The Gate House (12 page)

“It must be very sad for them.”

She let me know how sad it was. She didn’t say anything specific about Frank as a perfect husband, but neither did she say anything negative, of course, nor would she ever.

The last time I’d seen her was at Frank’s funeral, and she hadn’t looked good in black with mascara running down her face. In fact, though, she’d been an attractive woman in a fertility goddess sort of way—full-bodied, big-busted, good skin under the makeup, big eyes, and a Cupid’s bow mouth. I wondered what ten years and widowhood had done to her.

As Anna prattled on, I glanced at Anthony, who seemed to have tuned out and was absently stirring his beverage, which looked and smelled like a Scotch on the rocks. I got his attention and motioned to his drink. He nodded and summoned the waitress.

Anna Bellarosa was going on about life without her sainted husband, avoiding any mention of my then-wife putting three .38 caliber slugs into dear Frank.

It happened, incidentally, on the mezzanine that overlooked the palm court atrium at Alhambra. Frank had been wearing a bathrobe, and when he went over the railing and hit the red-tiled floor below, his bathrobe flew open, and when I saw him, he wasn’t wearing anything under his black silk robe, and it occurred to me now that this image of him had somehow transferred itself to my dream in another form.

Anna was saying, “He loved you, John. He really did.”

Then why was he fucking my wife?

“He always told me how smart you were. How you helped him when they tried to make up charges against him.”

Ironically, Frank Bellarosa would have been safer in jail. “Well, I was just doing what he paid me to do.” And he still owes me fifty thousand dollars.

“No. You did it because you loved him.”

“Right.” Or did I write off the fifty thousand and chalk it up to experience? I seem to remember that the Feds had seized all his assets and his checkbooks.

Anna was rambling on. The waitress came, a very young Chinese lady, and I tapped Anthony’s glass and pointed to myself, so she pushed Anthony’s glass in front of me.

Anthony seemed not amused and snatched his glass back, then barked an order for two Dewar’s, and mumbled in Italian, “Stonata,” which I recalled means something like “bubble brain.”

Out of nowhere, Anna asked, “Why did she do it, John?”

“Uh . . .”

“John.
Why?
”

“Uh . . . well . . .” Well, because they were having a lover’s quarrel. But I didn’t think Anna wanted to hear that. I mean, she had to know—it was in all the newspapers, as I recall, not to mention radio and television, and supermarket tabloids—so it was a silly question.

“She didn’t
have
to do it, John.”

“I know.” But Frank had made promises to her, then broke those promises, and Susan, not used to being scorned, shot him.

By the time I saw him, the blood around his three bullet holes had coagulated like red custard, and the wound in his groin was in his pubic hair, and his genitals were covered with clotted blood. His skull had hit the hard floor with such force that a splatter of blood radiated out from his head like a halo. His eyes were still open, so I closed them, which ticked off the CSI people and the crime scene photographers.

“John? Did she tell you why?”

“No.” Actually, she did, but she was lying.

Anna asked me, “Why is she back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you see her?”

“No.”

“She should burn in hell for what she did.”

I was getting a little annoyed at Anna’s suggestion that her sainted husband, Frank the Bishop Bellarosa, was the innocent victim of an evil, cold-blooded murderess. I mean, come on, Anna. Your husband was a notorious Mafia don, probably himself a murderer, and for sure an adulterer who screwed more women than he’d had spaghetti dinners at home. So, to use a phrase she’d understand, I should have said, “What goes around, comes around.” And furthermore, Anna, if anyone is burning in hell, it’s your husband. But instead, I said, “Okay, Anna— Tony wants to speak—”

“You shouldn’t eat there. You don’t know what they put in the food.”

“Right. Okay—”

“Next time you’re in Brooklyn, you stop by for coffee or come to Tony’s house for dinner. Next Sunday. I’ll cook.”

“Thank you. Take care.” I added, “Ciao,” and handed the cell phone back to Anthony, who will always be Tony to Momma.

He said into the phone, “Yeah, Ma. I gotta—okay, okay. Stanco’s.” He listened, then said, “I’ll tell her to call you. She’s busy with the kids, Ma. You can call her—”

Poor Tony. Harriet Sutter was starting to look good.

He finally hung up, slammed the phone on the table, downed the rest of his Scotch, and said, “What’s the difference between an Italian mother and a Rottweiler?”

