The Beach House

Chapter 38

VERY EARLY on a Monday morning in August, I rolled over in my Montauk bed and sighed contentedly. Once in a blue moon, Mack gets it into his head to make a "proper breakfast," and all it took was one semiconscious breath to know that downstairs Mack was knee deep in it.

I scrambled down the stairs and found him hunched over the stove. His attention was focused on the four gas-burning rings. His arms were moving as furiously as Toscanini's when conducting on the stage of Carnegie Hall.

I inhaled the greasy bouquet and watched the master at work. Mack had much too much frying to oversee for me to risk saying a word at this delicate moment. In a motley armada of pots and pans, bacon, sausages, blood sausages, potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, and red beans were noisily building toward a simultaneous finale of pleasure. I brought out the jams, started squeezing the oranges, and, when he gave me the signal, pushed down the toast.

Five minutes later the stovetop symphony was done. In an excited rush of plucks, scoops, and tilts, a generous allotment from each pan was transferred to two dinner-size plates. The two of us sat down and began silently mixing the reds, yellows, blacks, and browns to our genetically determined liking. It felt as if mere seconds had passed before the last slices of toast were going into the toaster for the final cleanup operation and we were reflectively sipping our Irish breakfast tea.

"God bless you, Mack, this was better than sex."

"Then you're doing it wrong," he said, washing down a marmaladed crust with a big sip of tea.

"I'll have to keep practicing," I promised as I poured him another cuppa, then headed to the front porch for the paper. I read it before coming in and dropping it down beside his well-smeared plate. I'd known this was coming – but now it was official.

"Feast your eyes on this."

I looked over Mack's old bony shoulders and read the big, beautiful headline one more time: murder inquiry set into suspicious death of montauk man. Then we wolfed down the story with the same rapt attention that we'd given our breakfast.

For the first time in two months, I felt celebratory. I pumped the air with a fist. We were too full to jump, so I scampered to the liquor cabinet, and at seven in the morning, with the feast still settling in our bellies and minds, we did a shot of the good stuff.

"Here's mud in your eye, Jackson," Mack said.

"Do you realize what we've done," I said excitedly. "We've shocked the goddamned system."

"The goddamned system is a clever old whore, Jack. I'm afraid all we did was piss it off."

Chapter 39

AT WORK THAT WEEK, I kept my head down. Literally. I figured if no one saw it popping out of my office, no one would think to lop it off. I don't recommend it as a long-term career strategy, but' at that point I wasn't thinking long-term about Nelson, Goodwin and Mickel, or anything else.

Since we still hadn't gotten a response regarding the Mudman, it left me plenty of time to contemplate the upcoming inquiry.

Early on Thursday morning Pauline called and asked me to meet her for lunch. She said it was "important," and Pauline tends not to exaggerate. She suggested an out-of-the-way place on First Avenue, in the Fifties, Rosa Mexicana.

When I arrived, I saw her at a table in a back corner. As usual, she wore a dark suit and had her hair in a ponytail. And as usual, she looked great. But she also looked anxious, or maybe in a hurry.

"You okay?" I hadn't seen her in almost a week, and I'd missed her. Streetwise Pauline seemed rattled. I had an awful feeling she was about to tell me that working on Peter's case had been a big mistake and she'd finally come to her senses. Maybe she had been threatened.

"The more I look into Neubauer's file," said Pauline in a whisper, "the nastier it gets."

"Nastier than throwing young women off yachts?"

"I've spent more time than I can spare doing a background check on him. I went all the way back to when he was still in Bridgeport. Bridgeport is not exactly Greenwich and four-acre lots. It's gangs and housing projects.

"In 1962 and again in 1965," Pauline continued, "when Neubauer was in his early twenties, he and a guy named Bunny Levin were arrested for extortion."

"He has a criminal record? That's great."

"It isn't great. In both cases all charges were dropped when the key prosecution witnesses suddenly changed their testimony. One witness disappeared completely."

"So we can't use any of this in the inquiry?"

"That's not my point, Jack."

"If you want to quit, Pauline, please just tell me. You've already helped me enormously. I understand what you're saying to me about Neubauer."

Her face twisted and I thought she was almost going to cry. But she just shook her head. "I'm talking about you, Jack. Listen to me. These people make problems disappear."

I wanted to lean over and kiss her, but she looked spooked enough already. It didn't seem like a good idea. I finally reached under the table and touched her hand.

"What was that for?" Pauline asked.

"For giving a shit."

"You mean for caring, Jack?"

"Yes, for caring."

Chapter 40

PAULINE HAD NEVER ACTED LIKE THIS in her life. Not even close. As she and Jack stepped out of Rosa Mexicana, she felt flustered and exposed. "I really don't think we should be seen going back to work together," she announced.

Jack held out a faint smile, but Pauline left him standing slightly befuddled as she vanished up the street. Without looking back, she walked west to Third, headed downtown ten blocks, then turned west again, all the way into Grand Central, where a number six train was waiting with open doors.

As soon as the doors closed, her equilibrium returned. Heading downtown always felt good. Making the trip in the middle of the day added a lovely hooky-playing frisson.

She got off the train at Canal and continued downtown on foot until she pushed through the heavy doors of a former girdle factory on Franklin Street.

An exchange of buzzes got her into an untagged service elevator that opened directly onto a raw loft strewn with a motley collection of artifacts from its owner's eccentric resume. Pauline walked past a dusty massage table, a cello, and circus stilts, toward the square of light at the far wall.

It wasn't until she got to the very back of the space that she spotted the wavy-haired head of her sister, Mona, bent under the light of her worktable. She was soldering a pin onto a gold circular earring embossed with what looked like hieroglyphics.

Two years earlier Mona had hung up her cha-cha shoes for the security of a career as an avant-garde jewelry designer. In the past few months her earrings, necklaces, and rings, all based on castings of actual Con Edison manhole covers, were flying out of pricey boutiques all over Manhattan and L.A.

Mona didn't notice her visitor until Pauline sat beside her on the bench and rubbed up against her like a friendly Siamese cat.

"So, what's his name?" asked Mona without taking her eyes off the back of a twenty-four-karat gold earring.

"Jack," said Pauline. "His name is Jack. He's great."

"It could be worse," said Mona. "It could be John or Chuck."

"I suppose. He's this guy at work who lives with his grandfather and whose brother was probably murdered. I've known him three months and already he's got me doing things that could cost me everything I have. What's really screwed me up is, I'm more worried about him than me. Mona, I think he actually has a conscience."

"Sounds like you're penis-whipped. Are you?"

"Totally. Except that I haven't even seen it yet. He is a cutie, though. Best of all, he doesn't seem to know it."

"Sounds like you," said Mona. "So, what do you want me to tell you?"

"No point telling me anything. I just need a hug."

Mona turned off her soldering iron, flipped off her gloves, and wrapped her arms around her savvy, streetwise, utterly romantic sister.

"Be careful," she said. "He sounds too good to be true, this Chuck of yours."

Chapter 41

I WAS DOING SOME DECENT LAWYERING on behalf of the Mudman. Actually, the work was a lot like a legal aid defender clinic I had participated in that spring at Columbia. I had a couple of publications from the National Institute of Trial Advocacy spread out on my desk. Also Fundamentals of Trial Techniques, by Thomas Mauet, referred to by us law students as "Mauet."

The phone rang and I snatched it up. It was Montrose's executive assistant, Laura Richardson. Damn.

"Bill asked me to see if you could come up," she said.

"It's not really a good time for me," I said. "I'm up to my eyeballs down here."

"I'll meet you at the elevator."

Her call set off the same adrenaline rush as the earlier one. This time I was less afraid of what Montrose had in mind than of how I might react. To get my heart rate down a notch, I slowly walked the full circumference of the floor before getting on the elevator.

"What kept you?" asked Laura as I arrived on forty-three.

Instead of her walking me down the plank to Monty's office, she led me to an elegant little conference room and parked me at a jet black table illuminated by four recessed spotlights. Now, what is this?

"It shouldn't be more than a couple of minutes," she said before closing the door. "Wait here." If you've worked in a big corporation, you may have been the victim of this kind of bloodless violence. First you're summoned to an urgent meeting, then met by an assistant who politely asks you to sit and wait.

I did as instructed, but my mind was rioting. Why am I sitting here with my hands on my lap? Why am I cooperating? After maybe ten minutes, I couldn't stay in the hot seat any longer. I wandered outside.

When Richardson saw me walking free, I thought she was going to yank an alarm.

"Going to the bathroom," I explained.

A relieved Richardson rearranged her face.

When I returned to the conference room, I saw Barry Neubauer waiting there. Instead of the surprise or shock I probably should have felt, I was kind of teed off. This was actually his first response to Peter's death. "Hello, Jack," he said. "I don't know if anyone mentioned it, but I'm a client here."

Neubauer pulled his custom-made Italian black suit jacket snug across his square shoulders and sat down. I tried to maintain some perspective. He was just another medium-size, middle-aged man, after all, but he was buffed and art-directed. Every touch, from his perfect tan to his perfect haircut to his thousand-dollar silver eyeglass frames, argued for his special status in the world.

"Do you know why I'm here, Jack?"

"You're finally getting around to paying your condolences? That's touching."

