The Last Refuge

NINE

THE WEEKS AFTER leaving Abby and my job have always been a bit of a blur. Mainly because I was drinking a lot and disregarding common conventions like mealtime and Monday Night Football. I stayed in my room at the hotel, or drove my car, the company car I was supposed to return, around western Connecticut and up into the Berkshires and southern Vermont. Not because I wanted to visit those places, they were just where the roads I knew tended to go. I daydreamed a lot while I drove, and tried to remember moments in my past that weren’t freighted with impossibly painful associations.

I kept clear of thinking about the immediate past. I pretended I didn’t have one, as if I’d awakened from a five-year coma, slightly brain damaged. Not a hard act to sustain, given my condition at the time.

My hotel was off the Merritt Parkway not far from the house in Stamford. It was the kind frequented by middle and upper level executives passing through the economic distortion field of Fairfield County. Big comfortable double beds, disinterested employees and a vapid overpriced bar and restaurant filled with forced theme entertainment and lonely distracted guys trying to look comfortable in conformist casual clothes. A dozen or so TVs disturbed the utter silence and saved the tired blond woman working the bar from having to indulge people from other parts of the country in desultory conversation.

I’d left all my belongings at the house in Stamford so I had to go into town to provision. I’d never been to a store in the middle of a working day to buy a can of shaving cream. I felt impossibly alien walking down the crammed retail aisles surrounded by stay-at-home mothers and retired guys in Jeff caps and polyester stretch pants. The woman behind the checkout counter wore a red smock uniform and a distant, disorganized expression. I bought enough shaving cream to keep me out of places like that for at least as long as I thought I’d survive.

I bought a few pairs of jeans and some T-shirts, but held on to the suit, thinking I might need it some day. Abby had paid a lot of money for it at Brooks Brothers. It was a Christmas gift one year. I remember it fit perfectly and that she was disappointed when I didn’t fuss over the label. I wondered why just liking the suit for its fine intrinsic qualities wasn’t enough.

I used to watch television when there was a game on, but now avoided it completely. I lay on the bed in the quiet of the room and drank Jack Daniels until I fell asleep. I paid my bill a month in advance, so everyone left me alone.

Two weeks into that month a private investigator showed up with a letter from Barry Mildrew in Mason Thigpen’s office. It was my copy of the signed agreement. Also a letter outlining my severance package, if I agreed. I signed that, too, and sent it back with the PI after getting him to buy me a round of drinks. He was an ex-fighter and a night school student at Central Connecticut, so by definition my kind of thug. The salesmen at the hotel bar kept their distance. Survival instincts.

Abby’s lawyers sent their own guys a few days later. I entertained them in the same venue. These were more like paralegals than knuckle busters so we had less to talk about. But at least they knew to buy the drinks.

Their paperwork was a little more troubling, which resulted in my field trip to the Meadowlands with the interior of Abby’s house, but that came later, after I’d sobered up enough to actually make out the text.

My daughter was the last visitor to my hotel. She found me in the bar, at one of the heavy oak cocktail tables surrounded by an overabundance of padded rolling chairs. It was about four in the afternoon, so I was already ramping up nicely to the first real drunk of the day.

She wore faded blue jeans decorated with runic symbols drawn with indelible ink, a wool sweater and silver wire-rim glasses. Her dirty blond hair was pulled back with a cotton scarf rolled into a headband. She carried her jacket hugged tightly with both hands against her midsection, as if trying to contain her entrails. Her face was pale, her eyes braced.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

She sat in one of the chairs and rolled back from the table to give herself ample running room. I had to greet her again before she’d say anything.

“I can’t believe this.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Your choice.”

“I really can’t believe this.”

“You look great.”

“How can you say that?”

“It’s great to look at you.”

“You should see yourself. That wouldn’t be so great.”

“No argument there.”

“Mommy’s beside herself.”

“And behind herself. All the way.”

“Everything’s always a joke.”

“And not very funny, either. How’s school?”

“I can’t think about school right now.”

“Now’s the best time. Throw yourself into your work.”

“That’s your deal. Throw yourself in and never come out.”

“I’m out now.”

“Too late.”

“You forgot the ‘too little.’”

“The what?”

“Too little, too late. Those things usually go together.”

“With you too little’s assumed.”

“That’s my girl. Sharp as a dart.”

“When are you going to stop this?”

“Stop what?”

“What you’re doing. It’s crazy.”

“You got your tenses goofed up. I’m not doing anything. I’ve done something.”

“You and your word games. Mommy’s just as bad.”

“The heart of the relationship.”

