Gold Coast

by Nelson DeMille

  “Yeah? Well, I’m going to test you later.”

  And so we chatted for another ten minutes or so, and I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t entertaining. The man knew how to hold court and tell stories, and although nothing of any importance or even intelligence was said, Bellarosa was lively and animated, using more hand gestures and facial expression in ten minutes than I use in a year. He filled everyone’s glass with sambuca, then changed his mind and insisted we try amaretto, which he poured into fresh glasses while he continued to talk.

  This was a man who obviously enjoyed life, which, I suppose, was understandable for a person who knew firsthand how suddenly it could be cut short. I asked him bluntly, “Do you have bodyguards here in the house, or just Anthony out there?”

  He looked at me and didn’t reply for a long time, then answered, “Mr. Sutter, a man of wealth in this country, as in Italy, must protect himself and his family against kidnapping and terrorism.”

  “Not in Lattingtown,’’ I assured him. “We have very strict village ordinances here.”

  Bellarosa smiled. “We have a very strict rule, too, Mr. Sutter, and maybe you know about it. The rule is this—you never touch a man in his own house or in front of his family. So nobody in this neighborhood should worry about things like that. Okay?”

  The conversation had turned interesting. I replied, “Perhaps you can attend the next village meeting and assure everyone for the record.”

  Bellarosa looked at me but said nothing.

  Feeling reckless, I pushed on. “So then, why do you have security here?”

  He leaned toward me and spoke softly. “You asked me what I learned at La Salle. I’ll tell you one thing I learned. No matter what kind of peace treaties you got, you post a twenty-four-hour guard. That keeps everybody honest, and makes people sleep better. Don’t worry about it.’’ He patted my shoulder. “You’re safe here.”

  I smiled in return and pointed out helpfully, “You’ve got double protection, Mr. Bellarosa, compliments of the American taxpayer. Capisce?”

  He laughed, then snorted. “Yeah. They watch the front gate, but I watch my ass.’’ He inquired, “So, you know about that, do you, Mr. Sutter? How’d you know about that?”

  I was about to reply, but I felt a kick in the ankle. A kick in the ankle, of course, does not mean “You’re being so charming and witty, my dear, please go on.”

  Susan asked our host, “Can I help Mrs. Bellarosa in the kitchen?”

  “No, no. She’s okay. She makes a big deal. I’ll tell you what she’s doing now, because I know. She’s stuffing cannoli. You know, when you buy them already stuffed, they sometimes get soggy, even in the good bakeries. So my wife, she gets the shells separate, and she gets the cream or makes it herself, and she stuffs, stuffs, stuffs. With a spoon.”

  Susan nodded, a bit uncertainly, I thought.

  It sort of surprised me, I guess, that this man was so artless and ingenuous, and that his wife was in the kitchen of their mansion stuffing pastry with a spoon. He wasn’t putting on any airs for the Sutters, that was for sure. I didn’t know if I was touched or annoyed.

  Anyway, the door opened again, and in came a full-bodied blonde, carrying a huge tray, heaped with enough pastries to feed a medium-size Chinese city. I could barely see the woman’s face, but her arms were stretched way out so that the pastry could clear her breasts, and I knew in a flash it must be Mrs. B. I stood, and so did Bellarosa, who took the tray from the woman and said, “This is my wife, Anna.’’ He put the tray on the table. “Anna, this is Mr. and Mrs. Sutter.”

  Anna brushed her hands on her hips and smiled. “Hello.’’ She and Susan shook hands, then she turned to me.

  Our eyes met, our hands touched, our lips smiled, her brow wrinkled. I said, “I’m very pleased to meet you.’’ She kept looking at me, and I could almost hear the old synapses making connections between her narrowed eyes. Click, click, click. She asked, “Didn’t we meet or something?”

  It was the “or something’’ that caused me some anxiety. “I think I saw you in Loparo’s,’’ I said, mentioning the name of the Italian market in Locust Valley in which I wouldn’t be caught dead.

  “Yeah,’’ she agreed without conviction. “No,’’ she changed her mind. “No . . . I’ll think of it.”

  If I were a real man, I would have ripped off my glasses, jumped on the floor, and revealed my true identity. But I didn’t see what good could come of that.

