I approached the rear of the big house, noticing that the security lights were still on. I crossed the big patio and pulled the bell chain. I saw Vinnie through the glass doors politely holstering his gun as he recognized me. “Come on in, Counselor. The boss is in the kitchen.”
I entered the house at the rear of the palm court, and as I made my way across the large space, I noticed Lenny, the driver, sitting in a wicker chair near one of the pillars, drinking coffee. He, like Vinnie, was wearing a good suit in expectation of visitors and for the possible trip into Manhattan. Lenny stood as I approached and mumbled a greeting, which I made him repeat more distinctly. This was fun.
I made my way alone through the dark house, through the dining room, morning room, butler’s pantry, and finally into the cavernous kitchen, which smelled of fresh coffee.
The kitchen had been completely redone, of course, and the don had told me exactly how much it cost to import the half mile or so of Italian cabinetry, the half acre of Italian floor tile, and the marble countertops. The appliances, sensibly, were American.
The don was sitting at the head of an oblong kitchen table, reading a newspaper. He was dressed in a blue silk pinstripe suit, a light blue shirt, which is better than white for television, and a burgundy tie with matching pocket handkerchief. The newspapers had dubbed him the Dandy Don and I could see why.
Bellarosa glanced up at me. “Sit, sit.’’ He motioned to a chair and I sat to his right near the head of the table. He poured me coffee while still reading his paper.
I sipped on the black coffee. I suspected that one would never find a round table in the house of a traditional Italian, because a round table is where equals sat. An oblong table has a head where the patriarch sat. So, there I was, sitting at his right hand, and I wondered if that was significant or if I was getting into this thing too much.
He glanced up from the newspaper. “So, Counselor, is this the morning?”
“I hope so. I don’t like getting up this early.”
He laughed. “Yeah?
You
don’t like it. You’re not the one going to jail.”
I’m not the one who’s broken the law for thirty years.
He put down the newspaper. “I say this is it. The grand jury sat for three weeks. That’s long enough for murder. The RICO shit can take a year, nosing around your business, trying to find what you own and where it came from. Money is complicated. Murder is simple.”
“That’s true.”
“Hey, fifty bucks says that this is the morning.”
“You’re on.”
“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. You think they’re not going to indict me. You think you squared it with Mancuso.”
“I never said that. I said I told him what you asked me to tell him—about Ferragamo. I know Mancuso is the type of man who would pass that on to Ferragamo and maybe even to his own superiors. I don’t know what will come of that.”
“I’ll tell you what’s going to come of it. Nothing. Because that scumbag Ferragamo is not going to back off after making his pitch to a grand jury. That would make him look like a real
gavone.
But I’m glad you talked to Mancuso. Now Ferragamo knows that Bellarosa knows.’’ Bellarosa went on, “But maybe you shouldn’t’ve told him you were my attorney.”
“How could I speak to him on your behalf without telling him I was representing you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. But maybe if you didn’t say anything, he might’ve opened up to you.”
“That’s unethical and illegal, Frank. Do you want a crooked lawyer or a Boy Scout?”
He smiled. “Okay. We’ll play you straight.”
“I’ll play myself straight.”
“Whatever.”
We drank coffee awhile and the don shared his newspaper with me. It was the
Daily News
, that morning’s city edition, which someone must have delivered to him hot off the printing press in Brooklyn. I flipped through the lead stories, but there was no early warning, no statement from Ferragamo about an imminent arrest. “Nothing about you in here,’’ I said.
“Yeah. The scumbag’s not that stupid. I got people in the newspapers and he knows it. He’s got to wait for the bulldog edition, about midnight. We’ll get that tonight. This prick loves the newspapers, but he loves TV more. You want something to eat?”
“No, thanks.”
“You sure? I’ll call Filomena. Come on. Get something to eat. It’s gonna be a long morning. Eat.”
“I am really not hungry. Really.’’ You know how these people are about eating, and they actually get annoyed when you refuse food, and they’re happy when you eat. Why it matters to them is beyond me.
Bellarosa motioned to a thick folder on the table. “That’s the stuff.”
“Right.’’ I put the folder containing the deeds and such in my briefcase.
Bellarosa produced a large shopping bag from under the table. In the bag was one hundred stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills, a hundred bills in each stack, for a total of one million dollars. It looked good like that.
He said to me, “Don’t get tempted on the way to court, Counselor.”
“Money doesn’t tempt me.”
“Yeah? That’s what you say. Watch, I’ll get to court and find out you cold-cocked Lenny and stole the money. And I’ll be in jail and I get this postcard from you in Rio, and it says, ‘Fuck you, Frank.’” He laughed.
“You can trust me. I’m a lawyer.”
That made him laugh even harder for some reason. Anyway, I have this large briefcase, almost a suitcase, that lawyers use when they have to drag forty pounds of paper into court, plus lunch. So I transferred the paper money into the briefcase along with the four million in paper assets. Paper, paper, paper.
Bellarosa said, “You looked at those deeds and everything the other day, right?”
“Yes.”
“So you see, I’m a legitimate businessman.”
“Please, Frank. It’s a little early in the morning for bullshit.”
“Yeah?’’ He laughed. “Yeah, you see, I got Stanhope Hall in that briefcase now. I got a motel in Florida, I got one in Vegas, and I got land in Atlantic City. Land. That’s the only thing that counts in this world. They don’t make no more land, Counselor.”
“No, they don’t, except in Holland where—”
“There was a time when they couldn’t take land away from you unless they fought you for it. Now, they just do some paperwork.”
