Gold Coast

by Nelson DeMille

  At another nearby table, which apparently was reserved for people with Dutch blood, were Jim Roosevelt, Martin Vandermeer, and Cyril Vanderbilt, the latter I guess having come over from Piping Rock for a night of slumming.

  The place was getting more crowded, and in the words of an old rock-Zen lyric, everybody there was there. Plus some. I had the bizarre thought that the word had gotten out that Sutter had brought Bellarosa up to the club, and everyone had turned out to watch. No, no. It was just a typical Friday night.

  Frank snapped his fingers at old Charlie, a former dining-room waiter, who after having served his one-millionth meal was put out to pasture in the cocktail lounge where he could drink, smoke, talk, and take it easy like the club members. Charlie, of course, ignored the snapped fingers, and Frank snapped again and called out, “Hey!”

  I winced and said, “I’ll get us drinks.’’ I stood and walked to the bar.

  Gustav, the bartender, had my martini going before I reached the rail. I said to him, “And a rye and ginger ale.’’ Gustav’s smirk told me what he thought of that drink.

  Lester came up beside me, and I supposed he had been delegated with a few pokes in the ribs to approach me. “Hello, John,’’ said Lester.

  “Hello, Lester,’’ said John.

  “Who’s that fellow you’re with?”

  “That’s Antonio Pugliesi, the world-renowned opera singer.”

  “It looks like Frank Bellarosa, John.”

  “Remarkable resemblance.”

  “John . . . this is not good.”

  The rye and ginger came, and I signed for the drinks.

  Lester went on, “What’s this all about, John?”

  “He’s my neighbor.’’ I added, “He wanted to come up here.’’ Which was the truth. It certainly wasn’t my idea. But I found that I was annoyed with Lester for questioning me on the subject.

  Lester inquired, “Are you staying for dinner?”

  “Yes, we are. Susan and Mrs. Bellarosa will be here shortly.”

  “Look . . . John, as a member of the club board, and as your friend—”

  “And my cousin.”

  “Yes . . . that, too . . . I think I should tell you that some people here tonight are unhappy, uncomfortable.”

  “Everyone looks happy and comfortable.”

  “You know what I mean. I understand the position you’re in, and I suppose drinks are all right, every once in a great while.’’ He added sotto voce, “Like we do with some minorities. And even lunch now and then is all right. But not dinner, John, and not with the women.”

  “Lester,’’ I replied curtly, “you tried to involve me in fraud, forgery, and embezzlement just a few months ago. So why don’t you get off your high horse and go fuck yourself.’’ I took the drinks and returned to my table.

  As I sipped my martini, I found that my hand was a bit unsteady.

  Frank stirred his highball. “You forgot the cherry.”

  “I’m not a fucking waiter.”

  Frank Bellarosa, as you might imagine, is not used to being spoken to like that. But that being the case, he didn’t know what to say and just stirred his drink.

  I was not in the best of moods, as you may have guessed. I think that having a fight with an IRS man is the mood-altering equivalent of having a fight with your wife. I inquired of Mr. Bellarosa, “So, what would you do? Pay the guy off? Threaten to blow his brains out?”

  Bellarosa’s eyes widened as though he were shocked by what I’d said, and I found that almost comical. Bellarosa replied, “You never, never hit a federal agent.”

  “If you met Mr. Novac, you’d make an exception.”

  He smiled but said nothing.

  I asked, “So, should I bribe him?”

  “No. You’re an honest man. Don’t do nothing you don’t usually do. It don’t work.’’ He added, “Anyway, the guy’s probably wired and thinks you are, too.”

  I nodded. In truth, I’d find it less repugnant to shoot Mr. Novac than offer him a bribe.

  I regarded Frank Bellarosa, dressed in his standard uniform of blazer and turtleneck. He must have seen that outfit in a clothing ad with a mansion in the background and decided to stick with it, changing only the colors. The blazer was green this time, and the turtleneck canary yellow. In itself, the outfit would not draw much attention because after the tweed season around here most of the Wasps break out their silly summer colors and look like tropical birds until Labor Day. At least Bellarosa hadn’t walked in wearing a gray, iridescent sharkskin suit. I said to him, “Ditch the Rolex, Frank.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Some people can get away with it, you can’t. Get a sports watch, and get some penny loafers or Docksides. You know what they are?”

