Beach Road

Chapter 3. Tom Dunleavy

IT’S SATURDAY MORNING on Labor Day weekend, and I’m rolling down what some might call the prettiest country lane in America – Beach Road, East Hampton.

I’m on my way to meet four of my oldest pals on the planet. The ’66 XKE I have been working on for a decade hasn’t backfired once, and everywhere I look there’s that dazzling Hampton light.

Not only that, I’ve got my loyal pooch, Wingo, right beside me on the passenger seat, and with the top down, he hardly stinks at all.

So why don’t I feel better about another day in paradise?

Maybe it’s just this neighborhood. Beach Road is wide and elegant, with one ten-million-dollar house after another, but in a way, it’s as ugly as it is beautiful. Every five minutes or so a private rent-a-cop cruises by in a white Jeep. And instead of bearing the names of the residents, the signs in front of the houses belong to the high-tech electronic security companies that have been hired to keep the riffraff out.

Well, here comes some prime riffraff, fellas, and guess what you can do if you don’t like it.

As I roll west, the houses get even bigger and the lawns deeper and, if possible, greener. Then they disappear completely behind tall, thick hedges.

When that happens, Wingo and I have put the sorry land of the multimillionaire behind us and have crossed, without invitation, into the even chillier kingdom of the billionaire. In the old days, this would be where the robber barons camped out, or the guys who had invented something huge and life-enhancing, like the refrigerator or air-conditioning. Now it’s reserved for the occasional A-list Hollywood mogul or the anonymous mathematicians who sit in front of their computer screens and run the hedge funds. A mile from here, Steven Spielberg slapped together three lots on Georgica Pond, then bought the parcel on the other side so he could own the view too.

Before I get pulled over for rubbing the rich the wrong way, or being a grouch for no good reason, I spot a break in the hedges and rumble up a long, pebbled drive.

Beyond a huge, sprawling manor built in-no, decorated to look like it was built in-the 1920s is a shimmering pack of cars parked on the grass, each one chromed and accessorized.

Just beyond them is the reason they’re here, and the reason I’m here too-a brand-new, custom-built, state-of-the-art, official NBA-length-and-width basketball court.

But if there’s a Hampton sight more welcome and less expected than a full-size basketball court with an ocean view, it’s the dozen or so people hanging out beside it, and they immediately come over to greet us-the guys lavishing attention on my vehicle, the ladies giving it up for my faithful dog, Wing Daddy.

“This baby is pure class,” says a hustler named Artis LaFontaine as he appraises my antique Jag.

“And this baby is pure cute!” says his girl, Mammy, as Wingo gets up on his hind legs to lay a big wet one on her pretty face. “Can I adopt him?”

The warm way they all greet me feels as terrific as always-and not just because I’m the only white person here.

Chapter 4. Tom

I DON’T HAVE the honor of being the sole Caucasian for long.

In less than five minutes, Robby Walco arrives in his mud-splattered pickup, WALCO amp; SON, the name of his and his old man’s landscaping company, stenciled on the cab.

And then my older brother, Jeff, the football coach at East Hampton High, shows up with Patrick Roche in his school-issued van.

“Where the hell is Feif?” asks Artis. Artis has never actually volunteered what he does for a living, but the hours are highly flexible, and it pays well enough to keep his canary-yellow Ferrari in twenty-two-inch wheels.

“Yeah, where’s the white Rodman?” asks a dude called Marwan with dreadlocks.

Artis LaFontaine and crew can’t get enough of Feif, with his bleached-white hair, the piercings and tats-and when he finally rolls in barefoot on his bicycle, his high-tops dangling like oversized baby shoes from the handlebars, they practically give him a standing ovation.

“Be careful with this one, fellas,” says Feif, meticulously lowering his kickstand and parking his eight-dollar bike between two hundred-thousand-dollar cars. “It’s a Schwinn.”

I’ve depended on Jeff my whole life, but all these guys are indispensable to me. Roche, aka Rochie, is the deepest soul I know, not to mention a terrible sculptor, a mediocre poker player, and a truly gifted bartender. Walco is pure, undiluted human earnestness, the kind of guy who will walk up to you and, apropos of nothing, pronounce Guns ’N Roses the greatest rock-and-roll band of all time, or Derek Jeter the finest shortstop of his generation. As for Feif, he’s just special, and that’s immediately obvious to everyone, from the Dominican cashier at the IGA to your grandmother.

This whole place is owned by the movie star T. Smitty Wilson, who bought it five years ago. Wilson wanted to show his fans he was still keeping it real, so after dropping $23 million for a big, Waspy house on four acres, he dropped another half mil on this sick basketball court. He used the same contractor who built Shaq’s court in Orlando, and Dr. Dre’s in Oakland, but he hired Walco amp; Son to do the landscaping, and that’s how we found out about it.

For a month, we had the court to ourselves, but when Wilson invited his celebrity pals out to the country, it got to be even more fun.

First came a handful of actors and pro athletes, mainly from L.A. and New York. Through them word leaked into the hip-hop crowd. They told their people, and the next thing you know this court was the wildest scene in the Hamptons -ever-a nonstop party with athletes and rappers, CEOs and supermodels, and just enough gangsters to add some edge.

But as the celebs thinned out, one of the most expensive residential acres on Beach Road was starting to seem like a playground in a South Bronx housing project.

At that point, Wilson made his retreat. For weeks he barely ventured from the house; then he began to avoid the Hamptons altogether.

Now about the only person you can be sure of not running into at T. Smitty Wilson’s Hamptons compound is T. Smitty Wilson.

Chapter 5. Tom

ME, JEFF, FEIF, Walco, and Rochie are stretching and shooting around one basket when a maroon SUV rumbles up the driveway. Like a lot of cars here, it looks as if it just rolled off a showroom floor, and its arrival is announced well in advance by 500 watts of teeth-chattering hip-hop.

When the big Caddy lurches to a stop, three doors swing open and four black teens jump out, each sporting brand-new kicks and sweats.

Then, after a dramatic beat or two, the man-child himself, Dante Halleyville, slides out from the front passenger side. It’s hard not to gawk at the kid.

Halleyville is the real deal, without a doubt the best high school player in the country, and at six foot nine with ripped arms and chest tapering to a tiny waist and long, lean legs, he’s built like a basketball god. Dante is already being called the next Michael Jordan. Had he declared himself eligible for this year’s NBA draft, he would have been a top-three pick, no question, but he promised his grandmother at least one year of college.

The reason I know all this is that Dante grew up nine miles down the road, in Bridgehampton, and there’s a story about him every other day in the local paper, not to mention a weekly column he writes with the sports editor called Dante’s Diary. According to the stories, which suggest that Dante is actually a pretty sharp kid, he’s leaning toward Louisville -so rumor has it that’s the academic institution that leased him the car.

“You fellas want to have a run?” I ask.

“Hell, yeah,” says Dante, offering a charismatic smile that the Nike people are just going to love. “We’ll make it quick and painless for you.”

He slaps my head and bumps my chest, and thirty seconds later the crash of collapsing waves and squawking gulls mix with the squeak of sneakers and the sweet pock of a bouncing ball.

You might think the older white guys are about to get embarrassed, but we’ve got some talent too. My big brother, Jeff, is pushing fifty, but at six five, 270 he’s still pretty much unmovable under the boards, and Walco, Roche, and Feif, all in their early twenties, are good, scrappy athletes who can run forever.

