He finished his drink and sucked up some ice cubes, which he crushed with his teeth, sending a shiver down my spine. “Okay,’’ he said finally. “So you do me another favor sometime.”
I had no doubt about that. I replied, “If it’s legal and possible, I’ll do you a favor.”
“Good. I just thought of a favor. You represent me with this murder rap. As a favor.”
Checkmate. I took a deep breath and nodded.
“Good. I don’t pay for favors.”
“I don’t charge for them.”
Bellarosa smiled. “But I’ll cover your expenses.”
I shrugged. For a terrible moment, I thought Bellarosa was going to extend his hand to me across the table. I had this bizarre vision of a photo in the club newsletter, captioned: Mafia don and prominent attorney make deal at Creek. But he didn’t want to shake, thank the Lord, and I changed the subject, saying, “I owe you money for the stable.”
“Yeah. What did Dominic tell you?”
I told him Dominic’s estimate but added, “It must have gone over that.”
“These greaseballs work cheap for the first few years. Then they learn a little English, and they see what’s going on here, and they start screwing the customers like everybody else.’’ He added, “That’s the American dream.”
Not quite. I said, “Those guys didn’t even make minimum wage.”
He shrugged. “So what? They ain’t gonna learn if you feel sorry for them and give them more. People got to be responsible for their own fuck-ups. Right?”
“Yes, but I think you subsidized the job. I think you’re trying to get me in your debt.”
He didn’t reply to that but asked, “You satisfied with the job and the price?”
“Yes.”
“End of story.”
“Whom do I pay?”
“You pay me. Stop by for coffee one day. Cash, check, it don’t matter.”
“All right.”
Bellarosa leaned back, crossed his legs, and regarded me a moment. He said, “Now that you know you’re not going to jail, you look happier.”
I would have been even happier if I knew that Frank Bellarosa was going to jail. What a mess.
Bellarosa informed me, “Hey, that picture your wife is doing looks great. She won’t let me look over her shoulder, you know. She chases me away, but when she’s gone, I lift up the cloth and take a peek. She’s a helluva painter.”
“I’m glad you like the painting.”
“Yeah. I got to find a place of honor for it. Anna likes it, too. Now she can see what Susan is talking about. You know? The ruins. Anna and Susan are getting along pretty good.”
“I’m happy to hear that. Your wife is very thoughtful to send over her cooking.’’ I’d slipped back into my inane Wasp speech patterns now that the important business was done with, and I could see that Frank was miffed. He’d probably thought we were soul mates, talking about bribery, murder, and Beryl Carlisle’s damp pants, but I wanted to show him that even if we wallowed in the same slops for a while, I could still soar like an eagle. I think he appreciated this on one level. That’s what he was buying: an eagle. Pigs were cheaper.
I became aware that something had caused a drop in the noise level. I looked toward the door and saw Susan coming toward me, Anna Bellarosa in tow.
Anna was wearing another one of those loose, flowing pantsuits, emerald green this time, and her feet were encased in white sandals, studded with sparkly rhinestones. She had on enough gold to cause a fluctuation in the precious metals market.
Anna was stealing glances at her surroundings as she moved toward us, and she became aware that she was the center of attention. Her face broke into a silly, self-conscious smile, and I was actually embarrassed for her. Poor Anna. I wondered if she knew why people were looking at her; that everyone there thought she was dressed funny, that she had the biggest hooters in the whole club, and that everyone had made the correct deduction that she was the Mafia don’s wife.
Susan, of course, was as self-possessed as a queen, completely at ease regarding her companion, whom she escorted as though Anna were European nobility.
Frank and I rose as the women drew nigh, and we all exchanged greetings and kisses. The way I figured it, everybody in the lounge got their money’s worth even at four bucks a drink. I also noticed no one was leaving.
You have to understand, too, that despite what I said to Frank, Susan and I were not in immediate danger of social ostracism. No, John Whitman Sutter and Susan Stanhope Sutter could get away with a lot. People figure that the older the family, the more wacky and eccentric the members. Thus, just as radical chic was in during the sixties and seventies, with Rockefellers, Roosevelts, and so forth dining with black radicals and people without shoes, so perhaps criminal chic was in now. Maybe the Sutters were starting a trend. Take a criminal to The Creek.
