One Trillion Dollars Read online

  “Pleased to meet you,” John said and shook the yacht-builder’s hand.

  “A yacht?”

  Gregorio Vacchi looked over all the brochures, magazines, and books lying across the table as if it were a collection of porn material. He had spoken at normal volume but the harsh tone of his voice made it sound like a scream. Even the guard dog out on the lawn lifted his head.

  “Yes, a yacht. So what?” Eduardo responded angrily. “John is a wealthy man and a wealthy man needs a yacht.”

  “Nonsense!” his father explained in bad grace. “It’s a pointless luxury. To own a yacht is like standing in the rain and ripping apart thousand dollar bills, someone once said.”

  “John can tear thousand dollar bills until the end of his days and still be rich if he wants.”

  “I can’t see how this could help fulfill the prophecy in any way.”

  Eduardo rolled his eyes. “That’s just ridiculous! You can’t possibly insist that a yacht is too expensive for John. He could buy the Queen Elizabeth if he wanted to!”

  In a single moment of precious clear-sightedness, like in a lucid dream, John realized that this might turn out to be a crucial moment in his life when he made a certain decision that would characterize the rest of his life. He leaned forward, seemingly in slow-motion, and pulled out one of the brochures from the pile, one that had caught his attention earlier. It was a folder made of heavy, glossy white paper with golden letters, and it had a photo of the largest ship in the catalogue, described as a 53-meter ocean-going yacht with two dinghies and a helicopter landing-pad. It came with a 12-man crew. The purchase price was astronomical as the operating costs. He clapped the folder open and held it in the air. “I,” he said in a voice that resounded loud and clear, “have decided to buy this ship.”

  They all stared at him; Eduardo with large eyes and Gregorio with dropped jaw. No one said a word. Finally Gregorio reached out and took the brochure and studied it. He didn’t say a word but his expression showed his displeasure. He handed it back with the words, “It’s your money.”

  Yes, John thought as Gregorio went to the door. Exactly!

  The scenery was perfect. The moment was perfect. The view of the bay of Cannes from the ship broker’s office with its large windows, as clear as crystal, was perfect. Standing on the snow-white marble before the building and in the shade of a palm tree was the Mercedes that had brought them from the airport. They sat in luxurious leather chairs in front of the desk, made of dark burl wood and as large as two pool tables. The painting hanging on the wall in the back was three by four meters in size, bright, bold, and absolutely not a replica. The broker was wearing a suit by Ermenegildo Zegna, had carefully manicured hands and a beaming smile.

  “Naturally, we’ll take care of everything,” the broker explained with the perfect mix of nonchalance and enthusiasm; it instilled confidence to be dealing with someone who knew what he was doing. “We’ll arrange a berth for you in the yacht harbor of Portecéto and a membership in their yacht club if you wish. By the way, it is a very exclusive club. We will also take care of all official documents with the authorities; put the crew together and arrange the necessary insurances. All you have to do is call the captain and tell him when and where you wish to go to.”

  “Wonderful,” John said and nodded. He felt great.

  The secretary who brought the contracts was tall, blond, and had breathtaking long legs and an enormous bust. The tube dress she wore was more to show off her assets than to cover them.

  “Wonderful,” John said found himself saying again.

  The sales contract was printed on watermarked paper. The broker placed it on the desk before John and handed him a Mont Blanc fountain pen, which felt thick, heavy and expensive.

  It is sweet to be rich, John thought as he signed the papers. He had done a bit of math and knew that the paper he was signing at this moment would cost him a hundred times more than everything else he had bought or rented so far, including restaurant visits and chartered private jets. By just signing his name on a line at the bottom of a piece of paper he could move millions of dollars. This is better than sex!

  The broker allowed himself a subtle smile. The palm leaves above the Mercedes swayed lazily in the breeze and the sky was deep blue.

  “Now,” the broker said as he opened the appointment book, bound in water buffalo leather, “we should set a date for you to take possession of your yacht.”

