Through a Glass Darkly (10 page)

Brunetti introduced himself and said, ‘Thanks for coming to talk to us', including Vianello, though he had no idea how the Inspector happened to be there.

Navarro looked embarrassed by such easy gratitude. ‘I live just around the corner. Really.'

‘Your nephew is a good boy,' Brunetti said. ‘We're lucky to have him.'

This time, it was praise that made Navarro glance away in embarrassment. When he looked back, his face had softened, even grown sweet. ‘He's my sister's boy,' he explained. ‘Yes, a good boy.'

‘As I suppose he's told you,' Brunetti said as they seated themselves, ‘we'd like to ask you about some of the people out here.'

‘He told me. You want to know about De Cal?'

Before Brunetti could answer, a waiter came to the table. He had no pen or order pad, rattled off the menu and asked them what they'd like.

Navarro said the men were friends of his, which caused the waiter to recite the menu again, slowly, with comments, even with recommendations.

They ended up asking for spaghetti with
vongole
. The waiter winked to suggest that they had been dredged up, perhaps illegally, but definitely in the
laguna
, the night before. Brunetti had never much liked liver, so he asked for a grilled
rombo
, while Vianello and Navarro both asked for
coda di rospo
.

‘
Patate bollite
?' the waiter asked before he walked away.

They all said yes.

Without asking, the waiter was soon back with a litre of mineral water and one of white wine, which he set down on their table before going into the kitchen, where they could hear him shouting out their order.

As if there had been no interruption, Brunetti asked, ‘What do you know about him? Do you work for him?'

‘No,' Navarro answered, obviously surprised by the question. ‘But I know him. Everyone here does. He's a bastard.' Navarro tore open a package of
grissini
. He put one in his mouth and nibbled it right down to the bottom, like a cartoon rabbit eating a carrot.

‘You mean in the sense that he's difficult to work with?' Brunetti asked.

‘You said it. He's had two
maestri
now for about two years: longest he's ever kept any of them, far as I know.'

‘Why is that?' asked Vianello, pouring wine for all of them.

‘Because he's a bastard.' Even Navarro sensed the circularity of his argument and so added, ‘He'll try on anything to cheat you.'

‘Could you give us an example?' Brunetti asked.

This seemed to stump Navarro for a moment, as though a request to supply evidence to support a judgement were a novelty for him. He drank a glass of wine, filled his glass and drank another, then ate two more
grissini
. Finally he said, ‘He'll always hire
garzoni
and let them go before they can become
serventi
so he won't have to pay them more. He'll keep them for a year or so, working off the books or working with two-month contracts, but then when it's time for them to move up, and get more money, he fires them. Invents some reason to get rid of them, and hires new ones.'

‘How long can he go on doing this?' Vianello asked.

Navarro shrugged. ‘So long as there are boys who need jobs, he can probably go on doing it for ever.'

‘What else?'

‘He argues and fights.'

‘With?' Vianello asked.

‘Suppliers, workers, the guys on the boats who bring the sand or the guys on the boats who take the glass away. If there's money involved – and there's money involved in all of this – then he'll argue with them.'

‘I've heard about a fight in a bar a couple of years ago . . .' Brunetti began and let his voice drop away.

‘Oh that,' Navarro said. ‘It's probably the one
time the old bastard didn't start it. Some guy said something he didn't like and De Cal said something back, and the guy hit him. I wasn't there, but my brother was. Believe me, he hates De Cal more than I do, so if he said the old bastard didn't start it, then he didn't.'

‘What about his daughter?' Brunetti asked.

Before Navarro could answer, the waiter brought their pasta and set the plates in front of them. Conversation stopped as the three men dug into the spaghetti. The waiter returned with three empty plates for the shells.

‘Peperoncino,' Brunetti said, mouth full.

‘Good, eh?' Navarro said.

Brunetti nodded, took a sip of wine, and returned to the spaghetti, which was better than good. He had to remember to tell Paola about the peperoncino, which was more than she used but still good.