The nouveau riche among The Creek membership, however, would be the most vociferously judgmental, they being the most insecure and the most likely to be made uncomfortable by the Bellarosas, who reminded them of themselves when they lived in Lefrak City or Levittown.
Anyway, Susan looked stunning in a simple white silk dress, a sort of Greco-Roman thing that barely covered her knees and accentuated her tan. We all sat, and Charlie came over unbidden, because Lady Stanhope does not need a waiter summoned for her. Waiters, even in new restaurants, sense this and materialize by her side. This, by itself, is reason enough to stay married to her.
Drink orders were given, and the four of us fell into small talk. I said to Anna, “You look lovely tonight.”
She smiled and her eyes sparkled. Clearly she liked me. For some reason, my eyes drifted to her cleavage, and there was that gold cross again, nestled between those voluptuous boobs, and if ever there was a mixed signal, that was it.
Susan inquired of Frank and me, “Did you get your business finished?”
I replied, “Frank was very helpful.”
“Good,’’ Susan replied. She said to Frank, “My attorneys advised me to strike a separate deal with the government. In effect to abandon John. Can you believe that? What sort of people have we become?”
Bellarosa, on learning that Susan had her own attorneys, must have wondered the same thing. But to his credit he seemed to understand the underlying meaning of that question and replied, “Governments come and go. Laws come and go. You owe loyalty to family, to your own blood, and to your wife or your husband.’’ He looked at me, “And if your wife has given you children and if she is a good wife, you owe loyalty to her family, too. Capisce?”
Frank, of course, hadn’t met the Stanhopes. I mumbled a reply.
Bellarosa continued, “If you betray family, you are damned to hell for eternity.’’ He added, “If family betrays you, then no punishment is severe enough.”
That sounded like something you’d pull out of a fortune cannoli if there were such a thing. I didn’t mind the gospel according to Frank when we were alone, but when Susan was present, I didn’t want it to appear that I actually hung on every grammatically incorrect piece of tripe he spouted. So I said, “What do you mean by betrayal? How about sexual betrayal?”
Forgetting that I’d said we didn’t talk sex here, he replied, “A man can go with another woman without betraying his wife. This is the nature of a man. A wife cannot have another man without betraying her husband.”
I knew, of course, he was going to say something like that, and I wanted Susan to hear it, though I’m not certain why. A statement like that would usually set off a rather spirited discussion among two normal and contemporary couples, but if Frank Bellarosa had a weakness, it was this: The man had a faint sense of anachronism about him, a sort of 1950s persona, shaped by his unique subculture, his ethnic background, and his profession. He certainly understood the wider world in which he lived, and he understood human nature, which was why he made that statement and why, like it or not, it was a somewhat accurate statement. But he did not understand that you did n
ot say things like that in America. You didn’t refer to blacks as eggplants, and you didn’t demean women or call Hispanics spics or make gross generalizations about women, minorities, the poor, the handicapped, immigrants, or any other group that was in special favor at the moment. Frank Bellarosa was not a sensitive man. Actually, he didn’t have to be, which was one reason I was a little envious of him.
I glanced at Susan, who, as I suspected, was not offended, only amused at this primitive sitting beside her.
Anna, of course, had no comment, nor would she ever.
Frank went on, “But a man must be careful when he goes with a woman who is not his wife. Great men have been ruined because women made them forget loyalty, made them forget their friends, and opened the door to their enemies.”
I had the feeling Frank would have gone on, but I wanted the subject changed, so I changed it. I said to Susan, “Frank told me he liked your painting.”
Susan smiled, then gave Bellarosa a stern look. “If he keeps peeking, I’m going to paint his face.”
My, hadn’t we become familiar with a Mafia don?
And so we chitchatted through a round of drinks, giving our audience something to talk about over the weekend.
