I walked Carolyn back to Jonathan Edwards, we kissed good-bye, and I got in the van, opting for the two-hour drive back to Long Island rather than prolonging the nostalgia trip, which could easily have turned from pleasant to maudlin.
Regarding my legal career, my association with Perkins, Perkins, Sutter and Reynolds seemed to be rather vague, perhaps even tentative. I put myself on half salary, which is, I think, fair since I spend half the week in the Locust Valley office, albeit with my door closed and the phone turned off. But I feel a sense of responsibility to my old clients, and I’m trying to put their affairs in some semblance of order and to parcel them out to other attorneys in the firm. As for my Wall Street business, that’s completely gone. My Wall Street clients would fire an attorney after two missed phone calls, so my sense of loyalty and responsibility toward the yellow-tie guys is not deep and not reciprocal. But I have to settle the question of my status with the firm and I suppose if I ever show up at the Wall Street office, I could discuss this with the senior partners.
As for the
United States
v.
Frank Bellarosa
, that seemed to be moving rather more slowly than Mr. Ferragamo promised. Not only did we not have a trial date, but I hadn’t had an opportunity to examine any of the five witnesses against my client. Alphonse informed me one day by phone, “We have them all in hiding under the witness protection program. They’re very frightened about testifying in open court against a Mafia chief.”
“There is no Mafia.”
Ha, ha, said Alphonse, and he added, “They didn’t mind the grand jury, but now they’re getting cold feet.”
“Four Colombian drug goons and a gun moll have cold feet?”
“Why not? So for that reason, Mr. Sutter, I’ve asked for a delay in the trial date. I’ll keep you informed.’’ He added, “What’s your rush? This should make you happy. Maybe the witnesses will refuse to testify.”
“Maybe they were lying from the beginning,’’ I pointed out.
“Why would they do that?”
He and I both knew why, but I wasn’t allowed to bug him. “Maybe,’’ I said, “it was a case of mistaken identity. All Italians look alike, don’t they?”
“Actually, they don’t, Mr. Sutter. I don’t look anything like Frank Bellarosa, for instance. By the way, regarding mistaken identity, I discovered that you were at your country club at about one
P
.
M
. on January fourteenth, for lunch with your wife.”
“So what? I said I saw Bellarosa at about nine
A
.
M
., then again at about noon.”
“And you went home, took care of the horse, presumably showered, changed into a suit, and were at your club at one
P
.
M
.”
“They don’t call me superman for nothing.”
“Hmmm,’’ said Alphonse. I mean, this guy thought he was Inspector Porfiry Petrovich, hounding poor Raskolnikov into a confession, but I found him a bore.
Anyway, I was more convinced than ever that Alphonse was stalling and would continue to stall until somebody out on the street solved his problem. He didn’t have long to wait.
Regarding my relationships with friends and family, that was also on hold. Part of the reason for this was that I was keeping out of touch, which is no easy thing to do these days. Try it. But I disconnected my home fax, changed my phone number to an unlisted one, and had all my mail forwarded to a P.O. box in the Locust Valley Post Office, which I never visited. Also, Ethel as gatekeeper proved to be a lot more nasty than George ever was, and nobody gets past the gate while Ethel is in the gatehouse. When she’s not around, the gate is locked.
Jenny Alvarez. Well, that relationship, too, is on hold, which is best for all concerned, as men and women say to each other when they get involved, panic, run, brood, call, run, and so on. But really, there was no use complicating the situation any more than it was. Actually, I didn’t even know if Jenny Alvarez cared anymore, and I would have been relieved to hear that she didn’t, and pretty annoyed and hurt, too. But I did watch her nearly every night on the news at eleven, and Susan asked me once if I had suddenly become a news junkie. Spouses who are carrying on often display a change in behavior, as we know, but watching the news is not usually a tip-off. Goes to show you.
