Head Wounds

FIFTEEN

THE MORNING AFTER my consultation with Markham Fairchild I woke to a slightly chilled, smooth-skinned naked body sliding under the covers of the daybed where I slept on the screened-in porch. Before I fully reached consciousness, or even opened my eyes, all sorts of pleasant things occurred.

“That was your wake-up call,” Amanda whispered, her lips brushing my left ear.

I held her and burrowed deeper into the covers. I’d taken off the storm windows, perhaps prematurely, since you could see your breath if you were brave enough to look.

“What happens if I reset the alarm?”

“We send in Helga with a bullhorn and riding crop. Not nearly so agreeable.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“In the kitchen there’s espresso to be made and eggs to scramble. Ham to fry and dogs to greet.”

“Dogs?”

“Okay, one dog. Multiple personalities.”

“You have no idea.”

While Amanda worked up breakfast, I took a shower in the outdoor stall. All frigid and steamy glory, no vertigo or weird little clicks. The morning light was pale, but deepening with the season.

When I got back to the porch, in clean blue jeans, work shirt and threadbare wool sweater, Amanda had a fire going in the woodstove and mounds of steaming delectables arrayed on the pine table. She wore one of my flannel work shirts, which must have been warm enough since that was all she had on.

“Before you thank me,” she said, using her fingers to explore the back of my head, “which I flatter myself to think you’d do, I need to ask you a favor.”

“I’m not sure I can take another quid pro quo.”

“More like tit for tat.”

“Fair enough.”

“I’m meeting with the DEC today. I’m feeling out of my depth,” she said, rocking me back and forth.

“Okay.”

“But I need the reasonable Sam. The engineer. I want the prizefighter to stay home.”

“With Eddie. The other schizoid in the house.”

“That’s right,” she said. “I need your brain.”

“The reliability of which is up for debate.”

“I don’t care. I’ll take it as it is.”

“Your money.”

——

The meeting was held in a tiny claustrophobic conference room on the ground floor of Southampton Town Hall. The two DEC guys who sat at the end of the table were wearing light-blue polyester shirts and sporting oily complexions and do-it-yourself haircuts. They both had stacks of paper pouring from manila folders in the style of Jackie Swaitkowski and an assortment of hand-held electronic devices, the purposes of which were as obscure to me as the monuments of Stonehenge.

Amanda had a file of her own, stuffed with site drawings, correspondence and official approvals to move forward with construction. I had a ballpoint pen, a pad of paper and the determination to get out of there without a lawsuit or related catastrophe.

When we walked in the door the DEC guys fumbled awkwardly to their feet and offered to shake hands.

The older one, Dan, had convinced himself that a goatee would make him look youthful. It was mostly gray, like his hair, though the part that would have been a moustache created a muddy brown outline around his mouth. He bought his glasses from the same catalog as Ross Semple. He was taller than the other guy, and only slightly paunchy, where the other guy was unambiguously fat. His name was Ned. His hair was still its original color, and looking at his boss every day had probably spared him from a goatee. His features were inversely proportionate to his girth. Tiny nose, mouth and close-set eyes clustered in the middle of his fleshy face. He wore a permanent expression of curiosity and expectation reinforced by the way the whites of his eyes encircled his pupils.

“I’m Amanda Anselma. This is Sam Acquillo. He’s the engineering consultant on the project,” she said as she dropped her leather briefcase on the table with a commanding thud.

Dan dropped back into his chair as Ned offered us coffee. This left Dan alone with us in a dead silence that Amanda allowed to hang until Ned came back in the room.

“Beautiful town, Southampton,” said Dan, as Ned handed out the coffees. “This is our favorite duty, right Ned?”

“Only way we can afford to stay around here,” said Ned with a misplaced claim on our empathy.

“My mother was supposed to inherit her uncle’s place in Montauk,” said Dan, “but he surprised everybody by giving it to the Catholic church and moving to Florida. Then my mother died and where does that leave me?”

“Staying with me in a motel on Montauk Highway,” said Ned.

“Not the same room,” Dan made clear. “So,” said Amanda, calmly, “what can we do to resolve this?”

The two of them straightened up in their chairs.

“Right,” said Dan. “Let me introduce ourselves. Ned and I are the field investigators for DEC Region One.”

“Nine regions. Figures the Hamptons would be in number one,” said Ned.

