I’m calling will either refuse the call or pay the bill for it.”
After dinner, he always sat by the stove and read his paper. But the
phone was in the kitchen, so now, tactfully, he gestured at it after downing a
last slice of cheese, and then took himself off to the living room.
I couldn’t remember the phone number, so there were maddening
negotiations with the Luxembourg phone service before the connection was
made. A collect call to Miami in the United States of America? I had the
feeling that it was the first time in history such a strange demand had been
made of the service.
Then from four thousand miles away I heard a woman’s voice
acknowledge in Spanish-flavored English that this was Mr. Hanna’s home. Of
course, the housekeeper. It might even be the same Mrs. Galvan out of my
childhood. “An overseas call,” the operator said to her. “Collect. From Mr.
David Hanna Shaw. Will you accept the charges?”
The answer was an excited flurry of Spanish, then a long silence.
Suddenly there was another voice on the line. An unfamiliar male voice.
“Collect?” it said. “David Shaw? Yes, I’ll accept the charges.”
I had made contact. But with whom?
“Look,” I said, “I’d like to speak to Mr. Hanna.”
“You the one who says he’s Shaw?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
111
“We’ll get to that.” It was a tough, no-nonsense growl. “First I’ve got
some questions for you. You want to answer them, okay. Otherwise just hang
up and forget it.”
“You mean I’m supposed to identify myself. All right, I can tell you —”
”Let’s stick to the questions. Like about Mrs. Hanna’s bedroom here.
What was always on her dresser? The big item.”
“A jewel case. Red leather with a —”
”No. Something besides that.”
Besides that? I wasn’t prepared for this kind of test. Finally it came to
me. “A photograph. In a gold frame. My photograph, taken when I was a kid.”
“Maybe. Meanwhile, suppose you tell me how that kid in the picture is
dressed.”
“In an evzone costume. That fancy Greek military outfit.”
“And who took that picture?”
“The family chauffeur in Athens. His name was Ray Costello.” Then it
dawned on me. “Costello, is that you?”
“That’s who it is, Shaw.”
“Then how about putting my grandfather on the line?”
“What? You mean you don’t know about him?”
I did as soon as he said it. “Dead?”
“Last March. Coronary. And if you don’t know about it, how come this
call?”
“I need some money. That’s all right. I’ll try somebody else.”
“Hold it!” It was a roar of panic. “Whatever the hell you do, Shaw,
don’t hang up that phone. There’s a will, understand? I just put in six months
all over Europe trying to locate you and tell you about it. So whatever you do,
don’t cut out again, or you’ll really screw up the works.”
“A will?” I said. “And I’m in it?”
“In it? For Chrissake, it’s all yours, Shaw! The whole load! Ten million
dollars after taxes! You hear me?”
I heard him.
God, how I heard him.
A messenger come to tell an avenging angel that at last he was fully
armed for total destruction.
THE
EMPEROR OF
SQUARE NINE
Part III
113
Costello showed up forty-eight hours
later, courtesy of Air Bahama, Miami direct to Luxembourg, and then a rented
car. I had told Joseph that, miraculously, one of my ventures had turned up a
big winner, and that the American connection would be coming to settle with
me. When Costello hauled himself out of the car it was evident from Joseph’s
expression that this American met all expectations. A tough one, plainly. And,
from that sun tan and those clothes, extremely prosperous. Obviously a man
high up in the rackets the way all rich Americans were.
Costello gingerly made his way across the snowy crust to the door, and I
opened it to him. “Van Zee?” he said, as he had been instructed to say, and I
said, “Yes,” and he said, “Well, it’s been a long time, Davey, hasn’t it? Now
how about a drink?” The voice was that mix of drawling redneck and
hardboiled New York found no place on earth but in Dade County, Florida.
I took him inside and made introductions and saw to it he had his drink
— half a glass of contraband cognac that he took down like water — and then
we were left to ourselves by the fireplace in the living room where a proper
fire had been kindled in honor of this visitor.
I saw him sizing me up closely. I said, “Still wondering if I’m really
David Shaw?”
He shrugged. “Your mother gave me a hundred bucks that day to have
some pro photographer take your birthday picture up on that Parthenon place,
and that’s what I told her I did. If you’d ever let her know different, I would
have caught hell for it. That means you and I are the only people anywhere
who know I took that picture myself.”
“Smart.”
“Not as much as you some ways,” he said. “After you ducked out of
college I put in a year trying to track you down and never got a lead past Orly
Airport.”
“On whose orders?” I said.
“Your grandpa’s. You don’t think it was your father, do you? He’s the
same, by the way. Same wife and all as last time you saw him. Just ten years
older. Anyhow, a few months ago I tried tracking you down once more on the
estate’s say-so and crapped out again.”
