Brunetti shook his head. ‘Not
since the government closed the brothels. There are a few, but they work the
hotels and don’t cause us any trouble.’
‘Here we have them in
front of the station, but I think times are bad for some of them. There are too
many women today who are willing to give it away,’ Ambrogiani volunteered, then
added, ‘for love.’
Brunetti’s daughter had
just turned thirteen, so he didn’t want to think about what young women would
give away for love. ‘Can I talk to the Americans?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I think so,’
Ambrogiani answered then reached for the phone. ‘We’ll tell them you’re the
Chief of Police for Venice. They’ll like that rank, so they’ll talk to you.’ He
dialled a number with easy familiarity and, while he waited for a response,
pulled the file back towards him. Rather fussily, he lined up the few papers in
the file and placed it squarely in front of him.
He spoke into the
telephone in heavily-accented, but correct, English. ‘Good afternoon, Tiffany.
This is Major Ambrogiani. Is the Major there? What? Yes, I’ll wait.’ He put his
hand over the mouthpiece and held the phone away from his ear. ‘He’s in
conference. Americans seem to live in conference.’
‘Could it be . . .’
Brunetti began but stopped when Ambrogiani pulled his hand away.
‘Yes, thank you. Good
morning, Major Butterworth.’ The name had been in the file, but when Ambrogiani
said it, it sounded like ‘Budderword’.
‘Yes, Major. I have the
Chief of the Venice police here with me now. Yes, we brought him out by
helicopter for the day.’ A long pause followed. ‘No, he can spare us only
today.’ He looked down at his watch. ‘In twenty minutes? Yes, he’ll be there.
No, I’m sorry, but I can’t, Major. I have to be in conference. Yes, thank you.’
He set the phone down, placed his pencil in a neat diagonal across the cover of
the file, and said, ‘He’ll see you in twenty minutes.’
‘And your conference?’
Brunetti asked.
Ambrogiani dismissed the
idea with a wave of the hand. ‘It’ll just be a waste of time. If they do know
anything, they won’t tell you, and if they don’t know anything, then they can’t.
So there’s no reason I should waste my time by going.’ Changing the topic, he
asked, ‘How’s your English?’
‘All right.’
‘Good, that’ll make it
much easier.’
‘Who is he, this major?’
Ambrogiani repeated the
name, again gliding over all of the sharper consonants. ‘He’s their liaison
officer. Or, as they say, he “liaises”‘ - he used the English word - ‘between
them and us.’ Both grinned at the ease with which English allowed its speakers
to turn a noun into a verb, a familiarity which Italian would certainly not
permit.
‘Of what does this “liaising”
consist?’
‘Oh, if we have problems,
he comes to us, or he goes the other way, if they have problems.’
‘What sort of problems?’
‘If anyone tries to get
in at the gate without the proper identification. Or if we break their traffic
rules. Or if they ask a Carabiniere why he’s buying ten kilos of beef at their
supermarket. Things like that.’
‘Supermarket?’ Brunetti
asked with real surprise.
‘Yes, supermarket. And
bowling alley’ - he used the English word - ‘and cinema, and even a Burger King’
- the name was said without a trace of an accent.
Fascinated, Brunetti
repeated the words ‘Burger King’ with the same tone with which a child might
say ‘pony’ if promised one.
Hearing him, Ambrogiani
laughed. ‘It’s remarkable, isn’t it? There’s a whole little world here, one that
has nothing to do with Italy.’ He gestured out of his window. ‘Out there lies
America, Commissario. It’s what we’re all going to become, I think.’ After a
short pause, he repeated, ‘America.’
That was
Similar Books
