There was another rumor about Sylvia. After DeLorio’s birth, she had her tubes tied—to spite Dominick, the word was. Her father, old Carlucci, was peeved with her, but he ended up siding with her when Dominick would have divorced her in a flash. The old man, it was said, threatened to kill Dominick if he ever tried to divorce his daughter. So Dominick has only one son and won’t ever have any more legitimate ones unless Sylvia dies and he marries again. Irony, Rafaella. Life seems to abound in it. It’s quite frightening sometimes.
There was a knock on the door and Rafaella quickly closed the journal.
“Just a moment.”
She placed her mother’s journal haphazardly in among a pile of books—novels, travel guides, biographies, a couple of reference books on the Caribbean, two more of the journals—on top of the fireplace mantel, all in full view of anyone who happened to look, then opened her bedroom door.
“Oh, hello, Merkel. How are you? It’s so quiet. Is Mr. Giovanni ready to begin our work?”
Merkel didn’t like this, not at all. She was young, far too young for Mr. Giovanni, honest and open, and she’d made her preferences clear. It was Marcus all the way.
“I like that tie you’re wearing. The stripe is very classy.”
“It’s the latest style, according to Gentleman’s Quarterly. It’s made in Britain and can only be ordered from there. Thank you for noticing. Mr. Giovanni would like to begin now.”
Rafaella gave him a sunny smile. “I’m ready to go. Let me get my tape recorder. Oh, yes, Merkel, as you might know, my mother is in a hospital on Long Island. I like to call her every morning. Do you think it will be a problem?”
Merkel just stared at her. Marcus had been wrong. She was exactly what she seemed to be. She wasn’t trying to hide anything. She was a reporter who wanted to write Dominick’s biography and she didn’t have any secrets. She could be trusted, at least to a point. “Certainly, Ms. Holland. I will speak to Mr. Giovanni.”
Dominick was in the living room, looking at his Egyptian jewelry. He motioned her over to where he stood.
Rafaella joined him and peered down into the palely tinted glass case.
“Do you recall my telling you these pieces were from the Eighteenth Dynasty? Of course you do. You’re young, not old and forgetful. Well, many people consider the jewelry from this time to be overly ornate, decadent, but I don’t think so. It’s lovely, isn’t it? Especially this.” He lifted a wooden box carved in the shape of a small dog and opened it. Inside was a sweet-smelling scent Rafaella couldn’t identify, and a child’s bracelet of pounded gold sat atop a swell of blue velvet. It looked so delicate she was afraid to breathe on it.
“Very lovely,” she said, and to her relief, Dominick closed the lid and gently placed the box back under the glass case. He flicked a switch on, wiped his hands on a pristine white handkerchief, and smiled at her.
“Anytime you wish to look at any of these things, simply ask me, Rafaella. Just touching the pieces, just knowing that they’re here, that they’re mine for a brief period of time, brings me peace, serenity. They connect me to the past, make me realize that all of time is fluid and unending, that all of us will continue to exist, in some fashion, into the future, into infinity. Ah, but I pretend to be the philosopher when I am but a simple man.”
“You’re anything but simple, sir.”
“‘Dominick,’ please,” he said, and looked pained.
She wondered what effect “Father” would have.
“Very well, Dominick.”
“We’re going to become quite close, Rafaella. As long as you understand what it is I expect of you—” He paused a moment and she nodded. Oh, yes, she understood his ground rules, his plans for her, her place as the recorder of his greatness. She would agree to whatever he said in order to remain here on the compound. She was still very curious about him. He was her father and she now accepted that. She also accepted the fact that she was going to do her best to ruin him. She would write his biography and hold it up to the world. “Good. You won’t deviate from what it is I wish. You will produce a masterpiece, you’ll see. Oh, yes, I also have a fondness for art, as you know. When you would like to see the pieces in the vault, you have just to ask.” And he touched his long cool fingers to her cheek and caressed her.
Rafaella didn’t move. She was too surprised. She hadn’t considered, hadn’t even thought, that he would possibly be interested in her as a woman. Even if he didn’t recognize her as his daughter, she was young enough to be one. She smiled and managed to step away from him, hopefully not showing her shock and distaste. “Come into my library, it’s cooler.”
