Gold Coast

CHAPTER 15

Alhambra. We were late but not fashionably so. Just ten minutes. I was driving Susan's Jaguar and I pulled up to the wrought-iron gates, which were closed. There was one of those post-mounted speakers near my window, and I pushed the call button. No one spoke to me through the speaker, but the gates began slowly swinging open. Technology is eerie. But it has allowed us to live tolerably well without our maids, cooks, charwomen, and other helpful humans. And now it gives us some of the security and convenience once provided by gatekeepers and estate managers.

But Mr Frank Bellarosa had both technology and servants, for as I drove the Jag through the open gates, a large Homo sapiens appeared in my headbeams. I stopped, and the figure moved toward my window, his knuckles dragging along the ground. It was a human male of about thirty, dressed in a dark silk shirt open to his navel, which revealed so much hair that I could see why he couldn't button it. Over his shirt he wore a dark sports jacket, which did not cover his shoulder holster when he leaned into the car.

The man had an unpleasant face with matching expression. He said to me, "Can I help ya?"

"Yeah. Da Suttas ta see da Bellarosas."

He spotted Susan and smiled. "Oh, hello, Mrs Sutta."

"Hello, Anthony."

"Shoulda recognized ya car."

"That's all right."

"Mr Bellarosa's waitin' for ya."

This was all going on a few inches from my face, but as I didn't exist, it didn't matter. Before Susan and Anthony had quite finished with their conversation, I hit the gas and the Jag bounced over the cobblestones. I asked Susan, "Come here often?"

"He's nicer than he looks."

"But is he paper trained?" I proceeded slowly up the drive. I like the sound of Michelins bouncing over cobble. It sounds like you've arrived before you stop the car.

Alhambra's drive is about a quarter-mile long, straight, as I said, and flanked by tall, statuesque Lombardy poplars, all leafed out now and perfectly pruned. Between the poplars were new garden lights that cast a soft amber glow over thousands of newly planted flowers. Ahead, I could see Alhambra's white stucco walls and red tile roofs looming larger. Jaded as I am, I always get a thrill when I drive up to one of the great houses at night. Their entranceways were designed to impress kings and millionaires and to intimidate everyone else. Unfortunately, the Bellarosas did not know about the custom of turning on the lights in all the front rooms when guests were expected, so the house looked dark and foreboding as we approached, except that the front door and the forecourt were lit.

I was not in the best of moods as you may have gathered, so despite the fact that I was impressed so far, I said, "I can see why Bellarosa would buy this place. It looks like Villa di Greaseball."

"Don't use that word."

"He uses it."

"I don't care," she said. "Anyway, Spanish architecture is fine if it's done right. Vanderbilts lived here, John."

"Vanderbilts lived everywhere, Susan." I pulled into the circular forecourt in the middle of which was a new three-tiered marble fountain from which water spouted and cascaded, lit by multicoloured lights. "Early Italian catering hall."

"Cut it out, John."

I parked the car near the fountain, and we got out and walked across the cobblestones toward the front door. I stopped and turned back toward the drive we had just come up. The view out to the road with the line of poplars running down toward the gate was also very imperial. Despite my reservations about the abundance of coloured lights, it was nice to see this great estate coming alive again. "Not bad," I proclaimed. Beyond the gates and across Grace Lane, I could see the DePauws' stately colonial on the hill. I waved. "To whom are you waving?" asked Susan.

"To Mr Mancuso," I replied.

"Who? Oh…" She stayed silent for some time, then asked, "Are you ready?" "I suppose." I turned back toward the house. I could see that the stucco was being repaired and there was scaffolding on the south wing. Several skids of red roofing tile sat in the forecourt, and on the grass were cement pans and wheelbarrows. I asked Susan, "Do you know how Italians learn to walk?" "No, John. Tell me."

"They push wheelbarrows." It didn't sound as funny as when Bellarosa said it.

Susan asked, "How can they push wheelbarrows if they can't walk?" "No, you're not getting it. You see… never mind. Listen, I want you to get a headache at nine-forty-five."

"You're giving me a headache now." She added, "And why do I always have to get a headache? People are beginning to think I have a terminal disease. Why don't you say your haemorrhoids are acting up at nine-forty-five?" "Are we having a tiff?"

"No, you're going to behave."

"Yes, madame."

We walked up the white limestone steps to a massive arched oak door with wrought-iron strap hinges.

Susan indicated one of the stone columns that held up the portico. "Did you know that these are genuine Carthaginian columns?"

"I've heard."

"Incredible," she said.

"Plunder," I replied. "You millionaires plundered the Old World to adorn your houses."

"That is what money is for," Lady Stanhope informed me. "You may recall that every marble fireplace in Stanhope Hall is from a different Italian palace." "Yes, I remember that palace in Venice with the missing mantelpiece." I pulled the bell chain. "Well, time for dessert."

Susan wasn't attending. She was intrigued with the Carthaginian columns and ran her hand over one of them. She said reflectively, "So, two thousand years after Frank Bellarosa's ancestors plundered Carthage, Frank Bellarosa and the plunder reunite a half world away."

"That's very philosophical, Susan. But let's stick to the subject of vegetables and cement tonight."

Susan whispered to me, "If you play your cards right tonight, Counsellor, you may be a consigliere before the evening's done."

"I am not amused," I informed her.

"Well, then, if he pinches my ass, I want you to slug him." "If he pinches my ass, I'll slug him. Your ass is your business, darling." I pinched her behind, and she jumped and giggled as the heavy oak door swung open to reveal don Bellarosa himself. He was smiling. "Benvenuto a nostra casa." "Grazie," Susan replied, smiling back.

"Come in, come in," said Mr Bellarosa in plain English. I shook hands with my host on my way in, and Susan got a kiss on both cheeks, Italian style. This was going to be a long night.

We entered a cavernous colonnaded vestibule, a sort of palm court or atrium as they say now. The floor of the court was red quarry tile, and all around the court were pink marble columns that held up stucco arches. Without gawking, I could see a second tier of columns and arches above the first, from which protruded wrought-iron balconies. All the lighting was indirect and dramatic, and covering the entire court was a dome of glass and iron filigree. More interesting, I thought, was that on both levels of the colonnade, hung amid the flowering plants and the potted palms, were dozens of cages in which were brightly plumed tropical birds, squawking and chirping away. The whole thing seemed to me a cross between a public aviary in Rio de Janeiro and an upscale florist shop in a Florida mall.

Mr Bellarosa, always the subtle and self-effacing gentleman, said, "Hell of a front hall, right?"

"It's beautiful," Susan said breathlessly.

Bellarosa looked at me expectantly.

I inquired, "How do you get the bird shit out of the cages up there?" Susan threw me a mean look, but Frank explained. It had to do with a thirty-foot ladder on wheels that he'd had specially built. Very interesting. Bellarosa looked me over. "You're all dressed up."

I realized he had never seen me in my Brooks Brothers' armour, and lest he think I had dressed for him, I said, "I came directly from work." "Ah."

Bellarosa, I should mention, was dressed casually in grey slacks and a white polo shirt, which accented a new tan. I snuck a look at his shoes and saw he was wearing sandals with socks. As if this wasn't bad enough, the socks were yellow. I wanted to draw Susan's attention to Bellarosa's feet but didn't have the opportunity. Around here, incidentally, when we have people to our home, the men usually wear tie and jacket to make sure they're not comfortable. The women wear whatever women wear. In this case, I found that I was slightly annoyed about the clingy red dress. But, she looked good in red, and I was both proud and jealous. Bellarosa had turned his attention to Susan and asked, "How's the barn coming?" "The… it's coming apart quite well," Susan replied. "But can they put it back together?"

Bellarosa laughed politely. Haw, haw. He said, "Dominic knows his stuff. But he might sneak in a few Roman arches on you."

They shared a laugh. Haw, haw. Ha, ha.

"Come on," said Mr Bellarosa, motioning for us to follow. "Why are we standing here?"

Because you made us stand here, Frank.

We followed our host to the left through one of the archways of the palm court and entered a long, empty room that smelled of fresh paint. Bellarosa stopped and asked me, "What is this room?"

"Is this a test?"

"No, I mean, I can't figure it out. We got a living room, we got a dining room, we got rooms, rooms, rooms. What's this?"

I looked around. "Not a bathroom."

Susan interjected. "It's… actually this is the dining room."

Bellarosa looked at her. "You sure?"

"Yes. I was in this house when the last family lived here." "That stupid decorator… then what's the room over there?" He pointed through an archway.

"That is the morning room," Susan informed him.

"Morning room?"

I could have had fun with that one, but I left it alone.

"It doesn't matter," Susan assured him. "These old houses are used in different ways now. Whatever works best for you."

"Except," I said helpfully, "you can't cook in the bathroom, or go to the bathroom in – " "John," Susan interrupted, "we get the idea, darling."

We followed Mr Bellarosa through the newly discovered dining room, then through the archway that led to the morning room. It was rather a large room, right off the butler's pantry, which in turn led to the kitchen. Bellarosa seemed not in the least embarrassed to be entertaining us in the morning room – sometimes called the breakfast room – since, until very recently, he thought it was the dining room. But to be fair, I could see how a peasant might get confused. He pulled out two chairs at one end of a long dining table. "Sit," he commanded. We sat. Mr Bellarosa went to a sideboard from which he took a tray of cordials and crystal glasses that he set on the table in front of us. "Here. Help yourselves. Don't be shy. I'll be back in five minutes." He went through a swinging door into the butler's pantry, and I watched his retreating back as he headed for the kitchen. The door swung closed. Five, four, three, two, one -

"John, you were a bore."

"Thank you." I examined one of the bottles. "Sambuca, my dear?"

"Behave. I'm serious."

"All right. I don't want to get us killed." I poured us both a glass of sambuca. There was a plate of coffee beans on the tray, and I dropped a bean into each glass. I raised my glass to Susan. "Cheers."

"Centanni."

We drank. I asked, "What was that about the Cosa Nostra?"

"Nostra casa, John. Our house. Welcome to our house." "Oh. Why didn't he say so?" I looked around the room as I sipped my cordial. The room was oriented to the south and east like most morning rooms to catch the rising sun at breakfast. Nowadays, this room in a mansion is used for almost all family meals as it is usually located close to the kitchen, but I suspected the Bellarosas ate in the kitchen and did their formal entertaining in the breakfast room, or perhaps the basement.

The south and east walls of the room were all windows, and as I was looking out, coloured floodlights suddenly came on, illuminating the newly reclaimed gardens in hues of red, blue, and green. I said to Susan, "The motion detectors must have picked up an approaching hit squad. If you hear gunshots, hit the floor." "John."

"Sorry."

"And keep your voice low, please."

I grunted and poured two more. I like sambuca. It reminds me of penny liquorice sticks. I surveyed the rest of the room. The furnishings were a sort of dark, formal Mediterranean, I guess, and seemed to go with the rest of the house. Susan, too, was evaluating the place and commented softly, "Not bad. He said they had a decorator, but they're not using anyone around here, or I'd know about it."

"That's why they're not using anyone around here, Susan, or you'd even know Mrs Bellarosa's bra size."

She smiled. "Well, whoever they're using doesn't know a dining room from a breakfast room."

"But you straightened that out in your tactful way," I said.

She laughed. "What was I supposed to say?"

