Hard Stop

FIVE

I CAUGHT UP TO SULLIVAN the next day at the boxing gym in Westhampton, as I often did in the late afternoon, both of us preferring to go there after work. He was riding the stationary bike, a towel around his neck and a scowl on his face.

“I’m still unhappy about cutting that stupe loose,” he said as I approached.

“I know. I appreciate it.”

“Ross never heard anything. I hope he never does.”

Ross Semple was the Chief of Southampton Town Police. Sullivan’s boss.

“He won’t from me,” I said.

“You’ll be thanking me the rest of your life for that one.”

“So then you won’t mind doing me another favor.”

His expression stayed the same, but he sped up his pace on the bike. “Funny.”

“I need to match a license plate with a name and address.”

He smiled.

“Sure. Do you want a surveillance crew to go with that?”

“That’s okay. I’ll handle that part.”

He took his feet off the pedals and the bike slowly spun to a stop.

“Explain.”

“I found Iku’s boyfriend hanging at a club last night. When I tried to talk to him he took off. But I got his plate number.”

I stopped him before he could say no.

“There’s no official police interest in this, I know,” I said. “But so far at least two people consider this woman missing. Her boss and her big-shot lover. These are not minor connections. What if the boyfriend’s in the same boat? She was last known to be in Southampton. That’s your interest, right?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“If I can’t do this through you I’ll have to go underground. Consort with dangerous scoundrels selling license plate identities out of storefronts in the Bronx.”

“I thought you were born in the Bronx.”

“Right. The attraction will be irresistible.”

He stuck out his hand.

“Gimme the number.”

I took it out of the waistband of my workout shorts.

“It was a Volvo. Four-door, black, fairly new. The guy’s name is Robert Dobson. Mid-thirties, maybe a little more. Five foot nine, maybe less. Light brown hair, might have a short beard. I’m pretty certain he’s out of the City, but might have an address here as well.”

He looked at the slip of paper as if he could pull the address out of his memory.

“Why’s that?”

“He’s here all the time. Even in the off-season. Iku was last known to be here. One and one is two.”

“Could still be a renter. Part of a group. Used to be a summer thing, now you see it year-round.”

“Good thought,” I said.

“You’ll have to talk to the realtors. But if it’s a private deal, there’s no records anywhere. You’d have to go door-to-door.”

“Let’s try the easy way first.”

“What ‘let’s’? This ain’t an ‘us’ thing. It’s a ‘you’ thing.”

“I know. Whatever you can get me on the plate is all I need. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

“Right.”

I spent the next hour doing all the clichéd things you do in a boxing gym—working the bags, jumping rope, lifting weights. I’d never seen the inside of a regular gym where regular people worked out, so I didn’t know what that was all about. Having been a fighter as a kid, I’d gotten used to a boxing gym’s sweet stink and blunt-force simplicity, its sense of purpose and undercurrent of latent threat. More motivational.

I had to stop sparring on doctor’s orders. That was fine with me. I never liked the actual fighting part of the sport. Way too easy to get hurt.

In further acknowledgement of time and the looming menace of infirmity, I’d almost quit smoking, and for the first time put a weekly budget on vodka consumption. I wasn’t entirely committed to the idea and the program was still in the experimental phase. But at least it kept at bay my daughter’s carping on the subject.

When I was back in my car I made a call on my cell phone, another concession to the inevitable. This was all Jackie’s fault. She’d lent me her phone once, and I liked it so much I didn’t want to give it back. I blamed her for the new addiction even as I delighted in calling people from the front seat of a ’67 Pontiac Grand Prix.

“House Hunters of the Hamptons,” said the sing-song female voice on the other end of the line. “You tag ’em, we bag ’em. This is Robin speaking, how can I help you?”

“I think the selling metaphor needs a little work.”

“Not if you ask my accountant.”

“This is Sam Acquillo.”

“Who else. Ready to cash in and move up?”

