I asked my lunch companion, "Has anyone been knocked off here?"

He glanced at me. "What? Oh… no. Yeah. Once. Yeah, back in the Prohibition days.

Long time ago. You like fried squid? Calamaretti fritti?"

"Probably not."

Vinnie opened the door and stuck his head out. "Okay." We entered. The restaurant was long and narrow, and the rows of tables had traditional red-checkered cloths. The floor was ancient white ceramic tile, and the ceiling was that pressed tin with glossy white paint on it. Three ceiling fans spun lazily, keeping the smell of garlic circulating. On the plain white, plaster walls were cheap prints, all showing scenes of sunny Italy. The place wasn't much to look at, but it was authentic.

There weren't many diners, and I could see waiters standing around in red jackets, all stealing glances at don Bellarosa. A man in a black suit rushed toward us, his hand prematurely extended, and he and Bellarosa greeted each other in Italian. Bellarosa called him Patsy, but did not actually introduce him to me, though he was obviously the maitre d'.

Patsy showed us to a corner table in the rear. It was a nice comfortable table with good fields of fire.

Lenny had arrived, and he and Vinnie took a table near the front window with a good view of the door. Now we had interlocking fields of fire, which was the first requirement for a pleasant lunch at Giulio's.

Patsy was obsequious, the waiters bowed and bowed and bowed as we walked by, and a man and a woman, apparently the owner and his wife, ran out of the kitchen and stopped just short of prostrating themselves on the floor. Everyone was grinning except Frank, who had this sort of Mafia poker face on that I'd never seen before. I said to him, "Come here often?"

"Yeah." He said something to the owner in Italian, and the man ran off, perhaps to kill himself, I thought, but he returned shortly with a bottle of Chianti and two glasses. Patsy uncorked the wine but Frank poured. Finally, after a lot of fussing around our table, everyone left us alone. Frank banged his glass against mine and said, "Salute!"

"Cheers," I replied, and drank the wine, which tasted like grappa diluted with tannic acid. Yuk!

Frank smacked his lips. "Aahh… that's good. Special stuff. Direct from the other side."

They should have left it there.

A few more people had entered, and I looked around. The clientele at lunch hour seemed to be mostly locals, mostly men, and mostly old, wearing baggy suits without ties. I could overhear a mixture of English and Italian around me. There were a few younger men in good suits, and like a vampire who can tell its own kind at a glance, I recognized them as Wall Street types, trendy twerps who had 'discovered' Giulio's the way Columbus discovered America, i.e., it ain't there until I find it.

Here and there I noticed tables at which were men who I thought might be in Frank's business. And in fact, Frank nodded to a few of these people, who nodded back. Despite the informality of the place and the fact that it was warm, only the Wall Street twerps and a few of the old men had removed their jackets. The rest of the clientele, I was sure, were either wearing shoulder holsters or wanted everyone to think they were. Frank, I knew, could not be armed, as he had just been through a booking and search. Lenny and Vinnie, I knew, were armed. I was basically unarmed, except for my three-hundred-dollar Montblanc pen and my American Express Gold Card.

I said to my client, "Are you satisfied with the way it went this morning?"

He shrugged. "It went like it went. I got no complaints with you."

"Fine. Do you want to discuss the charge against you? The defence?"

"I told you, it's bullshit. It's not getting to trial."

"It could. Ferragamo had five witnesses for the grand jury. Those witnesses said enough to implicate you in the murder of Juan Carranza." "Ferragamo's probably got something on them. They maybe saw the hit, but they didn't see my face there."

I nodded. "Okay. I believe you."

"Good. Then you did the right thing today."

"No. I committed perjury."

"Don't worry about it."

The owner, whose name was Lucio, came by with a bowl of fried onion rings, and a waiter put down two small plates.

"Mangia," Frank said as he took a clawful of the onion rings.

"No, thanks."

"Come on. Eat."

They weren't onion rings, of course, but I was trying to pretend they were. I put a few of the things on my plate, then put one in my mouth and washed it down with the Chianti. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

There was a big loaf of Italian bread sitting right on the tablecloth, unsliced, and Frank ripped it apart with his big mitts and flipped a few pieces my way. I didn't see a bread plate and probably never would. I ate some of the bread, which was the best I've ever had.

Between chews, Bellarosa said, "You see what I mean about how law-abiding I am? Mancuso came in by himself, and I'm waiting for the fucking cuffs. Now how do you think they take a spic out of one of those social clubs? They go in there with a fucking battalion, armed to the fucking teeth, and they got to beat off spies and drag the guy out screaming. Half the time somebody gets a split head or gets shot. You see the difference? You think Mancuso is a fucking hero? No. He knew I wasn't going to put him away."

"Still, Frank, that took balls."

He smiled. "Yeah. That little, skinny wop bangs on my door and says, 'You're under arrest.' Yeah." He added, "But you think Mancuso is going to be a star? No fucking way. Ferragamo runs his show his way, and he's the star. You'll see on the news."

Unbidden, the waiter brought over a bowl of what looked like scallops covered with red sauce. Bellarosa shovelled some on my plate beside the fried squid. He said, "This is scungilli. Like… conch. Like a shellfish. Sono buone." "Can I order something from the menu?"

"Try that. Try it." He dug into his whatever it was. "Eat. Come on." I positioned my wine and a piece of bread, swallowed a piece of the conch, drank the Chianti, and bit on the bread.

"You like it?"

"Sono buone."

He laughed.

We ate, drank, and talked awhile. No one offered us a menu, and I noticed that most of the customers were not using menus but were talking food with the waiters in a mixture of Italian and English. The waiters seemed friendly, happy, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, patient, and helpful. Obviously they weren't French.

It struck me as I sat there that this restaurant could have been a hundred years old, older than The Creek, older than The Seawanhaka Corinthian. And very little in the restaurant had changed, not the decor, the cuisine, or the clientele. In fact, Little Italy was a sort of time warp, a bastion of Italian immigrant culture that seemed to be resisting change and assimilation against all odds. If I had to bet on what would last into the next century – the Gold Coast or Little Italy – I'd bet on Little Italy. Similarly, I'd put my money on Giulio's over The Creek.

I regarded Frank Bellarosa as he ate. He looked more comfortable here, obviously, than he had in The Creek. But beyond that, he belonged here, was part of this place, part of the local colour, the fabric and decor of Giulio's, and Mott Street. I watched him, his tie loosened, a napkin stuffed in his collar, and his hands darting around the table, relaxed in the knowledge that no one was going to take anything away from him; not his food, nor his pride. We were working on our second bottle of Chianti, and I said to him, "You're from Brooklyn. Not Little Italy."

"Yeah. But most of Brooklyn's gone. My old neighbourhood is gone. This is still the place. You know?"

"How so?"

"I mean, like every Italian in New York comes here at least once in his life. Most come once or twice a year. It makes them feel good, you know, because they live in the suburbs now, and maybe their old neighbourhood is full of blacks or Spanish, or something, so they can't go back there, so they come here. This is everybody's old neighbourhood. Capisce? Well, maybe not your old neighbourhood." He laughed. "Where you from?"