One Trillion Dollars - Andreas Eschbach - E-Book

One Trillion Dollars E-Book

Andreas Eschbach

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Beschreibung

What would you do if you were the richest person in the world overnight?

Yesterday John Fontanelli was just a pizza delivery guy in New York City. One day later he’s the richest man in the world. One Trillion Dollars: $1,000,000,000,000! More money than anyone could imagine.

For generations the Vacchis, an old Italian family of lawyers and asset managers, had supervised the fortune as it grew over five hundred years, until one particular date that the benefactor had stipulated in his will. The youngest male descendant would be fated to oversee the fortune for the good of humanity.

John relishes his new life of luxury, rubbing elbows with royalty, buying up corporations, fielding a flood of beautiful women - until one day the phone rings, and a mysterious stranger tells the trillionaire that he knows what dirty secrets lie behind the fortune...

Bestselling author Andreas Eschbach's »One Trillion Dollars« is a thriller that pits morality and choice against the lust for material goods - at any cost.

This novel inspired the Paramount+ television series "One Billion Dollars".

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Contents

Cover

About this Book

The author

Title page

Copyright

Quote

Prologue

$1,000,000,000,000

$2,000,000,000,000

$3,000,000,000,000

$4,000,000,000,000

$5,000,000,000,000

$6,000,000,000,000

$7,000,000,000,000

$8,000,000,000,000

$9,000,000,000,000

$10,000,000,000,000

$11,000,000,000,000

$12,000,000,000,000

$13,000,000,000,000

$14,000,000,000,000

$15,000,000,000,000

$16,000,000,000,000

$17,000,000,000,000

$18,000,000,000,000

$19,000,000,000,000

$20,000,000,000,000

$21,000,000,000,000

$22,000,000,000,000

$23,000,000,000,000

$24,000,000,000,000

$25,000,000,000,000

$26,000,000,000,000

$27,000,000,000,000

$28,000,000,000,000

$29,000,000,000,000

$30,000,000,000,000

$31,000,000,000,000

$32,000,000,000,000

$33,000,000,000,000

$34,000,000,000,000

$35,000,000,000,000

$36,000,000,000,000

$37,000,000,000,000

$38,000,000,000,000

$39,000,000,000,000

$40,000,000,000,000

$41,000,000,000,000

$42,000,000,000,000

$43,000,000,000,000

$44,000,000,000,000

$45,000,000,000,000

$46,000,000,000,000

$47,000,000,000,000

$48,000,000,000,000

$49,000,000,000,000

$50,000,000,000,000

Acknowledgements & Credits

About this Book

Yesterday John Fontanelli was just a pizza delivery guy in New York City. One day later he’s the richest man in the world. One trillion dollars — one million times one million — $1,000,000,000,000: more money than anyone could imagine. For generations the Vacchis, an old Italian family of lawyers and asset managers, had supervised the fortune as it grew over five hundred years, until one particular date that the benefactor had stipulated in his will. The youngest male descendant was fated to oversee the fortune for the good of humanity. John relishes his new life of luxury, rubbing elbows with royalty, buying up corporations, fielding a flood of beautiful women — until one day the phone rings, and a mysterious stranger tells the trillionaire that he knows what dirty secrets lie behind the fortune …

The author

Andreas Eschbach was born in 1959 in Ulm. He studied aerospace technology and worked as a software developer. He wrote his first novel as a scholar in the Arno-Schmitt Foundation “for highly talented aspiring authors,” and it was published in 1995. He is known for the bestseller “Das Jesus Video.” Andreas Eschbach lives as a freelance author near Stuttgart.

Andreas Eschbach

ONETRILLIONDOLLARS

BASTEI ENTERTAINMENT

August 2014

Digital original edition

Bastei Entertainment is an imprint of Bastei Lübbe AG

This title was acquired through the literary agency Thomas Schlück GmbH, 30827 Garbsen, Germany

Copyright © 2014 by Bastei Lübbe AG, Cologne, Germany

Written by Andreas Eschbach

Translated by Frank Keith

Edited by Peter Millar

Cover design and illustration by Travis Harvey

Project management by Lori Herber

E-Book produced by Urban SatzKonzept, Düsseldorf

ISBN 978-3-8387-5312-6

www.bastei-entertainment.com

Democracyis the worst form of governmentexcept all those other formsthat have been tried …

Winston Churchill

Prologue

IN FRONT OF THEM the double-winged doors finally swung open, and they entered a room filled with an almost heavenly light. The middle of the chamber was dominated by a large oval table made of dark wood. Two men stood in front of it, looking expectantly at them as they entered.

“Mr. Fontanelli,” the young lawyer addressed John as he closed the door behind them. “Let me please introduce my partners to you.” He gestured to the pair in front of the table. “First, my father, Gregorio Vacchi.”

John reached out to shake hands with a stern looking man, whom he guessed to be in his mid-fifties. He wore a gray, single-breasted suit and a pair of thin-rimmed gold glasses. His attire and thinning hair made him resemble a typical bookkeeper. Indeed, it was very easy to imagine this man as a lawyer, perhaps specializing in tax laws, standing in a courtroom and dryly uttering paragraphs of law through his thin lips. His handshake felt cool, business-like, and he mumbled something like: “Pleased to meet you.” Even though, he didn’t look like the sort of man who knew the meaning of "pleased.”

The other man was older. His unruly curly hair and bushy eyebrows made his face look a bit grim, yet more dynamic than the former’s. He wore a dark blue double-breasted suit with a very conventional club tie and a neatly folded handkerchief in his left breast pocket. You could imagine him in a fancy bar, laughing as he celebrated a victory in a murder case, a glass of champagne in one hand and pinching waitresses’ asses with the other. His handshake was firm, and he looked so intensely into John’s eyes that it made him uncomfortable. His deep voice said, “Alberto Vacchi. I’m Eduardo’s uncle.”

