The Seventh Royale: A Novel

ALAN

Chapter 1

August 3, 1968

Western Union came to the studio at three in the afternoon with the latest dispatch in the private war between Elio and Jill.

I heard the messenger talking with Frances as I sloshed around the darkroom, slipping 8×10 contacts of the new Cadillac portfolio into the dryer. A fiftyish couple, Barbie and Ken in their golden years, smiled benignly behind the wheel of a Coupe De Ville, improbably parked on the grass by the Balboa Park Conservatory.

The Grosse Pointe execs would love it—their flagship bathed in amber twilight. Longer, lower, wider, with a chrome grimace. Product work wasn’t dear to me, but it did pay the overhead.

Frances tapped on the door. It’s safe, I called out, switching on the main lights.

She held out the yellow envelope, looking pale. Telegrams rattled Frances. They always had, even before our partnership, when she still taught portraiture at San Diego State. I’d been loitering in her office, one of the night-school faithful, when bad news about her sister came hand-delivered. So now she stood spindly-firm, braced for impact.

Shall I leave, Alan?

Don’t be silly. I squeezed her shoulder and tore open the flap with a stirring rod.

Frances watched my face sag. Is it any of my business?

You be the judge.

PLEASE COME TO HARRAHS RENO MONDAY LATEST STOP WE NEED REFEREE FOR WEDDING RING TOSS INTO TRUCKEE STOP ALAN THIS TIME IT IS NO DRILL STOP ELIO STOP

Frances started to speak up, an old tabby cat, wise and disgruntled. Then she changed her mind.

Say it. I toweled my hands and led the way out of the darkroom. You’re positively bursting.

She poked judiciously at the prints rolling out of the drier. I’m very fond of Elio and Jill. But they use you, Alan. Without you, they’d be playing to an empty theater.

‘… and no one forces me to be down in front row center.’ Yes, I know. I tilted the venetian blinds and took refuge in the view. Out beyond the park and the downtown jumble, a carrier and its attending tankers headed past Coronado toward a choppy Pacific.

The Yorktown. I’d read in the Union about the latest offensive. Big gray ships bearing scared kids with shaved heads to the South China sea. If things had gone differently between Lorraine and me, one less miscarriage, I could have a son on his way right now. Suddenly the dispute between Elio and Jill semed like some barnyard squabble.

Maybe it’s a dry run, I heard myself saying. Like the last time.

"Like all the last times. Frances lit a Camel, blowing smoke in the direction of her negative files. I’m sorry, Alan. You don’t want my opinion about this, do you?"

I don’t mind. But it doesn’t solve anything. If you really want to help, try getting me a booking to Reno. I headed home to pack.

Five hours later, I swirled the ice cubes in a plastic-cupped Smirnoff and tonic as the Air California 727 leveled off at thirty-three thousand feet. My gray-worsted fellow travelers collectively unpuckered after our takeoff from the infamous San Diego International. We arched over the High Sierras, the mountains turning deep blue and cold in the last moments of daylight. Then we were up and over, making a slow descent across the Nevada desert.

I cupped my hands and peered out the window, but there was nothing more to see. My reflection looked me straight in the eye. Such wiry strength. That’s what Lorraine used to say. World-weary, yet possessing a homespun touch. Lorraine had been a master of oblique high bitchery.

The vodka was gone and I ordered another. Drink up, Alan. Just the thing for coping with love on the rocks.

The taxi honked through bumper-car traffic all the way downtown to Harrah’s. A message waited for me at the front desk.

Yes, Mr. Escher, your room is confirmed. An attentive Jaycee-face handed me the key. And Mr. Cezale is expecting you. He pointed across the smoky commotion of the casino. Take the elevator right over there. Suite 1423.

Elio answered on the first knock. Alan! A quick grin and an equally sudden frown. Come in, come in! He shut the door, then clamped both arms around me until I felt pins and needles. My God, but it’s good to see you! All that fresh air and sunshine … you look ten years younger.

High praise, considering the source. Elio had turned sixty-six this last birthday, and except for some thickening at the waist, he’d arm-wrestled the calendar to a draw. Or so it seemed. Then I saw new silver flecks in his hair, worry lines etched deep.

Ah, Alan. Time is goddam flying. Why do we wait to get together? Until all this awful business.

I sat on the bed. Where’s Jill?

Out. A stiff, helpless shrug. She has her own room down the hall. I don’t want to talk about it.

Then why am I here?

Force of habit, I guess. He reached for a stale Jim Beam on top of the TV. Who else would I call?

Elio’s words were also watered-down and flat. I eased the tumbler from his hands. You could try the Yellow Pages. Divorce lawyers, marriage counselors. They’ll put you together, pull you apart. Just make up your mind.

His face tightened. We’ve called the wolf too often, heh? After years living in the States, Elio still mangled idioms.

Just don’t elect me savior. I’m not up to the responsibility.

