The Gold Coast

by Nelson DeMille

  As for the great unveiling, I understand everyone loved the painting, and everyone had a good time that night. Terrific. I had a good excuse for missing the art event of the year, of course, if I had wanted an excuse: “Sorry, but I was busy sinking my boat to piss off the Feds.’’ Regarding that, I hadn’t heard from the IRS yet, and I doubt they even knew the Paumanok was gone. It didn’t mean as much to them as it did to me. Maybe in the end, it was a futile gesture, but I wasn’t sorry I’d done it. And if they asked me about it, I’d say, “Yes, I sunk her, just as my ancestors dumped tea into Boston Harbor. Give me liberty or give me death.’’ I’d probably get about a year and a six-figure fine.

  But I did have a closing date on the East Hampton house, and I’d probably be able to settle my tax delinquency within a few weeks. Then I could get out my scuba gear and remove the tax-seizure signs from the Paumanok.

  Regarding my marital status, I’d accepted Susan’s suggestion and remained in residence. However, we were married in name only, as they used to say when describing a couple who shared the same house and attended social and family functions together, but who no longer engaged in conjugal sex. This may have been all right for our ancestors, but to most modern couples, it’s the worst of both worlds.

  Anyway, back at Giulio’s, the fat lady was still singing, belting them out in Italian, a mixture of sweet melodic songs and sad songs that made the old goombahs weepy, plus a few numbers that must have been pretty raunchy judging by the way she sang them and the reaction of the crowd.

  The crowd, incidentally, was slightly different from the lunch group. There were, to be sure, a few suspected mafioso types, but there were also some uptown Manhattanites as well, people who spent their entire urban lives trying to discover new restaurants that nobody knows about yet, except the two hundred people in the place. Well, the uptown crowd was going to have something interesting to report after this meal. Anyway, there were also a lot of greasy young Guidos in the place with their girlfriends, who looked like slim Annas, just dying to get married so they could blow up like stuffed cannelloni.

  And there was this old geezer with a four-day beard squeezing the whaddayacallit—the concertina—while the fat lady sang. Frank gave the old guy a twenty to play “Santa Lucia,’’ and this must have been on the goombah hit parade because everybody joined in, including Susan, who somehow knew all the words in Italian. Actually, it’s a pretty song and I found myself humming it. Well, the place was packed and smelled like garlic and perfume, and everybody was in a very jolly mood.

  Susan seemed really fascinated by Giulio’s and its denizens. Her infrequent excursions into Manhattan are confined to Midtown, Broadway, and the East Side, and she probably hasn’t been down in the old ethnic neighborhoods since my company gave a party in Chinatown five years ago. But if I had thought she would enjoy something like this, I would have taken her to Little Italy, or Chinatown or Spanish Harlem or anyplace other than The Creek. But I didn’t know. Then again, neither did she.

  Well, a few events of note had transpired since the night I’d sunk the Paumanok that may be worth mentioning. Edward and Carolyn had come home from the southern climes, Edward with a deep tan, and Carolyn with a deeper understanding of the Cuban people, and also with a box of Monte Cristo number fours. So the Sutter clan was reunited for about a week before Labor Day, and we had a good time despite the fact that the Paumanok was at the bottom of the bay and the East Hampton house was sold. Incidentally, I hadn’t told Susan that I’d sunk the boat and would not have mentioned it, except that when Edward and Carolyn came home, they wanted to go sailing. So I sat everyone down and said, “The government slapped a tax-seizure sign on the boat, and it looked so obscene, I took her into the middle of the bay and sunk her.’’ I added, “I think her mast is still above water, and if it is, you can see seven signal flags that say ‘Fuck you.’ Well, I hope she’s not a hazard to navigation, but if she is, the Coast Guard will take care of it.”

  There was a minute of stunned silence, then Edward said, “Good for you.’’ Carolyn seconded that. Susan said nothing.

  Anyway, we took some day trips, saw a matinee in Manhattan, swam at Fox Point, and even played golf one day at The Creek, though I had the distinct feeling some people were snubbing us. I resigned from the club the next day—not because, as Groucho Marx, a onetime Gold Coast resident, once said, “I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me as a member’’—but because if I belonged there, then I belonged there. And I didn’t, so I don’t. Capisce?