Robin and her partner Laura were old friends of Amanda’s from when she worked at the bank. They’d started their real estate business at the bottom of the market in the early nineties, starved for several years, and now lived in the kind of houses they once dreamed of listing with their agency. Yet success had done nothing to add polish to their operation.

“I’m looking for a guy.”

“Can’t help you there, Ace. Sales and rentals only. Does Amanda know this?”

“The guy’s a renter. Maybe. Though I guess he could be a buyer or an owner,” I said, realizing I’d assumed from his age that he couldn’t afford to buy in the Hamptons, which was ridiculous given the money often made by the callow youth of Wall Street.

“Why are you looking for him?”

“I’m actually looking for his girlfriend. It’s a long story.”

“Sounds it. What’s his name?”

“Robert Dobson.”

“I can check the computer.”

“While you’re at it, check for Iku Kinjo,” I said, spelling out the name.

“That I’d remember, but I’ll check.”

She put me on hold. I spent the time trying to stay on the road while catching occasional glances of the tiny screen on the phone, checking the connection. I was still getting used to the mystical vagaries of modern telecommunications.

“Nobody here by that name,” said Robin when she came back on the phone. “But I can ask around the other agencies.”

“You can? That’s great.”

“Sure. We talk all the time. It’s like one big happy back-scratching family. When we aren’t back-stabbing. Don’t tell the FTC I said that.”

When I hit the end button on the cell phone I noticed the message icon on the tiny screen. This was a regrettable consequence of owning the phone. I’d been able to resist an answering machine my whole life, now it just tagged along for the ride whether I liked it or not.

I struggled unhappily through the retrieval process. It was George Donovan.

“Hello, Sam. It’s George Donovan here. Just calling to confirm that I’ve spoken with counsel regarding the intellectual property settlement. I have full discretionary powers to negotiate a resolution of potential claims based on certain provisos being met. It’ll need both our signatures. I’ll await an update on your progress toward completion of the items we’ve discussed. Just a heads-up.”

I knew circumlocution was the language of commerce, but I never liked listening to it. At least this time there was a good reason for the gibberish. I saved the number he’d called from and tossed the phone on the front passenger seat, letting it cool down before the next irritating interruption.

When I got home I showered off the day of work at Frank’s giant rehab over on Halsey Neck and my subsequent workout at the gym. I was so eager to get under the hot water I forgot Eddie’s dinner. When I came out of the outdoor shower he bounced around my feet and ran toward the door to show me where it was, then ran back to make sure I understood simple instructions.

“So, I shouldn’t take a few hours to get back into the house like I usually do,” I said to him.

He ignored me and continued herding, tongue out and lavishly long tail aloft, waving in the air.

Still in my towel, I dumped food in his bowl and a pint of Absolut in my aluminum tumbler. Our rations for the night. Or at least that part of the night. I put on a clean T-shirt and jeans as I always did after a day of dusty carpentry. It meant an almost daily laundry run to the basement, but it was a habit I’d formed early on. A reaction, I think, to my old man’s disregard for the effect his greasy clothes had on the already agitated atmosphere of our household. He was a mechanic, and the caustic smell of refined petroleum still reminded me of emptiness and cruelty.

I was about to stroll over to Amanda’s when Honest Boy Ackerman’s SUV rumbled into my driveway. Eddie bounded up to greet him with his usual “Oh, boy, company!” élan. I bounded up, too. Less convivially.

I put both hands on the driver’s side door before Ackerman had a chance to open it.

“What’s up?” I asked, when he rolled down his window.

“New assignment.”

“I thought Joe Sullivan escorted you out of town.”

“That’s why I’m here,” said Ackerman. “I’m hoping you’ll call him off.”

“That’s not up to me. It was all I could do to get him to let you go.”

“I’m just trying to earn a living,” he said.

“It’s a big world. I’m sure George Donovan could send you somewhere else.”