  By the time they returned, John felt great. He felt as if there was champagne flowing in his veins instead of blood. Life was great. The way the gravel crunched as the Ferrari rolled into the Vacchis’ courtyard sounded great. The blue sky, the pale reddish-brown walls, the multi-green of the trees and bushes — it was great! All the colors in the world suddenly seemed more vibrant than ever before.

  I’m rich! John thought and went up the stairs two steps at a time. I am king of the world! As he stepped into his room the chambermaid, a young thing with black curly hair, was making the bed. He pat her on her rear as he went past her. She was startled, and then she giggled; “Signor Fontanelli!”

  John glanced at the clock. It was time to call his mother. His parents were about to celebrate their wedding anniversary, and they always did so with their children. This year would be special, an unforgettable celebration, he would make sure of that. He took the phone and dialed the long number.

  “Ciao, mamma!” he said when his mother answered the phone. “It’s me, John!”

  “Ciao, John.” She sounded somewhat miserable. “Have you heard yet? Lino got orders for Alaska. I just found out. This means he won’t be here for our wedding anniversary.”

  “Oh, he’ll get over it,” John told her dismissively. “Do you know what I thought about? We could do something really special for your wedding anniversary. All of you can come over here to bella Italia, with a private jet, of course, and then we can celebrate on my new yacht. What do you think? I bought a yacht today and I can’t think of anything nicer than to have you here to christen it.”

  For the next moment it was so quiet on the other end that John thought the connection dropped. Then he heard his mother say with an icy tone in her voice, “I am not having a son of mine acting like some cheap show-off. We will celebrate here, in our house, where I brought all of you into this world. We will have saltimbocca with broccoli and Parmesan cheese, like always. And in the afternoon we will go out for coffee, like we do every year. Whether you come or not.”

  It was like a slap in his face — right across the Atlantic. “Yes,” he said, feeling a rush of blood in his ears. “I understand. Of course I’ll come, mamma, I’ll be there for sure.”

  When he finished the phone call his knees were so wobbly that he had to sit on the bed. Fuck! He was well on his way to becoming an asshole. Dammit! Today he had bought a yacht to impress the whole world. What would he do tomorrow? Would he start giving away Cadillacs, like Elvis did once? And would he end up just like Elvis, fat, gluttonous, hooked on pills, surrounded by yes-men freeloading off his wealth?

  He felt as if he had been drunk all day and suddenly sobered up — as if someone had slapped him in the face. Tipsy? No, he was drunk, drunk stupid with money and with the feeling of being notable and important. Bad money drives out good, he thought, or money is the root of all evil, right? The sayings have some truth in them. He would have to be careful — very careful! No one else was going to take care for him.

  His mother had managed to get his head out of the clouds. But she might not always be able to do that, and she won’t be there for him forever.

  And … fuck! The watch! He touched and stared at his new watch. It was a Patek Philippe, and it cost fifty thousand dollars. He bought it because Eduardo talked him out of buying the Rolex that he actually wanted. He told him that it was too ordinary … a pimp watch. He could never go back to his parents without the watch that his father had given him … the one still in the New York pawnshop.

  He had to think of something.
/>   $11,000,000,000,000

  “NO PROBLEM,” EDUARDO told him. He went out and came back before long holding a list several pages long that he handed John. “There you are; phone numbers and addresses of everyone you know.”

  “A list of all the people who I know?” John thought he was hearing things. “How did you get a list of all the people I know?”

  “From Dalloway. That’s the detective who was supposed to find you. I’ve been meaning to show it to you for some time now to have you check to see if it’s complete.”

  The detective had done good work. Most names on the list were at least vaguely familiar to John, but after a while he realized that it included names of classmates from elementary school, his parent’s neighbors and people from Sarah’s group of friends. Murali and his pizza service were also on the list as well as the Laundromat where he used to work in and even Miss Pearson, his former landlady.

  “What in the world do you need such a list for?” John asked astonished.