“That’s true.”
“They’re gonna take my fucking land.”
“No, it’s just going to be used as collateral. You’ll get it back.”
“No, Counselor, when they see that shit in your briefcase, they’re gonna come after it. Ferragamo is going to start a RICO thing next. They’re gonna freeze everything I got, and one day they’re gonna own it all. And that stuff you got in there makes their job easier. The murder bullshit smoked out a lot of my assets.”
“You’re probably right.”
“But fuck them. Fuck all governments. All they want is to grab your property. Fuck them. There’s more where that came from.”
I guess so, if Mancuso was correct. A lot more.
“Hey, did I tell you I made an offer for Fox Point? Nine mill. I talked to that lawyer who you told me handles things here for the people who own the place.’’ He asked me, “You want to handle that for me?”
I shrugged. “Why not?”
“Good. I’ll give you a point. That’s ninety large.”
“Let’s see if they accept nine. Don’t forget the Iranians.”
“Fuck them. They’re not owners. They’re buyers. I only deal with owners. I showed this lawyer that my best offer was his client’s best offer. So he’s going to make his clients understand that. His clients are not going to know about any more Iranian offers.
Capisce?
”
“I surely do.”
“And now we got a place to swim. I’m gonna let everyone on Grace Lane keep using the beach. And nobody has to worry about a bunch of sand niggers running around wrapped in sheets.
Capisce?
”
“Do you think you could avoid using that word?”
“‘Capisce?’”
“No, the other word.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Forget it.”
He shrugged. “Anyway, you can count on ninety large in a few months. Glad you came?”
“So far.’’ I said to him, “You’re obviously not too concerned about facing murder charges, racketeering charges down the line, or possible assassination.”
“Ah, it’s all bullshit.”
“It’s not, Frank.”
“Whaddaya gonna do? You gonna curl up and die? You see a deal, you make a deal. One thing’s got nothing to do with the other.”
“Well, but it does.”
“Bullshit.”
“Just thought I’d mention it.’’ I poured myself more coffee and watched the sun burning through the mist outside the kitchen window.
You see a deal. You make a deal.
I recalled a story I’d had to read once in history class, up at St. Paul’s. In the story, two noble Romans were standing on the ramparts of their city, negotiating the price of a piece of land in the distance. The seller extolled the virtues of his land, its fertility, its orchards, and its proximity to the city. The potential buyer did his best to find some faults with the land to get the price down. Finally, they struck a deal. What neither man mentioned during or after the negotiations was that an invading army was camped on the land in question, preparing for an assault on Rome. The moral of this apocryphal story, for Roman schoolboys, and I suppose for modern preppies at St. Paul’s who were supposed to be sons of the American ruling class, was this: Noble Romans (or noble preppie twits) must show supreme confidence and courage even in the face of death and destruction; one went about one’s business without fear and with an abiding belief in the future. Or, as my ancestors would say, “Stiff upper lip.’’ I said to Bellarosa, “I didn’t know you’d closed on Stanhope Hall.”
“Yeah. Last week. Where were you? You don’t do legal work for your father-in-law? What kind of son-in-law are you?”
“I thought it would be a conflict of interest if I represented him for that transaction, and you for this matter.”
“Yeah? You’re always thinkin’ about that kind of stuff.’’ He leaned toward me. “Hey, can I tell you something?”
“Sure.”
“Your father-in-law is a little hard to take.”
I had this utterly irrational mental flash: I could get Bellarosa to have William rubbed out. A contract. A closing.
This is from your son-in-law, you son of a bitch. BANG! BANG! BANG!
“Hey, you listening? I said how do you get along with that guy?”
“He lives in South Carolina.”
“Yeah. Good thing. Hey, you want to see the painting?”
“I’ll wait until it’s hung.”
“Yeah. We’re gonna get some people here. Susan’s gonna be the guest of honor.”
“Good.”
“How’s she doin’? Don’t see her much anymore.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. She around today? To keep Anna company?”
“I think so. We don’t exchange daybooks.”
“Yeah? You got a modern wife there. You like that?”
“How’s Anna?”
“She’s getting used to living here. She has all her crazy relatives drive out, and she shows off now. Donna Anna.’’ He added nonchalantly, “She got over that ghost thing.’’ He smiled at me unpleasantly. “You shouldn’t have told her that crazy story.”
I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry if it upset her.”
“Yeah? That was a hell of a story. The kids fucking.
Madonn
’. I told a lot of people that story. But I don’t know if I got it right. Then I told it to my guy, Jack Weinstein. He’s a smart guy like you. He says it was a book. That you got the story out of a book. It’s not a story about Alhambra. Why’d you do that?”
“To amuse your wife.”
“She wasn’t amused.”
“Well, then to amuse myself.”
“Yeah?’’ He didn’t look too pleased with me. “Somethin’ else,’’ he said. “Anna thinks you were the guy who growled at her. Was that you?”
“Yes.”
“Why’d you do that?”
I pictured myself at the bottom of the reflecting pool wearing concrete slippers unless I had a better answer than “To amuse myself.’’ I said, “Look, Frank, that was months ago. Forget it.”
“I don’t forget nothin’.”
True. “Well, then accept my apology.”
“Okay. That I’ll do.’’ He added, “And that’s more than I usually do.’’ He stared at me, then tapped his forehead. “
Tu sei matto. Capisce?
”
It helps when they use their hands. I replied,
“Capisco.”
“You people are all crazy.”
We both went back to our newspaper, but after a few minutes of silence, he asked me, “How much am I paying you?”