  “Sure.”

  I didn’t think he did. I finished my martini, got Charlie’s attention without snapping my fingers, and ordered another round. “And a maraschino cherry for this gentleman.”

  “Would the gentleman like a green or red cherry, sir?’’ Charlie asked me, as if I’d brought my bulldog in and ordered him a saucer of milk.

  “Red!’’ Bellarosa barked.

  Charlie shuffled off.

  A number of women had shown up to sit with or collect their husbands, and I noticed Beryl Carlisle now, at a table with her spouse, what’s-his-name. She was in profile, and I watched her awhile, sucking on a drink stirrer. She did it well. She looked toward me, as if she knew right where I was, and we exchanged tentative smiles, sort of like, “Are we at it again?”

  Bellarosa looked at Beryl, then at me. “That’s a nice piece of goods there. I think she’s got wet pants for you.”

  I was happy to get a second opinion on this, but I informed him, “We don’t talk sex here.”

  He smiled. “No? Whaddaya talk here? Money?”

  “We talk business but never money.”

  “How the hell do you do that?”

  “It’s not easy. Listen, I want the name of your tax lawyer, Frank. Not the one you used when you went up for two years, the one you use now who’s keeping you out of jail.”

  The drinks came and Bellarosa dangled the horrible dyed cherry by its stem and bit it off.

  “Your tax lawyer,’’ I prompted.

  He chewed on the cherry. “You don’t need no lawyer. Lawyers are for when you gotta go to court. You got to head this off.”

  “Okay. How?”

  “You got to understand why before you know how.”

  “I understand why. I don’t want to fork over three hundred thousand dollars and go to jail for a few years. That’s why.”

  “But you got to understand why. Why you don’t want to do that.”

  “Because it was an honest mistake.”

  “No such thing, pal.”

  I shrugged and went back to my martini. I glanced around the room, sort of taking attendance. I caught a few people looking away, but a few, such as Martin Vandermeer and the good Father Hunnings, held eye contact in an unpleasant way. Beryl, on the other hand, gave me a wider smile as if we were on the right track again. I had the feeling that if Beryl Carlisle was, as Bellarosa grossly suggested, secreting, then it had something to do with my proximity to Mr. Bellarosa. Beryl is one of those women who was once wild, married safe, has safe affairs, but still loves the bad boys. I guess I was now the best of both worlds for her; kind of a preppie thug.

  I looked back at Bellarosa. I guess we were at an impasse until I figured out the why thing. I tried to recall some of his philosophy of life as imparted to me at Alhambra. I said, “Novac has it in for me personally, that’s why. I screwed his wife once and left her in a motel up in the Catskills during a snowstorm.”

  Bellarosa smiled. “Now you’re getting closer.’’ He scooped up some of those awful pretzel goldfish from a bowl on the table and popped them in his mouth. I had intended to write to the club manager about pretzel goldfish, but after tonight, I’d be well advised not to complain about anything.

  Bellarosa swall
owed the goldfish and said to me, “Okay, let me tell you how I see it. In this country, this very nice democracy we got here, people don’t understand that there’s a class war going on all the time. You don’t believe that about your country? Believe it, pal. All history is a struggle between three classes—high, middle, and low. I learned that from a history teacher at La Salle. You understand what the guy was saying?”

  I guess so, Frank. I went to Yale, for God’s sake. I asked him, “Where does the criminal class fit in?”

  “Same shit. You don’t think there’s different classes of criminals? You think I’m the same as some melanzane crack pusher?”

  Actually, I sort of did, but now that he put it in historical and economic terms, I guess I didn’t. Maybe I had more in common with Frank Bellarosa than I did with the Reverend Mr. Hunnings, for instance, who didn’t like me or my money. I said, “My gatekeeper’s wife, Ethel, believes in class struggle. I’ll get you together with her someday. Should be fun.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think you buy this. Okay, it’s not like in Europe with all the crazy political parties and all the crazy talk, but we got it anyway. Class struggle.”