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“Why you?” I asked.
“Because I was the one J.G. — your grandpa — trusted to get things
done the way he wanted them done. His one worry was that if you didn’t show
up sooner or later after he was gone, your mother could claim the estate.
Meaning the guy she’s married to could.”
“Still Periniades?”
“Still him. And what’s kept him out of court about the will so far is that
J.G. had all the dirt on him filed away where I could pull it out if I had to.
Swindles he worked in Italy, payoffs to government people there — enough to
land him in jail for a long stretch. And Periniades knows that. So now all you
have to do is get home and collect the jackpot. I’ve got your van Zee ticket
here. You sure your passport’s in order?”
“Yes. What about my draft status?”
“Hell, J.G. took care of that long ago with one call to Washington. You
never did know much about him, did you? Or how he handled things?”
“No. But I’m beginning to get the idea he was quite the wheeler-dealer.”
“He was, Davey. When he snapped his fingers the biggest politicians
and fat cats in the state rolled over and played dead. And why? Because he
knew where all the bodies were buried. That was my job, finding out where
they were buried.”
“His right-hand man,” I said.
“A lot more than that. Near the end when they ordered him into the
hospital and he didn*t want to go I moved in with him, right there i
n his
bedroom, and I tended him hand and foot until the end. I didn*t have to, but I
did it. That*s how I felt about him. I think you missed a hell of a lot by walking
out on him.”
“Possibly.”
“For sure. And now that we*re talking so nice and open. I*d like to know
exactly what you did trade him in for.” He looked around the room. “For
this?”
So there it was. As he had taken my measure, I was, with single-minded
purpose, taking his, and more and more I liked what I saw and heard. I had
already planned vengeance against Kees Baar and company. Here in Ray
Costello I saw the proper agent to help carry it out.
115
Ten years before, Costello had lost me at Orly. Now, in undramatic and
bitter detail, I took him past Orly into the world of Madame Chouchoute, of
Kees Baar and Les Amis du Bon Évangéliste, and right up to the present.
He heard me out to the end with no show of emotion. Then he said
reflectively, “A wife, so to speak, and a kid. J.G. would have gone for that all
right. He was a lonely man after your grandma was put under the ground.”
“I know the feeling,” I said.
“I guess you do.” He gave me a sharp look. “But you didn*t let me in on
all this just so I could send you a sympathy card, did you?”
“There are three men who have to be settled with, Ray.”
“I can see that. So you just give the cops all the information they need
without ever letting them know where it came from. I*ll show you how.”
“No,” I said. “It*s not police business. Only mine.”
“Jesus, Davey, the way you make that sound —”
”Because I had all the time I needed to think about it. To know what had
to be done and how it must be done. And after you called me about the
inheritance I had a funny thought about it. That everything in my life was
actually preparing me for this mission. Making me the perfect instrument for it.
There’s nothing after death, Ray. No hellfire waiting for Baar and Leewarden
and Rouart-Rochelle. So if accounts are going to be settled, they’re assigned
to someone right down here on earth. For all I know, I was handed that job the
day I was born.”
“For Christ’s sake, are you serious?”
“As I said, Ray, I’ve had time to think about it. Now I’m ready to move
on it, and I want your help in that. I don’t have to tell you that money is no
object.”
“Good,” said Costello. “Then strictly between us I’ll tell you how to
move on it. There are some people around Miami who’ll take care of anybody
you finger if the price is right. One of them owes me a big favor. If I make
contact with him —”
”No,” I said again, “it’s too quick and easy that way. Anyhow, Baar is
the only one I’ve marked for killing, and he’s all mine. The other two have
women who mean a lot to them. Leewarden a daughter, Rouart-Rochelle a
wife. They have to learn what it feels like to lose the woman you’ve invested
your life in.”
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“Look, when it comes to hurting a couple of women who have no part of
this —”
”The women won’t be hurt, Ray. Take my word for it. In fact, they’ll
wind up rich and happy. So will you, if you go along with me.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning name your price.”
Costello picked up a poker and rammed it into a smoldering log in the
fireplace. He watched the flames flicker along it, then turned back to me,
narrow-eyed with speculation. “What if this never works out the way you
figure?”
“It will.”
“All right, whether it does or not, I’ll give you one year at two grand a
week, tax free. That means one hundred grand guaranteed. And an expense
account, no questions asked about it. One year, and that’s it.”
“I don’t have anything to pack,” I said. “We might as well get moving
right now.”
117
Potent traces of my grandfather’s clout
still lingered in the Florida air. First report had it that Dr. Isao Kimura’s
Clinic for Cosmetic Surgery in Palm Beach had a waiting list so long and
distinguished that there was no way of being serviced by it for at least a year.