There are things you don’t understand, Alan. Things I can’t tell you.

Weren’t there always? Why are you and Jill in Reno? You could find other places to get a divorce.

Business, believe it or not. Elio seemed grateful to change the subject. "Bill Harrah got his hands on a 1908 Delage voiturette racer. From the Peck Collection in Atlanta. The car’s a mess. A cracked block, for one thing. So he wanted my advice on the restoration. Sighing, Elio stood and paced. Anyway, that’s why I’m here. As for Jill, you’ll have to ask her. I think she’s … what the saying these days? ‘Seeking her liberation.’"

We played a waiting game. Finally, I said, Why does Jill want out?

It’s not like … before. He drew the drapes and watched the headlights inching down Highway 395. Somewhere along the line, you realize all those lovely young ladies are telling you lies in bed for a price. Real smart, eh? His shoulders drooped. If she came to me and said, ‘Elio, you’ve been a fucking fool for too many years,’ that I could understand. His voice went thin and wobbly. It’s much more frightening than that. I look into Jill’s eyes and she has nothing to say. And there’s nothing she wants to hear.

Something about Elio, even then, alarmed me. Not his words; Jill’s indifference toward him was a recurring leitmotif. He’d meant it at one time, but now he was well rehearsed, as if releasing trial balloons my way. Only his anxiety rang true. He was constricted with it, locked so tight he gave me no opening.

The phone rang. His face was unreadable as he listened to the receiver. Yes. A long silence. Sure, I’ll tell him.

Our eyes met. Jill?

Down in the lounge. She wants to see you.

It didn’t take an Ibsen or a Strindberg to figure out why the Cezales’ marriage had gone astray. Cases like theirs fill the columns of Good Housekeeping every month. Older headstrong man weds young evolving woman. Time passes—she emerges anew from her cocoon; his old tricks, old charms, grow arthritic and warty. A recipe for disaster, on the same page as the one for tuna casserole.

And after all these years, had my relationship with Jill really changed? From time to time we thought so. A tearful heart-to-heart at my wedding, fueled on champagne sentiment. Hospital vigils during Lorraine’s stillbirth—the two of them were always close. Warm god-parenting memories when she and Elio christened Tad.

But I could never escape the feeling that life carried Jill and me down two diverging tributaries. Separate lives on East and West Coast, jostling loyalties between Elio and Lorraine, and, above all, my grisly divorce all conspired to divide us. Even so, I always felt like a Scout around Jill, eager to earn a merit badge. Her opinion of me mattered very much.

She drew sidelong glances even amid the casino clamor. Sitting alone at the tiny lounge table, Jill was respectfully appraised and left to her own devices. Look but do not touch.

Her forties agreed with her. Age had deepened Jill, added planes of experience to her face. But at close range, as she rose and kissed my cheek, things were not so good. Dark changes were at work in and around her eyes. That glazed and unsleeping look of Big Trouble

She fingered the clasp of her gold case, then waved a cigarette about. Alan, good Lord! How long has it been?

Fifteenth months.

Such precision. A brittle smile. I’ve always admired that about you.

Jill was a magpie, flapping from subject to subject. How’s Frances? (Disapproving, I thought but did not say.) How’s San Diego? Didn’t I miss L.A.? (I appreciate it at a distance. Like Mount Vesuvius.) What’s happening with your work? ("A Talbot-Largo retrospective for Road & Track.")

Wait until you see Tad, he’s taller than Elio, he’s doing fine at BYU, we miss him, being so far away, God knows why he couldn’t simply go to Columbia, it must be that new girl …

I took both my hands and held them around hers. Jill, shut up. Please. You don’t want to sit and grind out small talk with me.

She exhaled, then finally came up for air. I’m sorry, Alan. You deserve better.

A waitress took our order. We both waited until she left. Jill stubbed out her cigarette.

So you saw him.

Very briefly.

What do you think?

There was an odd ring to her voice, as if she was asking for a clinical opinion.

I’m not sure what you mean. Mainly I saw a man who’s very afraid of losing his wife.

Out on the casino floor, one of the hulking dollar slots started whooping it up and spitting silver. An old woman in white gloves fell to her knees to scoop up the spilling coins.

Jill canted her head at the scene. Do you believe in happy endings?

The odds are against them, I’m afraid. That’s what pays for this place.

The waitress arrived with a vodka martini, a bottle of Heineken Light, and a tip tray, then spirited away.

You must know he loves you very much, I said, sincerely if incompletely.

She digested this, impassive. He’s hiding something from me, Alan.

He says it’s not another woman, for what that’s worth.

I know. Jill took a rueful martini swig. After all this time, I recognize the symptoms. That’s not why we’re sitting here. She appeared to make up her mind. Alan, I sent you that telegram. I put Elio’s name to it. He didn’t want you to come.

I tried to decide if I was hurt. Maybe he’s right. It’s not my quarrel.

