Chapter 33 Fon
Fon
The streetlights shone through the shuttered windows, falling on the tiled floor in thick stripes as everyone waited for their guest of honour.
Bruno Collura, the council leader, had arranged the meeting, telling them the ring of a bike’s bell outside would signal the dignitary’s approach.
The energy in the room was shifty, everyone on edge except for Dante, who was supremely relaxed; he had even forsaken a tie and was sitting in his purple velvet chair in his reception salon holding a glass of brandy, one leg splayed over his knee.
Gina had done a good job of showing the villa to its best. The gilded mirrors were polished to a shine, a majolica vase filled with Madonna lilies, Lorenzo’s toys tidied away for once.
Dante had insisted she stay upstairs; she had let herself go with this pregnancy and he didn’t want her showing him up.
Appearances mattered, and never more so than this evening. No advantage could be lost.
Fon took another sip of his drink. Unlike his brother, he couldn’t shake off his nerves so easily.
There was a gap between how he was commonly regarded and how he saw himself, and it was at times like this that he fell back into his old insecurities.
It was true they had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams – Dante kept telling him the Giannelli family business was on the way to becoming something he would never have believed possible: an empire.
Smuggling bionde and pimping blondes had been lucrative, of course – everyone wanted cigarettes and women – but it had only been the start.
Dante had always had not just the vision for more, but the backbone too.
Fon, as his first lieutenant, did what was required when it was asked of him; he just had no natural appetite for it.
He would never command respect in the same way as his brother.
He didn’t have courage or charisma; he didn’t bristle with menace.
What he did have was a quick brain and good instincts about people.
A lifetime of being on the edge of things meant he could read a room with a sharp eye, and that made him an asset when it came to doing deals; he had ‘smarts’, and his brother not only needed that but respected it too.
They had fallen into a sort of double act over the past few years, with Dante always the star and Fon forever a shadow, the quietest man in every room.
While Dante performed, Fon observed. He had learnt to make a virtue of being overlooked, find the opportunity in being underestimated.
It was the tactic that had won him his wife, after all.
This occasion, though – stepping back into their past – was unnerving, and he couldn’t pretend otherwise.
The bike bell rang loudly outside, making everyone stand taller as the messenger boy’s shadow streaked past the window.
Moments later, a black cinquecento rolled up; it was the only car small enough to navigate these narrow, winding streets, and privacy had been stipulated for this meeting.
Walking or even taking a scooter were far too risky with these crowds.
Fon listened for the slam of the pedestrian door, for leather-shod footsteps on the staircase, and he downed the rest of his brandy.
‘Senatore,’ Collura said, meeting the visitor at the door and inclining his head respectfully before offering his hand. He welcomed their distinguished guest with a hushed reverence.
‘Signore Collura,’ the cabinet minister replied in smooth tones, as stately as the pope. ‘So very nice to see you again. This is a beautiful home you have here.’
‘Actually, it is not mine,’ Collura replied. ‘But we thought the space and privacy afforded here was preferable, with so many tourists around now. I believe you know our host, Signore Giannelli?’
‘Gian—? … Dante?’ Filippo Franchetti said with surprise as Dante stepped forward.
Fon watched as Franchetti’s supercilious smile faded. He took in Dante’s sharp suit, the handsome residence and vastly elevated circumstances. Even if it wasn’t entirely to his taste, no one could deny it was a long way from the casino vecchio in every sense.
‘Senatore, it’s good to see you again,’ Dante said, holding out his hand. ‘Thank you for coming tonight.’
Franchetti looked as if he’d been ambushed. ‘Well … I had no idea I was being reunited with old neighbours.’
‘Would you have come if you had?’ Dante smiled. ‘A lot can change in a few years.’
‘So I see.’
‘Come. Allow me to introduce you,’ Dante said, presenting the councillors, the important port men who had quickly come to see the benefits of doing business with the Giannellis.
Fon waited patiently for the minister’s attention to fall on him.
‘And I’m sure you remember my brother, Alfonso …’
‘Senatore,’ Fon said, offering his hand and seeing how the politician’s smooth smile faltered once again as their eyes locked.
The other councillors had no idea of how their fates had become so inextricably linked.
