Gold Coast

That's your pal Ferragamo. But I'll talk to somebody higher up for you. Okay?"

"Don't bother. I'll write this one off to experience."

"You let me know." He asked, "You want some wine?" "No." I walked around the room and noticed a book on his night table. It was not Machiavelli, but a picture book of Naples.

Bellarosa said to me, "What really hurts me is that I can't take care of my people anymore. For an Italian, that's like cutting off his balls. Capisce?" "No, and I never want to capisce a damned thing again."

Bellarosa shrugged.

I said, "So you work for Alphonse Ferragamo now."

He didn't like that at all, but he said nothing.

I asked him, "Can you tell me what those bulldozers are doing at Stanhope Hall?" "Yeah. They're go

"Is that a fact? My whole world is fucked up, and now you tell me I'm about to be surrounded by tractor sheds."

"Whaddaya mean tractor sheds? Nice houses. You'll have plenty of good neighbours."

It wasn't my property that was being subdivided or surrounded anyway, so I didn't really care. But I asked him, "What's happening to the Stanhope mansion?" "I don't know. The developer has some Japs interested in it for a kind of rest house in the country. You know? Those people get all nervous, and they need a place to rest."

This was really depressing news. A rest house for burned-out Japanese businessmen, surrounded by thirty or forty new houses on what was once a beautiful estate. I asked him, "How did you get the zoning changed?" "I got friends in high places now. Like the IRS. I told you, they want big bucks, so I get rid of everything with their help. And Ferragamo started a RICO thing against me so he's trying to get his before the fucking IRS gets theirs. They're like fucking wolves tearing me apart."

"So you're telling me you're broke?"

He shrugged. "Like I said once, Counsellor, give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. Well, Caesar is in the next fucking room, and he wants his." I smiled. "But never more than fifteen percent, Frank." He forced a smile in return. "Maybe this time he got more. But I can do all right on what's left." "That's good news." I regarded him a moment, and indeed he looked like a beaten man. No doubt he was physically not well, but in a more profound way his spirit seemed crushed and his spark was gone. I guess this was what I'd hoped to see when I saved his life, but I wasn't enjoying it. In some perverse way we can all relate to the rebel, the pirate, the outlaw. His existence is proof that this life does not squash everyone and that today's superstate ca

"Oh, yeah, I had to sell this place, too. The Feds want this house bulldozed. What bastards. Like they don't want people saying, 'Frank Bellarosa lived there once.' Fuck them. But I worked it out with them that Dominic gets to build the house for the guy who's going to buy the land. I'm going to make Dominic put up little Alhambras, nice little stucco villas with red tile roofs." He smiled. "Fu

"I guess. And Fox Point?"

"The Arabs got it."

"The Iranians?"

"Yeah. Fuck them. So all you bastards that didn't like me here on this street, you can all watch the sand niggers driving to their temple in their big cars, wailing all over the place." He laughed weakly and coughed. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Just a goddamned flu. That fucking nurse is a bitch. They fired Filomena one day without telling me and deported her or something, and they only let A

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. "Fu

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 A

"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 su