  “Why are we all standing?’’ asked Mr. Bellarosa, who also couldn’t understand why we had stood around in the palm court. “Sit, sit,’’ he commanded. We sat and he poured his wife an amaretto. We all made small talk.

  Mrs. Bellarosa was sitting directly across the table from me, which I didn’t like, but it gave me the advantage of watching for signs that she was beginning to recall her terrifying Easter morning. If you’re interested, she was wearing what I think are called hostess pajamas. They were sort of an iridescent orange, but the color kept changing every time she moved. She wore huge triangular gold earrings, which, if connected to a shortwave radio, could have picked up Naples. Around her neck was a gold cross sort of nestled in her cleavage, and for some reason I was reminded of Christ of the Andes. Also, five out of her ten fingers held gold rings, and on each of her wrists were gold bangles. If she fell into the reflecting pool, I wondered, would the gold sink her right to the bottom, or would the buoyancy of those two big lungs keep her afloat?

  I should say something about her looks. She was not unattractive. It depends on what you like. The makeup was overdone, but I could see she had fair skin for an Italian woman. Her eyes were hazel, her full lips were painted emergency-exit red, and her hair, as I said, was bleached blond. I could see the dark roots. She seemed pleasant enough, smiled easily, and had surprisingly graceful gestures. She also wore a nice perfume.

  I don’t know what a Mafia don’s wife should look like, since you never see one in public or on the news, but I guessed that Anna Bellarosa was better looking than most. Sometimes, when I’m in my male-chauvinist-pig mode—which, thank God, is infrequent—I try to imagine if I would go to bed with a woman I have just met. So, I looked at Anna Bellarosa.

  When I was in college, there were five classifications for a woman’s looks, based on the maximum light you would want on in the bedroom. There were the three-way-bulb women—100-watt, 70-watt, and 30-watt. After that you had your nightlight-only women, and finally all-lights-out.

  Anna Bellarosa saw me looking at her and smiled. She had a nice smile. So, I figured, with the number of drinks I’d already had, I’d probably turn on the 70-watt bulb.

  Frank Bellarosa proposed a toast: “To our new neighbors and new friends.”

  I drank to that, though I had my fingers crossed under the table. Sure I’m superstitious.

  We chatted awhile, and Susan made a big deal over the pile of pastry, then complimented the Bellarosas on all the work they were doing on Alhambra. We tossed around a few new names for the estate, and I suggested Casa Cannoli. Frank Bellarosa inquired about Susan’s vegetable garden, and Anna asked me if I wanted to take off my coat and tie. I certainly did not. And so it went for ten or fifteen minutes, breaking the ice as they say, until finally Frank Bellarosa said, “Hey, call me Frank. Okay? And my wife is Anna.”

  Susan, of course, said, “Please call me Susan.”

  It was my turn. I said, “John.”

  “Good,’’ said Frank.

  I’ve never been on a first-name basis with a Mafia don, and I was just thrilled. I couldn’t wait to get to The Creek with the news.

  Mrs. Bellarosa stood and served coffee from the urn. We all helped ourselves to the pastry. The coffee and pastry were superb. No complaints there.

  The conversation turned to children, as it usually does with parents, whether they be kings and queens, or thieves and whores. Parenting is the great equalizer, or more optimistically, a common human bond. I loosened up a bit, partly because of Mrs. Bellarosa’s p
resence, but partly because I felt oddly at ease.

  Anna Bellarosa told us all about her three sons in detail, then added, “I don’t want them in the family business, but Tony—that’s the one at La Salle—wants to be in business with his father. He idolizes his father.”

  Frank Bellarosa said, “I got into the family business through my uncle. My father said, ‘Stay out of that business, Frank. It’s not good for you.’ But did I listen? No. Why? I thought my uncle was a hero. He always had money, cars, clothes, women. My father had nothing. Kids look for what you call role models. Right? I think back now, and my father was the hero. He broke his tail six days a week to put food on the table. There were five kids and things were tough. But all around us was money. In America you see too much money. The country is rich, even stupid people can be rich here. So people say, ‘Why can’t I be rich?’ In this country if you’re poor, you’re worse than a criminal.’’ He looked at me and repeated, “In America if you’re poor, you’re worse than a criminal. You’re nobody.”