I shrugged and poured my second or third. I was mellowing out a bit and decided to stop baiting Susan, who was nearly blameless for our being there. I asked her, "Did anyone buy this place after the Barretts left?" "No. It just sat vacant." She stayed silent a moment, then added, "In my junior year when I was home for spring break, Katie Barrett called me from the city. I hadn't heard from her in years. I met her at Locust Valley station and drove her here. We walked around for a long while, talking about when we were kids. It was sort of sad."

I didn't say anything.

Susan continued, "Then a few years later, this place was infested with squatters. Some sort of hippie commune. They lived here without water or electricity, and in the winter they burned whatever wood they could find in the fireplaces. Everyone on Grace Lane complained, but the police took their time about getting them out."

I nodded. The sixties were sort of a test to see how much anarchy the system could take, and as it turned out, the system backed off. Susan added, "I remember my father was angry with the police. He told them that the bank didn't take so long to get the Barretts out and they owned the place." Again I nodded. There was certainly a moral there, and it had something to do with authority versus power, with voluntary compliance versus come and get me, pigs. Frank understood that. I said, "Well, maybe the police will run Mr Bellarosa off."

"Not if he pays his taxes, John."

"True." I guess I came into the picture here after the hippies, and I recall that Alhambra was used a few times for designer showcases. Although I never availed myself of the opportunity to see what these strange people do to the great houses, I've been told by other men that interior decorators with cans of mauve paint and rolls of iridescent wallpaper could do more damage to a vacant mansion than a hundred vandals.

I recalled, also, that in the middle and late seventies there were a few charity functions held at Alhambra, either in the house or on the half-acre patio in the summer. If the plumbing still works in these old mansions, and if the Long Island Lighting Company is paid up front for turning on the juice, then these houses can be rented from the bank or the county on a short-term basis for charity events, tours, designer showcases, movie sets, and such. So homes that once held Vanderbilts, Astors, and the like are now available to anyone with a few bucks and a need for floor space.

Susan once went to one of these charity things without me – a Save the Beluga Caviar Sturgeon benefit or something – but this was the first time I'd ever actually been inside Alhambra, though I knew that in the first fifteen years or so it had really fallen apart – its plumbing gone, windows broken, roof leaking – becoming unfit for interior decorators and even the charity ball crowd, who will usually dance and eat anywhere for a good cause. In most respects, Alhambra's history is not much different from a few dozen other great houses that I know of. I asked Susan, "Didn't you tell me you were here right before Bellarosa bought this place?"

"Yes, last autumn with Jessica Reid, the realtor, and a few other ladies. We were just snooping around. Jessica had a key, though you didn't need one because half the padlocks were broken."

"I guess none of you bought the place."

"It was really in awful condition. There were squirrels in the house, and birds had built nests all over."

"There are still birds in the house."

"Well, anyway, it was sad, you know, John, because I remember it as a happy, loving home when the Barretts lived here. But now it's coming alive again. It's amazing what a few hundred thousand dollars can do." "Yes, it is, which is nothing. Try a few million. And he's not done yet. Maybe this place will be what brings down the don. Join the home improvement club, Frank. Bottomless pit."

"See, you two have something in common already."

"Yes. He told me that Mrs Bellarosa wants to move the reflecting pool six feet to the left."

"John."

"Sorry." I had another drink. Maybe the sambuca wasn't mellowing me. Maybe it makes people mean. I glanced at my watch. More than five minutes had gone by, and I was beginning to wonder if Bellarosa was pulling his Mussolini routine. Then I noticed a telephone on a small stand across the room. It was an elaborate instrument with several lines, one of which was lit. The don was dialling and dealing.

I looked around the room again and saw now above the sideboard a cheaply framed print. It was Christ, his arms outstretched, with a bright-red heart – a stylized exoskeletal organ – shining from his breast. At the bottom of the print were the words Sacred Heart of Jesus. I drew Susan's attention to the picture. She studied it a moment, then observed, "It looks very Catholic."

"Looks like a pistol target."

"Don't be blasphemous." Susan turned back to me. "You see, they're religious people. A religious person wouldn't be mixed up with -" she lowered her voice to a whisper – "with drugs, prostitution, or any of that." "I never thought of that," I said dryly.

I must admit that, despite my cavalier attitude, I was a bit concerned about meeting Mrs Bellarosa. Not that I'd done anything particularly offensive or threatening – I'd just growled at her on my hands and knees – but that might be hard to explain if she called me out on it. Or worse yet, she might be the hysterical type. I had a mental picture of her screaming and pointing at me. "Frank! Frank! He's the one! He's the one! Kill him!"

That wouldn't get us off on the right foot at all. I realized I shouldn't have come here, but I knew I would probably bump into Mrs Bellarosa eventually. Though if enough time had been allowed to pass, she might forget what I looked like, or I could grow a moustache.

With that thought, an idea came to me. As nonchalantly as I could, I took my reading glasses out of my breast pocket and put them on. I pulled a few bottles toward me and began reading the labels.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Susan looking at me. She asked, "Interesting?"

"Yes. Listen to this. 'Capella is a unique liqueur, produced from the nicciole, which is a native Italian nut. Capella is produced and bottled in Torino – '" "Are you drunk?"

"Not yet." I poured another sambuca for both of us.

"That's enough."

"He said not to be shy."

We drank in silence a few more minutes. The light on the telephone was out now, but then the phone rang once and was picked up somewhere, and a line button stayed lit. I pictured the don in the kitchen, supervising coffee and dessert while he was doing business on the phone, writing names on the wall of people to be killed. "Are you going to keep your glasses on?" I turned back to Susan. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Why is it that you never painted this place?" I asked, sort of changing the subject.

She seemed momentarily confused by the sudden shift but replied, "I suppose it was too sad. But I did take a roll of colour slides when I was here with Jessica. Mostly of the palm court. You should have seen what it looked like." "Tell me."

"Well, I'll show you the slides. Why are you wearing -" "Tell me what it looked like when you were here."

She shrugged. "Well… the glass dome was broken, and water had gotten in. There was grass growing on the floor, lichen mushrooms, moss on the walls, and ferns growing out of cracks in the stucco. An incredibly good study of ruin and decay." She added, "I thought I might paint it from the slides." I looked at her. "I do not want you selling them a painting." She replied, "I thought I'd give it to them as our housewarming gift." I shook my head.

"They would appreciate it, John. Italians love art."

"Sure." I cocked my head toward the Sacred Heart of Jesus print on the wall. "Listen, Susan, that is much too extravagant. It could take you months to complete a canvas. And you never gave one away before. Not even to family. You charged your father six thousand dollars for the painting of the love temple." "He commissioned it. This is a different situation. I want to paint Alhambra's palm court as a ruin. Also, we came here empty-handed, and finally, we owe him a big favour for the stable."

"No, I'm all evened up with him on favours – I gave him free advice. And I'll give you some free advice – don't get involved."

"I don't feel we have repaid the favour, and if I want to -"

"What happened to the Casa Bellarosa sign in mother-of-pearl? Better yet, why don't you bake them a cake? No – maybe that's not a good idea. How about a bushel of horse manure for his garden?"

"Are you finished?"

"No."

But before we could have a fight, Mr Frank Bellarosa burst through the swinging door, rear end first, carrying a big electric coffee urn. "Okay, here's the coffee." He set the urn on the sideboard and plugged it in. "We got espresso, too, if anybody wants." He took the seat at the head of the table and poured himself a glass of capella. "You try this yet?" he asked me. "No," I replied, "but I know that it's made from the nicciole nut."

"Yeah. Like a hazelnut. How'd you know that?"

I smiled at Susan and answered Bellarosa. "I read the label." "Oh, yeah." He took some roasted coffee beans out of the dish and dropped two into Susan's glass and two into mine. He said, "You either put no beans in, or you put three. Never more and never less."

Damned if I was going to ask him why, but Susan bit. "Why?" she asked. "Tradition," Bellarosa replied. "No – superstition," he admitted with a soft chuckle. "The Italians are very superstitious. The three beans are for good luck."

"That's fascinating," Susan said.

Actually, it was bullshit. I asked Bellarosa, "Are you superstitious?"

He smiled. "I believe in good luck and bad luck. Don't you?"

"No," I replied, "I'm a Christian."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Everything," I informed him.

"Yeah?" He thought a moment, then said, "Yeah, I know what you're saying. But with the Italians, you got evil omens, evil signs, good omens, three coins in the fountain, three beans in the sambuca, and all that stuff." "That's pagan," I said.

He nodded. "Yeah. But you got to respect it. You just don't know." He looked at me. "You just don't know." He changed the subject. "Anyway, I got no cappuccino. I bought a beautiful machine direct from a restaurant when I was in Naples a few months ago. I had it shipped, but I think it got swiped at Kennedy. The guy in Naples says he sent it, and I believe him, so I asked around Kennedy, and nobody knows nothing. Right? And the Feds complain about organized crime there. You think organized crime steals coffee machines? No. I'll tell you who steals there – the melanzane". He looked at Susan. "Capisce?"

"The eggplants?"

Bellarosa smiled. "Yeah. The eggplants. The blacks. And the Spanish, and the punk airport rent-a-cops. They steal. But whenever there's a problem anyplace, it's organized crime, organized crime. Wrong. It's disorganized crime that's screwing up this country. The hopheads and the crazies. Capisce?" He looked at both of us.

I was, finally, at a loss for words after this bizarre monologue, so what could I say but, "Capish."

Bellarosa laughed. "Ca-peesh. Have another." He filled my glass with sambuca, and I tried the word again, but this time in my mind. Capisce. Susan, who as I said is a little naive in some ways, asked the head of New York's largest crime family, "Did you report the theft to customs?" "Sure." Bellarosa chuckled. "That's all I need. Right? The papers get hold of that story and they'd laugh me out of town."

"What do you mean?" Susan asked.

Bellarosa shot me a glance, then said to Susan, "They think I steal from the airport."

"Oh, I see. That would be ironic."

"Yeah. Ironic." Bellarosa sipped his capella delicately. "Ah. Very nice." He looked at Susan. "My wife's coming. She has to make sure everything is perfect. I said to her, 'Relax. These are our neighbours. They're good people.'" He looked at me. "But you know how women are. Everything's a big deal. Right?" "No comment," I replied wisely. Just then the swinging door opened. I adjusted my eyeglasses and prepared to stand, but it was not Mrs Bellarosa. It was a homely young woman in a plain black dress and a maid's apron, carrying a tray. She placed the tray on the sideboard, then set the table with cups and saucers, silverware, napkins, and such. She turned and left wordlessly, with no bow, curtsy, or even an Italian salute.

Bellarosa said, "That's Filomena. She's from the other side."

"The other side of what?" I inquired.

"The other side. Italy. She doesn't speak much English, which is all right with me. But these paesan' pick it up fast. Not like your Spanish. You wanna get ahead in this country, you gotta speak the language." He added, "Poor Filomena, she's so ugly she could never marry an American boy. I told her if she stayed with me three years and didn't learn English, I'd give her a dowry and she could go back to Naples and get herself a man. But she wants to stay here and be an American. I'll have to find somebody blind for her."

I looked at Bellarosa. This was indeed the don, the padrone, in his element, running people's lives for them, being both cruel and generous. Susan asked him, "Do you speak Italian?"

