I shrugged. "I do house closings."

"Yeah. Let's say you buy what I'm saying. How do you feel about it as a good citizen?"

What I felt was distressed to think that the forces of law and order in this country were so desperate that they had to stoop to Bellarosa's level to get rid of Bellarosa. But I said, "As a good citizen, I would be… angry to think the government would provoke a dangerous gang war."

"Sure. But you kinda like the idea. Right? The spies and the wops finally knocking each other off."

"No."

"Bullshit."

"No comment." I asked, "Why don't you go to the newspapers if you believe what you're saying?"

He laughed. "Sure."

"They'd print it."

"You bet your ass they would. They print it when I fart. But you don't go public with your problems in my business. You shoot your mouth off to the press, and you piss off everybody, including your friends who don't even admit there's such a thing as the Mafia. You start talking to the press about your enemies, and your friends will kill you."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you're a lawyer."

"I'm not your lawyer." I added, "Anyway, it's not a lawyer you need. You need bodyguards." Or a psychiatrist.

"Yeah. But I need some outside advice. I listened to my friends, my counsellors, to Jack Weinstein. Now I want to hear from somebody who sees things different from the people around me."

"You want my advice? Retire. Go to Sorrento."

"You don't retire in this business. Did any of the Caesars retire? You can't set everything straight with the people you pissed off, you can't raise the dead, you can't go to the government and say, 'I'm sorry, and I'm paying the taxes I cheated on and giving back all the businesses I bought with the illegal money.' You can't let go of the tiger, because he'll turn and eat you. You got to stay on the tiger and keep the power in your hands."

"No. You can go to Sorrento."

He shrugged. "Maybe I like what I do. Keeps me busy."

"You like the power."

"Sure. Sorrento is for when I'm old. When I'm tired of power, business, women. I got a few years yet."

"Maybe not."

He looked at me. "I don't run. The spies are not running Frank Bellarosa off.

The Feds are not running Frank Bellarosa off. Capisce?"

"Now I do."

We both sat there a few minutes. I had the impression he was waiting for me to say something, to come up with some advice. As an attorney, I'm in the advice business, but I'm not predisposed to giving free and friendly advice. I said, "Are we finished?"

"Almost. Here's the thing. Ferragamo can't be shooting his mouth off to the press that I'm a suspect in the murder of Juan Carranza, and let it go like that. Right?"

"Right."

"He's got to follow up with a grand jury investigation."

"Correct."

"So, what I'm thinking is I want you to handle this for me." "If I wouldn't handle a real estate deal for you, why would I represent you in a criminal matter?"

"Because one thing is money, the other is justice." He didn't choke on that last word, but I almost did. I shook my head. "I don't handle criminal matters. I'm not qualified."

"Sure you are. You're a lawyer."

"What kind of evidence is Ferragamo going to present to a grand jury to get you indicted?"

"He don't have shit. But you ever hear that expression – 'a New York grand jury will indict a ham sandwich'? You hear that?"

"Yes." New York grand juries are sort of like Star Chambers; twenty-three upright citizens sit in secret sessions, and the person under investigation is not present and neither is his attorney. So, without any evidence except what is presented by the government, the grand jury usually votes to indict. It was a safe bet to say that Frank Bellarosa would be indicted. I said, "You think Ferragamo is just harassing you with this indictment?" "Yeah. A regular jury won't convict me, because Ferragamo's got no evidence for them. So Frank Bellarosa versus the United States is not getting to trial. But meanwhile, Ferragamo's calling press conferences. He loves fucking press conferences. He's telling everybody that the Mafia is pushing out the Colombians, the Jamaicans, blah, blah, blah. That's bullshit. We all got our own thing. Then he says, 'Bellarosa personally hit Juan Carranza to show them spies a lesson!' Understand? So the Colombians get their balls in an uproar – they get all macho. Christ, they're worse than Italians. Now they want to settle this mano a mano. Carranza was a big man with them. Okay, so now I got to worry about my own people, too. Understand? Because they don't want a fucking bloodbath, because they're all fat and soft. The South Americans are hungry and hard. They're the new guys and they work harder. They don't have the fucking brains they were born with, but they manage to get things done. Okay, maybe they're too stupid to get at me. You know? So what do they do? They go to my friends and they say, 'Hey, let's settle this before Frank goes to trial, before people start getting hurt. We all got enough problems and we don't need this shit with Bellarosa.' So maybe my guys say, 'We'll take care of Frank.' You see? The sons-of-bitches would give me up to save their own asses. Even though they know I didn't hit Carranza. Ten, twenty years ago, an Italian would say to a spic, 'Fuck you. Get out of here before I feed you your balls for lunch.' But things are different now. There's a whole new world out there. Understand?" That, I understood. Now I discover that even the Mafia are having trouble adapting to this new New World. I said, "That's absolutely fascinating, Frank. And I don't really see any way out for you."

He laughed. "Maybe something will come into your head. I need a very upright lawyer to go talk to Ferragamo. He's the key. He's got to call one of his press conferences and say that he has new evidence about who hit Carranza, or say he's got no evidence at all. You talk to him about that."

"But maybe I don't believe your side of this."

"You will when you see Ferragamo's face after you tell him I know what he's up to."

Bellarosa, I realized, was a man who believed in his instincts. He would not need hard evidence, for instance, before he ordered the murder of someone he suspected of disloyalty. Like a primitive tribunal, all that Bellarosa required was the look of guilt, perhaps a word or phrase that seemed somehow wrong. And in the case of Alphonse Ferragamo, Frank Bellarosa first figured out a motive, then presumed the man guilty of the crime. I don't deny the value of instinct -

I hope I use my instincts in court, and police use instinct every day on the streets. But Frank Bellarosa, whose good instincts had kept him free and alive, perhaps put too much faith in his ability to spot danger, tell friends from enemies, and to read people's minds and hearts. That was why I was sitting there; because Bellarosa had sized me up in a few minutes and decided I was his man. I wondered if he was right.

Bellarosa continued, "The New York State Attorney General, Lowenstein, don't even want a piece of this case. I hear from some people close to him that he thinks it's bullshit. What's that tell you, Counsellor?"

"I'm not sure, and I still don't do criminal work."

"Hey, you might have fun. Think about it."

"I'll do that."

"Good." He settled back in his chair. "Hey, I'm doing that real estate deal next week. I got that firm in Glen Cove you said. They gave me this guy Torrance. You know him? He any good?"

"Yes."

"Good. I don't want no screw-ups."

"Real estate contracts and closings are fairly simple if you pay attention to detail."

"Then you should've done it, Counsellor."

I regarded Bellarosa a moment. I couldn't tell if he was annoyed or just considered me a fool. I said, "We've been through that." "Yeah. But I want you to know you're the first guy who ever turned down that kind of money from me."