He slammed his fist on the table. "Listen, you insolent punk bastard. Obviously, you've got it into your thick skull that I had something to do with the unfortunate death of your brother. So instead of conducting your little amateur-hour investigation, I thought maybe you'd like to talk to me directly."

He hadn't asked, but I decided to sit down, too. "All right. So where do we start?"

"I didn't murder Peter. I liked your brother. He was a good kid, with a nice sense of humor. And unlike Dana's other boyfriends, I actually liked you."

I couldn't keep back a half smile. "That's nice to know. How is Dana?"

"Dana is still in Europe, Jack. A little vacation. Now, you listen to me. The only reason I'm talking to you right now is because of the respect and affection I have for my daughter. Don't be so naive as to believe that you can slander me in the press, trespass on my property, and hack into my colleagues' computers without consequences. Please consider yourself warned, Jack. And this is a friendly warning, because as I said, I like you."

While Neubauer did his power bit, I thought of Fenton treading water with his boots on, Hank out of work, Marci and Molly afraid to drive their cars. When I'd had all I could take, I got up and moved around the conference table faster than he must have thought possible.

I grabbed him in a hammerlock and held his neck so he couldn't move. The summers I'd worked framing houses and laboring in Jepson's Boatyard had made me a lot stronger than his personal trainer was making him.

"You don't think anybody can get to you," I said through clenched teeth. "Well, you're wrong. Do you understand that?" I squeezed his neck a little tighter.

"You're making a huge mistake," Neubauer said, grimacing. He was in a little pain. I liked that.

"No, you made a huge mistake. For whatever fucked-up reasons, you involved yourself in my brother's murder case. Facts were covered up. Friends of mine were threatened for trying to get at the truth."

Neubauer began to struggle harder, but I held him firmly. "Let me go, you fucker!" he ordered.

"Yeah, all right," I said, and finally released the son of a bitch.

I started to walk out of the conference room, but then I stopped and turned to Neubauer.

"Somehow, someway, my brother is going to get justice. I promise you."

Neubauer's hair was mussed and his jacket creased, but he had regained most of his composure. "And you're going to wind up like your brother," he said. "I promise."

"Well, Barry, I guess we've both been warned then. And I'm glad we had this little chat."

Chapter 42

I WENT BACK DOWNSTAIRS knowing that I had just blown my summer associate's job, and probably my law career.

I didn't know whether it was worth it, but I didn't think I had a choice. Sooner or later, somebody had to stand up to Neubauer. I was glad it was me.

I tried to call the Island – I wanted to tell Mack what had just happened and ask his advice – but the line out of my office was dead.

"Christ," I whispered, "they're faster than I thought."

Two minutes later the phone rang. My favorite executive assistant from the forty-third floor was on the line.

"I thought my line had been cut off," I told Richardson.

"You just can't dial out," she said. "Tell me, how did someone like you wind up in a place like this?" she asked.

"Clerical error."

"Well, it's been corrected. Mr. Montrose wants to talk to you."

He got on the line. "What happened to that ambitious eager beaver who practically begged for his job?" asked Montrose, warming quickly to the task. "We hold open a door that almost never gets opened for someone like you, and you slam it in our face. The only decent time you put in here was on a worthless pro bono case."

"You're not talking about the Innocence Quest?" I asked. "Exley told me it was the heart and soul of Nelson, Goodwin and Mickel. That would make me the heart and soul of the firm."

"You're history, Mullen," said Montrose. Then he hung up.

About five minutes later a pair of burly security guards – one African American, the other Hispanic – stood outside my office. I knew them from the firm's softball team.

"Jack, we've been asked to escort you out of the building," said the shorter, wider of the two. His name was Carlos Hernandez. I liked him.

"We were also told to give you this," he said, and handed me a piece of paper called a Separation Document.

" 'Effective immediately, Jack Mullen has been terminated from Nelson, Goodwin and Mickel for improper use of company time and resources and behavior detrimental to the firm,' " I read.

"Sorry," said Carlos with a shrug.

I wish I could tell you that when I pushed my way through the shiny steel revolving door and stepped out to the street, I felt relieved. Truth is, I was as frightened as Montrose and Barry Neubauer wanted me to be. Suddenly my threats against Neubauer seemed ridiculous and hollow. I knew I'd done the right thing upstairs, so why did I feel like such a fool?

I walked in a daze over to the New York Public Library and the beautiful paneled reading room where I used to ponder my future when I took the train into the city while I was still in high school.

I wrote a letter to the Mudman. I passed along the news that his old prosecutor finally seemed willing to submit the nineteen-year-old evidence from his case for DNA testing. I wished him luck and told him to stay in touch if he could.

I called Pauline from a pay phone, but I got voice mail and couldn't bear to leave a message.

Then I walked across town to Penn Station and crawled home to Montauk one more time. The whole way home I kept trying to solve the same riddle. What can I do to make this right?

Chapter 43

FENTON HOISTED HIS GLASS and toasted my sudden exit from the fast lane. "You did good, my son. You've come back down to our level, maybe a little lower."

"We missed you," said Hank. "Welcome back to the real world."

It was Friday night at the Memory Motel. The membership of the Townie Benevolent Association was present and accounted for, and with the date set for the inquiry, there was a certain defiant joie de vivre.

In this group, my unemployment was hardly cause for sympathy. Despite the biggest economic boom in history and the fact that an obscene amount of that money was being frittered away in our backyard, very little was trickling down to us.

As we compared notes, it became clear we were all on the same blacklist. We weren't paranoid, either: somebody was out to get us.

"I've been knocking on doors all over town and can't get a thing," said Hank. "Even places like Gilberto's, which I know is hiring, won't touch me."

"Some bastard has been cutting my nets," said Fenton. "Do you know how hard it is to repair a net? Not to mention that I'm afraid to go out on the boat alone."

"My story is even worse," said Marci, "because it involves me. Two weeks ago this parking-space monger on Georgica Pond commissions me to build the Hamptons ' first authentic maze. Last night he calls and tells me he's awarding the project to Libby Feldhoffer. He was told that if he stuck with me, the planning and zoning board would never approve it."

"Libby Feldhoffer!" said an outraged Molly. "Her work is so pedestrian."

"I knew you'd be there for me, sweetheart."

"I didn't want to tell you, but this morning someone canceled their eleven-thirty at the last minute," said Sammy to a round of boos.

Under the circumstances, I was almost glad to have finally shed my golden-boy bloom. I drained the dregs of our pitcher and was on my way back with a refill when Logan, the Friday-night barkeep, handed me a large manila envelope.

"For me?" I asked. "From who?"

"A guy dropped it off. Said it was for all of you."

"You know him?"

"I've seen him around, Jack. He tried to order a martini once."

I returned to our table. "We've got mail."

I gave the envelope to Molly, and was refilling mugs when she flung it across the table.

"I don't know if I'm up for this whole thing anymore, Jack. Actually, I'm not. This is creepy. It's way beyond creepy. Will you look at this!"

The envelope held six pictures, one of each of us. Fenton sitting on the deck of his trawler at dusk. Sammy drinking coffee in the Soul Kitchen. Me getting off the Beemer in my driveway. The shot of Hank showed him racing across our lawn with a defibrillator. One of Marci with her maze client, just before she got dumped.

In every photo we were shot alone, and from behind. Just to remind us how vulnerable we were. Molly's picture set the standard. It was an extreme close-up of her asleep in bed. The photographer couldn't have been more than a foot away.

Under each picture were numbers: 6-5, 4-3, 10-1, 3-1. There was no note.

Chapter 44

ABOUT MIDNIGHT a boisterous pack of outsiders spilled into the Memory. The front of the bar, "our" bar, was suddenly awash with strained smiles, fake laughs, and shrill squawking into cell phones.

"What a dive – I love it!" shouted one particularly enthused newcomer. "Fuck you, too," retorted an in-house wit.

"Check this out," said Marci, pointing to a tanned figure sipping a sea breeze at the center of the clamor. "That's Horst Reindorf."

Reindorf, a former professional bodybuilder, had starred in more than a dozen hit movies. His latest, and Neubauer's first foray into film production, Intergalactic Messenger Boy, was being released the next Friday in 25,000 theaters. "And there's Dennis Soohoo, who plays his Tonto-like sidekick," added Marci as the actors posed for a picture.

"I guess somebody around here watches the E! channel," said Sammy.

"Like you don't?" Marci snapped back.

"I don't watch it. I live it."

"Someone at the Beach House probably suggested a great little townie bar," I said. "Told them it would be good for a hoot."

Horst Reindorf had taken his sleeveless T-shirt off and was twirling it over his head. Dennis Soohoo had grabbed a cute girl, who happened to be Gidley's young cousin. Thank God, she pushed him away. One of the entourage's female members climbed up on the bar and started to dance.

"If Barry Neubauer is going to mess with us," said Gidley, "it's time we return the favor. We don't crash his parties. He should know enough not to crash ours."

"I don't think that's such a smart idea," said Molly. "Seriously, Fenton."

"I'm sure you're right," said Gidley as he stood and began working his way through the thicket. Hank, Sammy, and I got up to follow. What choice did we have?

We didn't realize that Gidley was preparing to assault the social summit with as much confidence as Sir Edmund Hillary's assault on Mount Everest. To his right, a party photographer was positioning an executive producer for a candid shot with Reindorf and Soohoo. At the last minute, Gidley squeezed into the viewfinder. He threw a beefy arm around the Dorfmeister.

