The Gate House (14 page)
Authors: Nelson DeMille
I ignored him, got into my car, and started the engine. I saw the goon coming out of the restaurant, and as I backed out of the parking space, I saw him speaking to Tony, and both men looked at me as I drove, without haste, into the street.
I didn’t
need
to provoke a confrontation, but he was starting to annoy me, and I thought he was being a little condescending. Well, maybe I was reading him wrong. Or maybe I was seeing Frank across the table, and maybe I had a flashback or a mental image of Frank Bellarosa having sex with Susan—that damned dream—or Frank scamming me into working for him, or Frank screwing up my life with a smile on his face.
In any case, whatever it was that set me off, it felt good, and it had the added result of getting Junior out of my life.
I glanced in my rearview mirror, but didn’t see the Cadillac SUV. I left Glen Cove and headed back toward Lattingtown along a dark country road.
Also, I’d put Anthony on notice again about staying away from Susan. Of course, if I was working for him, then Susan had nothing to worry about, assuming she was worried, which I was sure she was not. Worrying used to be my job, and apparently still is.
The other thing for me to keep in mind was that Anthony, who hadn’t inherited his father’s wealth, had most probably inherited his father’s enemies; those within his immediate circle of friends and family, such as Uncle Sal, and those outside his family, such as some of the goombahs I’d met at a gathering at the Plaza Hotel one night, and finally, those, such as Alphonse Ferragamo, whose job it was to put young Anthony in prison for a long time. Therefore, Anthony’s tenure as don might be short, and being around him might be dangerous.
And somehow, Anthony thought I might be able to help him with these problems, as I’d helped his father. Was I supposed to be flattered?
History can definitely repeat itself if everyone concentrates very hard on making the same stupid mistakes.
And yet, something draws us back to the familiar, because even if the familiar is not so good, it
is
familiar.
Within fifteen minutes, I was on Grace Lane—Anthony Bellarosa’s gift to his neighbors—and my headlights illuminated the shiny new blacktop stretching out before me. A verse from Matthew popped into my head:
Wide is the gate, and broad is the road, that leadeth to destruction.
T
he following day, Thursday, brought thunderstorms, which were good background for sorting and burning files, and by late afternoon I’d made a large dent in this task, which was onerous and, now and then, sad.
At 6:00 P.M., I rewarded myself with a bottle of Banfi Brunello di Montalcino and Panini Bolognese (baloney sandwich), then sat in George’s armchair and read the
New York Times
. John Gotti, the former head of the Gambino crime family, was near death in the hospital of the Federal maximum security penitentiary in Springfield, Missouri, where he was serving a life sentence without parole.
I wondered how, or if, this would affect Mr. Anthony Bellarosa, then I wondered why I was even wondering about that.
And yet, aside from Anthony’s professional gain or loss after Mr. Gotti’s death, I couldn’t help but think about why young men still got into that business, knowing that the careers of nearly all their extended
famiglia
ended in early death or imprisonment. Well, maybe that was better than a retirement community in Florida. In any case, it wasn’t my problem.
I did think, briefly, about Anthony’s offer of two hundred thousand for doing a little legal work, and I thought, too, about my cut if I could recover some of the Bellarosa assets seized by the Feds. As Anthony said, the two hundred large was in my pocket, but as I knew, that was the shiny lure to attract me—the fish—to the potential millions—the bait—which actually hid a sharp hook.
There was nothing illegal or even unethical about this; fish and lawyers need to eat. The problem was the sharp hook. One needed to be careful.
In fact, one needed to stop thinking about this.
F
riday was also rainy, and by noon I’d nearly finished getting my paperwork organized and boxed, ready to be shipped someplace after Ethel was boxed and shipped. My next task was to gather and pack my personal effects—old Army uniforms, sailing trophies, books, desk items, and so forth. How did I ever live for ten years without this stuff?
Anyway, I’d found some documents and papers pertaining or belonging to Susan, as well as some photographs of her family, and since I didn’t want to be reminded of the Stanhopes—especially William, Charlotte, and their useless son, Peter—I put these photos in a large envelope with Susan’s papers; delivery method to be determined.
