Nightwork (36 page)

A small crowd was grouped around the exit of the chair lift, where people put on their skis to traverse to the T-bar. The afternoon was suddenly very quiet. Sloane was lying on his back, staring up at the sky. Another ski teacher was rubbing snow on his face, which was a terrible purple and green. Fabian got down on one knee beside the body and tore open the zipper of Sloane’s anorak and pulled up the sweater and shirt underneath. Sloane’s chest was hairy and white. I started to shake in cold, involuntary shudders. I could feel my teeth set like clamps in my jaws. Fabian leaned over and put his ear to Sloane’s chest. It seemed hours before Fabian lifted his head. Slowly he pulled Sloane’s shirt and sweater down and zipped up the anorak. “I think we’d better take him down to the hospital,” Fabian said to the two instructors. “As quickly as possible.” He stood up, rubbing his face as if to hide his sorrow. “Poor man,” he said, “he was a heavy drinker. The altitude and the sudden cold …If you’ll carry him to the lift,” he said to the instructors, “I’ll go down with him. Just call for an ambulance to be waiting at the bottom. Douglas, may I speak to you for a moment …?” He put his arm around my shoulders and led me to one side, two friends of the newly departed seeking a moment alone to soften the blow of the tragic loss of a comrade. Right out of an old wartime B movie, I thought, playing my part with conviction. The crowd, which had now grown larger, parted respectfully.

“Douglas, my boy,” Fabian whispered, patting my shoulder as if to console me, “I will not leave the corpse. I’ll get the IOU out of his pocket on the way down. Do you remember which side it was on?”

“That’s what I call showing a decent respect for the dead,” I said. “Left.”

“I admire your attitude, Gentle Heart.” He pulled me to him in a manly embrace, as though to keep me from breaking down. “I must say, old chap,” he said, “you
are
Johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to heart attacks.” Then he dropped his arm and said aloud, so that everybody could hear what he was saying. “I’ll leave you to break the news to Lily. She’ll be undone. Give her a stiff brandy.”

Then he walked, his head down, along the snowy path to the lift, where the two ski instructors were securely strapping the corpse onto one of the two-seater chairs. Fabian got into the second seat and put his arm protectively around the dead man. He gave a signal and the chair began to move slowly down the hill.

The two ski teachers took the next chair down. Honorary pallbearers, in bright jackets, descending into the valley to help dispose of the dead.

I went back into the club, where Lily was finishing her coffee, and ordered two brandies.

W
HEN I GOT BACK TO THE
hotel, I was told by the concierge that Mr. Fabian expected me to come up to his room. It was late in the afternoon. Lily and I had had several more brandies, sitting in silence as the restaurant slowly emptied. Death makes for long lunches.

I had left Lily at the hairdresser’s. “No sense,” she had said, “in wasting the whole afternoon.” We had taken the chair lift out of a sense of decorum. Skiing down, we agreed, after what had happened, would have seemed frivolous. Neither of us had spoken of Eunice.

“What was the last thing you said to the man?” Lily asked as we swung slowly toward the shadowed valley.

“Fuck off,” I said.

She nodded. “That’s what I thought you said. Hail and Farewell.” She gestured toward the peaks in the distance, still glowing in sunlight. The eagle, if that was what it was, was back on station, patrolling the neutral Helvetian air. “There are worse places to die.” She chuckled. “And worse last words. If there’s any justice, he cut that wife of his out of his will.”

“I’m sure he didn’t.”

“I said, if there’s any justice.”

“Do you think your husband has cut you out of
his
will?”

“Don’t be so American,” she said.

We left it at that.

On the way back to the hotel I stepped off at a shop and bought myself a topcoat. Didi Wales was welcome to her memento. It was a small price to pay for her absence.

Fabian was packing when I arrived at the suite he shared with Lily. He did not travel light. There were four big suitcases scattered around the two rooms. As usual, there were newspapers everywhere, opened to the financial pages. He packed swiftly and neatly, shoes in one bag, shirts in another, in crisp perfect piles. “I’m accompanying the body home,” he said. “It’s the least I can do, don’t you think?”

“The least,” I said.

