I asked, "So, should I bribe him?"

"No. You're an honest man. Don't do nothing you don't usually do. It don't work." He added, "Anyway, the guy's probably wired and thinks you are, too." I nodded. In truth, I'd find it less repugnant to shoot Mr Novac than offer him a bribe.

I regarded Frank Bellarosa, dressed in his standard uniform of blazer and turtleneck. He must have seen that outfit in a clothing ad with a mansion in the background and decided to stick with it, changing only the colours. The blazer was green this time, and the turtleneck canary yellow. In itself, the outfit would not draw much attention because after the tweed season around here most of the Wasps break out their silly summer colours and look like tropical birds until Labor Day. At least Bellarosa hadn't walked in wearing a grey iridescent sharkskin suit. I said to him, "Ditch the Rolex, Frank." "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Some people can get away with it, you can't. Get a sports watch, and get some penny loafers or Docksides. You know what they are?" "Sure."

I didn't think he did. I finished my martini, got Charlie's attention without snapping my fingers, and ordered another round. "And a maraschino cherry for this gentleman."

"Would the gentleman like a green or red cherry, sir?" Charlie asked me, as if I'd brought my bulldog in and ordered him a saucer of milk. "Red!" Bellarosa barked. Charlie shuffled off.

A number of women had shown up to sit with or collect their husbands, and I noticed Beryl Carlisle now, at a table with her spouse, what's-his-name. She was in profile, and I watched her awhile, sucking on a drink stirrer. She did it well. She looked toward me, as if she knew right where I was, and we exchanged tentative smiles, sort of like, "Are we at it again?"

Bellarosa looked at Beryl, then at me. "That's a nice piece of goods there. I think she's got wet pants for you."

I was happy to get a second opinion of this, but I informed him, "We don't talk sex here."

He smiled. "No? Whaddaya talk here? Money?"

"We talk business but never money."

"How the hell do you do that?"

"It's not easy. Listen, I want the name of your tax lawyer, Frank. Not the one you used when you went up for two years, the one you use now who's keeping you out of jail."

The drinks came and Bellarosa dangled the horrible dyed cherry by its stem and bit it off.

"Your tax lawyer," I prompted.

He chewed on the cherry. "You don't need no lawyer. Lawyers are for when you gotta go to court. You got to head this off."

"Okay. How?"

"You got to understand why before you know how."

"I understand why. I don't want to fork over three hundred thousand dollars and go to jail for a few years. That's why."

"But you got to understand why. Why you don't want to do that."

"Because it was an honest mistake."

"No such thing, pal."

I shrugged and went back to my martini. I glanced around the room, sort of taking attendance. I caught a few people looking away, but a few, such as Martin Vandermeer and the good Father Hunnings, held eye contact in an unpleasant way. Beryl, on the other hand, gave me a wider smile as if we were on the right track again. I had the feeling that if Beryl Carlisle was, as Bellarosa grossly suggested, secreting, then it had something to do with my proximity to Mr Bellarosa. Beryl is one of those women who was once wild, married safe, has safe affairs, but still loves the bad boys. I guess I was now the best of both worlds for her; kind of a preppie thug.

I looked back at Bellarosa. I guess we were at an impasse until I figured out the why thing. I tried to recall some of his philosophy of life as imparted to me at Alhambra. I said, "Novac has it in for me personally, that's why. I screwed his wife once and left her in a motel up in the Catskills during a snowstorm."

Bellarosa smiled. "Now you're getting closer." He scooped up some of those awful pretzel goldfish from a bowl on the table and popped them in his mouth. I had intended to write to the club manager about pretzel goldfish, but after tonight, I'd be well advised not to complain about anything.

Bellarosa swallowed the goldfish and said to me, "Okay, let me tell you how I see it. In this country, this very nice democracy we got here, people don't understand that there's a class war going on all the time. You don't believe that about your country? Believe it, pal. All history is a struggle between three classes – high, middle, and low. I learned that from a history teacher at La Salle. You understand what the guy was saying?"

I guess so, Frank. I went to Yale, for God's sake. I asked him, "Where does the criminal class fit in?"

"Same shit. You don't think there's different classes of criminals? You think I'm the same as some melanzane crack pusher?"

Actually, I sort of did, but now that he put it in historical and economic terms, I guess I didn't. Maybe I had more in common with Frank Bellarosa that I did with the Reverend Mr Hunnings, for instance, who didn't like me or my money. I said, "My gatekeeper's wife, Ethel, believes in class struggle. I'll get you together with her someday. Should be fun."

"Yeah. I don't think you buy this. Okay, it's not like in Europe with all the crazy political parties and all the crazy talk, but we got it anyway. Class struggle."

"So that's why Novac is out to get me? He's a commie?"

"Sort of. But he don't even know he is."

"I should have known when he told me he was a vegetarian." "Yeah. Also, you got another war going on which is just as old as the class war – you got a war between the jackasses in the government and the smart people outside the government. The jackasses in the government want the poor and stupid people to think they care about them. Capisce? So you know where that leaves guys like you and me? Protecting our balls with one hand and our wallets with the other. Right?"

The man was right, of course. But when I tell my clients the same thing, I say it differently. Maybe that's why they don't always get it. Bellarosa went on. "And it's not true that the IRS don't care about you, that you're just a number to them. That would be fucking terrific if it was true, but it ain't. They care about you in a way that you don't want them to care." I replied, "But some of what they do, Frank, is not malicious or philosophically motivated. It's just random, stupid bureaucracy. I know. I deal with them every day. I don't think the IRS or Novac is out to get me personally." "It don't start that way. It starts when they go after your kind of people. And that ain't random or stupid, pal. That's planned. And if it's planned, it's war. Then, when a guy like Novac gets on your case, it always turns personal." He asked, "Did you piss him off?"

I smiled. "A little."

"Yeah. Mistake number one."

"I know that."

"Look, Counsellor, Novac is a five-number guy, good for maybe thirty, forty a year. You do maybe ten times that. It's like with me and Ferragamo. Same thing. Thing is, they got the badges, so you don't insult them to their face."

"The man annoyed me."

"Yeah. They do that. Look, Novac didn't go into the IRS to protect your money. He went in there with an attitude, and if you knew what that attitude was, you'd shit."

"I know that."

Bellarosa leaned across the table toward me. "Novac has power, see? Power to make a guy like you, and yeah, even me, squirm. And he gets his rocks off doing that, because he's got no power no place else – not at the bank, not in his office, maybe not even at home with his wife and kids. What kind of power you got at home when you bring in thirty thousand a year?" Bellarosa looked me in the eye. "Put yourself in Novac's shoes for a day."

"God, no. He wears synthetic leather."

"Yeah? See? So go live in his shit house or his shit apartment, worry about the price of clothes for once in your life, the price of groceries, and lay awake at night and think about college tuition for your kids, and if you're gonna get a bad report from your boss, or if the government is going to spring for a raise this year. Then go and pay a call on Mr John Sutter in his fancy fucking office and tell how you're going to act with him."