“He did. Right out of my job.”

Amanda picked this moment to stroll across the stretch of lawn and over the tumbled-down flower beds that separated our properties. She wore a loose aquamarine dress and white sandals and carried an ice bucket stuffed with a bottle of white wine. I forced my attention back to Ackerman.

“Explain,” I said.

“Donovan fired me, but Marve Judson hired me back. As an independent contractor. All on the q.t. He was mightily pissed that Donovan left him out of the loop. You can’t do that to Judson. Can’t fuck with him like that. He’s gone batshit trying to figure out what Donovan’s up to.”

“Hello,” said Amanda, as she tossed a curious glance at Ackerman.

“I’d introduce you but he’s not going to be here long enough to make it worth the trouble.”

“Hey,” said Ackerman.

“Charming, isn’t he?” said Amanda.

“Like a root canal.”

I wanted to sock him in the mouth again to illustrate my approach to dental health, but instead took a deep, cleansing breath. I knew, despite myself, that Ackerman was a complication not easily done away with. Certainly not the way I’d like to.

“Say, Honest Boy,” I said. “You like red wine or white? Or would you rather have a cocktail?”

Ackerman just sat there and looked at me, hunkered into his surly defensiveness. For good reason. I tried again.

“Or a beer? I’ve got some fancy microbrews in the basement.”

“Beer’s okay,” he said tentatively.

Amanda gently moved my hands off the truck’s door and opened it up.

“Come along, sir,” she said. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

“One beating’s the limit here on Oak Point,” I said, taking him by the arm and starting him off toward the bay. “If you survive, you’re invited to join in native rituals. Starting with carrying the ice bucket.”

I took it out from under Amanda’s arm and passed it to him. She took his other arm and escorted him out to the Adirondack chairs that I keep at the edge of the breakwater above the pebble beach. Eddie followed, sniffing at his heels, still entranced by the novelty of a fresh visitor. I stopped at the cottage to grab my tumbler out of the kitchen and a six-pack from the fridge in the basement—the pricey stuff from Burton’s private stash.

I dragged another Adirondack to the edge of the breakwater so we’d all have a seat and a nice view of the Little Peconic Bay, now turning a blue-tinted dark grey, like the gunmetal of Ackerman’s forfeited automatic.

“Mr. Ackerman has been sharing his point of view,” said Amanda as I sat in my chair. “He said it was a misunderstanding.”

“More than one. But who’s counting.”

I handed him the beers. He looked grateful.

“Okay, Honest Boy,” I said, “let’s start from the top.”

He said as soon as Sullivan cut him loose he headed back to his office in White Plains. Donovan had given him voicemail service so he could leave him messages, but it was discontinued. That was the first hint something was amiss. At the office was the second—a pair of security guards waiting for him with his belongings already packed in boxes and stacked on a handcart. He said he just turned on his heel without a word and led them to his SUV. Then he did more or less the same thing I did when faced with similar circumstances: he killed a fifth of bourbon.

Despite the resulting hangover he got up early enough the next day to interrupt Marve Judson’s morning jog along the wooded lanes of Pound Ridge.

He’d guessed right. Marve knew nothing of the termination. And nothing about the special project that preceded it. Ackerman was pleased at how interested Marve was in his story, which he told in detail as they sat next to the swimming pool drinking coffee served by Marve’s wife.

While they were still by the pool Marve called a contact he had with an outside investigation firm and asked them to take on Ackerman as a freelance operative and bill back his fee under the firm’s name. Ackerman got the feeling the guy on the other end of the line was a good friend of Marve’s, and it wasn’t the first time there’d been such an arrangement.

Marve told Ackerman that his responsibility was to Con Globe’s Board of Directors, and not to any one board member, even the chairman. That was the kind of thing Marve would say, having a decided bent toward the bombastic and self-righteous. I felt like telling Honest Boy that Marve’s dearest responsibility was always to the personal agenda of Marve Judson, but that would have served little purpose.