  “Well,’’ I said, “some people would still rather be poor but honest.”

  “I don’t know nobody like that. But anyway, my oldest guy, Frankie, he’s got no head for the family business, so I sent him to college, then set him up in a little thing of his own in Jersey. Tommy is the one in Cornell. He wants to run a big hotel in Atlantic City or Vegas. I’ll set him up with Frankie in Atlantic City. Tony, the one at La Salle, is another case. He wants in.’’ Bellarosa smiled. “The little punk wants my job. You know what? If he wants it bad enough, he’ll have it.”

  I cleared my throat and observed, “It’s not easy to bring up kids today with all the sex, violence, drugs, Nintendo.”

  “Yeah. But sex is okay. How about your kids?”

  Susan replied, “Carolyn is at Yale, and Edward is graduating from St. Paul’s in June.”

  “They gonna be lawyers?”

  Susan replied, “Carolyn is pre-law. Edward is somewhat vague. I think because he knows he will inherit a good deal of money from his grandparents, he has lost some of his motivation.”

  I’ve never heard Susan say this to anyone, not even me, and I was a bit annoyed at her for revealing family secrets in front of these people. But I suppose the Bellarosas were so far beyond our social circle that it didn’t matter. Still, I felt I had to say something in Edward’s defense. I said, “Edward is a typical seventeen-year-old boy. His main ambition at the moment is to get—is girls.”

  Bellarosa laughed. “Yeah.’’ He asked, “He’s graduating college at seventeen?”

  “No,’’ I replied. “St. Paul’s is a prep school.’’ Talking to these people was like reinventing the wheel. I asked Bellarosa, “Did you go to La Salle on scholarship?”

  “No. My uncle paid. The uncle who took me into the family business. One less mouth to feed for my old man.”

  “I see.”

  Anna had another wifely complaint. “Frank spends too much time at work. He’s not enjoying his new house. Even when he’s home, he’s on the phone, people come here to talk business. I’m always telling him, ‘Frank, take it easy. You’re going to kill yourself.’”

  I glanced at Bellarosa to see if he appreciated the irony of that last remark, but he seemed impassive. For about half a second I thought I had made a terrible mistake and that Mr. Frank Bellarosa was just an overworked entrepreneur.

  Susan chimed in, “John doesn’t keep long office hours, but he brings home a briefcase full of work every night. Though he does take Saturdays off, and of course he won’t work on the Sabbath.”

  Bellarosa said to Susan, “And he took Easter Monday off. Wouldn’t talk business with me.’’ He looked at me. “I know a couple of Protestants. They don’t work Sundays neither. Catholics will work on a Sunday. What if you had a real big case in court on Monday?”

  “Then,’’ I informed him, “I work on Sunday. The Lord wouldn’t want me to make a fool of myself in front of a Catholic or Jewish judge.”

  Ha, ha, ha. Haw, haw, haw. Even I smiled at my own wit. The sambuca was finally working its magic.

  Bellarosa, in fact, picked up the bottle and poured some into my coffee, then everyone’s coffee. “This is the way we drink it.”

  The coffee had steamed my glasses a few times, and I wiped them with my handkerchief without taking them off, which caused Susan to look at me with puzzlement. Anna Bellarosa, too, gave me a few curious looks. So far, the conversation had not touched on the unfortunate occurrence at Alhambra on Easter morning, and I hoped that Frank Bellarosa had forgotten his request that I speak to his wife about how nice and safe this area was. But Susan asked Anna, “Do you miss Brooklyn?’’ and I knew where that was going.

  Anna glanced at her husband, then replied, “I’m not allowed to say.’’ She laughed.

  Bellarosa snorted. “These Brooklyn Italian women—I tell you, you can move them to Villa Borghese, and they still bitch about being out of Brooklyn.”

  “Oh, Frank, you don’t have to sit home all day. You get to go back to the old neighborhood.”

  “Listen to her. Sit home. She’s got a car and driver and goes to Brooklyn to see her mother and her crazy relatives whenever she wants.”

