Nelson Demille - Gold Coast

Sitting around the candles, deep into a bottle of wine, Carolyn said to me, "You've changed, Dad."

"Have I? How?"

She thought a moment, then replied, "You're more… grown-up." She smiled. I smiled in return. "And my voice is changing." I knew what she meant, of course. The last few months had been a time of challenge and change, and so I suppose it had been good for my character. Most American men of the upper middle classes never really grow up unless they are fortunate enough to go to war or go through a bankruptcy or divorce or other major adversity. So this was the summer I got hair on my balls, and it felt good and bad at the same time. I asked Edward, "Do you think your old man has changed?"

Edward, who is not usually tuned in to the subtleties of human behaviour, replied, "Yeah, I guess." He added, "Can you change back?" "No. There's no going back."

A few days after that, I rented a van and drove the kids to school. We went first to Sarah Lawrence, and Edward was nervous about starting college, but I assured him that the liberal arts curriculum he was taking was similar to the one I took at Yale, and that I slept for four years. Thus assured, he strode confidently into the formerly all-girls school, his hair combed for the first time since his baptism, and his body smelling of some awful lotion. Carolyn and I drove alone to Yale, and I always enjoy going back to my alma mater, as my college memories are good despite the turmoil of those years in the mid-sixties. Carolyn said to me on the way to New Haven, "Are you legally separated?"

"No. Your mother just went to visit her parents."

"It's sort of a trial separation?"

"No."

"Why are you sleeping in separate rooms?"

"Because we don't want to sleep in separate cities. End of conversation." So I drove her up to Yale. As a sophomore this year, Carolyn enters what we call a 'college', actually a dorm where she will spend the next three years. She is, in fact, in my old college, Jonathan Edwards. J E, as we call it, is a beautiful, old Gothic building with arches, climbing ivy, and turrets, situated around a large quadrangle. It is, in fact, the greatest place on the face of this earth, and I wished I was staying and not leaving. Anyway, I helped her unload half a vanful of clothes and electronics, which barely fit in her room. It was a nice suite like my old place down the hall, with oak panelling and a fireplace in the living room. I met her roommate, a tall, blonde young woman from Texas named Halsey, and I wondered if I shouldn't go back to Jonathan Edwards to do a little more undergraduate work. You're never too old to learn.

But I digress. Carolyn and I walked down to Liggett's Drugstore, which is sort of a tradition, and with a few hundred other Yalies and parents, we stocked up on notions and sundries. We stowed the Liggett's bags in the van, then walked the few blocks to York Street, "to the tables down at Mory's, to the place where Louie dwells." Don't ask me what that means.

Mory's is a private club, and I've kept my membership for this past quarter of a century, though I doubt if I get there once a year. But though I may have resigned from The Creek, and may eventually resign from my job and my marriage and from life in general, I will never resign from Mory's, for to do that is to sever the ties to myself, to the John Sutter whom I used to know and like. I may indeed be a poor little lamb who has lost his way, but that night I was home again.

So Carolyn and I had dinner at Mory's along with a hundred other families, many of whom I noticed were missing one or the other spouse. Carolyn is not a member of Mory's, and may never be, as she discriminates against private clubs. Nevertheless, I regaled her with Mory stories, and she sat there and smiled at me, sometimes amused, sometimes bored, and once or twice disapproving. Well, yesterday's high jinks are today's insensitive behaviour, I suppose, and maybe the reverse is also true. But it was a nice dinner, an exquisite few hours between father and daughter.

The oak tabletops at Mory's have been carved with thousands of names and initials, and though we couldn't find mine without clearing off someone else's dinner, I did produce a sharp pocketknife for Carolyn, who carved away while I went around the dining room and said hello to a few old school chums. 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 programme. 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 your 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 behaviour, 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?"