Dying on the Vine

TWELVE

“THIS is ridiculous,” Franco Cubbiddu said with an impatient gesture at the clock, the only infringement on the pristine perfection of the walnut-paneled walls other than the thermostat and the light switches. “Who the hell does he think he is? I’ll give him exactly two more minutes, and if he’s not here by then, this meeting is concluded.”

“Let’s not be too hasty,” Severo Quadrelli said. “I think it would behoove us to hear what he has to say.”

Franco tapped his watch. “Two minutes.”

The eldest Cubbiddu was not having one of his better days. Things had started going wrong at breakfast. When he’d come down for his latte, brioches, and fruit—a time usually given to quiet reflection—he’d found the refectory full of jabbering, cackling attendees of Vino e Cucina (about which he’d completely forgotten). He’d made a quick job of it, but even so he hadn’t been able to avoid a slew of inane questions: What wine would he recommend to go with chili? Why didn’t Villa Antica produce any fruit-flavored wines? Had he heard about the new method (scientifically proven!) of aging wines by means of a “magnetic flux path” that produced the same results in thirty minutes that would otherwise require laying down the wine for years?

On escaping he’d told Maria that from then on, until the conference was over, he would take his breakfast in his apartment. But as far as today was concerned, the damage had been done: his morning was ruined. And then an hour later had come a stupid dispute with Amerigo, his dim-witted cellar master, who was refusing to let his workers use the brand-new, phenomenally expensive, ozone-based sanitizing system because he’d heard somewhere that the ozone would get in the air and give them all cancer. Ordinarily, Franco would never have heard about it because dealing with this kind of problem was Luca’s job, but Luca was busy with his damned cooking school, and Franco had wasted half an hour of his own time setting Amerigo straight, or rather convincing him that if he didn’t stop arguing and start following orders, he’d be out of a job.

It was all too much to put up with. Never again would Villa Antica host Vino e Cucina, that was certain. If Luca wanted to put it on again next year, he would have to find someplace else.

And then, to top it all off, into his office a couple of hours ago had walked Cesare, twitching and jittery and looking even more like hell than the last time Franco had seen him, when he had appeared, unwelcome and uninvited, at Pietro’s memorial service. He had something of importance to say to the brothers Cubbiddu, he said now, and they would be well advised to assemble at two o’clock in the small conference room to hear it. Oh, and it might be a good idea for them to have il consigliere—fat, old Quadrelli—there as well. Thank you.

That had been it. No explanation of the reason, no inquiry as to whether the time was convenient or whether the conference room would be free. Just be there.

So here they were, gathered around their glossy new conference table in their new, mesh-backed, seven-hundred-euro Aeron chairs, watching the clock’s minute hand slowly stutter its way toward 2:06.

“If he doesn’t show up pretty soon, I’m out of here too,” Luca said. “Afternoon break is over at two thirty. I have to be back with my class.”

At 2:10 Cesare finally shuffled in accompanied by a gray-haired, square-built woman well into her seventies carrying a worn, old-fashioned, brown briefcase with straps, and dressed in a blue velour tracksuit and bulky, clacking Birkenstock sabots. No socks. On Cesare’s face was a smug, self-satisfied look, a cat-that-was-about-to-eat-the-canary expresssion that raised alarm bells in Franco and Luca. What was their little turd of a stepbrother up to now?

Even Nico, who was the closest thing Cesare had to an ally, didn’t like the looks of it. He didn’t like Cesare’s looks either. The previous weekend he had driven to Florence for the sole purpose of having a heart-to-heart with Cesare, toward the end of getting him to sign up for (yet another) drug rehab program before he was too far gone altogether. Nico had offered to cover all expenses. Cesare had said he’d think about it, but from appearances, it didn’t look as if he intended to take the advice. He was stoned. Nico’s heart sank to look at him.

“Hoo-hoo, what do you know, the whole family’s here,” Cesare said. “I’m flattered.”

“You asked us to be here,” Franco told him coldly.

“No, I asked you to be here, Franco.” He said it like a man who was enjoying a good joke.

“No, you asked—”

Luca began gathering himself to rise. “Good, if I’m not needed—”

The woman with Cesare interrupted. “You gentlemen are the family? The brothers? I think it might be better if you remained.” She had a surprisingly resonant voice, straight from the chest and almost as deep as Quadrelli’s basso.

Quadrelli now donned his mantle as Protector of the Clan. “I don’t believe we know this lady?” he said to Cesare with rising inflection.

“This is my lawyer, signora Ornella Batelli.”

The three brothers exchanged glances. A lawyer? Now what?