Only now did John notice another person present in the room. Sitting in a wing-chair in front of a window was an old man. Though his eyes were closed it was clear he was not asleep; but rather as if he was too weary to have all his senses working at once. His wrinkled thin neck emerged from a soft shirt, covered by a gray sweater. He had a small silk pillow lying on his lap upon which his folded hands rested.

“The Padrone,” Eduardo Vacchi said in a low tone of voice when he noticed who John was looking at. “That’s my grandfather. As you see, we’re a family firm.”

John only nodded. He didn’t really know what to say. He was shown a chair to sit on, on its own on one of the long sides of the conference table. Across from him on the other side of the table were four chairs with their backrests pressed against the table in neat fashion. Lying on the table in front of each chair were thin folders, the covers made of black leather with crests emblazoned on them.

“Would you like something to drink?” he was asked. “Coffee, mineral water?”

“Yes, coffee, please,” he heard himself say. He had the same nervous feeling now as when he’d entered the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel only a short while ago.

Eduardo placed the coffee cups on the table, which had been sitting neatly and orderly on a small trolley. Next, he put the creamer and sugar dispensers on the table; all made of silver. He poured coffee for each of them and placed the pot next to John’s cup. The three Vacchis sat down. Eduardo was seated to the right from John’s point of view, Gregorio, his father, next to him, and to John’s left sat Alberto, the uncle. The fourth chair remained empty.

There was silence, broken only by cream and sugar being poured into the cups and the stirring of their spoons. John stared at the wonderful grain of the reddish mahogany tabletop. That had to be wood from the roots — burl wood.

As John stirred his coffee with a heavy silver spoon, he furtively looked around him. Out the window — behind the three lawyers — was a grand, far-reaching view of New York. Sunlight danced between the concrete ravines of the skyscrapers and the East River sparkled a deep blue. Fine-spun salmon-pink curtains hung down on each side of the windows, which contrasted very well with the immaculate dark-red carpet and the snow-white walls. Unbelievable, John thought as he sipped his coffee, which tasted strong and robust, like the espresso his mom usually made for him.

Eduardo Vacchi opened the file that lay before him on the table. The sound the leather cover made seemed a signal to the start for the proceedings. John set his cup on the saucer and took a deep breath; he was ready.

“Mr. Fontanelli,” the young lawyer said. He leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table and hands folded together. His voice didn’t sound so welcoming anymore, but rather official. “I asked you to bring along a form of identification for this meeting, maybe a driver’s license, a passport, or whatever. It’s only for the sake of formalities, of course.”

John nodded. “I’ve got my driver’s license … one moment please.” He hastily reached for his rear pocket and was startled to find nothing there. But then he remembered that he had stuck the license into the inside pocket of his jacket. With a hot, shaky hand he slid the card across the table. The lawyer took the license, glanced at it briefly, and then with a nod handed it to his father. Gregorio Vacchi, however, studied the driver’s license so intently that it almost seemed as if he thought it might be a fake.

Eduardo gave a thin smile, “We also have identification documents with us.” He pulled out two large very formal looking pieces of paper. “The members of the Vacchi family have been residents of Florence for several centuries, and for generations almost every male member has been a lawyer or trust manager. The first document substantiates this; the second one is an English translation of the first, authenticated by a notary public from the state of New York.” He handed both papers to John.

John looked at them, a bit lost. The first document, stuck inside a clear plastic cover, seemed to be quite old. It was written in Italian of which John could only read maybe one out of every ten words. It was written on ancient gray paper, decorated with crests and had a whole collection of stamps and signatures on the bottom. The English translation, a neat laser-printed piece of paper, had the usual official stamps and signatures, and the text sounded equally confusing, being written in typically convoluted legal language; but it basically said what the young Vacchi lawyer had told him; as far as he could comprehend. He put the papers down on the table and folded his arms. One of his nostrils was twitching; he hoped nobody noticed.

Eduardo folded his hands together once more. John’s driver’s license was now being scrutinized by Alberto. He nodded his head satisfied and then pushed it into the middle of the table.

“Mr. Fontanelli, you are the heir to a significant fortune,” Eduardo began again, once more in a formal tone of voice. “We are gathered here to announce to you the sum and the conditions for acceptance of the inheritance; in case you wish to accept it, we must explain what stipulations are necessary.”

John nodded impatiently. “Err, yes — could you tell me who it is that died?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to hold back the answer to that question for the time being. It is a lengthy story. At any rate, it is not a member of your immediate family.”

“And why am I inheriting something?”

“That cannot, as I said, be explained in one or two sentences. That is why I wish you to have just a little more patience. For the present moment the question is; you are supposed to inherit a large fortune. Do you want it?”

John laughed impulsively. “Okay, how much is it?”

“Over eighty thousand dollars.”

“Did you say eighty thousand?”

“Yes, eighty thousand.”

John leaned back and took a large gulp of air. Wow. Eighty … thousand … dollars! Man, oh man, no wonder there was all this fancy acting stuff! Eighty thousand dollars — that is a nice sum of money. All at once! He had to let that sink in first. That meant … that meant … he could go to college … easily, and without having to work a single hour for some stupid pizza delivery service, or some other poorly paid, stupid, mundane job. Eighty thousand … all at one time! Just like that! Unbelievable!

If he … okay, he’d have to watch out and not get carried away. He could stay at the same place, keep sharing an apartment with a few others. That was okay, nothing luxurious, but if he lived a thrifty life style … man, it was still enough to get a used car! Some nice clothes. This and that. Ha — no more worries!

“Not bad,” he finally said. “So, what is it you want from me? If I’ll take the money or not?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got a stupid question; is there a catch to this whole deal? Will I inherit something less nice along with it, or what?”

“No, you’re inheriting money. If you want it you can have it and do with it as you wish.”