No, you don’t understand. She hesitated, as if gathering courage. Out on the highway coming into town, there’s a fortune-teller in a pink cottage. Would you believe I went to her yesterday for a reading? ‘You have an unbroken lifeline,’ she told me. ‘Many happy years ahead.’ I tried to explain it was my husband who worried me. That I knew he was in terrible trouble. ‘You’ll have to bring him in,’ she said, ‘or get his handprints. I’m a palmist, not a mind reader.’

Jill made a dreadful, mirthless noise. "It is funny, you know. Go ahead and laugh."

I didn’t reply, not until she was ready. How long have you felt this about Elio?

Forever. No, that’s not quite true. She straightened up, marshaling her thoughts. Over a year ago, before Tad left for school, Elio made three trips, very spur-of-the-moment. Denver, the first time. At least that’s what he said. Some old friends in trouble. I drove him out to Kennedy, waved him aboard the plane … all very dull, really. Then it happened again. Twice, about a month apart. He told me not to bother coming to the airport.

You must’ve questioned him about it.

Elio is a mule about his privacy, Alan. He didn’t want to talk and he made me feel like a nudge for asking.

How long was he gone?

Two days, I guess. No, three the last time.

For the same reason?

Jill shrugged, not knowing what to believe.

Did you see his ticket stubs? Or check his reservation?

I didn’t think of it, Alan, at the time. Elio really does have all sorts of friends scattered everywhere, from the old racing days. I would’ve felt ridiculous trying to track him down.

Especially into the Rocky Mountains. I tried combing my own files, someone in our mutual circle Elio might’ve mentioned. Only to come up empty.

Maybe it’s all a fabrication on my part, Jill was saying, but this whole business seems connected with us coming to Reno.

You mean with Harrah’s?

She nodded. The museum wrote Elio about this Delage racer. The letter was polite, very casual. All they wanted was a few helpful pointers regarding the restoration. Instead, Elio fired off these long-distance calls simply oozing with charm. Three days later, Bill Harrah hired him for a stint as a full-scale consultant. I’m sure the museum was glad to have him. But it just doesn’t fit.

It is a little strange. Elio had always sniffed at Delages. He called them Bugattis for peasants.

All I know is that as soon as we got to Reno, he charged full speed ahead with work at the museum. I visited a few times, but he wasn’t subtle at all about not wanting me there. He seemed downright … cagey. Have you ever seen him that way?

Not about things that matter.

There’s something else. She stared down at the bottom of her glass. Elio’s still roaming on these little excursions. ‘Honey, I’m going out for a pack of cigarettes’… and he’ll be gone all day, maybe two. We’ve rented a little BMW. Each trip has been over a thousand miles. Fifteen hundred, one of them. I’ve started checking the odometer.

"He is a marathon driver. Some of us take pills or see a shrink. Elio gets behind the wheel. It’s exactly what he would do …" I trailed off, not even convincing myself.

The tendons stiffened in her neck. Every time he comes back, the car is nice and shiny, dripping from the car wash. Wiped clean. Jill snapped down the last of her vodka. Jesus Christ, Alan, I feel like a ghoul. As if I should be dusting the car for prints or examining the carpets for bloodstains.

All of this could have any number of innocent explanations.

I know that. I know, Alan. She shielded her face. And I appreciate your trying to bring me down to earth. With slow deliberation, she leaned back from the table. I asked Elio where he’d been. He got very panicky, very hostile. I can’t handle it. I never could. I left the room and didn’t go back. We’ve only spoken on the phone since.

I felt someone brush my side. Another round, sir?

About to say yes, I looked across the squinty distance of the casino and noticed Elio hustling from the elevator, striding toward the main entrance.

Jill. I pointed. Any idea where he’s going?

No.

We both watched him slipping past the slots, past the rattling cashier’s cage. He had something in his hand. Hard to tell, but it looked like a can opener or screwdriver.

I fumbled around the waitress, mumbling apologies but not looking back. Stepping down from the raised bar level, I kept both eyes on him. Something stopped me from calling out.

Alan, wait!

Jill’s voice must have carried. Elio turned and saw us coming. His face went very strange. The two of us advancing on him, I suppose, boxing him in. With a despairing last look he turned his back, in full flight for the nearest exit.

I reached out toward him, as I had with Ralph Curry. Powerless. I’d vowed it would never happen again but here, as with Ralph, as with the night Lorraine marched out the door, my resolve changed nothing. Events had a mind of their own, stretching the space-time between us like taffy.

I ran around a blackjack table, bumping stools, earning odd, half-seen glares from players. Jill’s footsteps followed close. Blue-jawed pit bosses stared our way, converging toward us from the sidelines.

The distance narrowed as Elio dodged a dancing-bear security guard and scrambled through the first revolving door. I called out but got no answer.

Outside, he hurried, his limp always worse under stress, heading out from under the blazing neon porte cochere toward the parking lot. My vision had an enameled clarity, as if I were looking through the wrong end of binoculars.