"I can't believe you're here at the Memory!" Gidley shouted. The subtext was, where you're not wanted!

"Excuse me," said the photographer, "we're shooting for Vanity Fair."

"We might as well get one of me and my new best friend," said Horst, with his trademark toothsome grin. "You a fisherman? Smells like it."

"Thank you much, Horst," said Fenton. "I am a fisherman. Fourth-generation."

"Somebody get this asshole away from Horst," said one of the studio junior executives.

The regulars knew something was up. The room tightened around the celebs and their hangers-on. "Mr. Photographer, could you take two in case one doesn't come out?" said Fenton. "It's not every day you get a picture of yourself beside the phoniest asshole in all of show business. And a friend of the sleazy Neubauers to boot."

The next couple of minutes were a blur. Reindorf grabbed Gidley by the throat. Fenton, his crazed grin gone, came over the top with an unscripted punch, complete with convincing sound effects. He caught the action hero on the bridge of his nose. Real blood spattered everywhere.

"My God, what are you doing?" shrieked a shiny black-clad publicist. "That's fucking Horst Reindorf!" In a gesture that was way beyond the call of duty, she threw herself at Fenton and pummeled him so ferociously with her Palm Pilot that Horst was able to retreat and slip out a side door.

The rest of Horst's party were not as fortunate. When the producer grabbed a beer bottle, I tackled him against the bar and held him there. Then Hank squared off with Dennis Soohoo. Down went Soohoo. The biggest mismatch pitted Sammy against a young studio-executive type. Even though the guy was half a foot taller and thirty pounds heavier, Giamalva floored him with an uppercut that would have made Sugar Ray proud.

Someone might have actually gotten hurt if Belnap and Volpi hadn't charged in with their batons out and once again made the Hamptons safe for civilized society. Volpi rubbed it in by cracking a few skulls, and he seemed to enjoy it.

He didn't hit me, but he did ask with a wink, "How's your girlfriend, Jack?"

Chapter 45

THE FIXER had been standing in the shadows of the Mullen garage for an hour when the beam of Jack's single headlight broke through the mist on Ditch Plains Road. He elbowed his muscular partner as the gleaming blue motorcycle slowed in front of the small house. "Here comes the bad boy now."

He watched Jack cut the engine, lower the kickstand, and pull a deep breath of night air into his nostrils. That little shit is still savoring his victory, the Fixer thought. His knot of anticipation tightened as Jack pulled off his helmet, lifted the garage door, and wheeled the bike in. He'd been looking forward to this meeting for weeks.

Now Jack was opening the small door on the side of the garage, and the Fixer was counting down from three. When Jack stepped through it, he walked directly into the Fixer's black-gloved fist.

To the Fixer, a well-timed sucker punch was one of life's great unsung pleasures. He loved the way it delivered shock and hurt in one exploding instant, and when the Muscle grabbed Jack from behind and pulled him up by his hair, the Fixer could read the pain register as a ten in Jack's eyes. Then he threw another punch at the center of Jack's face.

With his arms pinned behind him and a knee in the small of his back, all Jack could manage was a flinching twist. But it was enough to reduce a direct hit to a glancing blow, and it sent the Fixer stumbling forward until he and Jack stood eye-to-eye in the darkness.

"Give this message to Neubauer. Can you do that for me?" Jack asked. Then he brought his forehead down on the bridge of the Fixer's nose.

The Fixer was leaking blood worse than Jack, which caused him to seriously consider taking out his hunting knife and gutting Mullen in his own garage. Instead, he started working Jack hard with both fists. This was good work, if you could get it.

When Jack stopped moving, the Fixer stopped missing. This greatly improved his spirits. Pretty soon he felt good enough to deliver a message, his words supplying a rhythm to his fury.

"Don't you ever" – PUNCH – "ever" – PUNCH – "fuck with people who are your superiors in every" – PUNCH – "fucking way," he advised.

The Fixer had some more things he badly needed to get off his chest, but by then Jack was close to unconscious.

"As for Mr. Neubauer, you can tell him yourself."

Somehow, somewhere in his consciousness, Jack heard that, and promised himself he would.

But the man with the black driving gloves wasn't quite finished. He pulled Jack's head up by the hair.

Then he whispered in his ear, "Smarten up. Your grandfather's next, bozo. It'll be easy, Jack. He's really old."

Chapter 46

WIN A FIGHT, you think it's the world's most exciting sport. Lose, badly, and you realize what a fool you were. Once I'd peeled my face off the garage floor and done an inventory of the damage, I knew I had to get myself to the hospital.

I was thinking I'd have to wake up Mack or call Hank, but when I got to my feet, I felt I could manage it on my own, which seemed preferable. I did go in and check on Mack. He was sleeping like an eighty-six-year-old baby.

I got the key and drove my father's old truck to the emergency room in Southampton. Even at four in the morning, it took me about thirty-five minutes.

There's not a lot of mayhem at our end of Long Island. Southampton isn't East St. Louis. When I walked into the ER, Dr. Robert Wolco put down his New York Times crossword puzzle and turned his attention to my face. "Hey, Jack," he said, "long time, no see."

"Hey, Robert," I managed. "You should see the other guy."

"I'll bet."

"I'd rather not."

He began by very gingerly and thoroughly cleaning my wounds. Then he laid me down under a bright orange light, shot my face full of Novocain, and stitched it closed. The skin on my face felt as if it were being laced up like hockey skates. It took twenty-eight stitches.

Wolco thought that he had done some of his best work and that the scars would heal nicely. I wasn't too worried. I never had the looks in the family anyway. He gave me a plastic tub of Vicodin for my ribs (X rays showed that three of them were cracked) and sent me home. The night, the beating, was one more thing I owed Barry Neubauer.

And I was counting.

Chapter 47

THINGS WERE GETTING TIGHT. The inquest concerning Peter Mullen's death was almost there.

On Monday night the Fixer parked about a block down the street from a modest-looking house in Riverhead, Long Island. There was a terra-cotta planter on the porch and an antique weather vane on the garage. Beside the retro-looking mailbox with J. davis painted across it in childlike yellow script, a stone rabbit was perched on its hind legs. Yikes.

For this little slice of heaven, the doc spent fourteen hours a day elbow-deep in stiffs, coming up with all sorts of creative theories about how they got that way. Davis 's civic-mindedness baffled the Fixer. She could be pulling down a million per in Manhattan. Instead, she was poking around in cadavers.

Why do people do this? Why do they care if someone drowned or got sunk? They probably watch too many movies. Everyone wants to be a hero. Well, guess what, Jane? You're no Julia Roberts. Trust me on this one.

He knew the doc's loyal pooch would be showing the effects of the yummy treat he'd slipped through the brass newspaper slot at the bottom of the door – another corny retro touch – a few hours earlier. She wasn't much of a watchdog now, lying on her side and snoring to beat the band.

The Fixer quietly let himself in, stepped over the dog, and walked up the stairs toward Jane Davis's bedroom.

This, he was thinking, this is why I get paid the big bucks.

Jane was sleeping, too. Yeah, Janie, you do snore. She lay on top of the sheets in her bra and panties. Not a lot up top, the Fixer noted, but decent legs for a doc.

He sat down next to her on the bed and watched her breathe. Christ, she sleeps like the dead.

He touched his hand down between her legs, and that got her up in a hurry. All full of piss and vinegar, too.

"Hey! What the hell? Who are you?" she screeched, and raised her fists as if she wanted to fight.

But then she saw the gun, and the silencer attached to the long barrel.

"You're a very smart woman, a doctor, so you know what this is about, don't you?"

She nodded, then whispered, "Yes."

"There's going to be an inquest soon, and you've already been overruled by one of your superiors. That should make it real easy for you."

Then he did something naughty – the Fixer pressed the barrel of his gun between Jane Davis's legs. He rubbed it around. Well, it worked for him.

"You owe me, Jane," he said, and rose from her bed. "Don't make me come back here. Because I'd like to do you. And, Jane, I wouldn't call the police, either. They're in on this, too. Call the police, and I'll be back real soon."

He left her bedroom, and she listened to him walk back downstairs. She finally took a breath. But then she heard the silenced pistol cough once.

She knew what the bastard had done, and Jane was crying as she hurried downstairs.

He was still there in her house, grinning, and he hadn't shot Iris after all.

"You owe me, Jane."

Chapter 48

FIRST THEY MURDER YOU. Then they slander you. That was my "breakfast revelation of the day" when I spread out the Star beside my omelette at Estia. I sighed, shook my head, and felt sad again. Sad and really shitty.

Peter was featured in another bold, fourteen-point headline, but the story had spun 360 degrees out of control. Now we had a second opinion about how Peter died: POLICE SUSPECT RIVAL DRUG DEALERS IN MULLEN'S DEATH.

The lead paragraph elaborated: "A bitter battle over turf or a drug deal gone awry are two possibilities that police are pursuing in their ongoing investigation into the death of twenty-one-year-old Montauk native Peter Mullen, according to East Hampton Chief Detective Frank Volpi."

Mack was right. Life is war.

