deported her or something, and they only let Anna come a few days at a time. She's in Brooklyn again. I got nobody to talk to here. Except the fucking Feds.'
I nodded. The Justice Department could indeed be nasty and petty when they chose to, and when you had the IRS on your case at the same time, you might as well put your head between your legs and kiss your ass good- bye. I said, 'And you let all this happen in exchange for what? For freedom?'
'Yeah. For freedom. I'm free. Everything's forgiven. But meantime I got to rat out everybody, and I got to let them play with me like I was a toy. Jesus Christ, these guys are worse than commies.' He looked at me. 'That was your advice, wasn't it, Counsellor? Sell out, Frank. Start a new life.' I replied, 'Yes, that was my advice.'
'So, I took it.'
'No, you made your own decision, Frank.' I added, 'I think the operative part – the thing that is important – is that you start a new life. I assume you'll be leaving here under the new identity programme.'
'Yeah. I'm under the witness protection programme now. Next, I graduate to new identity if I'm good. In my new life I want to be a priest.' He forced a tired smile and sat up straight. 'Here, have some wine with me.' He took a clean water tumbler from his nightstand and poured me a full glass. I took it and sipped on it. Chianti acido, fermented in storage batteries. How could a sick man drink this stuff?
He said, 'I'm not supposed to tell nobody where I'm going, but I'm going back to Italy.' He tapped the book on his nightstand. 'Funny how we say 'back', like we came from there. I'm third-generation here. Been to Italy maybe ten times in the last thirty years. But we still say 'back'. Do you say back to… where? England?' 'No, I don't say that. Maybe sometimes I think it. But I'm here for the duration, Frank. I'm an American. And so are you. In fact, you are so fucking American you wouldn't believe it. You understand?'
He smiled. 'Yeah. I know, I know. I'm not going to like living in Italy, am I?
But it's safer there, and it's better than jail and better than dead, I guess.' He added, 'The Feds got it all worked out with the Italian government. Maybe someday you can come visit.'
I didn't reply. We were both silent awhile, and we drank our wine. Finally, Bellarosa spoke, but not really to me, I think, but to himself and maybe to his paesanos, whom he was selling out en masse. He said, 'The old code of silence is dead. There're no real men left anymore, no heroes, no stand-up guys, not on either side of the law. We're all middle-class paper guys, the cops and the crooks, and we make deals when we got to, to protect our asses, our money, and our lives. We rat out everybody, and we're happy we got the chance to do it.' Again I didn't reply.
He said to me, 'I was in jail once, Counsellor, and it's not a place for people like us. It's for the new bad guys, the darker people, the tough guys. My people don't lay their balls on the table no more. We're like you people. We got too fucking soft.'
'Well, maybe you can work that farm outside of Sorrento.' He laughed. 'Yeah. Farmer Frank. Fat fucking chance of that.' He looked me in the eye. 'Forget the word 'Sorrento'. Capisce?'
'I hear you.' I added in a soft voice, 'A word of advice, Frank. Don't trust the Feds to keep your forwarding address secret either. If they send you to Sorrento, don't stay too long.'
He winked at me. 'I was right to make you a Napoletano.' 'And I suppose Anna is going with you, so watch the postmarks on the letters she sends home. Especially to her sister.' I asked, 'She is going, right?' He hesitated a moment, then replied, 'Yeah. Sure. She's my wife. What's she going to do? Go to college and work for IBM?'
'Is she as unhappy about the move as she was about moving here?' 'You got to ask? She never wanted to leave her mother's house, for Christ's sake. You know, you think about them immigrant women coming here from sunny Italy with nothing and making a life here in the tenements of New York. And now those women's daughters and granddaughters have a fit when the fucking dishwasher breaks. You know? But hey, we're no better. Right?' 'Right.' I said, 'Maybe she'll adjust better to Italy than to Lattingtown.' 'Nah. All Italian married women are unhappy. They are happy girls and happy widows, but they are unhappy wives. I told you, you can't make them happy, so you ignore them.' He added, 'Anyway, my kids are still here. Anna is going nuts about that. Maybe they'll want to come over and live. Who knows? Maybe someday I can come back. Maybe someday you'll walk into a pizza joint in Brooklyn, and I'll be behind the counter. You want that pie cut in eight or twelve slices?' 'Twelve. I'm hungry.' Actually I couldn't picture me in a pizza joint in Brooklyn, nor could I picture Frank Bellarosa behind the counter, and neither could Frank Bellarosa. Some of this was just an act, maybe for me, maybe for the Feds if they were listening. A guy like Bellarosa may be down for a while, but never out. As soon as he got out from under the thumb of the Justice Department, he'd be back in some shady business. If he was ever in a pizza joint, it would be to shake down the owner.
He said, 'Well, you got me wondering about that favour I owe you.' I put down my glass of wine and said, 'Okay, Frank, I'd like you to tell my wife it's over between you two and that you're not taking her with you to Italy, which is what I think she believes, and I want you to tell her that you only used her to get to me.'
We stared at each other, and he nodded. 'Done.'
I moved toward the door. 'We won't see each other again, but you'll forgive me if I don't shake your hand.'
'Sure.'
I opened the door.
He called out. 'John.'
I don't think he'd ever called me by my first name before, and it took me surprise. I looked back at him sitting in bed. 'What?'
'I'll tell her I used her if you want, but that wasn't it. You gotta know that.'
'I know that.'
'Okay.' He said to me, 'We're both on our own now, Counsellor, and in years to come we'll think of this time as a good time, a time when we took and we gave and we got smarter by knowing each other.
'Sure.'
'And watch your ass. You got some of my paesanos on your case now – Alphonse and the other guy. But you can handle if I sure can.'
'Yeah. Good luck.'
'You, too.' And I left.
CHAPTER 37
I had decided to visit Emily in Galveston, and I was packing enough clothes for an extended trip. Visiting relatives is sort of like walking out but under cover. Susan had her turn at it, and now that she was back, it was my turn. I was going to take the Bronco rather than fly, because maybe the states west of New York were not just fly-over states, but places that should be seen, with people that should be met. It was a step in the right direction, anyway. I was looking forward to my first stop at a McDonald's, to staying at motels made out of concrete blocks, and to buying an RC Cola at a 7-Eleven. The thought of self-service gasoline, however, was a bit anxiety- producing, because I wasn't sure how it was done. I suppose I could watch from the side of the road and see how everyone else did it. I think you pay first, then pump. Anyway, I intended to leave in the morning at first light. It had only been a few days since my last call on Frank Bellarosa, and in that time, Susan had come home from her trip to Hilton Head and Florida looking very fit and tan. Her brother, she informed me, loved Key West and had decided to finally settle down and do something with his life.
'Like what?' I asked. 'Get a haircut?'
'Don't be cynical, John.'
She had greeted the news of my cross-country trip with mixed emotions. On the one hand, my absences removed a lot of strain from the situation, but she honestly seemed to miss me when we were separated. It's not easy to love two people at the same time.
Anyway, as I was packing that night, Susan came into the guest room where I was still in residence and said, 'I'm going for a ride.'
She was wearing riding breeches, boots, a turtleneck, and a tailored tweed jacket. She looked good, especially with her tan. I replied, 'The bulldozers have changed the terrain, Susan. Be careful.'
'I know. But it's bright as day tonight.'