Though it was nearly eleven, the high rollers hadn’t yet arrived and the main entrance lay empty except for a half-dozen Yellow Cabs moored to the curb. When Elio was halfway across the street, a black 1963 Olds 98 fishtailed out between two taxis. Rubber smoke poured from the tires. Roaring full-bore with a faceless man behind the wheel.

Jill pounded up behind me, arms on my shoulder. One or both of us shouted his name.

The car burned up the middle lane. Shifting into second. Elio heard the screaming wheels now and jogged to the right. The car turned too, seeking him out.

Impact. The snuffle-bang of flesh and bent steel. Elio flailed in a pitchfork arc over the hood and roof. Skull snapping to the asphalt. A pulpy watermelon crackle.

I ran, unthinking. Reaching for the flashing door handle. A blurry glimpse of the shadowfigure wrenching the wheel. Rubber stench and dirty exhaust and screeching taillights dwindling out of sight.

I stood, chest heaving, and looked down at him. Refusing to blink. Unable to see anything else.

The low groan in Jill’s throat rose to an inconsolable whine. Forcing all others back, she hid Elio’s face with her body.

Surrounding faces. Yelling, tugging. Get a paramedic. For God’s sake, phone the police. Calls for help. Help.

My legs gave out and I sank to my knees. Drawing both arms over my eyes, I tried not to listen, but their voices wouldn’t go away.

Chapter 2

I viewed the following few hours of my life from a great height, drifting silently free from the unthinkable. Sirens wailed and police radios squawked at the edges of the encircling mob, but they were far away, somewhere down there in the winking neon night.

A young photographer from Reno Homicide aimed his motor-driven Nikon and flashed from one ghastly frame to the next. A plaincothesman chalked a white line around Elio’s body. Reinforcements arrived in more black-and-whites, huddling around Jill and hemming me in on all sides.

No, Officer, I heard myself saying, I have no idea why he ran from me.

The detective’s face was careworn. He produced an odd-looking screwdriver wrapped in a plastic bag. Do you know what this is, Mr. Escher?

My head shook. I only know it was in Elio’s hand.

It’s for turning back an odometer on a car. Do you have any idea what he might have been doing with it?

I told him no. Why did I lie? A reflex, perhaps, protecting a dead man. That was when the reality of it grabbed me tight and wouldn’t let go. I felt myself breaking apart, undergoing internal demolition. It must have been plain for the detective to see.

I gather you were quite close to Mr. Cezale.

His words replayed in my head, throughout the plodding questions, the paperwork shuffle, the sworn and signed statements at precinct headquarters.

Jill had it worse, of course. She left the police station teetering on a hysterical high-wire. I batted my way through zoom lenses, mikes, and squinting arc lights to get closer.

Her eyes were wide and unseeing as she gripped my hand. Alan, what do they all want?

A piece of your flesh. But you don’t owe them a thing.

Guiding Jill’s elbow, I shoved us through the yammering, into the backseat of a waiting unmarked police sedan. The driver had Joe Palooka hair and a linebacker’s neck. Back to the hotel, sir?

I nodded and he swung the LTD free from the nest of reporters, onto the decimated four-in-the-morning streets. Jill and I sat and watched the blinking yellow intersections.

I won’t be able to sleep, she said, her face turned from me.

Yes, you will.

I’ll sleep and then I’ll wake up. Tell me, what happens then, Alan? Her voice frazzled. You’re smart, the man with all the answers. Jill stared down at one knee. Shit, I’ve got a run. With a discordant giggle, she started crumpling. I held her tight until we got to Harrah’s. Joe Palooka and I eased Jill upstairs, where the hotel doctor force-fed her two Valiums.

She’ll be all right for five or six hours, I’d say. We’ll have someone look in on her. The doctor eyed me and scowled. Get some sleep yourself.

I unsuccessfully tried following his advice. I remember sitting in my room just before eight a.m., lost in a Jack Daniel’s cloud, answering the phone.

It was my detective. They’d found the black Oldsmobile abandoned in one of the RV-and-tent shanty towns that fringe Reno on the far side of the Truckee. No prints and no make on the driver. The DMV readout on the car matched up with a theft report from a downtown lot just yesterday.

Of course, Mr. Escher, we’ll keep you informed. We’re following all leads. He seemed to like the sound of that. A policeman’s favorite tune, perfect for whistling in the dark.

The kid at the rental agency blinked at the BMW’s odometer when I returned the car that afternoon.

"Jesus, where has this thing been, Bolivia and back?"

I thought you might have some idea. Were you here when Mr. Cezale first rented it?

He nodded, scribbling the mileage figures onto a work sheet. Yeah, I was working, but the missus checked it out, not the mister. A very sleek lady. You know, like an option you’d order with the car.

So you never saw her husband.