Volpi also said that there was the possibility Peter Mullen was under the influence of drugs at the time of his death and that a request had been made for further tests to determine if that was the case. "We have requested tests to detect the presence of cocaine, alcohol, or marijuana in the victim's blood," said Volpi, "and should have them completed in time for the inquiry."

Neubauer's lawyers were employing the same strategy that had worked so well with O. J. Simpson and so many others. Put enough semiplausible scenarios out there and it becomes almost impossible to conclude that there isn't reasonable doubt.

I borrowed the phone and finally got the Star's editor on the line. "Who is feeding you these stories?" I asked. "It's Volpi, isn't it?"

"No one is feeding us anything. We're reporting everything relevant. That's what newspapers do, Mr. Mullen."

"Bullshit. Why don't you try reporting the truth for a change?"

When the two-bit editor hung up, I called again and asked to speak to Burt Kearns, the reporter who'd written the earlier stories.

"You can't talk to Burt Kearns. Kearns was fired three days ago."

Then the editor hung up on me again.

Chapter 49

THINGS GOT EVEN WORSE later that morning. I was on a roll – backwards.

I took one look at Nadia Alper's littered desk and did my best to conceal my alarm. Alper was the assistant district attorney assigned to the inquiry. The condition of her office, tucked away in an upper floor of the former Seaford Town Hall, didn't communicate a high level of organization or readiness. Every inch of her desk was strewn with police and coroner reports, phone books, notepads, cassettes, and crinkled Subway fast-food wrappers.

As she rummaged through papers, tiny columns of dust sifted through the sunlight tilting through the windows.

"I know it's here," insisted Nadia. "I was looking at it a minute ago."

"Are you handling this completely on your own?" I asked as calmly as possible. Neubauer had a lockstepping army of five-hundred-dollar-an-hour Ivy League attorneys protecting him like a Kevlar vest. Peter, it appeared, had one very young, underpaid, overworked assistant district attorney seeking justice for him.

"I also have a detective who's out in Montauk interviewing people right now," she said. "And no, this isn't my first case."

"I didn't mean to suggest…"

"It's my third."

We both bemoaned the fact that so much of the evidence pointing to foul play in Peter's death was circumstantial. Our strongest cards, she believed, were Jane's medical report and the photographs of the battered body. She finally unearthed the missing folder, and we reviewed it together. Attached were copies of the X rays revealing the multiple broken bones and skull fractures and the severed vertebrae, and photographs of Peter's lung tissue.

Having just been worked over myself, I had an inkling of what my brother's last minutes must have been like. It made me feel sick all over again.

Buried somewhere inside the paper pile, a phone rang. As she burrowed for it, her elbow knocked over a coffee cup, and it sent a mocha sluice flowing toward the pictures. Before I could scoop them out of the way, several were stained. Careful dabbing with a paper towel undid the damage, but I felt like taking the pictures and going home.

"What can I do to help?" I finally asked.

"Nothing. You're in law school, Mr. Mullen. We're in good shape here. Trust me."

"All right," I said with a sigh. What else could I say? "I could help, though, Nadia. I'll even fetch coffee and sandwiches."

"What happened to your face?" she finally asked. I could tell that her decision was final and that she was trying to change the subject.

"I got beat up. Quite possibly by the same people who killed Peter. Neubauer did this to me."

"Why don't you press charges?" she asked.

I wrinkled my nose, shook my head.

"It looks like you have enough on your plate already."

Chapter 50

SAMMY GIAMALVA was having the nightmare again, the one in which he is falling and falling, all the time bracing himself for an impact that never comes. It was the third time he'd had it in a week, so in some part of his brain, Sammy knew it was a dream.

He opened his eyes to a completely different nightmare. This one was real.

In the chair beside the bed sat a large man, with the small, mean eyes of a pig. He wore a well-cut black suit. His legs were casually crossed, as if he were a guest at a cocktail party. Instead of a drink, he held a gun, which, like his awful smile, he aimed at Sammy.

"Get up, Sammy," the Fixer said. "I need a haircut."

He jabbed the muzzle hard into Sammy's throat, and nudged him down the stairs to the kitchen. Still training the gun on Sammy, the Fixer settled into the large chair facing the long mirror.

With the fingers of his free hand, he poked around in his thinning, light brown hair. "What do you think is a good length for me, Sammy?" he asked. "If I go real short, I look like a Nazi. I grow it longer, I look like an asshole with a comb-over."

"Shorter is better," Sammy tried to say, but his mouth was so dry that it sounded more like a cough.

"You don't sound so sure, Sammy."

"I'm sure." This time Sammy managed to get the words out. He desperately tried to size up his situation. He was remembering what had happened to Peter. Not to mention Fenton Gidley. This guy matched Fenton's description right down to the scar on his cheek.

"I guess you've already figured out I didn't come all the way out to Fag Harbor just to get a haircut."

Sammy just nodded and began to spread out the white plastic poncho for the haircut. He was trying to come up with a plan. Anything that would keep him alive. The man with the nasty eyes was cocky. Maybe that was something to play with.

"Is it because of what happened at the Memory?" Sammy finally spoke again.

"I've already taken care of that. That was no big whup. I'm here about what happened at the beach."

When Sammy responded with a puzzled look, the man said, "Don't look so sad. All we want are the negatives. There's no point pretending anymore. The game's over. I win. You lose."

The guy in his barber chair delivered these last words with an awful finality. This was worse than Sammy had thought. It wasn't about scaring him. It wasn't about the inquiry at all.

"Go ahead," said the Fixer. "I still need a haircut. And I'll take your advice on the length."

Soon the man's hair was falling like a light snow on the plastic tarp spread out beneath the chair, and despite everything, Sammy fell into the calming, competent rhythm of his work. Snip and move and pull. Snip and move and pull. Forget that this guy had a gun in his hand.

A simple phrase pulsed in his head: Do something or die. Do something or die.

Sammy concentrated on his work as if his life depended on it, and when the Fixer leaned forward in his chair so Sammy could pull off his plastic poncho, he couldn't help but be impressed. "Now I know why those rich ladies drive all the way out here."

Do something or die.

"One last spot," said Sammy, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. The man chuckled, then he settled back in his chair. When he looked into the mirror, he saw Sammy's right hand blur across his chest.

Goddamnit, he couldn't believe it. Not this puny little fag. Not here – not like this. Oh, Jesus, no.

The slice of the razor was so fast and clean, the Fixer didn't know for sure if his throat had just been cut until he saw a second pink mouth flap open beneath his chin. Then, as the hairdresser reached from behind the chair and pinned his arms with a strength and fury that was the final surprise of his life, the Fixer watched the life gush out of him.

"Who's going to fix this?" were his last five words.

When Sammy released his hug, the large man slid out of the chair onto the plastic tarp on the floor. Sammy took a deep breath and tried to think this mess through. Fast. Jesus, he'd killed this guy. Nothing he could do about it now.

Once he made up his mind, he went upstairs and packed. Then he went to the garage and siphoned a couple of gallons of Exxon regular from his car. He wetted down the cottage, corner to corner. Then he tossed in a flaming Zippo.

By the time the first pumper truck arrived, that's exactly what was left of Sammy's Soul Kitchen. Zippo.

Chapter 51

I WAS WORKING UP A FEW NOTES to give Nadia Alper when I heard Mack's bellowing voice downstairs. "Jack, come outside. Your girlfriend's here. Pretty as ever, too."

Pauline was barely out of her car when Mack insisted she stay for dinner. About ten minutes later he announced he was abandoning us "lovebirds" to investigate the various offerings of Montauk's more reputable vegetable stands and fishmongers. "You are staying for supper," he told Pauline, and she didn't bother to argue.

Two and a half hours later, as the sun was losing its edge, he made his triumphant return. In one hand he held the first local corn of the summer. In the other, three fat swordfish steaks.

"Sal swears on the soul of his mother that he carved these out of a three-hundred-fifty-pounder this morning," boasted Mack.

After unloading his treasure, he cracked open three beers and joined us on the deck, where we brought him up to speed on Pauline's latest discoveries about Barry Neubauer.

After he listened to the dirt, Mack surveyed our respective strengths in food prep. Then he doled out assignments. I headed to the garage to dig up the old hibachi. He and Pauline disappeared into the kitchen.

Just having Pauline around was making everyone happy. For the first time in years, the place felt like a home instead of a dorm for lost boys.

Mack was particularly euphoric. It was as if someone had slipped him a tab of Ecstasy. Every once in a while he'd wander out from the kitchen just to stand beside me and share his affection as I poked the coals.

"I know you're dying to tell me how much you love Pauline, so why don't you get it off your chest?" I said.

"You should see her working on the salad dressing, Jackson. Madame Curie in cutoffs. I strongly urge you to marry this woman. Tonight if possible."

"I haven't even touched her yet."

"Yeah, well, what's that about?"

"Macklin, can I ask you a personal question, just between us? Mullen to Mullen?"

"But, of course. Please do."

"You think these coals are ready?"

"I talk to you of the longings of the human heart and you ask me about coal. Cook the damn fish, Jack. Show how you can do something right."

"I like her, all right?" I finally said in an exasperated voice.

"That's not good enough, Jack. This one deserves more than 'like'!"

"Mack, I know what she deserves."

Thirty minutes later we all sat down on the back porch to a perfect summer dinner.

