The Gate House by Nelson DeMille Read Free Book Online Page B

where I poured myself a cup of cognac.
    “Right. Pretty fucked up.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    T he following day, I drove my Taurus along Skunks Misery Road, one of a number of roads around here with less than appealing names, which you’d think the residents or realtors might want to change—but these are historic names, some going back to the 1600s, plus people who are worth a zillion bucks wouldn’t care if their estate was on a road called Chicken Shit Lane. It actually adds to the charm.
    The Gold Coast is a collection of colonial-era villages and hamlets on the North Shore of Long Island’s Nassau County, about twenty-five to thirty miles east of Manhattan. Some of these villages have quaint downtowns, and some, like Lattingtown, where Stanhope Hall is located, are exclusively residential, a quiltwork of grand estates, smaller estates with pretensions, and new McMansion subdivisions built on former estates.
    In its day—between the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties, which ended on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929—the Gold Coast of Long Island held the largest concentration of power and wealth in the world. You couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a billionaire. Since then, the Depression, the war, income tax, and the spreading suburbs had delivered what should have been mortal blows to this Garden of Eden of old money, old families, and old customs; but it’s hung on, a shadow of its former self, though now, with all this new Wall Street wealth, I sense a resurrection of the form, though not the substance, of this vanished world.
    The Village of Locust Valley is the quintessential Gold Coast village, and that was my destination. My modest goal was a sandwich; specifically, Black Forest ham with Muenster cheese and mustard on pumpernickel bread. I’d been thinking about that for a week or so, and now the time had come. This sandwich could be obtained at Rolf’s German Delicatessen, which I hoped had not succumbed to gentrification, food fads, or healthy eating habits.
    It was a perfect June day, mid-seventies, mostly sunny with a few fair-weather clouds in a light blue sky. The flowers were in bloom, and the big old trees were fully leafed and fluttering in a soft breeze. Outside the car, the birds were singing and bees were pollinating exquisite flowers while butterflies alighted on the little pug noses of perfect children, causing them to giggle to their nannies, “Oh, Maria, isn’t it wonderful to be rich?”
    Being back here had sharpened my memories of why I was still teed off after a decade. I mean, I’d gotten on with my life, and my three-year sail, complete with a few life-threatening episodes, had been sufficiently cathartic and distracting so that I didn’t dwell on the past. And the seven years in London never seemed like an exile, or a place where I’d gone to escape the past. But now that I’ve returned, I feel that the past has been waiting patiently for me.
    On a more positive note, most of these familiar sights brought back some good memories. I mean, I was born here, and grew up here, and got married and raised children here, and I still had family and friends here. And then I left. Maybe that’s why I’m still angry; it shouldn’t have turned out this way—and wouldn’t have if Frank Bellarosa hadn’t been screwing my wife, or vice versa.
    I continued my drive down memory lane, which was now called Horse Hollow Road, and passed my former country club, The Creek. This brought back a lot of memories, too, such as the time Susan and I took don Bellarosa and his gaudily dressed wife, Anna, to the club for dinner. The members were not pleased, and looking back on it, I was not displaying good judgment. But it
was
pretty funny.
    Anyway, it was Tuesday, near noon, and the day after Anthony Bellarosa had dropped by for what I knew had been an exploratory visit. I couldn’t believe I’d actually made a dinner date with this guy. As one of
my
own
paesanos
once said, “If you are going to sup