He shrugged. "Like I said once, Counselor, 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 cannot get us all into lockstep. But life and the state had finally caught up with the nation's biggest outlaw and laid him low. It was inevitable, really, and he had known it even as he made plans for a future that would never come.

I said to him, "And Alhambra?"

"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 houses 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. "Funny, huh?"

"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 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, Counselor? 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 program."

"Yeah. I'm under the witness protection program 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 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 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, Counselor, 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 you people. We got too fucking soft." 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? 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. 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 is going, right?" 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 favor 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 by 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, Counselor, 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. Okay?"

"Sure."

"And watch your ass. You got some of my paesanos paesanos on your case now-Alphonse and the other guy. But you can handle it." on your case now-Alphonse and the other guy. But you can handle it."

"I sure can."

"Yeah. Good luck."

"You, too.'' And I left.

Thirty-seven.

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."

Which was true. There was a huge, orange hunter's moon rising, and it was such a beautiful, haunting sort of night that I almost offered to join her. With the two estates about to become subdivisions, and Fox Point about to become Iranian territory, and with the remaining landed gentry not speaking to us, the days of horseback riding were drawing to a close, and even I was going to miss that. But that night, I decided not to ride. I think I had sensed she wanted to be alone.

She said, "I may be late."

"All right."

"If I don't see you tonight, John, please wake me before you leave."

"I will."

"Good night."

"Happy trails."

And she left. In retrospect, she had seemed perfectly normal, but I told you she was nuts, and that full moon didn't help.

At about eleven P P.M., I was contemplating retiring for the night as I wanted to be up before dawn and I had a long day on the road ahead of me. But Susan still wasn't home, and you know how husbands and wives are about falling asleep before the other is home. I suppose it's partly concern and partly jealousy, but whatever it is, the person at home wants to hear the car pull up in the driveway, even if they're not speaking to the other person.

In this case, I wasn't waiting for a car to pull up, of course, but for the sound of hoofbeats, which I can sometimes hear now that the stable is closer to the house. But it was was a car that pulled up in front of the house, and I saw its headlights coming up the drive long before I heard the tires on the gravel. I was in my second-floor bedroom at the time, still fully dressed, and as I came down the stairs, I heard the car door shut, then heard the doorbell ring. a car that pulled up in front of the house, and I saw its headlights coming up the drive long before I heard the tires on the gravel. I was in my second-floor bedroom at the time, still fully dressed, and as I came down the stairs, I heard the car door shut, then heard the doorbell ring.

A strange car in the driveway at eleven P P.M. and a ringing doorbell is not usually good news. I opened the door to see Mr. Mancuso standing there with an odd expression on his face. "Good evening, Mr. Sutter."

"What's up?'' was all I could think to say with my heart in my throat.

"Your wife-"

"Where is she? Is she all right?"

"Yes. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ... she's not hurt. But I think you should come with me."

So, wearing corduroy jeans and a sweatshirt, I followed him out to his car, and we got in. We didn't speak as he made his way down the dark drive. As we went past the gatehouse, I saw Ethel Allard looking out the window, and we were close enough so that our eyes met, and I wondered if I looked as worried as she did.

We swung onto Grace Lane and turned left toward Alhambra. I said to Mr. Mancuso, "Is he dead?"

He glanced at me and nodded.

"I guess he wasn't wearing a bulletproof vest this time."

"No, he wasn't.'' He added, "Do you have a good stomach?"

"I saw a man's head blown off on a full stomach."

"That's right. Well, he's uncovered, and I guess you'll see him, because we held off on calling the police. I came and got you as a courtesy, Mr. Sutter, a favor, so you can speak to your wife before the county detectives arrive."

"Thank you.'' I added, "You didn't owe me any favors, so I guess I owe you one now."

"All right. Here's the favor. Get what's left of your life together. I'd like that."

"Done."

Mancuso seemed in no hurry, as if he were unconsciously hesitating, and it took us a while to get up the long cobble drive. I noticed, irrelevantly, that every window in Alhambra was lit. Mancuso said to me, "What a place. But like Christ said, 'What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'"

I didn't think St. Felix understood the true nature of Frank Bellarosa. I replied, "He didn't sell his soul, Mr. Mancuso. He was more in the buying business."

He glanced at me again. "I think you're right."

I said, "Is Mrs. Bellarosa here?"

"No. She's in Brooklyn."

"Which was why my wife was here."

He didn't reply.

I added, "In fact, it was very convenient for Mr. Bellarosa and Mrs. Sutter having Mrs. Bellarosa packed off to Brooklyn for extended visits."

Again no reply.