A Venetian Reckoning (35 page)

'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
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, shifted 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 passports. Well, if they
had passports. 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 noble 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 prostitutes. That would
have stopped them.'

She laughed out loud. 'How dull you
are, commissario. I had no desire to stop the prostitution, 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
whores 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 prostitutes 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-class 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 button 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 passed 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 pass. 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 glasses, 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 passed, and then Brunetti
was aware of passing 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?'