When their plates were empty and the other plates full of shells, the waiter came and took them all away, asking if they had eaten well. Brunetti and Vianello said enthusiastic things: Navarro, a regular customer, was not obliged to comment.

Soon the waiter was back with a bowl of potatoes and the fish: Brunetti's was already filleted. Navarro asked for olive oil, and the waiter returned with a bottle of much better oil. All three poured it on their fish but not on the potatoes, which already sat in a pool of it at the bottom of the bowl. None of them spoke for some time.

While Vianello spooned the last of the
potatoes from the bowl, Brunetti returned to his questions and asked, ‘His daughter, do you know much about her?'

Navarro finished the wine and held up the empty carafe to get the waiter's attention. ‘She's a good girl, but she married that engineer.'

Brunetti nodded. ‘Do you know him or know anything about him?'

‘He's an ecologist,' Navarro said, using the same sort of tone another person might use to identify a pederast or a kleptomaniac. It was meant to end discussion. Brunetti allowed it to pass and decided to play ignorant. ‘Does he work here on Murano?' he asked.

‘Ah, thank God, no,' Navarro said, taking the litre of white wine from the waiter's hand and filling all of their glasses. ‘He works on the mainland somewhere, goes around looking for places where we'll still be allowed to put our garbage.' He drank a half-glass of wine, perhaps thought of Ribetti's professional duties, and finished the glass.

‘We've got two perfectly good incinerators here, so why can't we just burn it all? Or if it's dangerous, just bury it somewhere in the countryside or ship it to Africa or China. Those people will let you pay for that. So why not do it? They've got all those open spaces, so just bury it there.'

Brunetti allowed himself a quick glance at Vianello, who was finishing the last of his potatoes. He set his knife and fork down on his plate
and, as Brunetti feared he would, opened his mouth to speak to Navarro. ‘If we built nuclear plants, then we could do the same thing with the waste from them, and then we wouldn't have to import all that electricity from Switzerland and France, either.' Vianello gave a manly smile, first to Navarro and then to Brunetti.

‘Yes,' said Navarro. ‘I hadn't thought about that, but it's a good idea.' Smiling, he turned back to Brunetti, ‘What else did you want to know about De Cal?'

‘I've heard there's talk he wants to sell the
fornace,
' Vianello interrupted, now that Navarro had looked on him with approval.

‘Yes. I've heard that, too,' Navarro said, not much interested. ‘But there's always talk like that.' He shrugged off such talk, then added, ‘Besides, if anyone buys it, it'll be Fasano. He's got the factory right alongside De Cal's, so if he bought it, he'd only have to join the two buildings together and he'd double his production.' Navarro thought about this possibility for a while and nodded.

‘Fasano runs the Glassmakers' Association, doesn't he?' Vianello asked as the waiter arrived with another bowl of potatoes. Vianello let the waiter spoon a few on to his plate, but Navarro and Brunetti said no.

In answer to Vianello's question, Navarro smiled at the waiter and said, ‘That's what he does now, but who knows what he wants to become?' Hearing this, the waiter nodded and turned away.

Brunetti feared the conversation was veering away from De Cal, so he interrupted to say, ‘I've heard there's been talk that De Cal's been threatening his son-in-law.'

‘You mean that he says he's going to kill him?'

‘Yes,' Brunetti said.

‘He's said it in the bars, but he was usually drunk when he said it. Drinks too much, the old bastard,' Navarro said, filling his glass again. ‘He's got diabetes and shouldn't drink, but . . .' Navarro paused and considered something for a moment, then said, ‘That's funny. You know, in the last couple of months he's started to look worse, like the disease is really getting to him.'

Brunetti, who had seen the old man only once some weeks before, had no point of comparison: he had seen an old man weakened and perhaps fuddled by years of drink.

‘I'm not sure this is a legitimate question, Signor Navarro,' Brunetti began, taking a sip of wine he did not want. ‘You think there's any real threat?'

‘You mean that he'd really kill him?'

‘Yes.'

Navarro finished his wine and put the glass on the table. He made no move to help himself to more and called to the waiter for three coffees. After he had given the order, he returned to Brunetti's question and at last said, ‘I think I'd rather not answer that, Commissario.'