But once I established my credentials as the J.G. Hanna grandson, I was
promptly invited to become a client by Dr. Kimura himself. He examined my
interesting nose and the tattoo on my forearm, studied the photographs of me
extracted from my grandmother’s album, and assured me that I would, without
difficulty, soon be restored to my original self.
The clinic was a far cry from La Clinica Gratuita In Trastevere. On
thirty landscaped acres were a medical building, the doctor’s residence, a
scattering of cottages for convalescents, a sauna, and a swimming pool
bordered by cabanas. Cottage C, my home away from home, was a luxurious
four-room suite, fronted by a flagstoned terrace, all of which was surrounded
by a high, privacy-enforcing fence of bamboo palings.
The charge for this, excluding medical costs, was five hundred dollars a
day, and the payment of my bill each week gave me occasion to comprehend
the seemingly incomprehensible: that living at this rate made no dent in my
inheritance. Clinic, Costello and all, I was richer each day when I woke up
than I had been the day before.
This information had come from Owen Bibb, executor of the Hanna
estate and president of the South Florida Merchants Bank, an institution
founded by the late J.G. Hanna. As soon as I was back in the old house on
South Bay Shore Drive, Bibb had showed up in the company of a watchful
pair of lawyers. Carefully not addressing me by name, he explained that he had
in hand the vital documents of David Hanna Shaw, most notably his birth
certificate on which was imprinted the infant’s foot- and toe-prints. Now if I
had no objection to undergoing this test before the assembled witnesses —
Not very cordially, I removed shoes and socks and bore with Costello
until, after some messy failures, he came up with the required goods which the
delegation then bore away. Two days later, Owen Bibb returned, a now very
respectful bank president, this time accompanied not only by the lawyers but
also by the bank officer who had been handling the estate and was prepared to
118
render an account of it. Miller Williams was the name of the bank officer, and
the account he rendered from page after page of inventory took up most of the
afternoon. After that there were papers to sign, a ream of them.
When I had signed the last one I said to Bibb, “I understand from Mr.
Williams that up to his death my grandfather was a member of the bank’s
board of directors.”
“Yes. As majority shareholder he would be.”
“And now,” I said, “I’m majority shareholder.”
He saw what was coming and didn’t like it. “Well, yes, Mr. Shaw, and
if you wish to nominate someone for the board —”
”Myself,” I said.
“Mr. Shaw, banking is an extremely complex business, and when
important decisions must be made —”
; ”Myself,” I repeated sweetly. “And I’d like an emergency meeting of the
board to settle that immediately. As for making decisions, Mr. Bibb, I’m sure I
can rely on your good advice. I don’t see why I shouldn’t have the same
confidence in you that my grandfather had.”
That he liked. “I worked hard to win that confidence, Mr. Shaw. Yes,
I’ll take care of the matter at once. You can count on it.”
Costello saw the party out. He returned to me wearing a broad grin.
“Putting down bank presidents now,” he remarked. “You learn fast, don’t
you?”
“So does Bibb. What do you know about that Miller Williams, Ray?”
“Him? I’d say strictly a company man.”
“Personal life?”
“I can check it out tomorrow. Why?”
“If he’s as unimaginative and conscientious as he looks, I want him on
my payroll. Can you see what he’ll add to the act when we hit Europe?”
“Not bad,” said Costello. “I’ll look him up.”
He reported back the next evening. “Like I figured, a straight arrow.
Forty years old, fifteen of it with the bank, neat, clean and sober. Only big
thing in his life was when his wife walked out on him last year. No scandal. It
probably made her sleepy just looking at him.”
“Fine. Arrange a leave of absence for him with Bibb and sign him on as
my business manager. It ought to be happy news for him.”
119
But it was not altogether happy news for Miller Williams, a man not at
his best facing the unexpected. “A movie, Mr. Shaw? To be made in Europe?
But film production is an extremely soft area of investment. Are you sure —?”
“I’m sure, Miller. I’ve been dreaming of this project for a long time. But
I’m green as grass about financing film production, and that’s why I want you
on the job.”
“Truth to tell, Mr. Shaw, I don’t know too much about the industry
myself.”
“Understood. But we’re not hopping over to Europe tomorrow. You’ll
have time to put together whatever information you need.”
So the day before I entered Dr. Kimura’s clinic, David Shaw Film
Productions, Inc. was born, with D.H. Shaw its president, Raymond Costello
its secretary, and Miller Williams, somewhat to his own surprise, its
treasurer.
During its period of birth I finally began to get control of my nerves.
The Luxembourg Run Page 13