A Venetian Reckoning Part 25

'Yes.'

'No, not that I work for them now. I mean for years, ever since I came to Italy.'

'For Trevisan and Favero?' he asked.

'No, not for them, but for men like them, the ones who ran it before they sold it to Trevisan.'

'He bought it?' Brunetti asked, surprised to hear her talk as though it were a store.

'Yes. I don't know how it happened. But what I do know is that, one day, the men who were running the business were gone, and Trevisan was the new boss.'

'And you were... ?'

1 was what you would call "middle management''.' She used the English term, voice heavy with irony. 'What does that mean?'

it means I was no longer peddling my a.s.s on the street' She glanced across at him then to see if she had shocked him, but the look Brunetti gave her was as calm as his voice when he asked, 'How long did you do that?'

'Work as a prost.i.tute?' she asked. 'Yes.'

'I came here as a prost.i.tute,' she said and then paused. 'No, that's not true. I came here as a young woman, in love with my first lover, an Italian who promised to give me the world, if only I'd leave my home and follow him here. I did, and he didn't 'I told you I was from Mostar. That means my family was Muslim. Not that anyone in my family ever saw the inside of a mosque. Except for my uncle, but everyone thought he was crazy. I even went to school with the sisters. My family said I'd get a better education, so I had twelve years of Catholic schools.'

He noticed that they were driving along the right side of the ca.n.a.l that flowed between Venice and Padua, the road of the Palladian villas. Even as he recognized the road, one of the villas appeared on the other side of the ca.n.a.l, its outline faintly visible in the moonlight a single light burning in the window of an upper floor.

'The story is a cliche, so I won't tell you about it I was in love, I came here, and within a month I was on the streets, 'without a pa.s.sport with no Italian, but I'd had six years of Latin with the sisters, learning all the prayers, so k was easy for me to learn. It was also easy to learn what I had to do to succeed. I've always been very ambitious, and I saw no reason why I couldn't succeed at this.'

'And what did you do?'

'I was very good at my work. I kept myself clean, and I became helpful to the man who controlled us.' 'Helpful in what way?'

'I'd tell him about the other girls. Twice, I told him about girls who were preparing to run away.' 'What happened to them?'

They were beaten. I think he broke some of the fingers of one of them. They seldom did us enough damage to make us stop working. Bad business.'

'How else were you helpful?'

'I'd give them the names of clients, and I think some of them were blackmailed. I was good at spotting the nervous ones, and I'd ask them about themselves and, sooner or later, they all ended up talking about their wives. If they looked like they'd be good targets, I'd learn their names and then their addresses. It was very easy. Men are very weak. I think it's vanity that does it'

After a few moments' silence, Brunetti asked, 'And then what?'

'And then they took me off the streets. They realized that I could be much more useful to them in a managerial capacity.' Again, she used the English words, speaking almost without accent into and out of the language with the ease of a seal slipping in and out of the water.

'What did you do in that "managerial capacity"?' he asked, matching her lack of accent 'I'd talk to the new girls, explain things to them, and advise them to do as they were told.' She added irrelevantly, 'I learned Spanish quickly, and that helped.'

'Was it profitable?'

The higher I rose in the organization, yes. I saved enough m m two years to buy the travel agency.' two years to buy the travel agency.'

'But you still worked for them?'

She looked at him before she said, 'You never stop working for them, once you start.' She stopped at a red light but didn't turn to him. Hands locked on the top of the wheel, she looked straight ahead.

'None of this bothered you? Doing all of this?1 She shrugged and, when the light changed, s.h.i.+fted into gear. They drove on.

'The business was expanding tremendously. There were more and more girls every year, every month, it seemed. We'd bring them in...'

He interrupted her. 'Is that what the travel agency was for?'

"Yes. But after a time, it almost didn't make sense to import them, so many were coming in from the East and from North Africa. So we changed our organization to adjust to this. We'd simply pick them up after they got here. It cut down tremendously on overheads. And it was easy enough to get them to hand over their pa.s.sports. Well, if they had pa.s.sports. A lot of them didn't.' Her voice grew prim, almost officious. 'It's amazing how easy it is to get into this country. And stay here.'

Another villa came up on the right, but Brunetti barely glanced at it 'The tapes?' he reminded her.

'Ah yes, the tapes,' she said, 'I knew about them for months before I saw them. That is, I knew about them in theory, knew that tapes were being sent up from Bosnia, but I didn't know what they were. Trevisan and Favero and Lotto, all of them were excited about them because of the profits they saw. All they had to do was pay a few thousand lire for a blank tape and reproduce it and then, at least in America, they could sell it for at least twenty or thirty times what they paid for the tape. In the beginning, they just sold the master tapes. I think they got a few million lire for them, but then they decided that they wanted to go into distribution themselves: that's where they said the money was.

