Brunetti called the Questura at nine and told the officer at the switchboard to please inform the Vice-Questore – but only if he inquired – that he would be in later because he had to interview a witness. He waded through the tourists in Piazza San Marco and got to Florian’s at 9.45. He asked if he could be seated in one of the back rooms. The waiter nodded and led him past the bar, turned left and into a small room. He told Brunetti he could choose any of the tables he wanted: it was unlikely there would be any other guests for at least half an hour.
Brunetti thanked him and said he’d order when his friend arrived. He thought of describing Padovani so that the waiter could direct him to this room, but it had been so long since he’d seen the journalist that he did not know what he looked like. ‘His name is Padovani,’ he said.
‘Of course, Signore. Il Dottore has often been our guest.’ From the man’s smile, Brunetti realized that Dami’s charm had not lessened. Nor, he imagined, the size of his tips.
He sat and saw himself in the mirrored wall in front of him, then shifted to a seat that looked across the room, telling himself it was so that he could see who came through the door. He picked up the menu and had a look at the things on offer. He could have a coffee with whipped cream if he chose: the idea sickened him faintly. A different waiter came into the room, and Brunetti again said he’d order when his friend arrived.
He had not thought to bring a newspaper, so he read all of the menu and then glanced around the room to see if anyone had left a newspaper there.
‘Guido?’ he heard a man’s voice ask.
He turned and stood and saw Dami at the door, looking much as he had the last time they’d met. The journalist had the same stocky build and flattened nose, and although his hair was white, the rest of him seemed younger. His beard and paunch had disappeared and the white hair was brushed back from his forehead, creating an effect not of age but of vitality. Brunetti remembered a more – what was the word? – indolent? Yes, a more indolent appearance: this man could well have been the tennis doubles champion of a private club in Milano.
Suddenly recalling how much he had liked Dami, Brunetti walked to the door and embraced him. The old Padovani would have turned this into a coy joke, but this one seemed to have outgrown his former manner and did nothing more than pat Brunetti’s shoulder a few times and trap his hand in both of his. ‘How nice to see you, Guido, after all this time.’ He stepped back and took a better look. He smiled and said, a bit of his old self peeking out, ‘If you’ll tell me I look the same, I’ll tell you you do, too.’
With almost funereal sincerity, Brunetti intoned, ‘You look just the same.’
Padovani poked him in the ribs and moved towards the table where Brunetti had been seated. ‘Why ever are we sitting back here where no one can see us?’
‘Because back here no one can hear us,’ Brunetti replied neutrally.
‘Ah, of course,’ Padovani said amiably. ‘Are we here to plot something?’
‘Perhaps,’ Brunetti said.
‘Not against Gonzalo, I warn you,’ Padovani said seriously, with no echo of the frivolity that Brunetti had found so appealing in his conversation in the past.
Brunetti shook his head. ‘If anything, I’d like it to be in aid of him.’
‘Oh no,’ Padovani said in sudden alarm. All smiles stopped together, and he asked, ‘What’s happened to him?’
The original waiter appeared at the door and came over to their table. Both ordered coffee, and Padovani, putting on an amiable expression, asked for a brioche, as well.
When the waiter was gone, the journalist asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Brunetti said in a voice he tried to make reassuring. ‘Gonzalo wants to adopt a son.’
Padovani closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. The temperature of his voice dropped when he asked, ‘Could it by any chance be a younger man? A good-looking one?’
‘Do you know him?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I know the type.’ There was contempt in his tone, perhaps something stronger, but Brunetti had no idea who the target might be: Gonzalo? The other man? Himself?
Padovani asked, ‘Have you met him? He’s been around for some time, and I’ve been told he spends a lot of it with Gonzalo now.’
‘Do you know who he is?’ Brunetti asked. ‘We’re curious to learn something about him,’ he added, choosing to make no mention of his father-in-law’s original prompting.
The waiter came in and, pretending to be invisible, set two coffees on the table, then a small plate with one brioche. He went back to the door but did not pass through it. Brunetti looked over and saw a young Japanese couple standing on the threshold, peering around either side of the waiter, who blocked their way. The waiter bowed, the two young people bowed, and all three disappeared.
