THIRTY-TWO

An Offer You Can’t Refuse

The call came in the wee hours from Fredo, Don Vincenzo’s only child.

The news wasn’t good.

We were still on the road, well past midnight, and it rang in on my phone, which I carefully dug from a pocket and handed to Caeli.

“It’s Freddy,” she said when she spotted the caller ID.

I didn’t say anything for fear that I would somehow jinx things with an off-the-cuff comment.

But things were already jinxed.

“Hey, Freddy, it’s Caeli,” she said when she punched in. “Max is driving. Give me a second while I activate the speaker so he can hear, too.”

“Right. OK – what time is it there? God, I’m so sorry. It must be late – glad I didn’t get you out of bed.”

“It’s all right,” Caeli said. “We’re closing in on 1 a.m. Irish time, and we’re good to go now – Max can hear you, too.”

“Buon giorno, Fredo, I said.

“Hey, Professor Blake,” he said. “How are you holding up?”

“We’re both fine,” Caeli said. “How is everything back home?”

“That’s why I’m calling. I wouldn’t bother you otherwise, but I thought you ought to know. Dad has taken a turn. Are you getting close to wrapping things up – finding your uncle?”

“We’re getting there,” Caeli said. “I’m so sorry to hear about your father. How is he doing?”

“Not good,” he said. “Every time I ask a question, things seem to be that much worse. Based on what we are hearing, I don’t think he’ll recover, and he’d like to see you both … before he goes.”

What happened to the months the doctors were talking about? I wondered.

I can’t speak for Caeli, but the news hit me hard. I’d come to genuinely enjoy Don Vincenzo’s company – to appreciate his willingness to share what he had with his friends (and he had much to share) and his ability to sort through complex situations and arrive at logical conclusions, to rectify thorny problems, to tackle issues that no one else wanted to get near.

He was a complicated man, with a complex history and a past that had attracted interest from state and local police departments, the U.S. government, Interpol, Europol, Italy’s Agency for External Information and Security (the Guardia di Finanza), as well as the Italian Polizia and Carabinieri, and god only knows how many FBI and CIA equivalents in how many countries across the globe, Ireland included.

Bill Kohlmeyer, a man I’d trusted my life to, once told me that Don Vincenzo’s nickname, early on in his career as a capo in his native country, was The Watchmaker.

“They called him that because he liked to take people apart, just to see what made them tick,” Kohlmeyer had said. “I’ve got a file on the guy that’s four inches thick. If you want some light reading and have a month, let me know.”

I took him up on the offer, but Kohlmeyer was wrong: The content didn’t exactly constitute light reading.

But as I got to know Vincenzo Fierro, I found that many of the simplistic descriptions and pro forma, by-the-book reports and the basic information that was contained in a great many police and agency files didn’t come close to capturing the man’s complexity, his inventiveness, his genius for collaboration, his capacity for knowledge, his willingness to learn new things, his embracing of new friends.

Sure, he was complicated, all right, just as Kohlmeyer is complicated. And like Bill Kohlmeyer, Don Vincenzo was worth the effort, and not everyone is – in my experience, anyway.

Even the reports of his wealth, often exaggerated in speculative news stories as well as federal agency accounts, were misjudged, and always on the lowball side of the ledger. He’d told us once, during a casual dinner at his home in West Salem, that he was worth well over $10 billion, and there wasn’t a trace of braggadocio in his words. He was reporting a simple fact, in the same way he’d say he owned a truck or had an account at the local savings and loan, or that he preferred his own cooking to that of the Roma chef he’d once briefly employed at the winery that he now called home.

Caeli’s relationship with the don was more complex than mine, and I wondered now how she was reacting to Fredo’s news. When we’d first met Vinny Fierro, he’d said some things to her in Italian that, when translated, would be construed as offensive. His opening words, in fact, just after I’d introduced her, were this: “Ah, Signorina Brown. Il tuo seno e’ come dei meloni Toscani” – at the same time that he took her hand and gently kissed it.

She wasn’t particularly amused when she heard the translation: “Your breasts are like melons from Tuscany.”

What made things worse, in Caeli’s mind, anyway, was the idea that the don made the remark without realizing that I was fluent enough in Italian to get through a menu and also could recognize a colorful off-color phrase or two – not that he let it bother him.

Of course, my Italian skills have increased greatly since the time that we first met Don Vincenzo, and I have him to thank for that.

But then, we both have much to be thankful for because of the man’s generosity – this trip included. Had he not instantly allowed Caeli access to his jet, his bodyguards, his contacts, and a generous financial advantage, she would have been without a passport, certainly without adequate protection to face the threat that we currently were under, and also without my presence, I suppose, for better or worse.