  Anyway, the day after Labor Day, Susan decided to visit her parental units in Hilton Head, leaving Carolyn, Edward, and me to finish out the last days of school vacation by ourselves. It was a nice few days, and we spent them mostly at Stanhope Hall, riding and walking the property. Carolyn got the idea to do a photographic essay of the estate, and that took two days with me supplying the history and the captions for the pictures as best I could. Carolyn is not the sentimental type, but I think she knew that might be one of the last times that such a thing would be possible. One night, Edward, Carolyn, and I camped out in the mansion with sleeping bags, and we had a picnic on the marble floor of the dining room by candlelight.

  Sitting around the candles, deep into a bottle of wine, Carolyn said to me, “You’ve changed, Dad.”

  “Have I? How?”

  She thought a moment, then replied, “You’re more . . . grown-up.’’ She smiled.

  I smiled in return. “And my voice is changing.’’ I knew what she meant, of course. The last few months had been a time of challenge and change, and so I suppose it had been good for my character. Most American men of the upper middle classes never really grow up unless they are fortunate enough to go to war or go through a bankruptcy or divorce or other major adversity. So this was the summer I got hair on my balls, and it felt good and bad at the same time. I asked Edward, “Do you think your old man has changed?”

  Edward, who is not usually tuned in to the subtleties of human behavior, replied, “Yeah, I guess.’’ He added, “Can you change back?”

  “No. There’s no going back.”

  A few days after that, I rented a van and drove the kids to school. We went first to Sarah Lawrence, and Edward was nervous about starting college, but I assured him that the liberal arts curriculum he was taking was similar to the one I took at Yale, and that I slept for four years. Thus assured, he strode confidently into the formerly all-girls school, his hair combed for the first time since his baptism, and his body smelling of some awful lotion.

  Carolyn and I drove alone to Yale, and I always enjoy going back to my alma mater, as my college memories are good despite the turmoil of those years in the mid-sixties. Carolyn said to me on the way to New Haven, “Are you legally separated?”

  “No. Your mother just went to visit her parents.”

  “It’s sort of a trial separation?”

  “No.”

  “Why are you sleeping in separate rooms?”

  “Because we don’t want to sleep in separate cities. End of conversation.”

  So I drove her up to Yale. As a sophomore this year, Carolyn enters what we call a “college,’’ actually a dorm where she will spend the next three years. She is, in fact, in my old college, Jonathan Edwards. J E, as we call it, is a beautiful, old Gothic building with arches, climbing ivy, and turrets, situated around a large quadrangle. It is, in fact, the greatest place on the face of this earth, and I wished I was staying and not leaving.

  Anyway, I helped her unload half a vanful of clothes and electronics, which barely fit in her room. It was a nice suite like my old place down the hall, with oak paneling and a fireplace in the living room. I met her roommate, a tall, blond young woman from Texas named Halsey, and I wondered if I shouldn’t go back to Jonathan Edwards to do a little more undergraduate work. You’re never too old to learn.

  But I digress. Carolyn and I walked down to Liggett’s Drugstore, which is sort of a tradition, and with a few hundred other Yalies and p
arents, we stocked up on notions and sundries. We stowed the Liggett’s bags in the van, then walked the few blocks to York Street, “to the tables down at Mory’s, to the place where Louie dwells.’’ Don’t ask me what that means.

  Mory’s is a private club, and I’ve kept my membership for this past quarter of a century, though I doubt if I get there once a year. But though I may have resigned from The Creek, and may eventually resign from my job and my marriage and from life in general, I will never resign from Mory’s, for to do that is to sever the ties to myself, to the John Sutter whom I used to know and like. I may indeed be a poor little lamb who has lost his way, but that night I was home again.

  So Carolyn and I had dinner at Mory’s along with a hundred other families, many of whom I noticed were missing one or the other spouse. Carolyn is not a member of Mory’s, and may never be, as she discriminates against private clubs. Nevertheless, I regaled her with Mory stories, and she sat there and smiled at me, sometimes amused, sometimes bored, and once or twice disapproving. Well, yesterday’s high jinks are today’s insensitive behavior, I suppose, and maybe the reverse is also true. But it was a nice dinner, an exquisite few hours between father and daughter.

