“Here it is,” he said and opened the door.
“Amazing!” she breathed and stepped inside. She looked around turning in a complete circle to take in the room and all its furnishings; the leather on the ceiling, the subtle lighting, the cabinets with their valuable adornments, just everything. “And a round bed!” She sat down on it. On this ridiculous, giant round bed that looked like a playground for some Arab prince. She stretched out on it and lolled around in the silk covers. John’s jaw was at its lowest possible position as he watched her.
She stopped and lifted her head, looking at him with a mysterious expression. She reached behind her back and undid her bikini top. John could only stare. Every fiber in his body was glowing from the sun. Or was it desire? Hard to say. When was the last time he was in bed with a woman? A long time … months!
“What …” he uttered and wet his lips, and then he tried again, with a dry and weak voice. “What are you doing?”
She kept her eyes on him and dropped on her back. She pulled her bikini bottom over her thighs, knees, ankles — and off.
John’s heart was pounding in his chest, and blood rushed to his head — though less so than other parts of his body. The thought that had gone through his mind before, about being set-up, was barely there anymore — subdued beneath pounding boiling blood. There she lay with her long legs, long hair, naked and desirable. To hell with Eduardo and his games. To hell with it. This was all rehearsed, honed, and recited. And how she was lolling around, the way she was looking at him, and the way she smelled of the sun, of salt from the sea and suntan lotion. And how she glistened, there, where she opened her legs.
To hell with it, John thought and pulled his trunks off.
$13,000,000,000,000
HE WAS DREAMING that his bed was swaying, and when he awoke with sticky eyes it was still gently swaying. His great round bed. John sat up and realized that he was still on his ship. The bare arm beside him, and the black hair spread out over the white satin sheets like an octopus’ tentacles proved that what he remembered had not been a dream.
The motion of him sitting up had woken her. She looked at him with her unfathomable green eyes. “Buongiorno,” she mumbled with a sleepy voice.
“Buongiorno,” John answered scantily, still trying to clear his head. He turned to the side, reached for the phone on the bed’s edge and dialed the bridge.
“Broussard, where are we?” he asked the captain.
“The same place we anchored yesterday, sir,” he answered.
Was he imagining things or did the Frenchman sound more respectful than usual? He’s impressed because he knows that I slept with Constantina, John suspected. He turned and looked at her. She was half up, leaning on an elbow, her breasts hanging pertly in the way that took a man’s breath away. She looked like an invitation to repeat what they had done last night; to get into her until he was exhausted. He could. And why not? This was his realm and he was its absolute ruler. He was the one who decided what should or should not happen here.
“Broussard?”
“Yes, sir?”
His tongue almost refused to move, feeling like treason to go against his body’s desire. “Set course back to Portecéto.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
He saw astonishment in Constantina’s expression, even pain almost as he hung up the phone. “Don’t you like me?” she asked in a soft voice. Her breasts moved a little to the side. It was a sight that electrified his whole body. He had to look away.
“Sure,” he said awkwardly. “I like you. I think you are amazingly sexy and more exciting than any other woman I’ve ever seen. The problem is,” he fixed her eyes again, “that I don’t love you.”
She looked confused.
“I don’t love you,” he repeated. “Not in the least. It was a great time and all, absolutely, but this morning I woke up with a feeling of having done something wrong. I don’t want to wake up like that. Do you understand me?”
Constantina pulled the sheet up over her breasts and nodded. “Yes.” She studied his face. “I didn’t know that men exist where this would matter.”
John sighed. “I only found out today,” he said.
The move into his new home went without a hitch. All John had to do was to pack all his papers into a briefcase; everything else was taken care of by the moving company. He said his good-byes to everyone at the Vacchi’s estate and graciously accepted a few well-intentional pieces of advice from the Padrone, affectionate wishes from Alberto, and not so affectionate, but doubtless sincere wishes from Gregorio. Eduardo would go with him. He wanted to organize the moving-in party. John promised he’d pay someone to kick Eduardo’s ass if he ever tried something like Constantina again.
The men with the shoulder rigs and guard dogs moved with him to Portecéto. The armed bodyguards made the delivery people feel nervous when they arrived to deliver the supplies and prepare for the party.
It was hard to tell if the interior decorator was nervous about the security guards or getting John’s approval of her work. At any rate, her hands clamped onto her clipboard during the inspection of the house as if it were a matter of life or death. She showed John everything, and he liked it all. The large room with the swimming pool down below, from where you could look out to the sea, had a whirlpool built in. It had an electrically operated partition that could change the area into a calm private room. The numerous guest bedrooms were each done in different styles. One bedroom was like a New England cottage, while the next one was kept in a modern Italian fashion, and the one after that had a far eastern Zen vibe. The kitchen gleamed with stainless steel, the dining room was appealing, and the salon’s view was majestic.
One could literally feel a weight being lifted off of the interior architect with every satisfied nod that John made. After he signed the documents of acceptance and said good-bye to her, Jeremy appeared as if out of nowhere. He offered John to introduce him to the house personnel, in case John had time for this.
