I didn’t think William would find much fault with a man who was about to hand him twenty million dollars. William, of course, was ecstatic in his own shitty little way. What annoyed me, I think, was not his attitude toward me, or the fact that he had just made a fortune, but the fact that he shed not one tear for the passing of Stanhope Hall. Even I, who had come to hate the place, felt some nostalgia for it, and it hadn’t been in
my
family for generations.
William was still talking to his daughter. “Susan, I’m glad you got the stable moved—”
“I paid for half of the moving of the stable.”
William glanced at me, then turned back to his daughter and continued, “Bellarosa told me he wants to move the love temple to his property. He says this fellow of his, Dominic, who did your stable—”
“You are a schmuck.”
He looked at me in a funny sort of way. “Excuse me?”
“You are an unprincipled asshole, an utterly cynical bastard, a monumental prick, and a conniving fuck.”
Charlotte made a little choking sound. Susan continued eating her raspberries, with no apparent problem. William tried to say something, but only succeeded in going like this: “You . . . you . . . you . . . you . . .”
I stood and poked William in the chest. “
You
, tightwad, pay for dinner.’’ I touched Susan’s arm. “
You
come with me.”
She stood without a word and followed me out of the restaurant.
In the car on the way home, she said, “Can the love temple actually be moved?”
“Yes, it’s post and lintel construction. Sort of like building blocks. It has to be done carefully, but it’s possible, and actually easier than the stable.”
“Interesting. I think I’d like to take some courses in building and architecture at Post. That would help me understand more fully what I paint, how it was built, the very soul of the structure, you know, the way Renaissance painters studied skeletons and muscle to paint those fantastic nudes. Perhaps that’s all I’m lacking by way of becoming a great painter. What do you think?”
“You may be right.”
We pulled into the gates at Stanhope Hall. The gatehouse was dark, as Ethel was staying with her daughter awhile. Susan said, “I’m going to miss George very much.”
“Me, too.’’ I didn’t bother to get out of the car and close the gates, since I intended to pass through them again in about five minutes. Susan, of course, noticed this and remained silent all the way to our house. I brought the Jag to the front door, and Susan looked at me.
A few seconds passed, then I said, “I’m not coming inside. I’ll be back for my things tomorrow.”
“Where are you going?”
“That is really not your concern.”
She began to get out of the car, then turned back and said, “Please don’t leave me tonight.’’ She added, “But if you do, take your own car.’’ She put out her hand and smiled. “Keys, please.”
I shut off the Jag and gave her the keys. Susan unlocked the front door and we both went inside—I to the kitchen to get my own keys, she upstairs to go to bed. As I headed for the front door again, the phone rang and she answered it upstairs. I heard her say, “Yes, Dad, I’m fine.”
I opened the door to leave, then heard her saying, “Well, but that must be what he thinks of you or he wouldn’t have said it. John is very precise in his choice of words.”
Though I don’t like eavesdropping, I paused at the front door and heard her go on, “No, he will not apologize, and I won’t apologize for him.’’ Silence, then, “I’m sorry Mother is upset. Actually, I think John would have said more if she
weren’t
there.’’ Silence again, then, “All right, Dad, I’ll speak to you tomorrow. Yes, Dad. . . .”
I called up the stairs, “Tell the son of a bitch to find another free lawyer.”
I heard Susan say, “Hold on, Dad. John just said, and I quote, ‘Tell the son of a bitch to find another free lawyer.’ Yes . . .’’ She called down to me, “Father says you’re an ambulance chaser, an embarrassment to your father, and an incompetent.”
“Tell him he’s not half the man
his
father was, and the best part of him ran down Augustus’s leg.”
Susan said, “Dad, John says he disagrees with that. Good night.’’ I heard her hang up. She called down to me, “Good night, John.”
I headed up the stairs. “I need my overnight bag.”
I went into our bedroom to get my bag out of the closet, and Susan, who must have been undressing as she spoke on the phone, was lying on top of the sheets, her legs crossed and reading a magazine, stark naked.