As for me, I’m not as much of a ringer as Dante, and I’m pushing thirty-five-but I can still play a little.

Unless you’re a basketball junkie you haven’t heard of me, but I was second-team All-America at St. John’s and in ’95 the Minnesota Timberwolves made me the twenty-third pick in the first round of the NBA draft. My pro career was a wash. I blew out my knee before the end of my rookie season, but I’d be lying if I told you I couldn’t still hold my own on any playground, whether it’s a cratered cement court in the projects or this million-dollar beauty looking straight out at the big blue sea.

Chapter 6. Tom

PARADISE COULDN’T BE too much better than this.

Seagulls are flapping in the breeze, sailboats are bobbing on the waves, and the green rubberized surface is bathed in dazzling sunshine as I dribble the ball upcourt, cut around my brother’s double-wide pick, and snap off a bounce pass to an open Walco under the basket.

Walco is about to lay it in for an easy hoop when one of Dante’s teammates, a tall, wiry kid I will later find out is named Michael Walker, comes flying at him from behind. He blocks the shot and knocks Walco to the court. It’s a hard foul, and completely unnecessary in my opinion. A dirty play.

Now the Kings Highway squad is bringing the ball upcourt, and when one of their players goes up for a little jumper, he gets mugged just as bad by Rochie.

Pretty soon, no one stretched out on the grassy hill beside the court is noticing the flapping seagulls or bobbing sailboats because the informal Saturday-morning game has escalated into a war.

But then a beat-up Honda parks beside the court, and Dante’s pretty seventeen-year-old cousin, Nikki Robinson, steps out in very short cutoffs. When I see the way Feifer checks her out, I know the Montauk townies still have a chance to win this shoot-out by the sea.

Chapter 7. Tom

NIKKI ROBINSON LEANS provocatively against the wire fence, and the shameless Feifer immediately takes over the game. He uses his quickness, or stamina, or surprising strength to force three consecutive Kings Highway turnovers.

When Jeff taps in my missed jumper, we’re all tied at twenty.

Now Nikki isn’t the only one up against the fence. Artis LaFontaine and Mammy and Sly and everyone else on the hill are on their feet, making a lot of noise.

Michael Walker races upcourt with the ball.

With five pretty women paying attention instead of just one, Feifer swoops on Walker like an eagle bearing down on a rabbit on one of those TV nature shows. He effortlessly strips him of the ball and races the other way for the winning lay-up.

This time, however, he doesn’t stop at the rim. He keeps climbing, showing that Montauk boys got ups too. When he throws the ball down, Artis, Mammy, and Marwan go crazy on the sidelines, and Nikki Robinson rewards him with a little R-rated dance that seventeen-year-old girls aren’t supposed to know how to do.

This provokes Michael Walker to shove Rochie, Feif to shove him back, Dante to shove Feif, and Feif to really shove Dante.

Ten seconds later, on the prettiest day of the summer, Feif and Dante are squared off at half-court.

At this point, both sides should jump in and break it up, but neither does. The Kings Highway crew hangs back because they figure the white surfer boy is about to get a whupping and don’t want to bail him out. We stand and watch because in a dozen barroom brawls we’ve never seen Feif lose.

And right now, despite giving up a foot and more than fifty pounds to Dante, Feif’s holding his own.

But now I really have seen enough. This is bullshit, and I don’t want either of them to get hurt.

But as I jump between them, catching glancing blows from both for my trouble, the court falls silent.

There’s a high-pitched scream, the blur of people scattering, and then Artis yells, “Tom, he’s got a gun!”

I turn toward Dante, and he’s holding his empty hands up in front of his face. When I turn to Feif, he’s doing the same thing.

I am the last person on the court to see that the guy with the gun isn’t Dante or Feifer. It’s Dante’s homeboy Michael Walker. While I was breaking up the fight, he must have run and grabbed it from the car.

I didn’t see him or the gun until just now, when he walked back onto the court, lifted it to the side of Feifer’s head, and with a sickening click, thumbed back the hammer to cock it.

Chapter 8. Dante Halleyville

WHEN MICHAEL PUTS that gun up beside that boy’s head, no one is more freaked than me. No one! Not even the bro with the gun to his head-although he looks plenty freaked too. This is my worst nightmare coming true. Don’t pull that trigger, Michael. Don’t do it.

Because of my promise to my grandmother Marie, I’ve got sixteen months to get through before I go into the NBA, and the only thing that can stop me is some ridiculousness like this. That’s why I never go to clubs or even parties where I don’t know everyone, because you never know when some fool is going to pull out a gun, and now that’s exactly what’s happening and it’s my best friend doing it, and he thinks he’s doing it for me.

And it’s not like Michael and I haven’t talked about it. Michael wants to have my back, fine. But he’s got to stay between me and trouble, not bring it on.

Thank God for Dunleavy. He doesn’t know this, but I’ve watched him since I was starting out. Till me, he was the only player from around here who amounted to much. I used to track him at St. John’s and then for that short time with the pros in Minnesota. He never got the big tout, but if he hadn’t got hurt, Tom Dunleavy would have done some damage in the League. Trust me.

But what Dunleavy does today is better than basketball. It’s like that poem we read in school-if you can keep your head screwed on tight, when all around you motherfuckers are freaking.

When Michael puts the gun to the white guy’s head, everyone scatters. But Dunleavy stays on the court and talks to Michael calm as can be.

Not fake calm either. Real calm-like whatever is going to happen is going to happen.

I can’t say for sure it was like this word for word, but this is what I remember.

“I can tell you’re Dante’s friend,” Dunleavy says. “That’s obvious. As obvious as the fact that this guy should never have thrown a punch at Dante, not at someone who’s about to go to the NBA. He hits Dante, maybe one of his eyes is never the same and the dream is over. So I’m sure there’s a part of Dante that would like to see you mess him up right now.

“But since you’re Dante’s best friend,” he goes on, “it’s not what Dante wants but what he needs. Right? That’s why even if Dante was screaming at you to kill this punk, you wouldn’t do it. Because it wouldn’t help him in the long run. It would hurt him.”

“Exactly,” says Michael, his gun hand shaking now even though he’s trying to cover it. “But this shit ain’t over, white boy. Not by a long shot. This shit ain’t over!”

Somehow Dunleavy makes it look like it was Michael deciding on his own to put down the gun. He gives Michael a way out so it doesn’t look like he’s backing down in front of everyone.

Still, the whole thing is messed up, and when I get to my grandmom Marie’s place, I’m so stressed I go right to the couch and fall asleep for three hours.

Nothing would ever be the same after that catnap of mine.

Chapter 9. Kate Costello

“OH, MARY CATHERINE? Mary Catherine? Has anyone here seen the divine MC?” I call in my sweetest maternal-sounding voice.

When there’s no answer, I jump up from my little plasticized lounge chair and search my sister’s Montauk backyard with the exaggerated gestures and body language of a soap-opera actress.

“Is it truly possible that no one here has seen this beautiful little girl about yea big, with amazing red hair?” I try again. “That is so peculiar, because I could swear I saw that same little girl not more than twenty seconds ago. Big green eyes? Amazing red hair?”

That’s about all the theatrics my twenty-month-old niece can listen to in silence. She abandons her hiding spot on the deck, behind where my sister, Theresa, and her husband, Hank, are sipping margaritas with their neighbors.

