The Gold Coast
Chapter One
I first met Frank Bellarosa on a sunny Saturday in April at Hicks'
Nursery, an establishment that has catered to the local gentry for
over a hundred years. We were both wheeling red wagons filled with
plants, fertilizers, and such toward our cars across the gravel
parking field. He called out to me, "Mr. Sutter? John Sutter,
right?"
I regarded the man approaching, dressed in baggy work pants and a
blue sweatshirt. At first, I thought it was a nurseryman, but then
as he drew closer, I recognized his face from newspapers and
television.
Frank Bellarosa is not the sort of celebrity you would like to meet
by chance, or in any other way, for that matter. He is a uniquely
American celebrity, a gangster actually. A man like Bellarosa would
be on the run in some parts of the world, and in the presidential
palace in others, but here in America, he exists in that place that
is aptly called the underworld. He is an unindicted and unconvicted
felon as well as a citizen and a taxpayer. He is what federal
prosecutors mean when they tell parolees not to "consort with known
criminals."
So, as this notorious underworld cha ... read full excerpt from The Gold Coast ebook
