A Small Fortune (21 page)

“Why didn’t you just tell me? You could have told me you knew about the money. I would have come to get it. It would have been ours to do with whatever you pleased.”

“Right!” He laughs maniacally into his hand, shaking his face. I can no longer tell if he’s laughing or crying. He drops his hand and I see that it’s both. “You’ve been so kind these past years,” he whines. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? Of course you would have understood everything. Oh, here you go, sweetheart. No more worries. Please!” He gets in my face and I see how unkempt he is. His sour teeth, his face oily, bristly. “You would have left before I even finished the first sentence.”

“Let him go, Jonathon.”

“It wasn’t my fault. You need to understand that.”

“He’s just a boy.”

“I’ll let him go when I have what I came for.”

Frau Freymann weeps quietly at the table behind me.

With every passing minute, with every word I speak, I know I’m winding the thread of his insanity tighter, and yet I can’t stop. I need to stall him.

Oliver moans behind the door.

“I will not go to jail for this,” Jonathon says. “Do you understand me? I would rather die and take every one of you with me than spend the rest of my life in prison.”

I set the pistol on the table. “What exactly do you want?”

Kevin immediately snatches up pistol. “What is it?” he asks.

“
Die Pistole von meinem Enkel
,” Frau Freymann answers.

“What’d she say? Kevin asks.

“A toy pistol from her grandson,” the man I take to be the doctor says.

Kevin points it at the sink and pulls the trigger. Nothing but the sound of plastic clicking.

He has no way of knowing it needs three empty shots pumped out the first time it’s used for it to engage. Kevin tosses it on the counter after one.

“I’ll do what you want,” I say. “But please,” I turn to the other man, “I’m begging you. Go upstairs and help Herr Freymann.”

The doctor carries a small leather satchel and an ice pack. I follow him into the bedroom where Herr Freymann is still lying on the floor.

Benicio turns the bedside lamp on. He sits beside this tender lump of a man and presses the bloodied towel into the wound. Herr Freymann is awake now, mumbling.

I read the sorrow in Benicio’s face. It’s my very own sorrow, burning inside of him.

“Oliver is here?” he asks.

I barely nod, picturing him in the chair, the knife at his shoulder. I bite my lip. Tears spill down my cheeks.

Benicio stands and holds me to his chest. I feel the bulk of something beneath his shirt at his back.

The doctor kneels down and looks over Herr Freymann’s head. He pulls tiny strips of adhesive from his satchel and tapes the wound. Then he helps Herr Freymann to sit. He tells him to stay awake and keep the ice on his head. The white of Herr Freymann’s eye is bloodshot, the bone out around it already blackening. He can’t, or possibly isn’t willing, to look at me.

By eight thirty I’m on the train headed to the bank with Jonathon at my side. “Amazing how they really do run on time,” he says of the trains. “This place is impressive,” he says, looking out the window as we roll into the Hauptbahnhof.

By nine o’clock Jan is offering us champagne and espresso. Jonathon holds up his hand to say no thank you. I say I’d love some tea.

We’re given a private room to wait in. Erika greets us accompanied by a gentleman named Franz whom she says will assist us in matters of high security.

Erika appears only slightly concerned. “You mentioned yesterday that your wife wasn’t feeling well,” she says to Jonathon as if I’m not there. “Something about her medication. Are you sure, Mrs. Donnelly, sorry, Celia, that you want to make such a large cash withdrawal?”

“Yes. It was just a misunderstanding,” I say.

“If there is something you would like to purchase here in Zürich, jewelry, real estate, anything at all, we can safely wire the money into another account. We don’t recommend carrying this amount of cash on the street.” She looks from me to Jonathon and back again. “Zürich is safe, but nowhere in the world is so safe that one should be walking around with that amount of cash.”

“We understand,” Jonathon says. “I happen to be president of a bank myself, Ms. Zubriggen. I understand the circumstances are unusual. But they’re not illegal. Am I right?”

“I’m sorry. Am I mistaken? Or is your name not included on this account? I only ask in case we missed something somewhere.”

Jonathon slips his hand into the pocket with his phone. He threatened to call Kevin if anything goes wrong. The ones I love will pay the price. His eyes meet mine.

“No. That’s correct,” I say. “He’s just here as a financial advisor to me. It’s perfectly fine.”

“Then you’re aware that he has contacted the bank several times trying to gain access to your account?”

“Yes. Well. I asked him to. He knows everything about banking, obviously, and he’s just come along to give me a little guidance. I plan to do some wonderful things with Hagen Haus.”

“Ah, so you’ve seen it then? What did I tell you?”

“Yes. You were right. I look exactly like my great-grandfather, Walter. The resemblance is striking.”

If Erika catches what I said she doesn’t show it. She gives us the money now, no more questions. “Well, then,” Erika says. “No need to keep you waiting. Franz will help you with everything you need, and if there is anything else I can help you with in the future please don’t hesitate to let me know.”

