"Good. Then you did the right thing today."
"No. I committed perjury."
"Don't worry about it."
The owner, whose name was Lucio, came by with a bowl of fried onion rings, and a waiter put down two small plates.
"Mangia," Frank said as he took a clawful of the onion rings.
"No, thanks."
"Come on. Eat."
They weren't onion rings, of course, but I was trying to pretend they were. I put a few of the things on my plate, then put one in my mouth and washed it down with the Chianti. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
There was a big loaf of Italian bread sitting right on the tablecloth, unsliced, and Frank ripped it apart with his big mitts and flipped a few pieces my way. I didn't see a bread plate and probably never would. I ate some of the bread, which was the best I've ever had.
Between chews, Bellarosa said, "You see what I mean about how law-abiding I am? Mancuso came in by himself, and I'm waiting for the fucking cuffs. Now how do you think they take a spic out of one of those social clubs? They go in there with a fucking battalion, armed to the fucking teeth, and they got to beat off spies and drag the guy out screaming. Half the time somebody gets a split head or gets shot. You see the difference? You think Mancuso is a fucking hero? No. He knew I wasn't going to put him away."
"Still, Frank, that took balls."
He smiled. "Yeah. That little, skinny wop bangs on my door and says, 'You're under arrest.' Yeah." He added, "But you think Mancuso is going to be a star? No fucking way. Ferragamo runs his show his way, and he's the star. You'll see on the news."
Unbidden, the waiter brought over a bowl of what looked like scallops covered with red sauce. Bellarosa shovelled some on my plate beside the fried squid. He said, "This is scungilli. Like… conch. Like a shellfish. Sono buone." "Can I order something from the menu?"
"Try that. Try it." He dug into his whatever it was. "Eat. Come on." I positioned my wine and a piece of bread, swallowed a piece of the conch, drank the Chianti, and bit on the bread.
"You like it?"
"Sono buone."
He laughed.
We ate, drank, and talked awhile. No one offered us a menu, and I noticed that most of the customers were not using menus but were talking food with the waiters in a mixture of Italian and English. The waiters seemed friendly, happy, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, patient, and helpful. Obviously they weren't French.
It struck me as I sat there that this restaurant could have been a hundred years old, older than The Creek, older than The Seawanhaka Corinthian. And very little in the restaurant had changed, not the decor, the cuisine, or the clientele. In fact, Little Italy was a sort of time warp, a bastion of Italian immigrant culture that seemed to be resisting change and assimilation against all odds. If I had to bet on what would last into the next century – the Gold Coast or Little Italy – I'd bet on Little Italy. Similarly, I'd put my money on Giulio's over The Creek.
I regarded Frank Bellarosa as he ate. He looked more comfortable here, obviously, than he had in The Creek. But beyond that, he belonged here, was part of this place, part of the local colour, the fabric and decor of Giulio's, and Mott Street. I watched him, his tie loosened, a napkin stuffed in his collar, and his hands darting around the table, relaxed in the knowledge that no one was going to take anything away from him; not his food, nor his pride. We were working on our second bottle of Chianti, and I said to him, "You're from Brooklyn. Not Little Italy."
"Yeah. But most of Brooklyn's gone. My old neighbourhood is gone. This is still the place. You know?"
"How so?"
"I mean, like every Italian in New York comes here at least once in his life. Most come once or twice a year. It makes them feel good, you know, because they live in the suburbs now, and maybe their old neighbourhood is full of blacks or Spanish, or something, so they can't go back there, so they come here. This is everybody's old neighbourhood. Capisce? Well, maybe not your old neighbourhood." He laughed. "Where you from?"
"Locust Valley."
"Yeah. You don't have far to go home."
"It gets farther every year."
"Well, I like to come down here, you know, to walk on the streets, smell the bakeries, smell the cheese, smell the restaurants. Lots of people come for San Gennaro – you know, the Feast of San Gennaro, the patron saint of Napoli… Naples. They come for St Anthony's feast, too. They come here to eat Italian, see Italians, feel Italian. You understand?"
"Is that why you come here?"
"Yeah. Sometimes. I have some business here, too. I see people here. I got my club here."
"The Italian Rifle Club?"
"Yeah."
"Can you take me there?"
"Sure. You took me to The Creek." He smiled. "I take Jack Weinstein there. He loves it. I get him drunk and take him down to the basement and let him blast the targets. I got a silhouette target down there that says 'Alphonse Ferragamo.'" He laughed.
I smiled. "I think they throw darts at my picture in the IRS office."
"Yeah? Darts? Fuck darts." He stuck his finger at me and cocked his thumb.
"Ba-boom, ba-boom. That's how you make holes in targets." He finished another glass of wine and repoured for both of us. The Chianti was getting better. By the third bottle it would taste like Brunello di Montalcino, 1974.
I looked around the restaurant again. During my mental absence it had gotten full and was noisy now, lively and hopping. I said to Bellarosa, "I like this place."
"Good."
Actually, I was feeling better. Sort of like the high you get after a close call. I couldn't come to terms with the perjury, you understand, but I was working on it. In fact, I took my daybook out of my pocket and, for the first time, turned to January fourteenth. I write in ink, partly because, as an attorney, I know that my daybook is a quasi-legal document and, therefore, should be done in ink in the event it ever had to be shown as evidence. On the other hand, I always use the same pen, the Montblanc with the same nib and the same black Montblanc ink, so if I had to add something after the fact, I could. But I don't like to do that.
Anyway, with some real trepidation, knowing a lot rode on this, I looked at the space for January fourteenth and read: Light snow. Home in A.M., lunch with Susan at Creek, Locust Valley office P.M., meet with staff, 4 P.M. I stared at the entry awhile. Home in A.M. Did I really ride that day? Maybe I did. Did I ride over to Alhambra? Perhaps. Did I see three mafiosi walking around? I said I did.
I began to close the book, but then I noticed the entry for January fifteenth:
7:40 A.M., Eastern flight #119, West Palm Beach. If I had gone to Florida on the morning of the fourteenth, Ferragamo and the FBI would eventually have discovered that by subpoenaing my daybook, or by other means. And John Sutter would be sharing a cell with Frank Bellarosa. But I was in the clear; Home in A.M. The Sutter luck was holding. If I were a Catholic, I would have crossed myself and said the Rosary. I put the book in my pocket. Bellarosa said, "You got someplace else to go?"
"No. Just checking something."
"Yeah? Does it check out?"
"Yes, it does."
"Good." He looked me in the eye. "Grazie," he said, and that was all the thanks or acknowledgement I would ever get, and more than I wanted. Bellarosa said, "I want to take the women here with us at night. You'll like it at night. This old ginzo plays the little squeeze box" – he pantomimed someone playing an accordion – "whaddaya call that? The concertina. And they got this old fat donna who sings like an angel. Your wife will love it." I asked, "Are you safe to be with?"
"Hey, what's this thing you got about that?" He tapped his chest. "If I'm the target, I'm the target. You think anybody gives a shit about you? Just don't get in the way and don't be looking at people's faces. Capisce?" He laughed and slapped my shoulder. "You're funny."
"So are you." I knocked back another glass of that nectar of the gods and asked him, "But how about the other people? The Spanish? The Jamaicans? Do they play by the rules?"