"That's discouraging."

"Yeah? Well, people have turned down outright bribes. But never a legitimate fee. It was legit."

"We've been through that, too."

"Yeah. About the grand jury thing, I know you don't drop for money, but I'll pay you a flat fifty for talking to Ferragamo and another fifty if a grand jury isn't convened."

"If I did criminal work, I'd get three hundred an hour, double for courtroom time. I don't take cash rewards if you're not indicted or convicted, and I don't give the money back if you are."

Bellarosa smiled at me, but it was not a nice smile. "I gotta tell you, some of your wisecracks are funny, some are not."

"I know."

"You got balls."

"I know that, too."

He nodded. "I got too many guys around me kissing my ass, and any one of them would stick a knife in my back."

"I feel sorry for you."

"Hey, it's part of life."

"No, it isn't."

"My life. But I also got guys around me who respect me. People who don't kiss my ass, but kiss my hand."

"Does anybody like you?"

He smiled. "I don't really give a shit."

"Work on that, Frank."

He looked at me and said, "Something else I gotta tell ya. Your people been here three hundred years, you said. Right? So you figure everybody who got here after you is uninvited company or something. But my family in Italy goes back a thousand years in that town outside Sorrento. Maybe they go back two thousand years to Roman times. Maybe one of my ancestors was a Roman soldier who invaded England and found your people wearing animal skins and living in mud houses. Capisce?"

"I understand enough history to appreciate the glory of Italian civilization, and you may well take pride in that heritage. But what we're discussing at the moment, the Mafia, is not one of Italian civilization's greatest contributions to Western culture."

"That's a matter of opinion."

"Well, it's most people's opinion."

Bellarosa seemed deep in thought for a full minute, then said, "Okay. Now you got to make a big decision, because you're jerking me around and yourself around. So you stand up, you turn around, and you go out that door. You get your wife and you leave, and you'll never hear from me again. Or, you have a drink with me."

So. All I had to do was stand up and leave. Then why was I still sitting? I regarded Frank Bellarosa a moment. What had I learned in the last few hours? Well, I'd learned that Bellarosa was not only smart, but also more complex than I would have imagined. Also, to give Susan credit for an accurate first impression, Bellarosa was interesting. So, maybe this was Susan's gift to me; this was my challenge. I picked up my glass. "What's this made of?" "Grape. It's like brandy. I told you."

We touched glasses, we drank.

He stood. "Let's go find the women."

We left the library, and as we walked along the mezzanine, I said, "Why don't you go right to the Colombians and explain that you're being set up?" "Caesar does not go to the fucking barbarians and explain things. Fuck them." I could see that my straightforward Anglo-Saxon logic was not what the situation called for, but I said, "A Roman emperor did go to Attila the Hun to talk peace."

"Yeah. I know that." We started down the sweeping stairs, and Bellarosa said, "But what good did it do him? Made him look bad, and Rome got attacked anyway. Look, when people go for your balls, they're saying you got balls. As soon as they think you got no balls, they treat you like a woman. You might as well be dead."

"I see." Obviously my first advice as consigliere wasn't cutting it. I said, "But Ferragamo is banking on that. He knows you won't go to the Colombians." "This is true. Only another wop could have understood that."

"So? If you won't meet with the Colombians yourself, send somebody." But not me.

"Same thing. Forget it."

We walked across the palm court. I found this interesting as an intellectual challenge and on that basis would have liked to come up with a solution. But I also realized there was more to my interest in his problems than a mental exercise. I said, "Tell the Colombians to come to you. Demand a meeting on your terms."

He turned to me and smiled. "Yeah? Maybe they'll come. But any way you cut that, it's me going to them to ask them for a break. Fuck them. If they think they're big enough to take me on, let them try. Maybe they need a lesson in respect." Mamma mia, this guy was tough. I recalled what he had said in my office. Life is war. And what he had said in the morning room. Italian men don't compromise. That about covered it. But I had a last solution. "Find out who killed Carranza and deliver the guy to the State Attorney General, Lowenstein." "I don't do cop work."

"Then deliver him to the Colombians." I can't believe I said that.

"I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because I already know who killed Carranza. The cops killed him. The fucking DEA – the Drug Enforcement Agency. They put five slugs in his head – mob style, like they say."

"How do you know that?"

"I know the guys who did it. And it was no vigilante thing, if you're thinking they're good guys. It was no vendetta for a DEA guy who got hit in Colombia. They iced Carranza because he screwed them on a deal." God, this was depressing. What a world this man lived in. Right here, in America. Of course I'd read about it. But it's not the same as hearing it live. I asked, "Why don't the Colombians know this?"

"Because they're stupid. They got no contacts, they got no sources. They're fucking outlaws. I got all kinds of sources – press sources, police sources, political sources, court sources." Bellarosa stopped walking and put his hand on my shoulder. "You know, the thing that the government calls the Mafia – the Sicilians, the Neapolitans – we've been in America for a hundred years. Christ, we're part of the establishment. That's why we're fat ducks now for the assholes in the Justice Department. But let me tell you something. Compared to these new people, we're nice guys. We play the fucking game. We don't hit cops, we don't hit judges, we don't go into people's houses and massacre families. We make contributions to the right people, we give to the Church, we provide services. If you run this kind of thing right, it don't have to be messy. You take your South Americans and your melanzane from the islands, they go right for the guns. Half of these assholes are on the junk they sell. But does Ferragamo go after these dangerous people, these crazies? No. The shithead wastes everybody's time and money going after his paesanos, because he can get to them, because he understands them. And he's got ambitions, this man. He wants to make a name. Capisce? And he knows we won't take him out. Is Ferragamo good for the public, the taxpayers? No. Well, fuck him. Maybe some melanzane will slice his throat for his watch someday. Meanwhile, we do business like nothing's wrong. Let him or the Colombians make the first move. Right?"

"You're absolutely right."

"Good. Let's go talk to the women." He took my arm and led me between two columns, then through an archway into the living room. The room was about eighty feet long and half as wide, with a beamed cathedral ceiling. The walls were white stucco and the windows were arched. Unfortunately, this was not the living room. It was just too big, even for a great house. This must once have been the ballroom. At the far end was a grouping of chairs where Susan and Anna sat, looking very tiny and alone.

Bellarosa and I walked the eighty feet to the furniture, and I remembered to put my glasses back on. I sat before Bellarosa could say, "Sit." Bellarosa remained standing.

Susan addressed Bellarosa. "The house is beautiful."

Bellarosa smiled. "Yeah."

Susan asked both of us, "What were you talking about all that time?"