The Couturier of Milan

by Ian Hamilton

Ventola slapped an open palm on the table. “Forget Clark Po,” he said. “He’s done, he’s finished.”

  “Clark Po is the reason we’re all here,” Ava said to Bianchi.

  “My understanding is that he’s damaged goods.”

  “Only because Mr. Ventola criticized his collection and damaged his reputation,” Ava said. “Luckily, we think the damage can be repaired if we move fast and convincingly enough.”

  “And what does that repair work have to do with us?” Bianchi asked.

  “It has everything to do with Dominic Ventola,” Ava said.

  “How so?”

  “We want him to make a public apology.”

  “That will never happen,” Ventola said.

  “Actually, we want him to do more than apologize. We want him to publicly admit that, when the PÖ brand declined his offer to join VLG, he lost control of his emotions and said what he did out of spite, and that in fact Clark is the most talented designer he’s seen in years.”

  “Never!” Ventola shouted across the table.

  Ava smiled at Bianchi. “Concurrently, we want Raffi Pandolfo to instruct his sales and marketing team to spend as much time calling customers to promote Clark as they spent denigrating him. We want them to insist that the PÖ brand be marketed alongside VLG.”

  “You’re demented,” Ventola said.

  “Mr. Bianchi, you’ve just heard our demands,” Ava said. “We don’t want any money. There’s no need for compensation of any sort. All we want is for Mr. Ventola to do the right thing. If he does, then it will be business as usual for you in China and in Asia.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Bianchi said.

  “Then we’ll be at war,” Xu said.

  ( 48 )

  Two bottles of red wine and ten glasses stood in the middle of the table. Bianchi reached for a glass.

  “Does anyone else care for wine?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Xu said. “We’ll all have some.”

  Bianchi moved slowly, making a production out of filling the glasses. When he finished, he raised his. “Salute,” he said. He took a sip, looking over the rim at Xu. “‘War’ is a very big word.”

  “Beyond the economic repercussions, my understanding is that your organization has been known to respond to adversity with violence,” Xu said. “I think it’s only fair to warn you that we would be prepared to respond in kind.”

  “I’m not sure that taking us on would be clever,” Bianchi said. “We’re large —larger than our numbers in Naples might lead you to think.”

  Xu turned to Lam. “Ban, how many experienced, battle-tested men could we count on?”

  “In China, counting Hong Kong, at least twenty thousand.”

  “And if we involved our brothers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe?”

  “Another ten thousand.”

  “It is possible that you may be tougher than us,” Xu said to Bianchi. “But we would be as determined, and we have the numbers on our side. Eventually we’d just overwhelm you . . . Not that we want it to come to that. I’d rather talk about Ava’s proposal.”

  “Me too,” Bianchi said.

  “Am I correct in assuming that we’ve returned to discussing an agreement?” Lam said.

  “I think so,” Bianchi said.

  “The only one on the table is Ava’s,” Xu said.

  “Which I have no interest in discussing,” Ventola said.

  A sharp noise came from the direction of the restaurant entrance. At first Ava thought it was the sound of a car backfiring, but when she saw Suen and Sonny stiffen and walk towards the panels, she guessed it was a gunshot.

  Bianchi looked at Moretti and spoke to him in Italian. Moretti’s face was impassive when he answered, but Ava felt tension in his voice.

  Suen pulled back a panel and he and Sonny headed towards the entrance. The two men whom Ava and Sonny had dispatched still lay on the floor near the bar and didn’t budge when they passed. Before Suen and Sonny could reach the door, Lop walked briskly through it, carrying a gun in his right hand. He spoke to them but didn’t stop moving. They followed him to the back of the restaurant.

  “What’s going on?” Xu asked.

  “We have a problem outside,” Lop said, eyeing the Italians at the table. “They have a dozen armed men out there. We have twice that number and we have them covered, but they’re not backing down and things are close to getting out of control.”

  Xu turned towards Bianchi. “What are you trying to do? Start a war here and now?”