“So Judson told you to come back out here and talk to me?” I asked.

“Basically.”

“You’re wasting your time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what’s going on any more than you do.”

Ackerman shook his head.

“With all due respect Sam, that’s kind of a crock. People still talk about your flame-out at Con Globe and all the wild shit you got into after that. You had that towheaded Captain America imprison me on a freaking boat overnight, and then cut me loose without hardly a fare-thee-well. I don’t need security training to know that wasn’t just fun and games. As fun as it was.”

Amanda had been following the conversation intently. She looked at me after Ackerman’s last comment as if to say he’s got you there.

“How’s the beer?” I asked.

“It’s very good,” said Ackerman, graciously.

“About that flame-out, as you call it.”

He gave sort of a sympathetic smirk.

“Yeah?”

“The severance agreement dictated that I cut all contact with Con Globe employees, in particular those in middle or senior management, forever. Even the slightest violation of that provision would be very bad for me.”

“Me breaking into your house wasn’t your doing,” said Ackerman. “They can’t hold that against you.”

“Oh, yes they can. Even if I’m in the right, the legal fight alone would ruin me.”

“And we know Sam hates a fight,” said Amanda.

“Could’ve fooled me,” said Ackerman.

“So after a long talk with a lawyer friend of mine, I decided to just let it go. Discretion being the better part of valor.”

“I never understood what that meant,” said Ackerman, “but I get the idea. And it’s still a crock. I don’t know what sort of vegetable wagon you think I just fell off of.”

“Turnip is the standard, I think,” said Amanda.

“Anyway, that’s my story for Marve Judson,” I said. “Too bad if he doesn’t like it.”

Ackerman looked unhappy.

“Man, you don’t make anything easy.”

“I think some truffle pâté and a wedge of Fromage d’Affinois would be just the thing right now,” said Amanda, standing abruptly and striding off toward her house. We watched her in silence, all the way to her front door.

“Nice set of legs on that one,” he said.

“Don’t tell her that. Only go to her head.”

“Better to keep ’em in the dark.”

“Same goes for you. And Marve Judson,” I said.

“So there is a real story,” said Ackerman. “You know it, but you’ll never give it up.”

“Maybe you could beat it out of me.”

“They didn’t tell me you were an ex-fighter. I’da been more careful.”

“So now who’s in the dark?”

“The little guy, Acquillo. Always the little guy.”

I turned my attention back to the Little Peconic Bay. The sky by now had gone a garish crimson and gold, drawn in a swirl pattern atop the western horizon. It felt like fall had already taken hold in this second week of September, the air cool and dry, the fading sunlight having shed the soft summer glow. Every season in the Hamptons had its claim on the heart, but I prized autumn most of all.

Eddie smelled the cheese a hundred yards away and ran over to guide Amanda back to the Adirondacks. As a reward, he got the first wad of the soft cheese, slathered on a slice of pâté. The rest of us got ours in due course. I didn’t want to give any more information to Ackerman, and luckily he didn’t press it. Instead he set himself to finishing off the six-pack of Burton’s expensive beer and Amanda’s hors d’oeuvres. Then he padded back to his hulking SUV and disappeared into the night.

“I’m not sure what that was all about,” said Amanda when he was securely out of earshot.

“Complexity theory,” I said.

“Of course.”

“The rapid compounding of variables that causes an orderly system to be suddenly and irrepressibly propelled into chaos.”

“In other words, you need to find that girl in a hurry.”

“You bet,” I said.

“So what’re you going to do?”

“Have another half a tumbler of vodka. Which means only half a tumbler tomorrow, unless I want to skip it entirely the day after.”

“Or simply adjust the budget parameters,” she said.

“Spoken like a banker.”

“Not a banker by choice. I aspired to greater things.”

“I forgot. You were a science major.”

“Biology. I would have thought that was obvious.”