John shook his head — he simply couldn’t believe it. “Could you ever imagine me saying no? Could you ever imagine anyone saying no?”

The young lawyer raised his hands. “It is simply a formality. We are obliged to ask.”

“All right, you asked — and I say yes.”

“Good. Congratulations.”

John shrugged his shoulders. “You know, I’ll only believe this when I have the bills in my hands anyhow.”

“That’s perfectly all right.”

But it was not true; he did believe it already, as absolutely crazy as it was. Four lawyers had come all the way from Italy to New York to give him, a poor, untalented pizza delivery driver, eighty thousand dollars. Just like that! From out of nowhere! But there was something about this room that made him believe; made him believe he was at the threshold of a turning point in his life. It seemed as if he had been waiting all his life for this. Crazy — he felt a nice warm, cozy feeling in his belly.

Eduardo Vacchi closed his file, and, as if he had been waiting for this moment, his father opened the one lying before him. What was his name again? Gregorio. John felt the hairs rising on the back of his neck, and an eye started to twitch. This looked way too rehearsed. Here comes the big surprise — here comes the rude awakening. Now he had to watch it!

“For reasons that are yet to be explained,” Eduardo’s father began, his words coming out dry as dust, “your case is unique in the history of our firm. Even though the Vacchis have managed fortunes for generations, we have never been involved in such a case, and may never be again. Considering the circumstances here and now, it seemed for us wise to be a bit too careful rather than too careless.” He took off his glasses and twirled them slowly in his fingers. “A colleague and friend of ours had an unfortunate thing happen to him some time ago. While reading a last will and testament to an heir, the client suffered a heart attack. It may very well have been the sum of money he heard that caused this misfortune. I must add that the sum in question was far larger than my son just mentioned, however, the heir was not that much older than you are. Neither he nor anyone else knew that he had an ailing heart.” He placed the glasses back on his nose, adjusted them in place, and looked John in the eyes again. “You do understand what it is that I’m trying to tell you?”

John, who had tried hard to follow his words, just nodded, and then he shook his head. “No. No, I don’t understand anything anymore. Will I, or will I not inherit eighty grand?”

“You will … don’t worry.” Gregorio looked down over his nose at the files before him. He shuffled the papers. “Everything that Eduardo told you is true,” He looked up to John again, “except for the sum.”

“Except for the sum?”

“You’re not inheriting eighty thousand, but over four million dollars.”

John just stared at him. To him, it seemed as if time had stopped. He simply stared, and the only part of his body that moved was his jaw, falling, bit by bit.

Four!

Million!

Dollars!

He finally managed to say something. “Wow!” He laughed and ran his fingers through his hair. The he laughed some more, like some nut. Four million dollars! He couldn’t restrain himself. He laughed and laughed until the lawyers began to think they might have to call an ambulance.

Four million! Four million!

Then he stopped and looked at the lawyer from Florence, Italy again. The spring sunlight coming through the windows made his thinning hair look like a halo. He could have kissed him. He could have kissed them all! They came here to place four million dollars right in his lap! He laughed again, and again, and then once more. “Wow!” he said again after he caught his breath. “Now I understand; you thought that I would keel over when I heard the amount of money all of a sudden, right?”

“That is one way to put it,” Gregorio Vacchi said nodding with a hint of a smile.

“And do you know what? You were right. I would’ve keeled over. Oh, man.” He put a hand before his mouth and didn’t know where to look. “Did you know that I had the worst night of my life the day before yesterday? And only because I didn’t have enough money for the subway … a lousy dollar and twenty five cents. Now you come here and tell me I’m to get four million dollars …”

Phew. The good Lord knows that was no lie with the heart attack; his heart was pounding hard in his chest. Just the thought of all this money made his circulatory system go wild, as if he were having sex.

Four million dollars! That was … that was more than just money. That was another life. With this amount of money he could do what he wanted. With this amount of money he didn’t have to work another day of his life. Whether he was a student or not — or the lousiest painter in the world — it simply didn’t matter anymore.

“And that’s really true?” he asked suddenly. “I mean, maybe someone will come out of that room over there and say, ‘smile, you’re on Candid Camera!’ or something like that? We’re talking real money from a real inheritance?”

The lawyer raised his eyebrows as if this was an absurd question. “We’re talking about real money. Don’t worry.”

“I mean, if you are joking with me I’m gonna strangle someone, and I don’t know if the TV audience will like that.”

“I can assure you that the only reason we are here is to make you a wealthy man.”

“Okay.” He really wasn’t worried about all this, but he just had to say what he just said. It’s as if he got rid of the danger that this was not true simply by mentioning it. Something gave him the impression that all this was indeed true. It felt hot in here. Odd, when they entered the room it felt cool, as if the air conditioner was set to max low temperature. Now he felt as if his blood was about to boil in his veins. Was he developing a fever? Maybe it was just the aftermath of the night before last, when he had to go home by foot and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, where the chilly moist air blew in from the ocean making him feel like an icicle.

For some reason he glanced down. His jeans suddenly looked shabby to him, his jacket … the ends of the sleeves were a bit frayed. He had never noticed before. The cloth was beginning to wear thin. His shirt was a rag, bought from a second-hand shop. It hadn’t even been a nice shirt when it was new. Junk. Crap. He caught Eduard’s eye, who was grinning at him silently, as if he knew what was going through John’s head. John felt the red in his face … hot, throbbing embarrassment. The skyline outside the windows still looked like a shiny dream made of glass and crystal. So now he was a man of means. John Salvatore Fontanelli; son of a New Jersey shoemaker, has made it, without any personal contribution, without doing anything for it, simply by fate. Maybe he always knew about this deep down inside and that’s why he never made any great efforts. Maybe a fairy whispered to him as he lay in his crib that this day would come?

“Okay,” he said, clapped his hands once and rubbed them together. “And now what?”

“You will accept the inheritance?”

“Yes sir!”