He made a little motion with his hand. "Cost, cosi." He added, "I get by. The Napoletan' understand me. That's what I am. Napoletano. But the Sicilian' – the Sicilians – who can understand them? They're not Italian." He asked Susan, "Where did you learn Italian?"

"Why do you think I know Italian?"

"Dominic told me." He smiled. "He said to me – in Italian – 'Padrone, this American lady with red hair speaks Italian!'" Bellarosa laughed. "He was amazed."

Susan smiled. "Actually, I don't speak it well. It was my language in school. I took it because I majored in fine arts."

"Yeah? Well, I'm going to test you later."

And so we chatted for another ten minutes or so, and I'd be lying if I told you it wasn't entertaining. The man knew how to hold court and tell stories, and although nothing of any importance or even intelligence was said, Bellarosa was lively and animated, using more hand gestures and facial expressions in ten minutes than I use in a year. He filled everyone's glass with sambuca, then changed his mind and insisted we try amaretto, which he poured into fresh glasses while he continued to talk.

This was a man who obviously enjoyed life, which, I suppose, was understandable for a person who knew firsthand how suddenly it could be cut short. I asked him bluntly, "Do you have bodyguards here in the house, or just Anthony out there?" He looked at me and didn't reply for a long time, then answered, "Mr Sutter, a man of wealth in this country, as in Italy, must protect himself and his family against kidnapping and terrorism."

"Not in Lattingtown," I assured him. "We have very strict village ordinances here."

Bellarosa smiled. "We have a very strict rule, too, Mr Sutter, and maybe you know about it. The rule is this – you never touch a man in his own house or in front of his family. So nobody in this neighbourhood should worry about things like that. Okay?"

The conversation had turned interesting. I replied, "Perhaps you can attend the next village meeting and assure everyone for the record." Bellarosa looked at me but said nothing.

Feeling reckless, I pushed on, "So then, why do you have security here?"

He leaned toward me and spoke softly. "You asked me what I learned at La Salle. I'll tell you one thing I learned. No matter what kind of peace treaties you got, you post a twenty-four-hour guard. That keeps everybody honest, and makes people sleep better. Don't worry about it." He patted my shoulder. "You're safe here."

I smiled in return and pointed out helpfully, "You've got double protection, Mr Bellarosa, compliments of the American taxpayer. Capisce?" He laughed, then snorted. "Yeah. They watch the front gate, but I watch my ass." He inquired, "So, you know about that, do you, Mr Sutter? How'd you know about that?"

I was about to reply, but I felt a kick in the ankle. A kick in the ankle, of course, does not mean, "You're being so charming and witty, my dear, please go on."

Susan asked our host, "Can I help Mrs Bellarosa in the kitchen?" "No, no. She's okay. She makes a big deal. I'll tell you what she's doing now, because I know. She's stuffing cannoli. You know, when you buy them already stuffed, they sometimes get soggy, even in the good bakeries. So my wife, she gets the shells separate, and she gets the cream or makes it herself, and she stuffs, stuffs, stuffs. With a spoon."

Susan nodded, a bit uncertainly, I thought.

It sort of surprised me, I guess, that this man was so artless and ingenuous, and that his wife was in the kitchen of their mansion stuffing pastry with a spoon. He wasn't putting on any airs for the Sutters, that was for sure. I didn't know if I was touched or annoyed.

Anyway, the door opened again, and in came a full-bodied blonde, carrying a huge tray, heaped with enough pastries to feed a medium-size Chinese city. I could barely see the woman's face, but her arms were stretched way out so that the pastry could clear her breasts, and I knew in a flash it must be Mrs B. I stood, and so did Bellarosa, who took the tray from the woman and said, "This is my wife, Anna." He put the tray on the table. "Anna, this is Mr and Mrs Sutter." Anna brushed her hands on her hips and smiled. "Hello." She and Susan shook hands, then she turned to me.

Our eyes met, our hands touched, our lips smiled, her brow wrinkled. I said, "I'm very pleased to meet you." She kept looking at me, and I could almost hear the old synapses making connections between her narrowed eyes. Click, click, click. She asked, "Didn't we meet or something?"

It was the 'or something' that caused me some anxiety. "I think I saw you in Loparo's," I said, mentioning the name of the Italian market in Locust Valley in which I wouldn't be caught dead.

"Yeah," she agreed without conviction. "No," she changed her mind. "No… I'll think of it."

If I were a real man, I would have ripped off my glasses, jumped on the floor, and revealed my true identity. But I didn't see what good would come of that. "Why are we all standing?" asked Mr Bellarosa, who also couldn't understand why we had stood around in the palm court. "Sit, sit," he commanded. We sat and he poured his wife an amaretto. We all made small talk.

Mrs Bellarosa was sitting directly across the table from me, which I didn't like, but it gave me the advantage of watching for signs that she was beginning to recall her terrifying Easter morning. If you're interested, she was wearing what I think are called hostess pyjamas. They were sort of an iridescent orange, but the colour kept changing every time she moved. She wore huge triangular gold earrings, which, if connected to a shortwave radio, could have picked up Naples. Around her neck was a gold cross sort of nestled in her cleavage, and for some reason I was reminded of Christ of the Andes. Also, five out of her ten fingers held gold rings, and on each of her wrists were gold bangles. If she fell into the reflecting pool, I wondered, would the gold sink her right to the bottom, or would the buoyancy of those two big lungs keep her afloat. I should say something about her looks. She was not unattractive. It depends on what you like. The makeup was overdone, but I could see she had fair skin for an Italian woman. Her eyes were hazel, her full lips were painted emergency-exit red, and her hair, as I said, was bleached blond. I could see the dark roots. She seemed pleasant enough, smiled easily, and had surprisingly graceful gestures. She also wore a nice perfume.

I don't know what a Mafia don's wife should look like, since you never see one in public or on the news, but I guessed that Anna Bellarosa was better looking than most. Sometimes, when I'm in my male-chauvinist-pig mode – which, thank God, is infrequent – I try to imagine if I would go to bed with a woman I have just met. So, I looked at Anna Bellarosa.

When I was in college, there were five classifications for a woman's looks, based on the maximum light you would want on in the bedroom. There were the 3-way-bulb women – 100-watt, 70-watt, and 30-watt. After that you had your night-light-only women, and finally all-lights-out.

Anna Bellarosa saw me looking at her and smiled. She had a nice smile. So, I figured, with the number of drinks I'd already had, I'd probably turn on the 70-watt bulb.

Frank Bellarosa proposed a toast: "To our new neighbours and new friends." I drank to that, though I had my fingers crossed under the table. Sure I'm superstitious.

We chatted awhile, and Susan made a big deal over the pile of pastry, then complimented the Bellarosas on all the work they were doing on Alhambra. We tossed around a few names for the estate, and I suggested Casa Cannoli. Frank Bellarosa inquired about Susan's vegetable garden, and Anna asked me if I wanted to take off my coat and tie. I certainly did not. And so it went for ten or fifteen minutes, breaking the ice as they say, until finally Frank Bellarosa said, "Hey, call me Frank. Okay? And my wife is Anna." Susan, of course, said, "Please call me Susan."

It was my turn. I said, "John."

"Good," said Frank.

I've never been on a first-name basis with a Mafia don, and I was just thrilled.

I couldn't wait to get to The Creek with the news.

Mrs Bellarosa stood and served the coffee from the urn. We all helped ourselves to the pastry. The coffee and pastry were superb. No complaints there. The conversation turned to children, as it usually does with parents, whether they be kings and queens, or thieves and whores. Parenting is the great equalizer, or more optimistically, a common human bond. I loosened up a bit, partly because of Mrs Bellarosa's presence, but partly because I felt oddly at ease.

Anna Bellarosa told us all about her three sons in detail, then added, "I don't want them in the family business, but Tony – that's the one at La Salle – wants to be in business with his father. He idolizes his father." Frank Bellarosa said, "I got into the family business through my uncle. My father said, "Stay out of that business, Frank. It's not good for you." But did I listen? No. Why? I thought my uncle was a hero. He always had money, cars, clothes, women. My father had nothing. Kids look for what you call role models. Right? I think back now, and my father was the hero. He broke his tail six days a week to put food on the table. There were five kids and things were tough. But all around us was money. In America you see too much money. The country is rich, even stupid people can be rich here. So people say, "Why can't I be rich?" In this country if you're poor, you're worse than a criminal." He looked at me and repeated. "In America if you're poor, you're worse than a criminal. You're nobody."

"Well," I said, "some people would still rather be poor but honest." "I don't know nobody like that. But anyway, my oldest guy, Frankie, he's got no head for the family business, so I sent him to college, then set him up in a little thing of his own in Jersey. Tommy is the one in Cornell. He wants to run a big hotel in Atlantic City or Vegas. I'll set him up with Frankie in Atlantic City. Tony, the one at La Salle, is another case. He wants in." Bellarosa smiled. The little punk wants my job. You know what? If he wants it bad enough, he'll have it."

I cleared my throat and observed, "It's not easy to bring up kids today with all the sex, violence, drugs, Nintendo."

"Yeah. But sex is okay. How about your kids?"

Susan replied, "Carolyn is at Yale, and Edward is graduating from St Paul's in June."

"They gonna be lawyers?"

Susan replied, "Carolyn is pre-law. Edward is somewhat vague. I think because he knows he will inherit a good deal of money from his grandparents, he has lost some of his motivation."

I've never heard Susan say this to anyone, not even me, and I was a bit annoyed at her for revealing family secrets in front of these people. But I suppose the Bellarosas were so far beyond our social circle that it didn't matter. Still, I felt I had to say something in Edward's defence. I said, "Edward is a typical seventeen-year-old boy. His main ambition at the moment is to get – is girls." Bellarosa laughed. "Yeah." He asked, "He's graduating college at seventeen?" "No," I replied. "St Paul's is a prep school." Talking to these people was like reinventing the wheel. I asked Bellarosa, "Did you go to La Salle on scholarship?"

"No. My uncle paid. The uncle who took me into the family business. One less mouth to feed for my old man."

"I see."

Anna had another wifely complaint. "Frank spends too much time at work. He's not enjoying his new house. Even when he's home, he's on the phone, people come here to talk business. I'm always telling him, "Frank, take it easy. You're going to kill yourself.'"

I glanced at Bellarosa to see if he appreciated the irony of that last remark, but he seemed impassive. For about half a second I thought I had made a terrible mistake and that Mr Frank Bellarosa was just an overworked entrepreneur. Susan chimed in, "John doesn't keep long office hours, but he brings home a briefcase full of work every night. Though he does take Saturdays off, and of course he won't work on the Sabbath."

Bellarosa said to Susan, "And he took Easter Monday off. Wouldn't talk business with me." He looked at me. "I know a couple of Protestants. They don't work Sundays neither. Catholics will work on a Sunday. What if you had a real big case in court on Monday?"

"Then," I informed him, "I work on Sunday. The Lord wouldn't want me to make a fool of myself in front of a Catholic or Jewish judge." Ha, ha, ha. Haw, haw, haw. Even I smiled at my own wit. The sambuca was finally working its magic.

Bellarosa, in fact, picked up the bottle and poured some into my coffee, then everyone's coffee. "This is the way we drink it."