  “So that’s why Novac is out to get me? He’s a commie?”

  “Sort of. But he don’t even know he is.”

  “I should have known when he told me he was a vegetarian.”

  “Yeah. Also, you got another war going on which is just as old as the class war—you got a war between the jackasses in the government and the smart people outside the government. The jackasses in the government want the poor and stupid people to think they care about them. Capisce? So you know where that leaves guys like you and me? Protecting our balls with one hand and our wallets with the other. Right?”

  The man was right, of course. But when I tell my clients the same thing, I say it differently. Maybe that’s why they don’t always get it.

  Bellarosa went on. “And it’s not true that the IRS don’t care about you, that you’re just a number to them. That would be fucking terrific if it was true, but it ain’t. They care about you in a way that you don’t want them to care.”

  I replied, “But some of what they do, Frank, is not malicious or philosophically motivated. It’s just random, stupid bureaucracy. I know. I deal with them every day. I don’t think the IRS or Novac is out to get me personally.”

  “It don’t start that way. It starts when they go after your kind of people. And that ain’t random or stupid, pal. That’s planned. And if it’s planned, it’s war. Then, when a guy like Novac gets on your case, it always turns personal.’’ He asked, “Did you piss him off?”

  I smiled. “A little.”

  “Yeah. Mistake number one.”

  “I know that.”

  “Look, Counselor, Novac is a five-number guy, good for maybe thirty, forty a year. You do maybe ten times that. It’s like with me and Ferragamo. Same thing. Thing is, they got the badges, so you don’t insult them to their face.”

  “The man annoyed me.”

  “Yeah. They do that. Look, Novac didn’t go into the IRS to protect your money. He went in there with an attitude, and if you knew what that attitude was, you’d shit.”

  “I know that.”

  Bellarosa leaned across the table toward me. “Novac has power, see? Power to make a guy like you, and yeah, even me, squirm. And he gets his rocks off doing that, because he’s got no power no place else—not at the bank, not in his office, maybe not even at home with his wife and kids. What kind of power you got at home when you bring in thirty thousand a year?’’ Bellarosa looked me in the eye. “Put yourself in Novac’s shoes for a day.”

  “God, no. He wears synthetic leather.”

  “Yeah? See? So go live in his shit house or his shit apartment, worry about the price of clothes for once in your life, the price of groceries, and lay awake at night and think about college tuition for your kids, and if you’re gonna get a bad report from your boss, or if the government is going to spring for a raise this year. Then go pay a call on Mr. John Sutter in his fancy fucking office and tell me how you’re going to act with him.”

  My Lord, I almost felt sorry for Stephen Novac. “I understand all that, but I want to know—”

  “Yeah, you got to understand first who you’re dealing with, and understand this—they like to pick on very visible people. People like me and yeah, people like you. Guys whose tax problems are gonna make the news. You know why?”

  “Yes, Frank. I do taxes for a living. The IRS likes to make the news so they can scare the hell out of a few million other taxpayers who they can’t call on in person. That makes people pay their taxes.”

  “They don’t give a shit about collecting taxes for the government. You still don’t get it. They care about scaring the hell out of people. That’s power. And that’s jealousy, too. A guy like Novac don’t have the balls to get rich like you and me, but he’s got the brains to be pissed at not being rich. That’s a dangerous man.”

  I nodded. Bellarosa really did sound like Machiavelli in modern translation.