But watch I did, and I hoped that one night Jenny Alvarez would just break down on the air and cry out, “John! John! I miss you!’’ or at least, I thought, perhaps when she was out in the field reporting, and she was turning it back to the anchorman, Jeff what’s-his-name, she would say, “Back to you, John.’’ But that never happened, at least not on the nights I was watching.
Anyway, I had moved into one of the guesthouse’s guest rooms, the smallest one, badly and barely furnished, where we always put people whom we don’t want around for more than twenty-four hours. Susan had said to me, “I understand your reasons for not wanting us to sleep in the same bed, of course. But I’m glad you decided not to move out. I very much want you to stay.”
“Then I will. How much is it a night?”
“Twenty dollars would be fair for that room, but I can let you have a better room for only five dollars more.”
“I’ll stay in the smaller room.”
Well, we’re still making jokes, and that’s a hopeful sign. Right? It’s when it becomes really grim that it becomes insufferable. So we lived in that sort of cool limbo that husbands and wives have invented and perfected for the purpose of coexisting until the moving van arrives or until they fall into each other’s arms and swear undying love forever, which in connubial terms means about thirty days.
In truth, I was angry, hurt, and vindictive every morning, but by noon I was philosophical, resigned, and willing to let fate take its course. By late evening, however, I was lonely and ready to forgive and forget, unconditionally. But then the next day, the cycle would start over again. Unfortunately, Susan called from Hilton Head about eight
A
.
M
. one morning when I was in cycle one, and I said a few things that I regretted by evening. Things like, “How’s William Peckerhead of Hilton Head?”
“Settle down, John.”
Or, “Did you want to speak to Zanzibar?”
“Go have your coffee and call me back.”
Well, I did that night, but she wasn’t in. Anyway, in the week or so since she’s been back, I’ve been civilized.
So, there we were in Giulio’s, having dinner, which was a little bizarre considering the circumstances. But my client had really insisted on this little get-together, though for what reason, I couldn’t guess except that he really enjoyed showing off in Little Italy where people knew who he was. Of course, that has a negative side as well, especially if you’re a marked man. I mean, if there really was a contract out on this guy, any goombah in that restaurant could have gone out to make a phone call to some other goombah, and eventually the wrong goombahs would get the word, and for the price of a twenty-five-cent call, Frank the Bishop Bellarosa’s whereabouts would be fixed. But I don’t think that’s what actually happened on the night of September seventeenth. I’m pretty sure it was Lenny who fingered his boss, as they say.
But, anyway, I acquiesced to this dinner because, quite frankly, to say no to it would have been un-Machiavellian; i.e., I was still royally pissed off at old Frank and Mrs. Sutter no matter how much I tried to cool down, but to show it would put them on their guard. What? Revenge? Vendetta? Had I lied to Frank and to myself? Was I still looking to get even? You bet. Though I had no idea what, if anything, I was going to do to or about these two, I wanted to keep their guards down and my options open.
So we sipped coffee and ate pastry. The normal security was in effect with Vinnie and Lenny at their favorite table near the door, while we were at Frank’s favorite table in the rear corner. Frank sat in his very favorite chair, facing the front with his back to the wall.
Susan at one point in the evening had said to Frank, “That’s very good of you to buy your employees dinner. Most men just send their car and driver away until they’re ready to leave.”
This was either the most facetious or the most naive statement I’d heard all year, and I wasn’t sure which. Susan sometimes plays the naïf as I mentioned, but the act was wearing a little thin.
I regarded Anna Bellarosa a moment. I hadn’t spoken to her since that morning she tackled me at Alhambra. She was undoubtedly grateful to me for getting her husband sprung, but I was fairly certain that a traditional Italian woman did not telephone, write, or call on a man unless he was her father or brother. How suppressed these women were, I thought, how utterly dependent they were on their husbands for everything including their opinions and maybe even their feelings. I mean, the woman didn’t even have a driver’s license. I wondered if Anna had an unmarried sister for me. Or maybe I’d ask the don for Filomena’s hand.