I did once. He locked the driver’s door, tossing his Aquarian locks as we meandered back to the office. Mr. Jensen, the boss, he wanted a cash deposit on the car after it had been gone about a week.

Is that routine?

The kid grinned, ducking behind the counter. On a Bimmer 1600? In a state with legal gambling? You’ve got to be kidding.

I take it Mr. Cezale didn’t dicker.

He forked over three hundred bucks, just like that.

Did you check the mileage then?

We don’t, not usually. He stroked a pet-caterpillar mustache. But the car looked like it’d been dune-buggied between here and Vegas. Some sand pitting on the windshield. Let me tell you, Mr. Jensen was righteously pissed.

So what happened?

The boss gave him all sorts of shit but Cezale, he just sort of let it roll off his back. The man had more important things on his mind. Fumbling with the clipboard carbons, he met my eyes. I saw it on the news. He’s really dead, huh?

Yeah. Really.

First dead guy I ever met.

I rubbed sweat off my forehead. It was too hot for Goldwynisms. I looked over my shoulder at the BMW. And there was nothing, no offhand comment on where he’d been?

No. The kid looked faintly disappointed as he tore out my copy of the bill. I kind of hoped you could tell me.

When we flew to Italy the next day with Elio’s body, it was still anyone’s guess.

Frances minded the store during the funeral. Blessedly, a race driver makes arrangements ahead of time. He’d requested burial in Ravenna beside his war-dead mother and two sisters.

Waving sunflowers and poplars pressed against the iron gates of the little graveyard, the morning air already sticky and abuzz with mosquitoes who showed us no mercy. Us being only Jill and me, the parish priest, his assistant gravedigger—and Tad Cezale.

I hadn’t seen him in three years. He’d undergone a glandular quantum leap and now stood a head higher than his mother. Holding tight to her hand, Tad never took his attention from the freshly shoveled earth and his father’s coffin. His eyes were dry and furious as his fine corn silk hair blew unmanageable in the wind.

Jill watched from behind her veil while the priest muttered Latin in endless waves, his head down as if providing Elio with some fatherly parting advice. Singling out one pink carnation from her bouquet, Jill placed it atop the unadorned pine box. Then her shoulders trembled and she seemed to turn in upon herself, high heels twisting, the beginnings of a graceful, slow-motion collapse. I rushed forward to support her on the right, Tad clung steadfast on the left … and that’s when we clashed badly for the first time, like a meeting of matter and antimatter. Grief, denial, rage—even tears just below the surface—all held in Tad’s stony, don’t-tread-on-me glare. Oh, Lord. Oedipus wrecks. As if our lives weren’t complicated enough.

I tried and failed to break through, both then and at our airport parting. I talked it over with Frances when I got back. Contrition and Cutty Sark on the rocks, while we sat high in the lounge of the El Cortez Hotel and watched the fog roll in.

It sounds like his problem, Alan. Not yours. Frances pointed sagely with a swizzle stick. Remember the first rule of composition …

Don’t try to get everything into the frame. Yes, I knew. And I made an attempt to lose myself in work, taking a Look assignment about Hollywood stunt drivers and their attempt to outdo the Bullitt car chase. I even told myself it didn’t bother me, the burning rubber of Mustangs and GTOs, that sound of smashing bodywork like a punch under the breastbone. The pain had all been reduced to proof sheets, automotive mayhem frozen in little rectangles spread across my paste-up page … when the wall phone rang. Jill, sounding at peace in a rather lobotomized way, all peaks and valleys flattened out. Would I come to New York for a reading of the will? An unexpected provision had asked that I be present.

So we all gathered once again, two weeks after Elio’s death, in the Seagram Building office of Aylmer, Kagan & Bainbridge. Tad sat, brooding and still unreachable, a teenage cigar-store Indian. Jill radiated wintry composure, except for those white-gloved hands that wouldn’t come to rest. I made allowances—God knows Lynda and I had our petty moments after Dad’s coronary. Wills do not bring out the best in any of us.

Frank Aylmer entered, very snowy-haired and eminent, his sympathy for the bereaved as precisely tailored as his suit. He had a hawklike, Cardinal Richelieu look about him. A keen eye for dividing the indivisible. If Jesus had wanted papers drawn up on the loaves and the fishes, Frank Aylmer would’ve been his man.

Down to the business at hand. He laced his fingers on the desk top and scanned the spread-out papers. Mrs. Cezale, are you familiar with your husband’s business affairs?

Yes, I think so. Elio always consulted me before making major investments. It was a habit from the old days.

A white eyebrow rose. I’m not sure I understand.

Back before we met, when Elio raced, he wanted things tidy should anything happen. ‘Your mind must be a clean slate behind the wheel,’ he told me.

I can appreciate that. Mr. Cezale expressed his concern many times about your welfare and your son’s. He held up a folder. The details of the trust and stock portfolio aren’t particularly complex. I can go over them if you like. Briefly, they will provide both you and Theodore with a yearly income in excess of twenty thousand dollars a year.