“Regional offices dispense service licenses, enforce regulations, monitor local conditions, but policy directives come out of Albany. We’re the feet on the ground.”

“My certification from Albany says I’ve passed the required phase-one environmental impact study,” said Amanda. “No one said it could be arbitrarily revoked.”

Dan anchored his elbow on the table and pointed at her.

“Suspended, ma’am. Important distinction.”

“Arbitrarily suspended. And you can call me Amanda. Dan.”

“I can understand your concern, Amanda, but this action has been executed through full due process.”

I suddenly regretted not having Jackie Swaitkowski along. This was her home turf. Murder trials were just a fun hobby. Burton Lewis had guided Amanda through her father’s estate settlement, but even he would have deferred to Jackie on matters of local real estate. But that was an impossibility. Amanda never spoke ill of Jackie for defending Roy Battiston, but there was a bigger problem—Jackie was still his lawyer, an insurmountable conflict of interest.

“What due process?” Amanda asked. “All I received was notice of the suspension.”

“Right,” said Dan, “here’s the way it works. In order for the DEC to overrule certification we have to go to the State’s Attorney General and show just cause. If he agrees, then he takes it to a State judge, who issues a temporary restraining order. If he agrees. The judge. Or she. Whichever.”

Amanda looked over at me and I shrugged.

“Let’s reel it back to the just cause part,” I suggested.

“Right,” said Dan again. “That’s when something significant comes to our attention, something heretofore unknown, that might, if proven, represent a noteworthy threat to the environment, then that would constitute just cause. That’s how I understand it. Right, Ned?”

Ned didn’t look like he’d been listening, but he quickly agreed.

“That’s right. A significant threat.”

The two of them nodded in unison.

“So what sort of significant thing came to your attention?” Amanda asked.

“That’s what we’re here to investigate.”

I was starting to like Dan. He reminded me of the government liaison people I used to deal with offshore. Usually all the serious stuff had been negotiated, the bribes paid and backs scratched by the time I got involved. People who communicate officially all day only know the elliptical and oblique. Suggestive, just shy of insinuation. Sometimes quite elegant and lyrical, a triumph of nuance over substance. A form of bureaucratic poetry.

“What she meant, I think, is who brought what to your attention?” I said.

I knew that was a good question because Dan looked over to Ned before answering. Ned pursed his lips and shrugged, as if to say, can’t help you there, boss.

“We received confidential information. Which came into Albany, not our office at Stony Brook.”

“You’re joking,” said Amanda.

I wished again we had Jackie along.

“What do you mean confidential?” I asked “You don’t know who it was?”

“Or you’re not telling us?” said Amanda.

Dan looked uneasy.

“I guess you’d call it an anonymous tip,” he said, then added quickly, “But very credible.”

“How the hell do you know that?” asked Amanda.

“That I can’t tell you,” said Dan.

“Why not?”

“Not in the loop,” he said, “and glad for it. I’m a site investigator. My job is to investigate the site, not the source. But,” he said, looking at Ned.

“But, you have a few options,” said Ned, who shuffled around inside his manila folder until he came up with an envelope with an elaborate-looking return address in the upper-left corner.

He slapped it down on the table.

“The temporary restraining order is only good for ten days. It’s our responsibility to get on the site and look around and confirm or deny there’s an issue within that designated time frame. If we don’t hit the deadline, we go back to the judge, who could give us another ten days or say, ‘Sorry boys, you had your chance. Apologize to the lady and toddle on back to Stony Brook.’”

“Or,” said Dan.

“Or, you could bar us from the property. That’s your right. You could fight the inspection, fight the judge, fight the DEC, fight the State’s Attorney, and figure out a way to explain to the reporters we contact why you’re afraid of an inspection. This is one of your options.”

Amanda had started out in the publishing trade, copy-editing magazine articles, answering the phone, schlepping coffee for the editors, until she became an editor herself, after which a very bad thing drove her back to Southampton, where she ended up in a bank, where she worked her way up to personal banker. Along the way she married the bank manager, Roy Battiston, who tried to hijack her inheritance, the proceeds from which threw her into the world of real-estate development. None of which prepared her for this meeting we were having with the

DEC.

“When do you want to start?” I asked. “We have the schematic of the site plan. You could be ass deep in test procedures in less than an hour.”

“Just give the word,” said Amanda.

Dan sat back in his chair and waved his hands in the air.

“Whoa, what’s the hurry? Let’s talk about the focus of the investigation.”