At eight, we retired to one of the dining rooms where Susan and I greeted a few people we knew and introduced the Bellarosas without using any of Frank’s titles. No one, of course, snubbed the Bellarosas the way they would have twenty or thirty years ago. On the contrary, politeness grips most of American society now as if we’d been bombed with laughing gas, and your average white turkey will shake hands with a suspected murderer, converse on the street with bums who accost him, and probably open the door to armed robbers so as not to appear rude. Thus I knew we weren’t going to have any scenes vis-à-vis the Bellarosas, and I was right.
We all sat, ordered more drinks, discussed the menu, and listened to the specials from Christopher, the maître d’, who Frank decided was a faggot.
We placed our orders with Richard, an elderly gent who prided himself on remembering every order without writing it down. Alas, that is no longer the case, and hasn’t been for some years, so with Richard as your waiter, you either eat what he brings, or you embarrass him by sending it back. I eat what he brings.
I asked for a certain Bordeaux that I knew would go well with everything we ordered. I did this without consulting the wine list. That’s my little restaurant gimmick, and people are usually impressed. Frank and Anna didn’t seem to give a shit.
Susan smilingly explained to the Bellarosas that they might not get precisely what they ordered, or in fact anything they ordered. They didn’t find this as amusing as our peers usually do, who are used to the eccentricities of old clubs.
Susan ended her story by saying, “If we’re lucky, Richard will bring the wrong wine with the wrong food and it might go well together.”
The Bellarosas seemed confused and incredulous. Frank demanded, “Why don’t they fire the guy?”
I explained that the members would not permit the firing of an old employee.
Frank seemed to comprehend that, being an employer, a padrone, the don, a man who rewards loyalty. I asked him, “You wouldn’t fire someone who got too old for the job, would you?”
He replied with a smile, “I guess not, but I never knew nobody in my business who got too old.’’ He laughed, and even I smiled. Susan chuckled, but Anna pretended not to hear or to understand. I think she would have liked to cross herself. Frank continued on his roll. “Sometimes I got to fire people, but sometimes I got to fire at people.”
Three of us laughed. Anna studied a painting on the wall.
The appetizers came, two right, two wrong.
And so we dined, the Sutters and the Bellarosas. I was relaxed knowing that no one was going to be shot at our table. Susan was relaxed as well, unafraid, as I indicated, of social ostracism, but more than that, she was having a good time. In truth, the Bellarosas were more interesting than the Vandermeers, for instance, and certainly funnier once they got warmed up. Frank had a whole repertoire of jokes that were racist, sexist, dirty, and just plain offensive to anyone, Italians included. But the way he told them, with no apologies or self-consciousness, made them actually sound all right, and we all laughed until our faces hurt.
People around us seemed jealous that we were actually having a good time. The entrées came, one right, three wrong, but by this time no one cared. Susan had taken to calling me consigliere, which Frank found funny, but which I, even though drunk, didn’t find terribly amusing.
Richard tried a few times to take away Frank’s green salad, which had been untouched. But Frank told him to leave it, and the next time Richard reached for it, Frank grabbed his wrist. “Look, pal,’’ said Bellarosa, “I said leave the fucking salad alone.”
This sort of stopped the action for a few seconds. Richard backed off, almost bowing as he rubbed his wrist. I was glad for this little incident, for it assured me that Frank Bellarosa was who and what Alphonse Ferragamo said he was. And like most sociopaths, Mr. Bellarosa had a short fuse and was liable to go from laughing to explosive violence in about one second. Even Susan, I saw, who found Bellarosa charming, interesting, and all that, was a bit taken aback.
Frank realized he should not have bared his fangs in human company and explained with a wave of the hand, “Italians eat their salad after the main course. Cleans the palate. I guess that guy didn’t know that.”
I guess he knows now, Frank.
Frank ate his salad.
After about fifteen minutes, everybody forgot or made believe they forgot that Frank had forgotten his manners. In fact, Frank went out of his way to be nice to Richard, explaining about the salad, making a few dumb jokes about Italian waiters, and generally assuring Richard that he could move about the table freely without fear of losing a body part. Richard dropped a dish nevertheless.
