CB18 About Face (2009) by Donna Leon Read Free Book Online Page B

the dead man as much as the principle. ‘He was in over his head: first he cheated on his taxes, which forced him into doing something illegal, then he got caught by the Finanza, who turned him over to the Carabinieri, and they forced him into doing something dangerous. If he had reason to be anything, it wasn’t brave.’
    ‘You seem awfully sympathetic,’ Guarino said, making it sound like a criticism.
    This time it was Brunetti who shrugged and said nothing.

4
    In the face of Brunetti’s silence, Guarino chose to move away from the dead man’s character. ‘I told you. I’m not at liberty to provide you with full information about the cargoes,’ he said with more than a touch of asperity.
    Brunetti resisted the urge to observe that everything Guarino had said since they began to talk made that evident. He turned his gaze away from his visitor and stared out the window. For some time, Guarino allowed the joint silence to continue. Brunetti played the conversation back from the beginning, and liked very little of what he heard.
    The silence expanded, but Guarino gave no sign of being made nervous by it. After what seemed, even to himself, an inordinately long time, Brunetti removed his feet from the drawer and set them on the floor. He leaned towards the man on the other side of his desk. ‘Are you used to dealing with dull people, Filippo?’
    ‘Dull?’
    ‘Dull. Slow to understand.’
    Guarino glanced, almost against his will, at Brunetti, who smiled at him blandly and then turned his attention back to he contemplation of the view beyond the window.
    Eventually Guarino said, ‘I suppose I am.’
    Brunetti said, quite amiably, though without bothering to smile, ‘It must become a habit, after a while.’
    ‘Believing that everyone is dull?’
    ‘Something like that, yes, or at least behaving as if they were.’
    Guarino considered this. At last he said, ‘Yes, I see. And I’ve insulted you?’
    Brunetti’s eyebrows rose and fell as if by their own volition; his right hand sketched a short arc in the air.
    ‘Indeed,’ Guarino said and went silent.
    The two men sat in companionable silence for a number of minutes until Guarino broke it by saying, ‘I really do work for Patta.’ In the face of Brunetti’s failure to respond, Guarino added, ‘Well, my own Patta. And he hasn’t authorized me to tell anyone about what we’re doing.’
    Lack of authorization had never worked as a strong impediment to Brunetti’s professional behaviour, and so he said, in an entirely friendly voice, ‘Then you can leave.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You can leave,’ Brunetti repeated, with a wave towards the door just as pleasant as his voice had been. ‘And I’ll go back to doing my job. Which, for the administrative reasons I’ve already explained to you, does not include the investigation of Signor Ranzato’s murder.’ Guarino remained in his chair, and Brunetti said, ‘It’s been very interesting, listening to you, but I don’t have any information to give you, and I don’t see any reason to help you find whatever it is you might really be after.’
    Had Brunetti slapped him, Guarino could have been no more astonished. And offended. He started to get to his feet, but then sank back on to the chair and stared at Brunetti. His face flushed a sudden red, either from embarrassment or anger: Brunetti neither knew nor cared. Finally Guarino said, ‘How about we think of someone we both know, and you call this person and I talk to him?’
    ‘Animal, vegetable, or mineral?’ Brunetti asked.
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘It’s a game my children used to play. What type of person should we call: a priest, a doctor, a social worker?’
    ‘A lawyer?’
    ‘That I trust?’ Brunetti asked, putting an end to that possibility.
    ‘A journalist?’
    After some consideration, Brunetti said, ‘There are a few.’
    ‘Good, then let’s see if we can find one we know in common.’
    ‘Who trusts us both?’
    ‘Yes,’ Guarino