‘The one I’m thinking of is called Attilio Circetti di Torrebardo,’ Dami said, pronouncing the name as though he were a television presenter introducing his guest. Then he added, ‘Marchese di Torrebardo.’
‘Wherever that is,’ Brunetti said, leaving it to Padovani to infer that he was already familiar with the name.
Brunetti picked up an envelope of sugar and poured it into his coffee, stirred it around for far longer than necessary, and then asked, ‘What else have you heard about him?’
Padovani leaned forward and added sugar to his own coffee, then took a small sip, set the cup back on the saucer, and picked up the brioche. After two bites, he set it back on the plate, then finished his coffee. Only then did he say, ‘He’s an art historian. Well, he studied art history in Rome. And he’s been nibbling at the edges of the art world since then, about ten, fifteen years.’
‘Nibbling how?’
‘Doing the research for books by other people. Writing the books, for all I know. Writing catalogues for art exhibitions, reviewing art shows on-line, writing a blog. Since he’s been living in Venice, he’s occasionally given talks at the Accademia or taken people around the museum.’
‘Doesn’t sound like steady work.’
‘It’s not,’ Padovani agreed. ‘But it’s a job where the chief requirement is charm, and he’s got plenty of that.’ He took another bite of his brioche and set it back on the plate.
Brunetti hesitated but then dared to risk it. ‘Am I to believe you’re speaking from experience?’
‘Good heavens,’ Padovani said, smiling broadly, ‘living with Paola all these years has turned you into an insightful boy, hasn’t it just?’
Brunetti laughed. ‘I hope her having kept me around will help you believe you can trust me,’ he said and waited for Padovani’s reaction. After a moment’s hesitation, the journalist smiled.
‘I was very impressed by him when I met him,’ he said coolly.
‘But no longer?’
‘No,’ Padovani said. ‘At first, I was charmed by him: he’s bright, very well mannered – that still counts a great deal with me – and seemed to be a generous person. But after a time, I began to see that it was a generosity of words: he never spoke badly of other people; I’ll grant him that. It’s a pleasant relief in the world I live in. But he never actually did anything for anyone, and I seldom knew him to pay for his own dinner.’
Padovani sighed. ‘It’s a very common type. Dresses well, knows the names of people in the art world, is always seen at dinners or parties, has a string of elderly contessas he can call and visit or take to the opera or dinner.’ He considered what he had just said, and amended the last to, ‘Be taken to the opera or to dinner, that is.’
He reached for the glass of water that had come with the coffee and drained it, then pushed himself back from the table; the delicate chair squealed in protest; Padovani jumped in surprise. He landed back on the chair and took a quick look under it, where he must have seen nothing strange; then returned his attention to Brunetti.
‘It’s fake.’ He held up a hand as if to prevent Brunetti from moving. ‘There’s little real kindness in him. He’ll be charming and affable and pay you a lot of attention, but what he’s doing is looking for a way to profit from you. Every second of every minute he’s with you.’
‘What happened when you realized this?’
‘I called him one day and cancelled a dinner I’d invited him to. I don’t know why: I’d simply had enough of him. He called me a few days later, but I was busy, I said. And then when he called again, I was busy again. And that was that. No more calls.’
‘It sounds like you got off cheaply,’ Brunetti said. What he did not say was that his list of Torrebardo’s offences could as easily be the plaint of a spurned lover as the dispassionate assessment of a man’s serious flaws. Freeloading off the rich was a way of life in Venice, not a crime.
‘I did.’
‘And Gonzalo?’
Padovani gave a shrug. ‘It sounds as if Attilio’s moved on to greener pastures.’ After a pause, he added, ‘It’s the normal trajectory for a man like him.’
‘From what to what?’ Brunetti asked.
‘From a journalist with a modest amount of money to a man who has a great deal.’
‘Is that certain?’
‘That my fortune is modest, yes,’ Padovani said and laughed with pure delight when he saw Brunetti’s embarrassment. He reached across the table and patted Brunetti’s arm. ‘It doesn’t matter, Guido.’ He laughed again and said, ‘But about Gonzalo, there’s little doubt about his fortune. He’s certainly considered a very rich person, and he lives like one.’ As though surprised by what he had just said, he paused to listen for the echo, then added, ‘I’ve never lived in a city where so many people are trying to seem richer than they are, or with so many people trying to seem poorer.’ He laughed again, the laughter given to the revelation of surprising truths. ‘You Venetians have strange ideas about money.’