Well, I mean, there’s something about a naked woman, you know, and I was really feeling my oats and all, having just told William Stanhope what I thought of him, and there was his bitchy daughter, lying there stark naked. In some instinctive sort of way, I knew I had to ravish her to complete my victory. So I did. She seemed to enjoy it.
Now, a real primitive would have left afterward, to show his contempt for her and her whole clan. But I was pretty tired, and it was late, so I watched some TV and fell asleep.
Part V
The public be damned.
—William Henry Vanderbilt
Reply to a newspaper reporter, 1882
The Plaza is my favorite hotel in New York, and I was glad that Frank and I shared the same taste in something, since I was apparently going to be there awhile.
We checked into a large three-bedroom suite overlooking Central Park. The staff seemed to appreciate who we were—or who Bellarosa was—but they were not as obvious about it as the
paesanos
at Giulio’s, and no one seemed particularly nervous.
Frank Bellarosa, Vinnie Adamo, Lenny Patrelli, and John Whitman Sutter sat in the spacious living room of the suite. Room service delivered coffee and sambuca, and Pellegrino water for me (which I discovered is an antidote for Italian overindulgence). By now it was twenty minutes to five, and I assumed we all wanted to catch the five-o’clock news on television. I said to Frank, “Do you want to call your wife before five?”
“Oh, yeah.’’ He picked up the telephone on the end table and dialed. “Anna? Oh . . .’’ He chuckled. “How you doin’ there? Didn’t recognize your voice. Yeah. I’m okay. I’m in the Plaza.”
He listened for a few seconds, then said, “Yeah. Out on bail. No big deal. Your husband did a terrific job.’’ He winked at me, then listened a bit more and said, “Yeah, well, we went for a little lunch, saw some people. First chance I had to call. . . . No, don’t wake her. Let her sleep. I’ll call later.’’ He listened again, then said, “Yeah. He’s here with me.’’ He nodded his head while my wife spoke to him, then said to her, “You want to talk to him?’’ Bellarosa glanced at me, then said into the phone, “Okay. Maybe he’ll talk to you later. Listen, we got to stay here a few days. . . . Yeah. Pack some stuff for him, and tell Anna I want my blue suit and gray suit, the ones I had made in Rome. . . . Yeah. And shirts, ties, underwear, and stuff. Give everything to Anthony and let him send somebody here with it. Tonight. Okay?. . . . Turn the news on. See what they got to say, but don’t believe a word of it. . . . Yeah.’’ He laughed, then listened. “Yeah. . . . Okay. . . . Okay. . . . See you later.’’ He hung up, then almost as an afterthought, he said to me, “Your wife sends her love.”
To whom?
There was a knock on the door, and Vinnie jumped up and disappeared into the foyer. Lenny drew his pistol and held it in his lap. Presently, a room service waiter appeared wheeling a table on which was a bottle of champagne, a cheese board, and a bowl of fruit. The waiter said, “Compliments of the manager, sir.”
Bellarosa motioned to Vinnie, who tipped the waiter, who bowed and backed out. Bellarosa said to me, “You want some champagne?”
“No.”
“You wanna call your wife back and tell her what you need?”
“No.”
“I’ll dial it for you. Here . . .’’ He picked up the telephone. “You go in your room for privacy. Here, I’ll get her.”
“Later, Frank. Hang up.”
He shrugged and hung up the phone.
Vinnie turned on the television to the five-o’clock news. I hadn’t expected a lead story, but there was the anchorman, Jeff Jones, saying, “Our top story, Frank Bellarosa, reputed head of the largest of New York’s five crime families, was arrested at his palatial Long Island mansion early this morning by the FBI. Bellarosa was charged in a sealed sixteen-count federal indictment in the murder of Juan Carranza, an alleged Colombian drug lord who was killed in a mob-style rubout on the Garden State Parkway on January fourteenth of this year.”
Jeff Jones went on, reading the news off the teleprompter as if it were all news to him. Where do they get these guys? Jones said, “And in a startling development, Judge Sarah Rosen released Bellarosa on five million dollars’ bail after the reputed gang leader’s attorney, John Sutter, offered himself as an alibi witness for his client.”