It was Trevisan who asked me what I'd suggest. They knew I had a good instinct for business, so they asked me. I told them exactly what I thought that I couldn't tdQ them anything until I'd seen the tapes. Even then, I was thinking of them as a product and the whole thing as a problem in marketing.' She glanced at him. 'I even thought of it that way, in those terms. Product Marketing.' She sighed.

'So Trevisan spoke to the other two and they agreed to have me look at a few tapes. But they insisted that I do it with them; they didn't trust me, they didn't trust anyone with the master tapes, not once they realized how valuable they were.'

'And did you see them?' he asked when he thought she was not going to continue.

'Oh yes, I saw them. I saw three of them.'

'Where?'

'At Lotto's apartment He was the only one who didn't have a wife living with him, so we went there.' 'And?'

'And we watched the tapes. That's when I decided.' 'Decided what?' To kill them.'

'All three of them?' Brunetti asked. 'Of course.'

After a moment he asked, 'Why?' 'Because they enjoyed those films so much. Favero was the worst He got so aroused during the second one that he had to leave the room. I don't know where he went, but he didn't come back until they were over.' 'And the other two?'

'Oh, they were excited, too. But they had seen them before, all of the tapes, and so they could control themselves.'

'Were they the same kind of tapes that I saw?' 'Did a woman get killed?' she asked 'Yes.'

Then it was the same as these. She's raped, usually repeatedly, and men she's killed' For all of the emotion in her voice, she could have been describing training films for flight attendants.

'How many tapes were there?' Brunetti asked.

'I don't know. There were at least seven that I know of, not including the three I saw. But those were the ones they sold outright; these three were the ones they wanted to reproduce and distribute.'

'What did you tell them when you saw the tapes?'

'I told them I'd need a day or so to think about it. I said that I knew someone in Brussels who might be interested in buying copies for the Belgian and Dutch markets. But I'd already decided that I would kill them. It was just a matter of finding the best way to do it,'

'Why?'

'Why what? Why did I wait, or why did I decide to kill them?'

'Why did you decide to kill them?'

She allowed the car to slow in response to a car ahead of them that was slowing to turn off to the right. When the lights of the other car disappeared, she turned to Brunetti. 'I've thought about that a great deal, commissario. I mink the thing that decided me was that they enjoyed the tapes so much; that surprised me, that they would And I realized, as I sat and watched the three of them, that they not only had no idea that there was anything wrong in watching the videos, but they didn't think it was wrong to commission them.' "Were they?'

She turned her eyes back to the road. 'Please, commissario, don't be dull. If there were no market for such things, they wouldn't be made. Trevisan and his friends created a market, and then they saw that it was supplied Before I saw the tapes and saw what was on them, I'd heard Trevisan and Lotto talking about sending a fax to Sarajevo to order more of them. They were as casual as if they were calling up to order a case of wine or to tell their broker to buy or sell some stock. It was business for them.'

'But then you saw the tapes?'

'Yes. But then I saw the tapes.'

'Did you think about whether it was wrong to murder them?'

That's what I'm trying to tell you, commissario. It wasn't wrong. It was right. I never questioned that, not from the beginning. And before you ask, yes, I'd do it again.'

'Is it because the women are Bosnian? Muslim?' She made a sound he thought was a chuckle. 'It doesn't matter who the women are. Were. They're dead now, so it makes no difference to them what happens, poor things.' She thought about his question for a moment. 'No, that didn't make any difference.' She took her eyes fiom the road and looked at him. 'People talk about humanity and crimes against humanity, commissario. The newspapers are filled with editorials, and politicians talk and talk and talk. And no one does anything. All we get is talk and n.o.ble sentiments, and still things like this go on; women get raped and murdered, and now we make movies and watch it happening.' He heard her anger, but it made her speech slower, not faster.

'So I decided to stop them. Because nothing else would?

'You could have come to the police.' 'And what, commissario? Have them arrested for what? Is it a crime, what they were doing?'

Brunetti didn't know and was ashamed to admit it. is it?' she insisted.

'I don't know,' he finally said. 'But you could have exposed them and their business with the prost.i.tutes. That would have stopped them.'

She laughed out loud. 'How dull you are, commissario. I had no desire to stop the prost.i.tution, none at all. I make a very good living from that. Why would I want to stop it?'

'Because of what's done to the women, the same thing that happened to you.'

She spoke more quickly now, out of irritation, not anger, it would happen to them wherever they were. They'd be wh.o.r.es and victims in their own countries.'

'Aren't some of them killed?'

'What do you want me to do, commissario, tell you I'm taking vengeance for all the poor dead prost.i.tutes of the world? I'm not I'm trying to tell you why I did it. If they were arrested, everything would have come out. I would have been arrested, as well. And what would have happened? A few months in gaol while they waited for a trial, and then what? A fine? A year in gaol? Two? You think that's enough for what they did?'

Brunetti was too tired to argue ethics with this woman. 'How did you do it?' He'd settle for facts.

'I knew Trevisan and Favero were having dinner, and I knew which train Trevisan always took back. I took the same train. The first-cla.s.s carriages are always empty at the end of the trip, so it was very easy.'