Tad spoke up for the first time. Low and with brusque, adolescent uncertainty. What happens when I turn twenty-one?

You become a direct beneficiary, although you and I share power of attorney. Aylmer seemed oddly distressed. I’m more concerned with liquid assets at this point. He spread his hands. Mr. Cezale made his wishes clear about the funds in his account. To be equally divided between you, spread over a five-year period for tax purposes.

What are you driving at? Tad asked.

Here are Mr. Cezale’s bank statements from Barclay’s over the past eight months. In January, he withdrew six thousand five hundred and seventy dollars. Over seven thousand in February. Seventy-four hundred in March. Eighty-two hundred in April. Aylmer flipped through the pages. And so on. You can see all the records here. Regretfully, he patted the statements into one neat pile. As of today, there are three hundred and forty-two dollars in this account.

But that’s not possible! Tad cried. Dad would never just …

Jill was deathly pale but still in one piece as she rested a hand on her son’s arm. Quiet, dear. Please. She turned my way. What do you think, Alan?

I don’t know. I haven’t known what to think for the last two weeks.

Aylmer seemed saddened by the untidiness of it all. Yes, I’m sure this must seem a shock to you. Do you have any inkling what your husband could have done with eighty thousand dollars?

No. Jill’s face started slipping. But I know what it did to him.

He was too shrewd to dispute her. The Barclay’s branch manager told me this much. Mr. Cezale came in and made each withdrawal in cash. He specified small notes. Of course, the bank officials started asking some discreet questions, which Mr. Cezale cheerfully refused to answer. They couldn’t insist. It wasn’t as if the transactions were illegal. He prodded the bank statements with a forefinger. "A damn messy business. I wish I could be more help.

You know, Mr. Escher, he said reflectively, Mr. Cezale came to me while all this was going on. I consider myself a good judge of character and he didn’t strike me as a man with much to hide. Perhaps someday I’ll learn.

Leaning back in his leather chair, Alymer pulled a small manila envelope from the top desk drawer. I took this from our safe this morning. It’s for you. He asked me to handle it as a provision of his will. Along with other personal mementos that are spelled out in the document. But he took special pains to be sure you had this.

I unraveled the envelope’s string clasp. Inside was a key engraved No. 14387 on both sides, accompanied by a slip of paper.

No. 14387

Union de Banques Suisses

670 Hirschen-Graben

Zürich, Switzerland

Jill. I held out the key. What do you make of it?

I’ve never seen this before. She turned the key over and over in her hand. But then, I’d be the last person who’d know.

I’ve been to Switzerland three times since the war, but I’m never entirely at ease. All of nature, man included, so cozily contained, so spotless and under control—it reminds me of an endless visit to Disneyland. One day in Zürich and I found myself checking for mud on my shoes and worrying if my hands were clean.

I hopped off the Seilar-Graben tramcar by the Conservatory of Music and, in a gesture of rebellion, jaywalked across the Hirschen-Graben toward the twin spirals of the Grossmünster Cathedral. The Union de Banques Suisse was on the left side of the street. Polished bronze doors opened into the temple for the worship of the Holy Franc. Its priests know nothing and they tell less.

I’d phoned ahead, so the arrangements went smoothly. A severe young receptionist led me to her equally severe boss.

Paul Bertrand, he confirmed, pressing his cold palm into mine. His skin was Crisco-white. His eyes took in everything but gave nothing in return. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Escher. Come right this way.

I knew better than to question him as he ushered me through the buzzing vault door leading to the safe deposit boxes. Monsieur Bertrand, out of twelve directors, was the only one who knew that box number 14387 belonged to the estate of one E. Cezale. Only criminal proceedings in Swiss courts initiated by Swiss authorities would make him break that confidence.

Two chairs and a polished aluminum table sat in the middle of the safe deposit room. The secrets of God knew how many glinted around us on all sides. Skimmed Teamsters funds and rubles embezzled from the treasury of Nicholas and Alexandria. Untold stories, stacked floor to ceiling.

Mr. Escher, may I please have your key?

Matching it with one already in his hand, Bertrand scooted a rolling ladder along the far wall, then climbed six rows and pulled out the box. He set it down on the table with all the care of a pallbearer.

Each end of the box had a lock. A key in each hand, Bertrand turned both locks counterclockwise. He passed my key back, while the other remained on his wrist.

There we are, Mr. Escher. I’ll be outside. When you’re through, please press the button.

Thank you, I said, but he was already out the door.

The box looked heavy. I moved my chair beneath it, trying not to guess what was inside. If you don’t know what to expect, you won’t be surprised.

The box was empty except for a blue pouch, much like a velvet marble bag. My fingers reached around heavy metal as I pulled aside the silk drawstrings.

What did you expect, Alan? Nothing, you kept telling yourself. But you damn well didn’t expect this.