  “It’s not the same, Frank. It’s lonely here.’’ A little light bulb popped on in her head. I saw it, but before I could change the subject, she said, “How about Easter morning?’’ She looked at me. “I was walking out back on Easter morning, out near the pool we got out there, and this man’’—she shuddered—“this maniac is there, on his hands and knees like an animal, growling at me.”

  “Really?’’ I asked, adjusting my glasses.

  “My goodness!’’ Susan exclaimed.

  Anna turned to Susan. “I ran and lost my shoes.”

  Frank said, “I told John about that. He said he never heard of anything like that before. Right, John?”

  “Right, Frank.’’ I asked, “So, your son Frankie lives in New Jersey?”

  Susan asked Anna, “Did you call the police?”

  Anna glanced at her husband again and replied, “Frank doesn’t like to bother with the police.”

  “I got my own security here,’’ Bellarosa reminded us. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Anna complained, “It’s scary here at night when Frank’s away. It’s too quiet.”

  “Perhaps,’’ I suggested, “you can get a recording of Brooklyn street noises.”

  Anna Bellarosa smiled uncertainly, as if this weren’t a bad idea.

  Bellarosa said to me, “When you try to make them happy, or you try to compromise with them, they think you’re a faggot.”

  I glanced at Susan to see how she reacted to that statement and saw she was smiling. I should point out that Susan is not a feminist. The women’s movement is considered by women of Susan’s class to be a middle-class problem that needs middle-class solutions. Women of Susan’s class have owned property, entered into contracts, and gone to college for so many generations that they don’t fully comprehend what all the fuss is about. As for equal pay for equal work, they’re very sympathetic to that, as they are to starving children in Africa, and have about as much firsthand knowledge of the one as they do of the other. Maybe they will have a charity ball for underpaid female executives. Anyway, I mention this because many women would be somewhat offended by Frank Bellarosa’s offhanded sexist remarks. But Susan Stanhope, whose family was one of the Four Hundred, is no more offended by a man such as Frank Bellarosa making sexist remarks than I would be offended by Sally Ann of the Stardust Diner telling me that all men were alcoholics, women beaters, and liars. In other words, you had to consider the source.

  Anyway, Bellarosa made another pronouncement, this one, I guess, to balance his misogynist remarks. He said, “Italian men can’t compromise. That’s why their women are always mad at them. But Italian women respect their men for not compromising. But when Italian men don’t agree with each other on something, and they won’t compromise, then there’s a proble
m.”

  Followed, I thought, by a quick solution, like murder. I asked, “So Frankie’s in New Jersey?”

  “Yeah. I helped him buy into a thing in Atlantic City. None of my sons is ever going to work for nobody. Nobody’s going to be over them. They got to have men under them. Either you’re your own boss in this world, or you’re nobody. You’re your own boss, right?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Nobody says nothing when you come in late, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So, there you are.”

  And there I was, off the subject of Easter morning. It was easy to change subjects with Mr. Bellarosa, who seemed to have no agenda for social conversation but switched subjects in midsentence the moment something else popped into his head. Business, I knew, was another matter. I knew the type. And I also knew that Mrs. Bellarosa was not going to bring up the subject of the Easter monster again.

  And so we talked for the next hour. We finished the urn of coffee—about twenty cups—and the second bottle of sambuca. The pile of pastry had dropped about six inches. I had, early in the evening, discovered that refusing food or drink was futile. “Mangia, mangia,” said Mrs. Bellarosa, laughing, stopping just short of shoving pastry in my mouth. “Drink, drink,’’ commanded Mr. Bellarosa, filling cups and glasses with any liquid within his reach.

  I went to the bathroom three times and each time considered throwing up in the toilet bowl, to purge myself, Roman style. When in Rome, to paraphrase St. Ambrose, use the vomitorium as the Romans do. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

  On one of my returns from the bathroom, I saw that Mrs. Bellarosa had disappeared, probably into the kitchen, and Susan and Frank were sitting at the table alone. Before she saw me, I heard Susan say the words “palm court’’ and feared she was making her pitch to paint the palm court. But when I sat down, she seemed to change the topic and said to me, “I was telling Frank about our trip to Italy a few years ago.”

  “Were you?”