“If it’ll get this resolved and Amanda back on schedule,” I said.

Ned waddled over to a large file box with a pull-out drawer, inside of which were rolled-up drawings looking like ancient Roman scrolls. When he spread one of them out on the table, I felt a little jolt. It was the original tax map of Jacob’s Neck and Oak Point, drawn around the time my father built our cottage. I’d seen it before in a variety of iterations in support of a massive redevelopment plan, the one that eventually landed Roy Battiston in jail and Amanda in the house next-door to mine. I shook off the associations and tried to concentrate on what Dan was saying.

“The issue is here,” he said, tapping his pencil on the abandoned WB plant. “Ned, give me the old architecturals.”

Ned heaved himself up again and this time dragged over the whole box. He dug out a roll of brittle, brownish yellow drawings. I’d seen similar examples before: hand-drawn copies of the original blueprints. Beautifully, painstakingly rendered.

Dan lifted the corner of each drawing until he came to the one he wanted. Then he yanked it roughly out of the roll. I heard myself admonishing my junior engineers to be gentle and respectful of architectural antiquities.

“See here,” he pointed to a sub-elevation titled “Subterranean storage.” The drawing had been in the roll, but creases showed that it had been folded once as well. The title of the drawing in the identification box said something like “Typical of holding cellars constructed at considered locations serving the industrial establishment.”

“The facility goes back over a hundred years so we don’t know their original purpose,” said Dan. “But the information we have indicates there’s a potential for at least some of these subterranean storage units to be containing what’s best described as toxic waste.”

I wasn’t looking at her, but I could imagine Amanda’s face turning white. It was almost quiet enough in the room to hear the blood drain away. I studied the elevations.

“Looks like laid-up stone and mortar,” I said.

“That’s right,” said Dan. “Nothing fancy. About as porous as you can get.”

“The site study found zero contamination in the soil or the water. In the ground or the lagoon,” said Amanda.

“No such thing as zero, ma’am,” said Ned. “You probably mean within allowable limits.”

Amanda graced the room with a brittle smile.

“I’ll leave the nuance to you,” she told him, without looking his way.

“Point taken,” said Dan. “It’s a good sign. But we won’t know for sure until we find and examine every one of these units and determine the adjacent soil composition.”

“Splendid. When do we begin?” she asked. “As Sam said, we’re ready anytime. You only have ten days.”

“Nine,” said Ned. “Today’s the first day.”

“Tomorrow morning will do fine,” said Dan. “We just need to get onto the factory site.”

“When you’re talking to people in Town, don’t feel obliged to throw around words like ‘toxic waste,’” I said.

Dan nodded readily.

“Absolutely. We’re just doing the State’s work. No need to elaborate.”

“An informant’s work,” said Amanda. “An anonymous informant.”

“Like I said, Amanda,” said Dan, “that’s not my part of the house.”

Watching another person struggle to preserve composure as a surge of wrath tried to hijack her better judgment was informative. So, I thought, this is what it looks like. Easier on the observer than the forbearer. Amanda’s olivey tan had in fact tilted toward the green, which nicely set off the bright red spots glowing from her cheeks.

“Very well,” she said quietly. “What time shall we meet at the front gate?”

“Early’s better,” said Dan. “Seven-thirty?”

“Fine.”

“We can be done sooner if we get full cooperation,” he said, with an attempt at a warm smile.

“What do you think you’ve been getting so far?” Amanda asked.

“Well,” said Dan, moving along, “we’ll be spending the bulk of our time finding those chambers. And if we don’t get ’em all, we’ll just have to call Albany and get that judge to extend the terms of the TRO. Which he’ll do without a doubt if the State’s Attorney wants him to, ‘cause he always does. So, you could save us all a heap of time right now,” he tapped again on the site map, “by showing me where they all are.”

One of the ways I solved engineering puzzles was to start with an unbiased look at the operating conditions, the set parameters within which the system was malfunctioning. More often than not it was an assumption at the sub-process level that assured failure at the end game. Most people resist the notion that a petty piece of established information could possibly be incorrect. A flaw not of analysis but in human nature.

Scientists call this getting stuck in a paradigm, something the more rebellious of whom are famously eager to shift.

