Invitation to Provence(22)
“I’ll give the matter some thought,” Felix said, still staring out the window, his back still to Jake.
“That’s all your mother asks.” Jake hesitated, then said, “I also have the same message for Alain. I need to find him, Felix.”
“Hah!” Felix swung around with a great snort of anger. “Of course you do. Mama’s boy, the real prodigal son. No doubt he’ll want to return to claim his inheritance. Well, sorry to disappoint you, Jake, but I have no idea where Alain is. Probably dead by now, from being too smart for his own good.”
Jake nodded. He walked over to Felix and held out his hand. “We were friends once, Felix,” he said, meeting his eyes. “You were kind to a lonely out-of-place kid who knew nothing. I’ve never forgotten that, or you.”
Felix looked at the hand outstretched in old friendship. He nodded somberly. “And I have never forgotten you, Jake.”
The two men shook hands, then Jake turned and made briskly for the door. “Think about it, Felix,” he called over his shoulder. “It means everything to your mother. And perhaps to you, too. I hope to see you there.”
As the door closed behind him, Felix stared at the envelope. His mother’s writing looked shaky, like an old woman’s. Of course that was exactly what she was now, an old woman.
He ripped open the envelope, withdrew the invitation, and read it. Then he began to laugh. “Oh, Mother, you old fraud,” he said, still laughing. “You just want to reunite the family because blood is thicker than water, right? Well, too bad, Mother, because I am not coming. You can have your family reunion all on your own, which is the path you chose all those years ago. This son is not coming home.”
IT WAS MUCH LATER that night that Felix Marten’s body was found in the service alley behind the giant bronze-glass building. Apparently he had fallen from the open elevator used to haul heavy freight. He’d been killed instantly, still wearing his custom pin-striped suit and his handmade shoes, though both had come off in the fall. He’d landed head down, and his face was smashed to smithereens. Of course it was suicide, everyone agreed at first. But then, maybe not. Like many rich and powerful men, Felix had enemies. The rumors flew fast as wildfire around Hong Kong. Was it an accident? Felix had been noticeably uncertain on his feet recently. Had he been pushed? Was it murder?
Whatever the case, Felix Marten had found the final bronze silence. He slept at last. And he definitely would not be attending the family reunion.
14
JAKE WAS ALREADY IN Shanghai when he heard of Felix’s death on television. He was in a spacious, air-conditioned high-floored room at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the tallest building in the city and the second tallest in all Asia. He had been sipping green tea brought immediately on his arrival by a diminutive floor waiter in a white Mao jacket.
Jake had been looking forward to a night’s sleep. It seemed a long time since his feet had touched ground for more than a few hours, and he was in dire need of a massage to take the crimps of air travel out of his spine, then a shower and a night’s sleep in a real bed for a change. Of course Felix’s shocking death changed all that.
Jake immediately got on the phone to his contacts in Hong Kong and found out what he could, frowning when they said it was suicide. An autopsy would reveal more of the truth. Meanwhile, he had not yet told Rafaella he’d spoken to Felix. Now he had to call and tell her he was dead.
He dropped into a deep leather chair, his chin sunk onto his chest. Felix had seemed an angry man, a tired man, a vengeful man, but he had certainly not seemed suicidal. Of course, that didn’t mean he hadn’t killed himself. Jake had known many men who, on the surface, appeared day-to-day normal and who underneath suffered from an overwhelming depression. He wondered about Felix. He wondered exactly where Alain was. He wondered about the woman named Bao Chu Ching, who lived right here in Shanghai at number 27 Hu Tong Road, Apartment 127, and who’d been receiving thirty dollars a month from Felix Marten for ten years, a sum that had just been increased to fifty.
He glanced at his watch. It was ten in the morning in France. He sighed as he dialed the chateau, hating his role as the bringer of such terrible news.
Haigh answered, sounding irritable at being disturbed. “I was just about to take Rafaella into town to do some shopping,” he told Jake. “She says she needs new shoes, though lord knows she has enough to stock a shop already.”
“It’s a woman thing,” Jake said, smiling despite himself. And then he told Haigh the bad news. He heard him gasp, then a long silence. He knew Haigh had helped raise Felix, so this was a terrible shock to him, too. “I’m sorry, Haigh,” he said. “Are you all right?”
A sigh gusted down the phone. “Yes, I’m all right. It’s a good thing I’m here though to tell Rafaella. She won’t take this easily. She had such hopes that Felix would come home again. And now he will, only it’ll be in his coffin.”
“You want me to tell her?” Jake asked.
“No, it’s my place to do so,” Haigh said, sounding solemn and dignified at the same time. “It’s better not on the phone, you know, better if I’m there to help her.”
Jake promised to call later, then he put down the phone and sprawled in the chair, staring blankly at the wall. He thought again about the woman, Bao Chu Ching, who had received Felix’s money every month, wondering if she was a clue to something in his past, something that had caused Felix to kill himself. Or perhaps caused somebody else to kill him.