Anna Bellarosa told us all about her three sons in detail, then added, "I don't want them in the family business, but Tony – that's the one at La Salle – wants to be in business with his father. He idolizes his father." Frank Bellarosa said, "I got into the family business through my uncle. My father said, "Stay out of that business, Frank. It's not good for you." But did I listen? No. Why? I thought my uncle was a hero. He always had money, cars, clothes, women. My father had nothing. Kids look for what you call role models. Right? I think back now, and my father was the hero. He broke his tail six days a week to put food on the table. There were five kids and things were tough. But all around us was money. In America you see too much money. The country is rich, even stupid people can be rich here. So people say, "Why can't I be rich?" In this country if you're poor, you're worse than a criminal." He looked at me and repeated. "In America if you're poor, you're worse than a criminal. You're nobody."
"Well," I said, "some people would still rather be poor but honest." "I don't know nobody like that. But anyway, my oldest guy, Frankie, he's got no head for the family business, so I sent him to college, then set him up in a little thing of his own in Jersey. Tommy is the one in Cornell. He wants to run a big hotel in Atlantic City or Vegas. I'll set him up with Frankie in Atlantic City. Tony, the one at La Salle, is another case. He wants in." Bellarosa smiled. The little punk wants my job. You know what? If he wants it bad enough, he'll have it."
I cleared my throat and observed, "It's not easy to bring up kids today with all the sex, violence, drugs, Nintendo."
"Yeah. But sex is okay. How about your kids?"
Susan replied, "Carolyn is at Yale, and Edward is graduating from St Paul's in June."
"They gonna be lawyers?"
Susan replied, "Carolyn is pre-law. Edward is somewhat vague. I think because he knows he will inherit a good deal of money from his grandparents, he has lost some of his motivation."
I've never heard Susan say this to anyone, not even me, and I was a bit annoyed at her for revealing family secrets in front of these people. But I suppose the Bellarosas were so far beyond our social circle that it didn't matter. Still, I felt I had to say something in Edward's defence. I said, "Edward is a typical seventeen-year-old boy. His main ambition at the moment is to get – is girls." Bellarosa laughed. "Yeah." He asked, "He's graduating college at seventeen?" "No," I replied. "St Paul's is a prep school." Talking to these people was like reinventing the wheel. I asked Bellarosa, "Did you go to La Salle on scholarship?"
"No. My uncle paid. The uncle who took me into the family business. One less mouth to feed for my old man."
"I see."
Anna had another wifely complaint. "Frank spends too much time at work. He's not enjoying his new house. Even when he's home, he's on the phone, people come here to talk business. I'm always telling him, "Frank, take it easy. You're going to kill yourself.'"
I glanced at Bellarosa to see if he appreciated the irony of that last remark, but he seemed impassive. For about half a second I thought I had made a terrible mistake and that Mr Frank Bellarosa was just an overworked entrepreneur. Susan chimed in, "John doesn't keep long office hours, but he brings home a briefcase full of work every night. Though he does take Saturdays off, and of course he won't work on the Sabbath."
Bellarosa said to Susan, "And he took Easter Monday off. Wouldn't talk business with me." He looked at me. "I know a couple of Protestants. They don't work Sundays neither. Catholics will work on a Sunday. What if you had a real big case in court on Monday?"
"Then," I informed him, "I work on Sunday. The Lord wouldn't want me to make a fool of myself in front of a Catholic or Jewish judge." Ha, ha, ha. Haw, haw, haw. Even I smiled at my own wit. The sambuca was finally working its magic.
Bellarosa, in fact, picked up the bottle and poured some into my coffee, then everyone's coffee. "This is the way we drink it."
The coffee had steamed my glasses a few times, and I wiped them with my handkerchief without taking them off, which caused Susan to look at me with puzzlement. Anna Bellarosa, too, gave me a few curious looks. So far, the conversation had not touched on the unfortunate occurrence at Alhambra on Easter morning, and I hoped that Frank Bellarosa had forgotten his request that I speak to his wife about how nice and safe this area was. But Susan asked Anna, "Do you miss Brooklyn?" and I knew where that was going.
Anna glanced at her husband, then replied, "I'm not allowed to say." She laughed.
Bellarosa snorted. "These Brooklyn Italian women – I tell you, you can move them to Villa Borghese, and they still bitch about being out of Brooklyn." "Oh, Frank, you don't have to sit home all day. You get to go back to the old neighbourhood."
"Listen to her. Sit home. She's got a car and driver and goes to Brooklyn to see her mother and her crazy relatives whenever she wants." "It's not the same, Frank. It's lonely here." A little light bulb popped on in her head. I saw it, but before I could change the subject, she said, "How about Easter morning?" She looked at me. "I was walking out back on Easter morning, out near the pool we got out there, and this man -" she shuddered – "this maniac is there, on his hands and knees like an animal, growling at me." "Really?" I asked, adjusting my glasses.
"My goodness!" Susan exclaimed.
Anna turned to Susan. "I ran and lost my shoes."
Frank said, "I told John about that. He said he never heard of anything like that before. Right, John?"
"Right, Frank." I asked, "So, your son Frankie lives in New Jersey?"
Susan asked Anna, "Did you call the police?"
Anna glanced at her husband again and replied, "Frank doesn't like to bother with the police."
"I got my own security here," Bellarosa reminded us. "There's nothing to worry about."
Anna complained, "It's scary here at night when Frank's away. It's too quiet."
"Perhaps," I suggested, "you can get a recording of Brooklyn street noises."
Anna Bellarosa smiled uncertainly, as if this weren't a bad idea. Bellarosa said to me, "When you try to make them happy, or you try to compromise with them, they think you're a faggot."
I glanced at Susan to see how she reacted to that statement and saw she was smiling. I should point out that Susan is not a feminist. The women's movement is considered by women of Susan's class to be a middle-class problem that needs middle-class solutions. Women of Susan's class have owned property, entered into contracts, and gone to college for so many generations that they don't fully comprehend what all the fuss is about. As for equal pay for equal work, they're very sympathetic to that, as they are to starving children in Africa, and have about as much firsthand knowledge of the one as they do of the other. Maybe they will have a charity ball for underpaid female executives. Anyway, I mention this because many women would be somewhat offended by Frank Bellarosa's offhanded sexist remarks. But Susan Stanhope, whose family was one of the Four Hundred, is no more offended by a man such as Frank Bellarosa making sexist remarks than I would be offended by Sally Ann of the Stardust Diner telling me that all men were alcoholics, women beaters, and liars. In other words, you had to consider the source.
Anyway, Bellarosa made another pronouncement, this one, I guess, to balance his misogynist remarks. He said, "Italian men can't compromise. That's why their women are always mad at them. But Italian women respect their men for not compromising. But when Italian men don't agree with each other on something, and they won't compromise, then there's a problem."
Followed, I thought, by a quick solution, like murder. I asked, "So Frankie's in New Jersey?"