Free Anonymous Venetian by Donna Leon Page A

the
pearl grey leather sofa nor the sleek mahogany table that stood beside it.
     
    The door to the other room
opened, and the heavy-set man came out, followed closely by another man a
decade younger and at least three sizes smaller than him.
     
    ‘That’s him,’ the one in the
sweater said, pointing to Brunetti.
     
    The younger man wore loose
pale-blue slacks and an open-necked white silk shirt. He walked across the room
towards Brunetti, who stood and asked, ‘Signor Francesco Crespo?’
     
    He came and stood in front of
Brunetti, but then instinct or professional training seemed to exert itself in
the presence of a man of Brunetti’s age and general appearance. He took a small
step closer, raised a hand in a delicate, splay-fingered gesture, and placed it
at the base of his throat. ‘Yes, what would you like?’ It was the higher tenor
voice Brunetti had heard through the door, but Crespo tried to make it deeper,
as if that would make it more interesting or seductive.
     
    Crespo was a bit shorter than
Brunetti and must have weighed ten kilos less. Either through coincidence or
design, his eyes were the same pale grey as the sofa; they stood out sharply in
the deep tan of his face. Had his features appeared on the face of a woman,
they would have been judged no more than conventionally pretty; the sharp
angularity conveyed by his masculinity made them beautiful.
     
    This time it was Brunetti who
took a small step away from the other man. He heard the other one snort at this
and turned to pick up the folder, which he had placed on the table beside him.
     
    ’Signor Crespo, I’d like you to
look at a picture of someone and tell me if you recognize him.’
     
    ‘I’d be glad to look at anything
you chose to show me,’ Crespo said, putting heavy emphasis on ‘you’ and moving
his hand inside the collar of his shirt to caress his neck.
     
    Brunetti opened the folder and
handed Crespo the artist’s drawing of the dead man. Crespo glanced down at it
for less than a second, looked up at Brunetti, smiled, and said, ‘I haven’t an
idea of who he could be.’ He held the picture out to Brunetti, who refused to
take it.
     
    ‘I’d like you to take a better
look at the picture, Signor Crespo.’
     
    ‘He told you he didn’t know him,’
the other one said from across the room.
     
    Brunetti ignored him. ‘The man
was beaten to death, and we need to find out who he was, so I’d appreciate it
if you’d take another look at him, Signor Crespo.’
     
    Crespo closed his eyes for a
moment and moved his hand to brush a wayward curl behind his left ear. ‘If you
insist,’ he said, looking down at the picture again. He bowed his head down
over the drawing and, this time, looked at the face pictured there. Brunetti
couldn’t see his eyes, but he did watch his hand suddenly move away from his
ear and move towards his neck again, this time with no attempt at
flirtatiousness.
     
    A second later, he looked up at
Brunetti, smiled sweetly, and said, ‘I’ve never seen him before, officer.’
     
    ‘Are you satisfied?’ the other
one asked and took a step towards the door.
     
    Brunetti took the drawing that
Crespo held out to him and slipped it back into the folder. ‘That’s only an
artist’s guess of what he looked like, Signor Crespo. I’d like you to look at a
photograph of him, if you don’t mind.’
     
    Brunetti smiled his most
seductive smile, and Crespo’s hand flew, with a swallow-like flutter, back to
the soft hollow between his collar bones. ‘Of course, officer. Anything you
suggest. Anything.’
     
    Brunetti smiled and reached to
the bottom of the thin pile of photos in the folder. He took one out and
studied it for an instant. One would serve as well as the next. He looked at
Crespo, who had again closed the distance between them. ‘There is a possibility
that he was killed by a man who was paying for his services. That means men
like him might be at risk from the same person.’ He