The Gate House (38 page)

“I won’t change my mind about her, but you should.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh, yeah. You still on that? Come on, John. I told you, if that was a problem, it would have been settled long ago. Don’t get yourself worked up. Go marry her. Have a happy life.”

He knew not to say anything that I could take to the police, and in fact, he reassured me by saying, “Women, children, and retards get a pass. Understand?” He explained, “There are rules.”

I reminded him, “Someone tried to kill your father right in front of your mother, who could also have been hurt or killed. Did someone forget the rules?”

He looked at me a long time, then said, “That’s none of your business.”

“Excuse me, Anthony. I was standing two feet from your father when the shotgun pellets went past my face. That’s when it became my business.”

He thought about that, then said, “It’s still none of your business.”

“All right. Don’t let me keep you from your dinner. Thank you for your hospitality. You have a nice family. I especially like your uncle Sal. And just so there’s no misunderstanding concerning Susan Sutter, I’m informing you now, as her attorney, that I’m going to have Susan swear out a complaint with the police, and go on record as being concerned about her safety regarding your intentions toward her. So, if anything should happen to her, the police will know who to talk to. Capisce?”

I expected him to go totally nuts, but he just stood there, staring past me. So I said, “Good day,” and I turned and started walking across his lawn.

“John.”

I turned, half expecting to see a gun, but instead he walked toward me, stopped, and in a conciliatory tone of voice said, “Hey, John, you don’t have to go complaining to the cops. We’re men. We can talk.”

“We’ve talked.”

“I thought you understood what I was saying. About what you did for my father. I told you that night I stopped by, I owed you a favor for saving his life. So you mentioned something about your wife. Remember? I wasn’t sure what you wanted, but now I understand. There was never a problem there anyway. But if you think there is, and that’s the favor you want, then you got it.” He added, “I swear this on my father’s grave.”

That should have been the end of it, but only if I trusted him, and I definitely did not. Given the choice between swearing out a complaint with the police and Anthony Bellarosa’s word of honor, I’d put my money and my life and Susan’s on the sworn complaint against Anthony. And the shotgun.

Anthony waited for a reply, but when none was forthcoming, he said, “No hard feelings. We go our separate ways, and you stop worrying about whatever you’re worried about. We’re all even now on favors.”

I didn’t want Anthony Bellarosa to think he was doing me any favors, even if we both knew he was lying, so I informed him, “Your father already repaid me for saving his life. So you don’t owe me anything.”

This seemed to surprise him, and he said, “Yeah? He paid you back for saving his life? Good. But
I’ll
pay you back again for that.”

“I do
not
want any favors from you.”

“Yeah?” He was clearly getting angry and impatient with me for not accepting his good wishes for a happy, worry-free life, and his promise not to kill Susan. So he said, “You’re an asshole. Get the fuck out of here.”

That really pissed me off, so I decided that Anthony now needed to know how his father repaid the favor. I moved closer to him, and we were barely two feet apart.

“Yeah?
What?
”

“Your father, Anthony, was in love with my wife, and she was in love with him, and they were ready to run off together, and leave you, your brothers, and your mother—”

“What the
fuck
are you talking about?”

“But he owed me his life, so—”

“He was
fucking
her. That’s all he was doing. Fucking your wife for sport.”

“So I asked him to tell her it was over, and that he never loved her—”

“You’re full of shit.”

“And he did that for me, and unfortunately Susan, who was in love with him, snapped, and—”

“Get the hell out of here.”

“Anthony, that’s
why
she killed him. She loved him and he loved her, and he broke his promise to take her with him to Italy under the Witness Protection Program.”

“How the fuck do you know—?”

“He was a government witness, Anthony, and you know that as well as I do. Look it up online. It’s all there.” He didn’t respond to that, so I concluded, “You asked me for the truth about your father, and I just gave it to you.”

He practically put his nose in my face and spoke in a slow, deliberate tone. “None of that changes what your wife did. Just so you know.”

I put my hand on his chest and pushed him back, ready for any move he might make, but he just stood there, staring at me. I said to him, “That sounds like a threat. Is that a threat?”