The lawyer nodded satisfied and closed the folder. John leaned back and took a deep breath. What a day! He felt like he was filled with champagne, with many, many funny little bubbles rising inside him and erupting as a silly giggle in his upper chest.

He was curious how an inheritance such as this would be processed. How he would receive the money; he thought it would hardly be in cash. They couldn’t do a bank transfer because he no longer had a bank account. Maybe he would get a check. That’s it! And it would be an indescribable pleasure to take it to the same bank that closed his account, and to shove the four million dollar check under that person’s nose that was in charge of his account, and to see the stupid face he would make! It would be pure, tremendous gratification to act like a stuck up rich bastard!

Someone cleared his throat. John looked up and returned to reality from his pleasant daydream. It was Alberto Vacchi clearing his throat as he opened the folder that was lying in front of him.

John looked at Eduardo. He looked at his father Gregorio. Alberto, the uncle, was next to catch John’s eye. “Now don’t tell me that there’s even more.”

Albert laughed just a bit. It sounded like the cooing of a pigeon. “Yes,” he said.

“More than four million dollars?”

“Lots more.”

John’s heart beat faster again. His lungs pumped like a pair of bellows. John lifted a hand. “Wait. Slow down. Four million was a nice sum. Why overdo it? Four million is enough to make any man happy. More than that would … well, be too much …”

The Italian man looked at him from underneath his bushy eyebrows. His eyes had an odd twinkle to them. “This is the only condition that must be fulfilled to get the inheritance, John. You either take it all … or nothing.”

John swallowed hard. “Is it more than double?” he asked hastily, as if he tried to avert a curse.

“Much more than that.”

“More than ten times as much? More than forty million?”

“John, you must start learning to think big. That will not be easy, and, God knows, I’m not jealous of you.” Alberto nodded encouragingly, almost conspiratorially, as if he was trying to encourage him to enter a house of ill repute. “Think big, John.”

“More than …?” John stopped. He once read about the fortunes of certain noteworthy musicians in a magazine. Madonna, so it said, had around 60 million and Michael Jackson double that. Tops was ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, with an estimated 500 million dollars. He started to feel dizzy. “More than twenty times as much?” He wanted to say “a hundred times,” but didn’t dare. The possibility that he might come into a vast fortune approaching those of such legends, just like that, without doing anything for it and without a lick of talent seemed obscene.

For a moment it was quiet. The lawyer looked at him and said nothing as he chewed his lip. Then he finally said, “Get used to the amount of two billion.” Then he added, “Dollars.”

John stared at him. Something heavy … something heavy as lead seemed to have been placed onto everyone present in the room. This was no fun anymore. The sunlight shining through the windows blinded him; it hurt like the bright light of a lamp used for interrogation.

No fun at all.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” John simply asked with dry lips.

Alberto Vacchi nodded.

John looked around nervously, as if he tried to find a way out. BILLIONS! The number rested on him like a ton of weight, pressing his shoulders down, crushing him, and squeezing his skull together. Billions; that was a dimension he never even would have dreamed of. Billions. That means being on the same level as Rockefeller, the Rothschilds, the Saudi Arabian oil sheiks, and Japanese real estate magnates. Billions. That was more than wealth — that was craziness!

His heart was still pounding. A muscle was twitching in his lower right leg and seemed to not want to stop anymore. He had to calm down. This is starting to be too much for him. Such a thing simply did not happen — not in the world he grew up in. Four strangers show up one day just to tell him that he has inherited two billion dollars? No. It cannot be. Something was wrong here. Although he had no idea how an inheritance proceeding is usually performed, this seemed too farfetched.

He tried to remember how this was done in the movies he’d seen. Dammit, he watched so many films. He spent his childhood and youth more or less in front of TVs and in movie theaters. How was it? A last will and testament was revealed … that’s it! When someone died a testament was read out, in front of all those who were mentioned in it. Then they would hear from the notary how much each person would get. Finally they would all get into a fight over it. That’s how it goes.

What exactly happens when someone died and left a fortune behind? The first ones to get anything are the spouse and the children, weren’t they? How could it be that he got to inherit something and his brothers didn’t? And why was he getting anything at all when his father was still alive?

There was something not quite right here.

His heartbeat and his breathing leveled off a bit. Just don’t count your chickens before they hatch. It was time to be skeptical. John cleared his throat. “I have to ask a stupid question,” he began. “Of all people, why do I inherit anything at all? Why me?”

The lawyer nodded gently. “We have performed a very detailed and thorough investigation. We would have never invited you to such a discussion if we were not one hundred percent certain.”

“Fine … you are sure, but I’m not. Did you know that I have two brothers? Don’t I have to share the inheritance with them?”

“In this case, no.”

“Why not?”

“You have been chosen to be the sole heir.”

“Sole heir? Who in the hell decided that I should be the sole heir of two billion dollars? I mean, my father is a shoemaker. And though I don’t know too much about my family’s history, I’m sure we have no billionaires. The richest person in my family is Uncle Giuseppe, who owns a taxi company in Naples with ten or twelve cabs.”

“That’s correct.” Alberto Vacchi smiled. “And he’s alive and well as far as we’re informed.”

“Okay, then where is all this money coming from?”

“You sound as if you’re not very interested in the inheritance.”

John could feel himself getting angry. He hardly ever got angry, and even less so really angry. But here and now it may happen that he got really angry. “Why are you being so mysterious? Why are you making such a secret out of this? Why won’t you just tell me that so-and-so died?”

The lawyer looked through his papers. It looked like a diversionary maneuver. Like someone who was paging through an empty schedule pretending to have a hard time finding an opening for an appointment. “This is not,” he finally admitted, “a normal inheritance case. Normally, there is a testament, an estate attorney and a probate. The money involved in this case belongs to an endowment. In a way one could say that the money belongs to itself. We have only functioned as its trustees since the testator’s death, which was a very long time ago. He decreed that the fortune is to be bestowed upon the youngest male heir who is alive on the twenty-third of April, 1995. And that is you.”