“You were correct,” he said. “The IOU was in the left pocket. The formalities will all be taken care of before this evening. The Swiss are very efficient when it comes to getting a dead foreigner out of the country. He was only fifty-two. A choleric man. Premature destruction. A lesson for us all. I called his wife. She took the news bravely. She’s going to meet us—the coffin and myself—at Kennedy tomorrow. She’s making the necessary dreary arrangements. By the way, do you happen to know where Lily is?”

“Getting her hair done.”

“Unflappable girl. I admire that in her.” He picked up the phone and asked for the hairdresser’s. While he was waiting for the call to be put through, he said, “Would you mind driving us down to Geneva tomorrow?”

“If the police let me out of town,” I said. “They still have my passport.”

“Oh,” Fabian said, “I nearly forgot.” He took my passport out of his pocket and tossed it onto a table. “Here it is.”

“How did you get it?” Somehow I was not surprised that he had it. Partially against my will he had established himself in my imagination as a looming father-figure, capriciously powerful, solver of problems and mysteries, mover of men and laws. I thumbed through the passport to see if there was anything added or missing. I could see nothing to indicate that I had been suspected of crime.

“The assistant manager gave it to me when I came in,” Fabian said carelessly. “They found the necklace.”

“Who stole it?”

“Nobody. The lady had it stuffed in a ski boot for safekeeping and forgot where she’d put it. Her husband found it this afternoon. The assistant manager was writhing in apology. There’s a large bouquet of flowers and a magnum of champagne waiting for you in your room as a sign of the hotel’s mortification. Hello, hello,” he said into the phone, “may I speak to Lady Abbott, please?” Then to me. “You don’t mind being left alone for a few days, do you?”

“Frankly,” I said, “nothing could please me more.”

He arched his eyebrows. “Well …” he said.

“I feel as though I’ve been running cross-country for weeks,” I said. “I could use a little holiday.”

“I thought you were enjoying yourself.” There was a touch of reproach in his voice.

“Everybody to his own opinion,” I said.

“Lily,” Fabian said into the phone, “I have to go to America tomorrow. Two or three weeks, at the outside. Do you want to come?” He listened for a moment, smiled. “That’s my girl,” he said. “You’d better get back rather quickly and start packing.” He hung up. “She loves New York,” he said. “We’ll be staying at the St. Regis. In case you want to keep in touch.”

“Roughing it, aren’t you?”

He shrugged, went back to his packing. “It’s convenient,” he said. “And I like the bar. Actually, even if this hadn’t come up, I would have had to fly over in a day or two anyway. I want to put together the chalet deal and just about everybody I can think of is on the East Coast. I may have to go down to Palm Beach for a week or so, too. After the funeral.”

“Rough country.”

“I sense a certain resentment on your part, Douglas.” He frowned at a cashmere sweater he was folding. “I don’t think I’ll need this, do you?”

“Not in Palm Beach, you won’t.”

“You make it sound as though I’m going on this trip for pleasure.” Again I heard a mild reproach. “I assure you I’d much rather go down to Italy with you. As a matter of fact, there’s something I’d like you to do for me—for us—after you get to Rome. I’ve been in touch with a charming Italian gentleman. Name of Quadrocelli. Italians have all the luck when it comes to choosing names, don’t they? I’ll send the dottore a wire to expect you. A nice little enterprise that’s waiting to be wrapped up.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t sound so suspicious.”

“You must admit your last enterprise was hardly a howling success.”

“It worked out all right in the end, didn’t it?” Fabian said cheerfully.

“I don’t think we can count on
everybody
we do business with dropping dead on payday.”

Fabian laughed, showing his excellent teeth beneath the neat moustache. “Who can tell? I myself am now approaching the crucial age.”

“It would take an ax to do you in, Miles,” I said. “And you know it.”

He laughed again. “Anyway, you can explain the circumstances to Dottore Quadrocelli. Why I couldn’t come in person. You’ll find him in Porto Ercole. That’s just about two hours north of Rome. It’s a delightful place. I had hoped to spend at least two weeks there. There’s a first-class small hotel overlooking the Med. It’s called the Pellicano. An ideal place to hide out with a girl.” He sighed, regretting the first-class small hotel overlooking the Med. “Lily adores it. Later in the year, perhaps. Ask for the room with the big terrace. The good dottore has a villa not far from there.”

“What have you got going
this
time?”