“No relationship I can see. And certainly no heart.”

“Then why all the fuss?”

“You’re not supposed to give up.”

“Says who?”

“Says me. Your daughter, remember? ‘I’ll never let anything bad happen to you, honey’? What do you call this?”

“You turned out great. You’re beautiful, intelligent, artistic. You’re self-reliant and resourceful. You’re actually a nice person, most of the time, which is a real blow against genetic determinism.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“No I’m not. You’re all grown up. You’re who you are. Go be it.”

“Like, this is none of my business?”

“It’s completely your business, it’s just not your life.”

“You won’t admit you’re wrong.”

“Is that all this is? Okay, I’m wrong. I admit it.”

“Then come home.”

“First off, sweetie, it’s not your home anymore. You live in Rhode Island. Secondly, it’s not mine, either, it’s your mother’s.” I held up my empty glass. “Can I get you anything? Drink?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m buying.”

“With what? You quit your job.”

“They give you a drinking stipend. It’s part of the severance.”

I waived to the woman at the bar. She caught me out of the corner of her eye and nodded.

“Mommy said you’re in wicked bad trouble, but she wouldn’t tell me what, or why.”

“Not really in trouble, but the night’s still young.”

“Did you hurt anybody?”

“Nobody that matters.”

“Everyone matters.”

“No. You matter. The rest is up for grabs.”

“If I really mattered, we’d be having a different conversation.”

“I never fell for that ‘if you really loved me’ stuff.”

“Too much of a hard-ass.”

“Too realistic.”

“Hard-assed engineer.”

“Worst kind.”

“Think scaring people is some kind of triumph.”

“Only your boyfriends.”

“You don’t scare me.”

“Then I did something right.”

“You should scare me, but you don’t.”

“Because you’ve got nothing to fear. You could tear my throat out with your bare hands and I’d kiss your wrists while you did it.”

She clutched her jacket even tighter to her chest.

“I don’t get it.”

“You’re not supposed to. Later on, you will. Maybe.”

A pallid young waitress dropped another Jack Daniels on the table and looked at my daughter to get her order.

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

The waitress kept her face in neutral and walked off.

“So this is it,” she said to me. “You’re going to sit here for the rest of your life and drink that shit.”

“I’m very proud of you.”

“Stop doing that.”

“I am. Sometimes I can’t believe it. What a gift.”

“No help from you.”

“Exactly.”

She seemed to be a little lost for words, an unaccustomed state of affairs. I used the silence to drain off a little of the Jack.

“So this is it,” she said, finally.

“It’s great to see you. Even when you’re mad at me.”

She stood straight up out of her chair.

“Then take it all in. It’s the last time.”

“Aw, geez.”

She pointed her finger at me.

“I know what you’re doing. I know exactly what you’re doing. But I won’t be a witness to it. I’ll just wait for the official notice. Bye, Daddy. Thanks for whatever.”

And she turned on her heel and walked away with her head up, briskly, but self-assured, like she was about to catch a train the conductor was holding for her at the platform. I told her I’d always love her, no matter what, but she was way out of earshot by then and wouldn’t have heard me anyway.

After that I lost track of time, about two weeks’ worth. I know things started with a trip down to a neighborhood in Stamford where I met up with a bunch of kids I knew from the gym. They had a good time touring me around the local action and unsettling their families by feeding me and letting me sleep on their sofas. My color got us into a lot of fights, which broke up the monotony of stuffy apartments and ratty neighborhood hangouts. On one of the nights I left my car, the company car, next to a curb with the engine running. According to the Stamford prosecutor it never turned up again, though I doubt anyone actually looked for it. A few other things happened that I only dimly remember, but it was all pretty thoroughly detailed in the charges they filed against me.

True to her word, my daughter never talked to me again. I knew she wouldn’t. She always had a stubborn streak and never would let go once she got a good grip on something.

Joe Sullivan was big enough to take up half the couch in my living room, leaving just enough room for Eddie to scrunch up next to his butt. Sullivan made up for it by rubbing him behind the ears, a treatment Eddie found tirelessly engaging.

By now the ambulance had hauled Buddy off to Southampton Hospital and all of Sullivan’s colleagues had drifted away. Ross Semple had threatened to make a personal appearance, but Sullivan had gently discouraged him.

“He still wants you to show up tomorrow for a little chat,” Sullivan told me.

“Not a problem.”

“Not yet.”

Sullivan was still officially on duty, so I felt a little bad about drinking in front of him, though not bad enough to stop. He took it in stride.

He waited till I’d dropped down on the floor with my back against the fireplace before asking me again if I’d left anything out of my statement.