“I do,” John said with a nod.
Jeremy was an original English butler. Actually, he was a Spaniard, and the first name in his passport read Javier. But since he had attended the Ivor Spencer International School for Butler Administrators, he could act more British than the Prince Consort himself. Eduardo had found him, and John was impressed by him. He hired him on the spot and left it up to Jeremy to find and hire the rest of the personnel, who would be working under his supervision.
John was introduced to Gustave, a former chef in a French hotel who also happened to always be in a good mood. Sofia, the housekeeper, was from Naples and had worked only for royalty thus far in her career, she told him. There was Francesca, the chambermaid. She was pale and petite and could barely look him in the eye, smiling only for one brief second. Finally, there was the gardener, who was unusual because woman filled the position. Her name was Maria and she took care of a few other gardens in the area, and she lived in her own place in the center of Portecéto, which was very convenient because, other than the guards’ gatehouse cabin, there were only enough apartments for four house employees.
“Wonderful,” John said smiling and wishing he could get rid of the feeling of being an actor playing the role of a rich man.
Someone had put the cartons with his New York possessions into his bedroom. He had almost forgotten all about them. He heaved the top box off the stack and ripped the tape off. Amused, he took out some kitchen utensils that he had used for a few years and now, after being rich for just a few weeks, it all seemed like worthless crap. The designs on the plates were garish and looked cheap, the silverware was practically pressed sheet metal, and the cups were chipped and had awful looking designs. The pots were cheap and beaten and burnt, not even good enough to be used as feeding bowls for dogs. The effort of shipping this garbage across the Atlantic had been a wasted one.
He put the carton away, out of sight; it’s the past. But then he lifted another lid and took out a plate and looked at it as if it were an arche
ological relic. How could it be that this plate had been good enough for him for years, and was now just the thought of having to eat from it was revolting? What was happening to him? If now he was in a situation that didn’t allow him to go back, go back to where he came from, then he had become a prisoner, a captive of wealth, dependent on luxury and money. Would he sell his soul if it meant never having to eat pork and beans from a can again?
He put the plate away and opened one of the other cartons; there were not many. His entire life’s possessions, collected in twenty-eight years of life, it all could easily fit in the bed of a pickup truck. There was some painting equipment: dried paint in messy cans, paintbrushes with bristles as hard a rock after not being washed out, empty glass bottles that used to contain turpentine, long since evaporated, a canvas with an unfinished sketch on it, and, hey, a box of unused oil paints! Where did they come from?
He could have the cartons put into the cellar. Who knows what the future had in store for him? Maybe all this magnificence would be gone one day, and then he could load this old but paid for stuff into a car and drive away without debts or responsibilities.
Exactly! That’s what he’d do.
His books should be somewhere here. He could use them now. And his address book too. The box with his letters, and there was the other one with photos. He dug through the boxes, which were carefully packed but not systematically. It was a weird feeling to dig out his old jeans or the worn-out sneakers, the red-and-black-checkered shirt he had bought for three dollars in a second-hand store. He had sewn on some of the missing buttons himself after Sarah had shown him how it was done. His mother had patched the sleeves; the patches were barely visible.
Thus John dug out of the boxes one memory after another; until Eduardo burst unexpectedly into his room.
“Hey, here you are,” he said in a party mood. “What’s wrong? Do you want to hide here the whole day with your old junk? Your guests are waiting!” The sound of music came from the first floor along with the clinking of glasses, laughter, and the cackle of people talking.
His guests? They were really Eduardo’s guests. He had invited them all: young artists, young business people, young university lecturers. John didn’t know a single soul there, except for Constantina, and he already saw her flirting in the garden with a dark dressed man, and that was more of her than he really wanted to see anyway.
“Yeah,” John said. “Maybe I’ll do that — hide here the whole day.”
“No, no, you won’t. That’s your party, man! Those are your guests. They’re plundering your fridge and demolishing your house. You should at least go down there and say hello. Who knows; maybe you’ll meet someone who’s worth meeting.”
“But I’m not in a party mood right now.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. Whose idea was this anyhow? Who said, ‘Eduardo, let’s throw a housewarming party’?”
“Yeah, I know. It was a mistake. All this partying … that’s not what this prophecy is about.”
Eduardo looked at John with a sour expression as if he had dropped an anvil on his foot. “Boy!” he uttered and rolled his eyes. “What are you going on about?” He threatened John with his half full champagne glass. “I know what’s the matter: you’re infected. The Vacchi virus got you full on.”
“Just because I want to do something else with my life instead of being a jet-set playboy?”
Eduardo gestured with his glass, spilling a few drops. “Enough now,” he commanded. “I’ll give you a half hour to get changed and to come down in a good mood. Otherwise, I’ll send Constantina up here to get you.” He giggled at the idea and closed the door, leaving John behind in blissful peace.
