by Pat McKee
In the brief intervals when she was working and sober, things at home were tolerable. I had food, and my clothes were clean and mended. But when she was drinking, I was on my own. By the time I got to sixth grade, I was self-conscious that my clothes were dirty and torn, that I had no money to do anything. Tired of the taunts, one day I just stopped going to school. About a week later the school social worker showed up at our house, found my mother passed out on the couch, no food in the refrigerator, and me playing in the dirt in the back yard. The next day I was shipped off to Thornwood Orphanage, an institution supported by the Presbyterian Church and run by a cadre of severe retired ministers and ancient widowed matrons.
There I discovered, with the stability afforded by three meals a day, a warm bed at night, and the discipline of required study, that I was a gifted student. And it did not take much insight to come to the conclusion that if I were to escape the tarantella of poverty and poor employment prospects that had plagued generations of my family, education was my only hope. I was no longer the indifferent student, but now the earnest scholar bent on going to college.
Seven years after graduating valedictorian of my high school, I walked through the doors of Strange & Fowler, the top recruit of its associate class.
I shook myself from my introspection. Anthony was going on about his father, the first Enzo Milano, the founder of the firm, an Italian immigrant who brought his clothing trade to New York City. According to Anthony, the family began by selling clothing manufactured by others, but soon was manufacturing its own. It didn’t take his father long to recognize the benefit that resulted from making his own fabrics in the South. He purchased textile mills in small towns in South Carolina and Georgia. One of them was the mill in Laurens, South Carolina, where my parents had worked.
“Placido and I inherited the family business from Enzo. I was interested in everything business related, while Placido was the studious one, who loved his books and the laboratory our father built for him in the basement of our home.” Anthony looked down as if recalling a long-forgotten event, chuckled a bit, then continued. “Our mother was frequently appalled at the smells that came up from that basement—but mostly our father just looked on with bemusement. I remember once the two of us got ahold of some nitroglicerine—I can’t recall how—and blew out an entire wall of the basement! We did get in trouble for that one. But we had some great times!”
Anthony kept the far-away look on his face for another instant, but then re-focused.
“I ended up going to Harvard business school and Placido went to MIT. It was the first time the two of us had ever been apart.”
It had long been evident to me that the brothers had been groomed by their father to lead Milano Corporation. Unlike the case in so many such planned family successions, the brothers hadn’t disappointed him.
“Once we took over Milano, we decided to bring all of the family’s businesses under one corporate structure. I became CEO, while Placido focused on research and development. It was through acquisitions and spin-offs that Milano Corporation came to concentrate on pharmaceuticals. And it was through Placido’s talent that Milano’s laboratories became world dominant in the field. And, thanks to you, Paul, we will remain so. You probably know, as a result of all the recent press, Milano Corporation is now concentrating its research efforts in the field of artificial intelligence. We expect to have the same success in this area as in the pharmaceutical industry.”
At a pause in Anthony’s storytelling, I took a chance to move the conversation in Melissa’s direction. I asked a question I thought she might have as much interest in as her uncle.
“That’s a big leap—from drugs to AI—will Placido head up the transition?”
Instead of opening up the conversation, talking ceased at my remark. Melissa and Anthony looked away. I must have wandered past a line that had been obscured to me but clear to everyone else. Fowler was making a study of folding his napkin in his lap. I was in terra incognita, on my own.
“I’m sorry, I had no business asking.” I looked from Melissa to Anthony, searching their faces for some sign of reassurance. Anthony broke the silence.
“No, it’s not that. You have earned our complete confidence.”
With that Fowler looked at me as a death-row priest might look at a criminal reprieved just moments before his execution.
“You see, Melissa’s father, my brother Placido, has been missing since the trial ended. We have been unable to get in touch with him. We didn’t want to make his absence public, and we didn’t want to burden you with the information. We fear if the news gets out it will cause Milano stock to plummet once again. Not to mention the pain and anguish that his disappearance causes Melissa and myself.” He patted her hand.
“My father and I usually speak every day. Since my mother’s passing it has fallen on me to manage his finances and investments—he’s notorious for being indifferent to money and business, and focuses only on his research. I haven’t heard from him in days. I can’t tell you how concerned I am. My uncle and I are pursuing every avenue, but I just . . .”
Anthony reached for Melissa’s hand again as she fought back tears.
“I’m confident we will find my brother wherever he may be and bring him back safely. He has done this before, disappearing for a couple days at a time, only for us to find that he was off somewhere ‘thinking.’ What makes us so concerned is that he has now been gone for almost a week and hasn’t even checked in with Melissa.”
Anthony’s aspect became grave as he watched Melissa trying to regain her composure. His glance returned to me, his undershot eyes and arched brow signaling we had gone far enough in that line of discussion, and that I should not pursue the issue further. For the moment, I waited for someone else to take up the conversation. Before silence could overtake us entirely, Fowler steered the conversation to other topics. After a few unsuccessful starts it seemed that my gaff was behind us, and our party was soon enough focused on lighter matters, all of us laughing again at Fowler’s understated humor.
