The Gold Coast (3 page)
Authors: Nelson DeMille
Susan’s car, a racing-green Jaguar XJ-6, a gift from her parents, was sitting in the turnaround. Another merrie-olde-England prop. People around here tend to be Anglophiles; it comes with the territory.
I went inside the house and called, “Lady Stanhope!’’ Susan answered from the rose garden, and I went out the back doors. I found her sitting in a cast-iron garden chair. Only women, I think, can sit in those things. “Good morning, my lady. May I ravage you?”
She was drinking tea, the mug steaming in the cool April air. Yellow crocuses and lilies had sprouted in the beds among the bare rose bushes, and a bluebird sat on the sundial. A very cheering sight, except that I could tell that Susan was in one of her quiet moods.
I asked, “Were you out riding?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m wearing my riding clothes and I smell of horse, Sherlock.”
I sat on the iron table in front of her. “You’ll never guess who I met at Hicks’ Nursery.”
“No, I never will.”
I regarded my wife a moment. She is a strikingly beautiful woman, if I may be uxorious for a moment. She has flaming-red hair, a sure sign of insanity according to my aunt Cornelia, and catlike green eyes that are so arresting that people stare. Her skin is lightly freckled, and she has pouty lips that make men immediately think of a particular sex act. Her body is as lithe and taut as any man could ask for in a forty-year-old wife who has borne two children. The secret to her health and happiness, she will tell you, is horseback riding, summer, fall, winter, and spring, rain, snow, or shine. I am madly in love with this woman, though there are times, like now, when she is moody and distant. Aunt Cornelia warned me about that, too. I said, “I met our new neighbor.”
“Oh? The HRH Trucking Company?”
“No, no.’’ Like many of the great estates, Alhambra had passed to a corporation, according to county records. The sale was made in February for cash, and the deed recorded for public view a week later. The realtor claimed he didn’t know the principals involved, but through a combination of research and rumors by the old guard, the field was narrowed down to Iranians, Koreans, Japanese, South American pharmaceutical dealers, or Mafia. That about covered the range of possible nightmares. And in fact, all of the above had recently acquired houses and property on the Gold Coast. Who else has that kind of money these days? The defenses were crumbling, the republic was on the auction block. I said, “Do you know the name Frank Bellarosa?”
Susan thought a moment. “I don’t think so.”
“Mafia.”
“Really? That’s our new neighbor?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Did he say he was Mafia?”
“Of course not. I know him from the newspapers, TV. I can’t believe you never heard of him. Frank ‘the Bishop’ Bellarosa.”
“Is he a bishop?”
“No, Susan, that’s his Mafia nickname. They all have nicknames.”
“Is that a fact?”
She sipped her tea and looked distantly into the garden. Susan, not unlike many of the residents in this Garden of Eden, excludes much of the outside world. She reads Trollope and Agatha Christie, never listens to radio, and uses the television only to play videotapes of old movies. She obtains her weather reports from a recorded phone message. Local events are learned through the good-news weekly newspaper and from a few upscale magazines that serve the affluent Gold Coast communities. Regarding hard news, she has adopted Thoreau’s philosophy: If you read about one train wreck, you’ve read about them all.
I asked, “Does this news upset you?”
She shrugged, then asked me, “Are you upset?”
As an attorney, I don’t like people turning questions back to me, so I gave a flippant reply. “No. In fact, Grace Lane will now be well protected by the FBI, joined by county detectives on stakeouts.”
She seemed to be processing that information, then said, “This man . . . what’s his name . . . ?”
“Bellarosa.”
“Yes, well, I’ll talk to him about the horse trails and rights of way over his land.”
“Good idea. Set him straight.”
“I will.”
I recalled a silly, though appropriate, joke for the occasion and told it to Susan. “Christopher Columbus steps ashore in the New World—this is a joke—and he calls out to a group of Native Americans,
‘Buenos dias!’
or maybe
‘Buon giorno!’
and one of the Indians turns to his wife and says, ‘There goes the neighborhood.’”
