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I hate when people hand me a phone to say hello to someone I don’t want to say hello to, but I liked A
“A
“Who’s this?”
“John Sutter. How are you?”
“John! Oh my God. I can’t believe it’s you. Oh my God. John, how are you?”
“I’m-”
“Tony says you look great.”
“Anthony.”
“Who?”
“Your son-”
“Tony. Tony says he saw you the other night. He says you’re living here now.”
“Well, I-”
“Why don’t you go to Stanco’s? Why are you eating at the Chinks?”
“Chinese was my idea. So, you’re back in Brooklyn?”
“Yeah. In the old neighborhood. Williamsburg. Since Frank… oh my God, John. Do you believe he’s dead?”
Actually, yes.
“It’s ten years, John, ten years since my Frank…” She let out a sigh, followed by a little sob, caught her breath, then continued, “Nothing is the same without Frank.”
That’s good news.
She went into a brief eulogy of her deceased husband, which sounded well-practiced, emphasizing his qualities as a father, and said, “The boys miss him. In a few weeks is Father’s Day, John. The boys take me to the cemetery every Father’s Day. They cry at his grave.”
“It must be very sad for them.”
She let me know how sad it was. She didn’t say anything specific about Frank as a perfect husband, but neither did she say anything negative, of course, nor would she ever.
The last time I’d seen her was at Frank’s funeral, and she hadn’t looked good in black with mascara ru
As A
A
It happened, incidentally, on the mezzanine that overlooked the palm court atrium at Alhambra. Frank had been wearing a bathrobe, and when he went over the railing and hit the red-tiled floor below, his bathrobe flew open, and when I saw him, he wasn’t wearing anything under his black silk robe, and it occurred to me now that this image of him had somehow transferred itself to my dream in another form.
A
Then why was he fucking my wife?
“He always told me how smart you were. How you helped him when they tried to make up charges against him.”
Ironically, Frank Bellarosa would have been safer in jail. “Well, I was just doing what he paid me to do.” And he still owes me fifty thousand dollars.
“No. You did it because you loved him.”
“Right.” Or did I write off the fifty thousand and chalk it up to experience? I seem to remember that the Feds had seized all his assets and his checkbooks.
A
Anthony seemed not amused and snatched his glass back, then barked an order for two Dewar’s, and mumbled in Italian, “Stonata,” which I recalled means something like “bubble brain.”
Out of nowhere, A
“Uh…”
“John. Why?”
“Uh… well…” Well, because they were having a lover’s quarrel. But I didn’t think A
“She didn’t have to do it, John.”
“I know.” But Frank had made promises to her, then broke those promises, and Susan, not used to being scorned, shot him.
By the time I saw him, the blood around his three bullet holes had coagulated like red custard, and the wound in his groin was in his pubic hair, and his genitals were covered with clotted blood. His skull had hit the hard floor with such force that a splatter of blood radiated out from his head like a halo. His eyes were still open, so I closed them, which ticked off the CSI people and the crime scene photographers.
“John? Did she tell you why?”
“No.” Actually, she did, but she was lying.
A
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see her?”
“No.”
“She should burn in hell for what she did.”
I was getting a little a
“You shouldn’t eat there. You don’t know what they put in the food.”
“Right. Okay-”
“Next time you’re in Brooklyn, you stop by for coffee or come to Tony’s house for di
“Thank you. Take care.” I added, “Ciao,” and handed the cell phone back to Anthony, who will always be Tony to Momma.
He said into the phone, “Yeah, Ma. I gotta – okay, okay. Stanco’s.” He listened, then said, “I’ll tell her to call you. She’s busy with the kids, Ma. You can call her-”
Poor Tony. Harriet Sutter was starting to look good.
He finally hung up, slammed the phone on the table, downed the rest of his Scotch, and said, “What’s the difference between an Italian mother and a Rottweiler?”
“What?”
“Eventually, the Rottweiler lets go.”
I smiled.
Anthony lit a cigarette and stayed silent awhile, then asked me, “What was she saying?”
“Your father.”
He nodded, and we dropped that subject, or, I was certain, tabled it for later.
The waitress brought the two Scotches and correctly put one glass in front of each of us, then inquired, “You want order now?”
Anthony informed her, “We don’t have a friggin’ menu.” He added, “Cretina.”
Maybe I should have suggested Stanco’s.
Anthony raised his glass and I raised mine. We clinked, and he said, “Salute,” and I said, “Cheers.”
He said, apropos of Mom, “She and Megan – that’s my wife – they don’t get along.”
“That can be difficult.”
“Yeah. Difficult. Megan, you know, she’s Irish, and they have different… what do you call it…?”
“Ethnic traditions? Cultural practices?”
“Yeah. Anyway, it’s not like I married a melanzana or something.”
“Right.” That means eggplant, which one would not normally marry, but it’s also Italian slang for a black person. It was all coming back to me. Check, please.
On the subject of marital bliss in the ’burbs, and because I was curious, I asked him, “How do you like living in Alhambra Estates?”
He shrugged. “It’s okay… but I’d like to move back to the city.” He delivered a hot piece of news by saying, “There’s a million good-looking broads in New York.”
“That shouldn’t interest a married man.”
He thought that was fu
I said, “This is a good place to raise children.”
“Yeah. I got two. A boy, Frank, five years old, and a girl, Kelly A