She races across the back lawn, hair and skinny arms flying in every direction, the level of excitement in her face exceeding all recommended levels. Then she throws herself at my lap and fixes me with a grin that communicates as clearly as if she were enunciating every syllable: “I am right here, you silly aunt! See! I am not lost. I was never lost! I was just tricking you!”

The first ten years after I finished college, I rarely came home. Montauk felt small to me, and claustrophobic, and most of all, I didn’t want to run into Tom Dunleavy. Well, now I can’t go two weeks without holding MC in my arms, and this little suburban backyard with the Weber grill on the deck and the green plastic slide and swing set in the corner is looking cozier all the time.

While MC and I sprawl on the grass, Hank brings me a glass of white wine. “Promise you’ll tell us when you need a break,” he says.

“This is my break, Hank.”

Funny how things work out. Theresa has known Hank since grade school, and everyone in the family, me included, thought Theresa was settling. But seeing how much they enjoy each other and their life out here, and watching their friends casually wander in and out of their yard, I’m beginning to think the joke’s on me.

But of course the best part of their life is MC, who, believe it or not, they named after yours truly, the so-called success of the family.

Speaking of my darling namesake, I think she’s slinked off again because I can’t seem to find her.

“Has anyone seen Mary Catherine? Has anyone here seen that scruffy little street urchin? No? That is just too odd. Bizarre even, because I could have sworn I just saw her a minute ago right under this table. Beautiful red hair? Big green eyes? Oh, Mary Catherine? Mary Catherine?”

So peaceful and nice-for the moment anyway.

Chapter 10. Tom

AFTER ALL THE DRAMA, a night on the couch with Wingo and the Mets won’t cut it. I head to Marjorie’s, which is not only my favorite bar out here but my favorite bar anywhere in the known universe. The Hamptons have hundreds of heinous joints catering to weekenders, but I’d sooner play bingo at the Elks Club than set one foot in most of them.

Marjorie’s definitely skews toward townies, but the owner, Marjorie Seger, welcomes anyone who isn’t an ass, no matter how bad their credentials might look on paper, so it doesn’t have that bitter us-against-them vibe of a dyed-in-the-wool townie institution, like Wolfie’s, say.

Plus at Wolfie’s, I’d never hear the end of it if I ordered a Grey Goose martini, but that’s exactly what I want and need, and exactly what I order from Marjorie herself when I grab a stool at the outdoor bar set up on the docks.

Marjorie’s eyes light up, and while she puts a glass on ice and washes out her shaker, I listen to the ropes groan and the waves slap against the hulls of the big fishing trawlers tied up thirty feet away. Kind of nice.

I was hoping one or more of my fellow hoopsters would already be here, but they’re not. I’ll have to content myself with Billy Belnap, who was in my history and English classes at East Hampton High. For fifteen years, he’s been one of East Hampton ’s finest.

Belnap, in uniform and on duty, sits on the stool next to me smoking a cigarette, sipping a Coke. That could mean he is drinking a rum and Coke, or a Jack and Coke, or, unlikely as it may sound, a plain old Coke.

Either way, that’s between him and Marjorie, who is now concentrating on my cocktail. And when she places the chilled glass in front of me and pours out the translucent elixir, I stop talking to Billy and give her the respectful silence she deserves till the last drop brings the liquid to the very rim, like the water in one of those $200,000 infinity swimming pools.

“I hope you know I adore you,” I say, lowering my head for my first careful sip.

“Keep your affection, Dunleavy,” says Marjorie. “A couple more of these, you’ll be pawing my ass.”

As the Grey Goose does its work, I’m thinking about whether or not I should tell Billy, off the record of course, about the events of the afternoon. For the most part, so little happens to us townies, it seems ungenerous not to share a good tale.

So trying to strike the right balance of modesty and humor, I give it a shot. When I get to the part when Michael Walker puts the gun to Feifer’s head, I say, “I thought for sure I was going to be scrubbing blood off Wilson ’s million-dollar court.”

Belnap doesn’t smile. “Was Wilson there?” he asks.

“No. I hear he’s afraid to set foot down there.”

“I believe that.”

I’m wrapping it up, describing Walker ’s last face-saving threat, when a scratchy voice barks out of the two-way radio lying next to Belnap’s half-full glass. He picks up the radio and listens.

“Three bodies in East Hampton,” says Belnap, draining the rest of his drink in one gulp. “You coming?”

Chapter 11. Tom

“THREE MALES, EARLY twenties,” says Belnap as he drives. “A jogger just called it in.”

I want to ask from where, but the hard way Belnap stares through the windshield and the way the car squeals around corners discourage me from any questions.

I must have lived a sheltered life, because this is my first ride in a squad car. Despite the frantic flashing and wailing, it seems eerily calm inside. Not that I feel calm. Anything but. Three dead bodies in East Hampton? Outside a car crash, it’s unheard of.

The roads out here are wooded and windy, and the powerful beams of Belnap’s cruiser barely dent the dark. When we finally reach the end of Quonset and burst into the glaring light of Route 27, it feels like coming up from the bottom of a deep, cold lake and breaking through the surface.

A quarter of a mile later, just before the beach, we are braking hard again and turning back into the darkness. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust enough to see we’re on Beach Road.

In the dark the hulking houses seem threatening. We’re really flying now, hitting eighty-five as we pass the golf course.

A quarter of a mile later, Belnap brakes so hard I come up into my harness, and he swerves between a pair of tall white gates-T. Smitty Wilson’s white gates.

“That’s right,” says Billy, staring straight ahead. “Back at the scene of your latest heroics.”

The driveway is empty, and not a single car is parked beside the court, something I haven’t seen in months. Even when it’s pouring rain, there’d be a crowd partying in their cars. But on Saturday night, Labor Day weekend, the place is as deserted as if it were Christmas Eve.

“This is bad, Tom,” says Belnap, the master of understatement. “Nobody gets murdered out here. Just doesn’t happen.”

Chapter 12. Tom

IT’S EERIE AND creepy too.

Exaggerating the emptiness around the court is all the light that is being pumped in. For night games, eight high-watt halogens have been set on tall, elegant silver poles. They’re the same lights used on movie sets, and they’re blazing tonight.

A police cruiser and ambulance have beaten us out here.

Belnap makes me stay by the car as he hustles down to where two ambulances are backed into the dunes.

From the hood of his cruiser, I hear an uninterrupted wail of sirens, and then I see a posse of cop cars race up Beach Road from both sides.

Pairs of headlamps converge at the tall gate at the bottom of the hill and snake their way toward me up the driveway.

The next five minutes bring at least a dozen more cruisers and three more ambulances. In that same ominous rush come the department’s two detectives in their black Crown Vics. Plus the K-9 and Forensics units in separate vans.

Then the cop cars stop arriving and the sirens stop wailing, and I can hear the ocean waves again. The whole vibe is as strange and unnatural as a small child’s wake.

For the next few minutes, I stay by the car, the one person there not in the crowd ringing the crime scene, and just by looking at the backs, the postures, I can tell that this is far heavier than what the cops are used to, and I can feel the anger. A few years ago a millionaire was murdered in his bed within a mile of here, but that was different. These bodies aren’t summer people.

The way the cops are acting, these are three of their own-maybe even cops.

When the volunteer firemen show up, I figure I’ve stayed put long enough. After all, I’m not exactly a stranger here. For good or bad, everybody knows Tom Dunleavy.