The waiter cleared away their plates. Both Brunetti and Vianello said that the meal had
been excellent, and Navarro seemed more pleased than the waiter to hear them say it. When the coffee came, he put two packets of sugar into his cup, stirred it, looked at his watch, and said, ‘I've got to get back to work, gentlemen.' He stood and shook hands with both of them, called over to the waiter that the bill was his and that he'd pay it the next day. Brunetti started to object, but Vianello stood and put out his hand again and thanked the older man. Brunetti did the same.

Navarro smiled one last time and said, ‘Take good care of my sister's boy for me, all right?' He went over to the door, opened it, and was gone.

Brunetti and Vianello sat back down. Brunetti drank the last of his coffee, looked over at Vianello, and asked, ‘Did Pucetti call you?'

‘Yes.'

‘What did he say?'

‘That you were coming out here and maybe I should join you.'

Undecided as to whether he liked it or not, Brunetti finally said, ‘I liked that about the nuclear waste.'

‘I'm sure it's a feeling in which you are joined by countless people in the government,' Vianello said.

‘
OH MY, OH
my, oh my,' Vianello said, directing his attention to the entrance of the trattoria. Brunetti, curious, started to turn around, but Vianello put a hand on his arm and said, ‘No, don't look.' When Brunetti was facing him again, Vianello said, unable to disguise his surprise, ‘What Navarro said about De Cal is true: he looks much worse than he did the last time.'

‘Where is he?'

‘He just came in and he's standing at the bar, having a drink.'

‘Alone or with someone?'

‘He's with someone,' Vianello answered. ‘And that's what's interesting.'

‘Why?'

‘Because he's with Gianluca Fasano.'

An involuntary ‘ah' escaped Brunetti and then he said, ‘Not only President of the Glassmakers of Murano, but, as I've heard a few times and as even Navarro seems to know, a man who might be very interested in becoming our next mayor.'

‘Right on both counts,' Vianello said, raising his glass in Brunetti's direction but not taking a sip. ‘
Complimenti
.' He kept his eyes on Brunetti's face, but occasionally shifted his head to one side and cast his attention towards the two men standing at the bar. If the men looked in their direction, Brunetti realized, they would see two men at a table, one with his back to them. The only time De Cal had seen Vianello, he had been in uniform: without it, he could be anyone. Vianello nodded in the direction of the two men and said, ‘Be interesting to know what they're saying, wouldn't it?'

‘De Cal's a glassmaker, and Fasano's their leader,' Brunetti said. ‘I don't see much of a mystery there.'

‘There are more than a hundred
fornaci
,' Vianello said. ‘De Cal's is one of the smallest.'

‘He's got a
fornace
to sell,' Brunetti argued.

‘He's got a daughter to inherit,' Vianello countered. The Inspector reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out five Euros. ‘At least we can tip,' he said, putting the bill on the table.

‘Probably give the waiter in a place like this a
seizure,' Brunetti said. He saw Vianello shift in his chair and asked, ‘Are they still there?'

‘De Cal's paying.' After a minute, Vianello got quickly to his feet, saying, ‘I want to see where they go.'

Brunetti doubted that De Cal, who had been beside himself with anger the one time they met, would remember him, but he stayed at the table and let Vianello go outside by himself.

After a few minutes, Vianello came back; Brunetti got to his feet and went over to join him at the door. ‘Well?' he asked.

‘They walked down to the water and turned left, down to a dirt path and turned left again. Then they went back to some buildings on the other side of an empty field.'

‘Do you have your
telefonino
?' Brunetti asked.

Vianello took his phone from the pocket of his jacket and held it up.

‘Why don't you call that classmate of yours who told you the love story about Assunta and ask him where De Cal's factory is?'

Vianello flipped the phone open, found the number and called. Brunetti heard him ask the question, then explain that they were at Nanni's. He watched as Vianello nodded his way through his friend's explanation, thanked him and hung up. ‘That's where De Cal's place is: down at the end of that path, the buildings on the right. Just beside Fasano's.'