Donna Leon: Anonymous Venetian aka Dressed for Death

‘Cazzo ,’ he exclaimed and let the grass spring back into place.

‘What’s the matter?’ the other one asked.

‘It’s a man.’

Ordinarily, the news that a transvestite prostitute had been found in Marghera with his head and face beaten in would have created a sensation even among the jaded staff at the Venice Questura, especially during the long Ferragosto holiday, when crime tended to drop off or take on the boring predictability of burglaries and break-ins. But today it would have taken something far more lurid to displace the spectacular news that ran like flame through the corridors of the Questura: Maria Lucrezia Patta, wife of Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta, had that weekend left her husband of twenty-seven years to take up residence in the Milano apartment of – and here each teller of the tale paused to prepare each new listener for the bombshell – Tito Burrasca, the founding light and prime mover of Italy’s pornographic film industry.

The news had dropped from heaven upon the place beneath just that morning, carried into the building by a secretary in the Ufficio Stranieri, whose uncle lived in a small apartment on the floor above the Pattas and who claimed to have been passing the Pattas’ door just at the moment when terminal hostilities between the Pattas had erupted. Patta, the uncle reported, had shouted Burrasca’s name a number of times, threatening to have him arrested if he ever dared come to Venice; Signora Patta had returned fire by threatening not only to go and live with Burrasca, but to star in his next film. The uncle had retreated up the steps and spent the next half hour trying to open his own front door, during which time the Pattas continued to exchange threats and recriminations. Hostilities ceased only with the arrival of a water taxi at the end of the calle and the departure of Signora Patta, who was followed down the steps of the building by six suitcases, carried by the taxi driver, and by the curses of Patta, carried up to the uncle by the funnel-like acoustics of the staircase.

The news had arrived at eight on Monday morning; Patta followed it into the Questura at eleven. At one-thirty, the call came in about the transvestite, but by then most of the staff had already left for lunch, during which meal some employees of the Questura engaged in quite wild speculation about Signora Patta’s future film career. An indication of the Vice-Questore’s popularity was the bet that was made at one table, offering a hundred thousand lire to the first person who dared to enquire of the Vice-Questore as to his wife’s health.

Guido Brunetti first heard about the murdered transvestite from Vice-Questore Patta himself, who called Brunetti into his office at two-thirty.

‘I’ve just had a call from Mestre,’ Patta said after telling Brunetti to take a seat.

‘Mestre, sir?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes, that city at the end of the Ponte della Liberta,’ Patta snapped. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard of it.’

Brunetti thought of what he had learned about Patta that morning and decided to ignore his remark. ‘Why did they call you, sir?’

‘They’ve got a murder over there and no one to investigate.’

‘But they’ve got more staff than we have, sir,’ Brunetti said, never quite certain just how much Patta knew about the workings of the police force in either city.

‘I know that, Brunetti. But two of their commissarios are on vacation. Another broke his leg in an automobile accident this weekend, so that leaves only one, and she’ – Patta managed to give a snort of disgust at such a possibility – ‘leaves for maternity leave on Saturday and won’t be back until the end of February.’

‘What about the two who are on vacation? Surely they can be called back.’

‘One of them is in Brazil, and no one seems able to find the other one.’

Brunetti started to say that a commissario had to leave word where he could be reached, no matter where he went on vacation, but then he looked at Patta’s face and decided, instead, to ask, ‘What did they tell you about the murder, sir?’

‘It’s a whore. A transvestite. Someone beat his head in and left his body in a field out in Marghera.’ Before Brunetti could object, Patta said, ‘Don’t even ask. The field is in Marghera, but the slaughterhouse that owns it is in Mestre, just by a few metres, so Mestre gets it.’

Brunetti had no desire to waste time on the details of property rights or city boundaries, so he asked, ‘How do they know it’s a prostitute, sir?’

‘I don’t know how they know it’s a prostitute, Brunetti,’ Patta said, his voice going up a few notes. ‘I’m telling you what they told me. A transvestite prostitute, in a dress, with his head and face beaten in.’

‘When was he found, sir?’

It was not Patta’s habit to take notes, so he had not bothered to make any record of the call he had received. The facts hadn’t interested him – one whore more, one whore less – but he was bothered by the fact that it would be his staff doing Mestre’s work. That meant any success they met with would go to Mestre. But then he thought of recent events in his personal life and came to the decision that this might well be the sort of case he should let Mestre take any and all credit for – and publicity.

‘I had a call from their Questore, asking if we could handle it. What are you three doing?’

‘Mariani is on vacation and Rossi’s still going through the papers on the Bortolozzi case,’ Brunetti explained.

‘And you?’

‘I’m scheduled to begin my vacation this weekend, Vice-Questore.’

‘That can wait,’ Patta said with a certainty that soared above things like hotel reservations or plane tickets. ‘Besides, this has got to be a simple thing. Find the pimp, get a list of customers. It’s bound to be one of them.’

‘Do they have pimps, sir?’

‘Whores? Of course they have pimps.’

‘Male whores, sir? Transvestite whores? Assuming, of course, that he was a prostitute.’

‘Why would you expect me to know a thing like that, Brunetti?’ asked Patta, suspicious with more than usual irritation, again forcing Brunetti to remember that morning’s first news and quickly to change the subject.

‘How long ago did the call come in, sir?’ Brunetti asked.

‘A few hours ago. Why?’

‘I wondered if the body’s been moved?’

‘In this heat?’ Patta asked.

‘Yes, there is that,’ Brunetti agreed. ‘Where was it taken?’

‘I have no idea. One of the hospitals. Umberto Primo, probably. I think that’s where they do the autopsies. Why?’

‘I’d like to have a look,’ Brunetti said. ‘And at the place where it happened.’

Patta wasn’t a man to be interested in details. ‘Since this is Mestre’s case, make sure you use their drivers, not ours.’ Some details.

‘Was there anything else, sir?’

‘No. I’m sure this will be a simple thing. You’ll have it wrapped up by the weekend and be free to go on vacation.’ It was like Patta that he asked nothing about where Brunetti planned to go or what sort of reservations he might have to cancel. More details.

Leaving Patta’s office, Brunetti noticed that, while he was inside, furniture had suddenly appeared in the small anteroom that stood directly outside Patta’s office. A large wooden desk stood on one side, and a small table had been placed below the window. Ignoring this, he went downstairs and into the office where the uniformed branch worked. Sergeant Vianello looked up from some papers on his desk and smiled at Brunetti. ‘Even before you ask, Commissario, yes, it’s true. Tito Burrasca.’

Hearing the confirmation, Brunetti was no less astonished than he had been, hours before, when he first heard the story. Burrasca was a legend, if that was the proper word, in Italy. He had begun making films during the sixties, blood and guts horrors that were so patently artificial that they became unconscious parodies of the genre. Burrasca, not at all foolish, no matter how inept he might have been at making horror films, answered the popular response to his films by making the films even more false: vampires with wrist-watches that the actors seemed to have forgotten to remove; telephones that brought the news of Dracula’s escape; actors of the semaphore school of dramatic presentation. After a very short time, he had become a cult figure and people flocked to his films, eager to detect the artifice, to spot the howlers.