But halfway to the ambulance, Mickey Harrison, a sergeant who played hoops with me in high school, steps up and puts both hands firmly on my chest.

“Tommy, you don’t want to go any closer right now. Trust me.”

It’s too late. As he restrains me, the circle breaks, and I glimpse the shapes the cops are scurrying around.

It’s dark down here, and at first the shapes make no sense. They’re too high, or too short, with no connection to familiar human outlines.

I squint into the shadows, my mind still unable to process the images. Then a cop from Forensics drops into a crouch, and there’s a powerful flash from his camera.

It sets off a second flash at the very middle of the scene, and before it fades to black again, I see the white circle of Feifer’s bleached hair.

“Oh, Jesus God,” I say, and Mickey Harrison takes my arm at the elbow.

Then, almost immediately, another shock. The bodies aren’t lying side by side. They’re stacked, one on top of the other, in a heap. Feif is in the middle on his back. Robert Walco is lying on top of him facedown, and Rochie is on the bottom turned on his side.

Now there’s a voice cutting through the others, maybe Billy Belnap’s, but the way I’m suddenly feeling I can’t tell for sure. “You think Dante and his nigger friends could have done this?”

I don’t actually hear the response because I’m down on my knees puking into the damp sand.

Chapter 13. Kate

“HEY, MARY C, how you doing?” I hear as I arrive at the nightmare scene, the murder scene on a beach I think of as being partly my own since I spent so much time here as a kid.

“Not too good. You?” I say, not even sure who I’m talking at, or why I’m bothering to answer the guy’s stupid question.

An hour after a Montauk volunteer fireman hears the call go out on his police scanner, at least two hundred local folk are milling on the beach below the Wilson estate, and I’m one of them. I haven’t lived out here for a dozen years, but I guess being a Montauk townie isn’t something that ever goes away, because I’m as anxious and scared as my former neighbors.

Above where I’m standing, three ambulances are parked in the dunes, surrounded by the entire East Hampton Police Department.

Over the next ten minutes or so, terrible rumors sweep down the hill like mud slides, confirming or correcting or replacing the names of the dead that people have already heard. Desperate parents call children, rejoicing when they answer, panicking when they don’t. I think of red-haired Mary Catherine streaking across the lawn earlier today, and of how vulnerable parents become the second their child is born.

We have known for hours that all three of the victims are young males, but the police are withholding the names until they can notify the families.

But the people out on the beach know too many of the cops inside the crime scene tape, and when someone gets a call from his brother-in-law up on the hill, we find out that the dead kids are Walco, Rochie, and Feifer. The news hits all of us like a hand grenade.

In the summer there might be ten thousand people living in Montauk, but the number who live here year-round is probably a tenth of that, and at times like this we’re one big family. It’s one of the reasons I left, and one of the things I miss the most. Out here, the person who lives next door is not an indifferent stranger, but a genuine neighbor who actually cares about your life and feels your triumphs and tragedies, and because of that, people are sobbing and shrieking and trying to comfort one another.

The three dead boys were ten years younger than me, and I haven’t spent much time here lately, yet I still know that Walco’s girlfriend is pregnant, and that Rochie’s mother is sick with stomach cancer. Long before Feifer became a surfer stud, I was his babysitter, for God’s sake. I remember that he wouldn’t go to sleep without a bowl of Rice Krispies.

Grief turns to rage as more details of the killings trickle down the hill. All three were shot point-blank between the eyes. All three had rope burns on their wrists. And when the bodies were found, they were piled on top of each other like garbage left at the town dump. We all know enough about these kids to know they weren’t angels. We also know they weren’t criminals. So what the hell happened here tonight?

I turn away from the row of ten-million-dollar beach houses and back to the ambulances. Among the two dozen cops milling around them is a handful of locals who for one reason or another have been allowed to get close to the crime scene.

As I watch, one of these, a large, heavyset man, drapes an arm over the shoulder of a tall, much-thinner man beside him. Shit, I think to myself.

Their backs are to me, but I know that the larger man is Jeff Dunleavy, the other his younger brother, Tom, and now I feel a fresh jolt of pain, which I’m ashamed to say has nothing to do with the horrible murder of three sweet-natured Montauk kids.

Chapter 14. Tom

THE CURRENT CROP of East Hampton cops has never had to deal with a horrifying, almost scatological crime scene like this, and it sure shows. There are actually too many cops, too many bodies, and too many emotions, which are all way too close to the surface.

Finally, Van Buren, the youngest detective on the force, stakes off a ten-yard square around the bodies and runs lights down from the court so Forensics can dust for prints and scrape for DNA.

I don’t want to bother Van Buren, so I approach Police Chief Bobby Flaherty, who I’ve known forever.

“Has Feif’s family been told yet?” I ask.

“I’m sending Rust,” he says, nodding toward a rookie cop who looks as green as I must have forty minutes ago.

“Let me do it, Bobby. Okay? They should hear it from somebody they know.”

“It’s not going to help, Tom.”

“I just need a ride back to the marina. To pick up my car.”

The Feifers live by the junior high on a quiet cul-de-sac in one of Montauk’s last year-round neighborhoods. It’s the kind of place where kids can still play baseball in the street without getting run over, and where families like Feif’s chose to raise their kids precisely because they thought they wouldn’t have to worry about some unspeakable thing like this ever happening.

Late as it is, the lights are still on in the den of the house, and I creep up near the picture window, quiet as a burglar.

Vic and Allison Feifer and their teenage daughter, Lisa, share the big, comfortable couch, their faces lit by the TV. A bag from Montauk Video hangs from a nearby chair, and maybe they’re watching a chick flick because old man Feifer’s chin is on his chest, and Ali and Lisa are transfixed, not taking their eyes off the screen even when they dig into the bowl of popcorn on the couch between them.

I know it’s never that simple, but they look like such a nice, contented family.

I take in a deep breath; then I ring the doorbell. I watch Lisa spring off the couch in her pink sweats and white furry house slippers.

Lisa yanks the screen door open, eager to return to her movie. She tows me behind her into the den, not even thinking about the unusualness of such a late visit.

But once I’m standing in front of them, my face gives me away. Allison reaches for my arm, and old man Feif, still rousing himself from when I rang the doorbell, staggers to his stocking feet.

“It’s about Eric,” I say, forcing the words out. “I’m real sorry. They found his body tonight, along with Rochie and Walco, at the Wilson estate on Beach Road. He was murdered. I’m so sorry to have to tell you this.”

They’re only words, but they might as well be bullets. Before they are out of my mouth, Allison’s face has shattered into pieces, and when she looks at her husband, they’re both so devastated all they can offer each other is the shell of who they were just five minutes before.

Chapter 15. Tom

ASK ME HOW long I spent at Feifer’s house, I’d have sworn it was close to an hour. According to my kitchen clock, it was probably less than ten minutes.

Still, it’s all I can do to pull a bottle of whiskey off the shelf and carry it out back, where my pal Wingo is waiting. Wingo knows right away I’m messed up. Instead of begging me to take him for a walk, he lays his jaw on my lap and I pet him like there’s no tomorrow. For three of my friends, there isn’t.

I have a phone in my hand, but I can’t remember why. Oh, yeah, Holly. She’s a woman I’ve been going out with for the past few weeks. No big thing.

Unfortunately, I don’t want to call her. I just want to want to call her, in the same way that I want to pretend she’s my girlfriend, even though we both know we’re only killing time.