I set the silver ornament down on its base. I recognized it, of course. I’d first seen one in 1950. Lorraine and I had honeymooned in Le Mans, watching Elio race his lovely old Type 35. A nostalgia run among middle-aged Peter Pans, revving up vintage playpretties they’d cherished longer than their wives and children.

Elio won that race. Swinging the champagne-filled trophy, a blue ribbon slanting across his chest, he pointed two of them out to us, parked together on a knoll near an S-bend. Two Type 41 Bugatti Royales. A coupe and a sedan, majestic brontosaurs from a vanished era. Two of the six known to exist, even then the most valuable automobiles in the world.

It was a tasteless joke, really. My friend was dead and I sat in a Zürich bank vault holding an eight-inch hood ornament of an elephant standing on its hind legs. Sweet Jesus, Elio, what matter of lunacy swallowed you whole?

I left the bank and rode the tramcar toward Aussershil and my hotel, keeping one hand firmly wrapped around the velvet bag. Bugattis large and small jumped in my mind like sheep over fences.

Before I’d left New York, Jill had confided that she saw no way to make it through the year without putting Elio’s Type 35 on the auction block. She’d already made brokering arrangements with Harrah’s.

At my hotel, I headed straight for the travel agent. How were the flights running? How quickly could I get back to Reno?

Chapter 3

September 21, 1968

A sad day for Jill and me. We sat in Showroom Two of Harrah’s Museum, in the back row of a folding-chair amphitheater set up around a temporary stage. Auction day. Twenty-three years since we’d watched Elio and the Chabrols resurrect the Type 35. And in a few hours, it would be in a stranger’s hands.

Alan, am I making a mistake?

I tried to sound philosophical. What you’ll probably make is a bundle.

Jill drew her sweater around her shoulders, sinking deeper into doubt. I still feel like a traitor.

This isn’t your doing. The car is your security. You’re entitled. So is Tad.

She looked at the two empty seats we’d been saving. He promised to call if he was running late— She stopped, grinning. Don’t tell me, I can hear it coming. So I’m a mother hen.

I never said a thing.

You don’t need to. I feel like a hen all right, with too many eggs. Today of all days, I’m not quite up to meeting a girlfriend.

Tad is serious, I gather.

Jill nodded. On the phone, it sounded as if he was arranging an audience.

So that’s it. I wondered why he was coming. I didn’t think Tad cared all that much about cars.

He wouldn’t miss this. ‘Holding the hand of his poor sainted mother,’ Jill lilted in halfhearted imitation Irish. Besides his new girlfriend— She brought herself up short. ‘Girlfriend.’ That’s starting to sound official, like ‘the other woman.’ Carrie Spaulding is her name, and Carrie is, in Tad’s words, a ‘real antique-car freak.’

Well, just be your sweet self when they get here. You don’t happen to have any milk and cookies on you?

She laughed against her will. You know, it may sound strange, but I wish you were down front, in the thick of things. Jill met my eyes, very sincerely. So the car could stay in the family.

I’m sorry, too. This is as close as I can afford to get. I held up my Canon. Maybe if I embezzled from Frances and mortgaged the studio …

Jill smiled, rather painfully. I’m sure Elio could have given you pointers.

Which I might have taken up. Anything to retrace his path. Once I’d left that bank in Zürich, the trail evaporated. He’d left me no note, no explanation, so I had to rely on the inspiration of the little silver elephant. That and my talent for second-guessing Elio’s mind, an unreliable business even when he’d been alive.

The flight connections clicked, easily enough. I’d be in Reno within twenty-four hours. At the Zürich airport, I splurged on an overseas call. Jill was the first and so far the only person I told about Elio’s bequest. She knew what it was, even described in a hurry over a bad connection. But it meant even less to her than it did to me. We were like two dullards who didn’t get the joke, even after being handed the punch line.

Zürich to New York to Chicago to Reno. I left my luggage at a Travelodge and had the waiting taxi take me straight to Harrah’s Museum. That day, less than a week before the auction, they’d just begun rearranging cars and erecting the stage.

Bob Norris, the chief of restoration, gave me a guided tour. I’ve been to Harrah’s many times, of course. To the automotive faithful, the collection makes Nevada part of the Holy Land.

Bill Harrah is to cars what Noah was to the beasts of the field, and, like Noah, he’s filled his ark-sized showrooms two by two, ranging from steam carriages with buggy whips to Maseratis sleek as sharks. The strength of the museum is Harrah’s love for all its tenants. Glittering T-headed Mercers or fucking-ugly Edsels, he doesn’t play favorites.

With one exception. The arrows and maps, the whole layout of the museum, all lead to a climactic aisle in Showroom Two, lined with Harrah’s Bugattis. It’s arguably the world’s finest collection—I say arguably because of its great rival across the Atlantic.