We ordered coffee and dessert, and Frank ordered four glasses of marsala wine, explaining to Richard that Italians often had marsala with or before their dessert, sometimes with cheese. Richard, who didn’t give a shit, pretended to be fascinated.
The meal ended happily, without bloodshed or further incident, except that Frank insisted on paying even after I explained that no money could be used in the club. Finally, frustrated in his attempt to make amends with me, he shoved some bills in Richard’s waistcoat pocket.
The truly inebriated never know when to quit, so we retired to a small study for liqueurs. A sleepy cocktail waitress glanced at her watch in preparation for telling us it was too late, then noticed Frank Bellarosa, who I knew had been pointed out to her at some time during the evening. She smiled and asked, “What can I get for you?”
Frank took it on himself to order for everyone. “Sambuca, and you got to put three beans in each glass for good luck. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.’’ She hurried off.
Frank offered me a cigar and I took it. We lit up and smoked. The cordials came with a whole plate of coffee beans so we could make our own luck.
Frank said, “I got to take you two to a little place down on Mott Street. Little Italy, you know? A place called Giulio’s. I’ll teach you how to eat Italian.”
I asked, “Do we need bulletproof vests?”
You never know with a guy like Bellarosa what he’s going to find funny. Susan sort of chuckled. Anna seemed sad. But Frank laughed. “Nah. They give you them when you sit. Like bibs.”
We finished our cordials and I stood unsteadily. “They want to close up here.”
Frank sprang out of his chair. “Come on back to my place.”
Susan accepted simultaneous to my declining. We’re usually pretty much in sync when it comes to things like this, and we can communicate with a glance. But clearly we weren’t on the same wavelength this evening. I said to Susan, “I have a busy day tomorrow. You can go if you wish.”
“I guess I’ll go home.”
Frank seemed neither disappointed nor relieved, though Anna looked
at me in an odd way, almost as if she and I were simpatico, and the other two were nuts.
Susan and Anna had arrived in Frank’s Cadillac, driven by the wheelman/bodyguard, and Susan and I accepted Frank’s invitation to be driven home, as we were both somewhat impaired.
We staggered out into the balmy night, and Frank’s car quickly pulled up to us as if the driver, out of force of habit, thought we’d just robbed the place.
We all squeezed into the backseat, which people who don’t know each other well won’t usually do if they’re stone sober. Somehow, the order of seating turned out to be Susan, Frank, Anna, and me. The car pulled away and we all swayed and laughed. It really was tight, given Anna’s ample hips, and so it seemed natural that Susan wound up half on Bellarosa’s lap. Anna, for her part, seemed embarrassed if not actually panicky about the proximity of her right thigh and breast to my left thigh and arm, respectively. It didn’t matter what was going on to her immediate left. Amazing.
Anyway, we laughed and joked, and it was all very silly, typical middle-aged suburbanites having alcoholic fun that in the morning would be embarrassing if you were stupid enough to think about it.
The driver, a man whom Frank called Lenny, actually checked us out in his rearview mirror and even glanced over his shoulder at me once. Lenny was a smirker, and I wanted to bash my fist in his idiotic young face, or tell Frank to put a bullet in the back of his head.
Anyway, Lenny seemed to know the way, pulling right through the open gates of Stanhope Hall, and without hesitation finding his way along the unlighted road to our house. Interesting. Lenny got out and opened Susan’s door, helping her off Bellarosa’s knee and onto the ground. I exited without help, unless you count Anna rearranging her hips, which inadvertently propelled me out the door.
Susan and I waved good-bye to the black windows of the Bellarosas’ Cadillac, then went inside and climbed the stairs to our bedroom. We undressed and fell into bed. Susan and I both sleep au naturel all year round, which means the honeymoon is not over, and gives our young, Hispanic laundress something to talk about, i.e., “I no wash no nightgowns or pajamas at Stanhope Hall, but mi Dios, those sheets!”