“I would really prefer being on the veranda that faces the swimming pool. The smell of the bougainvillea and the frangipani is so wonderful.” It was also more open there. “Is there a plug for the tape recorder?”
“He nodded, his smile never slipping.
“—so my papa was a man dedicated to getting all his family out of Italy and over to beautiful San Francisco. By the time he died in 1965, he’d succeeded. His brothers, sisters, cousins, the whole bloody lot of them, most moochers, but it didn’t bother him, he had this strange sort of drive, to be the dependable one, to be the one everyone could count on, everyone except his only son, that is.
Rafaella dutifully wrote in her own specialized shorthand, adding her own personal notes to his reminiscences on the tape recorder, filling page after page. So he’d felt neglected by his father, had he? Too bad he hadn’t choked on it. She could tell that he’d thought about this, thought about the order in which he would present his life to her, and what in his life he would tell her. There was no deep bitterness, no hurt in his voice when he spoke of his father. Just a sullen kind of whine she’d heard once from DeLorio. It shocked her to hear it from him.
Finally he paused and raised a hand. Jiggs appeared, dressed in his usual waiter-white, and received his orders.
“I asked for a lemonade for both of us, Rafaella.”
“That’s fine.”
He stopped talking then, pressed the off button on the tape recorder, sat back in his chair, and steepled his fingers, tapping the fingertips together.
“Merkel told me you wanted to call your mother from here.”
“That’s right. She was in an accident—perhaps Merkel told you—and she’s in the hospital, in a coma. There has been improvement, more EEG activity. I pray every day that she will just wake up one morning and smile and want to get on with her life.”
“It must be difficult for you to be so very far away from her.”
Rafaella looked down at her hands. She was holding her pencil very tightly.
“I assume you’re close to your mother? Although I don’t know why I should assume anything of the sort. My son isn’t at all close to his mother—in fact he hasn’t seen her for a goodly number of years now.”
“Goodness, why ever not?”
Dominick shrugged, nodded to Jiggs, and watched as he set the glasses and pitcher on the glass table between them. Dominick handed her a glass. “To our future together,” he said.
“Our future,” Rafaella said, and clicked her glass to his. She saw that he would begin again, and quietly pressed the play button.
“You asked me why DeLorio hasn’t seen his mother. It’s very simple, really. My wife is an alcoholic, has been for more years than I care to count. She didn’t want him, not really, except as a means to hurt me. So I simply removed him from her care. He asked me to, you know, begged me in fact. She lives on Long Island, has all the servants one could wish for, all the money any ten women could spend in a single lifetime, and she sleeps with very young men.”
Rafaella felt her heart pounding, but her voice was steady, thoughtful. She shook her head. “I’ve never been able to understand that. The older women with the very young men and, of course, the older men with the young women. Just imagine how you’d feel if someone asked you how your son or daughter was doing. Nothing particular in common, no shared experiences or
memories, no—”
“You’re forgetting sex, my dear, the most powerful and common of all things that bind. That and of course the illusion that even an older man, such as myself, is still attractive, still alluring, can still entice and please a much younger woman. Such as you, for example.”
“But it’s an illusion. It’s not real.”
“Isn’t it? Maybe not to the older man who’s living it, but it’s certainly real enough to all those who look upon it. Don’t be naive, Rafaella. Throughout the centuries wealthy men have used young women to prove their virility, their influence, their power, to their adversaries. And that, my dear, is real, as real as it gets.”
“Perhaps, but it’s also despicable. It’s people using each other for the most base of reasons.”
“You’re very young, Rafaella, and the young are more dogmatic than religious fanatics, more passionate in their beliefs, be they absurd or not.”
“Perhaps,” she said, then glanced down at her notepad. “Your wife, Dominick, you never divorced her?”