Ten years ago, in automotive circles, no one had ever heard of the Schlumpf brothers. Drop the name of either Hans or Fritz and you’d get a double-take or a smile. Two French textile merchants with comic-opera monikers and a reputation for living high. But soon enough, people stopped laughing. The Schlumpf brothers had a very serious ambition: to buy all the world’s Bugattis. Or, at least, one of every type ever made.

Other collectors—Peck in Atlanta, Shakespeare in St. Louis—hemmed and hawed when approached by the brothers. Some cars, they’d say, are part of our blood. No, no, insisted the Schlumpfs, we want every car you own or none at all. They simply added zeros to the checks until the opposition, breathless, signed on the dotted line.

I’d taken my camera to St. Louis in 1961, the day John Shakespeare’s Bugattis were loaded onto flatcars for the long trip overseas. The most valuable trainload of automobiles in history; it put the Schlumpf Museum on the map. And the brothers had their first Royale.

They got a second three years later, when the Bugatti family sold Ettore’s personal car and most of the spare factory parts that went with it. I’d hear the stories and always think of the old man arguing in the Metro with Elio, his face like a sorrowful basset’s.

So there were two Royales in Alsace and two in Reno. A matched set, with the big exception that the Schlumpfs’ Bugattis, like all their other cars, vanished into a preserve kept under lock and key for their private amusement. Outside, the peasants might be restless, but meanwhile Hans and Fritz had the world’s greatest collection of toys to play with. Much more fun than worrying about the public’s sticky fingers.

Bob Norris had to cope with just such a task; a little boy ducked under the ropes and jumped up on the colossal running board of one of the Royales. He led the boy back to his folks, then grinned knowingly at me.

What do you say, Alan? With your trade-in and good credit, you could drive one out today.

Sure. I’ll take two. I didn’t bother with my camera. I’d taken plenty of pix on previous visits, but I’d given up trying to capture a Royale on film. The scale never comes out right. Shoot one by itself, out on a field, and it looks very beautiful, rakish like all Bugattis, but not overly large. Put a person in the picture and he’ll turn into a Munchkin, dwarfed by comparison.

But I’ve never known anyone, seeing a Royale in the flesh, who didn’t understand their mystique. The real looker of Harrah’s two is the black-and-silver limousine known as the Binder Coupé de Ville. Its tires came above my waist, the horseshoe radiator even higher. A little elephant stood atop the radiator cap, a ringer for the one I’d left in a locker at the Reno airport.

The other Royale, a yellow-and-black sedan, sat by its partner. The Berline de Voyage, they called it. I walked along its twenty-foot length.

I saw this car years ago. I told Bob about the honeymoon meeting, in Le Mans.

Really? That’s just before the Bugatti family sold it, you know. They hid it, along with two other Royales, during the war. Behind a false wall, to keep it from the Nazis. He met my eyes, then added, somewhat abashed, Here I am telling you, Alan. All these stories you’ve heard before.

He’d misread my reaction. I’d been thinking about Elio and his heirloom. Bob, was he really much help to you?

Bob didn’t play dumb and ask who I meant. Are you pitching me a screwball?

Maybe around the edges. I kept quiet, waiting.

Mr. Cezale’s expertise was the best kind, he said finally, very politic. Horse sense about the way engines work, body panels fit, a dozen different things.

Could he have done the same work without being here, on the spot?

That’s hard to say, Alan. Mr. Cezale volunteered his services and we were glad to have him.

I moved over to the Coupé de Ville, past the seven-foot hood and the open chauffeur’s compartment, peering through the bulletproof windows. I know he worked on a Delage. How about other cars?

So many come in and out of the shop …

Any Bugattis?

Yes, I remember now. We touched up the paint of that 57 SC over there.

How about the Royales?

They’re in pretty solid shape. But he did take the Berline de Voyage out for a spin.

Just the thing for tooling down to the A&P. I heard myself, appalled; I can get very flip when faced with disturbing news.

Bob laughed. Not quite, Alan. We’ve got a special course out of town, in Sparks. You know how it is. All automobiles, even these, are just like horses. They need exercise. He wanted to make sure both cars got all the kinks worked out before the tour gets here.

Tour? I spread my hands in an admission of ignorance.

You haven’t heard? He hiked a thumb in the direction of the restoration shop. Come on, I’ll show you. I’ve got the brochure up in my office.

Bob dug through his desktop debris and spread out the glossy folder:

ROYALE TOUR—USA & FRANCE

Travelsphere (Harborough) Ltd. of London proudly announces a fortnight’s holiday to visit all six Bugatti Type 41 Royales. Evan Lambert, past president of the Bugatti Owners’ Club of England, will be the expert guide. Mr. Lambert, after long negotiation, has even arranged an exclusive look at the two Royales in the long-private Schlumpf Collection! Travelsphere is taking advantage of out-of-season October rates to reduce the cost to 799 pounds per person.

Thur Oct. 17 Leave Heathrow by Pan Am to Detroit, coach to city centre hotel. Drinks, party.

Fri Oct. 18 Full day