“Mostly the flair for anatomy.”

“Let’s see if you can hold that thought through the next round,” she said, scooping up my tumbler and her empty wine bottle to take back to my cottage for reprovisioning.

Not a problem, I thought as I craned my neck to watch her move across the lawn again. That’s when an association that should have been obvious leaped to my mind. From behind, Amanda looked a lot like Iku Kinjo. Tall and slender. Moved with the kind of feminine roll of the hips that could distract a stadium full of heterosexuals. Iku’s skin tone was darker and redder than most Japanese, though her features were emphatically Asian. Including the coal black eyes that signaled a readiness to either accept your abject submission or rend your flesh into bloody ribbons.

This is where my mind was wandering. She didn’t fit with George Donovan. Unless you invoke the canard that opposites attract. Lord knows my skills in the mysteries of love and attraction were pathetically inept, but it just didn’t feel right. Iku was a shooting star. Brilliant and incandescent. Lit up the sky wherever she went. Young and self-assured, she didn’t need Donovan. If anything, he needed her. As a sign of his progressive business acumen, his drive to introduce modern strategies to a mature industrial company like Consolidated Global Energies.

When Amanda showed up again I asked her opinion.

“Why would a beautiful and accomplished young superstar like Iku Kinjo want to roll around naked in bed with a shallow, albeit wily, old stuffed shirt like George Donovan?”

“Girls do dumb things sometimes,” she said without hesitation, settling herself back into her Adirondack, passing me my tumbler on the way down.

“Okay.”

“Or she didn’t do it. He just says she did.”

She raised her wine glass so I could clink it with my tumbler. She didn’t look nearly as self-satisfied as she deserved to look.

“From now on you approve every assumption I make about precocious young women. You’re obviously knowledgeable on the subject.”

“I was never precocious and I’m no longer young. But all women are capable of sexual conduct that can surprise them as much as anyone else. By the same token, all women are prey to false accusation prompted by male fantasy.”

“You learn that in biology?”

“At the disco. New York City. Circa 1987.”

“Both possibilities provide a motive for her to go to ground,” I said. “Which gets me no closer to finding her.”

“Don’t be so sure about that.”

She studied the inside of her glass, swirling the wine around until it was perilously close to cresting over the lip.

“The bad thing that caused her to run could have been something entirely different,” she said, finally.

“You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Do you think Donovan was surprised by her disappearance?”

“Definitely. He was completely caught off-guard. That partly explains the reckless way he’s been handling things. Taking big risks. Panic mode.”

“Alerting Marve Judson,” she said.

“Yeah. You can’t work around a reptile like that. He can sense perfidy through the soles of his feet.”

“What do you think Judson will do?” she asked.

“Get ready to meet him. He’ll be here within a week.”

“You think so?”

“I know him. It’s a sure thing.”

“I’ll pick out an outfit.”

“Think Kevlar.”

She went back to examining her wine glass. I focused on the Little Peconic. There were two or three sails still visible in the fading light, stark white against the distant shore of the North Fork, heeled over against the westerly funneling through the channels above and below Robins Island. I’d been watching sailboats crisscross the little bay outside my front door my whole life, and only now was I beginning to think about being on one of them. I’d sailed since the birth of memory, on Sunfish and homemade dories and then bigger sloops belonging to friends around town, and ultimately crewed on stately racing yachts for the vapid sops Abby cultivated up in Marblehead. But it wasn’t competition I had in mind. Quite the contrary. I imagined ghosting into the outer waters on a lazy southwesterly and anchoring within the embrace of a sheltered harbor, to watch the show in the sky and listen to the splash and flutter of water birds and the ring of hasps against a metal mast.

It wasn’t exactly the male fantasy Amanda referred to, but it served to transport my mind through the balance of the evening, allowing me to postpone another confrontation with uncontrollable forces set loose on the world by the usual concoction of ardor, cupidity, ego and fear.