Death in a Strange Country (35 page)

They walked back along
the path, meeting no trucks on the way. When they got to the car, Brunetti sat
on the seat, feet still outside the car. With two quick motions, he kicked his
shoes off and far into the grass at the side of the road. Careful to hold them
by the top, he peeled off his socks and hurled them after the shoes. Turning to
Ambrogiani, he said, ‘Do you think we could stop at a shoe shop on the way to
the station?’

* *
* *

21

On the drive back to Mestre train station, Ambrogiani
gave Brunetti an idea of how the dumping would be possible. Though the Italian
customs police had the right to inspect every truck that came down from Germany
to the American base, there were so many that some did not get inspected, and
what inspection was given was often cursory, at best. As to planes, don’t even
speak; they flew in and out of the military airports at Villafranca and Aviano
at will, loading and unloading whatever they chose. When Brunetti asked why
there were so many deliveries, Ambrogiani explained the extent to which America
saw that its soldiers and airmen, their wives and children, were kept happy.
Ice cream, frozen pizza, spaghetti sauce, crisps, spirits, California wines,
beer: all of this, and more, was flown in to stock the shelves of the
supermarket, and this was to make no mention of the shops that sold stereo
equipment, televisions, racing bicycles, potting soil, underwear. Then there
were the transports that brought in heavy equipment, tanks, Jeeps. He
remembered the navy base at Naples and the base at Livorno; anything could be
brought in by ship.

‘It sounds like they’d
have no trouble doing it,’ Brunetti said.

‘But why bring it down
here?’ Ambrogiani asked.

It seemed pretty simple
to Brunetti. ‘The Germans are more careful about this sort of thing. The
environmentalists are a real power there. If anyone got wind of something like
this in Germany, there’d be a scandal. Now that they’re united, someone would
start to talk about throwing the Americans out, not just waiting for them to
leave on their own. But here in Italy, no one cares what gets dumped, anywhere,
so all they have to do is remove the identification. Then, if what they dump is
found, it can’t be tied to anyone, everyone can deny all knowledge, and no one
will care enough to find out. And no one here is going to talk about throwing
the Americans out.’

‘But they haven’t removed
all identification,’ Ambrogiani corrected.

‘Maybe they thought they’d
get it covered before anyone found it. It’s easy enough to bring in a bulldozer
and finish piling the dirt over it. It looked like they were running out of
room there, anyway.’

‘Why not just ship it
back to America?’

Brunetti gave him a long
look. Surely, he couldn’t be this innocent. ‘We try to unload ours on Third
World countries, Giancarlo. To the Americans, maybe we’re a Third World
country. Or maybe all countries that aren’t America are Third World.’
     
             

Ambrogiani muttered
something under his breath.

Up ahead of them, the
traffic slowed at the toll booms at the end of the
autostrada.
Brunetti
pulled out his wallet and handed Ambrogiani ten thousand lire, pocketed the
change, and put his wallet back in his pocket. At the third exit, Ambrogiani
pulled to the right and down into the chaotic Saturday afternoon traffic. They
crawled towards Mestre train station, battling the aggression of various cars.
Ambrogiani pulled up across from it, ignoring the No Parking sign and the angry
honk from a car that wanted to pull in behind him. ‘Well?’ he asked, looking
over at Brunetti.

‘See what you can find
but about Gamberetto, and I’ll speak to a few people here.’

‘Should I call you?’
     
                     
                     

‘Not from the base.’
Brunetti scribbled his home number on a piece of paper and handed it to the
other
man. ‘This is my own number. You can get me there early in the morning or at
night. Call from a phone booth, I think.’
         
                     
               

‘Yes,’ Ambrogiani agreed,
voice sombre, as if this small suggestion had suddenly warned him of the
magnitude of what they were involved with.

Brunetti opened the door
and got out of the car. He came around to the other side and leaned down
towards the open window. ‘Thanks, Giancarlo.’

They shook hands through
the open window, saying nothing more, and Brunetti crossed the road to the
station while Ambrogiani drove away.

By the time he got to his
house, his feet hurt from the new shoes that Ambrogiani had bought for him in a
place on the motorway. A hundred and sixty thousand lire and they hurt his
feet! As soon as he got inside the door, he kicked them off, then walked
towards the bathroom, peeling off his clothing as he walked, dropping it
carelessly behind him. He stood in the shower for a long time, soaping his body
repeatedly, rubbing at his feet and between his toes with a cloth, rinsing and
washing them again and again. He dried himself and sat on the edge of the tub
to examine his feet closely. Though they were red from the hot water and
scrubbing, he saw no sign of rash or burning on them; they felt like feet,
though he wasn’t at all sure how feet were supposed to feel.

He wrapped a second towel
around himself and went towards the bedroom. As he did, he heard Paola call
from the kitchen, ‘This place doesn’t come with maid service, Guido’ Her voice
was raised over the rush of water into the washing-machine.

He ignored her, went to
the closet and got dressed, sitting on the bed while he pulled on a new pair of
socks, again examining his feet. They still looked like feet. He pulled a pair
of brown shoes from the bottom of the closet, tied them, and walked down
towards the kitchen. As soon as she heard him coming, she continued, ‘How do
you expect me to get the kids to pick up after themselves if you drop things
anywhere you want?’