“The twenty-third of April …” John’s eyes narrowed. “That was the day before yesterday. Why then?”

Alberto shrugged his shoulders. “That’s what it says.”

“And I’m the youngest Fontanelli? Are you sure?”

“Your uncle Giuseppe has a fifteen-year-old daughter. But a daughter does not count. A cousin of your father had a sixteen year old son, Lorenzo. But, as you probably know, he died suddenly two weeks ago.”

John stared at the highly polished burl tabletop as if it were an oracle. It might really be as the man said; his brother Cesare and his wife always got on his nerves at Christmas get-togethers with lengthy discussions how useless and even how criminal it was to have children in this day and age. And Lino — well, his only interest is airplanes. John’s mother told him recently on the phone about a Lorenzo who had died due to something ridiculously mundane … a bee sting or something like that. Yes, whenever his Italian relatives were being discussed, it always involved weddings and divorces and diseases and deaths, but hardly ever children. It might very well be true. “What form exactly does this two billion dollars take?” he asked. “I suppose they are stocks and bonds and oil wells and such?”

“Money,” Alberto answered. “Just money. Money in countless savings accounts in countless banks around the globe.”

John had a sour feeling in his stomach as he stared at him. “And I’m getting all this just because I happen to be the youngest Fontanelli as of two days ago? What sense does this make?”

The lawyer looked at him pensively for a long moment. “I don’t know what sense it makes,” he admitted. “It’s just how it is. Just like so much else in life.”

John felt dizzy. Dizzy and dirty — a man dressed in rags that hardly pass as clothing. There was still this voice inside him that told him he was the butt of a joke or fraud or deception and that he was being scammed. And there was still this feeling very deep inside of him like the granite foundation of Manhattan that was telling him that this voice was very wrong and that it was nothing more than the product of the many hours of watching TV, where nothing so unbelievably good ever happened to anyone like him. The dramatic composition of movies and shows doesn’t allow for such a thing. Something like this can happen only in real life. Wasn’t there a saying? Truth is stranger than fiction.

The feeling he had when he entered these chambers — to be at the threshold of a transition in his life — was still there; stronger than before. Only, now he feared to be crushed by this turnaround.

Two billion dollars!

He could dare to ask for money up-front. If they came to give him two billion dollars, then they could fess-up a few thousand dollars without it hurting anyone financially. Then he could get his own lawyer who would get to the bottom of whatever was going on. His old friend Paul Siegel came to mind. Paul knew lawyers. He knew the best lawyer in town. That’s it. John took a deep breath.

“The question,” Alberto Vacchi, lawyer and asset manager from Florence, Italy, said softly, “is still the same. Will you accept the inheritance?”

Was being wealthy a good thing? Up to today he had always spent his time trying not to be so poor. He had always condemned the wealthy. But on the other hand, life was so much easier and more comfortable if you had money. Not having it meant always making late payments. Having no choice. Having to do certain things — whether you wanted to or not. It had to be true, the old saying that you were better off with money than without. He exhaled. “The answer,” he said, and thought it sounded cool, “is also still the same. Yes.”

Alberto Vacchi smiled. His smile felt warm and genuine. “I congratulate you,” he said, closing the folder.

John felt a surge of relief, and sank back into the cushion of his chair. So, now he was a billionaire. Worse things could happen. He looked at the three lawyers sitting across from him, like an induction committee, and he almost grinned.

It was at that moment that the old man sitting by the window rose from his chair.

$1,000,000,000,000

JOHN’S CHILDHOOD had been full of mysterious men. They came alone, or in pairs, or groups of three. They had watched him from the edge of playgrounds, smiled at him as he went to school, talked about him when they thought he couldn’t understand them or was out of earshot. “That’s him,” they said in Italian and, “We must still wait.” They talked about how difficult it was — the waiting. His mother had been alarmed when he came home and told her about the men. For a long time he wasn’t allowed out of the house alone. From his window he had watched the other children play outside. He started to keep it to himself when the men showed up. One day he did not see them anymore, and they gradually faded into the dim recesses of his memories.

When he turned twelve he discovered that Angelo, his father’s most distinguished customer, had a secret. To John Mr. Angelo had always been like a messenger from heaven. Not only because he always looked so sophisticated, sitting on a stool by the workbench with father, dressed in a white suit, speaking Italian casually with father and his stocking feet resting on the metal bar. No, his first visit of the year meant summer was near; wonderful endless weeks of ice cream, splashing around in kiddy pools on hot afternoons, trips to Coney Island, and warm nights. For his second visit of the year, he dressed in a gray suit, then, when he handed his shoes to his father and wanted to know how the family was doing, then summer was just about over and autumn was near. “They are good Italian shoes,” John heard his father tell his mother once. “Wonderfully soft, made for Italian weather. Fairly old, but very well maintained, I have to admit. I bet you can’t buy shoes like these nowhere these days.”

It was natural to John for heavenly messengers to wear special shoes.

On one particular day, when the summer of 1979 — and more than just the summer — was coming to an end, only no one knew it yet, John was allowed to go with his best friend Paul Siegel and his mother to JFK airport. Jimmy Carter was still president and the hostage crisis in Teheran had not begun yet. It was the summer when Garfunkel sang “Bright Eyes” and the Village People sang “Y.M.C.A.,” and Paul’s father was supposed to return from a business trip in Europe. Paul’s parents owned a watch store on 13th Street. His father could tell exciting stories about the robberies he had been through. There was even a real bullet hole on the wall in the back of the store, covered by a framed photo of Paul as a baby.

It was the first time in his life he had been to JFK, and together with his friend Paul they squashed their noses against the large windows in the terminal to watch the passengers come and go.

