I watched as the men removed the last of the bricks, painstakingly chipped off the old mortar, and loaded them carefully onto a flatbed truck. What remained now of the middle section of the stables was the old wooden stalls, which would be broken up and carted away, and the cobblestone floor which would be laid in the reconstructed stable. Also, to the left was the exposed tack room, and to the right was the blacksmith shop, looking very odd with no walls or roof, and with its anvil, furnace, and bellows sitting now outdoors. I hadn't seen the blacksmith shop in fifteen years or more, and no one had used it for at least seventy years.

Overhanging the roofless shop was the old chestnut tree. I don't know if a chestnut tree near a blacksmith shop is simply tradition, or if its spreading branches had the practical purpose of providing shade for the smithy in the summer. In either case, blacksmiths built their shops under the spreading chestnut tree. But in this land of make-believe, I know that Stanhope's architects first placed the stable where they wanted it, then transplanted the giant chestnut tree in front of the blacksmith's door. Tradition, Gold Coast style.

But, anyway, I saw now that the tree was not leafed out as it should have been by this time of year. It was, in fact, dying, as if, I thought, it understood now that the last seventy years had not been simply a pause, but the end. Well, perhaps I was in a mystical mood that May morning, but the tree had looked fine last summer, and I'm good at spotting tree problems. I wish I were as good at spotting my own problems.

I walked over to one of the men and asked, "Dominic?" The man pointed in the general direction of Stanhope Hall, so I started off toward the mansion. As I came to the rise in the main drive, Stanhope Hall came into view, and I could see Dominic standing in front of the three-storey-high portico, looking up at the house, with his hands on his hips. I hesitated to make the two-hundred-yard trek, especially in suit and tie, and with a ten A.M. appointment in the city, but something told me to see what Dominic was up to.

He heard me approaching on the gravel drive and came part way to meet me.

"Hello," I said. "You like this house?"

"Madonna," he replied. "It's magnificent."

Coming from a native-born Italian and a master mason, I took that as a high compliment. I asked, "Do you want to buy it?"

He laughed.

"Cheap," I added.

"Cheapa, no cheapa I no gotta the money."

"Me neither. Is it well built?" I inquired.

He nodded. "It's beautiful. All carva granite. Fantastic." Of course, Dominic may have had only an artistic interest in the house, but I wondered how he even knew it was back here. I looked him in the eye. "Perhaps Mr Bellarosa would like to buy it."

He shrugged.

"Is Mr Bellarosa at home?"

Dominic nodded.

"Did he ask you to look it over?"

"No."

"Well, you tell him it will last two thousand years." I put my hand on Dominic's shoulder and turned him around as I pointed. "Go through that grove of plum trees and you will see a Roman temple. You know Venus?" "Sure."

"She's in the temple." I added, "She has magnificent tits and a fantastic ass."

He laughed a bit uncomfortably and glanced at me.

I patted his back. "Go on. It is very beautiful, very Roman." He looked sceptical, but shrugged and started off toward the sacred grove. I called after him, "And take a walk in the hedge maze." I headed back up the drive and paused at the terraced garden that Susan had chosen for her vegetables. The seedlings were six to eight inches high now, the rows free of weeds and wildflowers. At the base of the terrace's marble retaining wall, I saw a large empty fertilizer bag. Susan was tending her garden well.

I continued back toward my house. I wasn't completely surprised that Frank Bellarosa would be interested in Stanhope Hall. It was, after all, an Italianate house, something that would strike his fancy and fit his mental image of a palazzo more so, perhaps, than the stucco villa of Alhambra. But Stanhope Hall is about three times the size of Alhambra, and I couldn't conceive of Bellarosa's having enough money to abandon his new house and start over again. No, I'm not naive, and I know how much money is in organized crime, but only a fraction of it can surface.

For the past few weeks, I've been sending my New York secretary to the public library to gather information on Mr Frank Bellarosa. From the newspaper and magazine articles that she has come back with, I've pieced together a few interesting facts about the reputed boss of New York's largest crime family. To wit: He recently moved into a Long Island estate. But I knew that. I also discovered that he owns a limousine service, and several florists that I suppose he keeps busy with funerals. He owns a trash-hauling business, a restaurant supply company, a construction company, with which I assumed I was doing business, and the HRH Trucking Company, who are the recorded owners of Alhambra. Those enterprises, I suppose, are where the legitimate money comes from. But I strongly suspect, as does the DA, that Frank Bellarosa is a partner in, or owner of, several other enterprises that are not registered with the Better Business Bureau.

But could he buy Stanhope Hall? And if he did, would he live there? What was this guy up to?

I got back to my house and took my briefcase from the den. As it was getting late, and parking at the station was tight, I asked Susan for a ride to the train.

On the way there, she asked, "Anything wrong this morning?"

"Oh… no. Just deep in thought."

We reached the train station in Locust Valley with a few minutes to spare.

Susan asked, "When will you be home?"

"I'll catch the four-twenty." This is commuter talk and means that, barring a major Long Island Railroad horror show, I'd be at the Locust Valley station at 5:23. "I'll catch a cab home." This is husband talk for, "Will you pick me up?" "I'll pick you up," Susan said. "Better yet, meet me at McGlade's and I'll buy you a drink. Maybe even dinner if you're in a better mood." "Sounds good." Susan was all lovey-dovey the last few weeks, and I didn't know if that was a result of my Easter crack-up or because her dream of uniting her stables with her property was coming true. I used to understand the opposite sex when I was younger, about five or six years old, but they have become less understandable over the last forty years. I said, "Your garden looks good." "Thank you. I don't know why we never planted vegetables before."

"Maybe because it's easier to buy them in cans."

"But it's exciting to watch them grow. I wonder what they are?"

"Didn't you mark them? They were marked on the flats."

"Oh. What should I do?"

"Nothing. I guess they know what they are. But I can tell you, you got radicchio, you got basil, you got green peppers, and you got eggplant." "Really?"

"Trust me." I heard the train whistle. "See you." We kissed, and I left the car and walked onto the platform as the train pulled in.

On the journey into Manhattan, I tried to sort things out that were not making sense. Bellarosa's silence for one thing, while welcome, was slightly unnerving in some odd way.

But then I thought of those stories of Mussolini keeping the crowds waiting for hours and hours in the hot Italian sun until they were delirious with fatigue, and half insane with anticipation. And then, as the sun was setting, he would arrive, and the crowd would weep and throw flowers and shout themselves hoarse, their frenzy mounting into near hysteria.

But they were Italians. I am not. If Bellarosa was playing a psychological game, he was playing it with the wrong person.

As it turned out, I didn't have long to wait before II Duce decided to show himself.

The train was on time, and at 5:23 I stepped onto the platform at Locust Valley, walked across Station Plaza, and entered McGlade's. This is a good Irish pub on weekends, a businessman's lunch place during the week, and on Monday to Friday, from about five to seven P.M., it is sort of a decompression chamber for strung-out commuters.