“I was getting my mail when he cold-cocked me, only this time it didn’t land straight on and I was able to get away. He chased me up to the house where I got my little bat, which I used to successfully fight him off.”

“I’ll say.”

“You writing all this down?”

“Already did. No witnesses?”

“I don’t know. You can ask around.”

“Nothing to add?”

“Only, I guess, I know who he is.”

Sullivan arched his eyebrows and let his hands fall into his lap, a gesture I’d seen my mother use on more than one occasion. Usually under similar circumstances.

“Memory coming back? All of a sudden?”

“I didn’t see him at the Playhouse. Just his boots. But I saw him before that, down at the ocean. I was running on the beach. When I got back to the lot this guy was nosing around my car. I was probably a little less than polite about it. A few words. I ended up backin’ into his Beemer. Gave it a little bump with the Grand Prix. You know, meatball like that, easily offended.”

“Easier when it’s you.”

“Come on, Joe, I’m not interested in any more of that shit. Honest to God,” I said, like I really meant it, because I really did. “Though I guess I provoked him somehow. Anyway, he’d’ve killed me if he could. I know that.”

Sullivan flipped ahead in his casebook.

“You wouldn’t be the first.”

“What do you mean?”

“Buddy Florin. From upstate. Ten years for manslaughter. Two other charges, later dropped. Freelancer from out of the City. He’s a punk. Old-fashioned kind. That tell you anything?”

“Bad luck.”

“Nothing else, huh? No other bells going off? Nothing else you want to tell me about?”

I thought about it for a minute.

“I’m glad I fucked him up,” I admitted.

“Oh, you fucked him up, all right.”

“Better me than Eddie. If I’d’ve let him out, there’s no telling.”

Eddie picked his head up at the mention of his name. The fur on the left side of his face was pushed up from sleeping on it, imparting a look of lunatic disequilibrium. Sullivan looked down at him and brushed the hair back into place.

“Yeah. I’m nervous just sittin’ here.”

“You sure you can’t have a beer or something?”

“I can have a beer. Actually, it’s encouraged. Fraternizing with the public.”

I got it for him and we spent the next hour or so talking about the Knicks, a subject I felt more comfortable discussing, whether with honest Irish cops or earnest gay tycoons.

For some stupid reason I walked Eddie on a leash before we went to bed. It was either the smell of evil out on my lawn or the adrenaline still itching at my nerves. Whatever it was, it kept me awake, so even after Eddie was zonked out on the bed I was up pacing around. On an impulse I got Buddy’s gun out of my sock drawer where I’d stashed it before Sullivan showed up. It was a Glock 23, .40 caliber. Fashionable gun for an old-fashioned punk. Probably liked the look of it. Matte black, polymer and steel. Lots of kick.

Too wired to sleep, and nothing else to do, I took the gun down to my father’s workbench so I could look at its innards. Typical hard-assed engineer. Always curious about instruments of death.

Eddie stuck me in the ribs with his back feet when he jumped off the bed, barking like mad. It was daylight, but I hadn’t been sleeping very long, so it took a little while to get my bearings. I could hear the sound of someone banging on the front door even through all the frantic yelping.

“Goddammit, Eddie.”

I pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and answered the door.

“Hi, Jackie.”

“That has got to be the stupidest car on the whole planet.”

“The standard shift throws a lot of people.”

“Did I wake you? I hope so. What happened to your hand?”

Eddie had regained control of himself and was out on the lawn, buzzing around with his nose an inch off the grass.

“Coffee?” I asked her.

“No. Pickup truck.”

My automatic coffee pot had done its duty a half-hour earlier and the results were wafting around the house.

“Come on, it’s already brewed.”

“You got a lot of nerve.”

“You don’t want to know what happened?”

“Jesus Christ.”

After I had her hands filled with my biggest ceramic mug I was able to talk her into waiting for me out on the porch while I took a shower. She was still thoroughly pissed, but her curiosity, as always, held her on the line. I told Eddie to keep her company.

“Just don’t give him any dope. He’s loopy enough as it is.”

I poured myself a cup and took it with me to the outdoor shower, which I used until the pipes threatened to freeze, usually after the first of the year. Even in the early morning light, the day was clear and full of color, the sky the deepest blue.