Jones babbled on a bit about this. I wondered if Susan recalled the morning of January fourteenth. It didn’t matter if she did or not, since I knew she would cover me so I could cover Frank Bellarosa. Oh, what tangled webs we weave, and so forth. Mr. Salem taught me that in sixth grade.
Jeff Jones was saying now, “We have Barry Freeman live at Frank Bellarosa’s Long Island estate. Barry?”
The scene flashed to Alhambra’s gates, and Barry Freeman said, “This is the home of Frank Bellarosa. Many of the estates here on Long Island’s Gold Coast have names, and this house, sitting on two hundred acres of trees, meadows, and gardens, is called Alhambra. And here at the main gates of the estate is the guard booth—there behind me—which is actually a gatehouse in which live two, maybe more of Bellarosa’s bodyguards.”
The camera panned in on the gatehouse and Freeman said, “We’ve pushed the buzzer outside there and we’ve hollered and shaken the gates, but no one wants to talk to us.”
The camera’s telescopic lens moved in, up the long driveway, and the screen was filled with a fuzzy picture of the main house. Freeman said, “In this mansion lives Frank the Bishop Bellarosa and his wife, Anna.”
I heard Frank’s voice say, “What the fuck’s this got to do with anything?”
Freeman went on for a while, describing the lifestyle of the rich and infamous resident of Alhambra. Freeman said, “Bellarosa is known to his friends and to the media as Dandy Don.”
Bellarosa said, “Nobody better call me that to my face.”
Vinnie and Lenny chuckled. Clearly they were excited about their boss’s television fame.
The scene now flashed back to Freeman, who said, “We’ve asked a few residents on this private road about the man who is their neighbor, but no one has any comment.’’ He continued, “We don’t think the don has returned home from Manhattan yet, so we’re waiting here at his gate to see if we can speak to him when he does.”
Bellarosa commented, “You got a long wait, asshole.”
Barry Freeman said, “Back to you, Jeff.”
The anchor, Jeff Jones, said, “Thanks, Barry, and we’ll get right back to you if Frank Bellarosa shows up. Meanwhile, this was the scene this morning at the Federal Courthouse in lower Manhattan. Jenny Alvarez reports.”
The screen showed the videotape of that morning: Frank Bellarosa and John Sutter making their way down the steps of the courthouse as savage reporters yelled questions at us. My blue Hermès tie looked sort of aqua on camera, and my hair was a bit messy, but my expression was a lawyerly one of quiet optimism. I noticed now that the snippy female reporter who had given me a hard time on the lower steps was on my case even then as we first left the courthouse, but she hadn’t really registered in my mind at the time. I saw, too, by her microphone, that the station I was watching was her station. I guess that was Jenny Alvarez. She was yelling at me, “Mr. Sutter? Mr. Sutter? Mr. Sutter?”
Obviously, she had been fascinated by me the moment she laid eyes on me. Actually, she wasn’t bad-looking herself.
But neither Frank nor I had said much as we descended the steps, and the scene shifted to the lower steps where we got stuck for a while. And there was Great Caesar, with the majestic classical columns of the courthouse behind him, puffing on his stogie, wisecracking and hamming it up for the cameras. I hadn’t noticed when I was there, but from the camera’s perspective, I could see a line of federal marshals on the top steps of the courthouse, including my buddy, Wyatt Earp.
Frank commented to the three of us, “I gotta lose some weight. Look how that jacket’s pulling.”
Vinnie said, “You look great, boss.”
Lenny agreed, “Terrific. Fuckin’-ay-terrific.”
It was my turn. “You could drop ten pounds.”
“Yeah? Maybe it’s just the suit.”
I turned my attention back to the television. You could hear a few questions and a few answers, but mostly it was just entertainment, a street happening, impromptu theater. Then, however, Ms. Snippy’s cameraman got a close-up of her bugging me again. “Mr. Sutter, Mr. Ferragamo has five witnesses who put Frank Bellarosa at the scene of the murder. Are you saying they’re all liars? Or are
you
the liar?”