I went into the gatehouse, got myself a beer, then went out through the kitchen and sat on a bench in Ethel’s Victory Garden.

I thought about the changes she had seen in her long life – her spring, her summer, her autumn, and now her cold, dark winter.

I knew she had many regrets, including a lost love, and this made me think of Susan.

As my late father once said to me, “It’s too late to change the past, but never too late to change the future.”

What I didn’t want at the end of the day were any old regrets; what I really needed now were some new regrets.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Saturday morning was sunny and cool. Good running weather.

I got into my sweats and began a jog along Grace Lane, heading south toward Bailey Arboretum, forty forested acres of a former estate, now a park, which I remembered was a good place to run.

I do some of my best thinking while running, and today’s first subject was my meeting with Elizabeth. I needed to tidy up the gatehouse, then drive into the village for some wine and whatever. Then I considered an agenda for my afternoon with her: legal matters first, followed by an inventory of everything in the house. After that, maybe a glass of wine. Maybe several glasses of wine. Maybe I should stop thinking about this.

I switched mental gears and gave some thought to my long-term plans. As I was going through an abundance of bad options, a black Cadillac Escalade passed me from behind. The vehicle slowed, made a tight U-turn, then headed toward me. As it got closer, I could see Tony behind the wheel.

I slowed my pace as the Cadillac drew abreast of me, then we both stopped, and the tinted rear window slid down. One of my bad options, Anthony Bellarosa, inquired, “Can I give you a lift?”

I walked across the road to the open window and saw that Anthony was alone in the back seat. He was dressed in black slacks and a tasteful tan sports jacket, and I didn’t see a violin case, so I concluded he was on some sort of legitimate errand. He asked again, “You want a lift?”

I replied, “No. I’m running.”

Tony was out of the car, and he reached past me and opened the door as Anthony slid over. Tony said, “Go ’head.”

I think I’ve seen this in the movies, and I always wondered why the idiot got into the car instead of making a scene, running and screaming for the police.

I glanced up and down Grace Lane, which was, as usual, nearly deserted.

Anthony patted the leather seat beside him and repeated his invitation. “Come on. I want to talk to you.”

I thought I’d made it clear that we had nothing to discuss, but I didn’t want him to think I was frightened, which I was not, or rude, which I do well with my peers, but not that well with the socially inept, like Anthony. And then there was the Susan problem, which I might be making too much of, but I wouldn’t want to make a mistake on that. So I slid into the back seat, and Tony shut the door, then got behind the wheel, did another U-turn, and off we drove.

Anthony said to me, “Hey, no hard feelings about the other night. Right?”

“What happened the other night?”

“Look, I understand where you’re coming from. Okay? But what happened in the past should stay in the past.”

“Since when?”

“I mean, it had nothing to do with me. So-”

“Your father screwing my wife has nothing to do with you. My wife murdering your father has something to do with you and her.”

“Maybe. But I’m talking about you and me.”

“There is no you and me.”

“There could be.”

“There can’t be.”

“Did you think about my offer?”

“What offer?”

“I’ll make it a hundred and fifty.”

“It was two.”

“See? You thought about it.”

“You got me,” I admitted. “And now you see I’m not that smart.”

“You’re plenty smart.”

“Make it a hundred, and we can talk.”

He laughed.

Were we having fun, or what?

Anthony nodded toward Tony, then said to me, “Let’s save this for later.” He asked me, “So, what do you think of my paving job?”

“I miss the potholes.”

“Yeah? I’ll rip it up.”

We left Grace Lane and were passing Bailey Arboretum, so I said, “You can let me off here.”

“I want to show you something first. In Oyster Bay. This might interest you. I was going to bring it up the other night, but you ran off.” He added, “I’ll drop you off here on the way back.”

End of discussion. I should have been royally pissed off about what amounted to a kidnapping, but it was a friendly kidnapping, and if I was honest with myself, I’d say I was an accomplice.

And on the subject of my prior voluntary involvement with the mob, Anthony was starting to remind me of his father. Frank never took no for an answer, especially when he thought he was doing you a great favor that you were too stupid to understand. Frank, of course, never failed to do himself a favor at the same time. Or, at the very least, he’d remind you of the favor he did for you and ask for a payback. I’ve been down this road, literally and figuratively, so Anthony was not tempting a virgin. In fact, the tricks and lessons I’d learned from the father were not doing the son any good.

We turned east toward Oyster Bay. Tony, being a good wheelman and bodyguard, was paying a lot of attention to his rearview mirror. I couldn’t help thinking about the tollbooth hit scene in The Godfather – which actually took place not too far from here – and I thought, It’s the car in front of you that you need to watch, stupid.

Anyway, Anthony, wanting to keep the conversation away from business and from me thinking I was being taken for a one-way ride, said, “Hey, I spoke to my mother this morning. She wants to see you.”

“Next time I’m in Brooklyn.”

“Better yet, she’s coming for Sunday dinner. You’re invited.”

“Thank you, but-”

“She comes early – like, after church. I send a car for her.”

“That’s nice.”

“Then she cooks all day. She brings her own food from Brooklyn, and she takes over the kitchen, and Megan is like, ‘Do I need this shit?’ Madonna. What’s with these women?”

“If you find out Sunday, let me know.”

“Yeah. Right. But if we have other company, then it’s usually okay. Hey, one time Megan wants to cook an Irish meal, and my mother comes in and says to me, ‘It smells like she’s boiling a goat in there.’” He laughed at the happy family memory, then continued, “And Megan drinks too much vino and hardly eats, and the kids aren’t used to real Italian food – they think canned spaghetti and pizza bagels are Italian food. But she cooks a hell of a meal. My mother. The smells remind me of Sundays when I was a kid in Brooklyn… it’s like I’m home again.”

I had no idea why he was telling me this, except, I suppose, to show me he was a regular guy, with regular problems, and that he had a mother.

Apropos of that, he asked me, “Did you ever eat at the house?”

I replied, “I did not.” But Susan did. I added, “Your mother always sent food over.”

Tony, eavesdropping, said, “Yeah. Me and Lenny or Vinnie was always taking food over to your place.”

I didn’t reply, but this would have been a good time to remind Tony that his departed boss could not have been screwing my wife without the knowledge, assistance, and cover stories of him and the aforementioned two goombahs. Well, I couldn’t blame them, and two of them were dead anyway. Three, if you count Frank. Four, if Susan got whacked, and five if I leaned forward and snapped Tony’s neck.

I looked out the side window. We were passing through a stretch of remaining estates, most of which were hidden behind old walls or thick trees, but now and then I could see a familiar mansion or a treed allée behind a set of wrought-iron gates.

The local gentry were tooling around in vintage sports cars, which they liked to do on weekends, and we also passed a group on horseback. If you squinted your eyes and excluded some modern realities, you could imagine yourself in the Gilded Age, or the Roaring Twenties, or even in the English countryside.