“What?”

“Eventually, the Rottweiler lets go.”

I smiled.

Anthony lit a cigarette and stayed silent awhile, then asked me, “What was she saying?”

“Your father.”

He nodded, and we dropped that subject, or, I was certain, tabled it for later.

The waitress brought the two Scotches and correctly put one glass in front of each of us, then inquired, “You want order now?”

Anthony informed her, “We don’t have a friggin’
menu
.” He added, “Cretina.”

Maybe I should have suggested Stanco’s.

Anthony raised his glass and I raised mine. We clinked, and he said, “Salute,” and I said, “Cheers.”

He said, apropos of Mom, “She and Megan—that’s my wife—they don’t get along.”

“That can be difficult.”

“Yeah. Difficult. Megan, you know, she’s Irish, and they have different . . . what do you call it . . . ?”

“Ethnic traditions? Cultural practices?”

“Yeah. Anyway, it’s not like I married a melanzana or something.”

“Right.” That means eggplant, which one would not normally marry, but it’s also Italian slang for a black person. It was all coming back to me. Check, please.

On the subject of marital bliss in the ’burbs, and because I was curious, I asked him, “How do you like living in Alhambra Estates?”

He shrugged. “It’s okay . . . but I’d like to move back to the city.” He delivered a hot piece of news by saying, “There’s a million good-looking broads in New York.”

“That shouldn’t interest a married man.”

He thought that was funny. He said, “I almost got her to move into the city, but after 9/11, forget it.”

I said, “This is a good place to raise children.”

“Yeah. I got two. A boy, Frank, five years old, and a girl, Kelly Ann—Ann for my mother. Kelly is Megan’s mother’s maiden name.” He continued, “My mother—you know how they are”—he did a bad impersonation of Mom’s voice—“‘Tony, what’s this Kelly name? The only Kellys I know in Williamsburg are drunks.’” He laughed, then realizing he’d broken the rule on revealing anything negative about
la famiglia
, he said, “Forget that.”

Returning to the subject of life in the country, he said to me, “Do you know that the road that runs by the estates is private? Grace Lane is private.”

“I do know that.”

“Yeah, well, it was falling apart, and those cheap bastards along the road didn’t want to repave it. So I got one of my companies to do it as a favor to everybody.”

That was interesting, and it revealed something about Anthony. His father didn’t care what anyone thought about him, as long as they respected him and feared him. Anthony seemed to be looking for acceptance. But it’s really hard for narrow-minded suburbanites to accept a Mafia don as a neighbor. I mean, I had a problem with that myself. I said to him, “That was very nice of you.”

“Yeah. Do you think I got a thank-you? Not one fucking thank-you.”

“Well, I thank you. The road looks good.”

“Fuck them. I should tear it up.”

“Hold up on that. Maybe they’re planning a surprise party for you.”

“Yeah? Maybe I got a surprise for them.”

Don’t whack your neighbors, Anthony. Your kids have enough problems with Dad being a Mafia guy. I hesitated, then asked him, “Did the developer save the reflecting pool and the statue of Neptune?”

“Huh . . . ? Oh, yeah, I remember that when I was a kid. There was, like, make-believe Roman ruins, and gardens and stuff. That was some place. You remember that?”

“I do. Is it still there?”

“Nah. It’s all gone. Just houses. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering.”

“Yeah. I loved that place.” He informed me, “I went skinny-dipping once in the pool.” He smiled. “With the college girl who my father hired to be my tutor.”

“What subject?”

He laughed, then seemed lost in that memory, so I took the opportunity to think about how to get the hell out of here. I also looked around to see if there was anyone in Wong Lee’s whom I knew. Or anyone who looked like the FBI.

The restaurant was mostly empty, except for a few families with kids, and people waiting for takeout orders. Then I noticed a guy sitting by himself in a booth on the other side, facing toward the back of the restaurant.

Anthony noticed my interest in the gentleman and said, “He’s with me.”

“Good.” So we had interlocking fields of fire if a situation developed. That made me feel much better. More to the point, Mr. Bellarosa was definitely in full security mode. I looked back at him, and it appeared to me now that under his loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt was quite possibly a Kevlar vest. This is what had saved his father’s life at Giulio’s. Maybe I should ask if he had an extra vest.

