Dying on the Vine

“Screw you,” Cesare said. “Bro.”

“Oh, man, Cesare,” Nico said with a genuinely sad shake of his head. There had been a time when he had loved Cesare more than he’d loved anyone else in the family other than Pietro. They had played together when no one else would play with them, they’d had their first taste of wine together, they’d created make-believe castles and fought make-believe battles in the vineyard with wooden stakes for swords for hours at a time. Time and time again, Nico, as the older boy, if only by a few months, had taken his stepbrother’s side against his own blood family. Cesare had responded by looking worshipfully up to him as his role model, his protector, and his one real friend among the Cubbiddus. Whatever Nico wore, or said, or did, Cesare had aped it.

Even now, despite the many changes in Cesare—the growing recklessness, the frightening free-fall into drug-addled stupidity and selfishness, and all the misery that went along with it—Nico still loved him, still had hopes, despite everything, that he could save him from himself and, against all odds, bring him back into the embrace of the family.

Not that he wasn’t sympathetic to Franco’s and Luca’s feelings. It was certainly true that the kid wasn’t the most agreeable person in the world. But he’d had a tough time of it. Not only was he the stepbrother—the son of the hated stepmother—but he’d wound up with the short end of the genetic stick when Pietro and Nola had joined families—a skinny, undersized little troll skulking among handsome, confident giants—and he’d never managed to fit in, although God knows he’d tried hard enough (which was part of the problem).

“Come on, Cesare, don’t be like that,” he said. “What kind of crap is this about suing us? Why don’t you just tell us what’s on your mind, and we can take it from there? You know, get it out on the table and talk it out.”

“No, you don’t get it, Nico. There’s no us, there’s only him. I’m suing Franco.”

“Well, whatever it is,” Nico said soothingly, “I’m sure we can work it out without involving all these lawyers. No offense, signora.”

Cesare wasn’t buying it. “Oh yes? Ha-ha. I’d like to see you work your way out of this. No, no, no, no, we’re not talking anything out—”

When he began to blink and cough, Franco cut in flintily. “You’re damn right we’re not talking anything out. You’ve been treated far more fairly by my father and by this family than you deserve, and you know it. There’s nothing to work out,” he finished with a warning glance at Nico, who had looked as if he were about to speak.

“I quite agree,” signora Batelli said. “There is nothing to work out. Let us be clear. We are not here to negotiate with you or to make demands. We are here, as a courtesy, to inform you of a civil action we are about to pursue.”

The brothers’ uneasiness increased. Despite the woman’s age, there was an air of resolute immovability about her. Built along the lines of a washer-dryer combination, she brought to mind the alarming images of Bulgarian lady shot-putters from the 1950s, an impression the voice and the tracksuit did nothing to lessen.

Severo’s eyebrows shot up. “A civil action?”

“My client intends to bring suit against Franco Cubbiddu in the amount of four million euros.”

“What!” Franco demanded with a shriek of not-quite-hysterical laughter. “Are you out of your mind?”

Luca shook his head and addressed the fluorescent-lit ceiling. “I don’t believe this.”

Severo contributed a magisterial frown and a low, warning rumble: “See here . . .”

Nico just leaned over and banged his head on the table. “Aww, Cesare. You gotta be kidding me.”

None of it discomposed the signora. “We intend to claim this amount as recompense for damages suffered by my client as a result of the murder of his mother, Nola Baccaredda Cubbiddu, by signor Cubbiddu—your father, gentlemen—in September of last year.”

“Our father!” Franco exclaimed. “He’s dead and gone. What are you suing me for?”

“As I’m sure signor Quadrelli will explain to you,” said signora Batelli patiently, “in such cases, under Italian law, it is permissible to file against the estate and the heirs. We will be filing against you as the primary heir.” She smiled at him. Nothing personal, of course.

“Now hold on right there,” Severo said. “Just you hold on one minute. I have to tell you right now that what you’re demanding is preposterous. No judge in his right mind would even consider such an outrageous sum as recompense for emotional damages suffered—”

Signora Batelli’s forefinger rose. “Permit me, signor Quadrelli. We are speaking about emotional damages and monetary damages—”

“Monetary damages!”

Nico chimed in as well. “I honestly don’t see how you were damaged, Cesare. Not in that way . . . monetarily? You got a lot of money from babbo’s will, buddy—the same as I did, same as Luca did. I mean, you have to admit—”

“You don’t see how? You don’t see how?” The whispery drumming of Cesare’s feet on the carpet, audible since he’d sat down, picked up speed. And now the new bumping of his knees against the underside of the table set it to thrumming. The kid himself was practically thrumming. “I’ll tell you how. I’ll tell you how.” But he was racked with a ferocious, phlegmy bout of coughing. “I’ll . . . I’ll tell . . .”

He rummaged frustratedly through his pockets. “Shit—”

“I have it, Cesare,” signora Batelli said, reaching into her briefcase for a small bottle of an Italian cough medicine.

Cesare snatched it from her hand almost before she’d gotten it all the way out, took a couple of gulps straight from the bottle, and flinched at the taste but seemed to find some relief. Nico, concerned, had gone to the phone and asked for some water to be brought. When it arrived, Cesare downed some, recovered himself a little more, and started to talk again, but was once more convulsed, this time spraying a grimacing Franco with water, cough medicine, and who knew what else. Cesare did some more pocket-plumbing and came up with a handkerchief that had obviously seen earlier use, with which he wetly, lengthily blew his nose. Not only Franco, but Luca, Nico, Quadrelli, and even signora Batelli all shifted their chairs a little further away from him.

“Perhaps it would be best if I continued, Cesare,” signora Batelli said soothingly, upon which Cesare, lifted his hand in acquiescence. “You see, gentlemen, my client will contend—and I don’t see how it can be denied—that the murder of his mother deprives him of an inheritance that is rightfully his.”

“What inheritance?” Quadrelli demanded. “All of the Cubbiddus’ property was held in her husband’s name. All she owned in her own name were a few Baccaredda heirlooms . . . which I have made sure have gone to Cesare, as is only right.”

Cesare, his coughing under control, if only barely, broke in. “He killed my mother, and he profited from it! I thought that was against the law in this country!”

“How did he profit from it?” Luca asked angrily. “He’s dead.”

“Well, yes, technically—”

A snort from Luca. “What the hell is ‘technically’ dead?”

“I mean . . .” He didn’t quite cough, but another fit was clearly on its way if he continued. He gestured to signora Batelli, who took over.

“What my client means, of course, is that his estate profited by Nola’s death, which, in a legal sense, can be interpreted as the same thing. And Franco Cubbiddu was the primary beneficiary of that estate.”

“Now, signora.” Severo was practically oozing condescension. “As an experienced attorney I’m sure you know perfectly well that, while it is true that our laws prohibit a murderer’s profiting from his crime, that prohibition applies to the contents of the victim’s will, not the murderer’s, so you see, the issue is moot.”

“Severo,” Franco snapped, “will you kindly stop calling our father a murderer?”

“What would you call him?” Cesare snarled.

“Please, gentlemen,” said Quadrelli, “I am speaking in general terms. Let me continue—”

But signora Batelli was running out of patience. “You do not understand me, signore. We are not challenging signor Cubbiddu’s will. We are bringing a wrongful death suit—”

“A wrongful—”

“—to recover damages for the loss by my client of his mother’s love, affection, companionship, and emotional