  “Take a guy like Ferragamo,’’ Bellarosa continued. “He pretends like it’s all justice, democracy, equality, and caring about the poor and the victims of crime and all that shit. Wrong. That ain’t what it’s about, pal. It’s about fucking power. It’s jealousy, it’s personal, and it’s all covered up with nice sounding bullshit. Hey, I could take you to streets in Brooklyn where there’s more crime in one block than there is in this whole fucking county. Do you see Ferragamo down there? Do you see Mancuso down there? You see Novac there asking those pimps and drug dealers if they filled out their tax return? And I’ll tell you this, Counselor, it don’t matter if you led your whole life like I did, or like you did. When they decide to stick it up your ass with a felony, we’re both looking at the same five or ten years, and maybe more. You get time off for good behavior after you’re inside, not before. Capisce? And I’ll tell you something else you don’t want to hear. When you look at a jury, they look back and size you up, and you try to look innocent and friendly. When I look at a jury, half of them think I fixed the other half, and all of them think they’re gonna get blown away if they vote guilty. That is power, pal. I got it; you don’t. Nobody fucks with me. And here’s another news flash for you: If you think the government ain’t after your ass because of what you do, because you’re a fancy tax guy beating them at their own game, then you still don’t get it. Think about it.”

  I’d already thought about that one and patriotically dismissed it. I said, “You’ve got this all figured out.”

  “I got most of it figured out. I’m still working on some of it.’’ He leaned back in his chair and finished the goldfish. “So now you know why. Now you got to talk to Mr. Melzer. He’ll tell you how.”

  I let a few seconds pass, then realized I had to ask, “Who is Mr. Melzer?”

  “He was on the other side once. A big shot with the IRS. Now he’s in private consulting. You know? And now he’s rich from selling the enemy’s secrets. He knows the jackasses personally. Understand? I met him too late for me. But maybe he can do the right thing for you.”

  I thought a moment. There were, indeed, a few renegades out there selling guns to the Indians. But I would never recommend one of them to my clients. From what I knew, they operated in a sort of gray area, trading on personal relationships in the IRS, maybe even paying bribes and blackmailing former coworkers, for all I knew. Their clients never knew, which was part of the deal. No, John Sutter, Mr. Straight, would not recommend a renegade IRS man to his clients, even if it was legal. It wasn’t ethical.

  I must have looked undecided, skeptical, or perhaps disappointed, because Bellarosa said, “Mr. Melzer will guarantee you, right up front, that you won’t be indicted. No criminal charges, no jail.”

  “How can he guarantee that?”

  “That’s his business, my friend. You want to fight this your way, you go ahead. You want to fight it with Melzer, with an up-front guarantee that you’ll
never see the inside of a federal pen, then let me know. But you got to act quick before the jackasses get too far along for Melzer to settle things his way.”

  I looked at Bellarosa. He, in effect, was personally guaranteeing me that I wasn’t going to jail. I might still be out a third of a million dollars, but I wasn’t going to be writing checks to the IRS in the warden’s office. What did I feel? Relief? Gratitude? A closeness to my new pal? You bet I did. “Okay. Melzer.”

  “Good. He’ll get ahold of you.’’ Bellarosa looked around the room again. “Nice place.”

  “Yes.”

  “They take Catholics, right? Italians?”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “My sons can come here if I’m a member?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’s the food?”

  “Not as good as Anna’s.”

  He laughed, then looked at me for a few long seconds. “So you help me join up. Okay?”

  “Well . . . you need three seconding sponsors. Understand?”

  “Yeah. I belong to clubs. You find them. I don’t know anybody here.”

  I saw this coming. “I’ll tell you, Frank, even if I could do that, you won’t get past the membership committee.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  Why seemed to be the question of the evening. “You know why.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Okay, because this is one of the most exclusive and prestigious clubs in America, and they don’t want a . . . how do you describe yourself? I mean for real, Frank?”

  He didn’t reply, so I helped him. “A Mafia don? Head of an organized crime family? What are you going to put on the application? What did you put on your tax return last year? Gangster?”

  Again he made no reply, so I said, “Anyway, this is one institution you can’t coerce with threats, money, or political connections. I’ve got more chance of becoming a Mafia don than you’ve got of becoming a member of this club.”

  Bellarosa thought about that a moment, and I could see he wasn’t pleased with this information, so I gave him more good news. “You’re not even welcome here as a guest. And if I take you here again, I’ll be playing golf on the public course, and I’ll have to do my skeet shooting in the basement of the Italian Rifle Club.”