  Eduardo grimaced. “Well,” he said, “there’s a dark secret that you don’t know about.”

  John got even more confused when Eduardo took him over to the little annex structure he had seen from his window, and wondered what went on in there. As they crossed the dusty courtyard Eduardo told him the low-built structure had, for centuries, been the stables but had been turned into a workshop after the war. The wooden door was old, heavy, and crooked, but the lock was brand new. The interior floors, walls, and ceilings were all lined with plywood but he could still smell goat shit and machine oil mixed with the wood. A small, narrow hall led into a small office with three desks. Three women sat behind the desks working. The rest of the room was taken up by wooden shelves piled high with boxes and cartons.

  “This,” Eduardo explained, “is your office staff.”

  “My what?” John asked astonished.

  Eduardo went to one of the women. “Signora Vanzetti. She’s a qualified business correspondent and speaks and writes English and French. She’s in charge here.”

  She nodded to John with an unsure smile. He recognized the woman as the one who helped unload the cartons after the big party. “Buongiorno,” John said. “Eduardo, what is the meaning of this?”

  “This is Signora Muccini,” Eduardo said continuing the introductions. “She’s good in English and Spanish and knows some Portuguese, but it seems that doesn’t matter so much. The woman looked like a typical robust Italian mamma. She stared at the floor like an embarrassed teenager in John's. “And this is Signora Tronfi. She’s fluent in Russian and Polish and knows other Slavic languages well enough to decipher the letters you keep getting.” Signora Tronfi gave a friendly laugh.

  “Letters?” Only now did he notice that tons of letters were stacked on the desks.

  “Since the day your name appeared in the papers,” Eduardo explained, “we’ve been swamped with letters. Thousands of letters, addressed either to you or our law firm every day.

  “Roughly speaking, there are three types of letters. First, marriage proposals.” He pointed to several white boxes in a group, each with a heart drawn on it with magic marker. “Keep these here. There are hundreds of women of all ages who want to marry you. We could produce a porn magazine with the photos that some send. The second type — aggressive letters.” He lifted a carton that had a skull sticker on it similar like the ones on bottles with poison. “Death threats, threats to kidnap you, to do your family harm, every type of psychopathic crap. Those types get thrown in here and delivered to the police daily. I think Interpol has formed a special unit by now that deals only with your cases. The third types are begging letters.” He pointed at boxes with dollar signs on them. There were stacks of them, rows of them, countless.

  “Begging letters?”

  “From people whose only child needs an operation that they can’t afford. People who have lost their homes by fire and weren’t insured, unemployed people, single mothers who don’t know how to feed their children, men who got injured at work and got no compensation.” John saw that the boxes were subdivided into different categories. Eduardo pointed to those with $$-A, and then to those marked $$-B. “Business people who are close to bankruptcy who can’t borrow money from banks anymore. Inventors who need money to develop their ideas to bring them to market and promising you fantastic returns if they are successful. Real estate owners who want to sell you land where oil reserves are suspected, or gold, or platinum, or uranium … But the vast majority of letters,” Eduardo continued and went over to the cartons with symbol $$-C; there were more of those types than all the others put together, “are from charities all over the world. Every charity you can imagine is represented here; helping the blind, feeding the poor, Salvation Army, projects in African villages, bible missions, helping homeless children, UNICEF, Bread for the World, World Hunger Assistance, Caritas, pregnancy assistance, war graves, prison rehabilitation, children with cancer, fair trade with the Third World, AIDS assistance, Alzheimer’s, drug addiction, tuberculosis, protection for mudflats, international city partnerships, and, not to forget, the Society for the Preservation of the Rhaeto-Romanic language.”

  “Society for the Preservation of the Rhaeto-Romanic language?” John echoed and looked at all the cartons and boxes with bewilderment.

  “This is a real business,” Eduardo said glumly. “Don’t be fooled. You call it fundraising in the US. There are even classes on how to write begging letters, fundraising consultants representing organizations for the poor, anything that will tug on the heart strings.”

