The Rich Shall Inherit (20 page)

Once he’d known about it, it had been easy enough to find sex—it was for sale on any streetcorner, or to be had, like the first time, from a casual encounter. Suddenly it had seemed to Antony that the whole world revolved around sex. It had certainly absorbed him, and soon he’d found the parties where sex was the name of the game. And he’d discovered that he liked two girls or even three … and that first time had marked him well … he liked it rough … he wanted to hear them moan with pain as
well as with pleasure, to beg him for mercy … he wanted ultimate power over them. He was their master and they were his slaves.

Now, at the villa, he was expected to remain celibate and direct his thoughts to learning. Strangely, after a while he began to enjoy the self-discipline. He felt like a novice monk and simply put his energy into ferocious games of squash and swimming and fencing.

There was no doubt that the man was becoming fond of him. When Antony complained of violent pains in his stomach, the man summoned a doctor anxiously, and when it was diagnosed as appendicitis, he personally went with him to the hospital in the big, chauffeur-driven black Mercedes with an escort of police and wailing sirens. He remained at the hospital throughout the operation, leaving a pile of half-smoked cigarette stubs in the ashtray of the private waiting room. When Antony was wheeled from the operating room, the man satisfied himself that he was no longer in any danger before he left. He returned later that evening with enormous baskets of fruit and flowers, and a carton of books he had selected personally, that he thought Antony might enjoy.

After that, he began to keep Antony with him more during the day, and gradually he began to teach him his business, explaining how it was structured and what his specific areas were. By the time Antony was legitimately twenty-one years old, and still claiming an extra four years, he knew all the man’s secrets, and he knew what would be expected of him as his heir.

Two months later the man had his first stroke. It wasn’t a serious one, but he was confined to a wheelchair. He looked suddenly fragile, and Antony realized that he cared deeply for him. The man had taken him from the tough city streets and made him into a civilized being; he had educated him, he’s seen to it that he became cultured and knowledgeable. But when Antony prayed that he wouldn’t die, it wasn’t only because he cared, but because he didn’t want to take over the man’s position as head of “the business.”

One evening they had been sitting quietly reading after dinner, when Antony closed his book and said good night. He felt tired and wanted to get to bed early. “Don’t leave me yet, son,” the man said in his thin, tremulous voice.

“Of course not, sir.” Antony sat down again beside him. “Is there anything I can get you? Anything you want?”

“There’s a document over there.” He nodded toward the circular inlaid marble table near the window. “Bring it to me, would you?” Antony carried it across. “Now read it,” the man said quietly, “and tell me what you think.”

Antony read the Deed of Formal Adoption.
The man wanted him to become his legal son.
He stared down at the paper, unwilling to meet the man’s anxious eyes. He had always imagined that if he could stand this way of life no longer, or when he was called upon to take part in “the Family,” somehow he’d find a way out. He would leave this house, leave Italy, find a new life. But if he signed this document, he would become the man’s legal son. And there would be no escape.

“It’s the only way, you see,” the man said. “If you are my son”—he flung out his arm stiffly, encompassing the room, the house, the paintings and works of art—“all this will be yours.” He sighed tiredly. “There are others, waiting like sharks to snatch it all when I’m gone. We can’t allow that to happen, Antony, can we? My collection … so many treasures … so much beauty … to them it’s only the monetary value that matters. But I know that
you
will love them as I have.
You are truly my son.”

Antony signed the deed with a trembling hand, stunned by the look of pure joy in the man’s eyes as he handed it to him. “I once said that I hoped you would not regret joining me here,” the man said quietly, “and now I can assure you that you will not.”

Two months later he suffered a second, massive stroke and was dead within minutes. And Antony found himself owner and master of all he surveyed. And the new head of “the Family.”