Wingo’s a dog, not a pal. My girlfriend isn’t really my girlfriend. But the whiskey is the real thing, so I pour out half a glass and gulp it down. Thank God that son of a bitch Dr. Jameson still makes house calls.

I’d feel better if I could cry, but I haven’t cried since I was ten, when my father died. So I take another long gulp and then another, and then instead of thinking about every horrible thing that’s happened today, I find myself thinking about Kate Costello. It’s been ten years since we broke up, and I still think about Kate all the time, especially when something important happens, good or bad. Plus, I saw her tonight out on Beach Road. As always, she looked beautiful, and even under the circumstances, seeing her was a jolt.

Once I start regretting how I screwed things up with Kate, it’s only a matter of a couple more sips before I revisit The Moment. Boston Garden, February 11, 1995. Barely more than a minute to play and the T-wolves are down by twenty-three. A part of the game so meaningless it’s called “garbage time.” I come down on a teammate’s ankle, blow out my left knee, and my pro career is over before I hit the famed parquet floor.

That’s how it works with me and Dr. Jameson. First I think about losing Kate Costello. Then I think about losing basketball.

See, first I had nothing. That was okay because in the beginning everyone has nothing. Then I found basketball, and through basketball I found Kate. Now, Kate would deny that. Women always do. But you and I, Doc, we’re not children. We both know I never would have gotten within ten feet of Kate Costello without basketball. I mean, look at her!

Then I lost Kate. And then I lost basketball. Bada-bing. Bada-boom.

So here’s the question I’ve been asking myself for ten years: how the hell am I going to get her back without it?

Doc, you still there?

Chapter 16. Kate

UNTIL THIS GOD-AWFUL, godforsaken morning in early September, the only funeral for a young person I’d ever attended was, I think, Wendell Taylor’s. Wendell was a big, lovable bear who played bass for Save the Whales, a local band that made it pretty good and had begun to tour around New England.

Two Thanksgivings ago, Wendell was driving back from a benefit show in Providence. When he fell asleep at the wheel, he was six miles from his bed, and the telephone pole he hit was the only unmovable object for two hundred yards in either direction. It took the EMS ninety minutes to cut him out of his van.

That Wendell was such a decent guy and was so thrilled to actually be making a living from his music made the whole thing incredibly sad. Yet somehow his funeral, full of funny and teary testimonials from friends from as far back as kindergarten, made people feel better.

The funeral for Rochie, Feifer, and Walco, which takes place in a squat stone church just east of town, doesn’t do anyone a lick of good.

Instead of cathartic tears, there’s clenched rage, a lot of it directed at the conspicuously absent owner of the house where the murders took place. To the thousand or so stuffed into that church Sunday morning, Walco and Feif and Rochie died for some movie star’s vanity.

I know it’s not quite that simple. From what I hear, Feif, Walco, and Rochie hung out at the court all summer and enjoyed the scene as much as anyone. Still, it would have been nice of Smitty Wilson to show up and pay his respects, don’t ya think?

There is one cathartic moment this morning, but it’s an ugly one. Before the service begins, Walco’s younger brother spots a photographer across the street. Turns out that the Daily News is less cynical about Mr. Wilson than we are. They think there’s enough of a chance of him showing up to send a guy with a telephoto lens.

Walco’s brother and his pals trash his camera pretty bad, and it would have been a lot worse if the police weren’t there.

That scene, I come to think later on, that violent altercation, was what some people might call an omen.

Chapter 17. Kate

IT JUST KEPT getting worse and worse the day of the funerals.

I don’t belong here anymore, I think to myself, and I want to run out of the Walcos’ house, but I’m not brave enough.

The line of neighbors waiting to offer their condolences to Mary and Richard Walco starts in the dining room in front of the breakfront, snakes along three living room walls, then runs past the front door and most of the way down the bedroom hallway. Clutching Mary Catherine’s tiny hand for dear life, I thread my way through the heavy-hearted gathering as if the carpet were strewn with mines and make my way to the end of the line.

All morning I’ve clung to my niece like a life preserver.

But MC, who thank goodness knows nothing of human misery, has no intention of staying put and breaks out of my grip and zigzags blithely around the room. She finally gloms on to her mom.

When MC scampers off, all the gloom of this dreadful day floods into the space she’s left behind.

I steady myself against one yellow-wallpapered wall and wait my turn, trying to will myself into invisibility. It’s not a skill I’ve mastered over the years. Then there’s an alarming tap on my shoulder.

I turn. It’s Tom.

And as soon as I see him, I realize he is the land mine I was hoping Mary Catherine would protect me from.

Before I can say a word, he moves in for a tentative hug that I don’t reciprocate. “It’s awful, Kate,” he mumbles. He looks awful too, as if he hasn’t slept in about ten days.

“Terrible” is what I manage to say. No more than that. Tom doesn’t deserve more. Ten years ago he broke my heart, blew it apart, and didn’t even seem to care that much. I’d heard the rumor that he was running around on me and partying hard. I hadn’t believed the rumor. But in the end I sure did.

“It’s still good to see you, Kate.”

“Spare me, Tom.”

I see the hurt in his face and now I feel bad. Mary, mother of God! What is it with me? After five years together, he breaks up with me ON THE PHONE, and now I feel bad.

The whole thing has me so contorted, I want to run out into the street and scream like a crazy person.

But of course I don’t. Not good girl Kate Costello. I stand there with a dim-witted little smile plastered on my face, as if we have been enjoying innocuous pleasantries, and finally, he turns away.

Then I take a deep breath, give myself a stern talking-to about the need to get over myself, and wait my turn to offer some consoling words to the thousand-times-more-wretched Mary Walco.

One strange and disturbing thing: I hear virtually the same line half a dozen times while I’m standing there waiting to see Mary-Somebody’s got to get those bastards for this.

Chapter 18. Kate

I OFFER WALCO’S mom the little that I can, and then I cast about the room for a red-haired toddler in a black velvet dress.

I see MC in the corner, still with her mom, and then spot my precious pal Macklin Mullen and his handsome grandson Jack over by the makeshift bar. Jack, a lawyer like myself, wanders off as I approach. Okay, fine. I was going to congratulate him on getting married, but whatever.

Mack is sipping a whiskey and leaning heavily on a gnarled black-thorn shillelagh, but when we throw ourselves into each other’s arms, his embrace is as warm and vigorous as ever.

“I was fervently hoping that would never end, Katie,” he says when we finally release each other.

“For God’s sake, Macklin, cheer me up.”

“I was about to ask you to do the same thing, darling girl. Three boys dead-tragic, pointless, and mystifying. Where you been keeping yourself all this time? I know about your many accomplishments, of course, but I’ve been waiting to toast you in person. Actually, I’ve been waiting to get you drunk! Why in Christ have you been such a stranger?”

“The standard explanation includes long hours, parents in Sarasota, and brothers scattered with the wind. The pathetic truth, I’m afraid, is I didn’t want to run into Tom Dunleavy. Who, by the way, I just ran into.”

“The truth is always pathetic, isn’t it? That’s why I avoid it like the plague myself. In any case, now that you’ve gotten over the dreaded encounter with Dunleavy, why don’t you come out here and put the little shit out of business? Not that it would be much of an accomplishment. I hear he bills about a hundred hours a year.”

“Better yet, why don’t I just forgive him and move on? It’s been almost a decade.”

