Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“Drink this,” he said. He put the brandy to her mouth. She sipped at it, and then turned her face away.

She had told him brokenly and hysterically about her encounter with the shark, and now she leaned against the bulkhead, her eyes wide, staring down at the deck. The boat rocked. She could hear the creaking of the timber. The world was silent, except for the creaking of the timber.

“Ben,” she said.

“What is it, Gillian?”

“Thank you.”

“I was scared to death, Gilly,” he said, and he began sobbing. “I thought you’d drowned. I kept diving down after you, but I couldn’t find you.”

“The shark,” she said, and she shivered.

Ben blew his nose. “Come on, get out of that wet suit,” he said. “You’ll get a chill.” He lowered the straps, took the suit off her, put her on the bunk and covered her with a blanket. Then he sat on a barrel opposite the bunk and watched her, his face pale. He blew his nose again. Very softly, he said again, “I thought you’d drowned.”

The cabin was silent. She kept staring at the overhead.

“Ben,” she said.

“What, Gilly?”

“I just thought...” She shook her head.

“What is it, Gilly?”

She kept staring at the overhead, her face calm and pale, her eyes wide. She lay still beneath the blanket, and she stared at the overhead and through it and beyond it, and she said, “I just thought... he might die, Ben. He might die and...” She turned her head into the pillow.

Ben was silent, watching her.

“Ben,” she said, “I just hate to think he might die somewhere and never know how much I loved him.”

“Try to get some sleep, Gilly,” Ben said.

She nodded.

“I’m going to start back,” he said.

She nodded again.

“Never know how much I loved him,” she said into the stillness.

Elliot Tulley clawed at his bald pate with long thin talons and then studied his fingernails and then walked to the window and looked down at the wind-swept Talmadge street. The vista never changed. Year after year, the Talmadge main street crawled with life, winter and summer, the faces changed, but the town never did. He turned to look at Julia, sitting in the leather-upholstered chair alongside his desk, the wall of lawbooks forming a backdrop behind her, her legs crossed, a cigarette burning idly in her right hand as she studied the document. She’s still a dish, he thought, but not the Julia Regan who came into this office for the first time almost seventeen years ago, with her head held high, to lay a secret on my desk and to work out a plan. Who the hell are priests? Tulley wondered. Who gets more of the confession business, the lawyers or the sanctified holymen who sit in their little boxes and listen to how many sins you committed last week?

He shrugged birdlike shoulders and walked to where she was sitting, impatiently began reading the document over her shoulder. He was wearing brown sharkskin trousers and a brown vest over a white shirt. The sleeves were rolled up over his scrawny biceps. He was also wearing a clip-on bow tie, but it was in the pocket of his shirt, and the shirt collar was open over a prominent Adam’s apple and a throat nicked with shaving cuts.

“I thought you knew me well enough to skip over the fine print, Julia,” he said.

“I don’t know anyone that well.”

“You don’t trust me, Julia?”

“I trust you, Elliot. But I like to read something before I sign it. And with something like this, I won’t get an opportunity to change my mind, now will I?”

“Why not? Do you plan on dying the minute you leave this office?”

“No, not quite that soon.”

“Then take the will home with you and read it there. If you want any changes made, I’ll make them before you sign. You need two witnesses anyway, Julia. And there are certain formalities I want you to follow.”

“What are they, Elliot?”

“First of all, don’t pick people who are apt to die before you do. If this will is ever contested, we want people around who can testify to their witnessing signatures. That’s the first thing. Pick two witnesses who are younger than you are, preferably not a husband-and-wife team.”

“That shouldn’t be too difficult,” Julia said, smiling.

“That’s right, someone as old as you are with one foot in the grave already shouldn’t have any trouble on that score. Then I want you to get them together, and I want you to say, ‘This is my last will and testament. I have read it, and am asking you to sign it as my witnesses.’ Have you got that? I’ll write it down for you before you go.”

“All right.”

“Then the testatrix — that’s you — signs her name and dates the will. And then you give it to the witnesses to sign it below the attestation clause. That’s all there is to it. But they’ve got to be in each other’s presence when they sign it, Julia. You’ve got that?”

“I’ve got it.”

“Okay. Then now I can tell you this is a lousy will, and I’m sure it’ll be contested, and I think you’re a damn fool.”

“Who’ll contest it, Elliot?”

“You want my guess? David.”

“Why should he?”

“Why should he, huh? Because he’ll think you were out of your bloody mind when you signed it, that’s why. Look at it, Julia. You’ve left half of your estate to be held in trust by a man named Giovanni Fabrizzi quote in the secure knowledge that he will disperse it as agreed upon in prior discussions unquote. Now, what kind of a legal document is that? He can spend the money on a villa somewhere and then claim that was in agreement with your prior discussions. Who’ll ever know what you told Fabrizzi?”

“I trust him,” Julia said. “I’ve trusted him all these years, and I can trust him now.”

“I don’t trust anybody,” Elliot said. “Not when it comes to a will. Not when it comes to an estate the size of yours.”

“There’s only one person who could possibly object to the will, and that’s David. And I don’t think he’s that kind of person. Besides, he’s taken care of adequately.”

“Sure, with half your estate. And the other half goes to a guy in Italy named Giovanni Fabrizzi, and you think David isn’t going to raise a fuss? Julia, don’t tell me about people and estates. Don’t tell me about people and money.”

“I still think—”

“And what do you know about Fabrizzi, other than that he’s handled a penny-ante transaction over the past sixteen and a half years? This is real money, Julia, this is better than three-quarters of a million dollars. That damn spaghetti-bender may just—”

“Don’t talk that way, Elliot.”

“I’m sorry. But I don’t trust him. You want this money to go where it’s supposed to, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then don’t trust Fabrizzi.”

“How else can I—?”

“I’d like you to change the will. I’d like it to read ‘to be held in trust by Giovanni Fabrizzi pursuant to a separate agreement between Mr. Fabrizzi and the testatrix.’” He reached for another document on his desk, handed it to Julia, and said, “This is a rough draft of the separate agreement. It tells exactly where the estate goes, and when. Nothing vague about it, Julia. I’d like you to send it to Fabrizzi for his signature.”

“Nothing vague about it,” she said, and she nodded. “And when I die, Elliot? What happens to this agreement that is anything but vague?”

“One copy stays locked in my safe, and another stays locked in Fabrizzi’s. There are such things as secret trusts, Julia. And if a separate document is mentioned in the will, David won’t have a leg to stand on.”

“And if he contests it, you’ll have to show the separate document, won’t you?”