  The oak tabletops at Mory’s have been carved with thousands of names and initials, and though we couldn’t find mine without clearing off someone else’s dinner, I did produce a sharp pocketknife for Carolyn, who carved away while I went around the dining room and said hello to a few old school chums.

  I walked Carolyn back to Jonathan Edwards, we kissed good-bye, and I got in the van, opting for the two-hour drive back to Long Island rather than prolonging the nostalgia trip, which could easily have turned from pleasant to maudlin.

  Regarding my legal career, my association with Perkins, Perkins, Sutter and Reynolds seemed to be rather vague, perhaps even tentative. I put myself on half salary, which is, I think, fair since I spend half the week in the Locust Valley office, albeit with my door closed and the phone turned off. But I feel a sense of responsibility to my old clients, and I’m trying to put their affairs in some semblance of order and to parcel them out to other attorneys in the firm. As for my Wall Street business, that’s completely gone. My Wall Street clients would fire an attorney after two missed phone calls, so my sense of loyalty and responsibility toward the yellow-tie guys is not deep and not reciprocal. But I have to settle the question of my status with the firm and I suppose if I ever show up at the Wall Street office, I could discuss this with the senior partners.

  As for the United States v. Frank Bellarosa, that seemed to be moving rather more slowly than Mr. Ferragamo promised. Not only did we not have a trial date, but I hadn’t had an opportunity to examine any of the five witnesses against my client. Alphonse informed me one day by phone, “We have them all in hiding under the witness protection program. They’re very frightened about testifying in open court against a Mafia chief.”

  “There is no Mafia.”

  Ha, ha, said Alphonse, and he added, “They didn’t mind the grand jury, but now they’re getting cold feet.”

  “Four Colombian drug goons and a gun moll have cold feet?”

  “Why not? So for that reason, Mr. Sutter, I’ve asked for a delay in the trial date. I’ll keep you informed.’’ He added, “What’s your rush? This should make you happy. Maybe the witnesses will refuse to testify.”

  “Maybe they were lying from the beginning,’’ I pointed out.

  “Why would they do that?”

  He and I both knew why, but I wasn’t allowed to bug him. “Maybe,’’ I said, “it was a case of mistaken identity. All Italians look alike, don’t they?”

  “Actually, they don’t, Mr. Sutter. I don’t look anything like Frank Bellarosa, for instance. By the way, regarding mistaken identity, I discovered that you were at your country club at about one P . M . on January fourteenth, for lunch with your wife.”

  “So what? I said I saw Bellarosa at about nine A . M ., then again at about noon.”

  “And you went home, took care of the horse, presumably showered, changed into a suit, and were at your club at one P . M .”

  “They don’t call me superman for nothing.”

  “Hmmm,’’ said Alphonse. I mean, this guy thought he was Inspector Porfiry Petrovich, hounding poor Raskolnikov into a confession, but I found him a bore.

  Anyway, I was more convinced than ever that Alphonse was stalling and would continue to stall until somebody out on the street solved his problem. He didn’t have long to wait.

  Regarding my relationships with friends and family, that was also on hold. Part of the reason for this was that I was keeping out of touch, which is no easy thing to do these days. Try it. But I disconnected my home fax, changed my phone number to an unlisted one, and had all my mail forwarded to a P.O. box in the Locust Valley Post Office, which I never visited. Also, Ethel as gatekeeper proved to be a lot more nasty than George ever was, and nobody gets past the gate while Ethel is in the gatehouse. When she’s not around, the gate is locked.

  Jenny Alvarez. Well, that relationship, too, is on hold, which is best for all concerned, as men and women say to each other when they get involved, panic, run, brood, call, run, and so on. But really, there was no use complicating the situation any more than it was. Actually, I didn’t even know if Jenny Alvarez cared anymore, and I would have been relieved to hear that she didn’t, and pretty annoyed and hurt, too. But I did watch her nearly every night on the news at eleven, and Susan asked me once if I had suddenly become a news junkie. Spouses who are carrying on often display a change in behavior, as we know, but watching the news is not usually a tip-off. Goes to show you.