“Forgive? Move on? Kate Costello, have you forgotten that you’re Irish?”

“Macklin, you’ve made me laugh,” I say, and just then, none other than Mary Catherine wobbles across the room and flings herself at my legs.

“Drivel aside, Mack, this is the true problem for me and Montauk. Of my two favorite people, one is twenty months old, the other eighty-four.”

“But, Kate, we’re both just hitting our strides. This shillelagh nonsense is nothing but a corny piece of atmosphere.”

Chapter 19. Tom

THE NEXT DAY, to sweat out the funeral, I head to the beach, my four-legged personal trainer, Wingo, nipping at my heels. It’s the first Monday after Labor Day, the unofficial start of townie summer, and most of the insufferable New Yorkers are gone.

On a cool, brilliantly sunny day, the greatest stretch of beach in North America is empty.

Running on the damp, packed sand close to the water is no more difficult than running on the track behind the high school. To punish myself, though, I stay on the soft stuff that sucks at your feet with every step.

In five minutes, everything that’s attached to me hurts-legs, lungs, back, head-so I pick up the pace.

In another five minutes, I can smell the whiskey from last night as the sweat pours off my face. Five minutes after that, my hangover has nearly vanished.

Later that afternoon, Wingo and I are recovering from our midday workout, me on the couch and Wingo asleep at my feet, when a knock on the front door rouses us. It’s about four, still plenty of light outside, and a black sedan is parked on the gravel driveway.

At the door is young master Van Buren, the detective who ran the show on the beach the other night.

Barely thirty, he made detective early this summer. Considering his age, it was quite a coup. He leapfrogged half a dozen pretty decent cops with more seniority, including Belnap, and it didn’t win him any friends in the station house. So guess what Barney’s nickname is?

“Tom, I don’t need to tell you why I’m here,” he says.

“I’m surprised it took this long.”

Still dehydrated from my run, I grab a beer and offer him something, just to hear him say no.

“Why don’t we sit outside while we still can,” I say, and then because of the force with which he rejected my first offer, or because I’m acting like a prick for no good reason, I repeat it. “Sure I can’t get you that beer? It’s almost five.”

Van Buren ignores me and takes out a brand-new orange notebook he must have just bought for the occasion at the stationery store in Montauk.

“Tom, people say you did a good job getting that kid to put down his gun the other day. What confuses me is why you didn’t call the police.”

I can tell Van Buren doesn’t expect an answer. He’s simply letting me know that he can be a prick too.

“Obviously, I should have, but I could tell the kid had no intention of using it.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“I was closer. Believe me, he was more scared than Feif.”

“You know what kind of gun it was?”

“I don’t know guns, Barney.”

“Can you describe it?”

“I barely looked at it. In fact, I made it a point not to. I tried to pretend that me and Walker were just two people having a conversation. Ignoring the gun made that a lot easier.”

“You know any reason Michael Walker or Dante Halleyville might want to kill Feifer, Walco, or Roche?”

“No. There isn’t any.”

“Why’s that, Tom?”

“They barely knew each other.”

The young detective pursed his lips and shook his head. “No one’s seen them since the murder.”

“Really.”

“Plus, we got reason to think Dante and Walker were at the scene that night.”

I start shaking my head a little at the news. “That makes no sense. There’s no way they’d go back there after what happened that afternoon.”

“Not if they were smart,” says Van Buren. “But, Tom, these boys weren’t smart. They could be killers.”

Chapter 20. Tom

WOW! HALF AN hour after Barney Fife Van Buren leaves with his little orange notebook in hand, Wingo sounds the alarm again. More company.

When I look through the front-door window, all I see is torso, which means it’s Clarence, and that’s not good news either.

Clarence, who drives a cab in town and does some college scouting, has been a close friend since he steered me to St. John’s fifteen years ago. Because there’s as much downtime for a Hampton cabbie as for a Montauk lawyer, he comes by my office two or three times a week. The six-foot-six Clarence is also Dante’s cousin, and I know from his worried expression that’s why he’s here. This cannot be good.

“I just got a call from him,” says Clarence. “Boy is scared out of his mind. Thinks they’re going to kill him.”

“Who? Who’s going to kill him?”

“He’s not sure.”

I pull two beers out of the fridge and Clarence takes one.

“Where the hell is he? Van Buren just left here. He says Dante and Walker bolted. It looks bad.”

“I know it does, Tom.”

With the sun on the way down, we sit at the counter in the kitchen.

“Van Buren also implied that Dante and Walker were at the murder scene that night.”

“They got a witness?” asks Clarence.

“I can’t tell. He was being cute about it. Why the hell would Dante and Walker be going back there after what happened?”

“Dante says he can explain everything. But right now we got to get him to turn himself in. That’s why I’m here. He respects you, Tom. You talk to him, he’ll listen.”

Clarence stares at me. “Tom, please? I’ve never once asked you for a favor.”

“He tell you where they are?”

Clarence shook his head and looked hurt. “Wouldn’t even give me a number.”

I spread my hands wide. “What do you want to do, Clarence? Wait here and hope he calls again?”

“He says we should talk to his grandma. Dante says if Marie says it’s cool, he’ll give us a call.”

Chapter 21. Tom

I CAN FEEL right then and there that this is going real bad in a big hurry, and I should not be involved. But I go with Clarence anyway.

We climb into his big yellow Buick station wagon and head west through Amagansett and East Hampton, and just before the start of Bridgehampton’s two-block downtown, we turn right at the monument and go north on 114.

Stay on it long enough, the road leads to Sag Harbor, but along the way is the one enduring pocket of poverty left in the Hamptons. It’s called Kings Highway but is often referred to as Black Hampton. One minute you’re passing multimillion-dollar estates, the next minute shotgun shacks and trailer homes, old rotting cars on blocks like in the Ozarks or Appalachia.

Dante and his grandmother live off the dirt road leading to the town dump, and when we pull up to her trailer, the woman who comes to the door has Dante’s cheekbones and lively brown eyes but none of his height. In fact, she’s as compact and round as Dante is long and lean.

“Don’t stand out there in the cold,” says Marie.

The sitting room in the trailer is dark and a little grim. The only light comes from a single low-watt table lamp, and the desperation in the close air is a palpable thing. It’s hard to imagine that both she and Dante can live in here together.

“We’re here to help,” says Clarence, “and the first step is getting Dante to turn himself in.”

“You’re here to help? How is that? Dante and Michael had nothing to do with these crimes,” says Marie. “NOTHING! Dante is very aware of the chance he has been given, and earned, and what that could mean.”

“I know that,” says Clarence, heartbreak in his voice too. “But the police don’t. The longer he stays out, the worse it looks for him.”

“My grandson could have entered the NBA draft,” says Marie as if she hasn’t heard a word Clarence said. “This home was filled with vultures waving cars and money under his nose, and Dante turned them all down. Dante told me that when he does go pro, he wants to buy me a new house and a new car. I asked him, What’s wrong with this house? What’s wrong with my car? I don’t need those things.”

Marie fixes us with a hard stare. Her tiny place is immaculate, and you can see the defiant effort to create a semblance of middle-class stability. Barely visible on the wall directly behind Marie is a formal photograph of Dante, his older brother, and his parents all dressed up outside the Baptist Memorial Church in Riverhead. In the picture, Dante looks about ten, and I know from Clarence that soon after that picture was taken, Dante’s father was stabbed to death on the street and his mother went to jail for the first time. I also know that his brother, who many thought was almost as good a pro prospect as Dante, is serving a two-year sentence in a corrections center upstate.