  Bianchi shrugged and then twisted in his chair to look at Moretti and Ventola.

  “This was always the plan,” Ventola said.

  “It was the plan only if we couldn’t reach an agreement,” Bianchi said.

  “Once that fucking woman walked in here, I knew there wasn’t going to be an agreement,” Ventola said.

  “That’s your position but not mine,” Bianchi said. “We haven’t even discussed their terms yet.”

  “Fuck their terms.”

  Ava leaned towards Moretti. “Who did you call?”

  “What?”

  “When you used your phone, did you call Toronto or did you call the men who are outside?”

  Moretti hesitated.

  “Tell her,” Bianchi said.

  “The men outside,” Moretti said.

  Ava started to rise from her seat and Sonny took two quick steps towards the table.

  “Ava, please be calm,” Xu said, lightly touching her arm. He turned to Bianchi. “Before this goes any further, you must tell the men in Toronto to go away and to stay away from Ava’s mother.”

  Bianchi looked at Moretti. “Do that. Do it now, and in English.”

  Moretti nodded and then dialled. “This is Moretti,” he finally said. “Tell your men to leave the house. Nothing more is to be done. The contract is over.”

  “Does that satisfy you?” Bianchi said to Xu.

  “Yes, but I find it regrettable that it wasn’t done the first time.”

  “A misjudgement,” Bianchi said. “I hope you understand that the woman’s surprise appearance was disturbing. Not everyone is thinking clearly.”

  “Speaking of which, why do you have those armed men in the street?” Xu said.

  “Why do you have even more?”

  “Protection.”

  “For us it’s the same,” Bianchi said. “We’re on unfamiliar ground. We wanted to be sure we could make a safe exit if negotiations failed.”

  “You should have no worries about your safety. You can ask your men to stand down.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then that leaves about thirty armed men confronting each other. All it takes is for one hothead to lose control and we’ll have a disaster on our hands.”

  “My men won’t lose control,” Bianchi said. “And they’re not leaving without me and the others.”

  “Puttana.”

  Ava looked at Ventola in surprise. She’d been so caught up in the exchange between Bianchi and Xu that she’d almost forgotten he was there. “That isn’t helpful,” she said.

  “Fuck helpful,” Ventola said. He stood up from the table.

  Bianchi remained seated. Raffi Pandolfo, Moretti, and Ricci looked as if they couldn’t decide what to do.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Ventola said. “That’s what we agreed to do if we couldn’t reach a deal.”

  “Dom, sit down for a moment,” Bianchi said. “The woman has made a proposal. I know you don’t like it, but maybe there’s room for compromise.”

  “My name is Ava Lee,” she said. “I’d appreciate it if you would stop referring to me in the third person.”

  Bianchi nodded at her and then turned his attention to the still-standing Ventola. “Is it really impossible for you to mend some of the fences you’ve been tearing down?”

  “Yes.”

  “We seem to be at an impasse,” Bianchi said to Xu. “And you need to understand that I’m as loyal to Dominic as you appear to be to Ms. Lee.
I can’t go entirely against him.”

  “You’ll have to pardon me for saying this, but that’s terribly short-sighted,” Xu said. “Not only do you risk losing China as a supply source and market, we’ve been looking at expanding into Europe and we need partners. From what I’ve observed and heard today, I think you would have been ideal. So there’s a lot more at stake here than PÖ and VLG. I’d like you to take that into consideration.”

  “Franco, Xu is a man who can deliver,” Lam said. “He’s not only head of the triads in Shanghai and Wanchai, in Hong Kong, he’s also chairman of the triad societies for all of Asia. The two of you working together would be formidable.”

  Bianchi pressed his fingertips together and put them in front of his mouth for a moment. “Raffi, would you find it impossible to ask your people to communicate with our customers in the way that Ms. Lee has requested?”

  Both Ventola and Pandolfo seemed startled by the question. “Don’t answer that,” Ventola said.