“Do they have a diagnosis, Fredo?” I asked after a long moment of silence.

“I guess,” he said. “You could ask Doctor Strand, and he could list you a half-dozen things I can hardly pronounce. Bottom line: He’s like an old mantle clock that can’t be wound up any more, for whatever reason, and now he’s slowly … winding down, I guess you’d call it. At some point, the spring will lose its tension and he’ll be gone.”

Freddy was quiet.

Lost in my own bout of melancholia, I couldn’t think of a thing to say to comfort him – or even myself or Caeli.

“We think we’re on to something here,” Caeli eventually said, after the long pause dragged on to the point that it was uncomfortable. “If we can resolve things soon, and we hope to do that, we’ll turn right around and head home. Please tell him to hang on – to hang in there.”

“I’ll do that,” Freddy said, clearing his throat. “Not much else I can say, really – other than to hurry. I get the sense he’s in his last days. But maybe you can talk to Doctor Strand and ask him. He might tell you something he hasn’t shared with me.”

“Chin up, Freddy,” I said. “And don’t underestimate your father. He’s as tough as anyone I’ve ever known, as tough as they come, and he can do things few other men can do. He might just surprise us all.”

“I suppose,” Fredo said. “But nobody can beat death. Not even my dad.”

We said our good-byes, and I wondered again about Caeli’s state of mind as we passed a few kilometers in silence.

She apparently was thinking about mine as well.

“Are you all right?” she eventually asked.

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“I’m doing OK,” she said. “I got a good look at it, when I was with him on the plane. I’ve come to terms with it. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah. I guess,” I said. “It’s hard to believe. You get to know him a bit, and you think he’ll live forever. You sure don’t think he’ll go out in some hospital bed or at the winery, with tubes and wires and drips hanging off him.”

“I wonder if Elmore and Leonard know,” she said after another long moment passed. “You think I should give them a call?”

I thought about it, trying to put myself in their place, wondering about the complex nature of their relationship with the don – a man they thought of more as a father than as an employer.

“No. I don’t think it’s our place to tell them,” I said. “Leave it to Freddy … or to Vinny himself.”

The rain had stopped, and a full moon was sailing off to our right, a glorious sight made more impressive because no light pollution interfered with our view of the sky. A riot of stars danced overhead, and I was tempted to bring the Range Rover to a halt and get out and look for familiar constellations and take Caeli’s hand in mine and share stories of our friend.

The tires sang on the pavement, and Elmore checked in a moment later with a brief update – “Corbin’s still heading northeast – no change in speed or direction” – and I thought that I saw a tear in Caeli’s eye as she switched on the console light and re-examined the map.

“I can’t tell where he’s going,” she said of Corbin. “Limerick, maybe, though the route he’s chosen is certainly roundabout. And I don’t understand why he doesn’t stop for the night. I know I would.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Maybe he’s close to whatever destination he has in mind. Maybe he wants to spend the night in his own bed – wherever that might be.”

“I can relate to that,” she said. “I sure wish this was over.”

“I’m with you there, kiddo.”

“And I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t opened the mailbox and read that postcard – or even taken the trip last year, when we met with Uncle Jack and I forced him into concocting a plan if he got himself into trouble.”

“We don’t know that he’s in conventional trouble, Caeli,” I said softly. “Maybe whatever’s going on here is exactly the way he’s laid it out – just as Corbin told us.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not. How can we know, or make sense of it? It’s like working a jigsaw with half the pieces missing and no idea what the picture even looks like.”

“I wish I had some answers – some tangible solutions,” I said.

“Right now I’d settle for a hot shower and a nice warm bed,” she said.

“And someone close by to snuggle with?”

“That would be nice, too. Are you holding up OK? Do you want me to drive?”

“No. I’m good. Sit and relax. Sleep if you want.”

“I don’t think I can sleep. But I can tell you what Vinny told me, when we were on the jet, coming over here. I didn’t want to get distracted thinking about it. But with Freddy’s call just now, well, I guess I’m surprised I haven’t mentioned it – or that he apparently didn’t mention it to you.”

“Why would Freddy mention it – whatever it is?”

“Not Freddy. Vinny. I was talking about Vinny.”

“Vinny told you something, on the way over here. Yes. You said that.”

“Vinny didn’t just tell me something, Max. He told me everything.”

Don’t you wish sometimes, when things are odd or off kilter somehow, that you could go back in time … turn back the clock to a different age, when the world was less complicated, less frightening, far clearer?

With me, it generally happens when I’ve heard news that’s so unsettling that I simply don’t know how to react, recognizing only that traditional approaches – reason; logic; common sense; damn-the-torpedoes bullheadedness; putting it off or putting it out to pasture; whatever – will be useless to me.

