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back here."
Pietro knew that, for the time being, he would learn nothing more. They worked on in silence. In half an hour the first lunch customers would arrive.
Chapter 3
Ettore and his lawyer had lunch at Granelli's. They sat in the semiprivacy of an alcove table and ate prosciutto with melon, followed by vitello tonnato, accompanied by a bottle of vintage Barolo. Slightly too heavy for the veal, but Vico liked it, so that's what they drank.
They discussed Ettore's financial problems. Vico was smoothly reassuring. Matters could be arranged. He would personally talk to the bank managers. Ettore must not be pessimistic.
Ettore felt at a disadvantage. He always did with his lawyer. Vico Mansutti was urbane, handsome, immaculately dressed, and cynical. He wore a silk-worsted suit with a faint pinstripe, tailored, Ettore knew, by Huntsman's of Savile Row. His shirt was Swiss cotton voile, his tie Como silk and his shoes Gucci. There was nothing synthetic about Vico-at least on the outside.
He wore his hair fashionably long, and a black mustache balanced his lean, tanned face. As they talked his eyes noted every movement in the restaurant, and he would occasionally acknowledge a greeting with a flash of even, white teeth. At thirty-six, two years younger than Ettore, he was acknowledged as the cleverest, best-connected lawyer in Milan.
So his words calmed Ettore but did nothing to dispel his feelings of inferiority.
A waiter drifted by and poured more Barolo, and Ettore moved on to his next problem-Rika. He explained about her obsession over Pinta's safety and, because Vico was a Mend, explained about the social factors. Vico listened with an amused expression on his face.
"Ettore," he said, smiling at his friend's doleful look, "I envy you profoundly. The problems you think you have are tiny problems, and the advantages you ignore are real and enormous."
"Tell me," said Ettore. "I seem to have misplaced them."
Vico put down his fork and held up his left hand with fingers spread. "Number one," he said, putting his right forefinger onto his left thumb. "Your reputation is such that, even owing the banks so much, they will continue to support you until conditions improve."
"You mean my family's reputation," interjected Ettore, "particularly my father's."
Vico shrugged. For him it was the same thing. He moved onto the next finger.
"Number two-your house on Lake Como, which you bought eight years ago for eighty million lire, is today worth two hundred fifty million and still appreciating."
"And mortgaged to the bank for two hundred million," said Ettore.
Again the shrug; the finger moved on.
"Number three, you have a daughter whose charm and beauty is only matched"-the finger moved again- "by number four-your wife, Rika. Yet you sit there looking as though your pupick dropped off."
He signaled the waiter, ordered coffee, and turned back to Ettore.
"You must get things into perspective. You have this little problem because you indulge Rika too much. That's entirely natural. Any man on earth, married to Rika, would do the same-I would."
He paused to drink some wine and then continued.
"The mistake you made, if I may say so, was allowing Rika to take Pinta out of school after the Carmelita kidnapping."
"Now wait!" Ettore protested. "I knew nothing about it. I was in New York. When I got back she had already hired the governess. It was a fait accompli."
Vico smiled. "Yes, well, of course Rika is impulsive, but at the time she made quite a drama of it. Now to send Pinta back to school under the same conditions would be to admit she was wrong." He raised an eyebrow. "When was the last time Rika admitted that she was wrong?"
Ettore smiled ruefully at the rhetorical question.
"So," continued Vico, "you must, as the Chinese say, allow Rika to save face."
"And how," asked Ettore, "do I accomplish that?"
Vico shrugged. "Hire a bodyguard."
Ettore became irritated.
"Vico. You are supposed to have a trained logical
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