“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 stories. 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 neighbors 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 his 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.
Madonna 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. Saint 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 Il Duce. Right?”
“No comment.”
He thrust his hands into his pockets. “You know, all Italians want to be Il 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 anybody thinking I’m part of the solution. I’m definitely part of the problem. 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 simpleminded. “Not to frame me, Counselor. 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?”