The funeral was held with discreet pomp and was attended only by Antony and the man’s top “executives,” and a dozen silent, black-coated, somber-eyed men who were total strangers to him. After the ceremony they told him courteously that it was time to discuss business. Hiding his nervousness, Antony listened while they outlined the role they now expected him to play. Because of his inexperience, they said smoothly, he would find it difficult to run such a complex business. They proposed to help by taking over certain “situations”; it would be much better all around if he simply left it to them … there would be no problems, no fights …. The man’s personal fortune was Antony’s outright, they said; but, of course, the paintings and works of art had never really
belonged
to the man and would now be incorporated into the business.

Antony stared at them contemptuously. They had made the mistake of taking him for a fool and he seethed with pent-up anger—not for himself but for the man. They were simply carving up his business into handy slices—a share for each, and the crumbs for him. He held back, letting them have their say until silence finally fell on the imposing room, and they gazed at him expectantly, awaiting his response.

It was ironic, he thought, that what they were offering him was the way out he had always thought he’d want. But now he knew he couldn’t take it—not because he wanted to be “Godfather” of the Family, but because he could not let down the man who had turned him from an uneducated streetwise kid into a civilized human being, someone who could take his place beside his intellectual peers in what Antony always thought of as “the real world.” He knew these unsmiling crime barons were not in the same league as the man, and he also knew this was the test of loyalty the man had banked everything on when he’d made him his heir.

Keeping his voice low, he thanked them for their offer and told them that he had no need of their help, and that there was no question of his relinquishing any part of his inheritance. Before they could reply, he added, “I think you should remember, gentlemen, that I was trained to take over this business, and trained well. My Family is loyal and will do as I command. I think you will find that things will be run as efficiently as when my father was alive.” It was the first and only time he’d ever called the man his “father,” and he choked on the word, wishing he had been able to bring himself to say it to him before he died. “As to the paintings and works of art,” he went on, “they were my father’s personal collection. It was his specific wish that it be kept intact. I promised I would see that his wish was fulfilled.”

Each man embraced him as they filed from the room, offering condolences and good wishes for his success, but Antony knew he had not heard the last of them. He also knew he could not allow himself to become a prisoner in the mansion, the way the man had done. He would rather be dead. The man had been old, he’d already lived his life when the trap had snapped shut, but Antony was still young. He intended to fulfill his promise to the man, but he would also live his own life, without guards or guns. He knew he would have to earn that freedom, and the respect of the other Families.

A week later, he was driving the man’s big black Mercedes
sedan along the winding coast road when he noticed in the rearview mirror that he was being overtaken by a truck carrying crates of vegetables. The road was narrow, falling away steeply down a massive cliff to the sea, and the truck was approaching fast, deliberately forcing him to the edge. There was no doubt that whoever was driving that truck meant to kill him. Instinctively he pressed his foot on the accelerator and, as the truck struck him broadside, the powerful car surged forward, its tires squealing as it swerved across the narrow road. The truck shuddered to a stop and, thrusting the Mercedes into reverse, he spun around fast, facing back the way he’d come. Putting his foot on the gas, he slammed into the truck, sending it crashing through the barrier and down the cliff. He pulled on the hand brake and sat for a few moments, sweat pouring from him, his whole body trembling. Then, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, he climbed from the car and peered over the edge. The emerald sea boiled at the foot of the raw sienna-brown cliffs, with only a crate or two of purple eggplants bobbing on its surface. He knew now he hadn’t lost that old street-gang reaction to strike first before he got hurt, and to strike with force. To be the winner—or not survive. In future, his entire approach to life would be based on this concept.

The following week there was a fire at the villa. It was only because Antony had been unable to sleep and had gone down to the library in search of a drink and something to read, that he saved the building—and his own life. He rescued the Titian, and the Veronese, but among other valuables lost were the Ghirlandaio and the man’s favorite Canalettos, and Antony felt bitterly that he’d already let him down.