His face seemed to go stiff all over. “No, I’m not that kind of man. I made vows to her before God. I keep my word. No matter what she’s done—Well, it doesn’t matter. She’s my wife until she dies, and that’s the end of it. A pity she gave me only one son. Yes, a pity. And she was unfaithful to me. From the very beginning, she was unfaithful.”
He sounded sincere, hurt, yet stoic. She’d never before met a person who lied with such earnestness. He was good. Just as her mother had said. She looked down at her pad, fiddled with her pencil a moment, then said straightly, “And you weren’t ever unfaithful to her?”
“Not until she had broken her vows. I wanted sons, Rafaella, I wanted to found a dynasty, to show my father that he wasn’t the only one—I digress. But Sylvia wanted revenge on me, she wanted me to suffer—”
She listened to him enthusiastically ride what she was certain was one of his favorite hobbyhorses, his voice sounding more and more bitter, and she knew that her mother had been right. He was a man possessed. And he was a liar. He stopped suddenly and smiled.
“Are you ready for a break yet?” Rafaella asked quickly.
“Ah, Coco, come here, my dear. Of course we’re ready. Poor Rafaella has been listening to me carry on for longer than one should have to endure.”
“It’s all been fascinating,” Rafaella said, and it was true.
“We got twisted about in the chronology. Is this a problem for you, Rafaella?”
“Not at all. In fact, if you don’t mind, Dominick, I would prefer speaking about things in any order you wish, or in any lack of order. It makes for more spontaneity. If you would excuse me now, I think I’ll go listen to what we’ve got on the tape recorder and transcribe all the marvelous notes I’ve taken.”
“Oh, Rafaella, you never did tell me why you’re here while your mother is lying in a coma three thousand miles away.”
His voice was like silk and honey, but she wasn’t stupid. She must go carefully. She turned slowly and gave a very sad smile. It wasn’t difficult. Her eyes blurred. “I was with her for nearly a week. There was nothing I could do. My stepfather encouraged me to come down here. You see, I’d already made the arrangements. He told me he’d send a jet for me if there was any change. I think it’s better. At least you, sir, are helping to keep my mind off it.”
“Your stepfather is Charles Rutledge.”
“Yes, a very nice man and very good to my mother.” And he’s not like you. He’s loyal and honest and real.
“It’s curious, you know,” Dominick said in a faraway voice. “A man of your stepfather’s stature, his wealth, his obvious power, and yet he chose a woman not that much younger than he. Very curious.”
“Perhaps he is a man who prefers what is real, what is solid, what is honest, over the chimera, the illusion. Excuse me, Dominick, Coco.”
All the way to her room, Rafaella wanted to kick herself for baiting him. He was far from undiscerning. God help her if she had gone too far.
Marseilles, France
March 2001
Marcus had always liked the fog, at least in London, but not here in the south of France, in Marseilles. It had been raining steadily since he’d arrived six hours before. Now the rain had slowed to a light drizzle with a thick blanket of fog over the harbor. Periodically the horns rang out loud and ghostly. Men huddled together on the ship decks, along the pier, in doorways, talking low, their Gauloise cigarettes glowing red-tipped like spots of fire in the darkness. The long rotted docks were slimy with old rain and smelled of wet, dirty wool and moldy mackintoshes.
Marcus took another drink of his beer, Italian beer that was god-awful, and was thankful that he was inside and not out there in the bone-chilling damp.
The bar, Le Poulet Rouge, was noisy, dank, filled with the raucous laughter that resulted from cheap booze. There were a half-dozen prostitutes lounging about, accepting drinks from the sailors, and avoiding the foul-breathed dockhands in dirty coveralls.
Marcus leaned back against the cracked, dirty vinyl booth. Cigarette smoke had turned the air blue and there were swirls of blue snaking up around the naked light bulbs hanging from the black ceiling. He felt anxious and wished for a moment that he smoked.
Where was Bertrand?
A very young girl, not more than sixteen, he guessed, made her way through the throng of men to his booth. He saw her wince when several men patted her bottom or fondled her bare leg. She was slightly built, pretty in a childish way, with long black hair hanging down her back, and a very white face that Marcus realized finally was the result of a thick layer of white powder.
