And now there was the will.
Now there was the formality of death, now there was only the business of death, the hard transaction of inheritance, and he stood in Elliot Tulley’s office with the window facing the street behind him, and life rushing past below, and he talked to him the way he would to an agent trying to sell a dubious property.
“Who’s Giovanni Fabrizzi?” he asked.
“He’s the person to whom your mother chose to leave half her estate in trust.”
“Don’t give me any double talk, Elliot,” David said. “I understand the will perfectly. Who is he?”
“A man. A person.” Elliot shrugged.
“Look, Elliot, I’m not in the mood for this kind of horse manure, believe me. I’m leaving for Los Angeles on Friday, and I want to settle this before I go, if possible. Either you tell me who this man is and what the separate agreement between them is all about, or I’ll start suit the minute I get back from the Coast.”
“There isn’t a court in the land that can force me to produce that document, David. I think you ought to know that.”
“Who’s Fabrizzi?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that.”
“I’ve gone over my mother’s accounts,” David said, “and settled all her unpaid bills. I had the opportunity of looking through her canceled checks, Elliot. Why’d she give you a check for a hundred and fifty dollars each month?”
“That was something between your mother and me,” Elliot said.
“What kind of something?”
Elliot shrugged. “A retainer.”
“That’s not true. I’ve seen the checks she paid you as retainers. They were all clearly marked as such in her records. These other checks were made out to you in the amount of a hundred and fifty dollars every month since the summer of 1943. Her checkbooks do not indicate why she made those payments. Suppose you just tell me why, Elliot.”
“Suppose I just don’t,” Elliot said.
“I can get rough, Elliot. There are a lot of lawyers around who’d just love to sink their teeth into a portion of such a large settlement. How about it?”
Elliot shrugged again. “You want some advice?” he asked.
“No, I don’t want advice. I want information.”
“I’ll give you the advice, anyway. Free of charge, which is unusual for me. A, you can’t force me to tell you why your mother paid me a hundred and fifty dollars a month or what for. It was a private transaction, and entirely legal, and this is still the United States of America, and you can go straight to hell if you think you’ll find out from me. And B, you can contest this will if you want to, but you’d have to show your mother was incompetent when she wrote it, and that’d be difficult to prove since she was an unusually alert and aware woman right up to the time of her death. And in any case, I wouldn’t have to show the document mentioned in the will. So my advice is to forget all this nonsense and take your half of the estate and be damned happy you got that much. If your mother left the other half in trust, she had a very good reason for it. That should be enough for you.”
“Well, it isn’t.”
“Well, that’s too bad, David.”
“The will gives an address in Rome for Fabrizzi,” David said.
“Yes, that’s true. It does.”
“I can always go to Rome.”
“I suppose you can. I don’t know why you think you’d have more luck with Fabrizzi than you’ve had with me, but you can always go to Rome. That’s true.”
“This is important to me,” David said.
“I imagine it is. Money is always important.”
“It’s not the money!” David said angrily.
“Then what is it?”
“I want to know. I want to know why she left her son only half the estate.” He paused. “I’m her son, Elliot,” he said softly.
Elliot spread his hands wide. “What can I tell you, David? Do you want me to break a trust? Well, I can’t. Go to Rome if you want to. But don’t ask me to be an informer.”
“I’m supposed to leave for Los Angeles on the first of July,” David said.
Elliot did not answer.
“I can get out of it,” David said, almost to himself. “Curt would let me out of it.”
“She’s dead,” Elliot said. “Let her rest in peace.”
“What are you afraid of, Elliot?”
“Nothing.”
“That I’ll find out something terrible in Rome?”
“Only fools go looking for trouble,” Elliot said. “Let it lie, David. There’s nothing for you in Rome.”
The art gallery across the square from the hotel was exhibiting the works of an unknown Sicilian painter, white posters boldly shrieking in huge black letters the single word PANZOLA. A few taxicab stoics nudged the curb in front of the gallery, indifferent to culture, shining, black, impervious to the clinging Roman haze. David cursed their formidability, squinted his eyes against the glare, and then walked swiftly toward the overhanging green canopy of the hotel.
A bellhop idling in the lobby, enwrapped in his dream of a holiday on Lake Como, leaped erect when he saw David approaching, turned on an instant dazzling smile, and rushed to pull open one of the glass doors.
“Thank you,” David said.
“Very hot outside,” the bellhop said, grinning, testing his tourist-trade English.
“Yes,” David answered. He pulled his handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped his brow, wondering if the opening of a door warranted a tip. He decided it did not. Nodding briefly to the bellhop, he pocketed the handkerchief and walked into the lobby past Remus and Romulus suckling at the wolverine in bronze, feeling suddenly thirsty and wishing for a Scotch-and-soda.
The concierge behind the desk was busily pasting Italian airmail stamps to the pile of postcards before him. He did not look up when David approached. Wearing the silver-and-blue uniform of the hotel, his eyes distantly bored behind glasses whose rims were a shocking pearl-gray, he voraciously lapped stamps like a jungle cat licking his chops in the entrance doorway to a slaughterhouse.
“May I have my key, please?” David said.
The concierge did not look up from the postcards. The pink tongue darted out, another stamp gathered moistness.
“Your room number, sir?”
“Four-twelve.”
“Ah, yes, sir. Mr. Regan, sir?”
“That’s right.”
“There’s a message for you, sir.”
He flashed a mercurial and rare smile, and then turned his back to David, his extended forefinger running down the cubbyholes behind the desk. Then he whirled, dropped key and small white envelope on the desk before him, and reached for another stamp, his tongue darting out simultaneously.
“Thank you,” David said.
He looked at the envelope as he walked away from the desk. A meticulously small hand had lettered the name David Regan on the face of the envelope. He turned it over and looked at the flap.
The name Giovanni Fabrizzi sat in the center of the white triangle, and beneath it the man’s business address on the Corso. David pressed the button for the elevator, tore open the flap of the envelope, and pulled out a square of white note paper, which bore the same letterhead and the same studied careful handwriting:
MY DEAR MR. REGAN:
My secretary tells me that you have been calling repeatedly since your arrival in Rome several days ago. I was, as you know, away for a while with my family and have only just returned to my office and my various duties. If it is convenient to you, I would be happy to see you this afternoon at four o’clock.
My very kindest regards,