“They’re all arriving from Rome,” Paul explained. Paul was very smart. On their way to the airport, Paul told him the history of New York perhaps all the way back to the Stone Age. He told him all about Wall Street, and who built the Brooklyn Bridge and when it was inaugurated and went on and on. “Dad is arriving on a flight from Copenhagen. The plane will be at least a half hour late.”

“Great,” John said. He was in no hurry to get back home.

“Let’s count the men who have beards,” Paul suggested. That was typical Paul. He always had ideas what to do. “Only those with full beards and whoever gets to ten first wins. Okay? I already see one, over there, the one with the red briefcase!”

John narrowed his eyes and concentrated. There was no chance of beating Paul in a game like this, but he had to try.

That was when he discovered Mr. Angelo.

It was him, without a doubt; the light-gray suit, the way he moved, the face. John blinked, expecting him to disappear again, like a phantom, but Mr. Angelo didn’t. He walked along amidst the other arrivals from Rome without looking up and carrying nothing but a plastic bag.

“The man with the brown coat,” Paul said. “That’s two.”

A man in uniform stopped Mr. Angelo, pointed at the bag and said something. Mr. Angelo opened the bag and took out two shoes; a brown one and a black one.

“Hey,” Paul complained, “You’re not even playing.”

“I think it’s boring,” John told his friend without taking his eye away from Mr. Angelo and the uniformed man.

The uniformed man was visibly surprised, and he asked something. Mr. Angelo answered with the shoes still in his hand. The man in uniform then gestured to Mr. Angelo to go on, whereby he put the shoes back into the bag and went through one of the automatic doors.

“You’re just scared to lose,” Paul said.

“I always lose anyhow,” John responded.

Later that evening John found out that Mr. Angelo had indeed been in father’s workshop. He had left some gifts for the children; chocolate and a ten dollar bill for John. When John took the chocolate and the ten dollars he had an uneasy feeling, like discovering a secret that should’ve remained a secret.

“I saw Mr. Angelo at the airport,” he said, nevertheless. “He arrived on a flight from Rome, and all he had with him were his shoes.”

Father laughed.

Mother took hold of John, hugged him and sighed, “Oh, my little dreamer.”

That’s what she always called him. She had just finished talking about Rome; about a cousin who was born to some relatives there. John thought it odd to have relatives in Italy whom he’d never met.

“Mr. Angelo lives in Brooklyn,” father explained. “He comes here sometimes, because he knew the man who had the shop before me.”

John shook his head, but said nothing else. There was nothing else to say. The secret was revealed. He knew that Mr. Angelo would never come again. And he didn’t.

The following year his brother Cesare, who was nine years older than he, got married and moved to Chicago. His brother Lino, who was six years older than John, didn’t get married, but joined the Air Force to become a pilot. In the space of a month, John suddenly found himself the only child at home.

He finished high school; his grades were not good but not bad either. His classmates considered him an inconspicuous and quiet boy, who lived in a world of his own and wasn’t very sociable. He had a certain amount of interest in history and English literature, but no one would have trusted him with organizing the prom. The girls considered him a nice boy, which meant they were not afraid to walk with him down a dark alleyway. The only kiss he ever got in high school was during a New Year’s Eve party. A friend had to practically drag him along and when he finally got there he stood around uncomfortably for the most part. When the other boys talked about their sexual adventures, he simply remained quiet. No one asked.

Paul Siegel was awarded a scholarship and went to Harvard after high school. John enrolled at the nearby Hopkins Junior College, mainly because he could afford it and could stay at home. He didn’t have any plans for the future.

It was the summer of 1988 when the concert for Nelson Mandela was held in London’s Wembley Stadium. It was broadcast around the world. John and a few people from his class went to Central Park. Someone had put up a large screen and speakers, so that people could watch the London concert in the sunshine. They’d all smuggled in various forms to liquor to further enhance the event.

“Who is Nelson Mandela?” John asked.

Although he hadn’t asked anyone in particular, a rather chunky black-haired girl beside him explained that he was the leader of a South African freedom movement who had been imprisoned innocently for twenty-five years.

Before he knew it, he was involved in a conversation, and since the girl had a lot to say, it went very well. The hot June sun shone down on the crowd as she talked, getting them all hot and sweaty. The music blared out of the speakers, interrupted only by announcements, explanations, and appeals to the South African government to free Nelson Mandela. As the day went on the screen became less and less clear.

Sarah Brickman had twinkling eyes and skin as white as fine porcelain. At one point she suggested they retreat into the shade under a tree or large bush, as many other concert goers had done. So they did. Then kissed, their lips salty from the sweat. While the chorus, “Free … Nelson … Mandela … free … Nelson … Mandela!” droned across the field, John unhooked Sarah’s bra. Considering that he was doing this for the first time in his life, and that he had more alcohol in his blood than ever before, he mastered that feat very well.

When he awoke the next morning with a pounding head, he found himself lying in a strange bed. But when he saw the black locks beside him on the pillow, he knew he must have done something right, even though he could not remember all the details. Accompanied by his mother’s tears, he later moved out of his parents’ house and into the small drafty apartment on the West side that Sarah had inherited from her parents.

Sarah Brickman was an artist. She painted large wild paintings in gloomy colors that no one wanted to buy. About once a year she displayed her work for one or two weeks in an art gallery, which charged a fee and took a commission. And every time she either sold no paintings or too few even to pay the gallery. For days afterwards she was hard to talk to.

John found a night job in a laundromat and learned how to fold shirts and use the laundry press. He burned both his hands during the first week, but the money was enough to pay the electric bills and buy food. For a while he tried to keep up with his studies at college, but he now had a long commute, and he still didn’t know what good going to school would do him. So one day he quit, without even telling his parents. They found out a few months later, which led to a hefty argument in which the word ‘whore’ was used, referring to Sarah. John refused to see his family for a long time afterwards.