Everything turned out just right – the swordfish, the corn, the wine. Even Pauline's salad dressing lived up to the hype.

We were all a little laid-back after the meal. I looked at Mack's ragged map of a face. It seemed to be lit from within, like a lantern. Pauline looked more relaxed and lovelier than I'd ever seen her.

Mack drew out Pauline about her childhood in Michigan. She told us that her old man was a retired Detroit cop, and her mother taught English in an inner-city high school. Most of her aunts and uncles were autoworkers.

"How'd your parents meet?" asked Mack, still persistently steering the conversation.

"My father is my mother's second husband," said Pauline. "Her first was this big, bad charismatic dude from the old neighborhood named Alvin Craig. Craig was a drag racer, a brawler, always in and out of trouble with the law, and once when he was drinking, he beat up my mother. The last time he tried to do it, she was five months pregnant with me. She called the cops.

"The cop who arrived at the house was a big tough guy, too. He took one look at my mother and asked Alvin if they could talk outside for a little bit. My parents lived in a tiny row house, and for about an hour Alvin and the cop sat on the stoop out front.

"There was no fighting. No yelling. Neither one even raised his voice. When they got up, my lather went upstairs, threw his stuff into two suitcases, and left for good. The cop stayed for coffee, and a few months later my mother had a new husband.

"I might never have known the real story except that one day when I was fifteen and acting like a total brat, I called my father an asshole. My mother was furious. She decided it was time I learned how they met and fell in love. They are a sweet couple, actually."

It was an impossible story to top, so Mack didn't even try. But he offered childhood tales of his own, including the time he and his best mate, Tommy McGoey, hopped a lorry and spent three days walking around Dublin, sleeping under wagons and living on stolen milk and rolls, mesmerized by everything they laid their eyes on. Pauline had inspired him to dredge up stories that were new even to me.

That's the kind of serenely magical night it was, when friendship feels as solid as family, and family as light and untroubled as friendship. I suppose it was too sweet to last. Just before midnight we heard a car door slam in the driveway. Then the sound of shoes scraping on the gravel.

When I turned to look, Dana was walking toward us like a long blond ghost.

"Ah, speak of the devil," said Mack.

Chapter 52

FOR THIRTY EXCRUCIATING SECONDS, the eye contact around the table was as fast and furious as a Kabuki drama.

"Don't all act too excited to see me," Dana said finally. She turned toward the dark-haired stranger.

"I'm Dana. Jack's girlfriend. I think."

"Pauline."

After extending an urgent conciliatory shrug toward Pauline, I turned to my self-described girlfriend.

"Pauline's a very good friend from Nelson, Goodwin and Mickel," I said, and regretted it instantly.

"Where I understand you're no longer employed."

"They offered me a golden parachute."

"So, what do you do there?" Dana asked Pauline. "Are you a lawyer?"

"I'm an investigator," said Pauline, her voice flat and neutral.

"What do you investigate?"

"You sound like an investigator yourself," said Pauline, the warmth and openness of the evening a memory now.

"Sorry, just trying to make a little awkward conversation."

As for Mack, he still hadn't said a word. To make it absolutely clear which side of the fence he was on, he hadn't even looked at Dana. He hadn't looked at me, either, but I didn't have to see his face to know how upset he was, and that he considered this my fault.

Pauline, having sat through enough of this bad soap opera, rose to leave. "Dinner was delicious," she said, smiling at Mack. "So was everything else."

"You were the best part of it by far, Paulie girl," said Mack, standing and giving her a long hug. "Let me walk you to your car."

"You don't have to leave," I said.

"Oh, but I do," said Pauline.

Then she and Mack took off, arm in arm, almost as if Dana and I weren't there.

"Let me walk with you, Pauline," I said. "Please. I need to talk to you."

"No," said Pauline, without turning to face me. "You stay and talk to your girlfriend. I'm sure you two have a lot to catch up on."

Chapter 53

"I HOPE I DIDN'T INTERRUPT ANYTHING," Dana said. Her mouth was in a pout, but her eyes were smiling slyly.

"Yeah, right. What are you doing here, Dana?"

"Well, you can't expect a girl to give up without a fight," she said with one of her more charming, self-effacing smiles.

"You haven't seen or spoken to me in two months. It was your idea, remember?"

"I know that, Jack. I was in Paris. And Florence. Barcelona. I needed some time to think."

"So, Dana, what did you figure out in Europe? That you don't like yourself as much as you thought you did?"

"You've put me in an impossible position, Jack. You, or my father."

"A no-brainer, obviously. Daddy treated you to Europe, right?"

"Sometimes you don't know what you're talking about, Jack. My father is a wonderful man in many ways. He's great to my mom. He's blindly supported me in anything I've ever tried to do. Plus he's my goddamned dad. What do you want from me?" Her filial loyalty actually made me miss my own father.

"So, what brings you here tonight?"

"You," said Dana, staring at me intently. "I missed you even more than I thought I would. You are special, Jack."

When she touched my arm, I almost jumped.

"God, you hate me, don't you?" Tears welled in her eyes. "Oh, Jack. Don't you have anything to say to me?"

"I guess you've heard about the inquiry," I said.

Her head jerked back, the blond hair flying.

"I can't believe anyone really thinks my family had anything to do with Peter's death. Do you, Jack? What makes you even think Peter was murdered?"

"His body was covered with bruises, Dana. He was beaten on your beach. I wish you'd seen him."

"A lot of people think the storm could have done that."

I still couldn't quite believe Dana had gone completely over to the other side. Still, I knew it would be insane to share any of the hard work Pauline and I had done over the past two months.

"Dana, you weren't around when I really needed you, and I did need you," I told her.

Tears were still running down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, Jack. What do I have to do to prove it to you?"

"You said some things before you left. Then you never called or wrote. Not even a postcard. Now you just show up here?"

She wiped her face. "Jack, let's go someplace. We could get a room. At the Memory. Please, I need to talk to you."

She reached out and put her arms around me. It felt way beyond wrong. I pulled away.

"I'm not going to the Memory, Dana. I think you should leave."

Dana folded her arms and stared at me angrily. The transformation was quite amazing.

"So who is she, Jack? The bitch who was here before?"

"A very good friend. She's helping me with the case. That reminds me, how's Volpi?"

Dana flinched, then jumped up out of her chair. She wasn't sniffling anymore. Now she was just pissed-off. Daddy's little girl was a lot like Daddy.

Once Dana was gone, I went inside the house, passed a sullen Mack watching the Yankees-Red Sox game, and tried to reach Pauline on her cell phone.

Either she'd turned it off or she wouldn't take my call.

Chapter 54

I TOOK A GUINNESS out to the front porch and watched the late-departing weekenders head back to the city. Soon the Hamptons would be safe again for dreamy-eyed townies. In the meantime, I sat on the cool flagstone and rewound the evening. What a frigging disaster. I even began to wonder if Dana had known Pauline was there. I wouldn't put it past her.

It was getting late, and watching the passing SUVs was like counting sheep. I was fading a little when a police car screeched around the corner against the westbound traffic.

To my surprise, it turned into our driveway and skidded to a stop. Frank Volpi and a sergeant I didn't recognize hopped out. What the hell?

"Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?" asked Volpi as he reached the porch.

"Does it matter what I think, Frank?"

"Not really. Where have you been tonight?"

"Here. Why?"

"Someone just torched Sammy Giamalva's house to the ground," he said. "Professional. We're pretty sure with him in it."

I felt as if I'd been hit with the kitchen skillet. I thought of the photographs of Sammy in his kitchen – the ones that were dropped off at the Memory. Sammy, with a cigarette in his mouth and a cup of coffee in his hand. It showed a live-wire twenty-three-year-old getting stoked to do something he loved. A portrait of the stylist as a young man.

Then I flashed on the tiny pairs of numbers scribbled in pencil under each photo.

I suddenly realized they were odds, and that Sammy's (6-5) were the shortest.

Volpi was still in my face.

"Is there anyone who can confirm you've been here for the last couple of hours?"

"What is it, Frank, you really think I burned down Sammy's house? With my family gone, I'm turning on my friends?" As mad as I was, it was nothing compared to my panic about the danger I'd put my friends in.

"Mind if Officer Jordan and I have a look around?" Volpi asked.

"Actually, I do," I said, but Jordan was already heading for the garage.

"Hey!" I called. "You can't go in there."

I followed and stood beside him as he pulled up the door and swept his flashlight over the cluttered space. The beam moved slowly over the deep blue sheen of Peter's motorcycle.

"That's one pretty scooter," he said with a smirk. "Almost twenty grand, isn't it?"

"What you're doing here is illegal," I said. "C'mon, huh? Get out of the garage."

He bent to open the immaculate little BMW toolbox. What the hell was he looking for?

I stepped forward and grabbed his arm. "I'd appreciate it if you'd leave right now. Get away from the bike."

Jordan came out of his crouch and jumped into my chest, knocking me back into Frank Volpi, who had followed us into the garage. Volpi immediately grabbed my arms. He let Jordan take it from there.

If the first punch didn't rebreak my almost-healed rib, the second definitely did.

"You're under arrest for interfering with a police investigation and assaulting a police officer," said Volpi. He grinned as he cuffed me and dragged me out to the car. He didn't bother to read me my rights, and I got the message: I didn't have any.