'Did he recognize you?'

'I don't know. It was all very fast.'

'Where did you get the gun?'

'A friend,' was the only explanation she gave.

'And Favero?'

'During the dinner, he went to the bathroom, and I put barbiturates in his wine. Vin Santo. I made him order a half-bottle after dinner because it was sweet and I knew it would cover the taste.'

'And at his house?'

'He was supposed to drive me to the railway station so I could get a train back to Venice. But, halfway there, he fell asleep at a red light I pulled him over and changed seats, then drove the car back to his house. He had one of those automatic door openers for the garage, so I opened the door, drove in and left the motor running, then pulled him back under the wheel and hit the b.u.t.ton to close the door. I ran out of the garage as it was closing.' 'Lotto?'

'He called me and said he was worried, wanted to talk to me about what was happening.' Brunetti watched her profile as it appeared and disappeared in the light of the infrequent cars that pa.s.sed them. Her face remained calm through all of this, 'I told him it would be better if we talked out of the city, so he agreed to meet me in Dolo. I told him I had some business on the mainland and would meet him on that back road in Dolo. I got there eady, and when he pulled up, I got out of my car and into his. He was in a panic He thought his sister had killed Trevisan and Favero, and he wanted to know if I thought so, too. He was afraid she was going to kill him. So all of the business would be hers. And her lover's.'

She pulled off to the side of the road and waited for a car behind them to pa.s.s. When it did, she made a U-turn and headed back the way they had come.

'I told him he could be sure there was nothing to fear from his sister. He seemed relieved to hear that. I don't remember how many times I shot him. Then I got back in my own car and drove back to Piazzale Roma.'

'The gun?' he asked.

'It's still in my apartment. I didn't want to throw it away until I'd finished with it' 'What do you mean?'

She glanced at him. 'The others.' 'What others?'

She didn't answer, shook her head in a negation he sensed was absolute.

'Didn't you think that, sooner or later, you'd be found?'

'I don't know. I didn't think about that. But then you came to the agency and I told you I didn't drive, and then I started to think about all the other things, aside from the gla.s.ses, I had done that were wrong. I suppose people saw me on the train, and the man in the garage knew I was out in my car the night Lotto died. And then tonight, I knew it was over. I thought I could get away. Well,' she added, 'I don't know if I thought it so much as I hoped it.'

Some time pa.s.sed, and then Brunetti was aware of pa.s.sing the first villa he had seen, though it was on his side of the road now. Suddenly she broke the silence. They'll kill me, you know.'

He had been half asleep in the warmth of the car and the unaccustomed motion. 'What?' he asked, shaking his head and sitting up straight in his seat.

'Once they know I've been arrested, once they know I killed them, they'll have no choice but to eliminate me.'

'I don't understand,' Brunetti said. 'I know who they are, at least some of them, the ones I didn't kill. And they'll make sure I don't talk.' 'Who?'

'The men who make the tapes - Trevisan wasn't the only one - and run the prost.i.tutes. No, not the little men on the street, the ones who push them around and collect the money. I know the men who run the whole thing, the import-export in women. Only there's not a lot of export, is there, aside from the tapes? I don't know who they all are, but I know enough of them.'

'Who are they?' Brunetti asked, thinking of the Mafia and men with moustaches and southern accents.

She named the Mayor of a large town in Lombardy and the President of a large pharmaceutical company. When he whipped his head around to stare at her, she smiled a grim smile and added the name of one of the a.s.sistant Ministers of Justice. This is a multinational business, commissario. We're not talking about two old men who sit in a bar, drinking cheap wine and talking about wh.o.r.es; we're talking about boardrooms and yachts and private planes and orders that go back and form by fax and cellular phone. These are men who have real power. How do you think they managed to get rid of the notes of Favero's autopsy?'

'How do you know that?' Brunetti demanded.

'Lotto told me. They didn't want anyone looking into Favero's death. Too many people are involved. I don't know all their names, but I know enough of them.' Her smile disappeared. "That's why they'll kill me.'

'We'll put you in protective custody,' Brunetti said, brain leaping ahead to the details.

'Like Sindona?' she asked sarcastically. 'How many guards did he have in prison, and video cameras on him twenty-four hours a day? And still they got poison into his coffee. How long do you think I'll last?'

That won't happen,' Brunetd said hody, and then it occurred to him that he had no reason to believe this. He knew that she had killed the three men; yes, but all the rest remained to be proven, especially all this talk of danger and plots to kill her.

Some sort of emotional radar pa.s.sed the change in his mood to her, and she stopped talking. They drove on through the night, and Bruhetti turned to watch the lights reflected on the ca.n.a.l on his right.

The next thing he knew, she was shaking him by the shoulder, and when he opened his eyes, he saw a wall direcdy in front of him. Instinctively, he raised his arms to cover his face and pulled his head down on to his chest. But there was no impact, no sound. The car was motionless, the motor silent.