The Gift That Gives Forever
Mortimer’s family infested the drawing-room. Plague locusts that stripped bare the silver Charcuterie platters. His butcher slaved for a week to prepare them. Chimay and Wynendale, Blue Castello and Shropshire Blue, Winnimere, Stilton Gold and Pule. Sopressata, hand-stuffed duck and finocchiona sausage, jamón Serrano, lomo de cerdo and bresaola, rabbit and quail terrine, rillettes, pickled raisins and cauliflower, crostini, bruschetta and honey from his hives.
His guests drained the wine bottles, left them drier than bones in the desert. A dozen bottles of Manzanilla for the jamón, two dozen bottles of Domaine Zind-Humbrecht pinot gris for the cheese and terrine, half a dozen bottles of Chateau d’Yquem sauternes for the rillettes and an assortment of labels he selected personally from the cellar.
Mortimer paired the cuts with two dozen bottles of cognac and brandy, each of which cost more than a thousand dollars. Finer than their palettes could appreciate, but with price tags that should satisfy their ostentatious airs.
He’d also hoped the liquors would distract his scions from his best labels, the labels he locked in the triple walled liquor cabinet safe. Two years ago he added a fingerprint scan to the lock, but they defeated his security and drank his 64 Trinitas, 1955 Glenfiddich and 1926 Macallan scotches, the Mendis Coconut Brandy, D’Amalfi Limoncello Supreme, and all six bottles of his Graham’s Ne Oublie port. Each bottle an evening to savor in memory for a lifetime. Consumed in combination in a single evening, epicurean calamity and gastronomic nightmare. (Carmichael, his steward, told him the maids cleaned the aftermath for a week, and stumbled onto random stains well into the summer).
Mortimer paired the cuts with two dozen bottles of cognac and brandy, each of which cost more than a thousand dollars. Finer than their palettes could appreciate, but with price tags that should satisfy their ostentatious airs.
Mortimer nudged the joystick on his executive wheelchair and zipped past the entrance. No one noticed the motor’s whine for the racket, a raucous discordant clamor that rebounded from ceiling to floor to wall. They’d shut off the French carols he programed into the sound system. The speakers blared a rock-n-roll atrocity, “That’s the Jingle Bell Rock.” He steered to the serving trays but, as he expected, nothing remained. Not even crumbs.
Once their gluttony appalled him. Once. But his anger diminished with his appetite. His doctor warned him the cancer would kill his passions, even his passion for epicurean excess. That same cancer drew the vultures to his deathbed.
Tobacco smoke saturated the room — thicker than London fog before the wars. He coughed into his elbow. No one noticed him. Him, Mortimer Crespins, shipping magnate, founder of the family’s fortune. Their grandchildren’s grandchildren would never work, for which none of them expressed a word of gratitude.
“How’s your new yacht?” That was his youngest son, Blaine. He wore a maroon vicuna sweater decorated with gold Christmas ornaments. Gold ornaments with green dollar signs.
Once their gluttony appalled him. Once. But his anger diminished with his appetite. His doctor warned him the cancer would kill his passions, even his passion for epicurean excess.
“I tried to purchase it with company funds, but someone vetoed the purchase. You can guess who.” His oldest son, Bertram. He dropped five thousand on a toupee in Milan and it looked no better on his head than a Walmart bath mat.
“You’d use it for the firm, wouldn’t you? Pass out business cards in every port-of-call? That’s PR.” They punched each other in the arm and pulled cigars from a black and gold cedar chest. Mortimer’s Regis Regius Cigars Double Coronas, the blend he flew to Nicaragua to develop. Locked in the humidor behind his humidor. Until tonight.
Blaine’s wife dropped an arm around each man’s shoulder. She was his fourth or fifth wife, a blonde in her thirties and soon to be his fourth or fifth ex. “Stop your wining, boys. Next Christmas you’ll run the business and can buy anything your accountants say you can write off.”
Blaine leaned into her neck. His eyes wandered to the back of the room. His cocktail shattered on the Pietra Firma tiles. “Father, we didn’t think you’d feel well enough to join us.”