I squandered gallons of hot water, creating clouds of steam that billowed from the shower and upset the local climatic balance. The floor of the shower was filled with red, yellow and orange leaves from the oaks and maples overhead. I cleared the drain with my feet and watched the water swirl away in a tiny vortex. I turned the hot water up another notch to massage my shoulders and the back of my neck. I took a sip of the coffee. I tried to picture Regina seducing Carl Bollard, but it wouldn’t work. I wondered what she looked like as a young woman, and that was easier. Tall and straight-shouldered, firm handshake and wary eyes. A hard outer shell that was tough to crack, but once you did, it was all soft and tractable inside. Hopeful, but afraid of hurt. In need, despite her better judgment.

And always braced for the worst kind of disappointment.

I was able to stay clear of Jackie’s questions until I was in my clothes. I could feel the frustration penetrate the wall between my bedroom and the screened-in porch. She was pacing when I got there.

“I owe you big time,” I told her, before she had a chance to speak. “I know that.”

She was wearing a short wool coat in a giant red-and-black plaid. Her thick strawberry hair was tied up in a ponytail that spewed like a fountain almost from the top of her head. On her feet were a pair of beat-to-hell cowboy boots. Ready to start kicking.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to apologize,” she said.

“Actually, I need another favor.”

“Now who’s smoking dope?”

“Just drive to the Village with me. I’ll tell you everything on the way.”

She squinted at me as if contemplating a right hook. Probably pack a more effective punch than Jimmy Maddox.

“You think I have nothing else to do?”

“Okay. You’re hired.”

“What?”

“You’re hired. For real this time. Where do I sign?”

“I can’t do that.”

“Your last client just shot himself. You got an opening.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Come on. We gotta move. I’m not paying you to just stand around.”

Eddie was unhappy in the back seat of the Grand Prix. I rolled the windows down so he could stick out his head. The wind made it hard to talk, but I felt I owed him, after leaving him inside for so long the day before. I was still able to tell Jackie the gist of what I wanted to tell her before we got to the big parking lot behind Main Street. I gave it to her in a disorganized, disconnected jumble, without a lot of detail, but that was fine. If I’d told her more she’d have bailed out of the car.

“What’s my role here again?” she asked as I parked the Grand Prix behind the bank.

“Bodyguard.”

“Great.”

“Just stay alert and watch my back.”

“Speaking metaphorically.”

“Right.”

You could get to the main floor of Harbor Trust through a rear entrance off the parking lot. It was a simple glass door with the bank’s name stenciled in bright gold leaf. Inside was a long corridor that opened up into a big room with all the tellers, loan officers and personal bankers at their stations. I never came in this way, so it took a few moments to locate Amanda. She was at her desk, staring at her computer. She almost missed us walking by, but at the last moment her eyes left the screen and locked on to mine. She looked startled.

“We’re here to see Roy,” I said, without stopping, though I tried to look breezy and offhand. Her eyes shot to Jackie Swaitkowski. I smiled and waved as we walked by the other personal bankers and up to the guy who manned the desk right outside Roy Battiston’s office. I didn’t know what his official job was, but I thought he’d suit the purpose.

“I’m Sam Acquillo. This is Attorney Jacqueline Swaitkowski. We’re here to see Mr. Battiston.”

The guy automatically looked over his shoulder at Roy’s door.

“I’m not sure he’s in. Can I say what it’s about?”

“Just tell him who’s here. He’ll see us,” I said. Then to Jackie, “His car’s in the lot.”

The guy went back to Roy’s office and disappeared through the door. Jackie and I stood there and waited. Amanda was frozen in her seat, her hands motionless on the keyboard, her face taut. And alert. The other bank employees ignored us, going about their silent tasks with an air of placid resolve. There were customers in line at the tellers and a few at the desks of personal bankers, or waiting, seated on wood-frame benches upholstered in synthetic suede. No canned music, I noticed, gratefully.

The guy came out and closed the door behind him, but not before I saw Roy at his desk, in shirtsleeves, writing something on a pad.

“Just give him a few minutes,” the guy said, then sat back down at his desk.

We went back to standing there in the dead calm of the bank. Jackie was doing a good job of looking neutral and disinterested. As if she had complete command of the situation. Poised and prepared for any eventuality.

I was beginning to wonder if there was another way out of Roy’s office when the door opened and he waved us in. He still had his assertive, can-do handshake, but his palm was hot and wet.

“Sam. Jackie.”

“Hi, Roy,” I said.

“You know each other,” he said, in a way that was part question, part revelation.

“Jackie’s my lawyer,” I said to him as I sank into one of his two herculean guest chairs. Jackie took the other. She manifested a fine lawyerly posture, even though she was dressed like she’d just come from mucking out a stall.

“I’ve worked with Jackie,” said Roy, dropping into his own chair behind the desk, “right?”

