Now I was really shocked and horrified. “Why don’t you wait a day?” I said. “You’ll feel better tomorrow. You still have some more time. Six months is not bad.”
Osano said, “Do you have any qualms about what I’m going to do? The usual moral prejudices?’
I shook my head. “Just what’s the rush?”
Osano looked at me thoughtfully. “No,” he said. “that fall when I tried to get out of bed gave me the message. Listen, I’ve named you as my literary executor, your decisions are final. There’s no money left, just copyrights and those go to my ex-wives, I guess, and my kids. My books still sell pretty well, so I don’t have to worry about them. I tried to do something for Charlie Brown, but she won’t let me and I think maybe she’s right.”
I said something I would not ordinarily say. “The whore with the heart of gold,” I said. “Just like in the literature,” I said.
Osano closed his eyes. “You know, one of the things I liked best about you, Merlyn, is that you never said the word ‘whore’ and maybe I’ve said it, but I never thought it.”
“OK,” I said. “Do you want to make some phone calls or do you want to see some people? Or do you want to have a drink?”
“No,” Osano said. “I’ve had enough of all that bullshit. I’ve got seven wives, nine kids, I got two thousand friends and millions of admirers. None of them can help and I don’t want to see a fucking one of them.” He grinned at me. “And mind you, I’ve led a happy life.” He shook his head. “The people you love most do you in.”
I sat down beside the bed and we talked for hours about different books that we had read. He told me about all the women he had made love to, and for a few minutes Osano tried to remember fifteen years ago, the girl who infected him. But he couldn’t track it down. “One thing.” he said, “they were all beauties. They were all worth it. Au, hell, what difference does it make? It’s all an accident.”
Osano held out a hand and I shook it and pressed it and Osano said, “Tell Charlie to come in here and you wait outside.” Before I left, he called after me, “Hey, listen. An artist’s life is not a fulfilling life. Put that on my fucking tombstone.”
I waited a long time in the living room. Sometimes I could hear noises and once I thought I heard weeping and then I didn’t hear anything. I went into the kitchen and made some coffee and set two cups on the kitchen table. Then I went into the living room and waited some more. Then not a scream, not a call for help, not even grief-stricken I heard Charlie’s voice, very sweet and clear, call my name.
I went into the bedroom. On the night table was the gold Tiffany box he used to keep his penicillin pills in. It was open and empty. The lights were on, and Osano was lying on his back, eyes staring at the ceiling. Even in death his green eyes seemed to glitter. Nestled beneath his arm, pressed against his chest, was Charlie’s golden head. She had drawn the covers up to cover their nakedness.
“You’ll have to get dressed,” I said to her.
She rose up on one elbow and leaned over to kiss Osano on his mouth. And then she stood staring down at him for a long time.
“You’ll have to get dressed and leave,” I said. “There’s going to be a lot of fuss and I think it’s one thing Osano wanted me to do. To keep you out of any fuss.”
And then I went to the living room. I waited. I could hear the shower going, and then, fifteen minutes later, she came into the room.
“Don’t worry about anything,” I said. “I’ll take care of everything.” She came over to me and put herself into my arms. It was the first time I had ever felt her body and I could partly understand why Osano had loved her for so long. She smelled beautifully fresh and clean.
“You were the only one he wanted to see,” Charlie said. “You and me. Will you call me after the funeral?”
I said yes, I would, and then she went out and left me alone with Osano.
I waited until morning, and then I called the police and told them that I had found Osano dead. And that he had obviously committed suicide. I had considered for a minute hiding the suicide, hiding the pillbox. But Osano wouldn’t care even if I could get the press and authorities to cooperate. I told them how important a man Osano was so that an ambulance would get there right away. Then I called Osano’s lawyers and gave them the responsibility of informing all the wives and all the children. I called Osano’s publishers because I knew they would want to give out a press release and publish an ad in the New York
The police and district attorney had a lot of questions to ask as if I were a murder suspect. But that blew over right away. It seemed that Osano had sent a suicide note to his publisher telling him that he would not be able to deliver his novel owing to the fact that he was planning on killing himself.
There was a great funeral out in the Hamptons. Osano was buried in the presence of his seven wives, nine children, literary critics from the New York
In the following weeks hundreds of thousands of words were written about Osano as the first great Italian literary figure in our cultural history. That would have given Osano a pain in the ass. He never thought of himself as Italian/American. But one thing would have pleased him. All the critics said that if he had lived to publish his novel in progress, he would have surely won the Nobel Prize.
A week after Osano’s funeral I got a telephone call from his publisher with a request that I come to lunch the following week. And I agreed.
Arcania Publishing House was considered one of the classy, most literary publishing houses in the country. On its backlist were a half dozen Nobel Prize winners and dozens of Pulitzer and NBA winners. They were famous for being more interested in literature than best-sellers. And the editor in chief, Henry Stiles, could have passed for an Oxford don. But be got down to business as briskly as any Babbitt.
“Mr. Merlyn,” he said, “I admire your novels very much. I hope someday we can add you to our list.”
“I’ve gone over Osano’s stuff,” I said, “as his executor.”
“Good,” Mr. Stiles said. “You may or may not know, since this is the financial end of Mr. Osano’s life, that we advanced him a hundred thousand dollars for his novel in progress. So we do have first claim to that book. I just wanted to make sure you understood that.”
“Sure,” I said. “And I know it was Osano’s wish that you publish it. You did a great job publishing his books.”
There was a grateful smile on Mr. Stiles’s face. He leaned back. “Then there’s no problem?” he said. “I assume you’ve gone through his notes and papers and you found the manuscript.”
I said, “Well, that’s the problem. There is no manuscript; there is no novel, only five hundred pages of notes.”
Stiles had a stunned, horrified look on his face and behind that exterior I know what he thought: Fucking writers, hundred-thousand-dollar advance, all those years and all he has is notes! But then he pulled himself together. “You mean there’s not one page of manuscript?” he said.
“No,” I said. I was lying, but he would never know. There were six pages.
“Well,” Mr. Stiles said, “it’s not something we usually do, but it has been done by other publishing houses. We know that you helped Mr. Osano with some of his articles, under his by-lines, that you imitated his style very well. It would have to be secret, but why couldn’t you write Mr. Osano’s book in a six-month period and publish it under Mr. Osano’s name? We could make a great deal of money. You realize that couldn’t show in any contract between us, we could sign a separate very generous contract for your future books.”
Now he had surprised me. The most respectable publishing house in America doing something that only Hollywood would do, or a Vegas hotel? Why the fuck was I surprised?
“No,” I told Mr. Stiles. “As his literary executor I have the power and authority to keep the book from being published from those notes. If you would like to publish the notes themselves, I’ll give you permission.”