Then one night he went alone to the theater, arranging for the car to pick him up afterward. Suddenly he decided he couldn’t stand the loneliness of the villa another night. He needed life … women …
sex.
Sending the chauffeured car home, he disappeared into the
bassi
in search of his particular pleasures. When he emerged two days later, looking pale and with deep circles under his eyes, he learned that the car had been found at the bottom of the driveway, riddled with bullets. The driver was dead. He knew then that it was war. He knew who his enemies were—and it was him, or them.

The old instinct for survival, learned from a childhood in the wartime ruins of Naples, gave him strength as he summoned his executives and ruthlessly made his plans. Within a few months
each of the men who had attended the man’s funeral had found his own grave. And from then on no one questioned Antony Carraldo’s fitness to inherit the man’s empire. With a wry smile he remembered that first night when the man had summoned him and he’d said so contemptuously: “I’ll never kill a man for money.” “No one will ever
ask
you to kill,” the man had replied with a knowing smile. “You forget, it will be
you
who will give the commands.” And Antony knew that if he needed to, he would give those commands again. But he had won his freedom.

By then he was locked into the business so deeply, there was no going back. He was a superb administrator, but he hated what he was doing. Watching huge amounts of money steadily amassing in international banks never gave him the sort of pleasure that the little pile of notes hidden under the floorboards of his own first small apartment had. He sought diversion in his two true loves, music and art. He went often to the opera and he haunted the galleries, making trips to special exhibitions and sales and buying shrewdly. He was at an auction at Sotheby’s in London when he fell into conversation with an aristocratic-looking old man, and over a drink at his club he told Antony that he still had a houseful of paintings, though he’d been forced to sell all the old masters long ago. Impressed by Carraldo’s knowledge, he invited him to spend the weekend at his country house so he could see the paintings for himself.

There were many large, pale gaps on the walls where the old masters had once hung, but as they wandered along endless corridors and through chilly, echoing rooms, Carraldo found several paintings of great charm and decorative value. He offered Lord Beston a fair price for them, which he instantly accepted.

They were taking a drink of whiskey in the library afterward, to celebrate their deal and unfreeze their bones after the trek through the unheated mansion, when Carraldo spotted a pair of small paintings half hidden in a dark corner. A massive cabinet shielded them from direct view, but he recognized them at once as rare Canalettos, painted during the artist’s sojourn in London. He told Lord Beston that he was quite certain the paintings were authentic and that they were very valuable, and then he offered him ten percent more than he knew they might currently fetch at auction, knowing that he could resell them before too long for thirty percent more. Telling him to check with another dealer before accepting his offer so he could be sure he was not being
cheated, Antony returned to London. The two paintings were delivered by Lord Beston to his hotel the next day and, flushed with the thrill of his first great find, Carraldo felt that not only had he at last vindicated the man’s faith in him, he’d also discovered his true role in life.

Milan was a rich industrial city not noted as an international art center, which was exactly the reason he decided to set up his gallery there. He would be the first. Buying premises on a discreetly elegant street, he had the interior redesigned to create a superlative modern gallery. It was divided into two separate sections—one for paintings from the past, and the other for the new young artists he discovered, and whose careers he sponsored in return for representing their work. He had learned his lessons well, and with his knowledgeable eye and his instinctive feel for what was good, he soon attracted the attention of collectors, who commissioned him to find works by the particular artists they were interested in. The Carraldo Gallery was a success and a year later he opened a second one in Paris. Within two years the name “Carraldo” ranked with the majors of the international art world in New York, London, and Paris.

He traveled constantly, seeking out hidden treasures, long lost in dusty old palaces and mansions; and he spent weeks wandering happily through the shabby makeshift studios of hungry young artists in the hopes of finding just one with the extra-special jolt of impassioned genius. And, on those rare occasions when he came across such a talent, it was worth more to him than anything else in the world.

But on a certain day each month, he returned faithfully to Naples. At first he would spend a long time there, ten days or at least a week, but gradually as he tightened his grip on the Family business, he was able to delegate more duties to his executives—though never enough to give any one of them too much control. The man had taught him well. But there were three men—and only three—who knew where to get in touch with him at any time—anywhere in the world.