‘Buenos dias!’
or maybe
‘Buon giorno!’
and one of the Indians turns to his wife and says, ‘There goes the neighborhood.’”
Susan smiled politely.
I stood and walked out the rear garden gate, leaving Susan to her tea, her mood, and her potential problem with explaining equestrian rights of way to a Mafia don.
Three
One of the local traditions here says that if you’re crossing an estate on foot, you’re trespassing; if you’re on horseback, you’re gentry.
I didn’t know if Mr. Frank Bellarosa was aware of that as yet, or if he was, if he was going to honor the tradition. Nevertheless, later that Saturday afternoon, I crossed over onto his land through a line of white pine that separated our properties. I was mounted on Yankee, my wife’s second horse, a six-year-old gelding of mixed breeding. Yankee has a good temperament, unlike Zanzibar, Susan’s high-strung Arabian stallion. Yankee can be ridden hard and put away wet without dying of pneumonia, whereas Zanzibar seems to be under perpetual veterinary care for mysterious and expensive ailments. Thus the reason for Yankee’s existence, just as my Ford Bronco fills in when Susan’s Jag is in the shop every other week. But I suppose there’s a price to pay for high performance.
Coming out of the pines, an open field lay ahead, a former horse pasture now overgrown with brush and various species of saplings that aspire to be a forest again if left alone.
I was certain that Bellarosa, like most of his kind, was not as concerned with his privacy as with his personal safety, and I half expected to be confronted by swarthy, slick-haired gunmen in black suits and pointy shoes.
I continued across the field toward a grove of cherry trees. It was just turning dusk, the weather was balmy, and there was a scent of fresh earth around me. The only sounds were Yankee’s hoofs on the soft turf and birds trilling their twilight songs from the distant trees. All in all, a perfect late afternoon in early spring.
I took Yankee into the cherry grove. The gnarled and uncared-for old trees were newly leafed and just budded with pink blossoms.
In a clearing in the grove was a sunken mosaic reflecting pool, filled with dead leaves. Around the pool were toppled classical fluted columns and broken lintels. At the far end of the pool was a moss-covered statue of Neptune, his upraised hand minus his trident, so that he seemed to be halfway through a roundhouse punch. At Neptune’s feet were four stone fish, whose gaping mouths once spouted water. This was one of the classical gardens of Alhambra, built as a mock Roman ruin, now ironically a real ruin.
The main house of Alhambra is not itself a classical structure, but a Spanish-style mansion of stucco walls, stone archways, wrought-iron balconies, and red-tiled roofs. The four pillars that hold up the arched portico were actually taken from the ruins of Carthage in the 1920s when it was fashionable and possible to loot ancient archeological sites.
I don’t know what I would do if I had that much money myself, but I like to think I would show some restraint. But then restraint is a condition of our era with its dwindling supply of nearly everything vital to life. Restraint was not what the Roaring Twenties was about. One can be a product only of one’s own era, not anyone else’s.
I rode across the garden ruins, then up a small rise. About a quarter-mile to the east, sitting in shadow, was Alhambra. A solitary light shone from a second-floor balcony window that I knew to be the location of the library.
Alhambra’s library, like many rooms in the greatest of the estate houses, had originally existed in Europe. The original owners and builders of Alhambra, a Mr. and Mrs. Julius Dillworth, on a tour of Europe in the 1920s, took a fancy to the hand-carved oak library of their host, an old English peer whose name and title escape me. The Dillworths made an uninvited but spectacular offer for the entire library, and the tweedy old gentleman, probably short of cash as a result of the same World War that had enriched the Dillworths, accepted the offer.
I watched the library window for a minute or so, then reined Yankee around and rode down the slope, back toward the garden.
