others.
After the Italian checkpoint at the southern terminus of the tunnel, Griffith turned his rented Audi toward the town. All around, the chalets scattered along the slopes of the Val d'Aosta like spilled Monopoly houses looked bare and solitary against the scruffy treeless ground, without their usual luxury coats of snow. A little farther up, the snow never left the rocky land completely, not even with the warming of the globe, and up there was where Griffith was now headed.
Marino's ski chalet, built by him four years ago, lay north of the main resort, on the upslope fringe of Dolonne. From its main living room, on the west side of the house, the cable cars could be watched, floating upward like tiny toys toward Checruit.
It wasn't the season yet for the cable cars. Empty, the black lines angled upward, off to his left, against a powder blue sky as cold as space. The Audi growled upward along the narrow road, happy with the challenge. Other traffic was sparse, mostly workers getting the chalets ready for the season.
Marino's house was, for him, modest, a gleaming white concrete structure cantilevered westward over a steep slope, its western and southern faces banks of plate glass edged in chrome. The drive curved upward beneath the house, so that swimmers in the glass-bottomed indoor pool could watch arrivals down through the heated water and the greenish glass.
The entry drive curled around the blank white north side of the house, facing the mountain, and ended at the east face, where the house met the land. Two staffmen were waiting outside the elaborate antique door, once part of a Landsruhe church, the only touch of wood on the facade of the house, one to take his luggage, the other to drive the Audi away to the garage.
Griffith followed the staffman into the house, enjoying again the icy luxury, the sense of imperious control, that characterized all of Marino's houses. He was led to the guest room where he'd stayed the other three times he'd been here; the staff would have records of things like that.
Putting his small suitcase on the bed, the staffman said, 'Mr. Marino will see you at seven. He has not yet arrived.'
'Thank you.'
'If you wish to swim—'
'Thank you, I know where it is. And I brought my suit.'
In the pool, Griffith saw the white Daimler arrive, tiny and toylike far below through the water and glass. (The pool was always disconcerting, but always a kick, too.) He was alone in the echoing and always faintly steamy swimming pool room, and he dove down to watch the Daimler disappear around the corner of the house, then surfaced again. -
Because Griffith traveled among people who wined and dined very well indeed, he worked hard to keep himself in shape, with a small gym and lap pool at home in Dallas. Whenever while traveling he had an opportunity to swim laps he took it, staying in his lane even when the pool was as large and broad and empty as this one.
Now, he sliced through the water for just three more laps—sixty—then climbed out, dried himself, put on the sandals he'd found in the guest room closet, and rode the small elevator up one floor, then walked the wide hall to his room. The clock on the bedside table read 6:43. He dressed, took his evening pills—high blood pressure, high cholesterol—and walked back along the hall to the broad living room, with its wonderful views west and south over the town of Courmayeur and all the other villas and villages nestled in the folds of the mountain's skirt.
Marino wasn't here yet. Griffith accepted a Glenfiddich neat from the hovering staffwoman, and was standing in front of the view, swirling the drink in his mouth and the glass, when Marino arrived.
'Horace!'
Griffith turned, seeing his host cross toward him, hand outstretched: 'Pax,' he said, and accepted the firm handshake.
And knew at once that something wasn't right. The urbane and calmly arrogant Paxton Marino he was used to wasn't here; in his place was an uncertain man, trying to hide his vulnerability. 'Glad you could come, Horace,' he said. 'I had them fly up steaks from Rome, so we won't starve.'
'Good.'
Marino looked around for the staffwoman, saying,
'Do you have a— Oh, you have a drink.'
'Yes.' In negotiation, Griffith was known to be direct, sometimes unsettlingly so, and he sensed he was in negotiation right now. 'Pax,' he said, making face and voice only concerned as a friend would be, 'what's wrong?'
Marino flashed something like his normal smile. 'Wrong? Why should anything—' He broke off, with a different smile, and a headshake. 'Why do I waste time trying to snow you? Sit down, sit down.' Turning away, he said to the staffwoman, 'A Pellegrino, Helga, and then we'll be fine.' Meaning she should go away.
Griffith took one of the low soft swivel chairs near the windows, as instructed, but once Marino got his glass of Italian water and Helga had padded away he remained on his feet, standing near Griffith but not looking at him, gazing at the valley out there instead.
Griffith watched and waited. Marino was thought of as a handsome man, but really was not, as Griffith now noticed for the first time. What was seen as handsomeness was merely self-assurance, a cockiness of stance, a smiling confidence that the world belonged to him. Take away that assurance—which something had done, that much was clear—and what was left was a tall but pudgy man in his mid-thirties. With his puffy cheeks like a squirrel, and slack body, and contact lenses that flashed the light more than he knew, Marino at last looked like what he actually was: a bright but uncharismatic science major out of the California state university system, a Fresno boy whose past was pizza and skateboards, not the Alps.
And not Horace Griffith. Like Marino, Griffith gazed out at the magnificent view. He wondered if Marino, too, might be thinking this was the last time either of them would see it.
At last Marino spoke: 'You know, Horace, they keep saying the new economy's going bust.'
'Yes, they do.'
