went back to the apartment.
Santomauro had cleaned it up. That was the last I heard of them until the night
you came out to Mestre.’

‘Whose idea was that?’

‘Not mine. Ravanello called me
and explained things to me. I think they hoped the investigation would stop if
we could get rid of you.’ Malfatti sighed. ‘I tried to tell them things don’t
work that way, that it wouldn’t make any difference, killing you, but they didn’t
want to listen. They insisted that I help them.’

‘So you agreed?’

Malfatti nodded.

‘You have to give an answer,
Signor Malfatti, or the tape doesn’t register it,’ Brunetti explained coolly.

‘Yes, I agreed.’

‘What made you change your mind
and agree to do it?’

‘They paid enough.’

Because the young officer was
there, Brunetti didn’t ask how much his life was worth. It would come out in
time.

‘Did you drive the car that tried
to push us off the road?’

‘Yes.’ Malfatti paused for a long
time and then added, ‘You know, I don’t think I would have done it if I’d known
there was a woman in the car with you. It’s bad luck to kill a woman. She was
my first.’ It hit him then and he looked up. ‘See, it is bad luck, isn’t it?’

‘Probably more for the woman than
for you, Signor Malfatti,’ Brunetti answered, but before Malfatti could react,
Brunetti asked, ‘What about Crespo? Did you kill him?’

‘No, I didn’t have anything to do
with that. I was in the car with Ravanello. We left Santomauro with Crespo.
When we got back there, it was finished.’

‘What did Santomauro tell you?’

‘Nothing. Not about that. He just
told us it had happened, and then he told me to stay out of sight, if possible
to get out of Venice. I was going to, but now I guess I won’t get the chance
to.’

‘And Ravanello?’

‘I went there this morning, after
you came to my place.’ Malfatti stopped here, and Brunetti wondered what he he
was preparing.

‘What happened?’ Brunetti prodded
him.

‘I told him that the police were
after me. I said I needed money to get out of the city and go somewhere. But he
panicked. He started shouting that I had ruined everything. That’s when he
pulled the knife.’

Brunetti had seen the knife. A
switchblade seemed a strange thing for a banker to carry on his person, but he
said nothing.

‘He came at me with it. He was
completely wild. We fought over it, and I think he fell on it.’ He did,
Brunetti remarked to himself. Twice. In the chest.

‘And then?’

‘Then I went to my mother’s. That’s
where your men found me.’ Malfatti stopped speaking, and the only sound in the
room was the soft humming of the tape recorder.

‘What happened to the money?’
Brunetti asked.

‘What?’ Malfatti said, surprised
by this sudden change of pace.

‘The money. That was made from
all the rents.’

‘I spent mine, spent it every
month. But it was nothing compared to what they got.’

‘How much was it you got?’

‘Between nine and ten million.’

‘Do you know what they did with
theirs?’

Malfatti paused for a moment, as
though he had never speculated about this. ‘I’d guess Santomauro spent a large
part of his on boys. Ravanello, I don’t know. He looked like one of those
people who invested money.’ Malfatti’s tone turned this into an obscenity.

‘Have you anything else to say
about this or your involvement with these men?’

‘Only that the idea to kill
Mascari was theirs, not mine. I went along with it, but it was their idea. I
didn’t have much to lose if anyone found out about the rents, so I didn’t see
any reason to kill him.’ It was clear that, had he believed he had anything to
lose, he would have had no hesitation to kill Mascari, but Brunetti said
nothing.