  “Humour me, Dom,” Bianchi said. “Raffi, I’m waiting for an answer.”

  “We’d need a very precise message,” Pandolfo said after some hesitation.

  “And if you had that?”

  “It would be difficult and certainly awkward, but not impossible.”

  “I won’t agree to it,” Ventola said.

  “Would that satisfy you?” Bianchi asked Ava.

  “You haven’t mentioned the apology I requested.”

  “That was deliberate. Can you live without it?”

  “No.”

  “No compromise?”

  “No.”

  “Fuck you,” Ventola said to Ava.

  “Dom,” Bianchi warned. He looked across the table at Ava. “You are asking Dom to humiliate himself in public.”

  “He humiliated Clark.”

  “I don’t excuse his behaviour, but surely you can understand that he and your Clark are at different stages in their careers.”

  “That’s all the more reason for Dom to apologize. He’s like a shark that jumped on a minnow —Clark had no chance. And an apology from Mr. Ventola, no matter how humiliating it may seem to him, won’t end his career. It’s a bump in the road. In fact, if you spin it right, he can come out of this looking like a good guy.”

  “Ava makes a very good point,” Xu said. “An apology framed in the right way could make Mr. Ventola look gracious instead of coming across as a bully.”

  “What if we depersonalized it?” Bianchi said.

  “In what way?” Xu said.

  “What if Dom says that the VLG team was hasty in its initial assessment of Clark Po’s work, and that on second thought they see a lot about it that they admire.”

  “I still won’t do it,” Ventola said.

  “Well, Ms. Lee, what do you think?” Bianchi asked, ignoring Ventola.

  She paused and saw that Xu and Lam were both looking at her. “He would have to be a lot more complimentary. ‘Admire’ is a weak word.”

  “I’m sure we can find something stronger.”

  “I’m not going to agree to any of this,” Ventola said.

  Bianchi got to his feet, took Ventola by the arm, and led him away from the table. For several minutes they stood with their backs turned to the others as they talked —as Bianchi talked and Ventola listened.

  When they returned to the table, Bianchi said to Xu, “Our group needs to have a private discussion.”

  “I’m not leaving the restaurant without a decision,” Xu said.

  “Why don’t you wait at the bar,” Bianchi said. “Give us a chance to review our position.”

  “We can do that,” Xu said. “What about the men outside?”

  “They stay until we decide what we’re going to do.”

  Xu looked at Lop. “Tell our men to maintain the status quo, and make sure they stay calm.”

  “It might be wise if Moretti went with your man and delivered the same message to our people,” Bianchi said.

  “Yes, that’s an excellent idea,” Xu said.

  ( 49 )

  Ava, Xu, and Lam walked to the bar. Sonny and Suen stood off to one side, their eyes flicking between the doorway, the room in the back, and the two men on the ground.

  “Do you trust them?” Xu asked Lam. “Even if we reach an agreement, do you think they’ll honour it after they leave here?”

  “Bianchi isn’t stupid and he’s all business. He wouldn’t have asked those questions of Pandolfo if he didn’t think there’s a deal to be done,” Lam said.

  “Maybe, but I need the apology, and Raffi Pandolfo and his team have to make a genuine effort to mend fences for us with the trade,” Ava said.

  “I agree. You’ve given ground. Now it’s their turn,” Xu said.

  “What if they won’t do it?” Lam said.

  “Then I’ll honour my word and we’ll try to close all the doors to China.”

  “That wouldn’t be good for any of us. Bianchi wants the deal,” Lam said, as if trying to convince himself it would happen.

  “I know, but Ventola doesn’t and the two of them are very close.”

  Ava closed her eyes. She was tired. Conversation at the bar ebbed to a halt, and she wasn’t sure how much time had passed before she heard a voice.

  “Could you please join us,” Ricci said.

  The mood at the table had changed. Ventola’s face was just as grim, but the others looked relaxed. Xu nudged Ava gently with his elbow as they sat down.

