Scott Turow - Identical

Zeus had left his sister a considerable bequest, and Teri had been a shrewd businessperson in her own right, often investing in real estate with her brother. Her condo occupied far too much space for one person, especially somebody who had trouble seeing or getting about. Yet Aunt Teri was basically trapped here by her treasures, which she’d accumulated around the world and with which, Hal said, she would never part. He claimed she was like one of the pharaohs who would prefer to be entombed with all the stuff.

The condo was in one of the lavish old Art Deco buildings constructed in the 1920s on the river’s edge, not far from Center City. It sported fancy limestone arches and decorations on the exterior, and a red tile roof. Teri’s apartment had the feeling of a Fabergé egg, every inch elaborately decorated and ribbed in gilt. Each object was gold-the picture frames, the table legs. Even the many glass display cases for her various collections were etched in gold leaf. Within the boxes were the eclectic range of things that fascinated Teri-African jewelry, buttons of whalebone, antique children’s toys, and of course erotica. An entire case, a yard square, was dedicated to phalluses-a Greek tradition, she pointed out, but one that nonetheless sent her nephew screaming. Hal walked in with a scarf and covered the case the minute he arrived.

Teri had welcomed Evon’s request for a meeting without any questions. Tim had wanted to come, too, but Evon told him without further explanation that she felt Teri and she had a rapport.

“So, what’s up?” Teri had a highball that her servant, old German, had poured for her without apparent instruction, and she settled herself on the large chesterfield with a flowery pattern, her cane at hand almost in the manner of a scepter. Even at home, Teri was in her heavy makeup and jewelry. Seated ten feet away, Evon could smell the old lady’s perfume. On the gold-leafed wooden coffee table in front of her, Teri had everything she might need positioned precisely so she could find it-the remotes for the TV and the audio system, a cordless telephone, her drink and a golden bell, presumably used to summon German.

“We got some surprising results from our DNA tests,” Evon told her.

Teri screwed up her stoplight-colored mouth and made no effort to contain herself.

“Fuck,” she said. “I was afraid of this.”

“Is that why you wanted Hal to stop the investigation?”

Teri didn’t respond, just shook her head of broom-straw hair from side to side.

“What a goddamned mess,” she finally said. “All right. Tell me.”

Evon tried to explain the DNA testing protocol and how it had inadvertently turned into a paternity test, but Teri interrupted.

“Don’t beat around the bush, dear.”

Evon sensed already that she wasn’t the one holding back information.

“Well, Hal isn’t Zeus’s son. Not biologically.”

“Fuck,” Teri said again. “You’re not going to tell him, are you?”

“That’s why I’m here. Tim and I-we don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“That’s for damn sure. It would break him in two. Definitely not.”

“If worse came to worst, we wanted to be able to say we talked to you and that you agreed it wasn’t in Hal’s best interest to share that information with him.”

“Scapegoat, right? That’s what you’re looking for?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“Put it however you want. You can’t tell him. Period.” Teri frumped around on the sofa, agitated by the notion, and unconcerned about the crossed obligations Evon felt. “I suppose you’re wondering whose he is?”

“I’m not sure it’s my place.”

“Well, I’ll tell you. Just so you understand how it happened. And why Hal can’t find out. Did you ever hear that crap how my brother was a big hero who nearly died in an army hospital during World War II?”

“Hal talks about that all the time.”

“Well, it was true, in a way. But Zeus wasn’t overseas. He was in basic training. And he got the mumps.”

“Like kids?”

“Pretty serious with a grown-up. Especially a man. It nearly did him in. One of his senior officers was a Greek and he called my father and we all took the train down to Fort Barkley in Texas. Zeus was pretty fuckin’ sick, I want to tell you. Fever of 106. Face was the size of a watermelon and his balls had swollen up, they looked like a couple of damson plums. Took a peek when my folks weren’t looking. Quite a sight. Anyway, he made it. But the doctors told us at the time, there wasn’t much chance he was going to be able to have kids.

“So when he mustered out and comes back with Hermione and Herakles, I knew something was up. He kind of dripped out the story over the years. Hermione, you know, she was a Vasilikos. Did you hear that?”

“Greek mobsters, right?”

“Right. Yeah, my dad-what a dickhead that man was-he was a big Mafia wannabe. And he had the wrong kind of acquaintances in Athens and Zeus went to pay respects. Hal was just a newborn, a month or so old. Family was telling some fairy tale that the father was a dead Resistance fighter, but apparently she’d spread her legs for some German colonel, who’d skipped town when the Americans kicked the Nazis’ brown-shirted behinds. My big brother was the kind to see an opportunity. And Hermione, no way around it, she was a piece of ass in those days. So he came back here with a wife and an heir and a duffel bag full of money. And in some ways, it all worked out.

“My brother held Hal close always, because Zeus knew he was the only child he’d ever have. Zeus took some tests, but it was as the army docs had predicted, a sperm count close to zero. He always made out like it didn’t bother him, but a Greek guy, one like Zisis? Everything he did in life, I think, came from the fact that his nuts would have been more useful making noise in a couple of maracas.”

“Something to prove?” Evon asked.

“Exactly. Building all of these vast shopping malls, remaking the landscape. And naturally he fucked every woman he could find to say yes, and a few who may have only been thinking about it.”

Evon still marveled at these stories of Zeus as mob crony and philanderer. The Zeus she knew originally was the myth Hal created, undoubtedly with his father’s influence. That Zeus was not merely the kind of man Hal aspired to be, but someone to whom he would always rank second. The irony, Evon was realizing, was that no matter how much of a brat, Hal probably was the better person. If money hadn’t magnified his worst traits, people would even have described Hal as a good guy.

“Well, what about Dita?”

“Oh, she was Zeus’s. I don’t know exactly how they did it. I think the doctors sucked him out with a vacuum or something several times and saved it, and then turned Hermione upside down and shot it into her from a fire hose.”

“Really?”

“Of course not.” Unseeing, Teri still looked around to enjoy her laugh at Evon’s expense. “It was some fertility treatment. What had happened was our dad was diagnosed with lung cancer in the early fifties. And even then the doctors, the ones who knew anything, blamed cigarettes. We all smoked like we should have had brick chimneys on our heads, Zeus and my dad and mom and me, and Zeus took it in mind that if he stopped cold my dad would, too. Our dad, he was way too big an asshole to do something like that, even for his son, so he croaked himself instead. But apparently, smoking can also fry your nuts. Who knew? But some little cupcake Zeus had been balling comes to him about 1956 for money for an abortion. He was sure she was running a scam, but rather than tell her the truth, he goes off for another test, and lo and behold, there are quite a few little beasties swimming around in his spunk now. So that’s where Dita comes from, eventually.”