Indeed I did. Misplaced balls, but balls nonetheless."Capisco." He smiled. "Yeah. Hey, the organization may be a little fucked up these days, but you can't say they don't still have some class and style. They left you standing, didn't they?"

I replied, "They understand bad press, too. Hitting you is one thing, hitting me is another."

"Yeah. We still get good press. We want good press. We need good press. The melanzane and the Spanish shoot everybody, then they wonder why nobody likes them. Right?"

"Techniques vary, as I said."

"Yeah, but those assholes don't have any technique."

I really didn't want to debate the merits of competing criminal organizations. But Bellarosa had a point of sorts. To wit: Even if Sally Da-da wanted me dead because I annoyed him, he knew that killing me was not good press and not good business. So Gentleman John Sutter walked through blood and fire with nothing more than a ruined suit and tie, protected by an aura of perceived power and impeccable social credentials. No blue blood on the sidewalks of Little Italy. No wonder Frank didn't think I needed a bulletproof vest. Just the same, I would have preferred to be wearing one when the goombah pointed the gun at me. I regarded Bellarosa a moment. Though his face looked drawn and his frame looked somehow diminished to me, his paunch was trying to get out of his bathrobe. Truly, getting hit by three 8-gauge shotgun blasts, even when wearing a vest, was not good for one's health. Seeing him there, a physical wreck, I couldn't help but wonder if his mental state hadn't deteriorated as well. I mean, he seemed okay, but there was something different. Maybe it was the Feds in the house. That would depress anyone.

He asked me to get him a bottle of sambuca, which was hidden behind some books on a shelf, and I found it. I also saw a vase of freshly picked marigolds on the shelf, big yellow marigolds of the type George and I planted at Stanhope Hall. Interesting.

I gave him the bottle, and he poured a good shot of it into his coffee cup and drank it, then poured another. "You want some?"

"It's a little early."

"Yeah." He said, "That bitch of a nurse won't let me drink. Because of the antibiotics I'm taking. Shit, the fucking sambuca is an antibiotic. Right? Here, put this back."

I put the bottle behind the books. My, how things had changed at Alhambra. Now I was depressed. I looked at my watch as if I had to leave. He saw me and said, "Sit down a minute. I gotta tell you something." He motioned me by his side and said, "Sit here on this hassock." He jerked his thumb at the ceiling, which I took to mean the place might be bugged.

I sat on the hassock close to him.

He leaned toward me and spoke softly, "Let me give you some advice, Counsellor. I don't hear much from the outside these days, but I do hear that Ferragamo is after your ass. And he ain't doing that just to blow my alibi, he's doing it because you pissed him off in court, and because you saved my life and fucked up his whole thing. So now he's got vendetta on the brain. So watch yourself." "I know." Irony of ironies; Frank Bellarosa was being offered a deal, and I was looking at ten years for perjury. And the one man who could testify against me was Frank Bellarosa. Bellarosa understood this, of course, and I'm sure the irony wasn't lost on him. In fact, he smiled and said, "Hey, Counsellor, I won't rat you out. Even if they get me by the balls and I got to give up some people, I won't rat you out to Ferragamo."

I mean, this guy first got you into serious trouble, then got you out of it, then told you that you owed him a favour for his help, then you did him a favour that got you into more trouble, and round and round it went. Now I think he wanted me to say thank you. Speaking in the same low volume as he was, I said, "Frank, please don't do me any more favours. I can't survive many more of your favours."

He laughed, but his ribs must have been busted up pretty bad because he winced, and his face went even whiter. He swallowed the last of the sambuca, stayed motionless awhile until his breathing steadied, then sat up a bit and asked me, "How's your wife?"

"Which one?"

He smiled. "Susan. Your wife."

"Why are you asking me? She comes here."

"Yeah… but I haven't seen her in a while."

"Neither have I. She just got home yesterday."

"Yeah. She went to see the kids at school. Right?"

"That's right." She had also taken another trip to Hilton Head before that, which included a journey to Key West to see her brother, Peter, who is apparently phototropic.

Susan and I never really did have a long talk, but we had a few sentences, and I suggested that she not come here anymore. She seemed to agree, but had probably come anyway; as recently as yesterday, in fact, if those flowers were from her. It must have slipped Frank's memory.

Of course, I should have moved out, but moving out is hard to do. For one thing, I knew I was partly responsible for everything that had happened to us since April. Also, Susan was gone more than she was home, so moving out wasn't a pressing issue. And Susan and I can go weeks and weeks without speaking, and my finances, to be honest, were shaky, and bottom line, I still loved her and she loved me and she had asked me to stay.

So there I was, a lonely house husband, living in my wife's residence, nearly broke, still on the hook as a witness for a Mafia don, the possible target of a rubout, a social pariah, a captain without a boat, and an embarrassment to my law firm. The firm, incidentally, had sent me a registered letter at the Locust Valley office, which I decided to open. The letter asked me to disassociate myself from Perkins, Perkins, Sutter and Reynolds, forthwith. The letter was signed by all the senior partners, active and retired, even the ones who couldn't remember their own names, let alone mine. One of the signatures was that of Joseph P. Sutter. Pop's a great kidder.

Well, screw Perkins, Perkins, Sutter and Reynolds. They all needed a few whacks with a lead pipe. Meantime, they could offer me some incentives to leave. Bellarosa said, "I'm glad she's not pissed at me."

I looked at him. "Who?"

"Your wife."

"Why should she be?"

He replied, "For almost gelling her husband killed."

"Don't be silly, Frank. Why, just the other day she was saying to me, 'John, I can't wait for Frank to get better so we can all go to Giulio's again.'" He tried to keep from laughing, but he couldn't and his ribs hurt again. "Hey… cut it out… you're killing me…" I stood. "Okay, Frank, here's something that's not so funny. You know fucking well that Susan and I are barely speaking and you know fucking well why. If she wants to come here, that's her business, but I don't want you talking to me about her as if you're making polite small talk. Okay?" Bellarosa stared off into space, which I had learned was his way of showing that he wanted the subject changed. I said to him, "I have to go." I moved toward the door. "Should I tell your nurse you need to use the potty?" He ignored the taunt and said to me, "Hey, did I ever thank you for saving my life?"

"Not that I recall."

"Yeah. You know why? Because 'thank you' don't mean shit in my business. 'Thank you' is what you say to women and outsiders. What I say to you, Counsellor, is I owe you one."

"Jesus Christ, Frank, I hope you don't mean a favour." "Yeah. A favour. You don't understand favours. Favours are like money in the bank with Italians. We collect favours, trade favours, count them like assets, hold them and collect on them. I owe you a big favour. For my life." "Keep it."

"No. You gotta ask a favour."

I looked at him. This was like having an Italian genie. But you can't trust genies. I said, "If you went to trial for murder, and I asked you not to have Jack Weinstein call me as your witness, would you do that even if it meant your getting convicted for a murder you didn't commit?"