She nodded. He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. He quickly gave up waiting.

Roy didn’t look too good. His skin was moist, adding a slight sheen to his bloodless complexion. He had the type of head that was more narrow at the top then the bottom. It expanded at the jawline, causing a jowly bulge he’d probably never lose even if he starved to death.

“So, folks, what can I do for you?”

His office was paneled in a light walnut ply, the carpet was deep green, his desk was chrome and covered in a laminate reminiscent of the masonite found in basement remodeling projects. No photos or trophies or insipid executive games you get for Christmas from your family, or as a token of appreciation for speaking to the Kiwanis. There were two tables flanking the desk like outriggers. They were covered with files and stacks of loose paper.

“I’m here to pick up a document.”

I thought Roy looked relieved.

“Okay. Maybe Amanda could help you.”

“You know I’m the administrator of Regina Broadhurst’s estate.”

“Of course. We had her account as well. Amanda can pull the records, make copies.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

He still had the look of helpful curiosity.

“Okay, I’m sorry. Why don’t you tell me.”

It was never easy being Roy Battiston. He must have realized at an early age he was the only one in his family who could think. As he moved through school and got to know other kids and other families, as he read and looked around at people in Town, he must have been appalled at what fate had allotted him. Taunted, probably, like all chubby kids with glasses and intelligence, but worse for him, with his bad clothes and embarrassing relatives. The awakening must have dawned slowly, but then steadily strengthened, driving him deeper into his own mind. Forming a bedrock of worry and resentment. And eventually hunger took hold. Desire. Enflamed by the secret knowledge that he could do things nobody ever suspected he could do. Propelled by determination and conviction. Maybe a promise to himself to soothe away the pain with achievement. To cleanse shame with success, the kind that mattered to people who mattered to him.

I never knew Roy very well, but I understood what happened to him.

“The trust. Carl’s trust. I need to see it.”

He started to fall back into his chair, thought better of it, and sat back up again. He put both hands palm down on the desk and took a deep breath.

“I really don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“As administrator of Regina’s estate,” said Jackie, “Sam has the obligation to identify and adjudicate all surviving assets and liabilities. Even those Regina may have been unaware of.”

Roy’s face had moistened even more while we talked, though his voice was still evenly modulated. The real story was in his eyes. Even behind his glasses I could see they were lit with alarm.

“You might have an opinion on this,” I said to Roy. “You think Hornsby planned it all along, or just let it happen?”

“Let what happen? Milton Hornsby was a business partner of mine. I have no other opinion of him.”

“Really. So you didn’t know Bay Side Holdings was owned by a trust created to manage the assets of a guy who’d been dead for over twenty years.”

“Of course not.”

“Personally, I think he just let it happen. Things just sort of flowed along and there was nobody there to do anything about it. After Carl and WB crapped out, Hornsby just kept right on going, paying bills, filing tax returns, complying with every statute and regulation and generally keeping his head down. Meanwhile siphoning off a nice income for himself.

“Oh, and keeping the monthly allowances going to Regina and your mother-in-law. Barely enough to live on, especially when you think about what was there, but on time, every month.”

Roy’s face finally took on a little color. A bright dab of red on each cheek.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

“We know everything, Roy,” said Jackie. “The only question is what we’re going to do about it.”

“No, I disagree. You have no idea what you’re talking about.” He surprised me by half standing up from his chair. I stood up all the way.

“Sit down, Roy. You need to listen carefully. Concentrate on what we’re saying. This is the only chance you’re going to get.”

He slowly sank back down in his chair. So did I, trying to get comfortable in that scratchy upholstery.

Roy knew that Hornsby was a lawyer and the CFO of WB Manufacturing, but I told him again anyway. It was partly for Jackie’s benefit. I went on to tell them about Carl Bollard Senior, who had set up a trust after his wife died, realizing his wayward son was next in line. Anticipating his own demise, he wanted a way to keep a leash on Carl Junior, preserve the assets of the estate and keep the plant in operation. It gave Carl Junior five years to grow up. After that, he got everything no matter what. At some point, Carl Senior named his young CFO, Milton Hornsby, the trustee, probably to tie his son more tightly to the family business.

This was prescient, because the next thing Carl Senior did was die, leaving Hornsby in control of the company, all its property and assets, and Carl Junior’s personal fortune. And consequently, Carl Junior himself. As it turned out, both guys were fine with the deal, given the tidy quid pro quo. Carl got to live like a king, or rather a legitimate CEO, while Hornsby basically ran the show. Carl was probably more than happy to let him. Hornsby was a lot younger than Carl, but he was Carl’s fairy godfather.