T
he weather cleared in the afternoon, and I took the opportunity to go for a run up to the Long Island Sound. There was a large gaff-rigged sloop out on the water, and I stood on a rock on Fox Point and watched it glide east, its white sails full and its bow cutting effortlessly through the whitecaps.
I could see the skipper at the helm, and though I couldn’t see his face clearly at this distance, I knew he was smiling.
I doubted I’d ever go back to sea, though the sea did beckon now and then, as it does to every sailor. But as every sailor knows who has ever loved the sea, its embrace is too often deadly.
A
t about 4:00 P.M., back in the gatehouse, I happened to notice a gray Mercedes coming through the gates, driven by a man who looked like he could fit the description of someone named Amir Nasim.
Living in London had brought me into close proximity to men and women who practiced the Islamic faith, including a few co-workers, and I assumed that Mr. Nasim, an Iranian, was a Muslim, and thus his Sabbath would begin at sundown with the call to prayer.
Mr. Nasim, and probably his whole household, would get themselves to a mosque, or they’d simply roll out the prayer rugs in the former chapel of Stanhope Hall, take off their shoes, face Mecca—which from this part of the world was east toward the Hamptons—and pray.
I didn’t want to intrude on this religious devotion, but I did need to speak to Mr. Nasim before too long, so I might as well do it now. Figuring I had a few hours before the prayer rugs were unrolled, I changed into tan slacks, blue blazer, golf shirt, and penny loafers, with clean socks, just in case he rolled out another rug and asked me to stay.
I’d found a box of my engraved calling cards that said, simply,
John Whitman Sutter, Stanhope Hall
, and I slipped a few of these in my pocket.
Susan had given me these useless and anachronistic cards, and I probably hadn’t used six of them in the dozen years I owned them, the last one being sent—to amuse myself—to don Frank Bellarosa, via his building contractor, with instructions that Mr. Bellarosa should call Mr. Sutter regarding Mrs. Sutter’s horse stable project, which our new neighbor had offered to help us with. Insisted, actually.
Normally, I’d walk the half mile up the main drive to Stanhope Hall, but I didn’t want to pass Susan’s guest cottage—our former marital residence—on foot. So I took the Ford Taurus and headed toward the mansion.
I passed the turnoff to her cottage, which I could see a few hundred feet to my left, and which I noticed had lights on in the front room, which used to be my den. Susan’s SUV was in the forecourt.
Some distance from the guest cottage I saw Susan’s stable—a handsome brick structure that once sat closer to the main house, but which Susan had moved, brick by brick, from her father’s property to her property in anticipation of Stanhope Hall being sold. This was a formidable and expensive project, but as I said, and as good luck would have it, Mr. Bellarosa was happy and eager to have his contractor, Dominic, do the job immediately, and for peanuts. I refused; Susan accepted. The lesson here is that if something looks too good to be true, it is. But I already knew that. What I didn’t know was that Frank Bellarosa had been as interested in Susan as he was in me.
Anyway, up ahead, I saw Stanhope Hall, set on a rise amidst terraced gardens.
To envision this place, think of the White House in Washington, or any neo-classical palace you’ve ever seen, then imagine a world with no income tax (and thus no tax lawyers like myself) and think of cheap immigrant labor, sixty-hour workweeks with no benefits, and the riches of a new continent pouring into the pockets of a few hundred men in New York. This Gilded Age was followed by the Roaring Twenties, when things got even better, and the mansions continued to grow bigger and more numerous, like golden mushrooms sprouting along Fifth Avenue, and in Bar Harbor, Newport, the Hamptons, and here on the Gold Coast. And then came Black Tuesday, and it all crashed in a single day. Shit happens.
I should mention that the back sixty acres of the Stanhope estate, where Susan had done most of her horseback riding, had been subdivided like Alhambra, as part of the Federal land grab, to build about a dozen horrible phony Beaux-Arts mini-mansions on the required five-acre lots. Thankfully, a stockade fence and a ditch had been constructed to separate these monstrosities from the front acreage, and a new access road led out to another main road so that no one on this end of the former estate had to see or hear the residents of this nouveau riche ghetto. Well, that may have sounded a bit snobby, and in any case it’s not my problem.