Brunetti thought for a moment and decided that the venality or not of Venetians was on the list of things he no longer had the patience to talk about, so he changed the subject and asked, ‘Were you familiar with his collection?’
Padovani shrugged. ‘Yes. He has excellent taste, bought a lot of good paintings years ago.’ He tilted his head and looked into the distance for a moment, then glanced at Brunetti and said, ‘He’s got a small Bronzino – unattributed, unfortunately – of a young courtier. It’s so beautiful, I still dream about it. And a complete first edition of I Carceri. In perfect condition. I’ve never seen anything like them.’
Padovani gave a small shake and said, ‘Most of the other things are of the same quality, so to answer your question, yes, he did very well by the gallery. Galleries.’
Brunetti picked up his coffee and took a sip, but it was cold. He set it down and asked, ‘Has he ever done this before, fallen in love and tried to wrap the person up in his money or the promise of his money?’
Padovani’s mouth turned up in a humourless grin. ‘Is it that obvious?’
Brunetti stopped himself from smiling. ‘I’ve spent much of my life living with a woman who’s in love with Henry James and who reads his novels repeatedly: you think I haven’t learned anything about the ways people make use of one another?’
Obviously uncomfortable with the drift the conversation had taken, Padovani lightened his tone and said, ‘I’ve never read him, but I know enough about him to be able to pretend I have.’
As if still talking about literature, Brunetti said, ‘James is interested in predation, but with soft voices and afternoon tea.’
Padovani’s face hardened, perhaps at the word ‘predation’. ‘Makes it worse, somehow, when it’s done with a cold heart.’ Then, after a long pause, he added, ‘It shouldn’t happen to someone like Gonzalo.’
He picked up his empty cup and tried to nurse a few more drops from it. Failing, he replaced it in the saucer. He looked across at Brunetti, who held his glance until the waiter appeared to ask if they’d like something else.
Both ordered another coffee.
Again Padovani let some time pass before he said, ‘He was one of the first people I met when I began my career. We met … well, it doesn’t matter where or how we met, but we met, and we liked one another. Perhaps because we both liked to laugh or because neither of us took the world we were living in then – the world of art dealing – at all seriously. Gonzalo even less than I.’
Brunetti pushed himself back from the table to cross his legs, and his chair let out a squeal even more hysterical than the one Padovani’s chair had made earlier. Both men ignored the sound.
The waiter appeared with two more coffees and two more small glasses of water on a silver salver and placed them on the table, discreetly removing all sign of the others.
When he was gone, Padovani continued. ‘Gonzalo taught me about modern art, and contemporary art, taught me how to distinguish between the good and the bad and between what would and would not sell. He told me which agents to flatter, which artists to promote, when to praise a young genius, and when to stay clear of writing about someone whose career was soon going to end.’
He broke off and took a sip of coffee, and Brunetti took the opportunity to remark, ‘You make it sound like a confidence game.’
‘It is. It’s as fake as soccer: they’re both decided in rooms, not on the field. Agents decide who goes up and who goes down, who wins and who loses. Occasionally there’s a genius who simply ignores it all and paints or sculpts or takes photographs, and nothing they do can touch him. Or her. But in most cases, it’s the agent who does the real creative work and who transforms a mediocre painting into a masterpiece.’
‘And a mediocre painter into a genius?’ Brunetti asked.
Padovani leaned forward and said, ‘And I became a good writer about bad art.’
He laughed at his own remark and finished his coffee. When it seemed that Padovani was finished speaking, Brunetti asked, ‘And?’
‘Gonzalo taught me how to survive in this world, and soon I was famous. Well, as famous as a journalist ever becomes.’ He paused, making it obvious he still had something to say. He shifted his cup and saucer slightly to the left, glanced at Brunetti, and continued. ‘He’s the most generous person I’ve ever known, Guido. Generous with his wealth, but lots of people are. He’s generous with what he knows, and most people aren’t.’ Again, Padovani stopped speaking, but this time Brunetti wasn’t sure if he’d finished. He waited, and at last Padovani said, ‘This means that much of what I say is probably the result of my shame that I treated him so badly and that he had the generosity to continue to treat me well.’