“Please sit down,” Franco said, gesturing at the two empty chairs. He was coldly polite. “I’m Franco Cubbiddu, signora, and these are my brothers, Nico and Luca. That gentleman is our attorney, signor Severo Quadrelli. What can we do for you?”

Cesare answered. “I’m suing you,” he said breathlessly. “That’s right, I’m suing the shit out of you. Ha. Ha-ha.”

Another shared, wary glance between the brothers. This was not going to go well.

“Now take it easy, bro,” Nico said with his easygoing smile. “Let’s not get carried away here.”

“Screw you,” Cesare said. “Bro.”

“Oh, man, Cesare,” Nico said with a genuinely sad shake of his head. There had been a time when he had loved Cesare more than he’d loved anyone else in the family other than Pietro. They had played together when no one else would play with them, they’d had their first taste of wine together, they’d created make-believe castles and fought make-believe battles in the vineyard with wooden stakes for swords for hours at a time. Time and time again, Nico, as the older boy, if only by a few months, had taken his stepbrother’s side against his own blood family. Cesare had responded by looking worshipfully up to him as his role model, his protector, and his one real friend among the Cubbiddus. Whatever Nico wore, or said, or did, Cesare had aped it.

Even now, despite the many changes in Cesare—the growing recklessness, the frightening free-fall into drug-addled stupidity and selfishness, and all the misery that went along with it—Nico still loved him, still had hopes, despite everything, that he could save him from himself and, against all odds, bring him back into the embrace of the family.

Not that he wasn’t sympathetic to Franco’s and Luca’s feelings. It was certainly true that the kid wasn’t the most agreeable person in the world. But he’d had a tough time of it. Not only was he the stepbrother—the son of the hated stepmother—but he’d wound up with the short end of the genetic stick when Pietro and Nola had joined families—a skinny, undersized little troll skulking among handsome, confident giants—and he’d never managed to fit in, although God knows he’d tried hard enough (which was part of the problem).

“Come on, Cesare, don’t be like that,” he said. “What kind of crap is this about suing us? Why don’t you just tell us what’s on your mind, and we can take it from there? You know, get it out on the table and talk it out.”

“No, you don’t get it, Nico. There’s no us, there’s only him. I’m suing Franco.”

“Well, whatever it is,” Nico said soothingly, “I’m sure we can work it out without involving all these lawyers. No offense, signora.”

Cesare wasn’t buying it. “Oh yes? Ha-ha. I’d like to see you work your way out of this. No, no, no, no, we’re not talking anything out—”

When he began to blink and cough, Franco cut in flintily. “You’re damn right we’re not talking anything out. You’ve been treated far more fairly by my father and by this family than you deserve, and you know it. There’s nothing to work out,” he finished with a warning glance at Nico, who had looked as if he were about to speak.

“I quite agree,” signora Batelli said. “There is nothing to work out. Let us be clear. We are not here to negotiate with you or to make demands. We are here, as a courtesy, to inform you of a civil action we are about to pursue.”

The brothers’ uneasiness increased. Despite the woman’s age, there was an air of resolute immovability about her. Built along the lines of a washer-dryer combination, she brought to mind the alarming images of Bulgarian lady shot-putters from the 1950s, an impression the voice and the tracksuit did nothing to lessen.

Severo’s eyebrows shot up. “A civil action?”

“My client intends to bring suit against Franco Cubbiddu in the amount of four million euros.”

“What!” Franco demanded with a shriek of not-quite-hysterical laughter. “Are you out of your mind?”

Luca shook his head and addressed the fluorescent-lit ceiling. “I don’t believe this.”

Severo contributed a magisterial frown and a low, warning rumble: “See here . . .”

Nico just leaned over and banged his head on the table. “Aww, Cesare. You gotta be kidding me.”

None of it discomposed the signora. “We intend to claim this amount as recompense for damages suffered by my client as a result of the murder of his mother, Nola Baccaredda Cubbiddu, by signor Cubbiddu—your father, gentlemen—in September of last year.”

“Our father!” Franco exclaimed. “He’s dead and gone. What are you suing me for?”

“As I’m sure signor Quadrelli will explain to you,” said signora Batelli patiently, “in such cases, under Italian law, it is permissible to file against the estate and the heirs. We will be filing against you as the primary heir.” She smiled at him. Nothing personal, of course.

“Now hold on right there,” Severo said. “Just you hold on one minute. I have to tell you right now that what you’re demanding is preposterous. No judge in his right mind would even consider such an outrageous sum as recompense for emotional damages suffered—”

Signora Batelli’s forefinger rose. “Permit me, signor Quadrelli. We are speaking about emotional damages and monetary damages—”

“Monetary damages!”