Anyway, though we seemed to be having a good time during dinner, we weren’t. For one thing, Frank was going out of his way to be cool to Susan, and going out of his way to praise me as the greatest lawyer in New York. Obviously the man was trying to demonstrate that there was absolutely nothing going on between him and my wife, and at the same time trying to jolly us back together. Bellarosa was a smart guy in a lot of ways, but this wasn’t one of them.
Susan seemed uncomfortable with Bellarosa’s obvious bad acting. She also seemed generally nervous, as you might expect.
There were times when the conversation was strained, as I suggested, and Frank just wasn’t his scintillating self as he realized that the evening wasn’t going as he’d planned. Anna, I think, noticed this, too, but I wondered if she was smart enough to know why. I had half a mind to announce to her, “Your husband is fucking my wife.’’ But if she didn’t believe that her husband was a Mafia boss, why would she believe that he was an adulterer? And if she did, what was she going to do about it?
Anyway, Frank paid the check with cash, and Vinnie and Lenny were already out the door. Frank said, “You all stay here and finish your coffee. I’m gonna go see about the car.”
Anna stared down at the table and nodded. She knew the drill. Susan looked antsy to get moving, but like Anna she listened to Big Frank. I, on the other hand, didn’t feel like sitting with the women while Mr. Macho went out and secured the beachhead. So stupid John stood and said, “I’ll go with you.”
And I did. Bellarosa and I went to the door, and I saw Vinnie standing on the sidewalk, checking out the block. Our car pulled up, a black stretch Cadillac that Frank had ordered from his limousine company for the occasion. Lenny was at the wheel. Vinnie signaled to us, and we went through the door onto the sidewalk.
It was a very pleasant evening with a touch of autumn in the air. There were people strolling on the street as there always are in Little Italy, but none of them looked suspicious. And as always, no one knew where Bellarosa would be that night except Frank himself and his wife. Not even Susan or I knew, though I had guessed, of course, that we were going to Giulio’s. Vinnie and Lenny may have guessed also, though really, we could have been going to dinner at any one of about three thousand restaurants in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, or Long Island. It was only after we had gotten to Giulio’s that Lenny and Vinnie knew for sure, and Vinnie was never out of our sight. Only Lenny was when he parked the car in a garage down the street. As I said, anyone inside of Giulio’s could have made the phone call, but I’m pretty sure it was Lenny the Cretin who did.
There were two of them, both wearing black trench coats and gloves. Where they came from exactly, I’m not sure, but they were standing on the other side of the limousine, and I had the impression they had been crouched behind it on the driver’s side and had stood as Vinnie pulled on the rear passenger-side door handle, which caused the interior lights of the limo to go on. This may have been the signal, inadvertently given by Vinnie, for the two men to stand, because I seem to recall a connection between the two. Vinnie was still tugging on the door handle, which was apparently locked, and he banged on the window with his palm. “Hey, Lenny! Unlock the fucking door. Whaddaya, stupid?’’ It was at that moment that Vinnie looked up and saw the two men across the roof of the car, and I heard him say, “Oh, Mother of God . . .”
I should tell you that at one point in the evening, when the two women went off to powder their noses (as Anna referred to urinating), I had said to Bellarosa, “Frank, this is not a good place to be at night.”
“You don’t like the music?”
“Knock it off. You know what I mean.”
His reply had been, “Fuck it.”
Well, I tried. I really did, because I couldn’t stand by and say nothing. But Bellarosa’s ego wouldn’t allow him to make many changes in his lifestyle, and there was also the matter of Mr. Peacock wanting to impress Mrs. Sutter. Get it?
Well, back to the really bad stuff. I stared at these two guys and found myself looking down the muzzles of two double-barreled shotguns not ten feet away. Both men steadied their aim on the roof of the limo, though with shotguns at ten feet you don’t have to do a lot of aiming. This all happened very quickly, of course, though neither man seemed rushed or nervous, just sort of matter-of-fact.