Blaine’s wife dropped an arm around each man’s shoulder. She was his fourth or fifth wife, a blonde in her thirties and soon to be his fourth or fifth ex.
His granddaughter Vienna spilled her sauternes on her Givenchy crepe dress. “The news of your diagnosis mortified us.” Her daughter Eveline snorted at the unintentional pun.
Bertram ground his cigar into slivers. “Please. Have a seat.” The others glared at him. “I mean, wheel that chair over to join us. You’ll love the…” He gestured toward an empty silver platter but it was empty. He looked to another, but all were empty.
He rang the service bell. “Carmichael, we need more refreshments.”
Carmichael stood three feet away where they posted him to serve the wine. “You ate everything, sir.”
“Then pour the man something to drink.”
“You consumed that too, sir.”
Bertram squeezed his fingers into stress ball, but only grew more stressed. “Let’s break into the good stuff. You know, the special bottles we brought from the cellar. With the diamonds.”
Davis, Mortimer’s middle son, thumped his elbow. He mouthed the words, “Shut up.”
Mortimer sighed. Not much of a sigh. His lungs lacked the strength to stretch. “You broke into my safe and took the Leopold II.”
His Leopold II Heritage Supérieur Exquis Grande Cru. A century old, bottled in gold and platinum and encrusted with seven hundred diamonds. Mortimer scoured Europe for the last three bottles, produced on the eve of World War I.
Burke’s voice raised an octave. “It was worth every penny you spent.”
“I set it aside to serve at my funeral.”
No one spoke. The only sound in the room was John Denver singing, “don’t get drunk this Christmas/I don’t want to see my mamma cry.”
His Leopold II Heritage Supérieur Exquis Grande Cru. A century old, bottled in gold and platinum and encrusted with seven hundred diamonds. Mortimer scoured Europe for the last three bottles, produced on the eve of World War I.
Vienna dabbed her stain with a cloth. “We didn’t know. None of us knew the verdict until Carmichael let it slip last week. Two months. How terrible.”
A verdict that raised smiles on the other faces. They struggled to hide them, but the thought of those billions passing to them was the best Christmas present any of them could imagine.”
She held the cloth to her bosom, a bosom maintained by the ceaseless attention of her plastic surgeon. “Is there no hope?”
Mortimer’s chin fell to his chest. “The cancer metastasized. Nothing but morphine and screams in my future.” He counted to three. “But I do have good news.”
A round of gasps for the room. Burke pumped his fist. “Great, father. Please. Share.”
Mortimer wheeled to the cigar box and removed the last Corona. His hand shook while Carmichael lit the match. “I have longer than any of you.”
His children, grandchildren, their spouses and guests murmured and grumbled with confusion.
“That’s right. I poisoned the cognac. Slow acting, but no antidote. I figured if you settled for what I serve and stay out of the safe in my liquor cabinet, there’d be more hope for you than I suspected.”
Carmichael placed the cigar between his lips. He puffed with no pleasure. His sense of taste had departed too. A shame. “Otherwise, you deserve your fate. Why should I leave a fortune when you’ll spend it on lawyers to challenge the will? Thinking each of you deserves more than the others.”
He exhaled a plume that spiraled toward the ceiling. “Carmichael, take me to my room, please. I have little energy left.”
The first to heave was Blaine, who collapsed to his knees just before Carmichael closed the drawing-room door.
Mortimer rolled the cigar between his fingers, reluctant to snuff it even though it brought him no joy. “Carmichael, shut off that hillbilly Christmas trash and program Chants de Noel.” He contemplated the coal, the way it singed the leaves at its edge. “And perhaps you should call the police.”
“With pleasure, sir.”
“In an hour or two. Tell them you stumbled upon the bodies when you checked in to see if they needed anything.”
“That had been my thought, sir.”
Wry noir author Phillip T. Stephens wrote Cigerets, Guns & Beer, Raising Hell, and the Indie Book Award winning Seeing Jesus. Follow him @stephens_pt.
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