Willful Behaviour by Donna Leon

Author:Donna Leon [Leon, Donna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780802128515
Google: vRpPtAEACAAJ
Amazon: B0043VDR02
Barnesnoble: B0043VDR02
Goodreads: 39027386
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

18

At home, Paola greeted him with the news that he’d had two calls from Marco Erizzo, asking that he call back as soon as possible. Beside the phone she had written the number of Marco’s telefonino, and Brunetti called it immediately, though he could see through the door that his family was already seated at the table, steam rising from their tagliatelle.

On the second ring, Marco answered with his name.

‘It’s me, Guido. What is it?’

‘Your men are looking for me,’ Marco said in an agitated voice. ‘But I’d rather you came and got me and took me in.’

Thinking that Marco had perhaps been watching too much television, Brunetti asked, ‘What are you talking about, Marco? ‘What men? What have you done?’

‘I told you what was happening, didn’t I?’

‘About the permits? Yes, you told me. Is that what this is about?’

‘Yes.’ There were noises in the background, a blast of static on the line. Brunetti asked when the line cleared, ‘What happened?’

‘It was the architect,’ Marco said. ‘That bastard. He was the one. The permits were ready three months ago, but he kept telling me they weren’t and that if we made some minor changes to the plans, maybe they’d finally approve them. And then, like I told you, he said someone in the Comune wanted thirty million lire. And all this time I was paying him for every new set of plans he drew up and for all the time he said he spent working for me.’ His voice stopped, cut off by rage.

‘How did you find out?’

‘I was having a drink with Angelo Costantini yesterday, and a friend of his came in, and when he introduced us, this guy recognized my name and said he works in the planning office and asked me when I was going to come in and pick up the permissions.’ He paused to allow Brunetti to express shock or disapproval, but Brunetti’s attention was devoted to his tagliatelle, now covered with an upended plate in what he hoped would be a successful attempt to keep them warm.

‘What did you do, Marco?’ he asked, his attention still distracted by his quickly cooling lunch.

‘I asked him what he was talking about, and he said that the architect told them—it must have been two months ago— that I wanted him to make some more changes to the plans so he needed to discuss them with me before he submitted the final drawings.’

‘But if they were already approved, why didn’t they just call you?’

‘They called the architect. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.’

Brunetti suddenly understood the reason for the call. ‘What happened?’

‘I went to his office this morning,’ Marco said, then stopped.

‘And what did you do?’

‘I told him what I’d heard, what the guy at the planning office told me.’

‘And then?’

‘Then he told me I must have misunderstood what he meant and that he’d go over there and straighten things out this morning.’ He heard Marco breathe deeply in an attempt to control his anger. ‘But I told him I knew what was going on and that he was fired.

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