The coffee had steamed my glasses a few times, and I wiped them with my handkerchief without taking them off, which caused Susan to look at me with puzzlement. Anna Bellarosa, too, gave me a few curious looks. So far, the conversation had not touched on the unfortunate occurrence at Alhambra on Easter morning, and I hoped that Frank Bellarosa had forgotten his request that I speak to his wife about how nice and safe this area was. But Susan asked Anna, "Do you miss Brooklyn?" and I knew where that was going.

Anna glanced at her husband, then replied, "I'm not allowed to say." She laughed.

Bellarosa snorted. "These Brooklyn Italian women – I tell you, you can move them to Villa Borghese, and they still bitch about being out of Brooklyn." "Oh, Frank, you don't have to sit home all day. You get to go back to the old neighbourhood."

"Listen to her. Sit home. She's got a car and driver and goes to Brooklyn to see her mother and her crazy relatives whenever she wants." "It's not the same, Frank. It's lonely here." A little light bulb popped on in her head. I saw it, but before I could change the subject, she said, "How about Easter morning?" She looked at me. "I was walking out back on Easter morning, out near the pool we got out there, and this man -" she shuddered – "this maniac is there, on his hands and knees like an animal, growling at me." "Really?" I asked, adjusting my glasses.

"My goodness!" Susan exclaimed.

Anna turned to Susan. "I ran and lost my shoes."

Frank said, "I told John about that. He said he never heard of anything like that before. Right, John?"

"Right, Frank." I asked, "So, your son Frankie lives in New Jersey?"

Susan asked Anna, "Did you call the police?"

Anna glanced at her husband again and replied, "Frank doesn't like to bother with the police."

"I got my own security here," Bellarosa reminded us. "There's nothing to worry about."

Anna complained, "It's scary here at night when Frank's away. It's too quiet."

"Perhaps," I suggested, "you can get a recording of Brooklyn street noises."

Anna Bellarosa smiled uncertainly, as if this weren't a bad idea. Bellarosa said to me, "When you try to make them happy, or you try to compromise with them, they think you're a faggot."

I glanced at Susan to see how she reacted to that statement and saw she was smiling. I should point out that Susan is not a feminist. The women's movement is considered by women of Susan's class to be a middle-class problem that needs middle-class solutions. Women of Susan's class have owned property, entered into contracts, and gone to college for so many generations that they don't fully comprehend what all the fuss is about. As for equal pay for equal work, they're very sympathetic to that, as they are to starving children in Africa, and have about as much firsthand knowledge of the one as they do of the other. Maybe they will have a charity ball for underpaid female executives. Anyway, I mention this because many women would be somewhat offended by Frank Bellarosa's offhanded sexist remarks. But Susan Stanhope, whose family was one of the Four Hundred, is no more offended by a man such as Frank Bellarosa making sexist remarks than I would be offended by Sally Ann of the Stardust Diner telling me that all men were alcoholics, women beaters, and liars. In other words, you had to consider the source.

Anyway, Bellarosa made another pronouncement, this one, I guess, to balance his misogynist remarks. He said, "Italian men can't compromise. That's why their women are always mad at them. But Italian women respect their men for not compromising. But when Italian men don't agree with each other on something, and they won't compromise, then there's a problem."

Followed, I thought, by a quick solution, like murder. I asked, "So Frankie's in New Jersey?"

"Yeah. I helped him buy into a thing in Atlantic City. None of my sons is ever going to work for nobody. Nobody's going to be over them. They got to have men under them. Either you're your own boss in this world, or you're nobody. You're your own boss, right?"

"Sort of."

"Nobody says nothing when you come in late, right?"

"Right."

"So, there you are."

And there I was, off the subject of Easter morning. It was easy to change subjects with Mr Bellarosa, who seemed to have no agenda for social conversation but switched subjects in mid sentence the moment something else popped into his head. Business, I knew, was another matter. I knew the type. And I also knew that Mrs Bellarosa was not going to bring up the subject of the Easter monster again.

And so we talked for the next hour. We finished the urn of coffee – about twenty cups – and the second bottle of sambuca. The pile of pastry had dropped about six inches. I had, early in the evening, discovered that refusing food or drink was futile. "Mangia, mangia," said Mrs Bellarosa, laughing, stopping just short of shoving pastry in my mouth. "Drink, drink," commanded Mr Bellarosa, filling cups and glasses with any liquid within his reach.

I went to the bathroom three times and each time considered throwing up in the toilet bowl, to purge myself, Roman style. When in Rome, to paraphrase St Ambrose, use the vomitorium as the Romans do. But I couldn't bring myself to do that.

On one of my returns from the bathroom, I saw that Mrs Bellarosa had disappeared, probably into the kitchen, and Susan and Frank were sitting at the table alone. Before she saw me, I heard Susan say the words 'palm court' and feared she was making her pitch to paint the palm court. But when I sat down, she seemed to change the topic and said to me, "I was telling Frank about our trip to Italy a few years ago."

"Were you?"

Mrs Bellarosa returned with Filomena, who was carrying a platter of chocolates. I sat down, trying not to get a whiff of the chocolates or of anything on the table. I asked Mrs Bellarosa for some club soda, and she said something to Filomena, who left and returned with a bottle of something called Pellegrino and a glass. I had a glass of the mineral water, belched discreetly, and felt better.

As the conversation continued without my participation, I regarded Anna Bellarosa. She was deferential toward her husband, which was, of course, what her prenuptial agreement called for. But now and then she showed some Italian fire, and the don backed off. From what I gathered during the conversation, and the dynamics I observed between them, Anna Bellarosa, as the wife of don Bellarosa, had the status of a queen and the rights of a slave. And as the mother of his children, she was the madonna, revered like Mary for the fruit of her womb. Anna Bellarosa had borne three sons, suckled them, saw to their religious education, then let go of them when the father was ready to take charge of their lives, and perhaps, in the case of Tony, of the boy's death. How very different this family was from my own.

I noticed, too, that Anna Bellarosa, despite her good humour and easy laugh, had sad, faraway eyes, as if, I thought, decades of worry had dimmed the sparkle that must once have accompanied the laugh.

Bellarosa stood abruptly, and I thought the evening was over, but he said, "Anna, show Susan around the house. She wants to see the place. John, come with me."

The four of us made our way into the dining room, and Bellarosa informed his wife, "This is the dining room. Where we were is the morning room. For breakfast. I want you to ask Susan what all these rooms are. She knows this place. You give each other a tour. Okay?"

We all went into the palm court, and Frank took my arm and led me to the staircase. He said to his wife, "We'll meet you later in the living room. Leave the greenhouse for me to show." He corrected himself, "The conservatory. Right?" I caught Susan's eye, and she smiled at me, as if to say, "See, you're having a good time." I know that look. What I couldn't understand was why Susan seemed to be having such a good time. The nine-forty-five headache had not materialized, and being a macho man, I didn't want to complain about my nonexistent haemorrhoids, or admit honestly that I was tired and my Anglo-Saxon stomach was churning with Irish pub food and Italian dessert. So I let my buddy, Frank, steer me up the stairs.

We both navigated the winding steps without difficulty, and I saw that Bellarosa held his alcohol as well as I did. We got to the second level and walked around the mezzanine that ran in a horseshoe shape above three sides of the palm court. Every twenty feet or so we passed a heavy oak door, and finally Bellarosa stopped at one of them and opened it. "In here."

"What's in here?"

The library."

"Are we going to read?"

"No, we're going to have a cigar." He motioned me inside.

Against my better judgement, I stepped through the door into the dimly lit room.

CHAPTER 16

Frank Bellarosa pointed to a black leather armchair. "Sit." I sat. I removed my reading glasses and put them in my breast pocket. Bellarosa took the chair opposite me. I hadn't thought that he was carrying a gun, and in fact saw no reason why he should in his own house. Nor did I see any place he could be packing it under his close-fitting shirt and pants. But when he crossed his legs, I saw the bulge of an ankle holster under his right cuff. He noticed that I noticed and said, "I'm licensed."

"Me, too."

"You licensed to carry?"

"No. To drive. But I don't drive in my house."

He smiled.

It's very difficult to get a pistol licence in New York State, and I wondered how Frank the Bishop Bellarosa had managed it. I asked him, "New York?" "Yeah. I got a little hunting place in an upstate county. They don't ask a lot of questions up there. I can carry anyplace in the state, but not in the city. You need a special licence in the city, and they won't give me one. But that's where I need a gun. Right? The fucking crazies carry. They got a licence? No. But I can't take the chance of a gun rap. So I walk around the city clean, so any two-bit junkie can take down Frank Bellarosa."

How unfair. I said, "How about your bodyguards?"

"Oh, sure. But it's not the same as having your own piece. Sometimes the bodyguards take a dive on you. And sometimes they got a new boss the night before, and you don't know about it. Capisce?

"Oh, yes. I didn't realize all the stress in your business."

"Hey. You don't want to know."

"That's right."

Between us was a low table on which was a box of real Havana cigars. Bellarosa opened the box and held it out toward me.

"I don't smoke."

"Come on. Have a cigar."

I took a cigar. In truth, all Wasp lawyers know how to have a cigar, because it's part of certain rituals. I took the cigar out of its metal tube and punctured the end with a silver pick that Bellarosa handed me. Bellarosa lit me up with a gold table lighter, then lit himself up. We puffed billows of smoke into the room. I asked, "Aren't these illegal?"

"Maybe. We'd trade with the devil in hell if we needed fire. But cigars we don't need, so fuck Cuba. Right? Horseshit."

So much for world events. Now, the local news. "This is your office?" "Yeah. When I first saw it, it was all painted pink and white. Even the wood floor was painted. The real estate lady liked it. She said decorators did it for some kind of show."

"A designer showcase," I informed him.

"Yeah. Every fucking room looked like some fairies got loose with paintbrushes." I looked around. This was the library that Susan had once told me about, the one that had existed in an English manor house and had been purchased by the Dillworths in the 1920s. The shelves were all dark oak, filled with books, though I was certain they were not from the original library. There was a fireplace on one wall, and on the opposite wall were double doors that led out to the balcony from which I'd seen the light when I was riding here in April. In the centre of the large room was an oak desk with a green leather top. Behind the desk in a large alcove, sort of a secretary's station, I could make out a word processor, copy machine, telex, and fax. The Mafia had gone high tech. Bellarosa said, "It cost me five large to get the paint stripped off this room.

Then another five for the books. Books go for ten bucks a foot."

"Excuse me?"

"There's five hundred feet of bookshelf. Books are ten bucks a foot. So that's five large… five thousand." He added, "But I had a few books of my own." I guess you can talk money here. I observed, "That saved you a few bucks."

"Yeah. I had my school books."

"Machiavelli."

He smiled. "Yeah. And Dante. St Augustine. You ever read that guy?"

"Yes. Have you read St Jerome?"

"Sure. His collected letters. I told you, those Christian Brothers made me learn." He jumped out of his chair, went to a shelf, located a book, and opened it. "Here's St Jerome. I like this. Listen." He quoted, "'My country is prey to barbarism, and in it men's only God is their belly, and they live only for the present.'" He shut the book. "So what's new? Right? People don't change. If this guy wasn't a priest, he would've said, "Their belly and their cock." Men follow their cocks around and that's how they ruin their lives. You gotta think with your head, not your cock. You got to think of the future before you stick it someplace it don't belong."

"Easier said than done."

