I tried to imagine how this would sit with my partners, my staff, and my two secretaries when they discovered that Mr Sutter had expanded the scope of Perkins, Perkins, Sutter and Reynolds into criminal law. As the water flowed over my head, I had this mental image of my mother and father flipping through the International Herald Tribune, somewhere in darkest Europe, looking for depressing stories of famine and political repression, and stumbling upon an odd little article about Mr Frank Bellarosa, Mafia gang leader in New York. Mother would say, "Isn't that the fellow who lives next to our son, what's-his-name?" And Father would reply, "Yes, I believe… well, look, here is a mention of John Sutter. That must be our John." And Mother would say, "It must be. Did I tell you about that darling little cafe I saw yesterday in Montmartre?" Of course my friends at The Creek would be somewhat more interested. I pictured Lester, Martin Vandermeer, Randall Potter, Allen DePauw, and a few others sitting around the lounge, nodding knowingly, or perhaps shaking their heads in stunned disbelief, or doing whatever they thought everyone else thought was appropriate, and Lester would say, "If only John had had more strength of character. I feel sorry for Susan and the kids."
Jim and Sally Roosevelt, though, were real friends, and nonjudgemental people. I could count on them to tell me straight out what they thought and felt about me. Therefore, I would avoid them for about a month.
Then there were my relatives, my aunts and uncles such as Cornelia and Arthur, and my too many cousins, and their spouses, and the whole crew of silly people I had to associate with because of things like Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, weddings, and funerals. Well, Thanksgiving was three months away, I didn't know about any upcoming weddings, and no one seemed about to croak (though after today I wouldn't be surprised if Aunt Cornelia did). And if they all snubbed me, I wouldn't care one whit, but they were more likely to pester me for details of my secret life as a Mafia mouthpiece.
And of course, there were Carolyn and Edward. I was glad I'd tipped them off about this, so when they heard it from other sources, they could say, "Yes, we know all about that. We support our father in whatever he does." What great kids. Anyway, I guessed that Carolyn would be outwardly cool, but inwardly worried. That girl keeps everything in. Edward would start a scrapbook. But I'm not concerned about the judgement of children, my own included. As for my sister, Emily, she had passed through her own midlife rejection of upper-middle-class values and had already reached the other side. I knew she would be there waiting for me when I arrived at my destination, and bless her, she wouldn't want to know anything about my journey, only that I'd made it. Ethel Allard. Now there was a tough call. If I had to put major money on that, I would say she was secretly pleased that another blue blood had been exposed as morally corrupt. Especially me, since she could never find a chink in my shining armour. I mean, I never beat my wife (except at her own suggestion), I didn't owe money to tradesmen, didn't use the gatehouse to screw women, I went to church, hardly ever got drunk, and I treated her reasonably well. "But," she would ask, "what good have you done lately, Mr John Sutter?" Not much, Ethel. Oh, well.
I'm only glad that George isn't alive to see this, for surely it would have killed him. And if it didn't, he would have annoyed me with his superior and disapproving attitude, and I would have killed him myself. But, you know, there's a bright spot even in a pile of horse manure. For instance, the Reverend Mr Hunnings would be secretly and sneeringly happy that I was shown up for what I was: a gangster groupie who probably dealt drugs to support his alcohol habit. And I liked the idea that he was probably happy. I was happy that he was happy. I couldn't wait to get to church next Sunday to put my envelope in the collection plate with a thousand dollars in it. Then there were the women; Sally Grace Roosevelt, for one, who had found Susan's description of don Bellarosa so interesting. And there was Beryl Carlisle, who I was sure now would peel off her damp pants the moment I walked into the room. And there were women like the delicious Terri, who would take me a little more seriously after this.
Ah, we're getting a little closer to the crux of this matter, you say. Perhaps.
Let's discuss Charlotte and William Stanhope for one half-second: Fuck them. Now on to Susan. No, I can't blame her for what happened, for my being at that moment in the Plaza Hotel with a mobster, an accused murderer, and a man who had about two hundred people looking to kill him. I couldn't blame her for my decision to be Bellarosa's attorney. And I couldn't blame her for the unwanted press attention she and I were both now getting and would continue to get until perfect strangers knew all about us. No, I couldn't blame her. But you do see that it was mostly her fault.
I mean, no, not her fault, but sort of her responsibility. In a very small nutshell, it was like this: Susan thought Frank Bellarosa was interesting and, perhaps by inference, more of a man than her own husband. Her husband, who truly cares what his wife thinks of him, did not like that. Her husband is a jealous man. And her husband thinks he is every inch the man that Frank Bellarosa is. More of a man in many ways. But it doesn't do a bit of good to say such a thing.
You have to show it.
And so, when the opportunity to do so presented itself, ironically through the person of Frank Bellarosa himself, the husband, showing more ego than judgement, proceeded to ruin his life so he could show everyone a thing or two. Did I have any regrets as of that moment? Not a one, really. In fact, I felt better than I'd felt in a long time. I knew I would.
I stepped out of the shower and dried myself off. In the misty mirror I drew a nice big smiling face. "Smile, stupid, you got what you wanted." It was a wild night. The phone rang nonstop, and people came and went. Obviously, the don was not in hiding, but had simply moved his court from Alhambra to the Plaza.
There were phone calls from the news media, too, and I suppose the word had gotten out via the hotel staff, or perhaps some of the invited guests. But Bellarosa was taking no calls from the press and told me not to make any statements until the morning. A few enterprising, not to mention gutsy, reporters had actually shown up at the door of the suite and were greeted by Vinnie, official gatekeeper for don Bellarosa, who had a funny line. "I'll let ya in but ya ain't gettin' out." No one accepted the invitation. But I could have sworn I heard Jenny Alvarez's voice arguing with Vinnie. Waiters set up a bar and brought food all night. The television was on constantly, tuned to an all-news channel that re-ran the Bellarosa story every half hour or so with a few variations. I could barely hear the television above the chatter, but I could see Bellarosa and Sutter walking down those courthouse steps every half hour.
Most of the men who arrived at the suite seemed to be vassals of the great padrone, captains and lieutenants in his own organization. They hugged and kissed him, and the lesser of them satisfied themselves with a handshake. A few older men actually bowed as they took his hand. Obviously, they were there to swear fealty to this man who was their don. Bizarre, I thought; this so-called empire of Bellarosa's sort of reminded me of a medieval principality where none of the affairs of state or the rules of behaviour were written down, but simply understood, and where oaths were binding on pain of death, and court intrigue was rampant, and succession to power was accomplished through a mixture of family blood, consensus, and assassination.
The men present were dressed in standard Mafia suits of blue, grey, and black, some with pinstripes. The suits could almost pass for Wall Street, but there was something subtly different about them, and the dress shirts ran mostly to shiny satin or silk, and the ties were drab monotones. There were lots of gold cuff links, expensive watches, even jewelled tiepins, and every left pinky in that room had a diamond ring, except mine.