Anna smiled. "Okay. How about tomorrow?"
"I'll call you," Susan said.
Frank opened the door. "Take it easy going home. Watch out for the fuzz." He laughed.
I shook hands with my host and kissed Anna on the cheek. Anna and Susan kissed, then Frank and Susan kissed. Everyone was taken care of, so I turned toward the door, then stopped, took a calling card from my wallet, and left it on a plant table.
Susan and I walked to her car. Susan wanted to drive, and she got behind the wheel. She swung the car around in the forecourt, and we waved to the Bellarosas, who were still at the door. Susan headed down the drive. We usually don't say much to each other after a social evening, sometimes because we're tired, sometimes because one or the other of us is royally ticked off about something, like flirting, close dancing, sarcastic remarks, and so on and so forth.
As we approached the gates, they swung open, and Anthony stepped out of the gatehouse. He waved as we went by. Susan waved back. She turned right, onto Grace Lane. Finally, she spoke, "I had a nice evening. Did you?" "Yes."
She looked at me. "Was that a yes?"
"Yes."
"Good. Then you're glad you went?"
"Yes."
She turned into the open gates of Stanhope Hall and stopped the car. Unlike the Bellarosas, we don't have electric gates, so I got out, closed the gates, and locked them. The gatehouse was dark, of course, as the Allards turn in early. It is at this point that I sometimes announce my preference to walk the rest of the way home. This is usually followed by spinning wheels and flying gravel. George sweeps and rakes it out in the morning.
"Are you coming?" Susan called out from the car. "Or not?" Nations sometimes go to war. Married couples live in a state of perpetual war, broken occasionally by an armed truce. Don't be cynical, Sutter. "Coming, dear." I got back into the car, and Susan drove slowly up the unlit drive. She said, "You didn't have to leave your calling card."
"Why not?"
"Well… anyway, what were you and Frank talking about all that time?"
"Murder."
"Anna is rather nice. A bit… basic, perhaps, but nice."
"Yes."
"Frank can be charming," Susan said. "He's not as rough as he looks or talks."
Wanna bet?
"I think Anna liked you, John. She was staring at you most of the evening."
"Really?"
"Do you think she's attractive?"
"She has Rubenesque tits. Why don't you paint her naked, dancing around the palm court?"
"I don't paint naked women." She stopped the car in front of our house, we got out, I unlocked the door, and we went inside. We both headed into the kitchen, and I poured club soda for us. Susan asked, "Did you discuss any business?" "Murder."
"Very funny." She asked, "Did you and Anna figure out where you'd seen each other before?"
"Yes. Locust Valley. The pharmacy. Haemorrhoid remedies."
"You're quick, John."
"Thank you."
"Why were you wearing your reading glasses? Quick now."
"So Frank wouldn't hit me."
"Excellent. You're crazy, you know."
"Look who's talking."
Susan finished her club soda and headed for the door. "I'm exhausted. Are you coming up?"
"In a minute."
"Good night." She hesitated, then turned to me. "I love you." "Thank you." I sat at the table, watched the bubbles in my club soda, and listened to the regulator clock. "Murder," I said to myself. But he didn't commit that murder. I believed him. He has committed a dozen felonies, probably including murder. But not that murder.
As I've said, I'd had a premonition that Frank Bellarosa and I would one day go beyond vegetable chatter. But that was as far as my prophecy went. From here on – from the moment I sat there and had that last drink with him instead of leaving – I was on my own.
Looking back on that evening, I recalled that if Susan had told me she had a terrible evening and wanted to avoid the Bellarosas, then I would have done just that. But, incredibly, Lady Stanhope was going to do a painting of Alhambra that would put her into almost daily contact with don and donna Bellarosa. I suppose I should have foreseen the dangers inherent in this situation, and perhaps I did, but instead of demanding of Susan that she withdraw her offer to do a painting, I said nothing. Obviously, we were both responding to Bellarosa's unwanted attention for our own reasons; me, because I saw a challenge and because I wanted to show Susan that her husband was not just a dull attorney and was perhaps a little sinister himself, and Susan because… well, I didn't know why then, but I found out later.
So, it was a juxtaposition of events – the hayloft incident, the tennis court incident, and the Sutters' post-winter ennui – that had combined with Frank Bellarosa's proximity and his own problems to draw us together. These things happen, as unlikely as it seems, and if ever there was a case to be made for sticking with your own kind it was it.
But that's all hindsight. That evening my mind was cloudy, and my good judgement was infuenced by my need to proove something. It goes to show you, you shouldn't stay out too late during the week.
PART IV
We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.
Charles Darwin
The Origin of Species
CHAPTER 18
We did not have the Bellarosas to our house the next evening as Anna suggested. In fact, as far as I knew, we had no immediate plans to see them again. Susan is the social secretary in our house and keeps a leather-bound calendar as her mother did. The Stanhopes did, at one time, have an actual social or private secretary, and I suppose the art has been passed down. I'm not very good at social planning, so I suppose I've allowed Susan to take full charge. I don't even think I have veto power anymore, as you might have noticed. So, regarding the Bellarosas, I was waiting for word from my resident Emily Post. Susan had begun her painting of Alhambra's palm court, and that fact, plus the fact that her horses were still there, took Susan to Alhambra nearly every day. Susan, by the way, had decided on oils instead of water, so I knew this was going to be about a six-week project.
Susan Stanhope Sutter and Mrs Anna Bellarosa seemed to be forming a tentative relationship, perhaps even a genuine friendship according to Susan. This relationship, I was certain, was encouraged by Frank Bellarosa, who not only wanted his wife to have friends in the area, but also wanted her to get off his back about the move from Brooklyn to this dangerous frontier. Susan barely mentioned Frank, and I never inquired after him. If I pictured him at all in this threesome, it was as a busy man who watched Susan set up her easel for a few minutes, jollied the two women along, and kept to himself for the rest of the day – or more likely, got into his limo and disappeared into the great city for a day of lawbreaking.
It is very difficult, I imagine, to run a large crime empire, especially since the emperor cannot say much over the telephone or, similarly, cannot send detailed instructions by fax or telex. Personal contact, the spoken word, handshakes, facial expressions, and hand gestures are the only way to run an underground organization, whether it be political or criminal. I recalled that the Mafia supposedly had its origins as an underground resistance organization during some foreign occupation of Sicily. I could certainly believe that, and that would explain why they were such a long-running hit in America. But maybe their act was getting a little old as the second millennium drew to a close. Maybe.
Susan said to me one evening, "I saw the strangest thing next door."
"What?"
"I saw a man kiss Frank's hand."
"Why is that strange? My junior partners kiss my hand every morning." "Be serious, please. I'll tell you something else. Everyone who enters that house is taken into the coatroom and searched. I can hear that sound that a metal detector makes when it goes off."