And the trust was his magic wand. No better way to plaster over Carl’s indiscretions. Carl was rich, spoiled and wild, and plugged into the Hamptons’ social scene. Regina worked at WB, in the plant. Handsome girl and hard as nails. But not too smart about men. He scoops her up, a few drinks, a few laughs, the usual ensues. He’s not about to marry her, but he takes care of her, financially anyway. Out of conscience or fear, who knows. Regina was never anybody you’d want to cross, at least not out where she could see you.

By 1960, Carl Junior has full control of the trust. He simply orders Hornsby to write Regina into the deal as a full beneficiary and installs her in a house on company property. The only hitch is now that Regina’s an equal beneficiary of the trust, she’s also an equal partner in the whole enterprise. Technically. But it really doesn’t matter because she doesn’t know it. Why should she? Carl’s not entirely stupid. And Hornsby sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her. He figures in a few years Carl will come to his senses, Hornsby can just scratch her off the list and WB can go on its merry way.

Roy was listening to me, but not happily. He kept trying to get comfortable in his chair, as if they’d just bought it for him and it wasn’t yet broken in.

“I really don’t know what all this has to do with me or Harbor Trust,” he said.

I ignored him.

“Trouble is, guys like Carl Bollard make a habit of fucking up. New chick shows up in the office, probably in the typing pool, sexy little Italian named Julia Anselma. Bippin’ around the office in those hot fifties fashions. Before you know it, Carl’s at it again.”

“Carl Bollard was Julia’s boss,” said Roy, as if disputing the notion.

“Right. Only this time, there’s another wrinkle. The chickie on the side produces a chicklet. Your wife, as it turns out.”

Roy’s face went slack as he saw the rest of his life board a train and leave the station.

“By the time Amanda was born, Carl had moved on to another girl. But Julia got the same deal as Regina. A lifetime of security in exchange for a zipped lip. Say what you will, I think Julia did a brave thing. She gave Amanda a safe, comfortable upbringing, with a minimum of turmoil. All she had to do was keep a secret.”

I hadn’t told Jackie about Julia or Amanda. But she still maintained her professional reserve. The girl had good game.

“Of course, Julia doesn’t know about the trust either. Though you can just hear Milton Hornsby excoriating Carl, ‘No more! This one is the last!’ He wasn’t a nice guy, Hornsby, but you can’t blame him for being a little frustrated. Here he is busting ass for the company, building it up and keeping it running through all kinds of tough times, only to find himself babysitting the spoiled, screwed-up son of the founder, who winds up owning everything, while Hornsby is left to play loyal family retainer. Must have really eaten him up.

“Lucky for him, though, Carl’s go-go lifestyle also featured oceans of alcohol, so right after the company folds, so does Carl. That’s when Hornsby decides it’s payback time. Carl’s will left all his assets to the trust. Since Regina and Julia are listed as surviving beneficiaries, the trust is technically still in force, controlling all the assets, the girls just don’t know it.”

“You have to register wills on the death of the signer,” said Jackie, interrupting, “but not trusts. It’s up to the trustee to come forward with that kind of information.”

“Hornsby does everything but. He closes down the plant, pays debts and corporate taxes, fills out forms, satisfies employee claims, sells off viable equipment. Zip-zip, the estate is now pretty clean. Just the real-estate and investment portfolio, which covers the estate tax and still throws off enough revenue to keep the whole thing going. And that’s where it sits for about twenty years.

“Until you came along, huh Roy?” I said.

By now he had his head in his hands, finally unable to support the weight of his fear.

“You finally score the prettiest girl in the class. She’s a bit of a basket case, but what the hell. She’s willing to be looked after, and who knows, over time, maybe she’ll really dig you. You like her mother, like to chat it up over Thanksgiving dinner. You’re a local Southampton guy, obsessed with money, and a banker to boot, a guy who knows real estate. Wouldn’t be surprising for you to ask, ‘So, Julia, your mortgage all paid off?’ ‘Oh, no, Roy, we don’t own the house, it belongs to my old company, WB Manufacturing. It’s an arrangement.’ ‘It is?’ thinks Roy, ‘How could that be?’ Easy enough to check your mother-in-law’s account at Harbor Trust and see the monthly direct deposits, then trace the ownership of her house through the tax rolls to Bay Side Holdings, which leads directly to pay dirt. Milton Hornsby. Carl Bollard’s loyal CFO, livin’ large in Sag Harbor.”

