Gold Coast

To whom?

There was a knock on the door, and Vi

Bellarosa said to me, "You want some champagne?"

"No."

"You wa

"No."

"I'll dial it for you. Here…" He picked up the telephone. "You go in your room for privacy. Here, I'll get her."

"Later, Frank. Hang up."

He shrugged and hung up the phone.

Vi

Jones babbled on a bit about this. I wondered if Susan recalled the morning of January fourteenth. It didn't matter if she did or not, since I knew she would cover me so I could cover Frank Bellarosa. Oh, what tangled webs we weave, and so forth. Mr Salem taught me that in sixth grade.

Jeff Jones was saying now, "We have Barry Freeman live at Frank Bellarosa's Long Island estate. Barry?"

The scene flashed to Alhambra's gates, and Barry Freeman said, "This is the home of Frank Bellarosa. Many of the estates here on Long Island's Gold Coast have names, and this house, sitting on two hundred acres of trees, meadows, and gardens, is called Alhambra. And here at the main gates of the estate is the guard booth – there behind me – which is actually a gatehouse in which live two, maybe more of Bellarosa's bodyguards."

The camera pa

The camera's telescopic lens moved in, up the long driveway, and the screen was filled with a fuzzy picture of the main house. Freeman said, "In this mansion lives Frank the Bishop Bellarosa and his wife, A

Bellarosa said, "Nobody better call me that to my face." Vi

The scene now flashed back to Freeman, who said, "We've asked a few residents on this private road about the man who is their neighbour, but no one has any comment." He continued, "We don't think the don has returned home from Manhattan yet, so we're waiting here at his gate to see if we can speak to him when he does."

Bellarosa commented, "You got a long wait, asshole."

Barry Freeman said, "Back to you, Jeff."

The anchor, Jeff Jones, said, "Thanks, Barry, and we'll get right back to you if Frank Bellarosa shows up. Meanwhile, this was the scene this morning at the Federal Courthouse in lower Manhattan. Je

Obviously, she had been fascinated by me the moment she laid eyes on me.

Actually, she wasn't bad-looking herself.

But neither Frank nor I had said much as we descended the steps, and the scene shifted to the lower steps where we got stuck for a while. And there was Great Caesar, with the majestic classical columns of the courthouse behind him, puffing on his stogie, wisecracking and hamming it up for the cameras. I hadn't noticed when I was there, but from the camera's perspective I could see a line of federal marshals on the top steps of the courthouse, including my buddy, Wyatt Earp.

Frank commented to the three of us, "I gotta lose some weight. Look how that jacket's pulling."

Vi

Le

It was my turn. "You could drop ten pounds."

"Yeah? Maybe it's just the suit."

I turned my attention back to the television. You could hear a few questions and a few answers, but mostly it was just entertainment, a street happening, impromptu theatre. Then, however, Ms Snippy's cameraman got a close-up of her bugging me again. "Mr Sutter, Mr Ferragamo has five witnesses who put Frank Bellarosa at the scene of the murder. Are you saying they're all liars. Or are you the liar?"

And stupid John replied, "Ferragamo's witnesses are liars, and he knows they are liars. This whole thing is a frame-up, a personal vendetta against my client, and an attempt to start trouble between -" 'Trouble between who?" asked Ms Snippy. "Rival mobs?" And so it went. Frank didn't say anything, but I had the feeling he wished this wasn't going out over the air to Little Italy, Little Colombia, Little Jamaica, Chinatown, and other quaint little neighbourhoods where exotic people with big grudges, big guns, and extreme paranoia might decide to engage in what was called a drug-related murder.

I turned my attention back to the television. The classical columns and crowded steps of the courthouse were gone, and the background was now grey stone. And there was Ms Alvarez live, apparently recently returned from her engagement in lower Manhattan. In fact, she had changed from the morning's neat suit and was now wearing a clingy, red fuck-me dress and holding a bulbous phallic symbol to her lips. But did she put it in her mouth? No. She spoke into it. "And this is Stanhope Hall. Or at least its walls and towering gates. And over there, right behind the gates, is the gatehouse where an old woman tried to shoo us away a little while ago."

Fu

Ms Alvarez did ten seconds of travelogue, then said, "You can't see the fifty-room mansion from here, but in that mansion lives John Whitman Sutter and Susan Stanhope Sutter."

This was not at all accurate, of course. Susan had lived in the mansion once, but had stepped down in the world. I'll write to Ms Alvarez. Anyway, Je