When he walked into the
kitchen, he found her kneeling in front of the washing-machine, thumb poised
over the button that turned it on and off. Through the clear glass window, he
could see a sodden heap of clothes being swirled first one way, then another.

‘What’s the matter with
that thing?’ he asked.

She didn’t look up at him
as she answered, kept her mesmerized stare on the swirling clothing. ‘It’s
unbalanced somehow. If I put towels in it, anything that absorbs a lot of
water, the weight of the initial spin tilts it out of balance, and it blows out
all of the electricity in the house. So I’ve got to wait for it to start, see
that it doesn’t happen. If it does, then I’ve got to turn it off before it
happens and wring the clothes out.’

‘Paola, do you have to do
this every time you do a wash?’

‘No. Only if there are
towels or those flannel sheets from Chiara’s bed,’ She stopped talking here,
raised her thumb over the button as the machine made a click. Suddenly, it
jolted into sudden motion and the clothing inside began to spin around, pressed
against the side of the swirling drum. Paola got to her feet, smiled, and said,
‘Well, no trouble that time.’

‘How long has it been
like that?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Couple
of years.’

‘And you have to do that
every time you do a wash?’

‘If I wash towels. I told
you.’ She smiled, irritation forgotten. ‘Where have you been since the crack of
dawn? Did you have anything to eat?’

‘Up at Lake Barcis.’

‘Doing what, playing
army? Your clothes were filthy. It looks like you’ve been rolling around in the
dirt.’

‘I have been rolling
around in the dirt,’ he began and told her about his day with Ambrogiani. It
took a long time because he had to keep going back to explain about Kayman, his
son, the way the boy’s medical records had been lost, the medical journal that
he had received in the post. And, finally, he told her about the drugs that had
been hidden in Foster’s apartment.

When he finished, Paola
asked, ‘And they told those people that their son was allergic to something
from a tree? That everything was all right?’ He nodded and she exploded. ‘Bastards!
And what happens when the boy develops other symptoms? What do they tell the
parents then?’

‘Maybe he won’t develop
other symptoms.’

‘And maybe he will, Guido.
What happens then? What do they tell him then, that he’s got something they can’t
figure out? Do they lose his medical records again?’

Brunetti wanted to tell
her that none of this was his fault, but that seemed too feeble a protest, so
he said nothing.

After her outburst, Paola
realized how futile it was and turned to more practical things. ‘What are you
going to do?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’ He
paused, then said, ‘I want to talk to your father.’

‘To Papà? Why?’ Her
surprise was real.

Brunetti knew how
inflammatory his answer would be, but he said it anyway, knowing it was true. ‘Because
he’d know about this.’

She attacked before she
thought. ‘What do you mean, know about it? How could he? What do you think my
father is, some sort of international criminal?’

In the face of Brunetti’s
silence, she stopped. Behind them, the washing-machine stopped spinning and
clicked itself off. The room was silent save for the echo of her question. She
turned and bent to empty it, filling her arms with damp clothing. Saying
nothing, she passed in front of him and went onto the terrace, where she dumped
the washing onto a chair, then pegged it to the clothesline piece by piece.
When she came back inside, all she said was, ‘Well, It’s possible that he might
know people who might know something about it. Do you want to call him or do
you want me to?’

‘I think I’d better do
it,’

‘Better do it now, Guido.
My mother said they’re going to Capri for a week, leaving tomorrow.’

‘All right,’ Brunetti
said and went into the living room, where the phone was.

He dialled the number
from memory, having no idea why this number, that he might call twice a year,
was one he never forgot. His mother-in-law answered and, if she was surprised
to hear Brunetti’s voice, gave no sign of it. She said Count Qrazio was home,
asked no questions, and said she would call her husband to the phone.

‘Yes, Guido,’ the Count
said when he picked up the phone.

‘I wonder if you have
some time free this afternoon,’ Brunetti said. ‘I’d like to speak to you about
something that’’s come up-’

‘Viscardi?’ the Count
asked, surprising Brunetti that he knew about that case.

‘No, not about that,’
Brunetti answered, thinking only then of how much easier it would have been to
have asked his father-in-law, instead, of Fosco, about Viscardi, and perhaps
how much more accurate. ‘It’s about something else I’m working on.’

The Count was far too
polite to ask what but said, instead, ‘We’re invited to dinner, but if you
could come over now, we would have an hour or so free. Is that convenient,
Guido?’

‘Yes, it is. I’ll come
over now. And thank you.’

‘Well?’ Paola asked when
he went back into the kitchen, where another load of washing was busily
swimming about in a sea of white suds.

‘I’m going over there now.
Would you like to come along and see your mother?’

By way of answer, she
pointed with her chin to the washing-machine.

‘All right. I’ll go now.
They have to go to dinner, so I imagine I’ll be back before eight. Would you
like to go out to dinner tonight?’

She smiled at him,
nodding.

‘All right. You choose
the place and call for a reservation. Any place you like.’