Chapter 55

"WAKEE, WAKEE."

A tin cup rattling over steel bars startled me from a dream in which I was trying to save Peter and Sammy. I jumped up and frantically scanned the cell. Then I saw Mack's shit-eating grin, the small grease-stained paper bag under his arm, and the old metal camping cup in his hand, which he must have spent all morning searching for.

"Get out of bed, you lazy so-and-so. I just bailed you out."

"Good to see you, Macklin. And thanks for that little prison-riot vignette."

I threw on my clothes, and Paul Infante, the cop who'd worked the overnight shift, appeared in front of the cell. He extended a key attached to his belt by a long, thin chain, and the big bolt toppled over with an echoing clang. He pulled the heavy door toward him, and I stepped back out into the world.

"Jack 'Hurricane' Mullen," said Macklin, clapping me on the shoulder. "Not even six hours in the East Hampton Hilton could break this man."

"Can it, Macklin."

Upstairs, Infante gave me an envelope with my watch and wallet in it, and I signed a summons pledging to appear in court for interfering with a police investigation. The assault charge had been dropped.

"We should go visit Sammy's mom this afternoon," Mack said somberly. "We're the only ones who know how she feels."

"I suppose they're going to say that was an accident, too," I said. "Maybe a suicide." I described the visit from Volpi and Jordan, how unbelievably brazen and cocky they'd been.

"Can they get away with it?" I asked him.

"Sure. Looks like they just did."

As I pulled out of the driveway, I plucked the bag of Dreesen's doughnuts off Mack's lap. There were three inside – dark, soft, and sprinkled with cinnamon. If it's possible, I think spending my first night in jail made them taste even better,

"So, tell me something," said Mack, snatching the last doughnut before it reached my lips, "you still feel like the man who's going to bring the goddamned system to its knees?"

Chapter 56

I WAS ABOUT TO FIND OUT. The inquiry into my brother's death was held in the gymnasium of the Montauk Middle School. They couldn't have picked a worse spot. For years Peter and I used to play Sunday pickup games there. Every Sunday. Walking to my seat with Mack, I could still hear the deep smack of basketballs echoing off the whitewashed cinder block.

As I took a seat, I remembered the very first weekend we ever snuck inside the gym as kids. Fenton got hold of a key, and after stashing our bikes in the woods, we crowded around him as he slipped it into the lock. Miraculously, it fit. We stepped through the small side door into the hushed, voluminous darkness more awed than if we'd just snuck into St. Patrick's Cathedral. Hank found the switch, and the entire trespassed interior, with its gleaming hardwood floor and white fiberglass backboards, lit up like a Technicolor dream.

On the morning of the inquest, at least two hundred folding chairs were set up in long rows across the court. The people who sat in them had all been there before, as either graduating students or proud parents, or both.

Marci had saved Mack and me the last two seats in the front row. I looked around and saw Fenton and Molly, Hank and his wife, an incredible number of friends from town. But not poor Sammy Giamalva, of course. We didn't have to wait very long for the action to begin.

"Hear ye! Hear ye!" proclaimed the bailiff who had driven up that morning from Riverhead. "All persons having business before the Supreme Court of Suffolk County, please give your attention to the Honorable Judge Robert P. Lillian."

In his stark black robe, the judge looked like a commencement-day speaker. He entered the gym from the small cafeteria directly behind it and took his elevated seat. Spectatorwise, it may have been a local crowd, but at the business end, the manpower balance tilted heavily in the opposite direction. Sitting shoulder to shoulder at a long, thin table facing the judge were three Nelson, Goodwin and Mickel senior partners, led by none other than Bill Montrose. Sitting behind them, like proud sons, were three of the firm's most promising associates.

At the opposing table sat twenty-four-year-old assistant district attorney Nadia Alper. And four empty chairs. Alper sucked at a jumbo Coke and jotted notes on a yellow pad.

"She doesn't even have a cut man," observed Mack.

Lillian, a short, sturdy man in his late fifties, informed us from his judicial pulpit that although there was no defendant, the daylong inquest would proceed like a juryless trial. Witnesses would be called to testify under oath; limited cross-examination would be permitted as he deemed relevant. In other words, he was God.

Lillian turned the floor over to Neubauer's legal team, and Montrose summoned one Tricia Powell, a blowsy, dark-haired woman in her twenties.

I had never seen Powell before, and wondered where she fit in.

With Montrose's guidance, Tricia Powell testified that she had been a guest at the Neubauers' Memorial Day weekend party. Near the end of the evening she had strolled down to the water.

"See anyone on your walk?" questioned Montrose.

"Not until I got to the beach," said Powell. "That's when I saw Peter Mullen."

I flinched in my seat. This was the first indication in two months that anyone had seen Peter after his dinner break. It sent a ripple of whispers through the gym.

"What was he doing when you saw him?" asked Montrose.

"Staring into the waves," said Powell. "He looked sad."

"Did you know who he was?"

"No, but I recognized him as the man who had parked my car. Then, of course, I saw his picture in the paper."

"What happened that night? Tell us exactly what you saw."

"I smoked a cigarette and started to head back. But as I did, I heard a splash and turned to see Peter Mullen swimming through the waves."

"Did that strike you as unusual?"

"Oh, absolutely. Not only because of the size of the waves, but also how cold the water was. I had stuck my toe in and was shocked."

So was I. This woman, whoever she was, was lying her ass off. I leaned toward Nadia Alper and whispered a quick message.

When Montrose finished, Alper got up to question Powell.

"How is it that you know Barry Neubauer?" she asked.

"We're colleagues," she said, cool as could be. I wanted to go up there and slap her.

"You're also in the toy business, Ms. Powell?"

"I work in the Promotions Department at Mayflower Enterprises."

"In other words, you work for Barry Neubauer."

"I like to think we're friends, too."

"I'm sure you will be now," said Nadia Alper.

The derisive laughter in the gym was cut off by a sharp reprimand from Lillian. "I trust, Ms. Alper, that I will not have to ask you again to refrain from editorial asides."

She turned back to the witness. "I have a list here of everyone who was invited to the party that evening. Your name isn't on that list, Ms. Powell. Any idea why?"

"I met Mr. Neubauer at a meeting a couple of days before. He was kind enough to invite me."

"I see, and what time did you arrive?" asked Nadia.

"Unfashionably early, I confess. Seven o'clock, maybe five after at the latest. With all the celebrities, I didn't want to miss a minute."

"And it was Peter Mullen who parked your car?"

"Yes."

"You're absolutely positive, Ms. Powell?"

"Positive. He was… memorable."

Alper went to her desk, grabbed a folder, and approached the bench. "I would like to submit to the court written statements from three of Peter Mullen's coworkers that evening. They state that the deceased got to work at least forty minutes late. Therefore, it was impossible for him to have parked Ms. Powell's or anyone else's car before seven-forty."

The crowd stirred again. The whispers got louder. People were clearly angry. "Do you have any explanation for this discrepancy, Ms. Powell?" asked the judge.

"I thought he parked my car, Your Honor. I suppose it's possible I saw him at some other point in the party. He was very good looking. Maybe that's why his face stuck out in my mind."

There was so much commotion as Nadia Alper returned to her seat that Lillian had to bang his gavel and ask for quiet again.

"Alper's got some brass," said Mack in my ear. "I'd score that round a draw."

Chapter 57

THIS WAS EXCRUCIATING.

I wanted to be the one handling the cross-examination, objecting to Bill Montrose's every sentence, his blasé attitude, even his goddamned blue cashmere blazer and gunmetal gray slacks. He looked as though he was on his way to the Bath Tennis Club as soon as this trifling matter was finished.

Montrose's next witness was Dr. Ishier Jacobson, who had quit his position as Los Angeles County coroner a decade ago when he realized he could do five times as well as an expert witness.

"Dr. Jacobson, how long did you serve as chief pathologist at Cook Claremont Hospital in Los Angeles?"

"Twenty-one years, sir."

"And in that time, Doctor, approximately how many drowning victims were you called upon to examine?"

"A great many, I'm sorry to say. Los Angeles-area beaches are extremely active and crowded with surfers. In my tenure, I looked into over two hundred drownings."

Montrose gleamed up at Judge Lillian, then back at Dr. Jacobson.

"So it is no exaggeration to say that this is an area in which you have an exceptional level of expertise."

"I believe I've examined more drowning victims than any active pathologist in the United States."

"And what were your conclusions concerning the death of Peter Mullen?"

"First of all, that he drowned. Second, that his death was either an accident or a suicide."

It's not as if I didn't know how easily expert testimony can be purchased. If the client can afford to, he can always fly in a second opinion to forcefully contradict whatever the prosecution is putting out. The injuncture, the lawyer's artifice, just seems a little different when the murder victim is your brother.

"How do you explain the condition of the body, Dr. Jacob-son? Pictures taken of the deceased after he washed ashore indicate that he was badly bruised and there's been speculation that he was beaten."

"As you know, a storm was passing through the Hamptons that weekend. In that kind of surf, a badly bruised corpse is the rule, not the exception. I've examined dozens of drowning victims where foul play was never a question. Believe me, they looked at least as battered as Peter Mullen did that night. Some were worse."

"That's total bullshit," said Hank, leaning over the back of our seats. "This guy is sickening. Bought and paid for."