He should have backed off on that, but I’d pressed the right buttons, and he said, “Take it any way you want.”

“I take it as a threat. And so will the police.”

He didn’t reply, and I turned my back on him and walked toward my car.

He called out to me, “You think guys like you don’t have to worry about guys like me. Well, Counselor, you’re wrong about that.”

I was glad he understood the concept, but I wasn’t sure he was smart enough or cool enough, like his father, to know when to shut his mouth, take a hit, and move on. Or since he’d threatened Susan in front of me, then threatened me, he might be thinking he needed to get rid of both of us.

I got in my car, and as I pulled away from his house, I saw he was still standing on the lawn watching me.

I headed out of Alhambra Estates.

Now, I thought, I didn’t have to protect Susan from afar; we were together, and Anthony and I were also where we belonged: nose to nose with everything out in the open.

I stopped the car where the blacktop ended, and I looked at where Alhambra had stood, remembering the library where Frank Bellarosa and I had sat with cigars and grappa, talking about Machiavelli and about the murder charge he was facing. And before I knew it, I was part of the family. Well, history did not repeat itself this time, but history was still driving the bus.

The last time I saw Bellarosa, as I said, he was lying half-naked and dead on the floor of the palm court, beneath the mezzanine outside his bedroom. I looked to where I thought the palm court had been, where a long blacktop driveway now led to the garage of a small villa, and I could actually picture him lying there.

I took a last look around me, knowing I’d probably never again be on the grounds of Alhambra, then I continued on, past the guard booth, and turned right on Grace Lane for the quarter-mile drive back to the guest cottage of Stanhope Hall.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I
drove through the open gates of Stanhope Hall, past the gatehouse, and up the tree-lined drive to the guest cottage, where I parked next to Susan’s Lexus.

I got out of the car and went to the front door. Susan never used to lock doors, and still didn’t, so I opened the door, went into the foyer, and as I used to do, I called out, “Sweetheart, I’m home!”

No reply, so I went into the kitchen, and I could see her on the back patio, sitting in a chaise lounge, reading a magazine.

I opened the door, and she stood quickly, hurried toward me, and wrapped her arms around me, saying, “Oh, I’m so glad you’re home.” She gave me a kiss and asked, “Did you tell him?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“Well, as I expected, he didn’t take the news of our reunion very well.”

“Why did you even
tell
him that? That is none of his business. All you had to tell him was that you were not going to work for him.”

“Right. Normally I wouldn’t announce my engagement to a Mafia don, but I wanted him to know we were together, and that you were not alone.”

She thought about that, then replied, “All right . . . but I still think you’re overreacting.”

She wouldn’t think that if she’d stood with me and Anthony Bellarosa on his front lawn, but I didn’t want to alarm her, so I said, “I don’t think there will be any problem . . . but tomorrow, you and I will go to the local precinct and you need to swear out a complaint against Anthony Bellarosa, so that—”

“John, I don’t need to do that.” She added, “That might actually make him—”

“Susan. We will do this my way, and I don’t want any arguments. I want him to know that the police are aware of the situation. Understand?”

She looked at me, and despite my matter-of-fact tone, I could tell that she knew that I was concerned. She said, “All right.” Then she changed the subject and asked me, “Did you see Anna?”

“I did.”

“How was she? Friendly?”

“She was.” But did not send her regards to you.

Susan asked, “How is his wife?”

“She seemed nice enough.”

I recalled, from long ago, that whenever I went someplace without Susan, I got a cross-examination that rivaled anything I’d ever done with a witness. I really needed a drink, so I announced, “I think it’s cocktail time.”

“What did his wife look like?”

“Oh . . . she was actually pretty.” I added, “But not very refined.”

“Who else was there?”

“Salvatore D’Alessio. Uncle Sal. And his wife, Marie.” I asked, “Did you ever meet them?”

“No. How would I . . . ?” Then, apparently recalling that she’d been a frequent visitor at Alhambra, she thought for a moment about things she’d been trying to forget for ten years, and replied, “Actually, yes. I did meet them. When I was at the house.” She explained, “I was painting in the palm court.” She wanted to end it there, but sensing she should share the entire memory with me, she continued, “They stopped by, and Anna introduced them, but we didn’t speak.”