Melissa, appearing eager to move to lighter topics, showed a gratifying interest in my career and success at Strange & Fowler, giving me the chance to talk about something other than the recent trial. She did a good job, acting as though she was not merely being polite, and it gave me the opportunity to satisfy some of my curiosity. I asked how she finally decided to live in Atlanta, something that was still up in the air when we last spoke.
“So, once I graduated from LSE, I was determined to set up my own investment bank with the help of my father and my uncle. After looking at several locations I landed on Atlanta as the best fit for my firm. But managing my father’s finances and investments became so time consuming that I came to concentrate almost exclusively on that, and I have not taken on any other clients. After all, he has taken very good care of me, and now that he needs me, I can return the favor. Our arrangement has worked out perfectly.”
“Well, not so perfectly.” Anthony paused, reached unsteadily for the open bottle of wine that he kept at his elbow, sloshed the remainder in his glass, and leaned toward me as though he were revealing a family secret. “Melissa has worked so hard on family matters that she has neglected her own happiness.”
Melissa grabbed my arm to refocus my attention away from her uncle, who was now downing the last of the wine.
“What my uncle means is he thinks it is high time I find a nice Catholic boy and get married.” Melissa made a coy little smile in Anthony’s direction. “I’m surprised that the evening has proceeded this far without it coming up.”
“It’s not just me. Your father thinks so as well. He told me so himself.”
In one way both Melissa and I had arrived at a similar point in our lives from different poles of the planet. We were young, professionally successful, and financially well-off. Yet we had each achieved success at significant personal sacrifice, single, without any cu
rrent romantic relationship. For me it was a remarkable stroke of luck.
“Yes, a good Italian girl, still single past her thirtieth birthday.” Melissa leaned closer toward me. “They think there’s something wrong with me.”
There sure wasn’t anything wrong with Melissa from what I could tell. It was probably a combination of the success of the evening, Melissa’s striking looks, and her attentiveness, but I felt my feelings for her stirring once again. Or maybe I had just had too much wine.
From that point, the formality of the dinner discussion relaxed. The other three became more comfortable and began sharing more intimate details of their lives. Yet I was ever aware that I was in a room with three very wealthy people, people who had known nothing but luxury and advantage their entire lives, and I wasn’t about to start blathering about growing up in an orphanage. I was content to focus discussions on my more recent past.
We were all in good spirits when we finished our espresso. Anthony signaled the end of the evening.
“It has been delightful to be with you, but I regret that we must go. I can no longer stay up as late as I did in my youth.” We stood, and I walked with Melissa to the lobby. William and Anthony were hanging back, engaged in some conversation which it was evident they did not want us to hear. I used the opportunity to speak privately with Melissa for the first time.
Melissa’s apparent interest in me and expressed appreciation for what I had accomplished on behalf of her family had dispelled my reticence. That and the wine. I decided to take a shot.
“You don’t have to turn in as early as your uncle. No need to end the evening yet. I know a few spots off the island we can go.”
Melissa glanced over her shoulder at her uncle and then to me, turning her back to William and Anthony.
“I need to talk to you. I have to wait until my uncle is asleep. I’ll try to be on the beach in front of your cottage in an hour.”
Whatever I thought of myself and whatever I may have had in mind, it was clear Melissa still viewed me as a Milano family retainer, someone to assist when the need arose, not someone to spend an evening with. I nodded.
Anthony appeared behind Melissa. The vision of his afternoon meeting with Cabrini, which I had banished from my mind for the last few hours, now came rushing back.
“Melissa, we must go. Good evening, Mr. McDaniel. Thanks again for all you have done. I look forward to our continued relationship.” Melissa did not betray a look or gesture in my direction as she and her uncle disappeared from the lobby.
William clapped me on the shoulder.
“So, how’d things go with Melissa?”
I didn’t think William was suspicious or fishing for some information about Melissa’s surreptitious contact.
“It was a wonderful evening. Thank you. I hope I’ll be able to see her again before she goes back to Italy with her uncle.”
“I’m sure you will. They aren’t planning to leave for a few days. Well, let’s head back to the cottage and have a nightcap before we turn in, shall we?”
Forty-five minutes later I was shucking my tux and pulling on a pair of well-worn jeans and a T-shirt. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of mineral water from the refrigerator, and went out the door from the breakfast room to the loggia. I sat for several minutes in one of the lounge chairs on the porch and sipped the water as though I were just out enjoying the night air. I waited to see if anyone had seen or heard me and had decided to investigate. When no one did, I walked down to the beach, sat in the sand at the high-water mark, and waited.
Seven
The night was moonless. Home owners along the beach are discouraged from keeping security lights on, to avoid disorienting the loggerhead turtles that crawl onto the dunes at night to lay their eggs. The effect was almost complete darkness. My eyes adjusted, and as they did, I became aware of innumerable stars, pin pricks of light against the black night sky, which were providing the only illumination. The ocean had tamed from the night before, waves breaking on bars a hundred yards off shore, lapping the dunes, the salt smell sweet. Waiting, listening, my mind turned to lines from Mathew Arnold’s Dover Beach: “The sea is calm tonight. . . . Listen! you hear the grating roar / Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, . . . With tremulous cadence slow, and bring / The eternal note of sadness in.”