“Marie,” says Clarence, “you got to get Dante to give Tom a call. Tom used to be a heck of a ballplayer. Now he’s a heck of a lawyer. But he can’t help Dante if Dante won’t let him.”

Marie stares at me, her face not revealing a thing. “This neighborhood is full of folks who used to be great ballplayers,” she says.

Chapter 22. Loco

ON A SLEEPY midweek afternoon in the teeming metropolis that is downtown Montauk, Hugo Lindgren sits at the counter of John’s Pancake House, killing time like only a cop can, turning a free cup of coffee into a two-hour paid vacation.

Since Lindgren’s all alone at the counter-the only “customer” in the whole place, in fact-I do the sociable thing and take the stool beside him. Now, how many other drug dealers would make a gesture like that?

“Loco,” he mutters.

As I sit, luminously green-eyed Erin Case comes over bearing a nearly empty pot of coffee.

“Good afternoon, darlin’,” says Erin in her still-strong Ulster brogue. “What can I get you?”

“I’d love a double-vanilla latte decaf, if it’s not any trouble.”

“No trouble at all, darlin’. Got it right here,” says Erin, filling my mug with the dregs of the pot in her right hand. “You said double-vanilla latte decaf, right?”

“Must be my lucky day.”

“Every day’s your lucky day, darlin’!”

Pancake John is getting ready to close up shop and flip the sign, so when Erin excuses herself to wipe the maple syrup off the red Naugahyde booths, me and Lindgren shyly return to our so-called coffee. And when Erin stoops under a table to pick up a fallen menu, I slide him my Newsday.

“John Paul Newport’s column on Hillary,” I say. “It’s hilarious. Kind of thing your lieutenant might get a hoot out of too.”

“Thanks, pal,” says Lindgren.

He cracks the editorial section just enough to see two fat envelopes, then slides over his New York Post.

“Crossword’s a bear today,” he says, “but maybe you’ll have better luck with it than I did.”

“Coffee’s on me, Hugo,” I say, dropping five dollars on the counter as I head to the door.

I don’t open my Post until I’m safely back in the Big Black Beast stationed in the middle of the empty parking lot.

Then I read the note from Lindgren.

Apparently some sharp-eyed civilian called in a tip to the cops this morning about a wanted fugitive looking a lot like Michael Walker. The suspect was leaving a Brooklyn gym last night, and the name of the establishment now fills the twenty-two letters set aside for nine across. And when I glance at the backseat, I see Hugo has also left me a little party favor-a brand-new, bright-red Miami Heat basketball cap.

I may have been underestimating Lindgren all these years. I know it’s only the Post and not the London Times, but who would have thought that a corrupt, degenerate excuse for a police officer had the balls or vocabulary to do the crossword in ink?

Chapter 23. Loco

ON ACCOUNT OF the fact that I’m a whole lot brighter and craftier than I look, locating the Bed-Stuy Community Center is a piece of cake. The tricky part is finding a place to park where the Big Black Beast doesn’t draw too much attention to itself and I still have a halfway decent view of both entrances. This, after all, is a stakeout. Just not by the cops.

After circling the block a couple times, I double-park half a dozen spaces past the community center. That’s right across the street from Carmine’s Pizzeria, so it looks as if I’m just sitting there enjoying my Pepsi and slice like any other self-respecting neighborhood goombah.

I thought these boxing clubs were extinct, something out of a black-and-white Cagney flick. These days, tough kids don’t scrap. They strap. So mastering the sweet science is only going to get you killed.

But maybe I’m wrong, because the place looks all renovated and spiffy, and folks are going in and out at a pretty good clip. Most of ’em have a strut too.

If nothing else, banging on a heavy bag has got to be good stress management. And right now our man Michael Walker has got to be seriously stressing, what with an APB out for him in fifteen states and an outstanding warrant for triple homicide.

While Walker works out, I blacken the end of the Graycliff Robusto I bought at the Tinder Box in East Hampton. And it looks like I picked it well. It’s nice and soft, and lights like a dream.

The bad news is that I’m exactly three puffs into my delightful cigar when Walker slides out the back door in a gray hooded sweatshirt, a big gym bag slung over his bony shoulder.

Now I’m fucked. If I put it out and relight it, the Graycliff will never taste the same. If I take it with me, it’s hardly going to be the relaxing experience I had in mind when I dropped fifteen dollars on it.

So making the kind of difficult executive decision that earns me the big bucks, I open the sunroof and place the cigar gently in the ashtray. Then I follow Walker north toward Fulton Street.

Staying half a block back, I see him take a quick left. Just as I round the corner, he looks both ways and ducks into a six-floor tenement about halfway down the block. Two minutes later, the lights go on and the shades come down on the corner apartment four flights up.

Gotcha!

I’ve caught the fugitive.

Chapter 24. Loco

AND GIVE THAT lucky man a cigar!

I get back to the Big Black Beast, and everything, including my slowly burning Graycliff, is just like I left it. Seeing as we’re in Crooklyn, I pop in an old-school Eric B and Rakim CD and head for the Williamsburg Bridge.

At 8:00 p.m. the Manhattan-bound lanes are flowing, and twenty minutes later, as my cigar burns down to the finish, I’m in Chinatown, Jake. Killing time.

It’s a way different world down here, lots of tiny people scurrying over the packed sidewalks with feverish energy, and it never fails to get me jazzed. Makes me think of Saigon , Apocalypse Now, and The Deer Hunter.

I luck into a parking spot big enough for the Beast, a miracle down here, and wander around for a while until I find a familiar place, where I wash down a couple plates of sweet, soggy dim sum with a couple of sweet, soggy beers.

After dinner for one, I walk around some more, killing time, then drive to even darker, quieter Tribeca.

I park on Franklin, climb into the back, and stretch out on my foam mattresses.

With my blacked-out windows cracked for ventilation, sleeping conditions are pretty damn good, and the next time I open my eyes it’s 3:30 a.m. and I have that pounding in my chest you get when your alarm rips you out of sleep in the middle of the night. I rub the gunk out of my eyes, and when the street comes back into focus, I see that the shadows fluttering over the cobblestones are rats. Is that what Frank meant about waking up in a city that never sleeps?

Without stopping for coffee, I head back to Bed-Stuy, and half an hour after my alarm went off, I pick the lock in the vestibule of Michael Walker’s building. Then I climb the stairs two, three at a time to the fugitive’s roof.

It’s cool and quiet up here, and at this hour Bed-Stuy looks peaceful as Bethlehem on a starry night, even beautiful.

When a lone nocturnal civilian finally turns the corner, I climb down the fire escape to Walker ’s kitchen.

I need a break here and I get it. The window is half open, and I don’t have to break it to slip inside. There’s plenty of light to screw the silencer to the end of my Beretta Cougar, which is a beauty, by the way.

Like I been saying: killing time.

A sleeping person is so unbelievably vulnerable it almost feels wrong to stare at him. Michael Walker looks about twelve years old, and for a second I think back to what I was like when I was young and innocent. Wasn’t that long ago, either.

I cough gently.

Walker stirs, and then his dark eyes blink open. “What the -”

“Good morning, Michael,” I say.

But the bullet flying then bulldozing into the back of his brain is more like good night.

And I guarantee, Walker had no idea what just happened, or why.

