Navarro looked embarrassed by such easy gratitude. 'I live just around the corner. Really.'
'Your nephew is a good boy,' Brunetti said. 'We're lucky to have him.'
This time, it was praise that made Navarro glance away in embarrassment. When he looked back, his face had softened, even grown sweet. 'He's my sister's boy,' he explained. 'Yes, a good boy'
'As I suppose he's told you’ Brunetti said as they seated themselves, 'we'd like to ask you about some of the people out here.'
'He told me. You want to know about De Cal?'
Before Brunetti could answer, a waiter came to the table. He had no pen or order pad, rattled off the menu and asked them what they'd like.
Navarro said the men were friends of his, which caused the waiter to recite the menu again, slowly, with comments, even with recommendations.
They ended up asking for spaghetti with vongole. The waiter winked to suggest that they had been dredged up, perhaps illegally, but definitely in the laguna, the night before. Brunetti
had never much liked liver, so he asked for a grilled rombo, while Vianello and Navarro both asked for coda di rospo.
'Patate bollite?' the waiter asked before he walked away.
They all said yes.
Without asking, the waiter was soon back with a litre of mineral water and one of white wine, which he set down on their table before going into the kitchen, where they could hear him shouting out their order.
As if there had been no interruption, Brunetti asked, 'What do you know about him? Do you work for him?'
'No’ Navarro answered, obviously surprised by the question. 'But I know him. Everyone here does. He's a bastard.' Navarro tore open a package of grissini. He put one in his mouth and nibbled it right down to the bottom, like a cartoon rabbit eating a carrot.
'You mean in the sense that he's difficult to work with?' Brunetti asked.
'You said it. He's had two maestri now for about two years: longest he's ever kept any of them, far as I know.'
'Why is that?' asked Vianello, pouring wine for all of them.
'Because he's a bastard.' Even Navarro sensed the circularity of his argument and so added, 'He'll try anything to cheat you.'
'Could you give us an example?' Brunetti asked.
This seemed to stump Navarro for a moment, as though a request to supply evidence to support a judgement were a novelty for him. He drank a glass of wine, filled his glass and drank another, then ate two more grissini. Finally he said, 'He'll always hire garzoni and let them go before they can become serventi so he won't have to pay them more. He'll keep them for a year or so, working off the books or working with two-month contracts, but then when it's time for them to move up, and get more money, he fires them. Invents some reason to get rid of them, and hires new ones.'
'How long can he go on doing this?' Vianello asked.
Navarro shrugged. 'So long as there are boys who need jobs, he can probably go on doing it for ever.'
'What else?'
'He argues and fights.'
'With?' Vianello asked.
'Suppliers, workers, the guys on the boats who bring the sand or the guys on the boats who take the glass away. If there's money involved— and there's money involved in all of this—then he'll argue with them.'
'I've heard about a fight in a bar a couple of years ago . . .' Brunetti began and let his voice drop away.
'Oh that’ Navarro said. 'It's probably the one time the old bastard didn't start it. Some guy said something he didn't like and De Cal said something back, and the guy hit him. I wasn't there, but my brother was. Believe me, he hates De Cal more than I do, so if he said the old bastard didn't start it, then he didn't.'
'What about his daughter?' Brunetti asked.
Before Navarro could answer, the waiter brought their pasta and set the plates in front of them. Conversation stopped as the three men dug into the spaghetti. The waiter returned with three empty plates for the shells.
'Peperoncino,' Brunetti said, mouth full.
'Good, eh?' Navarro said.
Brunetti nodded, took a sip of wine, and returned to the spaghetti, which was better than good. He had to remember to tell Paola about the peperoncino, which was more than she used but still good.
When their plates were empty and the other plates full of shells, the waiter came and took them all away, asking if they had eaten well. Brunetti and Vianello said enthusiastic things: Navarro, a regular customer, was not obliged to comment.
Soon the waiter was back with a bowl of potatoes and the fish: Brunetti's was already filleted. Navarro asked for olive oil, and the waiter returned with a bottle of much better oil. All three poured it on their fish but not on the potatoes, which already sat in a pool of it at the bottom of the bowl. None of them spoke for some time.
While Vianello spooned the last of the potatoes from the bowl, Brunetti returned to his questions and asked, 'His daughter, do you know much about her?'
Navarro finished the wine and held up the empty carafe to get the waiter's attention. 'She's a good girl, but she married that engineer.'
Brunetti nodded. 'Do you know him or know anything about him?'
'He's an ecologist’ Navarro said, using the same sort of tone another person might use to identify a pederast or a kleptomaniac. It was meant to end discussion. Brunetti allowed it to pass and decided to play ignorant. 'Does he work here on Murano?' he asked.
'Ah, thank God, no,' Navarro said, taking the litre of white wine from the waiter's hand and filling all of their glasses. 'He works on the mainland somewhere, goes around looking for places where we'll still be allowed to put our garbage.' He drank a half-glass of wine, perhaps thought of Ribetti's professional duties, and finished the glass.
'We've got two perfectly good incinerators here, so why can't we just burn it all? Or if it's dangerous, just bury it somewhere in the countryside or ship it to Africa or China. Those people will let you pay for that. So why not do it? They've got all those open spaces, so just bury it there.'
Brunetti allowed himself a quick glance at Vianello, who was finishing the last of his potatoes. He set his knife and fork down on his plate and, as Brunetti feared he would, opened his mouth to speak to Navarro. 'If we built nuclear plants, then we could do the same thing with the waste from them, and then we wouldn't have to import all that electricity from Switzerland and France, either.' Vianello gave a manly smile, first to Navarro and then to Brunetti.
'Yes’ said Navarro. 'I hadn't thought about that, but it's a good idea.' Smiling, he turned back to Brunetti, 'What else did you want to know about De Cal?'
I've heard there's talk he wants to sell the fornace,' Vianello interrupted, now that Navarro had looked on him with approval.
'Yes. I've heard that, too’ Navarro said, not much interested. 'But there's always talk like that.' He shrugged off such talk, then added, 'Besides, if anyone buys it, it'll be Fasano. He's got the factory right alongside De Cal's, so if he bought it, he'd only have to join the two buildings together and he'd double his production.' Navarro thought about this possibility for a while and nodded.
'Fasano runs the Glassmakers' Association, doesn't he?' Vianello asked as the waiter arrived with another bowl of potatoes. Vianello let the waiter spoon a few onto his plate, but Navarro and Brunetti said no.
In answer to Vianello's question, Navarro smiled at the waiter and said, "That's what he does now, but who knows what he wants to become?' Hearing this, the waiter nodded and turned away.
Brunetti feared the conversation was veering away from De Cal, so he interrupted to say, 'I've heard there's been talk that De Cal's been threatening his son-in-law.'