He was always impressed to see Sarah standing before the scaffold wearing a paint-smeared smock over her clothes and a quirky expression on her face. In the evenings Sarah would drag him to smoke-filled bars in Greenwich Village, where she would talk with other artists about art and business. He had a hard time figuring out what they would go on and on about, but that was kind of cool too. He felt he had found a niche in life. But Sarah’s friends weren’t so ready to share their niche in life with a redneck from nowhere. They laughed at him when he said something, or ignored him or rolled their eyes when he asked questions. For them he was nothing more than Sarah’s lover, her sidekick, her cuddly bear.

The only person in the group he could talk to in was a fellow outsider, Marvin Copeland, the boyfriend of another artist, Brenda Carrington. Marvin shared an apartment with a few other people in Brooklyn, made a meager living as a bassist in various unsuccessful bands, and wrote his own songs, which no one wanted to play. He spent a lot of time looking out of his window or smoking marijuana, and there wasn’t a crazy idea he didn’t believe. He was as convinced of the government’s involvement in hiding the Roswell aliens in Area 51 as he was about the healing powers of pyramids and gems. The only conspiracy theory he doubted was that Elvis was still alive. He always made for entertaining company.

John and Sarah got into fights on a regular basis over her art. It was bad when he thought one of her paintings was good while she disagreed, and it was even worse when he doubted her self-proclaimed masterpieces. One day he decided to learn what made a picture good or bad. Since he had no idea what Sarah and her friends were talking about, he started to read books about art and spent whole days in the Museum of Modern Art, where he mixed inconspicuously with other visitors, following the tour guides, until he began to be recognized and they started asking him embarrassing questions. He paid close attention to the explanations about the paintings, about which he was both enthusiastic and uncomprehending, and he thought that painting could be the one thing in his life he was looking for. Why hadn’t he discovered this before? How could he have, with his father a shoemaker, one brother an IRS officer and the other a military pilot? He started to paint.

That was not a good idea as it later turned out. He thought that Sarah would be happy, but instead she criticized everything he did and even badmouthed his efforts to her friends. John was convinced that everything she said was true, and he humbly accepted the critique and used it as motivation to work even harder. He would have loved to take lessons, but, even if he found time for them, he wouldn’t have been able to afford them.

At one stage there was a painting course on TV. It came on at four in the morning and was hacked up with commercials, but he didn’t miss a single episode. It showed how to paint mountain lakes lined with pine trees, or windmills in stunning sunsets. Without having ever seen them in real life, he found he was able to follow the instructions and do a fairly decent job recreating the scenes; even Sarah didn’t criticize him anymore, she just rolled her eyes.

One day there was a short report about Sarah Brickman and her work in a local art periodical, which she cut out, framed, and proudly hung it over her bed. Not long after that article was published, a young potential buyer from Wall Street with slicked back hair appeared. He wore a wide-striped shirt with suspenders and he explained several times that he saw art as a form of investment and that he wanted to secure artwork from talented artists before they might become famous. He thought this was a great idea. Sarah took him into her studio and showed him her paintings, but he found it difficult to understand them. Only when he saw one of John’s early works, a silhouette of a city done with a wild mix of colors, which Sarah had only scoffed at, did he show much enthusiasm. He offered ten thousand dollars, and John just nodded.

The buyer and painting were hardly out the door when Sarah stomped into the bathroom, slammed the door shut and locked herself in. John, still holding the bundle of money in his hand, knocked on the door and wanted to know what the matter was.

“Do you know that you just earned more money with that shitty cityscape than I have in my entire life?” she cried.

Their relationship was never the same, and it ended a short while later in February 1990. Sarah told John that it was over on the same day that Nelson Mandela was released from prison.

He moved in with Marvin and his housemates. It so happened that an uncomfortable narrow room had just become available. He sat there on the floor with his few belongings, still not understanding what had happened.

Selling the painting of the city’s silhouette was to be his only success as an artist, and the money was spent faster than he could have imagined. After he was forced to move, he had to quit his job at the laundry. After a few weeks of running around chasing job ads, during which his bank account shrank down to zero, he finally got hired as a delivery man for a pizzeria run by someone from India, who preferred hiring young, Italian-looking men to work outside the kitchen. A job like this in south Manhattan meant having to snake your way through the more or less stationary traffic with a bicycle and to know all the short cuts through narrow alleys. It was a job that made his legs and lungs strong, but he still managed to develop a sort of smoker’s cough due to all the exhaust he inhaled. On top of that, he barely earned enough money to survive.

He might have had just enough space to paint inside his little room, but even on sunny days there was hardly enough light, and he also lacked the time to commit to art. His shift often ended late at night and he was so tired that he slept like a log, until his alarm clock would wake him up to start all over again. Every time he took a day off to go to a job interview his bank account would slip a bit more into the red.

This is how Paul Siegel found him when he returned to New York with an awe-inspiring diploma from Harvard in his pocket and a well-paid job at a consulting company that counted nearly every renowned international company and quite a few governments among its clients.

John visited him once in his tastefully arranged apartment in West Village and marveled at the view over the Hudson River while Paul told him — as merciless as only a good friend can — everything he was doing wrong in his life.

“First you have to lose your debts; as long as you’re in debt, you’re not free,” he explained. “Then you have to get some breathing space so you can go in a new direction, but above all you need to know what you want from life.”

“Yeah,” John said, “you’re right.”

But he couldn’t wish away his debts or figure out an idea of what he wanted out of his life.

To set his establishment apart from the others, Murali, the owner of the pizzeria John worked for, got the hair-brained idea to guarantee delivery within thirty minutes for every customer south of the Empire State Building. Anyone who had to wait longer got their pizza free. It was an idea from some book Murali hadn’t even read, but had been told about. The results were devastating. Each delivery man got four “lates” a week for free, after that the cost of the “free” pizza was taken from the man’s pay. During busy times the pizza was already late when it came out of the oven.