Amanda, meanwhile, only looked like she wanted to slaughter the guys from the DEC.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“You know,” said Dan, as if disappointed in himself. “I haven’t done a very good job explaining the information we’re working with. What got the State’s Attorney’s interest was the possibility that the owners of this property, and I guess that would be you, Amanda, might have, how do I put this, had some foreknowledge of this potential hazard. Who might be, you know, hoping nobody’d find out, given the concealed nature of the situation and the fact that a phase-one study had already given you a clean bill of health. Understandable, considering the money at risk, but you can also understand why the DEC would want to have a little look- see ourselves.”

I reached over and took one of Amanda’s hands in both of mine. Her skin was dry and cool to the touch.

“Say fellas,” I said to Dan and Ned, “I just realized we got another appointment.” I checked my watch. “And damn, we’re already late.”

I let go of her hand and gathered up her papers, shoving them back into the briefcase.

“We’re gonna have to catch up with you later,” I told them, standing and pulling Amanda to her feet. “Where’d you say you were staying?”

Dan stayed deadpan.

“The Breezewater, out on Montauk Highway. Nice view of the Shinnecock.”

He handed me a card from the motel.

“I’m in twenty-three. Unless we’re out painting the town. So what about tomorrow morning?”

“We’ll get back to you.”

“Here,” he said, pointing to the card, “let me write down my cell number. If I don’t pick up leave a message.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to say you’re working out logistics. So we can have full access. If anybody asks,” said Dan, at once more and less inscrutable.

“Thanks.”

“Until I hear from you tomorrow. Say by noon. After that, everything escalates.”

“Okay,” I said again, then slipped my arm though Amanda’s and escorted her out of the room, down the hall and back outside into the cool daylight of early spring.

“What the hell was that all about?” Amanda asked, once safely in the front seat of the Grand Prix.

“Deep water.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That, beautiful, was a set-up.”

“What on earth for?”

“I don’t know. I can guess, maybe, but I’m done with assumptions.”

“Don’t we have to let them in?” she asked.

“That’s a question for Burton. You’re paying that damn lawyer, you oughta get your money’s worth.”

“I’ve never paid him a cent.”

“All the more reason.”

——

When we got to Burton’s I called Isabella from the gate. I could tell by her pleasure in reporting Burton was back in the City that she was telling the truth.

“Did Hayden go with him?”

“No. But you can’t talk to him. He’s swimming in the pool.”

“Little chilly for that.”

“That’s what I tell him, but he’s like you. All polite talk and no convincing of anything.”

I drove from there to one of the last pay phones in Suffolk County, next to the men’s room in the basement of a restaurant on Job’s Lane. They probably forgot it was down there and it just lived on, a ghost in the machinery of modern telecommunications.

I had a secret phone number for Burton when I really needed him. It wasn’t a direct line, but his executive assistant would usually pick up, which was the next best thing.

“Sorry, Sam,” she told me. “He’s out of reach until later today. I think he’s playing chess in Central Park. If it’s really an emergency, I can send out a runner.”

“That’s okay. If you could give him a message and have him call me or Amanda as soon as he can. With my apologies. We’re on a bit of a deadline,” I said, then tried to make a long story short.

I’d left Amanda in the car. When I returned she was lying back in her seat with her eyes closed. It reminded me of how she looked on the way home from the incident with Robbie Milhouser. Either bitterly dejected or simply gathering strength for the next round. Composing herself. At rest, but on the verge.

When I told her we’d have to wait for Burton to call she asked me to take her home. She was quiet on the way back to North Sea. Just as well, since there were lots of questions floating randomly around the inside of the old Pontiac, most of which I wouldn’t be able to answer.

Then she surprised me by sliding over and wrapping two strong arms around my shoulders. She squeezed hard, her face pressed into the crook of my neck.

“You try to be a good person,” she said. “Most of the time.”

“Ah, come on.”

“You want to think that isn’t true. It makes it easier for you, which I suppose makes sense. It’s much harder to accept that even good people can do evil things.”

I waited until she made it all the way to her house and disappeared inside before letting Eddie take her place in the front seat of the car. I headed south again, through the Village and all the way to the parking lot at the end of Little Plains Road where you could pull up and look at the ocean. When I was a kid I lived with the delusion that looking out on that vast and irritable body of water would inspire answers to any question. What I know now is that the questions you’re likely to ask while looking at the ocean are impossible to answer. So instead, I took the experience for what it was worth. A chance to allow the solemn sea to remind me of how little Nature cares that human beings want their existence to make sense.

A chance for a respite from the ceaseless and untenable struggle to prove Her wrong.