‘What happened?’ Brunetti asked, for the cadence of Padovani’s story had taken on a decidedly last-chapter rhythm.
‘I found someone else, or someone else found me, and that part of it was over.’
‘And then?’
‘We remained friends, thank God. Or thank Gonzalo. He was still generous with information and help, kept making contacts for me, and he had suddenly become avuncular – if that’s the word – towards me. We were friends, and he was older and protective.’ He stopped as if he’d just thought of something clever to say. ‘But time passes, and now he’s even older, but I’m the one who’s become protective.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said, and they lapsed into silence.
Brunetti felt himself at a loss how to phrase what he wanted to ask Padovani. ‘Do you fear the worst?’ seemed archaic and exaggerated, but that was precisely what he wanted to know. Instead, he settled for the much more prosaic, ‘Do you worry about him?’
Padovani’s eyes grew serious. ‘Yes, and now that you’ve told me what you have, I’ll worry even more.’
Brunetti could think of nothing to say. He sat silent for some time and then asked, ‘Where does he come from, Torrebardo?’
‘Piemonte, but I don’t know where.’
‘Have you been in their company?’
‘You mean his and Gonzalo’s?’
Brunetti nodded, and when Padovani failed to answer, asked, ‘Well?’
Padovani started to respond but was interrupted by the return of the waiter, who led six Chinese tourists into the small room but was careful to seat them at the table farthest from Brunetti and Padovani. He handed out six menus and said he’d be back soon to take their orders. The tourists opened them and set to talking quietly among themselves.
Padovani picked up his menu and tapped Brunetti on the back of the hand with it. Smiling, he said, ‘No, I’ve never seen them together.’ His smile appeared for a moment, then vanished. ‘I don’t know why I’m being so unpleasant about this.’ An awkward replica of his smile flashed for a second, and then he said, ‘Remember, I’m hardly a neutral witness.’ He tossed the menu back on the table and said, ‘Besides, if Attilio is good to him and takes care of him, what’s wrong with that?’
‘That’s not how you sounded a moment ago,’ Brunetti said.
‘I told you I wasn’t a reliable witness.’ The journalist moved uncomfortably in his chair, shot back his sleeve to take a look at his watch, and then looked across at Brunetti. He pressed his lips together and shook his head. ‘I can’t say he’s a bad person. He’s selfish and greedy, but so are many of the people in that world. He’s interested in living a comfortable life but, for that fact’ – he paused and gave a small puff of air – ‘so am I.’
‘You’ve switched over to the defence,’ Brunetti observed, ‘just in case you hadn’t noticed.’ He smiled as he said it, but Padovani failed to return the smile.
‘It’s called mixed feelings, Guido.’
To save time, Brunetti asked, ‘Would you trust Torrebardo?’
‘With what?’
‘A secret?’
‘If I told him it was not to be repeated, yes.’
‘Money?’
‘No,’ Padovani answered without hesitation. ‘He wants it too much, wants the things it will give him or let him have.’ He thought about this for a moment, shrugged, and added, ‘He’s still young. Well, seen from my age, he’s young. He still thinks that way.’
‘Most people do, whether they’re young or not,’ Brunetti said, adding, ‘And it usually doesn’t change when they get older.’
‘I know that,’ Padovani said and tried to smile. ‘But one does so like to believe that, just once, things will be different.’
‘And someone will love us for who we are, not for what we own?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Something like that,’ Padovani said, peeking down at the sugar dissolved in his cup.
‘You never knew my mother,’ Brunetti began, causing Padovani to stare across at him in confusion.
‘After my father died, I asked if she believed.’ When he saw that Padovani’s confusion remained, Brunetti added, ‘She’d always gone to Mass and always dragged me and my brother along with her. But she’d treated God like a distant relative, and I’d never known what she really believed. So I asked her if she believed our father was with God.’
He stopped but Padovani said nothing: Brunetti waited until the other man finally asked, ‘What did she say?’
‘“It would be nice.”‘