Nelson DeMille - The Gate House

Anna Bellarosa was going on about life without her sainted husband, avoiding any mention of my then-wife putting three.38 caliber slugs into dear Frank.

It happened, incidentally, on the mezzanine that overlooked the palm court atrium at Alhambra. Frank had been wearing a bathrobe, and when he went over the railing and hit the red-tiled floor below, his bathrobe flew open, and when I saw him, he wasn’t wearing anything under his black silk robe, and it occurred to me now that this image of him had somehow transferred itself to my dream in another form.

Anna was saying, “He loved you, John. He really did.”

Then why was he fucking my wife?

“He always told me how smart you were. How you helped him when they tried to make up charges against him.”

Ironically, Frank Bellarosa would have been safer in jail. “Well, I was just doing what he paid me to do.” And he still owes me fifty thousand dollars.

“No. You did it because you loved him.”

“Right.” Or did I write off the fifty thousand and chalk it up to experience? I seem to remember that the Feds had seized all his assets and his checkbooks.

Anna was rambling on. The waitress came, a very young Chinese lady, and I tapped Anthony’s glass and pointed to myself, so she pushed Anthony’s glass in front of me.

Anthony seemed not amused and snatched his glass back, then barked an order for two Dewar’s, and mumbled in Italian, “Stonata,” which I recalled means something like “bubble brain.”

Out of nowhere, Anna asked, “Why did she do it, John?”

“Uh…”

“John. Why? ”

“Uh… well…” Well, because they were having a lover’s quarrel. But I didn’t think Anna wanted to hear that. I mean, she had to know – it was in all the newspapers, as I recall, not to mention radio and television, and supermarket tabloids – so it was a silly question.

“She didn’t have to do it, John.”

“I know.” But Frank had made promises to her, then broke those promises, and Susan, not used to being scorned, shot him.

By the time I saw him, the blood around his three bullet holes had coagulated like red custard, and the wound in his groin was in his pubic hair, and his genitals were covered with clotted blood. His skull had hit the hard floor with such force that a splatter of blood radiated out from his head like a halo. His eyes were still open, so I closed them, which ticked off the CSI people and the crime scene photographers.

“John? Did she tell you why?”

“No.” Actually, she did, but she was lying.

Anna asked me, “Why is she back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you see her?”

“No.”

“She should burn in hell for what she did.”

I was getting a little annoyed at Anna’s suggestion that her sainted husband, Frank the Bishop Bellarosa, was the innocent victim of an evil, cold-blooded murderess. I mean, come on, Anna. Your husband was a notorious Mafia don, probably himself a murderer, and for sure an adulterer who screwed more women than he’d had spaghetti dinners at home. So, to use a phrase she’d understand, I should have said, “What goes around, comes around.” And furthermore, Anna, if anyone is burning in hell, it’s your husband. But instead, I said, “Okay, Anna – Tony wants to speak-”

“You shouldn’t eat there. You don’t know what they put in the food.”

“Right. Okay-”

“Next time you’re in Brooklyn, you stop by for coffee or come to Tony’s house for dinner. Next Sunday. I’ll cook.”

“Thank you. Take care.” I added, “Ciao,” and handed the cell phone back to Anthony, who will always be Tony to Momma.

He said into the phone, “Yeah, Ma. I gotta – okay, okay. Stanco’s.” He listened, then said, “I’ll tell her to call you. She’s busy with the kids, Ma. You can call her-”

Poor Tony. Harriet Sutter was starting to look good.

He finally hung up, slammed the phone on the table, downed the rest of his Scotch, and said, “What’s the difference between an Italian mother and a Rottweiler?”

“What?”

“Eventually, the Rottweiler lets go.”

I smiled.

Anthony lit a cigarette and stayed silent awhile, then asked me, “What was she saying?”

“Your father.”

He nodded, and we dropped that subject, or, I was certain, tabled it for later.

The waitress brought the two Scotches and correctly put one glass in front of each of us, then inquired, “You want order now?”

Anthony informed her, “We don’t have a friggin’ menu .” He added, “Cretina.”

Maybe I should have suggested Stanco’s.

Anthony raised his glass and I raised mine. We clinked, and he said, “Salute,” and I said, “Cheers.”

He said, apropos of Mom, “She and Megan – that’s my wife – they don’t get along.”

“That can be difficult.”

“Yeah. Difficult. Megan, you know, she’s Irish, and they have different… what do you call it…?”

“Ethnic traditions? Cultural practices?”

“Yeah. Anyway, it’s not like I married a melanzana or something.”

“Right.” That means eggplant, which one would not normally marry, but it’s also Italian slang for a black person. It was all coming back to me. Check, please.

On the subject of marital bliss in the ’burbs, and because I was curious, I asked him, “How do you like living in Alhambra Estates?”

He shrugged. “It’s okay… but I’d like to move back to the city.” He delivered a hot piece of news by saying, “There’s a million good-looking broads in New York.”

“That shouldn’t interest a married man.”

He thought that was funny. He said, “I almost got her to move into the city, but after 9/11, forget it.”

I said, “This is a good place to raise children.”

“Yeah. I got two. A boy, Frank, five years old, and a girl, Kelly Ann – Ann for my mother. Kelly is Megan’s mother’s maiden name.” He continued, “My mother – you know how they are” – he did a bad impersonation of Mom’s voice – “‘Tony, what’s this Kelly name? The only Kellys I know in Williamsburg are drunks.’” He laughed, then realizing he’d broken the rule on revealing anything negative about la famiglia , he said, “Forget that.”

Returning to the subject of life in the country, he said to me, “Do you know that the road that runs by the estates is private? Grace Lane is private.”

“I do know that.”

“Yeah, well, it was falling apart, and those cheap bastards along the road didn’t want to repave it. So I got one of my companies to do it as a favor to everybody.”

That was interesting, and it revealed something about Anthony. His father didn’t care what anyone thought about him, as long as they respected him and feared him. Anthony seemed to be looking for acceptance. But it’s really hard for narrow-minded suburbanites to accept a Mafia don as a neighbor. I mean, I had a problem with that myself. I said to him, “That was very nice of you.”

“Yeah. Do you think I got a thank-you? Not one fucking thank-you.”

“Well, I thank you. The road looks good.”

“Fuck them. I should tear it up.”

“Hold up on that. Maybe they’re planning a surprise party for you.”

“Yeah? Maybe I got a surprise for them.”

Don’t whack your neighbors, Anthony. Your kids have enough problems with Dad being a Mafia guy. I hesitated, then asked him, “Did the developer save the reflecting pool and the statue of Neptune?”

“Huh…? Oh, yeah, I remember that when I was a kid. There was, like, make-believe Roman ruins, and gardens and stuff. That was some place. You remember that?”

“I do. Is it still there?”

“Nah. It’s all gone. Just houses. Why do you ask?”