I saw now a white horse nibbling on new spring grass between two toppled columns. Astride the horse was the familiar figure of a woman dressed in tight jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. She turned to me as I approached, then faced away. It was my wife, Susan, but I could tell from her look that she was not herself. What I mean is, she likes to playact. So, to be cooperative, I called out, “Who are you?”
She turned back to me and responded in an icy voice, “Who are
you
?”
you
?”
Actually, I wasn’t sure yet, but I improvised. “I own this land,’’ I said. “Are you lost or trespassing?”
“Neither. And I doubt anyone dressed as you are, with so wretched a horse, could own this land.”
“Don’t be insolent. Are you alone?”
“I was until you came by,’’ she retorted.
I pulled in Yankee side by side with the white Arabian. “What is your name?”
“Daphne. What is
your
name?”
your
name?”
I still couldn’t think of a name for me, so I said, “You should know whose land you are on. Get down from your horse.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I said so. And if you don’t, I’ll pull you down and take my switch to you. Dismount!”
She hesitated, then dismounted.
“Tether him.”
She tethered her horse to a cherry limb and stood facing me.
“Take off your clothes.”
She shook her head. “I won’t.”
“You will,’’ I snapped. “Quickly.”
She stood motionless a moment, then pulled off her turtleneck, exposing two firm breasts. She stood with the sweater in her hand and looked up at me. “Do I have to do this?”
“Yes.”
She dropped the sweater, then pulled off her boots and socks. Finally, she slid her jeans and panties off and threw them in the grass.
I sidled my horse closer and looked down at her standing naked in the fading sunlight. “Not so arrogant now, are you, Daphne?”
“No, sir.”
This is Susan’s idea of keeping marital sex interesting, though to be honest, I’m not complaining about acting out Susan’s sexual fantasies. Sometimes these dramas are scripted and directed (by Susan); sometimes, as with this encounter, they are improv. The locales change with the seasons; in the winter we do it in the stable or, to relive our youth, in front of a fireplace in a deserted mansion.
This was our first alfresco encounter of the new spring season, and there is something about a woman standing naked in a field or forest that appeals to the most primal instincts of both sexes, while at the same time flouting modern conventions regarding where love should be made. Trust me on this; you get used to the occasional ant or bumblebee.
Susan asked, “What are you going to do to me?”
“Whatever I wish.’’ I looked at Susan standing motionless, her long red hair blowing in strands across her face, waiting patiently for a command. She has no acting background, but if she had, she would be a method actress; there was not a hint in her face or bearing that she was my wife, and that this was a game. For all purposes, she was a naked, defenseless woman who was about to be raped by a strange man on horseback. In fact, her knees were shaking, and she seemed honestly frightened.
“Please, sir, do what you will with me, but do it quickly.”
I’m not good at the impromptu games, and I’d rather she scripted it so I know who I’m supposed to be or at least what historical epoch we’re in. Sometimes I’m a Roman or a barbarian, a knight or an aristocrat, and she’s a slave, a peasant, or a haughty noblewoman who gets her comeuppance.
I brought Yankee right up to Susan and reached out and held her upraised chin in my hand. “Are you embarrassed?”
“Yes, sir.”
I should mention that Susan often takes the dominant role, and I’m the one who plays the part of a naked slave at auction or a prisoner who is stripped and given a few lashes, or whatever. Lest you think we are utterly depraved, I want you to know we are both registered Republicans and members of the Episcopal Church, and attend regularly except during the boating season.
Anyway, on this occasion, I had the feeling we were in the seventeenth century or thereabouts, thus the “Don’t be insolent’’ line and all the rest of the silly dialogue. I tried to think of another great line and finally said, “Are you Daphne, wife of the traitor Sir John Worthington?”
“I am, sir. And if you are indeed Lord Hardwick, I’ve come to ask you to intercede on my husband’s behalf with his Majesty, the King.”
I was indeed hardwick at that moment and wished I’d worn looser trousers. “I am every inch Hardwick,’’ I replied, and saw a real smile flit across her face.
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