  “This is a difficult situation for all of us,” Bianchi said. “If we’d known each other’s involvement with the various parties it would never have reached this stage. But here we are and we have to deal with it. We’re prepared to co-operate.”

  “Along the lines we discussed?” Ava said.

  “Yes.”

  “An apology, a glowing review of Clark’s work, and Raffi Pandolfo’s team hard at work promoting PÖ?”

  “You never let up, do you,” Bianchi said.

  “I want things to be absolutely clear. Misunderstandings only lead to more problems.”

  “You have our agreement on all of those points,” Bianchi said. “Naturally we’ll be concerned about the specific wording.”

  “I’ll be happy to let VLG draft the statements,” Ava said. “We’ll have to agree to them, but we’ll be reasonable as long as the wording is fair.”

  “We can do that,” Pandolfo said.

  “I’d also like to see the marketing plan. We have a few contacts who will be interested,” Ava said. “I also want to know how and when Raffi’s people intend to contact the trade.”

  “I’ll make all that information available to you,” Pandolfo said. “You and I can start on it right now if you want. If not, I’ll email you the drafts tomorrow for your comments.”

  Ava smiled. “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry we put you through this,” he said.

  Ava wondered if he was being sarcastic, but he looked sincere enough. She glanced at Ventola. His head was turned, his eyes fixed on some distant spot and his jaw clenched. She smiled at Pandolfo. “I assume I’ll be dealing with you and not Mr. Ventola on these matters,” she said.

  “You will.”

  She looked again at Ventola and knew she couldn’t leave it like this with him. “Mr. Ventola, I know you’re still angry with us —with me —but you have to understand that we weren’t trying to take anything away from you. All we want to do is support Clark Po and build our little company into something a bit bigger. That’s how you started. That’s how everyone starts. How would you have reacted if in the early days some giant corporation tried to put you out of business because you wanted to pursue your own dream?”

  “He reacted the way you did,” Bianchi said. “I reminded him of that when we talked.”

  “What?”

  “His company was less than two years old when a French conglomerate tried to take him over. He resisted and they went after him. He fought them off for as long as he could, but when he felt desperate,
he turned to me in the same way you turned to Lam and Xu. The most important thing in life is to have friends you can trust completely. I was pleased to be there for him.”

  “Is that true? I mean, about the French conglomerate?” she said.

  “It is,” Bianchi said.

  Ava leaned towards Ventola. “Then you should understand how Clark feels.”

  “We’ll make things as right as we can,” Pandolfo said.

  Ventola’s shoulders slumped, and Ava thought she saw weariness replace the determination in his face. “I’ll call the boy at some point in time,” he said.

  ( 50 )

  The group in the back room broke up. Ava and Raffi Pandolfo went into the front of the restaurant to start drafting the announcement and reviewing the list of publications, blogs, and industry insiders it would be sent to. Pandolfo was affable, acting as if there had never been a dispute.

  While they worked, Dominic Ventola sat by himself at the far end of the bar, drinking red wine.

  “Dom’s not naturally a nasty man,” Pandolfo said at one point. “He’s just had to fight for everything. Nothing was easy. There was a lot of rejection at the beginning. It started with a father who couldn’t accept his sexuality or his profession. He thinks he’s closed that door, but every time he faces rejection it comes back.”

  “He and Bianchi are extraordinarily close.”

  “We don’t talk about that. They were young and stuff happened. That’s all anyone knows.”

  “Okay, but Bianchi obviously has some influence over him that —pardon me —even you don’t appear to have. What did he say to Dom that caused him to agree to this? Was it really reminding him of his own early struggles?”

  “It’s a good story, but neither of them is that sentimental. Bianchi controls the purse strings. He told him that every single dollar we lost in China would come directly out of Dom’s share of company proceeds.”

  “That would get anyone’s attention,” she said.

  “At the end of the day it’s always about money. Dom can talk all he wants about image and reputation, but what he wants more than anything is to be the most valuable fashion conglomerate in the world. That’s the only score card that matters to him and Bianchi.”