After Marvin landed at Florence airport and had finally got through passport control, he found the driver John had hired to pick him up. He fumbled around in his pocket and felt for John’s pocket watch. Since getting John’s watch back from the pawnshop only cost fifty dollars, he had plenty of cash left over, despite the money he had spent on other necessities along the way.
They drove along the highway for a while, and then endlessly along country roads that wound through the hilly landscape. It was all pretty nice, but Marvin wondered how such roads could be built. It was a nightmare for him every time another vehicle came their way, and when they drove through the villages he had the feeling that they were going through the people’s living rooms. Europe! The continent of dollhouses!
It seemed like a hundred years later when the thin blue band of the sea appeared, shimmering in the distance. They went up a gently sloping hill, and then they drove honking through an ancient little town with a harbor filled with luxury yachts. Five minutes later they got to a neighborhood with a bunch of mansions, and as was to be expected, the car stopped in front of the biggest one.
Marvin handed the driver a twenty dollar bill as a tip, took his bag, and ambled over to the house. There were a bunch of vehicles parked in the driveway, all luxury cars. They must belong to the guests of the party John had told him about on the phone. He got there right on time. He would show them money bags how to party hard!
Suddenly a sort of living cabinet blocked his way and talked to him in Italian at machine gun speed.
“Non capisco,” Marvin told him. “Sono Americano!”
“Who are you?” the big guy asked in fluent English. “And what do you want here?”
Marvin put the bag over his other shoulder and took a step back to see this big guy better. “Copeland,” he told the guard, “my name is Marvin Copeland. I’ve just arrived from New York, and if this is John Fontanelli’s mansion then I’m being expected by him personally, and this with great yearning.” Since the mountain of meat still didn’t want to drop on his knees in awe, Marvin added: “I happen to be his best friend.”
“Do you have an ID?”
“Sure do.” Since John got in touch with Marvin, he had had to identify himself more often than ever before in the past ten years. He held the passport under the giant’s nose, who then put a walkie-talkie up to his mouth and spoke in Italian to someone. Marvin heard his name being mentioned among the other gibberish.
“Okay,” the cabinet finally said and stepped out of the way. “You’re expected. Just go straight ahead through the front door.”
“Thanks,” Marvin said. “Thanks a mil, and keep a keen watch out here.”
He saw the first few guests from out in the foyer, bunches of them. They were dressed as if they were in a fashion show, especially the women. He was going to stick out like a sore thumb dressed in his not so nice jeans and his by now quite rank tee-shirt! Hopefully they didn’t gobble up the whole buffet yet! But there didn’t seem to be a great party atmosphere here at all. There was no music, and everyone just stood around looking glum. From Marvin’s vantage point coming up the driveway, the party looked more like some post funeral get-together. Well, he was being expected, so in he went.
A young smartly dressed dude who seemed to be a bit confused came over to him as he stepped into the foyer, took his hand and shook it. “Eduardo Vacchi,” he introduced himself. “I’m Mr. Fontanelli’s lawyer.”
“That’s one thing he can sorely use, from what I hear these days,” Marvin told him. “I’m Marvin Copeland. I’m John’s friend from New York.”
“Yes, I remember. John mentioned you.”
“Great. Where is he? I’d like to say hello.”
“Well, you see …” Eduardo seemed to be feeling a bit uncomfortable. He unconsciously put a finger in his collar and pulled around on it a bit, scratched his neck, and looked around some, as if he was being stalked. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit for that.”
“Did I have to make an appointment from New York, or what? I mean, he flew me over here.”
“No. We have just found out that John has disappeared and no one knows where to.”
After the half hour was over, Eduardo got the entire crowd to chant, “John! John! John!” and then, fired up by the throng, he and Constantina we
nt up the stairs in an attempt to yank him out of his room together. But, when they opened the door there was no one inside. Most of the guests thought that this was a successfully executed party gag, and enthusiastically joined in to search for him throughout the house and out in the garden too. But as they saw the bodyguards talking constantly into their radios with grim expressions, they realized that this was no gag. John’s Ferrari was gone too. Now everyone knew that this was serious.
“How can the Ferrari just disappear?” Eduardo wanted to know. “It was parked in the driveway on guarded grounds.”
Marco had fine beads of sweat on his forehead. “One of my men saw him being driven out about twenty minutes ago. He said that someone from the catering service was sitting behind the steering wheel. One of the waiters.”
“And? Was it one of them? Is one of them missing?”
“That’s being checked right now, but it doesn’t seem so.”
“Just great!” Eduardo rubbed his neck. Somehow the shirt seemed to want to strangle him. “Do you know what’ll happen if we have to call the police?”
The guests were just standing around staring at them. Someone had turned off the stereo. There was an ominous silence in the air.
“The Ferrari has a GPS unit in case of theft,” Marco explained. “We could locate him with that. Besides I had the chopper come over from the yacht.”
Eduardo cracked his knuckles nervously. “We need an ID check of all people on the premises, especially the delivery people. I personally know all the guests.”
One Trillion Dollars Page 19