“You caught Hornsby violating his fiduciary duty. A very serious matter,” said Jackie, swept up in the moment, or maybe just offended by Hornsby’s professional lapse.

“Must have been quite a conversation,” I said. “You’re married to Amanda, after all. What’s hers is yours. The simple, easy thing would be to expose Hornsby and just take control of the assets. But you’re an ambitious boy who lusts after the Big Play. Why settle for a bunch of millions when you can have gobs of millions? Better yet, be the power behind a huge development scheme. Have the same people who’ve ignored you or treated you like white trash kissing your ass. And why wait for the ponderous legal system to sort it out when you can have it all now. I mean, if Milton Hornsby could keep it secret, why couldn’t Roy?”

“You make Hornsby an offer,” said Jackie. “Total ruin or help you develop the property. As far as anyone knows, Bay Side Holdings is a legitimate entity, with Milton Hornsby the controlling party. No need to messy up the deal with the actual facts.”

I’d been staring hard at Roy while I talked, but now I snuck a peek over at Jackie. I could feel her flair for outrage about to ignite.

“So now you got Hornsby playing property owner, but you need a developer,” I said. “Hornsby suggests another WB alum, Bob Sobol, whom Hornsby knows will keep his mouth shut and make useful connections, inside and outside the legal lines.

“The three of you put a plan together. You handle financing, of course, which gives you a reason to visit the home office on a regular basis. Which also makes it easy to stay in touch with architects and planners in the City, avoiding locals so the plan won’t leak prematurely.”

I heard Jackie give a tiny, barely audible snort.

“Everything’s cookin’ right along until you’re ready to subdivide the property to suit modern development. Bay Side might own everything, but property lines are regulated by the Town. You need variances. Which means you have to go before the zoning appeals board.”

“Not a problem,” said Jackie. “Sobol brings in Hunter Johnson, a hotshot from the City, and teams him up with me, who I must say commands the local scene, and we put together an excellent case. Big, and complicated, but nothing the Town hasn’t seen before. Except for the ratty old plant sitting in the middle of the concept. It’s an obstacle. But not insurmountable. It just means a wider than normal scope for a variance request. Everyone on Jacob’s Neck and Oak Point has to be notified. And invited to a public hearing.”

“Including Regina,” I shot in before she could get there. “It suddenly dawns on you—when notice goes out to Regina, who knows what’ll happen? Who knows what she’s going to say, and to whom? Everything’s legally half hers—what if she finds out? Julia Anselma didn’t know anything, but who knows about Regina? She’s a crazy old broad, with a big mouth. Can you afford to take the chance?

“You panic. Shut it all down. And wait. Hoping something will come to you. A way out. A way to get everything back in gear. The pause is great for Hornsby—takes the heat off. But not so great for Sobol. He’s still young enough to enjoy a big windfall. And he’s not happy that the only thing standing in his way is a few old ladies.”

Roy was still holding his head, with his eyes closed, but as we talked he started to shake it back and forth.

“Are you listening, Roy?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Good, I’m not done yet.”

He stayed still.

“I don’t know how it worked. If you talked about it, if you were actively involved, or if Sobol took care of everything himself and kept you and Hornsby in the clear. Sobol got to know both the old girls by hanging around the Senior Center. He could have worked it out all by himself. He used to be in quality control. I could see an engineer’s touch in how it was handled. I don’t think it was Buddy. He’s just muscle.”

Roy looked up.

“What are you saying?” he asked.

I thought about Sullivan telling me Regina might have been a lousy old bitch, but she was his lousy old bitch. That’s how I thought about my father. He was a lousy father, but he was my lousy father. And he gave me my lousy life. People like Regina and my father, living side by side on the tip of Oak Point at the feet of the holy Peconic, never really figured out why they were here on earth, never really had a chance to know much more than hope, hard work and disappointment. And all they got in the end was the privilege of being beaten to death by people who thought they had a greater purpose, thought they could just sweep those shabby crippled lives away from their feet like so much useless trash.

“You killed her. And you killed Julia Anselma.”

I realized Roy was weeping. He’d been sweating so hard the tears had just blended in.

“Lock the door,” he was saying. “Please lock the door. I don’t want anyone coming in.”

He waited until Jackie got back in her chair. She tossed him a crumpled napkin dug out of her wool jacket. He ignored it.

“Those bastards,” he said. “They’d say things about wasting the old ladies. That nobody’d even blink an eye. I couldn’t tell if they were just provoking me, or if they meant it. But I swear, I never ever would have done such a thing.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’re in it, you’re in it,” I told him.

I looked over at Jackie. She nodded.

“Oh, God.”