  John randomly chose a carton, opened the lid and took out a letter. It was a thick envelope with a brochure. The subject matter was the preservation of wildlife and biosphere, and he was asked to donate a double-digit million dollar figure for a project in the southern Amazon region. For starters.

  Eduardo looked over his shoulder. “Animal protection activists,” he sneered. “They are the most fervent of all. Even though it has nothing to do with mankind’s future.”

  John tried to sort things out. Thousands of letters; incredible! “Let’s say someone I know wrote me a letter. Won’t it get lost in all this?”

  “Let’s hope not,” Eduardo said, “that’s why we have this list.” He pointed at the sheets of paper that John still held in his hand. “Each letter that comes from one of the people on the list will be forwarded to you.”

  “But no one has done so yet,” Signora Vanzetti chipped in.

  “There was one today!” mamma Muccini cried out, reaching into a small bright red box. “Here!”

  She handed John a pale blue envelope from Hopkins Junior College, New Jersey. John tore it open and read it quickly.

  “That’s just totally crazy!” The school inquired about offering him a degree honoris causa and wanted to throw a large celebration to honor him as the school’s most distinguished student. John shook his head and put the letter along with the list of names into his pocket.

  By the time they left the shed he felt like he’d been run over by a steamroller.

  Cristoforo Vacchi rose from the table after dinner, as usual, and left the room. But as he passed behind John on his way around the table he placed a hand on his shoulder, just like he had done once before in New York a long, long time ago, and he leaned down to him and said: “There’s something else I want to tell you, John. Even when you move into your own house soon and go your own way in life, you will always be welcome here with us. Anytime, John, and it does not matter what happens. Please, do not ever forget this.”

  Bewildered, John looked up to the wrinkly face with the tired eyes and pupils as deep as a canyon, and promised. The Padrone gave him a warm smile, and gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze, and then left the room.

  Alberto was the next to go to bed. “I would just be glad if you visit us once in a while.” He bat an eye. “It isn’t that far away — in your Ferrari. And having been lucky enough to see our family role to its completion, I’m naturally interested to see how things
go from now on. If you know what I mean.”

  Then they were four, sitting on the terrace with only the stars and a few lanterns for light; John, Eduardo, and his parents. Gregorio’s wife told them a few funny anecdotes from her school. Naturally, the role of the Vacchis in the Fontanelli fortune affair had been known to all in the village. And so it had been inevitable that she had to illustrate to the children in the lower classes how much a trillion was, and to those in the higher classes what interest and compound interest was. “So far, ten children,” she smiled, “have decided to put their allowances into a savings account and to leave it there for their descendants in the twenty-fifth century. Maybe we don’t have to worry about the future after all.”

  Gregorio swiped his hair from his face as the sea breeze tousled it. “I have another bit of business for you to consider, John,” he said with a strained expression. His wife had her arm around his shoulder and plucked at his shirt and a little on his ear, obviously trying to get him to go to bed. “You will continue to need lawyers, and I want to offer you my services. My father has never told you before, but we had other clients in addition to you and your ancestors. Not because we needed the money, but to keep in practice and keep up to the newest trends, so as to be the best possible lawyers … the best possible for the wealthiest man in the world.”

  John nodded obligingly. “Of course, no question.”

  “Good,” Gregorio said satisfied. Then they said good night to each other. John saw him kiss his wife with more passion than he would have attributed to the man, and the two disappeared into the darkness of the house.

  Eduardo took a long drink from his wine glass and chuckled in a low tone. “Don’t worry, I won’t leave yet, and when I do I won’t make a parting speech. We only do things the theatrical way we did back in New York when we have practiced in advance.”

  “You guys practiced that?”

  “Just like actors, I can assure you of that. You would’ve done the same thing after a twenty-five-year old died right before your eyes from a heart attack because he inherited a few million dollars.” Eduardo shrugged his shoulders. “That happened in front of my father back when he was a student at a notary public’s office. It’s been a long time since.”