Nico chimed in as well. “I honestly don’t see how you were damaged, Cesare. Not in that way . . . monetarily? You got a lot of money from babbo’s will, buddy—the same as I did, same as Luca did. I mean, you have to admit—”

“You don’t see how? You don’t see how?” The whispery drumming of Cesare’s feet on the carpet, audible since he’d sat down, picked up speed. And now the new bumping of his knees against the underside of the table set it to thrumming. The kid himself was practically thrumming. “I’ll tell you how. I’ll tell you how.” But he was racked with a ferocious, phlegmy bout of coughing. “I’ll . . . I’ll tell . . .”

He rummaged frustratedly through his pockets. “Shit—”

“I have it, Cesare,” signora Batelli said, reaching into her briefcase for a small bottle of an Italian cough medicine.

Cesare snatched it from her hand almost before she’d gotten it all the way out, took a couple of gulps straight from the bottle, and flinched at the taste but seemed to find some relief. Nico, concerned, had gone to the phone and asked for some water to be brought. When it arrived, Cesare downed some, recovered himself a little more, and started to talk again, but was once more convulsed, this time spraying a grimacing Franco with water, cough medicine, and who knew what else. Cesare did some more pocket-plumbing and came up with a handkerchief that had obviously seen earlier use, with which he wetly, lengthily blew his nose. Not only Franco, but Luca, Nico, Quadrelli, and even signora Batelli all shifted their chairs a little further away from him.

“Perhaps it would be best if I continued, Cesare,” signora Batelli said soothingly, upon which Cesare, lifted his hand in acquiescence. “You see, gentlemen, my client will contend—and I don’t see how it can be denied—that the murder of his mother deprives him of an inheritance that is rightfully his.”

“What inheritance?” Quadrelli demanded. “All of the Cubbiddus’ property was held in her husband’s name. All she owned in her own name were a few Baccaredda heirlooms . . . which I have made sure have gone to Cesare, as is only right.”

Cesare, his coughing under control, if only barely, broke in. “He killed my mother, and he profited from it! I thought that was against the law in this country!”

“How did he profit from it?” Luca asked angrily. “He’s dead.”

“Well, yes, technically—”

A snort from Luca. “What the hell is ‘technically’ dead?”

“I mean . . .” He didn’t quite cough, but another fit was clearly on its way if he continued. He gestured to signora Batelli, who took over.

“What my client means, of course, is that his estate profited by Nola’s death, which, in a legal sense, can be interpreted as the same thing. And Franco Cubbiddu was the primary beneficiary of that estate.”

“Now, signora.” Severo was practically oozing condescension. “As an experienced attorney I’m sure you know perfectly well that, while it is true that our laws prohibit a murderer’s profiting from his crime, that prohibition applies to the contents of the victim’s will, not the murderer’s, so you see, the issue is moot.”

“Severo,” Franco snapped, “will you kindly stop calling our father a murderer?”

“What would you call him?” Cesare snarled.

“Please, gentlemen,” said Quadrelli, “I am speaking in general terms. Let me continue—”

But signora Batelli was running out of patience. “You do not understand me, signore. We are not challenging signor Cubbiddu’s will. We are bringing a wrongful death suit—”

“A wrongful—”

“—to recover damages for the loss by my client of his mother’s love, affection, companionship, and emotional support, as well as the financial and economic support that would have eventually ensued had she not been so tragically murdered.”

“Please, signora,” Severo said more severely, “do not play these semantic games with me. You know perfectly well that that your client has no standing from which to bring suit. The codes involved are entirely clear on this. If you are unfamiliar with them, I would be happy to provide you with the relevant citations.”

Signora Batelli, now openly irritated by Quadrelli’s manner, stood abruptly and shoveled papers into her attaché case. “As I’ve said, gentlemen, we’re not here to argue. We came to tell you what to expect, and we have told you. Signor Quadrelli, you’ll hear more formally from my office very shortly.” A crisp nod. “Arrivederla, signori. Come, Cesare.”

Cesare, tottering and blinking, already unsure of what had just transpired, followed her.

“You did well, Severo,” Franco said once their visitors had left, although he didn’t look so sure about it.

Severo accepted the praise with a sober nod.

“What you said is true, isn’t it, Severo?” Luca asked. “He can’t really do that, can he? Sue us? The little turd?”

Severo responded with a grave, sympathetic smile, kind and kingly. “I’m afraid he most certainly can, my boy.”