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, Counsellor?' '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 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 Signer Niccolo 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, Counsellor. 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.' 'No. You have pasta. They have lingue de passero here – the sparrow's tongue.'
'Can I get meatballs instead?'
'It's not real sparrow tongue. It's the name of the pasta. You think we eat sparrow's tongue?'
'You eat worms, Frank, and sheep's brains.'
'You don't eat the worms. You'll have sparrow's tongue. It comes from a little town called Faro San Martino in Abruzzo – the province of Brutus. That's where my wife's family is from. They're very thickheaded there. But they have magnificent pasta.' He put his thumb and forefinger to his lips and kissed. 'Magnifico. And we're gonna have it with the puttanesca sauce. The whore's sauce.'
'Say again?'
'Whore. Whore. I don't know why they call it that. Maybe because it's got anchovies in it.' He laughed. 'You understand?'
'I believe I do.',
He raised a finger and a waiter appeared. Bellarosa made a sweeping motion with his hand, and the waiter snapped his fingers, and two busboys hurried over and cleared away round one.
I settled back in my chair and had some water. I noticed that the Wall Street types had left, and so had some of the local tradesmen. But the old men stayed on, sipping wine or coffee. Also still present were the men who looked like Frank. Obviously, there were two kinds of lunches served here: American Italian and Italian