It had been almost four years since they had last met – blue lights flashing, screams through the moonlight …
Filippo had returned home to a hellscape and Fon holding his hands up to it …
The Franchettis hadn’t returned to Tricase since the accident, and on his last visit Fon had seen the garden was becoming overgrown, the gates rusting closed. Was neglect helping them forget?
Franchetti could only nod in reply. He had noticeably aged.
Always lean and in shape, he was now decidedly thin, his dark hair more salted than peppered these days, and his eyes looked rheumy behind his glasses.
It was hard to see in him now the ladies’ man who had once bedded Valentina Fabiani.
Even Dante – thinking he’d had a chance as he flirted like the devil on the speedboat – had been stunned by that revelation.
Of course, it had all come out in the newspapers in the end; even Dante had only been able to hold off the dogs for so long.
A period of grace had been extended to the duke in the months after his daughter’s death, but eventually the finger had been removed from the dam and the story had run for weeks: exposing the notorious bed-hopping antics of the Roman upper classes, sexual promiscuity, underage drinking …
The fallout had been severe: Romola’s reputation was compromised in death and Rossanna finally left him.
Franchetti had been demoted to minister of public education, though not kicked out of politics altogether.
Valentina’s career took a hard knock, too.
Cast as the villainess in this real-life morality tale, her new film had bombed at the box office, and then she had run off with the married director of her next one.
‘It was good of you to agree to see us, signore,’ Dante said, handing him a glass of brandy.
Fon could see the surprise in Franchetti’s eyes as it became evident it wouldn’t be Collura leading the meeting; as his brother addressed their former noble neighbour as an equal; as Franchetti began to see that this dinner was not the provincial glad-handing he had anticipated.
‘Well, I was in the neighbourhood,’ Franchetti murmured, trying to regain his footing.
‘Yes, Lecce is beautiful, isn’t it? The Grand Hotel does a very good martini,’ Dante said, casually dropping the name of the hotel where Franchetti was staying forty-five minutes from here – a casual warning the politician would pick up on. ‘Are you here on business?’
‘… A private visit, actually,’ Franchetti replied.
Dante nodded, knowing exactly what that meant. He had several mistresses in different towns in the region, too. He didn’t like sleeping alone. None of them did.
‘I must admit, I wasn’t aware you had moved here,’ Filippo added.
‘Well, I would prefer to be in Tricase Porto still … Did you know we bought the Villa Blanca?’
‘… No.’
The other wealthy summer visitors had gradually sold off their villas once the Franchettis stopped visiting the port. Death had tinged the glamour of the place, like a poison rotting the bougainvillea.
‘We’re doing a lot of renovation work, naturally, so this place is fine in the interim,’ Dante shrugged, as if ‘this place’, the mayor’s villa, was little more than a hovel.
‘And being in a thriving trading port is helpful for many of our business operations. Not to mention my wife prefers it here.’
‘Wife?’
‘Gina … Crespi, as she was.’
‘Oh – from the grocery?’ Franchetti asked.
A flicker of annoyance crossed Dante’s face as their humble origins were reannounced for the benefit of the other councillors, most of whom had been born middle class. ‘So you remember her? She’s very beautiful, it’s true.’
Franchetti’s mouth opened and Fon saw a realization come into his eyes, enlivening him for a moment. Was he going to say he remembered her running through his villa every summer, with his daughter? ‘… The tomatoes were always very good,’ he murmured, sinking back into himself again.
Dante smouldered at the slight but, like the duke, controlled himself. ‘I trust the duchess is happy in Florence?’ Their divorce had, of course, made the papers too.
‘… As she can be, thank you for asking.’
‘Beautiful city.’
‘You’ve been?’ Franchetti asked with a sceptical look.
‘Not recently.’ Dante gave a dazzling smile. ‘I really should rectify that. Gina would enjoy a trip before the baby comes.’
‘Oh – you’re expecting?’
‘Our second,’ Dante nodded.
‘I see,’ Franchetti murmured, looking him over again. ‘I must be honest, I never took you for a family man, Dante.’
‘No? Well, I suppose we come in all guises.’ Dante held his gaze as a silent point was made: Filippo Franchetti was in no position to preach about family men.
It was a warning shot, both men knew, as they vied for the upper hand.
From another room, the dinner gong sounded.
‘Ah, we are being called … Let’s go through and eat.’