If I wanted to speculate on what or who was making Anthony jumpy, I’d guess it was Sally Da-da. Though why this should be happening now, after ten years, was a mystery. So maybe it was someone else. The only way I’d know for sure is if the same two guys with shotguns who were at Giulio’s suddenly appeared at the table and blew Anthony’s head off. Maybe I should order takeout.

The waitress brought the menus, and we looked at them. He asked me, “You like Chinese?”

“Sometimes.”

“I dated a Chinese girl once, and an hour after I ate her, I was hungry again.” He laughed. “Get it?”

“Got it.” I studied the menu more intensely and took a long swig of Scotch.

He continued, “So I was dating this Chinese girl, and one night, we’re making out hot and heavy, and I said to her, ‘I want sixty-nine,’ and she says, ‘Oh, you want beef and broccoli
now
?’” He laughed again. “Get it?”

“Got it.”

“You got one?”

“Not one that comes to mind.”

“I once heard my father say to somebody that you were a funny guy.”

In fact, Frank appreciated my sarcasm, irony, and humor, even when he was the butt of it. I wasn’t sure that his son was as thick-skinned or as bright, but the jury was still out on Anthony’s brain power. I said, “Your father brought out the best of my wit.”

The waitress returned, and I ordered wonton soup and beef and broccoli, which made Anthony laugh. He ordered sixty-nine, which was not on the menu, and settled for what I was having. He also ordered another round of Scotch, and a clean ashtray, and I asked for chopsticks.

He said to me, “You know why wives like Chinese food?”

“No. Why?”

“Because wonton spelled backwards is not now.”

I hoped that exhausted his repertoire.

I noticed that Anthony, like Tony, had a flag pin on the lapel of his sports jacket, and my recollection of Frank and his friends was that they exhibited a sort of primitive, jingoistic patriotism, based for the most part on xenophobia, racism, and a lingering immigrant culture that said, “America is a great country.”

Indeed it is, and despite some serious problems, I was seeing it more clearly now after three years of wandering the globe, and seven years in London. I mean, England was a good place for self-exiled Americans, but it wasn’t home, and I suddenly realized that I was home. So maybe I should stop playing the part of the ex-pat on a brief visit to the States.

As though reading my mind, Anthony asked me, “So, how long you staying?”

This, I guess, was the threshold question whose answer would determine if we had any business to discuss. So I needed to carefully consider my answer.

He asked me, “You still up in the air on that?”

“I’m . . . leaning toward staying.”

“Good. No reason to go back.” He added, “This is where the action is.”

Actually, that was a good reason to return to London.

Anthony suddenly reached into his pocket, and I thought he was pulling his gun, but instead he produced a flag pin and set it down in front of me. He said, “If you’re staying, you want to wear this.”

I left it lying on the table and said, “Thank you.”

Anthony instructed, “Put it on your lapel.” He tapped the flag on his lapel, but when I didn’t follow instructions, he leaned forward and stuck the flag on the left lapel of my blue blazer. He said, “There you go. Now you’re an American again.”

I informed him, “My family has been in America for over three hundred years.”

“No shit?” He inquired, “Why’d they wait so long after Columbus discovered America?”

Further on the subject of history, Anthony informed me, “I majored in history.” He added, “I went to college for a year. NYU. I fucked my brains out.”

I could see that.

“I read a lot about the Romans. That shit interests me. How about you?”

I informed him, “I took eight years of Latin, and I could read Cicero, Seneca, and Ovid in classical Latin.”

“No shit?”

“Then, in my senior year of college, I got hit in the head with a baseball, and now I can read only Italian.”

He thought that was funny, then got serious and said, “What I’m getting at is I see this country like Rome, when the Empire was in serious trouble. Understand?”

I didn’t reply.

“Like, the days of the Republic are over. Now we’re like an imperial power, so every asshole out there wants to take a shot at us. Right? Like those fucks on 9/11. Plus, we can’t control our borders, like the Romans couldn’t, so we got ten million illegals who can’t even speak the fucking language and don’t give a shit about the country. They just want a piece of the action. And the assholes in Washington sit around and argue, like the Roman Senate, and the fucking country is going to hell with weirdos screaming about their rights, and the fucking barbarians are at the border.”