  But watch I did, and I hoped that one night Jenny Alvarez would just break down on the air and cry out, “John! John! I miss you!’’ or at least, I thought, perhaps when she was out in the field reporting, and she was turning it back to the anchorman, Jeff what’s-his-name, she would say, “Back to you, John.’’ But that never happened, at least not on the nights I was watching.

  Anyway, I had moved into one of the guesthouse’s guest rooms, the smallest one, badly and barely furnished, where we always put people whom we don’t want around for more than twenty-four hours. Susan had said to me, “I understand your reasons for not wanting us to sleep in the same bed, of course. But I’m glad you decided not to move out. I very much want you to stay.”

  “Then I will. How much is it a night?”

  “Twenty dollars would be fair for that room, but I can let you have a better room for only five dollars more.”

  “I’ll stay in the smaller room.”

  Well, we’re still making jokes, and that’s a hopeful sign. Right? It’s when it becomes really grim that it becomes insufferable. So we lived in that sort of cool limbo that husbands and wives have invented and perfected for the purpose of coexisting until the moving van arrives or until they fall into each other’s arms and swear undying love forever, which in connubial terms means about thirty days.

  In truth, I was angry, hurt, and vindictive every morning, but by noon I was philosophical, resigned, and willing to let fate take its course. By late evening, however, I was lonely and ready to forgive and forget, unconditionally. But then the next day, the cycle would start over again. Unfortunately, Susan called from Hilton Head about eight A . M . one morning when I was in cycle one, and I said a few things that I regretted by evening. Things like, “How’s William Peckerhead of Hilton Head?”

  “Settle down, John.”

  Or, “Did you want to speak to Zanzibar?”

  “Go have your coffee and call me back.”

  Well, I did that night, but she wasn’t in. Anyway, in the week or so since she’s been back, I’ve been civilized.

  So, there we were in Giulio’s, having dinner, which was a little bizarre considering the circumstances. But my client had really insisted on this little get-together, though for what reason, I couldn’t guess except that he really enjoyed showing off in Little Italy where people knew who he wa
s. Of course, that has a negative side as well, especially if you’re a marked man. I mean, if there really was a contract out on this guy, any goombah in that restaurant could have gone out to make a phone call to some other goombah, and eventually the wrong goombahs would get the word, and for the price of a twenty-five-cent call, Frank the Bishop Bellarosa’s whereabouts would be fixed. But I don’t think that’s what actually happened on the night of September seventeenth. I’m pretty sure it was Lenny who fingered his boss, as they say.

  But, anyway, I acquiesced to this dinner because, quite frankly, to say no to it would have been un-Machiavellian; i.e., I was still royally pissed off at old Frank and Mrs. Sutter no matter how much I tried to cool down, but to show it would put them on their guard. What? Revenge? Vendetta? Had I lied to Frank and to myself? Was I still looking to get even? You bet. Though I had no idea what, if anything, I was going to do to or about these two, I wanted to keep their guards down and my options open.

  So we sipped coffee and ate pastry. The normal security was in effect with Vinnie and Lenny at their favorite table near the door, while we were at Frank’s favorite table in the rear corner. Frank sat in his very favorite chair, facing the front with his back to the wall.

  Susan at one point in the evening had said to Frank, “That’s very good of you to buy your employees dinner. Most men just send their car and driver away until they’re ready to leave.”

  This was either the most facetious or the most naive statement I’d heard all year, and I wasn’t sure which. Susan sometimes plays the naïf as I mentioned, but the act was wearing a little thin.

  I regarded Anna Bellarosa a moment. I hadn’t spoken to her since that morning she tackled me at Alhambra. She was undoubtedly grateful to me for getting her husband sprung, but I was fairly certain that a traditional Italian woman did not telephone, write, or call on a man unless he was her father or brother. How suppressed these women were, I thought, how utterly dependent they were on their husbands for everything including their opinions and maybe even their feelings. I mean, the woman didn’t even have a driver’s license. I wondered if Anna had an unmarried sister for me. Or maybe I’d ask the don for Filomena’s hand.