Montrose continued with the charade. He was sickening, too. "As you know, I asked you to bring some pictures of previous victims to illustrate this point. Could you share these with the court, Dr. Jacobson?"

Jacobson held up two pictures, and Montrose, as if he hadn't seen them before, winced. "Both of the surfers were approximately the same age as Mr. Mullen," he said. "As you can see they are almost as badly bruised as Mr. Mullen, and as I recall, the conditions were not nearly as severe."

Montrose carried the photographs to the judge, who placed them beside the statement he had received from Alper.

"Is there anything else you found in the records that could shed light on his tragic death?" asked Monty.

Jacobson nodded. "The autopsy revealed significant traces of marijuana in his bloodstream, as if he had inhaled one or maybe two marijuana cigarettes shortly before entering the water."

"Your Honor," interrupted Alper, "this shameless effort to taint the reputation of the victim has been going on since he died. When does it stop?"

"Please, Ms. Alper," said the judge, "sit down and wait your turn."

"Why might this marijuana be relevant, Dr. Jacobson?" asked Montrose.

"Recent studies have shown that immediately after using marijuana, the risk of heart failure increases dramatically. Add to that a water temperature in the low fifties, and it becomes a real possibility. I believe that's exactly what happened here."

"Thank you, Dr. Jacobson. I have no further questions."

Chapter 58

THIS WHOLE THING was suddenly too much for me to take. If I had been the DA, I would have cross-examined Dr. Jacobson until he was bleeding from every orifice. I would have asked him to tell the court how many days of expert testimony he had billed Nelson, Goodwin and Mickel in the past five years (forty-eight), what his daily rate ($7,500) and per diem ($300) were, and to name his favorite restaurant in New York (Gotham Bar Grill, most expensive entree, veal esplanade, $48).

To belabor the point, I'd ask if those forty-eight days qualified him for Nelson, Goodwin and Mickel's pension plan (no), if he got to keep his bonus miles (also no), and if he had ever delivered an expert opinion other than the ones he was paid for (of course not).

Nadia Alper chose not to pursue this hard line of questioning. Maybe she assumed that Lillian would have cut her off. Perhaps she thought that the sooner we got our own expert on the stand, the better. Whatever the reasons, the gym swelled with righteous indignation when she called Dr. Jane Davis to the stand.

At last we were going to listen to testimony that hadn't been bought, and Montauk would hear from one of its own. This was why we had come to this inquest – to hear the truth for a change.

Even Nadia Alper looked in better spirits as she asked, "Dr. Davis, please tell us your role in this investigation."

"I am the pathologist for Huntington Hospital and chief medical examiner for Suffolk County," Jane said.

"So, unlike Dr. Jacobson, you actually examined Peter Mullen's body, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"How many hours did you devote to his examination?"

"Over sixty."

"Is that more than usual?"

"I grew up in Montauk and I know the Mullen family, so I was particularly thorough," said Jane.

"What evidence did you consider?" asked Alper.

"In addition to an extensive physical examination of the corpse, I took multiple X rays, and sampled and compared lung tissue."

"And according to your report, which I have in my hand, you concluded that Mr. Mullen did not drown at all but was beaten to death. To quote from your report, 'Peter Mullen's death was the result of multiple blows to the neck and head with fists, feet, or other blunt instruments. X rays show two completely severed vertebrae, and the level of saturation of the lung tissue indicates the victim had stopped breathing well before he reached the water.' "

"Those were my findings," said Davis, who seemed nervous and now drew a deep breath. "But upon further consideration and soul-searching, and the benefit of Dr. Jacobson's extensive experience, I've concluded that those initial findings were incorrect, that the evidence does point toward drowning. I realize now that my judgment was compromised by my closeness to the family of the deceased."

As Jane Davis delivered this last bit of devastating testimony, her voice was paper thin and she seemed to shrivel up on the stand. She left Alper standing there twisting in the wind. She was speechless. I couldn't believe what I'd just heard, either. Neither could the crowd in the gym. Heads were swiveling everywhere.

"How much did they pay you, darling?" asked a woman whose son had been in Peter's class.

"I hope it was more than they paid Dr. Jacobson," shouted Bob Shaw, who owns the deli on Main. "He didn't have to sell out his friends."

"Leave her alone," Macklin finally spoke from his seat. "They got to her. They threatened her. Hell, can't you see that?"

Lillian pounded his gavel and yelled for quiet, and when that had no effect, he announced a one-hour recess.

In the near riot, Jane Davis had already left the stand. I ran after Jane, but her car was tearing out of the rear lot.

Chapter 59

MACK AND I STAGGERED out of the gym for the recess. At the side parking lot we took refuge on a small bench. I felt as if I'd just taken another beating, only this was worse than the others.

"You've probably learned more in the last two hours than in two years at your Ivy League law school," said Mack. "Unless they're offering tutorials on witness tampering, bribery, and physical intimidation. Maybe they should."

Mack looked out at the lovely August morning and spat between his shapeless black brogans. In a lot of ways this was an idyllic scene. A nice, well-maintained little school, green playing fields up the wazoo. It was the kind of spot TV stations like to send camera crews to on election mornings. Capture the picturesque machinery of democracy at work. Film the local people filing into their small-town gymnasium in their heavy work boots, stepping behind the curtain to cast their votes.

When you come to the same gym on a morning like this, you realize something is going on that isn't pretty, isn't idyllic, and certainly isn't democratic. It's the Big Lie, the White Noise, the Matrix.

Marci spotted us on the bench and came over for a smoke. "Those New York City folks don't take any prisoners, do they?" she said, holding out her pack. I shook my head. "Sure? It's a great day for a life-shortening habit," said Marci.

When I was a student looking out at this same parking lot, it was usually empty except for a modest row of cars belonging to the teachers. As I looked now, a Mercedes sedan slowly circled the blacktop. Long and silver with blacked-out windows, it finally stopped twenty yards from us.

Burly, dark-suited men hopped out of the front. They hustled to open the rear doors.

In a flash of long white legs and blond hair, Dana stepped out. She was tugging on her dark dress, and I have to admit, she looked as good as ever. Around the other side of the car came her father. He looked great, too. All-powerful and all-knowing. He took her hand, and with the bodyguards deployed front and back, the two walked toward the gym.

"Why, it's your old girlfriend," said Mack. "I must have pegged her wrong, because here she is to show her support for you and your brother."

Chapter 60

MARCI STUBBED OUT HER CIGARETTE, and we followed the Neubauers and their bodyguards back into the gym. Judge Lillian was attempting to call the room to order. He banged his gavel several times, and the Montauketeers cut off their bitter discussions and trudged back to their metal chairs.

They were just settling in when Montrose called Dana Neubauer to the stand. My stomach sank.

"God in heaven," mumbled Mack. "What could she have to say?"

Dana walked solemnly to the stand. As I said, she looked particularly stunning that morning. In retrospect, I realize she also looked substantial, serious, and totally credible.

"Did you know the deceased, Peter Mullen?" Montrose asked.

"Yes, I knew Peter very well," she said.

"For how long?"

"I've been coming here every summer for twenty-one years. I met Peter and the rest of his family early on."

"I'm sorry to have to ask this, Dana, but were you ever intimately involved with Peter Mullen?"

Dana nodded.

"Yes."

There was some murmuring, but, overall, the room was still reeling from all the other testimony. I knew about Dana and Peter by then, but I hated to hear it in open court.

"How long did the relationship last?" he asked.

"About six months," said Dana, shifting uncomfortably in her witness chair.

Montrose sighed, as if this was as hard for him as it was for Dana. "Were you involved at the time of his death?"

Oh, Jesus, I was thinking, this just keeps getting worse.

"We had just broken up," said Dana, looking in my direction. I knew it was a lie. At least, I thought it was. But when I tried to catch her eye, she looked back at Montrose.

"How recently?" he asked. "I know this is hard for you."

"That night," said Dana in a stage whisper, "the night of the party."

"What a wonderful girl you got there, Jack," said Mack without bothering to look over at me.

Dana flashed me another fearful look and started to cry softly. I stared back in awe. Who was this woman on the stand? Was any of this true?

"Peter took it really badly," she resumed. "He started acting crazy. He broke a lamp in the house, knocked over a chair, and stormed out. He called an hour later and told me I was making a big mistake, that the two of us had to be together. I knew he was upset, but I never thought that he'd do anything rash. If you knew Peter, you wouldn't have believed it, either. He acted like nothing ever really got to him. Obviously, I was wrong. I'm so sorry about what happened."

Then Dana put her head down and sobbed into her hands.

"Brava!" Gidley called from a few rows behind. "Bravissima!" Then he jumped up and began clapping wildly for Dana's breathtaking performance.

Chapter 61

A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE once spent a summer interning at a New York TV news station. The anchorman liked him and over a beer offered the secret to on-air success. "The whole thing in this business," said the anchor, "is sincerity. Once you learn how to fake that, the rest is easy."

Barry Neubauer followed Dana to the stand. Neubauer's specialty wasn't feigning empathy but projecting CEO-ness. Every detail of his presentation, from the cut of his charcoal suit to the tilt of his jaw to his full head of gray hair, reinforced the message that here was a man who was your superior.