She concluded, “He was a frightening-looking man.”

“Still is.”

Susan said, “I’ll get you a drink. What would you like?”

“A pink squirrel.”

“How do I make that?”

“You pour four ounces of Scotch in a glass and add ice cubes.”

“All right . . . I’ll be right back.”

She went inside, and I gave some thought to Susan meeting Salvatore D’Alessio at Alhambra, and I wondered if it ever occurred to her that she had entered a world in which she had no control, and where she was not Lady Stanhope. In fact, she was nothing more than the mistress of the don, and that didn’t bestow much status. It was incredible if you thought about it—and I had—that Susan Stanhope, who’d led such a sheltered and privileged life, and who was so haughty, had debased herself by becoming the sex toy of a powerful but crude man. I mean, history is full of noble ladies who’ve done this—the wife of a Roman emperor became a prostitute by night—and I suppose a clinical psychologist would have a field day with this interesting dichotomy. Maybe Susan was trying to pay back Mommy and Daddy. Maybe I forgot to compliment her on a new dress. Or, most likely, she herself had no idea why she took a criminal as a lover. The mind, as they say, is the most powerful aphrodisiac, and no one knows how it works. In any case, I was fairly sure that Susan had gotten this out of her system. Been there, done that.

Susan returned with a tray on which was a glass of white wine and my Scotch. She set the tray on the table, we raised our glasses, clinked, and she said, “To us.”

I added, “Together, forever.”

I sipped my Scotch, and Susan informed me, “That’s your Scotch. I’ve had it since . . . I moved.”

I guess none of her gentlemen friends or her late husband drank Dewar’s. Or she was telling me a little white lie to make me feel that the last ten years were just a small pile of crap on the highway to a lifetime of happiness. Nonetheless, I said, “It’s improved with age.” I was going to add, “and so have you,” but with women, you need to be careful with those sorts of compliments.

She asked me, “How does that pink squirrel differ from a Scotch on the rocks?”

“Mostly, it’s the spelling.”

She smiled and said, “It’s going to take me a while to get used to your infantile humor again.”

“Infantile? I’ll have you know—”

She planted a kiss on my lips and said, “God, I missed you. I missed everything about you.”

“Me, too.”

So we held hands and stood there, looking out at the sunny garden, sipping our drinks. After a minute or so, she asked me, “How was their house?”

“Not too bad, but I didn’t stop at the sales office.” I wanted to return to a previous subject, so I asked her, “Did you know that Salvatore D’Alessio was the prime suspect behind what happened at Giulio’s?”

She glanced at me and replied, “No. You mean . . . his own brother-in-law?”

“That’s right. You never heard that?”

“Where would I hear that?”

Well, from the intended murder victim, your lover, for one. But I replied, “The newspapers.”

She didn’t respond for a few seconds, then said, “I didn’t follow it in the news.”

“That’s right.” In fact, I seem to recall that she hadn’t even followed the bigger story, a few weeks later, about Susan Stanhope Sutter killing Frank Bellarosa—and that wasn’t because she couldn’t bear to read about it; that was more about Susan’s deeply ingrained lack of interest in, and disdain for, the news in general. Her motto had been the famous observation that if you’ve read about one train wreck, you’ve read about them all. Of course, if you were in the train wreck, you might find it interesting to read about it. In any case, coupled with her lack of interest in the news was her upbringing in a social class that still believed that the only time a woman’s name should appear in the newspapers was when she was born, when she married, and when she died. So that didn’t leave much room for stories about killing your lover. In any case, I believed her when she said she had no knowledge that Salvatore D’Alessio had been the man who ruined our evening in Little Italy. In fact, I’d never mentioned it to her myself.

She asked me, “Why did you bring that up?”

I replied, “Because I think that . . . Anthony Bellarosa may harbor a grudge against his uncle. Also, his uncle may want to finish with Anthony what he started at Giulio’s with Frank.”