going through him. So we took him to the door, calling him “Signore” and being extra-polite to him, the way we have to be, and then we waited until he walked away.’
‘And then?’
‘And then we went back and put him on the list.’
‘The list?’
‘The list of people who can’t come back. If they behave like that, or if someone in their family calls up and gives their name and tells us not to let them in, then we bar them.’ Again, that shrug. ‘Not that it makes any difference. They can go to Campione, to Jesolo, or there’s plenty of houses here in the city where they can gamble, especially since the Chinese got here. But at least we got rid of him.’
‘How long ago did this happen?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I don’t remember exactly: the date should be there,’ he said, pointing to the paper on the desk: ‘Yes, the twentieth of November.’
‘What about the one who was with him?’
‘I didn’t know at the time that they had come in together. I was told, later, when I went down to bar him. I don’t remember seeing the other guy.’
‘Is he barred, too?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No reason to do it,’ Vasco said.
‘May I take these?’ Brunetti asked, indicating the photocopies.
‘Of course. I told you I owed you a favour.’
‘Would you do me another one?’ Brunetti asked.
‘If I can.’
‘Lift the ban on him and call me if he comes in.’
‘If you give me your phone number, I will,’ Vasco replied. ‘I’ll tell the girls at the desk to call you if I’m not here.’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti said and then thought to ask, ‘You think they can be trusted? If they think the guy is so attractive?’
Vasco’s smile bloomed. ‘I told them it was you who arrested those two shits upstairs. You can trust them with anything now.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Besides,’ Vasco said, picking up the papers and handing them to Brunetti, ‘they’re gamblers: none of the girls would touch either of them with a boathook.’
13
The next morning, Brunetti went into Signorina Elettra’s office carrying the photocopies. As if in visual harmony with the papers, she was wearing black and white, a pair of what looked like black Levi’s – though black Levi’s that had spent some time in a tailor’s hands – and a turtleneck so white it made him nervous that there might be some latent smudge on the documents. She studied the copies of the passport photos of the two men, looking back and forth from one to the other, and finally said, ‘Handsome devils, aren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered, wondering why it seemed to be every woman’s first reaction to these men. Perhaps they were good looking, but one of them was suspected of being involved in a murder, and the only thing women had to say about them was that they were good looking. It was enough to make a man question his belief in the basic good sense of women. His better self prevented him from adding to the list of charges the fact that they were from the South and one of them, at least, had the surname of a well-known Camorra family.
‘I wondered if you had access, or could have access, to the files of the Ministry of the Interior,’ Brunetti said with the calm of the habitual criminal. ‘The passport files.’
Signorina Elettra held the photos to the light, glancing more closely at them. ‘It’s hard to tell from a copy if the passports are real or not,’ she said with the calm of someone familiar with the work of habitual criminals.
‘No hotline to the Minister’s office?’ he asked with false jocularity.
‘Unfortunately, no,’ she answered, straight faced. Absently, she picked up a pencil and put its point on the desk, ran her fingers down the sides, flipped it over, and repeated the motion a few times, then let it fall to her desk. ‘I’ll start with the Passport Office,’ she said, just as if their files stood to her left, and all she had to do was leaf through them. Her hand reached out, as if by its own will, to the pencil, and this time she tapped the eraser against the photos and said, ‘If they are real, I’ll check our files to see what we have on them.’ As an afterthought, she asked, ‘When would you like to have this, Dottore?’
‘Yesterday?’ he asked.
‘Unlikely.’
‘Tomorrow?’ he suggested, deciding to play fair and not ask for today.
‘If these are their real names, I should have something by tomorrow. Or if they’ve used the