He lit another cigarette, sat back, then said, “I just want you to tell me… like, how you met. Why you decided to do business. I mean… why would a guy like you… you know, get involved in a criminal case?”

“You mean organized crime?”

He wasn’t about to go there. I mean, like, you know, there is no Mafia. No Cosa Nostra. Whaddaya talkin’ about?

Anthony reminded me, “You defended him on a murder charge, which, as you know, Counselor, was bullshit.” He asked me again, “So, how did you and my father get together and wind up doing business?”

I replied, “It was mostly a personal relationship.” I added, “We clicked, and he needed some help.”

“Yeah? But why did you stick your neck out?”

Anthony was testing the water to see what motivated me – why I hooked up with the mob, so to speak, and what it would take for me to do it again. In his world, the answer was money and power, but maybe he understood that in my world, it was more complex.

I replied, “I told you the other night – he did me a favor and I was repaying the favor.” Also, the whole truth was that Frank Bellarosa, in cahoots with my wife, played the macho card, i.e., Frank had a gun and a set of balls, and nice guy John had a pen and a good intellect. They were very subtle about that, of course, but this challenge to my manhood worked well. Plus, I was bored, and Susan knew that. What she didn’t know was that Frank Bellarosa also appealed to my darker side; evil is very seductive, which Susan discovered too late.

I said to Anthony, “Your father was a very charismatic man, and very persuasive.” Plus, he was screwing my wife so he could get to me through her, though I didn’t know that at the time.

And I don’t think Susan knew that, either. She probably thought that Frank was interested only in her. In fact, Frank was partly motivated by the convenience of pillow talk with his attorney’s wife, not to mention the thrill of screwing an uppity society bitch. But on another level, probably against his will, Frank felt something for Susan Sutter.

Anthony said, with some insight, “My father had a way of picking the right people. Like, he knew what they wanted, and he showed them how they could get it.”

I recalled learning about a guy like that in Sunday school, named Lucifer.

As per the supposed reason for this dinner, Anthony asked me a few questions regarding my personal memories of his father.

I answered by relating a few anecdotes that I thought would give him some nice snapshots of Pop.

I then recounted my and Susan’s first visit to Alhambra, at Frank’s invitation for coffee, and how I enjoyed Anna’s hospitality and warmth. I didn’t share with Anthony that I was royally ticked off at Susan for accepting the invitation, or that my impressions of the Bellarosas as my new Gold Coast next-door-mansion neighbors were not entirely favorable. In fact, I was horrified. But also a little intrigued, as was Susan.

In any case, I kept it light and positive, skipping over my subsequent seduction by Frank Bellarosa, and Frank’s seduction of my wife (or vice versa), and our final descent into hell. That might be a little complicated for Anthony, and none of his business.

This all took about fifteen minutes, during which my wonton soup came and sat there, while I sipped Scotch and Anthony smoked, flipped ashes on the floor, and said very little.

When I’d finished, I said, “So, that’s about it.” I added, “I was sorry for what happened, and I want you to know that I share your grief, and that of your mother, brothers, and your whole family.”

Anthony nodded.

I announced, “I’m not really hungry, and I have a lot of work to do at home, so thanks for the drinks.” I reached for my wallet and said, “Let me split the bill.”

He seemed surprised that I’d actually want to forgo his company, and asked, “What’s your rush?”

“I just told you.”

“Have another drink.” He called out to the waitress, “Two more!” then asked me, “You want a cigarette?”

“No, thank you.”

That settled, he returned to a prior subject and asked, “Hey, how did you let the Feds grab Alhambra? I mean, you do this for a living. Right?”

“Right. You win some, you lose some.” I added, “Even Jesus said to give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”

“Yeah, but Jesus was a nice guy, and he didn’t have a tax lawyer. Or a criminal attorney.” Anthony smiled and continued, “That’s why he got nailed.”

I reminded him, “I was on my way to beating the murder charge.”

“Yeah, okay, but if my father didn’t do anything criminal, then how did they get his property?”

“I told you. Tax evasion.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“No, it’s criminal.” The truth was, as I said, and as Anthony surely knew, the Justice Department and the IRS had enough real and manufactured evidence on Frank Bellarosa to make his life a living hell. Plus, Frank’s own brother-in-law, Sally Da-da – Anna’s sister’s husband – had tried to whack Frank, and Frank’s aura of power and strength was waning. So he took the easy way out and accepted the government’s deal. To wit: Tell us about every crime you ever committed, Frank, and give us the names of your hoodlum friends. Then you abdicate your title, give us all your money, and you can go into exile a free man. Not a bad deal, and better than prison. Plus, the exile to Italy fit in nicely with Frank and Susan’s plans to run off together, but I didn’t think Anthony wanted to know all of that. In fact, he wanted the bullshit.

“And there was nothing you could do to hold on to Alhambra?”

“No.”

“Okay… hey, I heard that my father also owned your place. He bought that, too.”

“He bought Stanhope Hall from my father-in-law.” I was tempted to say, “I think he needed more room to bury bodies,” but I said, “He wanted to control the land development around his estate.” In fact, as I said, Susan had most probably talked her lover into that purchase. My father-in-law, William the Skinflint, wanted to dump this expensive white elephant, and for the right price he would have sold it to the devil. Actually, he did.

Susan had been upset at the thought of the family home passing into the hands of some stranger or a developer, and I believe she saw don Bellarosa as her white knight who could save the estate for her. I have no idea what the deal was between her and her lover, but I suspected that she at least had thoughts of living there with Frank. But then Frank sold out to the Feds and went into the Witness Protection Program, and Italy, I think, became Plan B.

I really should have insisted that I had to go, but Anthony seemed obsessed with the Federal government seizing a sizable fortune in property and cash from his father, going so far as to ask me, “Hey, do you think I have a shot at getting that back?”

“You have about as much chance of recovering assets seized under the RICO Act as I have of getting the Man of the Year Award from the Sons of Italy.”

He persisted. “How about those millions in bond money that you posted for my father? Right? He died before the trial, and he didn’t commit the murder. So why can’t you get that back?”

I saw where this was going, of course, and I definitely didn’t want to go there. I said, “As I understand it, those assets, including Stanhope Hall, were returned to your father’s estate, then seized as part of his tax settlement with the IRS.”

“Yeah, but-”

“There are no buts, Anthony. I did what I could at the time. Your father was satisfied with my representation, and there are no do-overs.”

Bottom line, his obsession with the lost fortune was mostly smoke. What he was after was me, and thus his veiled criticism of how I handled this case a decade ago, and now he was going to give me the opportunity to get it right; to see that justice was done. Next stop after that was the slippery slope into his underworld. Thanks, but no thanks. Been there, Anthony. The pay is good, but the price is too high.