Still remaining on the original Stanhope acreage was a classical, rotunda-shaped, X-rated love temple, which housed a nude statue of Venus, the Roman goddess of love, and a nude statue of Priapus, the Roman god of boners. Susan and I had played out a few classical themes in this temple, and on one occasion, I recalled, she was a virgin who’d come to the temple to ask Venus for a suitable husband, and I was a centurion with erectile dysfunction who’d come to pray to Priapus for a woody. As with all of our fantasies, this one had a happy ending. The real marriage, unfortunately, did not.
As I approached the mansion, I wondered what Amir Nasim thought of his pagan temple, and wondered if he’d draped the statues, or had them removed or destroyed. Talk about a clash of cultures.
I parked the Taurus under the huge, columned portico of Stanhope Hall, and there I sat, thinking that in the nearly vanished world of established custom and protocol—now called the pecking order—John Whitman Sutter would not be going from the gatehouse to the mansion to call on Amir Nasim. And maybe that’s why I’d put this off.
I sat in the car, thinking I should leave. But I took some comfort in the fact that my visit was unannounced, and thus I was asserting my status and privilege, or what was left of it.
On the subject of maintaining one’s dignity while asking a favor of the recently arrived barbarians now living in the villa, I recalled Susan’s favorite line from St. Jerome:
The Roman world is falling, yet we hold our heads erect . . .
I got out of the car, climbed the granite steps between the classical columns, and rang the bell.
A
young woman—possibly Iranian—in a black dress opened the door, and I announced myself by stating, “Mr. John Sutter to see Mr. Amir Nasim.”
At this point, the house servant would usually inquire, “Is he expecting you, sir?”
And I would reply, “No, but if it’s not inconvenient, I would like to see him on a personal matter.” Then I’d hand her my calling card, she’d show me into the foyer, disappear, and within a few minutes she’d return with the verdict.
In this case, however, the young woman seemed to have limited English as well as limited training, and she replied, “You wait,” and closed the door on me. So I rang again, she opened the door, and I handed her my card, saying sharply, “Give this to him. Understand?”
She closed the door again, and I stood there. That was my third encounter with an English-challenged person in as many days, and I was becoming annoyed. In fact, I could almost understand Anthony losing his cool with the young Chinese waitress, and his rap on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. I mean, the Goths, Huns, and Vandals probably learned Latin as they overran the Empire.
Veni
,
vidi
,
vici
. It’s not that difficult.
I waited about five minutes, the door opened again, and a tall, thin gentleman with dark features and a gray suit, holding my card in his hand, said, “Ah, Mr. Sutter. How nice of you to visit.” He extended his hand, we shook, and he asked me to come in.
He said to me, “I was just about to have tea. Will you join me?”
I didn’t want tea, but I needed some of his time, so I guess it was teatime. I replied, “Thank you, I will.”
“Excellent.”
I followed him into the huge granite lower vestibule, which was designed as a sort of transit area for arriving guests. Here the house servants would take the guests’ hats, coats, walking sticks, or whatever, and the guests would be led up one of the great sweeping staircases that rose into the upper foyer. This was a bit more formal than the way we greet houseguests today, such as, “Hey, John, how the hell are you? Throw your coat anywhere. Ready for a beer?”
In any case, Mr. Nasim led me up the right-hand staircase, which was still lit by the original painted cast-iron statues of blackamoors in turbans holding electric torches. I wondered if Mr. Nasim was offended by the statues, which obviously represented his co-religionists as dark-skinned people in a servile capacity.
Thanks to Anthony, the fall of the Roman Empire was still on my mind, and I recalled something I’d read at St. Paul’s—where Roman history was big—about Attila the Hun, who, upon capturing the Roman city of Mediolanum, entered the royal palace and spotted a large fresco depicting an enthroned Roman emperor with defeated Sycthians prostrate at his feet. Unfortunately, Attila mistook the groveling Scythians as Huns, and he was so teed off that he made the Roman governor crawl to him on his hands and knees.
I guess I was concerned about a similar cultural misunderstanding here regarding the blackamoors, and I thought I should say something like, “The Stanhopes were insensitive racists and religious bigots, and these statues always offended me.”