"Mr. Neubauer," Nadia Alper began, "according to a bartender who was setting up at your place the afternoon before the party, you and Mrs. Neubauer engaged in a lengthy and nasty argument. Could you tell us what the argument was about?"

"I do recall a spat," said Neubauer with a shrug, "but I don't remember it as being particularly serious. In fact, I have no clear recollection of what it was about. Probably just pre-party anxiety. I suspect that bartender hasn't been married for twenty-seven years."

"Would it jog your memory, Mr. Neubauer, if I told you that the same bartender heard you say the name Peter Mullen several times in the course of the argument, often with an expletive attached?"

Neubauer frowned as he strained to recall the incident.

"No, I'm sorry, it wouldn't. I can't imagine any circumstances in which his name would come up in an argument between Campion and myself. Peter Mullen has been a friend of the family for as long as I can remember. We consider his death, whatever the exact circumstances, extremely tragic. I've extended my condolences to the Mullen family. I visited his older brother, Jack, at the law firm where he worked and spoke to him at length."

As a witness, Neubauer had what might be described as perfect pitch. His erect posture, steady gaze, deep voice, and slow, thoughtful delivery all combined to create an impression of absolute credibility. To judge his responses as anything less than the truth seemed cynical and conspiratorial.

Alper persisted. To her credit, she didn't seem afraid of him. "Could you recall your activities on the day Mr. Mullen died?"

"I screened some dailies in the morning and played eighteen holes rather badly at Maidstone in the afternoon. Then Campion and I got ourselves ready for the party."

"Could you tell us what you were doing at about ten-thirty that night, the time that Mr. Mullen died?"

"I was in an upstairs den on the phone," said Neubauer, without hesitation. "This I remember very well."

Nadia Alper tilted her head in surprise. So did Mack and I.

"Is there a reason, Mr. Neubauer, why you remember a phone call so vividly yet have no recollection about a fight with your wife?"

Nothing seemed to shake Barry Neubauer. "For one thing, it was a very long call, a little more than an hour. I even remember feeling very guilty about being away from our guests for so long."

"He's just a goddamned caring human being," said Macklin under his breath.

"Do you have any proof of the call?"

"Yes, I've brought a copy of the phone bill. It shows a seventy-four-minute call from three past ten to eleven-seventeen p.m." Neubauer passed the record to Alper.

"Could you tell us who you were talking to, Mr. Neubauer?" asked Alper.

When Neubauer hesitated slightly, Montrose barked, "Objection."

Both attorneys looked toward Lillian.

"Overruled," said the judge. "Please answer the question."

"Robert Crassweller Junior," said Neubauer. The slightest trace of a smile crossed his lips. "The attorney general of the United States," he said.

This final answer drained whatever energy and tension remained in the courtroom. Some spectators got up and left, as if this was an Islander game and the fat lady had just sung. Barry Neubauer's eyes casually roamed the audience. When he found me, he offered up a lazy smile. Amateur hour is over, boys.

After a few more questions, Nadia Alper excused Neubauer. Then both lawyers informed the court that they had presented their list of witnesses.

Judge Lillian made a show of adjusting his robes before somberly addressing the court.

"Normally," said Lillian, "I would withhold my decision until the morning. In this case, however, I can't think of anything that requires further reflection. It is the finding of this inquiry court that on May twenty-ninth, Peter Mullen drowned by accident or suicide. This inquest is now completed, and this court adjourned."

Chapter 62

THE COURT ADJOURNED at about 4:40. When I got to the Shagwong, it was five on the nose. I took a seat at the end of the bar and asked Mike to pour out six shots of Jameson.

Without raising an eyebrow, he grabbed two handfuls of glasses and, with practiced precision, lined them up and filled them to the rims.

"They're on me," he said.

"I would have asked for seven, then," I told him. I smiled for the first time that day.

Mike put down a seventh and filled it also.

"I was joking."

"Me, too."

As Mike laid out my full course of Irish medicine, I saw again that smug little smile Montrose flashed me on his way out of the courtroom. It showed more disgust than joy. Why, he seemed to be asking, was I the only one in the room who couldn't understand that justice is neither a mystery nor a crapshoot, but a major purchase? Spend your money thoughtfully and secretly, you walk free. That was the way it was in America these days. Who knows? Maybe it had always been that way.

Over the next hour and a half to two hours, I steadily worked from left to right. I tossed back shots for each bought witness in the parade of perjurers. I lifted a glass to Tricia Powell, no doubt the Mayflower Employee of the Month, and another for the good Dr. Jacobson, the coroner magician from Los Angeles. Or as Mack described him, "a whore with a resume."

My old honey Dana rated two shots of Jameson. The first for coming all the way back from Europe just because she missed me. The second for her Oscar-worthy performance that afternoon.

Hardly acknowledging anyone around me, I sipped and stewed until my level of numbness nudged ahead of my rage. I think that happened somewhere around my second Dana shot, my fourth in forty minutes.

Although I'm probably not the most reliable witness, I recall that Fenton and Hank came up and each threw an arm around me but, sensing I wasn't up for a group hug, soon left me to my self-medicating. They were just trying to do the right thing.

When I put in my order I'd counted on a toast for Jane Davis, but by the time her turn came, I was more worried about her than angry. On the way back from the bathroom, I stopped at the pay phone and left a slightly incoherent message on her machine.

"It's not your fault, Jane," I shouted over the din, "it's mine. I never should have gotten you into this mess."

That was when I saw none other than Frank Volpi. He was standing in back, waiting for me to get off the phone. "Congratulations, asshole," he said. Then he grinned and walked away before I could get off a shot.

Back at the bar, I toasted Frank. He'd been there for us from the start, and his performance had been flawless. "Volpi," I said, and drank.

Numero six was for Barry Neubauer himself. The river of whiskey had opened up my poetic side, and I came up with a couplet for the occasion. Barry Neubauer, scumbag of the hour.

That was meant to be my last, but thanks to Mike, I had one glistening silver bullet left. I was afraid I was going to have to drink to something vague and amorphous like the System. Then I thought of Attorney General Robert Crassweller Jr. Even I had to hand it to Montrose for the way he set up the big punch line with his phony objection. What panache. He had played Nadia Alper like a Stradivarius. What class! What a winner!

After the last toast, the vertical and horizontal on my picture started to wander. In fact, the whole room was spinning. I treated the problem with a couple of beers. Hair of the dog. Then I made a few attempts to leave Mike a forty-dollar tip. He kept stuffing it back in my shirt pocket until I finally stumbled out the door.

Two blocks later I stopped at a pay phone and called Jane again. That awful look on her face wouldn't go away. I was planning to leave a slightly more intelligible version of my first message when she answered.

"Its okay, Jane," I said.

"No, it's not okay. Jesus, Jack. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. They came to my house."

"It wouldn't have made an iota of difference."

"So what!" She sounded hysterical.

Four weekenders walked by and got into a Saab convertible. "Jane, you've got to swear to me you won't do anything stupid."

"Don't worry. But there's something I have to tell you. I didn't before, because I didn't see the point. When I did all those tests on Peter, I also did blood tests. Jack, your brother was HIV-positive."

Chapter 63

THE TWO-MILE WALK and the ocean air did me a world of good. By the time I passed the parking lot for Ditch Plains Beach and cut across my damp lawn, I was close to sober again.

It's something I'll always be grateful for. Sitting on the porch and leaning back against the front door in one of my old tattered sweaters was Pauline.

It was about 10:30. The street and lawn were enveloped in a light ocean mist. It's a weird analogy, and I have no idea why I thought of it, but seeing Pauline blocking my path to the door brought to mind Gary Cooper waiting patiently in the street in High Noon. Something about her stillness and her "here I am, what are you going to do about it?" smile.

"You're a sight for sore eyes, Pauline."

"You, too, Jack. I watched from the back of the gym today. Then I drove all the way back to the city. Then I drove all the way back out here. Crazy, huh? Don't try to deny it."

"Did you do something awful that made Macklin kick you out of the house?"

"No."

"You just wanted some fresh air?"

"No."

"Am I getting warm?"

"No."

Most no's aren't too good, but these were about as good as no's could be. I sat on the cool flagstone and leaned back against the red wooden door of our house. I touched Pauline's arm. It felt electric against mine. She took my hand in hers, and my mouth went dry.

"But as I was talking to Macklin, something became really clear to me," she whispered.

"What was that, Pauline?" I whispered back.

"How much I care about you."

I looked at Pauline again and did what I'd probably wanted to do for a long time. I kissed Pauline gently on the lips. Her lips were soft and fit perfectly on mine. We stayed that way for a sweet moment before we pulled back and looked at each other.

"That was worth the wait," I said.

"You shouldn't have waited, Jack."

"I promise I won't wait as long for the next one."

We started kissing again and haven't really stopped since.

Now I appreciate that for those of you who have stayed with me this far, there's nothing too surprising about this romantic development. You probably saw it coming. But I didn't.

Not until I walked across the lawn that night. Not because I didn't want it to happen. I wanted it to happen from the first moment Pauline walked into my tiny office. I wanted it so badly, I was afraid to even hope for it.

"You're a good person. And sweet," Pauline said as we hugged on the front porch.

"Try not to hold it against me."

"I won't." She showed me a blanket she'd brought out from the house.

"Let's go down to the beach, Jack. There's something else I've been wanting to do with you for a long time."