He laughed, "Yeah." He looked at his books. "Sometimes I sit here at night with one of those old school books. Sometimes I think I should've been a priest. Except for… you know… my cock." He added, "Women. Jesus Christ, they drive me nuts."

I nodded in sympathy. "You aren't a real bishop then?" He laughed again and put the book back. "No. My uncle used to call me his bishop because my head was all full of this stuff from La Salle. He used to say to his friends, 'This is my nephew, the bishop.' Then he'd make me recite something in Latin."

"You speak Latin?"

"Nah. Just some stuff I leaned by memory." He went to a serving cart and took a decanter and two brandy snifters from it and put them on the coffee table. He sat again and poured a dark fluid into the glasses. "Grappa. You ever have this?"

"No."

"It's like brandy, but worse." He raised his glass to me.

I picked up my glass, we clinked, and I poured it down. I should have listened to Bellarosa's veiled warning about grappa. I can drink anything, but this was something else. I felt my throat burn, then my stomach heaved, and I thought I was about to blow the coffee hour all over the cigars. Through watery eyes I saw Bellarosa watching me over the rim of his glass. I cleared my throat. "Mamma mia …"

"Yeah. Sip it." He finished his grappa and poured himself another, then held the bottle toward me.

"No, thanks." I tried to breathe, but the cigar smoke was thick.

I put my cigar out, stood, and went out onto the balcony.

Bellarosa followed, with his cigar and his glass. He said, "Nice view."

I nodded as I breathed the clear night air. My stomach settled down. He pointed off in the distance with his cigar. "What's that place? You can't see it at night. It's like a golf course."

"Yes. Exactly like a golf course. That's The Creek."

"Greek?"

"Creek. A country club."

"Yeah? They play golf there?"

"Yes. On the golf course."

"You play golf?"

"A bit."

"I can't see that game. How's it fun?"

I thought a moment, then replied, "Who said it was?" I added, "They have skeet shooting, too. Do you shoot?"

He laughed.

I thought it was time to let Frank Bellarosa know I was a real man. I said, "I'm not bad with a shotgun."

"Yeah? I fired a shotgun once."

"Skeet or birds?" I inquired.

He stayed silent a moment, then replied, "Birds. Ducks." He added, "I don't like shotguns."

"How about rifles?" I asked.

"Yeah. I belong to a club in the city. The Italian Rifle Club. It's a social club. You probably heard of it."

Indeed I had. An interesting establishment in Little Italy, some of whose members had never fired a sporting rifle in their lives, but who found the rifle range in the basement convenient for pistol practice. I asked, "What type of rifle do you own?"

"I don't remember."

I tried to recall how the Colombian drug king was murdered. Pistol, I think.

Yes, five bullets in the head from close range.

"You feel better?" he asked me.

"Yes."

"Good." Bellarosa sipped his grappa, smoked his contraband cigar, and surveyed his kingdom. He pointed again with the cigar. "I found a fountain over there and a statue of Neptune. That's where that guy scared the hell out of Anna. You ever seen that?"

"Yes. I've ridden all over this land."

"That's right. Anyway, I fixed that whole place up. The pool, the fountain, the statue. I put a statue of the Virgin there, too, and had the whole thing blessed by a priest friend of mine. You gotta see it."

"The priest blessed the statue of Neptune?"

"Sure. Why not? Anyway, there was these Roman ruins there, too. Broken columns and all. The landscape guy said it was built like that. That right?" "Yes."

"Why did they build a ruin?"

"That was popular once."

"Why?"

I shrugged. "Maybe to remind themselves that nothing is forever."

"Like, sic transit gloria mundi."

I looked at him. "Yes. That's it."

He nodded thoughtfully and drew on his cigar.

I gazed out over Alhambra's acres. A half moon was high in a brilliantly clear sky, and a soft breeze blew in from the Sound, bringing with it the smell of the sea, as well as the perfume of May flowers. What a night. Bellarosa, too, seemed to appreciate the moment. "Brooklyn. Fuck Brooklyn. I go to Italy when I want to get away. I got a place in Italy, outside of Sorrento." "I've been to Sorrento. Where is your place?"

"I can't say. You know? It's a place where I might have to go someday. Only five people know where it is. Me, my wife, and my kids."

"That's smart."

"Yeah. You got to think ahead. But for now, I like it here. Brooklyn's finished."

So was the Gold Coast, but that wasn't so apparent to Frank Bellarosa, who didn't comprehend that he was part of the problem.

He added, "We had a nice house in Brooklyn. An old brownstone. Five storeys.

Beautiful. But it was attached, and the yard was too small to have a big garden. I always wanted land. My grandparents were peasants. It's their old farm that I bought from the people who owned it. But I let the people farm the land for free. I keep the farmhouse. It's white stucco like this, with a red roof. But smaller."

We both stayed silent a moment, then he said, "You got a whole temple over there. Dominic said you showed him the temple. You got Venus over there." "Yes."

"You people pagans over there?" He laughed.

"Sometimes."

"Yeah. I'd like to see that temple."

"Sure."

"I'd like to see the inside of the big mansion."

"Do you want to buy it?"

"Maybe."

"Half a million."

"I know that." He added, "You could have said more."

"No, I couldn't, because the price is half a million. With ten acres."

"Yeah? How about the whole place?"

"About twenty million for the land."

"Madonn'! You got oil on that place?"

"No, we got dirt. And there's not much of that left around here. Why would you want another estate?"

"I don't know… maybe build houses on the land. Can I make money if I build houses?"

"Probably. You should be able to make a profit of five or six million."

"What's the catch?"

"Well, you have to get permission to subdivide the property."

"Yeah? From who?"

"Zoning people. But the neighbours and the environmentalists will hold you up in court."

He thought awhile, and I knew he was trying to figure out who had to be paid off, who had to be offered the best deal, and who had to be actually threatened. I said, "My wife's parents own the estate. Do you know that?"

"Yeah."

"That doesn't include my house, and there is a stipulation in any contract that my gatekeeper and his wife live in the gatehouse rent free until they die. But the estate does come with the statue of Venus and she has nice tits." He laughed. "I heard." He added, "I'll think about it."

"Fine." I thought about William Stanhope sitting down with a Mafia don at the house closing, and I decided I wouldn't take a fee for the pleasure of handling that. Actually, I wouldn't handle it. I still have to live around here. William and Charlotte visit friends here now and then, attend weddings and funerals, and all that. They have kept their Creek membership and on occasion stay in one of The Creek's cottages that are used by retired gentry who return from time to time. But if Frank Bellarosa bought Stanhope Hall, William and Charlotte would never again set foot on the Gold Coast. I liked this possibility, despite my reservations about being surrounded by mafiosi and FBI agents with cameras. I asked Bellarosa, "How did you happen to find Alhambra?" "I got lost." He laughed. "I was on the expressway, going to a restaurant in Glen Cove. I had to meet a guy there. My stupid driver takes the wrong exit, and we're all over the place trying to find Glen Cove. I notice all these big houses, and we go up the road here and I'm pissed. But then I see the gates of your place there, and I tell the jerk to slow down. Then I see this place, and the house reminds me of the big villas near the water in Sorrento. You know? I can see that the place don't look lived in, so after my lunch thing, I go to a real estate office. I don't know where this place is, but I explain what it looks like. You know? So it takes a week for this dumb real estate lady to get back to me, but she sends me a picture. 'Is this it?' Yeah, so I call her. How much? She tells me. It's owned by the bank, and the tax people got to be taken care of, or something. The bank just wants to dump it. So I pay the bank, pay the taxes, and some people named Barrett get some money, and I'm out about ten mill. Madonn' mia. But I like the poplar trees. Then I show it to my wife, and she don't like it. Jesus Christ -" "You mean you bought this place without your wife seeing -?" "Yeah. So I say to her, 'I like it, so you better learn to like it.' She starts in, 'It's a wreck, Frank! It's filthy, Frank!' Fucking women can't picture what things are going to look like. Right? So I get the greaseballs on the place and they bust their asses all winter and I take Anna out and she's crying all the way out. But I figure, soon as she sees it, she'll stop crying. But no, she still hates it. It's too far from her crazy mother and her crazy sisters. 'Where's the stores, Frank? Where's the people?' Blah, blah, blah. Fuck the stores, fuck the people. Right?" He looked at me. "Right?" "Right. Fuck 'em."

"Right." He finished his grappa and drew on his cigar, then flipped the ash over the balustrade. "Madonn', they drive you nuts. She misses her church. She used to walk to church three, four times a week and talk to the priests. They were all Italian. Some of them were from the other side. The church here is very nice. I went a few times. St Mary's. You know the place? But the priests are all Micks and one Polack, and she won't talk to them. You believe that shit? A priest's a priest, for Christ's sake. Right?"

"Well…"

"So what I want is, I want Susan to show Anna the ropes around here. You know?

Take her around, meet some people. Maybe you'll show me that place over there.

The Creek. If I like it, I'll join up."

My stomach heaved again. "Well -"

"Yeah. It just takes time. You talk to Susan."

I had a maliciously bright thought. "Susan belongs to the Gazebo Society. She can take Anna to the next meeting."

"What the hell is that?"

Good question, Frank. I explained about the Victorian clothes and the picnic hampers.

"I don't get it."

"Me neither. Let Susan explain it to Anna."

"Yeah. Hey, look down there." He pointed with the stub of his cigar.

I looked down at the expansive Spanish patio, lit with amber post lights. "You see that? Next to the barbecue? That's a pizza oven. I had that built. I can make pizza right out there. I can bake ziti, I can heat stuff up. Whaddaya think?"

"Very practical."

"Yeah."

I glanced at Bellarosa. He had put his glass on the ledge and had ground out his cigar. He had his arms folded across his chest now as he surveyed the huge patio, the size of a piazza, below him. He caught me looking at him and laughed. "Yeah. Like this." He thrust his chin out in a passable impersonation of Mussolini. He looked at me. "Is that what you're thinking? Frank Bellarosa thinks he's II Duce. Right?"

"No comment."

He thrust his hands into his pockets. "You know, all Italians want to be II Duce, Caesar, the boss. Nobody wants to be under nobody else. That's why Italy is so fucked up, and that's why people like me have people like Anthony around. Because every wop with a gun, a grudge, and fifty cents' worth of ambition wants to knock off the emperor. Capisce?"

"Do you trust Anthony?"

"Nah. I don't trust nobody but family. I don't trust my paesanos. Maybe I can trust you."

"And you sleep well at night?"

"Like a baby. I told you, nobody has an accident in their own house."

"But you carry a gun in your own house."

He nodded. "Yeah." He stayed silent awhile, then said, "I got some problems lately. I take precautions. I've got to get the bugs worked out of the security here."

"But you just said your house is sacrosanct."

"Yeah. But you got your Spanish now, and you got your Jamaicans, your Asians. They got to learn the rules here. They got to learn that when you're in Rome, you do as the Romans do. Who said that? Saint Augustine?" "Saint Ambrose."

He looked at me and our eyes met. Here was a man, I suddenly realized, who had a major problem.

He said, "Let's go inside." He went back into the library and sat in his chair.