I’ve never liked that feeling, especially when it’s banging loudly on the door.

And the door was rattling right now.

Here’s what Caeli told me, word for word. Once she got started, I had her call Elmore and explain that we were taking a quick break. Then I pulled off the road and asked her to download a voice recorder app on the sat-phone and start again so that I could save it, complete and intact, for this narrative.

For purposes of clarity, I’ve eliminated my questions and/or comments along the way:

“We were maybe three hours out, after stopping in Boston to refuel, heading for Dublin. He asked me to join him, and I took the seat immediately across from him so we could talk easily. I could tell that he was in some pain. When I asked him about it, he waved it off and asked me to listen carefully because he didn’t have a lot of time left.

“That surprised me, and I asked what he meant. He smiled – that thin, Trust-me look that only lasts for a second before it’s gone – and he said, ‘I am not well, and I am afraid there is nothing the doctors can do for me, other than make me comfortable.’ I tried to tell him that medical researchers continue to make important discoveries all the time and that the impossible gets solved every day. But he waved it off – you know the gesture I mean. He told me, ‘It is too late. I am too far along to save, but I have no regrets. I lived the life I wanted. I have a wonderful son who can carry on for me, long after I am gone, and make me proud.’

“He then said he was tired, but he asked me to stay because he had something important to tell me but first needed to rest. He fell asleep almost immediately and was out for more than an hour. I pulled a blanket and a pillow from the overhead compartment and made him comfortable. And I’ll admit it, Max, but I wanted to call you right away, to tell you what was going on. But we were in the middle of nowhere. It just wasn’t possible.

“Anyway, he woke up and called for the steward and asked for some water and took a couple of pills. He looked exhausted, but he sounded like he always does. His eyes were sharp and clear. I never felt he was on heavy medication or compromised in any way. He was just Vinny, talking to me, like he does when he has us over for dinner.

“He said that when he was gone, Freddy would inherit the bulk of his estate in West Salem, his global holdings, which apparently are enormous – more than we’d ever guessed – and would run Fierro Enterprises with one stipulation: that you serve as his consigliere – his permanent adviser. He didn’t let me off the hook, either. I was charged with assisting the two of you in all media concerns related to the business. He has titles for us and contracts and pay schedules and a hundred other details in the hands of his lawyers now, just waiting for our signatures.

“And Max … the money. You won’t believe the money … what he’s offering, what he’s guaranteeing us for agreeing to do this. Our annual salary is three million dollars, each, guaranteed after taxes. We also have use of the corporate jets, our pick of cars in his fleet, an assortment of health benefits, insurance plans, payments to a savings plan that total a million a year, with a starting benefit of five million already in place – and again, that’s for each of us. That’s not all: He’ll build us a new house of our own design in West Salem, close to the winery, he’s giving us a house in the Caribbean, and – wait ’til you hear this – an estate here in Ireland, outside of Limerick.

“The catch? There is no catch. All we have to do is agree to counsel Freddy, for as long as he wants us. And even if Freddy decides to sever the contracts, for any reason at any time, we will still be covered throughout our lifetime.

“I guess this was Vinny’s endgame all along – the reason he was so good to us. He knew this was coming and wanted guardians he could trust to watch over his son.”

There was more, of course … myriad little details and asides and tangents and more than a few “Holy God” remarks and similar exclamations of disbelief, as well as my incredulity that she’d held out on me for so long.

Behind it all, however, was the sobering thought that Don Vincenzo was passing the torch permanently, and we both said that we’d gladly trade what he was offering us, in an instant, if only his health were better and we could enjoy the pleasure of his company for years to come.

“And Freddy is OK with this?” I asked Caeli when she’d finished. “You’re certain of that?”

“As certain as I can be,” she said. “He told me it was Freddy’s idea to begin with – that he was disappointed when you didn’t take the job offer Vinny made to you more than a year ago, and he was insisting that you sign on now.”

It was a lot to take in.

“I know we’ve connected with Vinny, and with Fredo, of course – that we get along all right,” I said. “But ... this?”

Caeli understood, far better than I’d expressed it in that single moment in the middle of the night in the Irish countryside, with only grazing sheep as witnesses as we sailed past.

“I said the same thing – that it was too much, that it didn’t make sense. But he told me that your simple act of kindness to Fredo, when he flunked your class and rather than changing the grade to accommodate the old man, you insisted that Freddy take the class again and work for the grade … that one incident was the big difference in Freddy’s life, and in the way that Vinny looked at you – looked at both of us, apparently. He said, Max, that you turned his son into a man, far better than he’d ever been able to.”

All right, so how do you follow that up?

Elmore knocked on the car window a moment later and asked if we were all right.

I shook my head up and down a couple of times without saying a word, and we headed off again into the night.