The Gold Coast

by Nelson DeMille

  He shrugged. “It went like it went. I got no complaints with you.”

  “Fine. Do you want to discuss the charge against you? The defense?”

  “I told you, it’s bullshit. It’s not getting to trial.”

  “It could. Ferragamo had five witnesses for the grand jury. Those witnesses said enough to implicate you in the murder of Juan Carranza.”

  “Ferragamo’s probably got something on them. They maybe saw the hit, but they didn’t see my face there.”

  I nodded. “Okay. I believe you.”

  “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 spics 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 shoveled 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 color, 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 neighborhood 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 neighborhood is full of blacks or Spanish, or something, so they can’t go back there, so they come here. This is everybody’s old neighborhood. Capisce? Well, maybe not your old neighborhood.’’ 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 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 acknowledgment 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?”

  He was chewing on olive pits now and spoke as he chewed. “I’ll tell you one rule they play by. They come into Little Italy to make a hit, there won’t be a fucking black or Spanish left in New York. They understand that rule. Don’t worry about them around here.”

  I’ve always liked New York because of its ethnic diversity, this great American melting pot. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses . . . I’ve forgotten the rest of it. Maybe we’ve all forgotten it.

  Bellarosa leaned toward me and said, “As long as this stuff bothers you, you ever think about getting a gun permit?”

  “It’s not on my ‘must do’ list, no.”

  “Well, if you’re going to be around, you know, you should think about it.”

  “Why?”

  He quoted, “‘Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.’ Who said that?”

  “Mother Teresa?”

  He laughed. “Come on. Machiavelli. Right?

  “Right. Do I get combat pay?”

  “Sure. Hey, I owe you fifty large. Right?”

  “No. I don’t want it.”

  “That don’t matter. You got it.”

  A waiter set down a platter of antipasto. There seemed to be no sequence to this meal, at least none that I could determine.

  Bellarosa pointed to the items on the plate. “That’s prosciutto—you know that stuff, right? This is stracchino, and this is taleggio. This cheese here has worms in it, so I won’t make you eat it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Worms. Little worms. You know? They give the cheese a flavor. You don’t eat the worms. You crumble the cheese like this and get the worms out. See? See that one?”

  I stood. “Where is the men’s room?”

  He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Back there.”

  I walked to the men’s room, a horrible little place, and washed my face and hands. Worms?

  The door opened and Lenny came in. He stood at the sink beside me and combed his greasy hair. He asked me, “You enjoyin’ your lunch, Counselor?”

  “Shouldn’t you be out there keeping an eye on the door?”

  “Vinnie got two eyes.’’ He washed his hands. “Fucking city. Everything’s got dirt on it.’’ He dried his hands on a towel roll that had dirt on it. “You’re the don’s lawyer, so you’re not wired. Correct?”

  “Wired? Are you out of your mind?”

  “No. Sometimes people got wires. Sometimes they come in the shitter to drop a wire, sometimes to pick up a wire. If I see people go to the shitter when they’re talking to the don, I think wire, I think gun.”

  “I think you’ve been watching too much TV.”

  He chuckled. “So? You mind?’’ He held out his clean hands toward me.

  I stood there a moment, then nodded. The son of a bitch gave me a thorough frisking, then said, “Okay. Just checking. Everybody got a job.”

  I put a quarter on the sink. “That’s for you, Lenny. Good job.’’ I left. Boy, I was really getting the hang of it now. I returned to the table and saw that the worm cheese had been removed from the antipasto.

  Frank said, “Yeah. I got rid of that for you. You find the back’ouse okay?”

  “The what?”

  He laughed. “The back house. Back’ouse, they say in Little Italy. From when it was out back. You know?”

  “Yes, I found it.’’ I saw Lenny return to his table, glaring at me as he sat. I asked Bellarosa, “Did you send him in to frisk me?”

  “Nah. He just does it. Look, I know Mancuso tried to get to you, and I trust you more than I trust a lot of my own people. But when I know I’m talking to a guy who’s clean, I feel better.”

  “Mr. Bellarosa, a lawyer cannot, may not, will not, act as an agent for the government against his own client.”

  “Yeah. But maybe you’re writing a book.’’ He laughed. “Fuck it. Let’s eat. Here. This is called manteche. No worms.’’ He put a piece of the cheese on a biscuit he called frisalle and held it near my mouth. “Come on. Try that.”

  I tried it. It wasn’t bad. I sipped some Chianti and popped a black olive in my mouth. These people dined out differently from what I was used to. For instance, none of the previous plates had been cleared, and Bellarosa returned to his fried squid.