“Monsieur? Vous voulez quelque chose d’autre, peut-être?”
He grinned up at her. “You know the beer’s undrinkable, do you?” Then he shook his head and switched to French. “Non, mademoiselle, non, merci.”
He watched her thread her way among the small crowded tables, accepting stoically as her punishment all those lewd comments, all those free feels. Poor little girl. He wondered if her father owned the bar. Probably so. Cheap labor. Maybe she smeared her face with all that white powder so no one would recognize her, so she wouldn’t recognize herself. Marcus shook his head. He thought of Rafaella and wondered what she’d think of this bar and its denizens. She’d be wide-eyed and shocked to her toes, but she’d try to act like it was as normal as attending Carnegie Hall. He grinned and wished she was here with him.
Where was Bertrand?
A prostitute eyed him, blew him a kiss, and arched an artistically drawn black eyebrow. He shook his head, smiling. She started to rise and he shook his head again, not smiling this time.
She shrugged, took her seat again, and leaned forward, her arms pressed inward, so that her breasts, full and sagging, nearly spilled out of her chemise top. A man laughed and plunged his hand down her top and fondled her breasts. She shrieked and slapped his hand, then shoved him off his chair, sending him sprawling to the floor. The room erupted with laughter.
A jukebox started up, a youth howling out some acid rock that smothered the bar noise. Marcus coughed, the smoke was so thick. He’d just about decided to leave the bar when Bertrand came through the door.
Marcus stared a moment, thinking: This is just like a 1940’s movie with Humphrey Bogart. Bertrand was wearing a slouch hat low over his left eye and a light brown raincoat belted at the waist. A Gauloise was dangling from between his thin lips.
He looked Marcus’s way, nodded very slightly, and slowly, as if the cameras were following his every move, made his way between the tables to the booth.
“You’re late,” Marcus said.
Bertrand sat down and raised a hand to the young waitress. “It was unavoidable,” he said, then added, looking at the girl, “She’s nice. Her name’s Blanchette, she’s only fifteen, and she wasn’t a virgin when she first had sex with me. I wondered who’d done the deflowering. Maybe it was one of these intellectual customers.” He was smiling at her all the while he spoke of h
er to Marcus.
“Ma chère, une bière, s’il te plaît.” She nodded, smiling nervously at him. Bertrand waved her away.
“You’re late,” Marcus said again. “Why was it so unavoidable? He hated Bertrand and all he stood for. Some thought him a comely man, in his early forties, fit, and with a dark brooding look that drew the women, and evidently the young girls as well. But Marcus thought his face showed his black soul. Bertrand was vicious, ruthless, amoral, and so unpredictable that both men and women had constantly to be on their guard.
“Business,” Bertrand said, and leaned back. He unbelted his raincoat, showing a black turtleneck sweater and black jeans beneath. “I had some more checking to do. My contact at the factory had screwed things up and I didn’t get all the mines I’d ordered.” He quickly raised his hand, seeing Marcus’s color heighten with anger. “I got it straightened out, don’t worry. Tomorrow morning, at six o’clock, on Pier Twenty-seven, you and I will oversee, along with one of the stupid bureaucratic Frenchmen, the loading of the mines aboard the Ionia. Bound for Nigeria, you know. Everything’s right and tight.”
“You’ll then travel aboard the ship?”
“That’s the plan, yes. Ah, my beer. Merci, ma chère.” Marcus watched the girl walk away slowly, looking back at Bertrand several times, and this time she was smiling shyly. Bertrand smiled back at her as he said to Marcus, “You want her, Devlin? She’s so very young, but I’ve taught her quite a bit in the last two weeks. She’d been savaged before, not taught how to please or be pleased.”
“No,” said Marcus, trying not to show his disgust, his revulsion. “She’s a child. She could be your daughter.”
“Yes, she could, but the point is, she isn’t, thank the good Lord. And I like them unspoiled. They’re spoiled by the time they’re twenty.”
“I want the money. I’ve got to start the transfers as soon as the banks open tomorrow.”
“You’ll get it, just after the loading of the mines on the ship.”
“Why then?”
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