I try to pass her a look of desperation. But Erika turns on her heels, all business. “Give my regards to the twins,” she says, and then she’s gone.

An hour and a half after entering the bank we’re being shown out the door with three large satchels.

“Let’s take a cab, shall we?” Jonathon says. “It’s too much to carry.”

We slide into the back of a cab, and for a moment I worry that the man behind the wheel is just pretending to be a cab driver. That he’s actually someone paid to drive out into the woods and shoot me.

Jonathon gives the man the address of the pension. Why will he let me go? It doesn’t make sense. He runs his finger aimlessly around the window like a child drawing pictures, spelling his name in the steam. “That was easy,” he says. “Effortless. Didn’t you think?” The closer we get to Pension Freymann, the more I’m sure he plans to kill me.

Everyone is gathered in the kitchen. Benicio, Herr Freymann, even Oliver, still tied to the chair, though his feet are free and the tape has been removed from his mouth. Thick pink welts rim his lips. He groans and quiets in turn. I can feel his mind struggling to come to. I pray this won’t happen before everything is over.

I cross the room and lift his face into my hands. He’s cold. His eyes are closed, but when I touch him he makes a deep rumbling in his throat. My heart crumbles. I kiss his forehead and draw in the smell of him. I hold his wobbly head against my shoulder, see the bruises on his cheek and arms, and fight back my rage, my tears.

Jonathon sets the first satchel on the large kitchen table and begins pulling out the cash. The doctor and Kevin tear the bundles open and hold several bills to the light, apparently searching for watermarks.

“Genuine,” the doctor says.

I feel a raw excitement coming off Jonathon’s skin. Beyond greed or desperation, he seems to have entered a fugue state, having lost all awareness of who he is, who everyone is.

Benicio watches from his chair in the corner near Herr Freymann. I can practically see the wheels spinning inside his head.

Oliver jerks his shoulder as if from a dream.

After another ten minutes of examination, Jonathon begins bundling the stacks together again. “Well then,” he says to the doctor, who’s opening his own satchel and pulling out a needle and syringe.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“He’s an old friend. Henri, this is my wife. Celia, Henri.”

The doctor nods politely as if there’s nothing unusual about meeting under such circumstances.

Benicio shifts in his chair.

“That’s right,” Jonathon says, addressing Benicio. “She’s still my wife, no matter what the two of you have been doing upstairs. Just remember, I was there first. Remember that, you lying son of a bitch.”

Benicio gives nothing away. He isn’t afraid of Jonathon. That’s clear to everyone in the room. Including Jonathon.

“You think I’m a terrible person,” Jonathon says to me. “I betrayed you. Yes, I betrayed you. I lied. But I was trying—” He gazes at the floor and pokes the air above his head as if gouging a hole. He looks at me. “This is what you never understood about me. I was trying to hold everything together. Trying to fix all the things that were bringing us down. Whether it was you and your affair or our finances or Oliver’s shitty attitude. I was trying to do the right thing. You want to look at me with such disgust, but what did you do? You hopped in bed with a man who betrayed
his
whole family. He lied, too. To them, to you, to me. And look at the way you’re leering at him!”

He grabs my hair and squeezes, pulling my face toward him.

Benicio makes a move to stand. I lift my hand to stop him.

“Not once in eighteen years have you ever looked at me like that,” Jonathon says.

“I’m sorry,” I say, my throat giving way to tears.

Jonathon lets go of my hair and sneers.

Kevin takes a stance with his legs apart, like a football player ready to rumble. He’s a caricature of man, a night watchman brute Jonathon must have borrowed from the bank.

I glance at Benicio, see the slight turn in his lip.

“What are you planning on doing with us?” I say.

“Well, I can’t very well have you running around here wreaking all kinds of havoc the minute I walk out this door.”

Henri opens his satchel and begins drawing a clear liquid from a small bottle into a needle.

“Just a little something to help you rest,” Jonathon says. “But obviously you’re not going to let Henri inject you without some kind of incentive to sit still.”

“What do you mean?” I’m terrified that whatever is in that needle is meant to kill us all.

“Kevin here is going to hold his knife to your neck while Henri injects your boyfriend. He makes a wrong move and that will be that.” He laughs. “I guess you’re about to find out just how much he really cares about you, Cee.”

Kevin takes his stance again, the kitchen knife tightly in his fist.

Benicio is ready and waiting for Henri to make a move toward him. Do the rest of them not see this? Can they not feel what he’s about to do?

Frau Freymann gets up and sits by her brother. Her face is fixed with defiance. No one says a word.

Henri finishes filling his needle. He sighs as if the whole thing bores him.

“Did you ever love me, Jonathon?” I ask. I have to. I can’t help it.

