The pandemonium in the restaurant was dying down except that I could now hear Anna's voice shrieking, "No! No! Frank! It's Frank! My God, my God!" and so forth.
As I moved toward Bellarosa's body, I glanced to my left and saw Susan standing a few feet away now, looking at Bellarosa's upside-down face. Her face was pale, but she seemed composed. Susan turned away from him, looked at me, and our eyes met. I knew I had blood or gore or some wet stuff on my clothes and even on my face, and I was pretty sure it wasn't my blood, but the remains of Vinnie's head. Susan, however, couldn't know that, yet she made no move toward me to see if I was all right.
Anna, on the other hand, broke away from some waiters and rushed toward her husband. She dropped to her knees on the glass and the blood-covered floor and took her husband's head in her hands, shrieking at the top of her lungs, then sobbing as she caressed his bloody face.
I was sort of out of it at this point, and I don't pretend that I noticed everything I'm describing at the exact time it happened, or that my impressions are as precise as they should have been. To give Susan the benefit of the doubt, for instance, she was probably in shock and that would explain her catatonic state.
Anyway, I got a grip on myself and knelt down in a tremendous pool of blood beside Anna, and I was about to comfort her and get her out of there. But then I noticed that the cafe curtain had slipped from Frank's face and that his eyes were open; not open dead, but open open. In fact, his eyes were watering and squinting in pain. I saw, too, that his chest was starting to heave. I ripped the red cafe curtain away from him and saw that though his tie, jacket, and shirt were full of holes, there was no big, gaping wound where the double-barrelled shotgun blast should have punched out his heart and lungs. I ripped his shirt open and saw, of course, a bulletproof vest with dozens of copper shots lying on the silvery-grey fabric.
I looked at Bellarosa's face and saw that his lips were moving, but more important, I saw the source of all that blood on the floor: a pellet or glass had penetrated the side of his throat, and blood was gushing from the wound under the collar and running onto the floor. The man was bleeding to death. Well, that was too bad, wasn't it? Talk about a quick and simple solution to a complex problem. On the other hand, I hadn't been paid anything he owed me yet, but I could write that off as a life experience. Frank would have wanted it that way.
Meanwhile, all these customers and waiters were standing around, and I guess there wasn't a doctor in the house, and no one understood that Bellarosa needed first aid. Anna was still weeping, still clutching her husband's head. Frank opened his eyes, and we looked at each other, and I think he smiled, but maybe not. I was certain his ribs were broken from the impact of the blasts, and I knew that if anyone moved him, his ribs would puncture his lungs. But so far, no blood was coming out of his mouth and his breathing was steady, though shallow. So what to do? You a Boy Scout or something? Well, as a matter or fact, yes. Eagle Scout, actually.
So I opened his collar and saw that the wound was probably in a carotid artery by the way it was gushing, and I felt around for the pulse below the wound and found it. I pressed my fingers on the pulse and the bleeding subsided. I then cradled the back of his neck in the crook of my arm to raise his head level with his heart so his brain could get blood, and I took a table napkin and pressed that against the wound itself. I didn't know if that was going to do the trick, but Mr Jenkins, my Troop Leader, would have been proud of my effort. I looked around and said to the crowd in general, "Please move back. Someone take his wife away. Thank you."
So there I knelt, covered with Vinnie's brains and skull as I saw now in the better light of the restaurant, and smeared with Frank Bellarosa's blood, and my fingers on the don's neck where I'd wanted them for some time, though.for different reasons. All things considered, I wasn't having one of my better evenings out.
I managed to get a look at my watch and saw it was a few minutes before midnight. I looked at Bellarosa's face and noticed that his skin was very white, which made his stubble look dark. But his breathing was still regular, and I could feel a good pulse. I also felt the puttanesca sauce rising in my stomach and up my oesophagus, but I got it down again.
I glanced back at his face and he was looking at me, although his eyes were unfocused. I said, "Hang in there, Frank. You're doing fine. You'll be okay. Just relax," and so forth. That's what you're supposed to do so they don't go into shock. Meanwhile, no one was giving me much encouragement, and my mouth was dry and my stomach was turning and my head felt light. Hang in there, Sutter. I heard a police siren and I looked out through the broken window and saw that a crowd had gathered, and apparently seeing Vinnie's headless corpse on the sidewalk, they had formed a wide semicircle around the restaurant. The siren was right outside now, and I also heard an ambulance horn. I looked back into the restaurant and discovered Susan a few tables away, sitting in a chair and watching me, her legs crossed and her arms folded across her chest as though she was angry with me for something. There were police outside now, and when I glanced up, I saw one of them on the sidewalk and heard him say, "Jesus Christ! Where's his head?" On my tie.
Two cops burst through the door, guns drawn. They took stock of the situation and holstered their pistols. I said to one of them, "This man has a severed artery, so don't tell me to move back. Get the EMS guys in here quick." And they did.
The two EMS guys listened to me for a few seconds, then took charge, getting Bellarosa into a wheeled stretcher without puncturing his lungs with his ribs, while a cop kept the pressure on his neck.
I stepped aside and let the pros handle it. Somewhere along the line, the boys in blue discovered the identity of the injured citizen – probably from one of the waiters, not from me – so it was up to them to decide whether or not they wanted to keep don Bellarosa from bleeding to death on the way to St Vincent's. Not my problem anymore.
Well, I was ready to go home now, having had enough excitement for one night, but my car was gone and my driver, Lenny the Rat, was probably on a flight to Naples by now.
Also, the detectives had arrived and they had this idea that I should go down to the station house and tell them all about it. "Tomorrow," I said. "I'm in shock." But they were positively insistent, so I worked out a deal whereby they would drive Susan back to Long Island and Anna to St Vincent's Hospital, in exchange for my going with them. You don't give nothing for nothing in this city, especially with the cops. Right, Frank?
While all this was going on, Lucio, the owner of the ill-fated establishment, had brought me a nice hot towel, and I got Vinnie off my hands and face, and Frank too. I said to Lucio, "Sorry about this," though it wasn't my fault, of course. But no one else was around to apologize for the window and the mess, and the free dinners. And I liked Lucio and his wife. But he'd make up the lost revenue now that Giulio's had joined other select dining and shooting establishments, with a Four Bullet rating.