Death in a Strange Country (33 page)

‘Do you ever have
occasion to speak to this Mr Gamberetto?’

‘Nope. Never laid eyes on
the man. I just know his name from seeing the contract in the office.’

‘Doesn’t he come in to
sign the contract?’ Ambrogiani asked.

‘No, one of the officers
goes out to his office. I imagine he gets a free lunch out of him, then comes
back with the signed contract, and we process it.’ Brunetti didn’t have to look
at Ambrogiani to know he was thinking that someone might be getting a lot more
out of Mr Gamberetto than a free lunch.

‘Is that the only
contract Mr Gamberetto has?’

‘No, sir. He’s got the
contract to build the new hospital. That was supposed to start a while back,
but then we had the Gulf War, and all building projects got put on hold. But it
looks like things are beginning to loosen up, and I imagine work will begin in
the spring, soon as the ground is ready to be broke open.’

‘Is it a big contract?’
Brunetti asked. ‘Certainly sounds like it, a hospital.’

‘I don’t remember the
exact figures, it’s been so long since we handled the contract, but I think it
was something in the neighbourhood of ten million dollars. But that was three
years ago, when it was signed. I imagine it’s increased a fair bit since then.’

‘Yes, I should certainly
think so,’ Brunetti said. Suddenly they all turned towards the sound of wild
barking from the house. As they watched, the front door opened a crack and a
large black dog came catapulting from the door and down the steps. Barking
dementedly, she ran directly to Kayman and jumped up at him, licking at his
face. She turned to the two men, checked them over, then ran off a few metres
to squat on the grass and relieve herself. That done, she was back at Kayman,
leaping up, aiming her nose at his.

‘Get down, Kitty Kat,’ he
said, no firmness at all in his voice. She soared up again and made contact. ‘Get
down now, girl. Stop that.’ She ignored him, ran off, the better to gain
momentum for her next leap, turned, and raced back. ‘Bad dog,’ Kayman said in a
tone that meant the opposite. He pushed the dog down with both hands and
latched them in the fur at her neck, where he began to scratch her roughly. ‘Sorry.
I wanted to get away without her. Once she sees me get into the car, she goes
crazy if she can’t come along. Loves the car.’

‘I don’t want to keep
you, Sergeant. You’ve been very helpful,’ Brunetti said, putting out his hand.
The dog followed his hand with her eyes, tongue lolling to the left of her
mouth. Kayman freed one hand and shook Brunetti’s hand, but he did it
awkwardly, still bent down over the dog. He shook Ambrogiani’s, then, when they
turned away and went back towards the gate, he opened the door to the car and
allowed the dog to leap in ahead of him.

As the car backed towards
them, Brunetti stood by the metal gate. He waved to Sergeant Kayman to indicate
that he would see to closing the gate and did just that. The American waited
long enough to see that the gate was closed, put his car in gear, and drove off
slowly. The last they saw was the head of the dog, poking out of the rear
window of the car, nose prodding at the wind.

* *
* *

20

As the head of the dog disappeared up the narrow road,
Ambrogiani turned to Brunetti and asked, ‘Well?’

Brunetti began to walk
towards the parked car. When they were both inside and the doors closed,
Ambrogiani sat behind the wheel without starting the engine.

‘Big job, building a
hospital,’ Brunetti finally said. ‘Big job for Signor Gamberetto.’

‘Very,’ the other agreed.

‘The name mean anything
to you?’ Brunetti asked.
 
                     
               

‘Oh, yes,’ Ambrogiani
said, then added, ‘he’s someone we’ve been told to stay away from.’

When Brunetti gave him a
puzzled glance, Ambrogiani explained, ‘Well, it’s never been given as a
specific order - nothing like that ever is - but the word has filtered down
that Signor Gamberetto and his affairs are not to be examined too closely.’

‘Or else?’ Brunetti
asked.

‘Oh,’ Ambrogiani said
with a bitter chuckle, ‘It’s never as crude as that. It is simply suggested,
and anyone who has any sense understands what it means.’

‘And stays away from
Signor Gamberetto?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Interesting,’ Brunetti
offered.

‘Very.’

‘So you treat him like he’s
just a simple businessman with dealings in the area?’

Ambrogiani nodded.

‘And by Lake Barcis, it
seems.’

‘Yes, it does, doesn’t
it?’

‘You think you could find
out about him?’

‘Well, I think I could
try.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that, if he’s a
medium-sized fish, then I’ll be able to find out about him. But if he’s a big
fish, then there won’t be much to find out. Or what I do find out will tell me
that he’s no more than a respectable local businessman, well-connected
politically. And that will merely confirm what we know already, that he is a
man with Friends in High Places.’

‘Mafia?’

Ambrogiani shrugged one
shoulder by way of answer.

‘Even up here?’

‘Why not? They’ve got to
go somewhere. All they do is kill one another down South. How many murders have
there been so far this year? Two hundred? Two hundred and fifty? So they’ve
started moving up here.’

‘The government?’

Ambrogiani gave the
special snort of disgust that Italians reserve for use only when speaking of
their government. ‘Who can tell them apart anymore, Mafia and government?’