He poured himself another grappa as I sat across from him. My eyes fell on the school books on the shelf behind him. I couldn't make out the titles, but I was reasonably certain that most of the great thinkers, philosophers, and theologians of Western culture were up there, and that Frank Bellarosa had absorbed their words into his impressionable young mind. But he had apparently missed the essential message of the words, the message of God, of civilization, and of humanity. Or worse, he understood the message and had consciously chosen a life of evil, just as his son was going to do. How utterly depressing. I said to him, "Well, thanks for the drink." I looked at my watch. He seemed not to hear me and sat back in his chair, sipping his drink, then said, "You probably read in the papers that I killed a guy. A Colombian drug dealer."

This was not your normal Gold Coast brandy-and-cigars talk and I didn't know quite how to respond, but then I said, "Yes, I did. The papers made you a hero." He smiled. "Shows how fucked up we are. I'm a fucking hero. Right? I'm smart enough to know better."

Indeed he was. I was impressed.

He said, "This country is running scared. They want a gunslinger to come in and clean up the fucking mess. Well, I'm not here to do the government's job for them."

I nodded. That was what I had told Mr Mancuso.

Bellarosa added, "Frank Bellarosa works for Frank Bellarosa. Frank Bellarosa takes care of his family and his friends. I don't want nobody I thinking I'm part of the solution. I'm definitely part of the problem. I Don't you ever think otherwise."

"I never did."

"Good. Then we're off on the right foot."

"Where are we going?"

"Who knows?"

I picked up my glass and sipped at the grappa. It didn't taste any better. I said, "Alphonse Ferragamo doesn't think you're a hero." "No. That son of a bitch has a hard-on for me."

"Maybe you embarrass him. I mean as an Italian American." Bellarosa smiled. "You think that's it? Wrong. You got a lot to learn about Italians, my friend. Alphonse Ferragamo has a personal vendetta against me." "Why?"

He thought a moment, then said, "I'll tell ya. I made a fool out of him in court once. Not me personally. My attorney. But that don't make a difference. This was seven, eight years ago. Ferragamo was the U.S. prosecutor on my case. Some bullshit charge that wouldn't hold. My guy, Jack Weinstein, got the jury to laugh at him, and Alphonse's balls shrunk to little nicciole – hazelnuts. I told Weinstein he fucked up. You don't do that to an Italian in public. I knew I'd hear from Ferragamo again. Now the jackass is the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and I got to live with him or move." "I see." And all this time I thought Alphonse Ferragamo was a dedicated public servant. In truth, I didn't completely believe Frank Bellarosa's analysis of Ferragamo's motives. Thinking that I'd heard enough, I said, "I have an early day tomorrow."

Bellarosa ignored this and said, "Ferragamo can't get anything on me, so he tells the papers that I hit this Colombian guy, Juan Carranza." My eyes rolled a bit. I said, "I really can't believe that a U.S. Attorney would frame you."

He smiled at me as though I were simple minded. "Not to frame me, Counsellor.

You really got a lot to learn."

"Do I?"

"Yeah. You see, Ferragamo wants to get the Colombians on my case. Capisce? He wants them to do his dirty work."

I sat up in my chair. "Kill you?"

"Yeah. Yeah."

I found this even harder to believe. I said, "Are you telling me that the U.S.

Attorney is trying to get you murdered?"

"Yeah. You don't believe that? You a Boy Scout or what? You salute the flag every morning? You people got a lot to learn."

I didn't reply.

Bellarosa leaned toward me. "Alphonse Ferragamo wants my ass dead. He don't want my ass in court again. He is a very pissed off paesan'. Capisce? He stewed for eight fucking years waiting for his chance to get even. And if I get hit by the Colombians, Ferragamo will make sure everybody on the street knows he was behind it. Then he's happy and he has his balls back." He looked me in the eye. "Okay?" I shook my head. "Not everyone thinks like you do. Why don't you give the guy credit for just doing his job? He thinks you killed somebody." "Bullshit." He leaned back and twirled his glass.

"I have to go."

"No. Just sit there."

"Excuse me?"

He looked at me and I looked back. I finally saw don Bellarosa for a second or two. But then Frank was sitting there again. It must have been the light. He said, "Let me finish, Counsellor. Okay? You're a smart guy, but you don't have the facts. Hey, I don't care if you think I hit this Colombian guy. But there's two, three, four sides to everything. A smart guy like you sees two sides, maybe three. But I'll show you another side, so when you walk out of here, you'll be a better citizen." He smiled. "Okay?"

I nodded.

"Okay. So when those assholes in Washington made Ferragamo the U.S. Attorney here, they knew what they were doing, for a change. They got it all figured out, those smart guys in the Justice Department. They want the Colombians to hit me, then my friends start hitting the Colombians, and the undertakers are happy, and the Feds are happy. The melanzane are not happy because now they have to go back to cheap wine because the white stuff is cut off while the stiffs are piling up. Understand? This talk make you uncomfortable?"

"No -"

"So the next time you talk to Mancuso out there, you tell him what I just told you. Mancuso is okay for a cop. He's got nothing against me personally, and I got nothing against him. We treat each other with respect. He believes in the law. I respect him for that even if it's stupid. He don't want a shooting war out there on the streets. He's a very responsible man." "You want me to pass on this conversation to Mancuso?" "Sure. Why not? Let him go to Ferragamo and tell him that Bellarosa's onto his game."

"You've been reading too much Machiavelli."

"You think so?"

"Are you suggesting that not only Ferragamo, but the U.S. Attorney General and the Justice Department in Washington are in on a conspiracy to have you murdered and provoke a gang war?"

"Sure. Why do you think Alphonse is still here? It's so fucking obvious what he's up to with this Carranza shit. If Justice don't yank the guy out of here or tell him to cool it, then Justice is in on it. Right?"

"Your logic -'

"Then with the two biggest players blasting away at each other, the Feds take care of the Jamaicans and the other melanzane down there in the islands. Then they go for the Asians. Divide and conquer. Right?"

I shrugged. "I do house closings."

"Yeah. Let's say you buy what I'm saying. How do you feel about it as a good citizen?"

What I felt was distressed to think that the forces of law and order in this country were so desperate that they had to stoop to Bellarosa's level to get rid of Bellarosa. But I said, "As a good citizen, I would be… angry to think the government would provoke a dangerous gang war."

"Sure. But you kinda like the idea. Right? The spies and the wops finally knocking each other off."

"No."

"Bullshit."

"No comment." I asked, "Why don't you go to the newspapers if you believe what you're saying?"

He laughed. "Sure."

"They'd print it."

"You bet your ass they would. They print it when I fart. But you don't go public with your problems in my business. You shoot your mouth off to the press, and you piss off everybody, including your friends who don't even admit there's such a thing as the Mafia. You start talking to the press about your enemies, and your friends will kill you."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you're a lawyer."

"I'm not your lawyer." I added, "Anyway, it's not a lawyer you need. You need bodyguards." Or a psychiatrist.

"Yeah. But I need some outside advice. I listened to my friends, my counsellors, to Jack Weinstein. Now I want to hear from somebody who sees things different from the people around me."

"You want my advice? Retire. Go to Sorrento."

"You don't retire in this business. Did any of the Caesars retire? You can't set everything straight with the people you pissed off, you can't raise the dead, you can't go to the government and say, 'I'm sorry, and I'm paying the taxes I cheated on and giving back all the businesses I bought with the illegal money.' You can't let go of the tiger, because he'll turn and eat you. You got to stay on the tiger and keep the power in your hands."

"No. You can go to Sorrento."

He shrugged. "Maybe I like what I do. Keeps me busy."

"You like the power."

"Sure. Sorrento is for when I'm old. When I'm tired of power, business, women. I got a few years yet."

"Maybe not."

He looked at me. "I don't run. The spies are not running Frank Bellarosa off.

The Feds are not running Frank Bellarosa off. Capisce?"

"Now I do."

We both sat there a few minutes. I had the impression he was waiting for me to say something, to come up with some advice. As an attorney, I'm in the advice business, but I'm not predisposed to giving free and friendly advice. I said, "Are we finished?"

"Almost. Here's the thing. Ferragamo can't be shooting his mouth off to the press that I'm a suspect in the murder of Juan Carranza, and let it go like that. Right?"

"Right."

"He's got to follow up with a grand jury investigation."

"Correct."

"So, what I'm thinking is I want you to handle this for me." "If I wouldn't handle a real estate deal for you, why would I represent you in a criminal matter?"

"Because one thing is money, the other is justice." He didn't choke on that last word, but I almost did. I shook my head. "I don't handle criminal matters. I'm not qualified."

"Sure you are. You're a lawyer."

"What kind of evidence is Ferragamo going to present to a grand jury to get you indicted?"

"He don't have shit. But you ever hear that expression – 'a New York grand jury will indict a ham sandwich'? You hear that?"

"Yes." New York grand juries are sort of like Star Chambers; twenty-three upright citizens sit in secret sessions, and the person under investigation is not present and neither is his attorney. So, without any evidence except what is presented by the government, the grand jury usually votes to indict. It was a safe bet to say that Frank Bellarosa would be indicted. I said, "You think Ferragamo is just harassing you with this indictment?" "Yeah. A regular jury won't convict me, because Ferragamo's got no evidence for them. So Frank Bellarosa versus the United States is not getting to trial. But meanwhile, Ferragamo's calling press conferences. He loves fucking press conferences. He's telling everybody that the Mafia is pushing out the Colombians, the Jamaicans, blah, blah, blah. That's bullshit. We all got our own thing. Then he says, 'Bellarosa personally hit Juan Carranza to show them spies a lesson!' Understand? So the Colombians get their balls in an uproar – they get all macho. Christ, they're worse than Italians. Now they want to settle this mano a mano. Carranza was a big man with them. Okay, so now I got to worry about my own people, too. Understand? Because they don't want a fucking bloodbath, because they're all fat and soft. The South Americans are hungry and hard. They're the new guys and they work harder. They don't have the fucking brains they were born with, but they manage to get things done. Okay, maybe they're too stupid to get at me. You know? So what do they do? They go to my friends and they say, 'Hey, let's settle this before Frank goes to trial, before people start getting hurt. We all got enough problems and we don't need this shit with Bellarosa.' So maybe my guys say, 'We'll take care of Frank.' You see? The sons-of-bitches would give me up to save their own asses. Even though they know I didn't hit Carranza. Ten, twenty years ago, an Italian would say to a spic, 'Fuck you. Get out of here before I feed you your balls for lunch.' But things are different now. There's a whole new world out there. Understand?" That, I understood. Now I discover that even the Mafia are having trouble adapting to this new New World. I said, "That's absolutely fascinating, Frank. And I don't really see any way out for you."

He laughed. "Maybe something will come into your head. I need a very upright lawyer to go talk to Ferragamo. He's the key. He's got to call one of his press conferences and say that he has new evidence about who hit Carranza, or say he's got no evidence at all. You talk to him about that."

"But maybe I don't believe your side of this."

"You will when you see Ferragamo's face after you tell him I know what he's up to."

Bellarosa, I realized, was a man who believed in his instincts. He would not need hard evidence, for instance, before he ordered the murder of someone he suspected of disloyalty. Like a primitive tribunal, all that Bellarosa required was the look of guilt, perhaps a word or phrase that seemed somehow wrong. And in the case of Alphonse Ferragamo, Frank Bellarosa first figured out a motive, then presumed the man guilty of the crime. I don't deny the value of instinct -

I hope I use my instincts in court, and police use instinct every day on the streets. But Frank Bellarosa, whose good instincts had kept him free and alive, perhaps put too much faith in his ability to spot danger, tell friends from enemies, and to read people's minds and hearts. That was why I was sitting there; because Bellarosa had sized me up in a few minutes and decided I was his man. I wondered if he was right.