John’s bank closed his account, he got into an argument with Marvin because he paid the rent late, and he hardly had anything left over to take to the pawnshop. In the end he sold the pocket watch he got from his father on his First Communion, which proved a bad idea since he ended up feeling too guilty to visit his parents — the only place he was invited to eat for free once in a while since breaking up with Sarah. On some days he was actually suffering from hunger pangs while he transported the flat boxes smelling of delicious pizza.

That’s how 1995 started. Once in a while the men from John’s youth appeared in his dreams; they waved at him and smiled and said things he didn’t understand. London’s Baring’s Bank went broke after one of its employees, Nick Leeson, mismanaged huge sums of money. The Japanese Aum Shiri Kyo sect killed twelve people and injured five thousand others with poison gas in the Tokyo subways, and 186 people got killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. Bill Clinton was still president, but had a tough time after his party lost its majority in both houses of Congress.

John realized that he hadn’t painted for over a year and that time had somehow just simply slipped away. He had a feeling that he was waiting for something, but he didn’t know what it was.

The 23rd of April wasn’t exactly a lucky day. First, it was a Sunday and he had to work. There was a message from his mother waiting for him at the pizzeria telling him to call home. Luckily, the phone in Marvin’s apartment hardly ever worked. John threw the note away and concentrated on his deliveries, which like most Sundays were few. He knew he’d end up barely earning anything for his trips to the craziest addresses. Since he had already used up his “lates” for the week, he pedaled his fastest to be on time. Maybe it was the stress that caused the accident. He rode out from between two buildings onto a street, braked a bit too late and rammed a car that looked like something the Michael Douglas character in Wall Street would climb into. The bike was a heap of junk after the collision, the pizza was ruined, and the car drove off as if nothing happened. John looked after the dark-red tail lights of the car as he rubbed his knee through his ripped jeans and realized it could have ended much worse for him.

Murali was ranting at him when John came limping back. The two exchanged unkind words, and then John lost his job.

John went home with ten cents in his pocket and a bunch of pent-up anger. He walked through a night that got colder the longer he took. During the last miles in Brooklyn, sleet began to pour down, and by the time John got home he didn’t know if he was a frozen stiff, or stiffly frozen.

When he opened the door the room was wonderfully warm with the aroma of eggs and cigarettes. Marvin sat with his legs crossed in the kitchen, his Fender Jazz Bass plugged into the amp and the volume turned up loud enough that it was just audible above the bare strings. Instead of tweaking wildly on the strings like he usually did, he simply plucked them making dull sounds, much like a heart beat; du-dum, du-dum, du-dum.

“Someone was here asking for you,” he said when John went to the bathroom.

“What?” John stopped. Take a leak and go to bed; that’s what he had told himself over and over again on the freezing walk home for the past hour. “Me?”

“Two men.”

“What men?”

“No idea. Just some men.” Du-dum, du-dum. "Two men in fancy suits, ties, tie clips, and everything. They wanted to know if a John Salvatore Fontanelli lives here.”

John took the few steps into the kitchen. Stoically, Marvin kept plucking at the strings. Du-dum, du-dum, du-dum. “John Salvatore,” Marvin said shaking his head. “I didn’t even know you had a middle name. By the way, you look like shit.”

“Thanks. Murali fired me.”

“Not nice of him. Especially since we have to pay the rent next week.” Du-dum, du-dum, du-dum. Without losing the rhythm, Marvin reached over to the table and handed John a business card. “Here, I’m supposed to give you this.”

It was an expensive looking, four-color business card with a fancy looking coat-of-arms on it. It said:

Eduardo VacchiLawyerFlorence, ItalyCurrently at: The Waldorf Astoria301 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y.Tel. 212-355-3000

John stared at the card. He felt heavy and lethargic from the warmth in the kitchen. “Eduard Vacchi … Can’t say I ever heard the name before. Did they tell you what they want with me?”

“You’re supposed to call him. He said, ‘If he comes home, give him the card and tell him to call me. It’s very important.’” Du-dum, du-dum, du-dum. “Something about an inheritance.” Du-dum, du-dum. “To me it sounds like money; could be cool, maybe.”

$2,000,000,000,000

THE OLD MAN the Padrone, as Eduardo called him, took the pillow that had been resting on his lap, and placed it on a small table next to his chair. Then he stood up, which because of his rheumatism took a bit of effort. He pulled his sweater together with arthritic hands and smiled gently to everyone.

John sat there stiffly. His mind went blank for the moment.

The old man or the Padrone or Eduardos grandfather, came closer with silent and measured steps. He slowly went around the table, as if he had all the time in the world. When he went past John, behind his chair, he pated Johns shoulder in a kindly manner; real gently and casually, as if the Padrone was adopting him into their family, so to speak. He ended his casual walk around the table, sat down on the empty chair, and opened the last folder.

Johns mind was not able to figure out what was going on here. Maybe it was like in those IQ tests? We have the numbers 2 4 6 8. What is the next logical number? Right 10. We have the numbers 2 4 8 16. What is the next logical number? Right 32. We have the numbers 80,000 4,000,000 2,000,000,000. What is the next logical number?

But logic ended right there for John. Maybe they werent lawyers at all. Maybe they were crazy people, playing a crazy game. Maybe he was the victim of a psychology experiment. Maybe this is nothing more than a form of Candid Camera.

My name is Cristoforo Vacchi, the old man said with a gentle yet firm voice, and Im a lawyer from Florence, Italy. He looked at John in such a manner that made John dismiss any idea that this could be a psychology experiment or a TV game show. This was real, was true, this was indisputably authentic.

There was a pause. John felt as if he was expected use his dry throat, and swollen, football-sized tongue to say something, to ask something, to articulate something, but he found no words to express what he felt. The only thing he brought out was a whisper-like utterance: More money?

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!