This seems to take him by surprise. He lets out a small, tired laugh. “Yes,” he says, and then, as if he’s too tired to speak, “I suppose I did.” He takes a deep breath.

I step toward him.

Kevin reaches out to make me stop.

“It’s all right,” Jonathon says.

I’m close enough to see the pores of his dirty, oily skin, the black and gray whiskers poking through, the small red lines of eyes that appear to have been open for days. He’s lost weight. His cheeks are drawn, the fullness of them eaten away. He’s a stranger to me. No one I’ve ever loved the way I should have. It was all wrong from the beginning. And yet here’s Oliver, my boy, my love. A miracle born out of a hideous blunder.

“We need to get started,” Henri says, clearly growing impatient. “The ship leaves in an hour.”

“What ship?” I ask.

Oliver stirs. He lifts his head and groans. His eyes slowly peel back before closing again.

I step around the table and hold his head. “Oliver,” I whisper in his ear. “It’s all right, sweetheart.”

I glance up and see a flash of something in Jonathon’s face. I want to believe he’s having second thoughts. For a second I convince myself he’s incapable of harming his own child.

“We have to go,” he says, and just as quickly the look disappears.

“What ship?” I ask.

Jonathon nods to Henri. “We’re wasting time.”

“Wait.” I come around the table and gently place my hand on Jonathon’s heart. It hammers so hard, so fast I think his chest will split open from sheer force, his heart lash out like a ball into the mitt of my hand. I can feel his loneliness, the vacancy inside him like fumes released into the air. He’s been forgotten for so many years. By me. By everyone. Who has ever really cared for this man? Who has ever been allowed that far in? His love is nothing more than a vacant ditch, a place where others’ feelings went to rot.

“Mom?” Oliver murmurs.

Jonathon takes hold of my hand. He kisses it.

“Are you OK?” Oliver mumbles.

“Yes, Ollie,” I say. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”

It seems all I need is to hear my son’s voice. I now know exactly what to do.

I rear my head back and with the single pop smash my forehead into Jonathon’s chest.

There’s screaming, whose exactly I can’t tell. Bodies leap everywhere. The Freymanns fly out the door behind me. Cool air sweeps into the kitchen. Only Oliver struggles to move at the center.

Jonathon collides with Kevin on his way to the floor. The knife in Kevin’s hand carves a long, clean incision into Jonathon’s cheek. The flesh hangs open, spilling blood down his face.

Benicio punts a foot into Henri’s groin. He pulls a pair of scissors from his waist and slices through Oliver’s bindings. Then he brings the scissors down into Henri’s shoulder as the man collapses with a sickening groan onto the floor. But not before his needle sticks Benicio’s leg.

Kevin shoves Jonathon out of the way and dives toward me.

I jump back and grab the pistol from the counter. I jerk the collar of my shirt over my nose and shoot three times at Kevin’s face. The third shot releases the ball of pepper spray and knocks him backward. He claws his eyes. The kitchen is a maelstrom of poison.

Benicio pulls Oliver to the floor and drags him outside just as Jonathon grabs one of the satchels and runs past them.

My eyes are ablaze, cut through by molten steel. I know not to touch, even as they slam shut and won’t open. I’ve never felt such scalding. I don’t know where I am, where anyone is. I feel my way along the counter and out the door where I hear Oliver wrenching for air.

Grass beneath my feet. So many people choking, my eyes and nose a fountain of tears, my throat scorched with pain. I blink repeatedly until the blurry outline of Oliver in the grass finally appears. He calls out to me, gasping for air.

I stumble past him. Past Benicio on the ground next to him.

Jonathon is a blotch on the horizon, a ghost stumbling down the field into the shallow ravine along the road.

I run blindly after him, every breath an inferno of pain. Nausea grips my middle, and there’s nothing I can do but stop and vomit a blowtorch from my lungs.

Jonathon is headed toward the lake. But he’s no quicker than me. Every other step his balance is lost.

I catch him by the back of his hair. He swings the satchel, and it lands hard against my head, right where I slammed him in the chest.

I’m on the ground, sobbing with rage. I kick his ankles, and he falls next to me; blood from the cut in his cheek is everywhere, face, clothes, hands. I roll onto his chest and flail my fists at whatever I can hit.

Then another kind of heat slices through my body. I can barely make out the Swiss Army knife in his hand, even as it slides between my ribs.

A small, vacuumed suck. I tumble into the cold grass. Shock absorbs me, wraps me in its trance.

Jonathon leaps to his hands and knees. He lunges and knocks me flat on my back where he straddles my chest and pins my hands with his knees. He tosses the knife to the side. He laughs in my face. He wraps his hands around my neck and squeezes.

His face hangs above me. Bloated and bleeding. A Halloween mask. Blood dripping into my face. I can’t move. My mind shuts off. My senses go cold. I begin to drift into a painless trance when Oliver’s voice from the kitchen—
Mom, are you OK?
—slings me back to life.