Melissa appeared from the darkness. She, too, had changed, into tight jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. Her perfect legs peeked out from the sweatshirt, which hid just about everything else. Just me and a beautiful girl on a deserted beach. Melissa grasped my hand. I thought for a moment my prospects had improved.
“Paul. I’m so glad you’re here. You’ve helped my family so much. I hope you can help me now.” Relieved of the immediacy of her uncle’s presence, Melissa appeared more vulnerable. And, alone with her on the beach, I was more willing to stifle any feeling that I was being used once again by the Milano family and instead to entertain the belief that I was just coming to the aid of a beautiful woman.
“So, tell me what . . .”
“My father isn’t missing. He’s hiding. He’s hiding from Anthony. He doesn’t trust Anthony, but my father hasn’t told me why, or at least he hasn’t told me everything, just enough to know that I shouldn’t trust Anthony either. He’s—”
“Whoa. Slow down. You know where your father is?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve talked to him?”
“Yes.”
“And he told you he’s hiding from Anthony, and you are not to trust him?”
“Yes.”
“So, why are you with Anthony?”
“Anthony says it’s his duty to watch over me in the absence of my father. I indulge his little fantasy. He’s really trying to keep tabs on me, hoping to find my father. I don’t want him to suspect that I know where he is. Anyway, my father thinks it’s a good idea for me to stay close to Anthony to watch him, though for what, I don’t know.”
“So, all that back there, the tears, the struggle for composure, all that was an act?”
“My uncle is looking for some clue that I know where my father is, so I have to shed a few tears now and then, otherwise he’ll be even more suspicious.”
“Things can’t be that bad.”
“It’s far worse than you can imagine. Anthony somehow has taken my father’s entire interest in Milano Corporation.” Melissa was silent for a few seconds to allow the full effect of her statement to register. If this was so, Anthony had acquired Placido’s stock, which was worth billions. And Melissa was no longer potentially one of the richest women in the world. Just another smart, beautiful, single, woman.
“Do you have any idea how?”
“He told me it had something to do with the lawsuit.”
“Nothing I did in the lawsuit could’ve had anything to do with Placido losing his shares in the corporation.” I surprised myself with the defensiveness of my response. A suspicion of guilty complicity was already stirring beneath the surface of my conscience.
“Not you, the lawsuit. My father said it had something to do with the lawsuit, and he thinks Anthony had a hand in it somehow. But we can’t figure out how.”
“The first person I’d go to is Ariel. She’s Placido’s assistant, she’s been involved in the lawsuit since the beginning, and she knows everything there is to know about Milano Corporation. I’d ask . . .”
“You’ve never met Ariel, have you?”
“No, just—”
“We can’t risk bringing Ariel into this, at least not now, not without Placido’s blessing—she might have been compromised by Anthony. So you are my last hope. I am sure you know Anthony purposely kept me ignorant of the details of the case.”
“So that’s why Enzo was pressed into service at the trial instead of you—even though he has no knowledge of business, and you have a graduate degree in finance.” I had wond
ered.
“And I have been closely involved with my father throughout the development of the patents that were central to the case. But I was completely shut out of the litigation.”
My suspicions, suppressed for much of the evening, now grabbed my consciousness, the thought of Anthony and Cabrini in the bar together this afternoon, chatting like a pair of old buddies. That meeting, Judge Richards’ new found wealth, and my disproportionate partnership share, all conspicuous incongruities.
“But the lawsuit had nothing to do with Placido’s ownership of stock in the corporation. I’m missing something.”
“It may have been mere coincidence, but just before the lawsuit was filed my father had some significant financial difficulty as a result of what can only be called an obsession with rare books. You may be aware that my father is a famously avid collector. What you probably don’t know is the lengths he would go to to acquire his objects. And being in charge of his finances, I am all too familiar with what he spends on books.”
“I’ve seen his name in connection with some very expensive items at auction.”
“You should know his library contains some of the most magnificent manuscripts in the world: Shakespeare’s First Folio, a notebook of Leonardo DaVinci, a Gutenberg Bible, an early copy of the Declaration of Independence, and hundreds of beautifully illuminated medieval manuscripts, books of hours, incunabula, and codices. Through the years he has bought thousands of rare books at auctions and private sales all over the world. It became an obsession with him, and even someone with my father’s wealth had to borrow money at times to keep up his habit.”
“Not a surprise there—last I heard one of Leonardo’s notebooks went for over $30 million. I don’t think even your father has that much cash lying around.”
“He borrowed the money and pledged his stock in Milano Corporation to secure the loans. While the stock value was high, it was sufficient to cover the loans, but when it went down as a result of the lawsuit, the bankers told him he had to come up with more money or lose his books. Somehow he kept his library, but he lost ownership in the corporation. I just don’t know how Anthony manipulated the situation so that he ended up with my father’s shares.”