Bellarosa continued, "The New York State Attorney General, Lowenstein, don't even want a piece of this case. I hear from some people close to him that he thinks it's bullshit. What's that tell you, Counsellor?"

"I'm not sure, and I still don't do criminal work."

"Hey, you might have fun. Think about it."

"I'll do that."

"Good." He settled back in his chair. "Hey, I'm doing that real estate deal next week. I got that firm in Glen Cove you said. They gave me this guy Torrance. You know him? He any good?"

"Yes."

"Good. I don't want no screw-ups."

"Real estate contracts and closings are fairly simple if you pay attention to detail."

"Then you should've done it, Counsellor."

I regarded Bellarosa a moment. I couldn't tell if he was annoyed or just considered me a fool. I said, "We've been through that." "Yeah. But I want you to know you're the first guy who ever turned down that kind of money from me."

"That's discouraging."

"Yeah? Well, people have turned down outright bribes. But never a legitimate fee. It was legit."

"We've been through that, too."

"Yeah. About the grand jury thing, I know you don't drop for money, but I'll pay you a flat fifty for talking to Ferragamo and another fifty if a grand jury isn't convened."

"If I did criminal work, I'd get three hundred an hour, double for courtroom time. I don't take cash rewards if you're not indicted or convicted, and I don't give the money back if you are."

Bellarosa smiled at me, but it was not a nice smile. "I gotta tell you, some of your wisecracks are funny, some are not."

"I know."

"You got balls."

"I know that, too."

He nodded. "I got too many guys around me kissing my ass, and any one of them would stick a knife in my back."

"I feel sorry for you."

"Hey, it's part of life."

"No, it isn't."

"My life. But I also got guys around me who respect me. People who don't kiss my ass, but kiss my hand."

"Does anybody like you?"

He smiled. "I don't really give a shit."

"Work on that, Frank."

He looked at me and said, "Something else I gotta tell ya. Your people been here three hundred years, you said. Right? So you figure everybody who got here after you is uninvited company or something. But my family in Italy goes back a thousand years in that town outside Sorrento. Maybe they go back two thousand years to Roman times. Maybe one of my ancestors was a Roman soldier who invaded England and found your people wearing animal skins and living in mud houses. Capisce?"

"I understand enough history to appreciate the glory of Italian civilization, and you may well take pride in that heritage. But what we're discussing at the moment, the Mafia, is not one of Italian civilization's greatest contributions to Western culture."

"That's a matter of opinion."

"Well, it's most people's opinion."

Bellarosa seemed deep in thought for a full minute, then said, "Okay. Now you got to make a big decision, because you're jerking me around and yourself around. So you stand up, you turn around, and you go out that door. You get your wife and you leave, and you'll never hear from me again. Or, you have a drink with me."

So. All I had to do was stand up and leave. Then why was I still sitting? I regarded Frank Bellarosa a moment. What had I learned in the last few hours? Well, I'd learned that Bellarosa was not only smart, but also more complex than I would have imagined. Also, to give Susan credit for an accurate first impression, Bellarosa was interesting. So, maybe this was Susan's gift to me; this was my challenge. I picked up my glass. "What's this made of?" "Grape. It's like brandy. I told you."

We touched glasses, we drank.

He stood. "Let's go find the women."

CHAPTER 17

We left the library, and as we walked along the mezzanine, I said, "Why don't you go right to the Colombians and explain that you're being set up?" "Caesar does not go to the fucking barbarians and explain things. Fuck them." I could see that my straightforward Anglo-Saxon logic was not what the situation called for, but I said, "A Roman emperor did go to Attila the Hun to talk peace."

"Yeah. I know that." We started down the sweeping stairs, and Bellarosa said, "But what good did it do him? Made him look bad, and Rome got attacked anyway. Look, when people go for your balls, they're saying you got balls. As soon as they think you got no balls, they treat you like a woman. You might as well be dead."

"I see." Obviously my first advice as consigliere wasn't cutting it. I said, "But Ferragamo is banking on that. He knows you won't go to the Colombians." "This is true. Only another wop could have understood that."

"So? If you won't meet with the Colombians yourself, send somebody." But not me.

"Same thing. Forget it."

We walked across the palm court. I found this interesting as an intellectual challenge and on that basis would have liked to come up with a solution. But I also realized there was more to my interest in his problems than a mental exercise. I said, "Tell the Colombians to come to you. Demand a meeting on your terms."

He turned to me and smiled. "Yeah? Maybe they'll come. But any way you cut that, it's me going to them to ask them for a break. Fuck them. If they think they're big enough to take me on, let them try. Maybe they need a lesson in respect." Mamma mia, this guy was tough. I recalled what he had said in my office. Life is war. And what he had said in the morning room. Italian men don't compromise. That about covered it. But I had a last solution. "Find out who killed Carranza and deliver the guy to the State Attorney General, Lowenstein." "I don't do cop work."

"Then deliver him to the Colombians." I can't believe I said that.

"I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because I already know who killed Carranza. The cops killed him. The fucking DEA – the Drug Enforcement Agency. They put five slugs in his head – mob style, like they say."

"How do you know that?"

"I know the guys who did it. And it was no vigilante thing, if you're thinking they're good guys. It was no vendetta for a DEA guy who got hit in Colombia. They iced Carranza because he screwed them on a deal." God, this was depressing. What a world this man lived in. Right here, in America. Of course I'd read about it. But it's not the same as hearing it live. I asked, "Why don't the Colombians know this?"

"Because they're stupid. They got no contacts, they got no sources. They're fucking outlaws. I got all kinds of sources – press sources, police sources, political sources, court sources." Bellarosa stopped walking and put his hand on my shoulder. "You know, the thing that the government calls the Mafia – the Sicilians, the Neapolitans – we've been in America for a hundred years. Christ, we're part of the establishment. That's why we're fat ducks now for the assholes in the Justice Department. But let me tell you something. Compared to these new people, we're nice guys. We play the fucking game. We don't hit cops, we don't hit judges, we don't go into people's houses and massacre families. We make contributions to the right people, we give to the Church, we provide services. If you run this kind of thing right, it don't have to be messy. You take your South Americans and your melanzane from the islands, they go right for the guns. Half of these assholes are on the junk they sell. But does Ferragamo go after these dangerous people, these crazies? No. The shithead wastes everybody's time and money going after his paesanos, because he can get to them, because he understands them. And he's got ambitions, this man. He wants to make a name. Capisce? And he knows we won't take him out. Is Ferragamo good for the public, the taxpayers? No. Well, fuck him. Maybe some melanzane will slice his throat for his watch someday. Meanwhile, we do business like nothing's wrong. Let him or the Colombians make the first move. Right?"

"You're absolutely right."

"Good. Let's go talk to the women." He took my arm and led me between two columns, then through an archway into the living room. The room was about eighty feet long and half as wide, with a beamed cathedral ceiling. The walls were white stucco and the windows were arched. Unfortunately, this was not the living room. It was just too big, even for a great house. This must once have been the ballroom. At the far end was a grouping of chairs where Susan and Anna sat, looking very tiny and alone.

Bellarosa and I walked the eighty feet to the furniture, and I remembered to put my glasses back on. I sat before Bellarosa could say, "Sit." Bellarosa remained standing.

Susan addressed Bellarosa. "The house is beautiful."

Bellarosa smiled. "Yeah."

Susan asked both of us, "What were you talking about all that time?"

I replied, "Machiavelli."

She smiled at Bellarosa. "John's not much of a talker. But he pays attention."

"Your husband's a smart man."

Susan beamed proudly. Well, no, actually, she crossed her legs and sat back. Anna addressed her lord and master. "Susan knew the people who lived here before. The Barretts. Susan used to sleep in the guest room." Bellarosa smiled at Susan. "It's yours if you have a fight with your husband."

Susan smiled in return. Why wasn't I smiling?

Anna said to Frank, "Susan knows some of the history here, Frank. The real estate lady wasn't lying about the Vanderbilts."

"She lied about the plumbing," Bellarosa said.

Anna had more news. "This isn't the living room, Frank."

"Jesus Christ."

"It's a ballroom."

"What?"

"And the room where we got the TV is the drawing room." She looked at Susan.

"Tell him what that is."

Susan explained, "That's the room to which guests withdraw after dinner. But it's fine as a TV room."

And so Susan gave the Bellarosas a crash course in great-house floor plans. Interestingly, however, she did it with some humour and self-effacement as if it were all very silly, thus not making the Bellarosas feel that they were vulgar half-wits who had no business living in a house they couldn't understand. This was a new Susan.

Meanwhile, I tried to figure out how I started the evening in an Irish pub and ended it as part of the Bellarosa family. Obviously none of this was happening. I'd wake up at Locust Valley station, get off the train, and try it again. Bellarosa said to Susan, "Come on. I'll show you my pride and joy. The conservatory."

This didn't seem to include me, so I remained seated as Susan stood. Lady Stanhope and Squire Bellarosa walked off. I turned to Anna, and we smiled at each other.

She shook her finger at me. "I know you from someplace."

"Have you ever been to Plato's Retreat?"

"No…'

"I have a familiar face. Or maybe you saw my picture in the post office or the newspapers."

"You in the papers?"

"The local paper sometimes." I added, "I recognized your husband, for instance, the first time I saw him in person. I felt I knew him from seeing him so many times on TV and in the papers."

She looked embarrassed, and I felt just a bit sorry I'd said that. Henceforth, I would assume that Anna Bellarosa was a civilian and I would treat her as such unless I found out otherwise.

She said, "Maybe this move was good for us. Maybe Frank will meet nice people here, like you and Susan." She lowered her voice. "I don't like some of the people Frank has to do business with."

Little did she know I might be one of them. I was not altogether surprised that Frank the Bishop Bellarosa's wife thought he was a good man who only needed a few good people to get him on the path to salvation. She did not have a clue about her husband's commitment to villainy and perhaps outright evil. We made small talk for a few minutes, and as we spoke, I removed my glasses and looked her right in the eyes. She hesitated for a second or two, then I think it was starting to come to her. I expected her to jump up and run the eighty feet out of the room. But she must have rejected as absurd whatever had popped into her tiny brain, and she went back to her chatting.

Normally, if left alone with a woman in this sort of situation, I'd do a little mild flirting, just to be polite, or to show I was still alive down where my oxford shirt ended. Sometimes, too, I flirt because I am honestly filled with lust. But I'd sworn off flirting, at least until the start of next Lent. And even if I hadn't sworn off, I wasn't going to screw around the Caesar's wife. Poor Anna, she probably hadn't been propositioned since Frank got his first gun.

Still, I did stare at her mountainous bumpers, and she smiled openly at me. To be honest, after Frank, Anna was a bit of a snooze. She was sweet, even a little funny, but I'd had enough Brooklyn English for one night. I wanted to go. Anna leaned toward me and lowered her voice again. "John?"

"Anna?"

"I want to ask you something."

The top part of the hostess pyjamas, in case I hadn't mentioned it, was kind of loose and open. So when she leaned toward me, like it or not, I could see where those tremendous hooters lived. Mamma mia, those tits weighed more than Susan.