  I said to him, “Mancuso told me you once beat one of your men with a pipe and broke every bone in his body.”

  He looked up from his squid. “Yeah? Why’d he tell you that? What’s he trying to do? He trying to make me sound like a bad guy?”

  “Well, that certainly didn’t show you in the best light.”

  “Mancuso should learn how to keep his fucking mouth shut.”

  “The issue is not Mancuso, Frank. The issue is you beating a man with a pipe.”

  “That’s not an issue.’’ He pulled apart some bread and dipped it in the red sauce as he spoke. “When you’re young, you sometimes do things you don’t want to do, but got to do. I wasn’t the boss when that thing happened. The boss was a guy who you’d know. He’s dead now. But when he said to me, ‘Frank, you got to do this or you got to do that,’ I did it. Capisce?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Just like in the army or in the church. You follow orders. I give the orders now, and I don’t like the rough stuff. Times are changing. Not everybody wants to get into this business anymore. You got to treat your people better.”

  “At least offer them Blue Cross and Blue Shield.”

  He thought that was funny. “Yeah. If you break their legs, they’re covered. Yeah. Blue Cross.”

  There was no reason to pursue the bone-smashing incident; it was only important that he knew that I knew about his peculiar managerial style. In truth, there were times when I would have liked to beat my partners with a lead pipe, but that would only give them an excuse to do the same to me. And that made me think of Signor Niccolò Machiavelli. I said to Frank, “An enemy must either be caressed or annihilated.”

  He looked up from his food. “Yeah. That’s the problem with pissing somebody off, Counselor. I’m happy you understand that. In my business, you treat people with respect or you put them away. Now that thing with the pipe, for instance, that was not a good idea. That was one pissed-off paesano, so when he was feeling better again, I knew I had to settle that. You know? He had to be caressed or annihilated. You don’t leave people around like that with vendettas against you.”

  “So you bought him dinner and gave him a raise.”

  “Yeah.’’ He thought a moment, then added, “I’ll tell you the main thing that’s wrong with what the priests teach you—the main thing wrong with religion. It’s the bullshit about turning the other cheek. You do that and everybody’s gonna take a pop at your face. But sometimes you got to take a hit. Like with Ferragamo. There’s not a fucking thing I can do to him. All I can do is make sure there’s not a fucking thing he can do to me. Understand? And if you can’t get rid of a guy, you don’t piss him off, even if he’s on your case.”

  “But you piss Ferragamo off just by being alive.”
/>   He smiled. “Yeah. That’s his problem. But you piss him off by smart-assing him.”

  “So what? There’s not a thing he can do to me.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. So maybe he comes after your friends. Maybe you want to give him a call and discuss the case. He would like you to do that. He would like you to show a little respect.”

  “The man is an asshole, Frank, and everybody in New York knows it.”

  “That’s why he needs all the respect he can get.”

  We both laughed at that one. Bellarosa said, “Hey, maybe the son of a bitch will be the Governor someday, or even the President. Be nice to him. He’ll make you the Attorney General.”

  In fact, by taking Mr. Frank Bellarosa as a client, I would never be considered for any public office. Not that I want to be a judge or to run for the State Assembly or anything like that, but in the back of every lawyer’s mind is that possibility. I was once elected to the Lattingtown Village Board, but after this fiasco, I would be well-advised to stay out of public life for a decade or so.

  Frank said, “So maybe you’ll call him. I’ll give you his private number.”

  I looked at him. “Frank, he’s not going to drop any charges against you after today.”

  “Yeah, I know that. I’m not talking about that. I thought you understood.”

  “You mean, you want me to apologize to him?”

  “You don’t have to say, ‘Mr. Ferragamo, I’m sorry I made you look like an asshole and a fool.’ In fact, you don’t mention that. You just talk to him about the case with respect. He’ll forgive you, because he’s an asshole. Capisce?”

  Here was a client who wanted me to call the prosecution—not to try to make a deal or plea bargain, but to apologize for beating his pants off in court. Mamma mia, I don’t remember any of this from Harvard Law. I replied, “I’ll call him. And I’ll be respectful toward his office.”

  “There you go. Sometimes assholes hold important positions. You think every Caesar was a bright guy? Whaddaya gonna do? You got to deal with it.’’ He poured more wine. “Ready for your pasta?”

  We’d been there an hour already, and I had consumed a lot of food, mostly bread, cheese, and olives, which were the only edible things served so far. Also the Chianti was working its way through my duodenum. I said, “I’ll pass on pasta.”