I don’t need to tell you there’s nothing but crap on TV at this hour. I settle on a Saturday Night Live rerun with Rob Lowe as guest host, and he performs his monologue as I carefully wrap Walker ’s cool fingers around the handle of my gun. Then I slip it into a sealed plastic bag.

After I find Walker ’s piece in the corner of his closet, the only thing left to do here is drop off Officer Lindgren’s gift-the red Miami Heat cap-on the kitchen floor before I step back out onto the fire escape.

Sunrise is still an hour away when I lower my window on the Brooklyn Bridge and toss Walker ’s one-hundred-dollar pistola into the East River.

I sing that real nice Norah Jones song “ Sunrise ” most of the way home. Kind of sad what happened to Walker, but actually I don’t feel a thing. Nada.

Chapter 25. Tom

EVENTUALLY, I WILL think of this downtime with affection, call it the calm before the shitstorm.

At work the next day, in my office, I wad up a sheet of printing paper, lean back in my desk chair ($59), and let fly. The paper ball bounces off the slanting dormer ceiling of my second-floor attic office ($650 a month), glances off the side of a beige metal filing cabinet ($39), bounces on the end of my worktable ($109), and drops softly into the white plastic wastebasket ($6).

The tasteful furnishings are all from IKEA, and the successful shot-nothing but wastebasket-is my eleventh in a row.

To give you a sense of the breakneck pace of my legal career, that’s not even close to a personal best. I have reached the high fifties on multiple occasions, and one lively afternoon, when I was really feeling it, I canned eighty-seven triple-bankers in a row, a record I suspect will last as long as man has paper and too much time on his hands.

After two years as the sole owner and employee of Tom Dunleavy, Esquire, Inc., headquartered in a charming wooden house directly above Montauk Books, my paper-tossing skills are definitely world-class. But I know it’s a sorry state of affairs for an educated, able-bodied thirty-two-year-old, and after visiting Dante’s grandmother Marie, and realizing what she’s going through, it feels even lamer than it did twenty-four hours ago.

It could be my imagination, but even Wingo stares at me with disappointment. “C’mon, Wingoman, cut me a little slack. Be a pal,” I tell him, but to no avail.

Marie is still on my mind when the phone shatters the doldrums. To maintain a little dignity, I let it ring twice.

It is not Dante.

No, it’s Peter Lampke, an old friend. He’s just accepted an offer on his Cape in Hither Hills and wants to know if I can handle the closing.

“I’m up to my eyeballs, Peter, but I’ll make time for a pal. I’ll call the broker right now and get her to send over the contracts. Congratulations.”

It may not be challenging work, but it’s at least two or three hours of bona fide billable, legal employment. I immediately call the broker, Phyllis Schessel, another old friend, leave her a message, and, with the rent paid for another couple of months, call it a day.

I don’t even attempt a twelfth shot, just leave the crumpled-up paper in the basket.

I’m halfway out the door, key in hand, when the phone rings again. I step back inside and answer.

“Tom,” says a deep voice at the other end of the line, “it’s Dante.”

Chapter 26. Tom

THREE HOURS LATER I’m in New York City, and I must admit, the whole thing feels surreal.

Two bolts turn over, a chain scrapes in its track, and Dante Halleyville’s frame fills door 3A at 26 Clinton Street. Dante hasn’t stepped out of the apartment in more than a week or opened a shade or cracked a window, and what’s left of the air inside smells of sweat and fear and greasy Chinese food.

“I’m starving” are the first words out of his mouth. “Three days ago a delivery guy looked at me funny, and I’ve been afraid to order anything since. Plus I’m down to twelve dollars.”

“Good thing we stopped on the way,” I say, pulling the first of three large pizza boxes out of a bag and placing it in front of Dante.

He sits down with Clarence on a low vintage couch, a forty-year-old picture of Mick Jagger looking back at me over their shoulders. I’m not saying I approve of Dante’s decision to bolt, but an old immigrant neighborhood filled with young white bohemians, half of whose rent is paid by their parents, is not the first place the police are going to look for a black teenager on the run. The apartment belongs to the older sister of a kid Dante met this summer at the Nike camp.

Dante wolfs down a slice of pie, stopping only long enough to say, “Me and Michael were there that night. I mean, we were right there,” he says, taking another bite and a long drink from his Coke. “Ten yards away. Maybe less than that. Hard to talk about it.”

“What are you saying, Dante? You saw Feifer, Walco, and Rochie get shot? Are you telling me you’re a witness?”

Dante stops eating and stares into my eyes. I can’t tell whether he’s angry or hurt. “Didn’t see it, no. Me and Michael were hiding in the bushes, but I heard it clear as I hear you now. First a voice saying, ‘Get on your knees, bitches,’ then another, Feifer maybe, asking, ‘What’s going on?’ Sort of friendly, like maybe this is all a joke. Then, when they realize it’s serious, all of them bawling and begging right up to the last gunshot. I’ll never forget it. The sound of them begging for their lives.”

“Dante, why’d you go back there that night?” I ask. “After what happened that afternoon? Makes no sense to me.” Or to the police, I don’t bother to add.

“Feifer asked us to come. Said it was important.”

This makes even less sense.

“Feifer? Why?”

“Feifer called us that afternoon. That’s why I recognized his voice over at the beach. Said he wants to put all this drama behind us, wants things to be cool. Michael didn’t want to go. I figured we should.”

“Michael still have his gun?” asks Clarence, and if he hadn’t I would have.

“Got rid of it. Said he sold it to his cousin in Brooklyn.”

“We got to get the gun back,” says Clarence. “But first you got to turn yourself in to the police. The longer you stay out, the worse this looks. You have to do this, Dante.”

“Clarence is right,” I say, and leave it at that. I know from Clarence that Dante has always looked up to me some. Dante doesn’t say anything for a couple of minutes, long minutes. I understand completely-he’s just been fed, and he’s free.

“Let’s do it tonight then,” Dante finally says. “But Tom’s coming with us, okay? I don’t want nothing outlandish happening when I show up at that police station.”

Chapter 27. Tom

ON THE RIDE back to Bridgehampton, I make one call, and it’s not to the cops to tell them we’re on our way. It’s to Len Levitt, an AP sports photographer I’ve known for years, and almost trust.

“Yeah, I know what time it is, Len. Now you want to find out why I woke you up or not?” When he hears me out, Levitt is thanking instead of cursing me.

As soon as we’re out of the city and through the Midtown Tunnel, Clarence shows us his big Buick can still move. We get to Marie’s place just before 3:00 a.m.

When we pull up, Marie is outside waiting. Her back is as straight as a board, and her game face is on. If people thought she’d been shattered by the events of the past week, they’re wrong.

She’s wearing her Sunday clothes and beside her is a big plastic bag filled with food she’s been cooking all night and stuffing into Tupperware containers just in case Dante has to spend the night in jail. Who knows how long she’s been standing there already, but it doesn’t matter because you know she’d stay there all night if she had to.

Then again, one look at her face and you know she’d march into hell for her grandson. Grandmothers are something.

But right now, more than anything else in this world, Marie is relieved to finally be able to lay her eyes and hands on Dante, and when she wraps her arms around his waist, the love in her eyes is as naked as it is ferocious. And then another surprise-Dante starts to cry in her arms.

“Don’t worry, Grandma, I’m going to be okay,” he says through his tears.

“You most certainly will be, Dante. You’re innocent.”