"Yeah. I helped him buy into a thing in Atlantic City. None of my sons is ever going to work for nobody. Nobody's going to be over them. They got to have men under them. Either you're your own boss in this world, or you're nobody. You're your own boss, right?"
"Sort of."
"Nobody says nothing when you come in late, right?"
"Right."
"So, there you are."
And there I was, off the subject of Easter morning. It was easy to change subjects with Mr Bellarosa, who seemed to have no agenda for social conversation but switched subjects in mid sentence the moment something else popped into his head. Business, I knew, was another matter. I knew the type. And I also knew that Mrs Bellarosa was not going to bring up the subject of the Easter monster again.
And so we talked for the next hour. We finished the urn of coffee – about twenty cups – and the second bottle of sambuca. The pile of pastry had dropped about six inches. I had, early in the evening, discovered that refusing food or drink was futile. "Mangia, mangia," said Mrs Bellarosa, laughing, stopping just short of shoving pastry in my mouth. "Drink, drink," commanded Mr Bellarosa, filling cups and glasses with any liquid within his reach.
I went to the bathroom three times and each time considered throwing up in the toilet bowl, to purge myself, Roman style. When in Rome, to paraphrase St Ambrose, use the vomitorium as the Romans do. But I couldn't bring myself to do that.
On one of my returns from the bathroom, I saw that Mrs Bellarosa had disappeared, probably into the kitchen, and Susan and Frank were sitting at the table alone. Before she saw me, I heard Susan say the words 'palm court' and feared she was making her pitch to paint the palm court. But when I sat down, she seemed to change the topic and said to me, "I was telling Frank about our trip to Italy a few years ago."
"Were you?"
Mrs Bellarosa returned with Filomena, who was carrying a platter of chocolates. I sat down, trying not to get a whiff of the chocolates or of anything on the table. I asked Mrs Bellarosa for some club soda, and she said something to Filomena, who left and returned with a bottle of something called Pellegrino and a glass. I had a glass of the mineral water, belched discreetly, and felt better.
As the conversation continued without my participation, I regarded Anna Bellarosa. She was deferential toward her husband, which was, of course, what her prenuptial agreement called for. But now and then she showed some Italian fire, and the don backed off. From what I gathered during the conversation, and the dynamics I observed between them, Anna Bellarosa, as the wife of don Bellarosa, had the status of a queen and the rights of a slave. And as the mother of his children, she was the madonna, revered like Mary for the fruit of her womb. Anna Bellarosa had borne three sons, suckled them, saw to their religious education, then let go of them when the father was ready to take charge of their lives, and perhaps, in the case of Tony, of the boy's death. How very different this family was from my own.
I noticed, too, that Anna Bellarosa, despite her good humour and easy laugh, had sad, faraway eyes, as if, I thought, decades of worry had dimmed the sparkle that must once have accompanied the laugh.
Bellarosa stood abruptly, and I thought the evening was over, but he said, "Anna, show Susan around the house. She wants to see the place. John, come with me."
The four of us made our way into the dining room, and Bellarosa informed his wife, "This is the dining room. Where we were is the morning room. For breakfast. I want you to ask Susan what all these rooms are. She knows this place. You give each other a tour. Okay?"
We all went into the palm court, and Frank took my arm and led me to the staircase. He said to his wife, "We'll meet you later in the living room. Leave the greenhouse for me to show." He corrected himself, "The conservatory. Right?" I caught Susan's eye, and she smiled at me, as if to say, "See, you're having a good time." I know that look. What I couldn't understand was why Susan seemed to be having such a good time. The nine-forty-five headache had not materialized, and being a macho man, I didn't want to complain about my nonexistent haemorrhoids, or admit honestly that I was tired and my Anglo-Saxon stomach was churning with Irish pub food and Italian dessert. So I let my buddy, Frank, steer me up the stairs.
We both navigated the winding steps without difficulty, and I saw that Bellarosa held his alcohol as well as I did. We got to the second level and walked around the mezzanine that ran in a horseshoe shape above three sides of the palm court. Every twenty feet or so we passed a heavy oak door, and finally Bellarosa stopped at one of them and opened it. "In here."
"What's in here?"
The library."
"Are we going to read?"
"No, we're going to have a cigar." He motioned me inside.
Against my better judgement, I stepped through the door into the dimly lit room.
CHAPTER 16
Frank Bellarosa pointed to a black leather armchair. "Sit." I sat. I removed my reading glasses and put them in my breast pocket. Bellarosa took the chair opposite me. I hadn't thought that he was carrying a gun, and in fact saw no reason why he should in his own house. Nor did I see any place he could be packing it under his close-fitting shirt and pants. But when he crossed his legs, I saw the bulge of an ankle holster under his right cuff. He noticed that I noticed and said, "I'm licensed."
"Me, too."
"You licensed to carry?"
"No. To drive. But I don't drive in my house."
He smiled.
It's very difficult to get a pistol licence in New York State, and I wondered how Frank the Bishop Bellarosa had managed it. I asked him, "New York?" "Yeah. I got a little hunting place in an upstate county. They don't ask a lot of questions up there. I can carry anyplace in the state, but not in the city. You need a special licence in the city, and they won't give me one. But that's where I need a gun. Right? The fucking crazies carry. They got a licence? No. But I can't take the chance of a gun rap. So I walk around the city clean, so any two-bit junkie can take down Frank Bellarosa."
How unfair. I said, "How about your bodyguards?"
"Oh, sure. But it's not the same as having your own piece. Sometimes the bodyguards take a dive on you. And sometimes they got a new boss the night before, and you don't know about it. Capisce?
"Oh, yes. I didn't realize all the stress in your business."
"Hey. You don't want to know."
"That's right."
Between us was a low table on which was a box of real Havana cigars. Bellarosa opened the box and held it out toward me.
"I don't smoke."
"Come on. Have a cigar."
I took a cigar. In truth, all Wasp lawyers know how to have a cigar, because it's part of certain rituals. I took the cigar out of its metal tube and punctured the end with a silver pick that Bellarosa handed me. Bellarosa lit me up with a gold table lighter, then lit himself up. We puffed billows of smoke into the room. I asked, "Aren't these illegal?"
"Maybe. We'd trade with the devil in hell if we needed fire. But cigars we don't need, so fuck Cuba. Right? Horseshit."
So much for world events. Now, the local news. "This is your office?" "Yeah. When I first saw it, it was all painted pink and white. Even the wood floor was painted. The real estate lady liked it. She said decorators did it for some kind of show."
"A designer showcase," I informed him.
"Yeah. Every fucking room looked like some fairies got loose with paintbrushes." I looked around. This was the library that Susan had once told me about, the one that had existed in an English manor house and had been purchased by the Dillworths in the 1920s. The shelves were all dark oak, filled with books, though I was certain they were not from the original library. There was a fireplace on one wall, and on the opposite wall were double doors that led out to the balcony from which I'd seen the light when I was riding here in April. In the centre of the large room was an oak desk with a green leather top. Behind the desk in a large alcove, sort of a secretary's station, I could make out a word processor, copy machine, telex, and fax. The Mafia had gone high tech. Bellarosa said, "It cost me five large to get the paint stripped off this room.