This vision was more
severe than Brunetti’s, but perhaps the nationwide network of the Carabinieri
had access to more information than he did.

‘What about you?’
Ambrogiani asked.

‘I
can make some phone calls
when I get back. Call in some favours.’ He didn’t tell Ambrogiani of the one
call he thought would be most successful, one that had nothing to do with
calling in a favour; quite the opposite.

They sat there for a long
time. Finally, Ambrogiani reached forward and opened the glove compartment. He
began to rifle though the stack of maps that lay inside until he finally pulled
one out. ‘Have you got time?’ he asked.

‘Yes. How long will it
take to get there?’

Instead of answering,
Ambrogiani pulled open a map and spread it open in front of him, braced against
the steering wheel. With a thick finger, he roved around the map until he found
what he was looking for. ‘Here it is. Lake Barcis.’ His finger snaked to the
right on the lake and then cut sharply
down in a straight line leading
to Pordenone. ‘An hour and a half. Maybe two. Most of it is
autostrada.
What
do you say?’

By way of answer,
Brunetti reached behind him and pulled his seat belt across his chest, snapping
it into place between the seats.

Two hours later, they
were driving up the snake-like road that led to Lake Barcis, one of at least
twenty cars caught behind an immense gravel-filled truck that crawled along at
about ten kilometres an hour, forcing Ambrogiani constantly to switch gears
from second to first as they stopped on curves to allow the truck to manoeuvre
its way around them. Every so often, a car swept past them on the left, then
cut narrowly between two of the cars crammed behind the truck, forcing an
opening with its front end and horn. Occasionally, a car pulled sharply to the
right and sought a parking space on the too-narrow shoulder. The driver would
pop out, pull open the bonnet, and sometimes make the mistake of opening the
radiator.

Brunetti wanted to
suggest that they pull over, since they were in no hurry, had no destination,
but, even though he wasn’t really a driver, he knew enough not to suggest what
to do. After about twenty minutes of this, the truck pulled off the road into a
long parking area, no doubt designed for just this purpose, and the cars shot
past, some waving their thanks, most not bothering. Ten minutes later, they
pulled into the small town of Barcis, and Ambrogiani turned off to the left and
down a sharp driveway that led to the lake.
         
                     
   

Ambrogiani hauled himself
out of the car, obviously rattled by the drive. ‘Let’s have something to drink,’
he said, walking towards a caf
é
that filled
an enormous veranda behind one of the buildings beside the lake. He pulled out
a chair at one of the umbrella-shaded tables and dropped into it. Before them
stretched the lake, water eerily blue, mountains shooting up behind it. A
waiter came and took their order, returned a few minutes later with two coffees
and two glasses of mineral
water.
         
                     
                     
             

After Brunetti had
finished his coffee and taken a sip of the water, he asked, ‘Well?’

Ambrogiani smiled. ‘Pretty
lake, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, beautiful. What are
we, tourists?’

‘I
suppose so. Pity we can’t
stay here and look at the lake all day, isn’t it?’

It unsettled Brunetti not
to know if the other man was serious or not But, yes it would be nice. He found
himself hoping that the two young Americans had been able to spend the weekend
up
here, regardless of the reason for their trip. If they were in love,
this would be a beautiful place to be. Himself his own editor, he corrected
that to read, if they were in love, anywhere would be beautiful.
     
 

Brunetti summoned the
waiter and paid him. They had decided on the ride up not to call attention to
themselves by asking questions about trucks with red stripes turning onto side
roads. They were tourists, even if they were in tie and jacket, and tourists
certainly had the right to pull off at a picnic site on the way down and look
at the mountains as the traffic sped past them. Because he didn’t know how long
they would be, he stopped at the counter inside and asked if the barman could
make a few sandwiches to take with them. The best he could do was prosciutto
and cheese. Ambrogiani nodded, told him to make four and to
put in a
bottle of red wine and two plastic cups.

With this in hand, they
returned to Ambrogiani’s car and drove down the hill, back in the direction of
Pordenone. About two kilometres from Barcis, they saw a broad parking area on
the right-hand side and pulled into it. Ambrogiani swung the car around so that
they could see the road, not the mountains, killed the engine and said, ‘Here
we are.’

‘It wasn’t my idea of how
I’d spend my Saturday,’ Brunetti admitted.

‘I’ve had worse,’
Ambrogiani said and then talked about a time when he had been assigned to look
for a kidnap victim in Aspromonte and had spent three days up in the hills,
lying on the ground, watching through a pair of field glasses as people went
into and out of a shepherd’s hut.

‘What happened?’Brunetti
asked.

‘Oh, we got them.’ And
then he laughed. ‘But it was someone else, not the one we were looking for.
This girl’s family had never called us, never reported it. They were willing to
pay the ransom, only we got there before they had the chance to pay a lira.’

‘What happened to the
other one? The one you were looking for?’

‘They killed him. We
found him a week after we found the girl. They’d cut his throat. The smell led
us to him. And the birds.’

‘Why did they do it?’