"John… this is a silly question, but…"

"Yes?" I tried to maintain eye contact.

Her hand went to the cross dangling free over her cleavage, and she fingered it.

"I asked Susan, and she said no… but are there any stories about ghosts?"

"Ghosts?"

"Ghosts. You know? In this house. Like you hear with the big old houses. Like on TV." She looked at me as she continued to play with the cross. "Oh…" I thought a moment, then remembered a ghost story. I said, "Well, there is a story that I've heard… but it's really not worth repeating." Her free hand reached out and touched mine. "Tell me." "Well… all right. Some years ago, it seems there was a governess here who looked after the two Barrett children, Katie and… Miles. The governess, an attractive young woman, came to suspect that Katie was… well, possessed by the ghost of the former governess, a woman named Miss Jessel -" "Oh!" She squeezed my hand. "No!"

"Yes. And to make matters worse, Miles was possessed by the ghost of the former estate manager, an evil man named Peter."

Anna's eyes grew wider. "Oh, John! Do you think… I mean, that the man I saw… could that have been…?"

I never thought of that. Why not? Better him than me. I said, "Well, Peter, I understand, was about my age, my build -"

"Oh, my God."

"Maybe I shouldn't go on."

"No. Go on. I have to know."

"All right. Well, from what I've been told, the governess made a startling deduction. She was convinced that the dead estate manager, Peter, and the dead governess, Miss Jessel, were continuing their mortal sexual affair through the possessed bodies of the young sister and brother."

"No!" She released my hand and made a quick sign of the cross, then fell back in her chair. "In this house? Where? Which room?"

"Well… the guest room." I didn't want a fainter on my hands, so I said, "I think that's enough. And I don't believe any of it -" "No, John. Tell me the rest. Tell me!"

So, ever the good guest, I continued, "There were some people who thought that the new governess was actually having an affair with the boy, Miles, who was of course only the innocent vehicle for the evil Peter. Others said the governess was also having a lesbian affair with Katie, who was of course Miss Jessel -" "You mean that the governess was… and the two children were…? Susan's friend, Katie Barrett, and her brother… and the governess…?" "Who knows?" Indeed, having read The Turn of the Screw twice, I still couldn't figure out who was doing it with whom. But somewhere in all that constipated Victorian gibberish was a fine sex-horror story. I said to Anna, "I don't know how much, if any, of what I heard is true, but I know that the Barretts left suddenly in 1966 and never returned. The house has not been lived in until" – organ crescendo, please – "until now. But don't tell Susan I told you this, as it still upsets her."

She nodded her head as she tried to catch her breath. My, she had actually grown pale. "Yes… I won't… John, are they still here?"

"The Barretts?"

"No, the ghosts."

"Oh… I don't know." I was feeling a wee bit like a bad boy, so I added, "I doubt it. They were only interested in sex."

"My God…" She made the sign of the cross again and informed me, "We had a priest here to bless the house before we moved in."

"There you go. Nothing to worry about. Can I get you some sherry? Grappa?" "No. I'm okay." She continued to hold on to her cross, blocking my view of Joy Valley.

I glanced at my watch. About twenty minutes had passed since Susan and Frank had taken a walk, and I was beginning to get a little annoyed. I sat back and crossed my legs. Anna and I exchanged a few words, but the woman was clearly upset about something. Finally, a bit impatient with her silliness, I said sternly, "A Christian does not believe in ghosts." "How about the Holy Ghost?"

"The Holy Spirit. That's different."

"We used to say the Holy Ghost."

This was a little frustrating. I said, "Well, get the priests back. Let them check it out."

"I will."

Finally, Susan and Frank returned. Susan said to me, "You should see the conservatory. It's bursting with flowers and tropical plants, palms, and ferns. It's gorgeous."

"No zucchini?"

Bellarosa explained, "I got all the vegetables outside now. My gardener grows all the houseplants and stuff in there. He switches everything around. Rotates stuff. You know?"

Susan and Frank sat. It was time for plant chat, and I tuned out. I replayed the balcony scene in my mind, then the library scene. The entire episode was so far removed from my experience, even as an attorney, that it had not fully sunk in yet. But I did have the feeling that Bellarosa and I had made some sort of arrangement.

A large, ornate tall-case clock in the far corner struck the hour, and twelve loud chimes echoed through the ballroom, stopping the conversation. I took the opportunity to say, "I'm afraid we've overstayed our visit." This is Wasp talk for "Can we get the hell out of here?"

Bellarosa said, "Nah, if I wanted you to leave, I woulda said so. So what's your rush?"

I informed everyone, "My haemorrhoids are bothering me." Mrs Bellarosa, who seemed to have gotten over her ghost jitters, said sympathetically, "Oh, that can drive you nuts. I had that with all my pregnancies."

"So did Susan." I stood, avoiding Susan's icy glare.

Everyone else stood, and we followed the Bellarosas out of the ballroom. I did a little soft-shoe routine to try to make Susan smile. She finally cracked a smile, then punched me in the arm.

We crossed the palm court, and I did a bird call, a yellow finch, which I'm good at, and all the caged birds began chirping and squawking. Bellarosa glanced back at me over his shoulder as he walked. "That's pretty good."

"Thank you." I felt another punch in the arm.

We stood at the front door, all ready to do the good-night routine, Susan said, "I would like to give you both a housewarming gift."

I hoped she had opted for the cake, but no, she said, "I paint Gold Coast houses, and – " "She gets nine hundred a room," I interjected, "but she'll do any room in the house for free."

Susan continued, "I do oil paintings of the ruins. I have photos of this palm court when it was in ruins." She explained and ended by saying, "I have the slides, but I need to do some work here for three-dimensional perspective, proportion, and different lighting."

Poor Mrs Bellarosa seemed confused. "You want to paint it like it was when I first saw it? It was a wreck."

"A ruin," Susan corrected. Susan is very professional when she's in her artiste mode.

Frank chimed in. "Sure, I get it. Like those pictures we saw in the museum in Rome, Anna. All these Roman ruins with plants growing out of them, and sheeps and people with mandolins. Sure. You do that?"

"Yes." Susan looked at Anna Bellarosa. "It will be beautiful. Really." Anna Bellarosa looked at her husband. Frank said, "Sounds great. But I got to pay you for it."

"No, it's my gift to you both."

"Okay. Start whenever you want. Door's open to you." It seemed to me that Frank had some prior knowledge of this, and I would not have put it past Susan to have done an end run around me and Anna Bellarosa. Susan gets what Susan wants.

I moved to the door. "Well, it's been a very enjoyable and interesting evening," I said, going into my standard good-bye.

"Yeah." Frank agreed.

Susan did her line. "Anna, you must give me your recipe for cannoli cream."

I felt my stomach heave again.

Mrs Bellarosa replied, "I got no recipe. I just make it." "How wonderful," Susan said, then finished her speaking part. "I don't know when I've had so much fun. We must do this again. Come to us next time." Actually, Susan sounded sincere.

Anna smiled. "Okay. How about tomorrow?"

"I'll call you," Susan said.

Frank opened the door. "Take it easy going home. Watch out for the fuzz." He laughed.

I shook hands with my host and kissed Anna on the cheek. Anna and Susan kissed, then Frank and Susan kissed. Everyone was taken care of, so I turned toward the door, then stopped, took a calling card from my wallet, and left it on a plant table.

Susan and I walked to her car. Susan wanted to drive, and she got behind the wheel. She swung the car around in the forecourt, and we waved to the Bellarosas, who were still at the door. Susan headed down the drive. We usually don't say much to each other after a social evening, sometimes because we're tired, sometimes because one or the other of us is royally ticked off about something, like flirting, close dancing, sarcastic remarks, and so on and so forth.

As we approached the gates, they swung open, and Anthony stepped out of the gatehouse. He waved as we went by. Susan waved back. She turned right, onto Grace Lane. Finally, she spoke, "I had a nice evening. Did you?" "Yes."

She looked at me. "Was that a yes?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then you're glad you went?"

"Yes."

She turned into the open gates of Stanhope Hall and stopped the car. Unlike the Bellarosas, we don't have electric gates, so I got out, closed the gates, and locked them. The gatehouse was dark, of course, as the Allards turn in early. It is at this point that I sometimes announce my preference to walk the rest of the way home. This is usually followed by spinning wheels and flying gravel. George sweeps and rakes it out in the morning.

"Are you coming?" Susan called out from the car. "Or not?" Nations sometimes go to war. Married couples live in a state of perpetual war, broken occasionally by an armed truce. Don't be cynical, Sutter. "Coming, dear." I got back into the car, and Susan drove slowly up the unlit drive. She said, "You didn't have to leave your calling card."

"Why not?"

"Well… anyway, what were you and Frank talking about all that time?"

"Murder."

"Anna is rather nice. A bit… basic, perhaps, but nice."

"Yes."

"Frank can be charming," Susan said. "He's not as rough as he looks or talks."

Wanna bet?

"I think Anna liked you, John. She was staring at you most of the evening."

"Really?"

"Do you think she's attractive?"

"She has Rubenesque tits. Why don't you paint her naked, dancing around the palm court?"

"I don't paint naked women." She stopped the car in front of our house, we got out, I unlocked the door, and we went inside. We both headed into the kitchen, and I poured club soda for us. Susan asked, "Did you discuss any business?" "Murder."

"Very funny." She asked, "Did you and Anna figure out where you'd seen each other before?"

"Yes. Locust Valley. The pharmacy. Haemorrhoid remedies."

"You're quick, John."

"Thank you."

"Why were you wearing your reading glasses? Quick now."

"So Frank wouldn't hit me."

"Excellent. You're crazy, you know."

"Look who's talking."

Susan finished her club soda and headed for the door. "I'm exhausted. Are you coming up?"

"In a minute."

"Good night." She hesitated, then turned to me. "I love you." "Thank you." I sat at the table, watched the bubbles in my club soda, and listened to the regulator clock. "Murder," I said to myself. But he didn't commit that murder. I believed him. He has committed a dozen felonies, probably including murder. But not that murder.

As I've said, I'd had a premonition that Frank Bellarosa and I would one day go beyond vegetable chatter. But that was as far as my prophecy went. From here on – from the moment I sat there and had that last drink with him instead of leaving – I was on my own.

Looking back on that evening, I recalled that if Susan had told me she had a terrible evening and wanted to avoid the Bellarosas, then I would have done just that. But, incredibly, Lady Stanhope was going to do a painting of Alhambra that would put her into almost daily contact with don and donna Bellarosa. I suppose I should have foreseen the dangers inherent in this situation, and perhaps I did, but instead of demanding of Susan that she withdraw her offer to do a painting, I said nothing. Obviously, we were both responding to Bellarosa's unwanted attention for our own reasons; me, because I saw a challenge and because I wanted to show Susan that her husband was not just a dull attorney and was perhaps a little sinister himself, and Susan because… well, I didn't know why then, but I found out later.

So, it was a juxtaposition of events – the hayloft incident, the tennis court incident, and the Sutters' post-winter ennui – that had combined with Frank Bellarosa's proximity and his own problems to draw us together. These things happen, as unlikely as it seems, and if ever there was a case to be made for sticking with your own kind it was it.

But that's all hindsight. That evening my mind was cloudy, and my good judgement was infuenced by my need to proove something. It goes to show you, you shouldn't stay out too late during the week.