The Gate House   ::   Demille Nelson

Of course, Anna knew all this wastrue, but she could never admit any of this to herself, or she’d lose her jolly disposition, and her sanity. Still, Salvatore D’Alessio’s funeral was going to be a tense family affair, especially if Anthony showed up, and Marie didn’t play the game that the boys had invented long ago.

Jenny was now talking about Anthony Bellarosa, and it seemed to me that she was winging it. In fact, she said, “Very little is known about Frank Bellarosa’s son, and he seems to have kept a low profile since his father’s death. But now, with his uncle’s death, and his alleged, or rumored, involvement-”

I turned off the television and ate Susan’s leftover cake.

Well, I could give Jenny a little more information about Tony, beginning with his name change.

Anyway, I thought, it was looking better for the Sutters. Stupid Anthony had unwittingly – half-wittedly – unleashed a media storm; the Father’s Day Rubout – and that was good for Susan and me. Also the TV coverage was nothing compared to tomorrow morning’s blood-splattered tabloid photos. Hopefully, before the police arrived at Giovanni’s, someone had taken a few pictures of Salvatore D’Alessio lying on the floor with his head in shreds, and those pictures would be worth a lot of money to some lucky people who had taken their cameras to dinner for Father’s Day photos. And sometimes, the NYPD themselves leaked some gory photographs to the press to show the public that La Cosa Nostra was not really an Italian fraternal organization. That would be a good public relations counterpoint to John Gotti as a man of the people. I could imagine some photographs of Marie splattered with her husband’s blood, brains, and skull. I knew how that felt. If nothing else, there’d be some color photos in the tabloids of the post-whack scene – the table, blood on the floor, the vomit. No, no vomit. Blood was okay, but never vomit. Children could see it.

I finished Susan’s cake, then went downstairs and rechecked the doors, windows, and exterior lighting, after which I went upstairs to the bedroom.

Susan was still awake, reading.

I said, “You should get some sleep.”

She didn’t respond. Apparently, she was upset.

I said to her, “Look, there is going to be a lot of TV coverage of this, but I promise you, I won’t look at it again, and we won’t buy any American newspapers in London.”

Again, she didn’t respond.

I said, “It’s good that we’re going to London.”

She nodded, then said, “You see why I went to Hilton Head.