Nelson Demille: Gold Coast

"No, Susan, that's his Mafia nickname. They all have nicknames."

"Is that a fact?"

She sipped her tea and looked distantly into the garden. Susan, not unlike many of the residents in this Garden of Eden, excludes much of the outside world. She reads Trollope and Agatha Christie, never listens to radio, and uses the television only to play videotapes of old movies. She obtains her weather reports from a recorded phone message. Local events are learned through the good-news weekly newspaper and from a few upscale magazines that serve the affluent Gold Coast communities. Regarding hard news, she has adopted Thoreau's philosophy: If you read about one train wreck, you've read about them all. I asked, "Does this news upset you?"

She shrugged, then asked me, "Are you upset?"

As an attorney, I don't like people turning questions back to me, so I gave a flippant reply. "No. In fact, Grace Lane will now be well protected by the FBI, joined by county detectives on stakeouts."

She seemed to be processing that information, then said, "This man… what's his name…?"

"Bellarosa."

"Yes, well, I'll talk to him about the horse trails and rights of way over his land."

"Good idea. Set him straight."

"I will."

I recalled a silly, though appropriate, joke for the occasion and told it to Susan. "Christopher Columbus steps ashore in the New World – this is a joke – and he calls out to a group of native Americans, "Buenos dias!" or maybe "Buon giorno!" and one of the Indians turns to his wife and says, 'There goes the neighbourhood.'"

Susan smiled politely.

I stood and walked out the rear garden gate, leaving Susan to her tea, her mood, and her potential problem with explaining equestrian rights of way to a Mafia don.

One of the local traditions here says that if you're crossing an estate on foot, you're trespassing; if you're on horseback, you're gentry. I didn't know if Mr Frank Bellarosa was aware of that as yet, or if he was, if he was going to honour the tradition. Nevertheless, later that Saturday afternoon, I crossed over onto his land through a line of white pine that separated our properties. I was mounted on Yankee, my wife's second horse, a six-year-old gelding of mixed breeding. Yankee has a good temperament, unlike Zanzibar, Susan's high-strung Arab stallion. Yankee can be ridden hard and put away wet without dying of pneumonia, whereas Zanzibar seems to be under perpetual veterinary care for mysterious and expensive ailments. Thus the reason for Yankee's existence, just as my Ford Bronco fills in when Susan's Jag is in the shop every other week. But I suppose there's a price to pay for high performance.

Coming out of the pines, an open field lay ahead, a former horse pasture now overgrown with brush and various species of saplings that aspire to be a forest again if left alone.

I was certain that Bellarosa, like most of his kind, was not as concerned with his privacy as with his personal safety, and I half expected to be confronted by swarthy, slick-haired gunmen in black suits and pointy shoes. I continued across the field toward a grove of cherry trees. It was just turning dusk, the weather was balmy, and there was a scent of fresh earth around me. The only sounds were Yankee's hoofs on the soft turf and birds trilling their twilight songs from the distant trees. All in all, a perfect late afternoon in early spring.

I took Yankee into the cherry grove. The gnarled and uncared-for old trees were newly leafed and just budded with pink blossoms.

In a clearing in the grove was a sunken mosaic reflecting pool, filled with dead leaves. Around the pool were toppled classical fluted columns and broken lintels. At the far end of the pool was a moss-covered statue of Neptune, his upraised hand minus his trident, so that he seemed to be halfway through a roundhouse punch. At Neptune's feet were four stone fish, whose gaping mouths once spouted water. This was one of the classical gardens of Alhambra, built as a mock Roman ruin, now ironically a real ruin.

The main house of Alhambra is not itself a classical structure, but a Spanish-style mansion of stucco walls, stone archways, wrought-iron balconies, and red-tiled roofs. The four pillars that hold up the arched portico were actually taken from the ruins of Carthage in the 1920s when it was fashionable and possible to loot ancient archaeological sites.

I don't know what I would do if I had that much money myself, but I like to think I would show some restraint. But then restraint is a condition of our era with its dwindling supply of nearly everything vital to life. Restraint was not what the Roaring Twenties was about. One can be a product only of one's own era, not anyone else's.

I rode across the garden ruins, then up a small rise. About a quarter-mile to the east, sitting in shadow, was Alhambra. A solitary light shone from a second-floor balcony window that I knew to be the location of the library. Alhambra's library, like many rooms in the greatest of the estate houses, had originally existed in Europe. The original owners and builders of Alhambra, a Mr and Mrs Julius Dillworth, on a tour of Europe in the 1920s, took a fancy to the hand-carved oak library of their host, an old English peer whose name and title escape me. The Dillworths made an uninvited but spectacular offer for the entire library, and the tweedy old gentleman, probably short of cash as a result of the same World War that had enriched the Dillworths, accepted the offer. I watched the library window for a minute or so, then reined Yankee around and rode down the slope, back toward the garden.

I saw now a white horse nibbling on new spring grass between two toppled columns. Astride the horse was the familiar figure of a woman dressed in tight jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. She turned to me as I approached, then faced away. It was my wife, Susan, but I could tell from her look that she was not herself. What I mean is, she likes to playact. So, to be cooperative, I called out, "Who are you?"

She turned back to me and responded in an icy voice, "Who are you?" Actually, I wasn't sure yet, but I improvised. "I own this land," I said. "Are you lost or trespassing?"

"Neither. And I doubt anyone dressed as you are, with so wretched a horse, could own this land."

"Don't be insolent. Are you alone?"

"I was until you came by," she retorted.

I pulled in Yankee side by side with the white Arabian. "What is your name?"

"Daphne. What is your name?"

I still couldn't think of a name for me, so I said, "You should know whose land you are on. Get down from your horse."

"Why should I?"

"Because I said so. And if you don't, I'll pull you down and take my switch to you. Dismount!" She hesitated, then dismounted."

"Tether him."

She tethered her horse to a cherry limb and stood facing me.

"Take off your clothes."

She shook her head. "I won't."

"You will," I snapped. "Quickly."

She stood motionless a moment, then pulled off her turtleneck, exposing two firm breasts. She stood with the sweater in her hand and looked up at me. "Do I have to do this?"

"Yes."

She dropped the sweater, then pulled off her boots and socks. Finally, she slid her jeans and panties off and threw them in the grass.

I sidled my horse closer and looked down at her standing naked in the fading sunlight. "Not so arrogant now, are you, Daphne?"

"No, sir."

This is Susan's idea of keeping marital sex interesting, though to be honest, I'm not complaining about acting out Susan's sexual fantasies. Sometimes these dramas are scripted and directed (by Susan); sometimes, as with this encounter, they are improv. The locales change with the seasons; in the winter we do it in the stable or, to relive our youth, in front of a fireplace in a deserted mansion.