“I wish you wouldn’t sound so surly, old man. I like contented partners.”

“My nerves aren’t as strong as yours.”

“No, I suppose they’re not. Wine.”

“What?”

“You asked me what I had going this time. What I have going is wine. With the way the world’s drinking these days, being in wine is like having a license to steal. Have you noticed how the prices for any kind of bottle have been going up? Especially in America.”

“I can’t say I have.”

“Trust me, they have. Quadrocelli has a small estate outside Florence. He makes a delicious Chianti. So far, on a very small scale. Just for himself and his friends. He’s surrounded by a lot of small farmers who also grow wine of the same quality. We played with the idea last summer of contracting to buy the crop of his neighbors, having a pretty label drawn up, and bottling it under his name and selling it in the States directly to restaurant chains. Eliminate all the middlemen. You can imagine the advantages.”

“I can’t really,” I said. “I’ve never eliminated a middleman in my life. But I suppose it’s enough if you can.”

“Believe me,” he said. “It would take a little capital, of course. Mr. Quadrocelli doesn’t have the necessary and last summer, as you can imagine, neither did I.”

“And now you have.”

“
We
have. First person plural, old man.” He patted my arm in a brotherly gesture. “Forever and a day. I’ve been in touch with Mr. Quadrocelli and he’s working out a set of figures. I’d appreciate it if you’d look them over and call me in New York so we can discuss it. In fact, I think it would be a good idea if you called me every few days, say at ten o’clock New York time. There’s always something coming up.”

“That’s no lie,” I said.

“Keeps the blood circulating,” he said airily. “Tell Mr. Quadrocelli that on my side I’ll be lining up restaurants in the States. Luckily, I have some dear friends who are in the business. Very much in the business. In fact, they’ve been after me to come in with them as vice-president in charge of public relations. But it would mean going to an office every day. Unthinkable. No matter what the money is. It would also mean smiling all the time. Not my cup of tea, at all. But they’d absorb a lot of wine.”

“Miles,” I said, “how many other schemes have you got at the back of your head that you’re going to spring on me one at a time?”

He laughed. “I don’t like to worry you about projects until they ripen, Gentle Heart. You should thank me.”

“I thank you,” I said.

“After dinner,” he said, “I’ll give you Quadrocelli’s address and telephone number. Also the address of my tailor in Rome. Tell him you’re a friend of mine. I suggest a complete wardrobe. I’ll also give you the address of a very good shirtmaker. I also suggest throwing away your present wardrobe. It does nothing for our mutual image, if you get what I mean. I hope I’m not hurting your feelings.”

“On the contrary,” I said. “I understand. By the time you see me again, I’ll be a credit to you.”

“That’s better,” he said. “Would you like the telephone numbers of some lovely Italian girls?”

“No. I’ll do it alone, thank you, if you don’t mind.”

“I just thought you might like to save a little time.”

“I’m in no hurry.”

“Finally,” he said, “we’ll have to try to uproot the old Puritan in you. Meanwhile I suppose I’ll have to take you as you come.”

“The way I take you.”

He had been going in and out of the bedroom through all this, coming out with various articles of clothing that he stowed in one bag or another. Now he emerged with the pretty blue Tyrolean jacket. “This would look very good on you, Douglas,” he said. “It’s a little large for me. Would you like it?”

“No, thanks. I’ve had my skiing for the year,” I said.

He nodded soberly. “I understand. What happened today took the edge off Alpine joys a bit.”

“I never wanted to come here in the first place.”

“Sometimes you have to do things to please the ladies,” Fabian said. “Apropos of that. Do you want to tell me why Eunice decamped?”

“Not particularly.”

“I regret you didn’t see fit to take my advice,” Fabian said. “It was good advice.”

“Oh, come on, now, Miles! Enough is enough. She told me everything.” Somehow, the sight of this handsome, completely composed man, every hair in place, his trousers and shirt fitting him perfectly, his shoes with a high mahogany shine, deftly packing his array of bags, the perfect traveler for the jet age, suddenly infuriated me. “All about you. Or at least enough about you.”

“I haven’t the faintest notion of what you’re talking about, old man.” He tucked a half-dozen pairs of socks neatly into a corner of a suitcase. “What in the world would there be to tell about me?”

“She’s in love with you.”

“Oh, dear,” he said.