He dropped his head to the desk.

“Roy, listen to me. Look at me.”

He looked up again.

“Let’s take this one step at a time. You have the original trust document. I want it.”

He started to deny it, but I cut him off.

“That was your leverage with Hornsby. As long as you had the document, you had him by the balls.”

I leaned forward and said, between my teeth, “Give it to me.”

It was on the bottom of a stack of papers on one of the tables. All he had to do was roll his desk chair over a few feet and pull it out. The paper was yellowy brown along the edges. On the cover was the same label Hornsby had taped to the envelope. It was typewritten and you could feel the impressions on the back of the individual sheets. There was a table of contents. I flipped to the article describing beneficiaries, titled, “Distribution of Trust Property.” The first section said, “Upon the death of any beneficiary, as described in Article Six, the trust property shall be divided into as many shares as shall be necessary to create one equal share for each of the living beneficiaries, and one equal share for each deceased beneficiary who has living descendents.”

I flipped to Article Six. Regina and Julia each had their own sections. Other sections described how the entire principal and net income of the trust belonged to the beneficiaries. The trustee had full powers of administration, though the beneficiaries had the right to appoint or excuse the trustee. At least Hornsby had the good manners to finally excuse himself.

I handed it to Jackie.

“I was going to tell her,” said Roy.

“Who?” Jackie asked, looking down as she leafed through the document.

“Amanda,” I answered for him, “who you knew would be gone like a shot the second she learned how rich she really was. On her own, without you. To say nothing of the betrayal. So, you were going to tell her like Hornsby was going to confess on the front page of the New York Times.”

“I was only trying to care for her.”

“By killing her mother?”

He winced. Then started to whine.

“I told you,” he started.

I stopped him.

“Roy, shut up. If you say one more word I’m liable to change my mind.”

By this point he was way too desperate and terrified to think clearly.

“What are you talking about?”

Jackie looked up again from the trust, curious herself.

There was so much about the world I didn’t understand. And never would. Like why my parents had married each other in the first place. It was never explained. It never even came up, but my sister and I would have cut off our own limbs rather than ask.

It was as if some external event had brought them together involuntarily, but irrevocably, and they were resigned to their fate. It was unclear whether they loved or despised each other. They simply existed as an official pairing, charged with the responsibility of feeding and housing two children, keeping the house clean and the lawn cut, and the apartment in the Bronx free of dishes in the sink or dirty laundry on the floor. My father was in a near state of rage most of the time, much of which he directed toward my mother, but only because of her proximity. My sister and I were expert at making ourselves scarce, otherwise we’d have attracted a greater share of his wrath. Maybe as much as the guy who pumped his gas, or the checkout girls at the grocery store, or local, state and federal government officials, or the IRS, or any professional athlete who ever won or lost anything. Fury was his natural state of being, unlike my mother, for whom the situation involved a greater degree of happenstance. She bore it silently, at least as far as I knew. Yet I imagined her seeking rescue, in whatever form it offered itself. She never said it, but I always thought it. As I passed through adolescence, and my perceptions matured, I began to feel responsible for allowing her circumstances to persist. I developed an unrelenting compulsion to do something. I just didn’t know what it was supposed to be. So I did nothing, beyond wishing things would change. That something would happen to end the dreadful state of despair and indecision.

And then it did. Two anonymous thugs, agents of a secret power, came into the world and flicked my father into oblivion.

My mother was rescued. But she didn’t want to be. She was utterly grief stricken and furious, suddenly at odds with the entire world, as if taking up my father’s blind rage as her just inheritance.

I wasn’t much comfort. All I could think of was my own dismal calculation. That I’d wished it all into existence, thereby denying my parents their lives and me any hope of reprieve from my remorse, for the rest of mine.

So it seemed inevitable that I would marry someone I’d never want to know and help create a child who didn’t want to know me. That I’d destroy my working life and burn my future to the ground. I couldn’t save any of it.

Just like I couldn’t save Regina, even though she was the only thing left for me to save.

“Here’s the deal,” I said. “You tell the cops and Amanda about the whole scam, including your thing with Hornsby and the development project. In return I let the old ladies stay dead of natural causes.”

Jackie’s mouth actually dropped open.

“What are you saying?”

“It’s how I want it.”

“I don’t think it’s up to you,” she said. “There’s the matter of the truth.”

“I’m in charge of the truth. I got all the evidence, all the information. It’s not going anywhere without me. Anyway, this is in the best interest of your client, Mr. Battiston.”

“Hold on a minute,” she started to say.

“You’re the only one who can make this come out right. Roy goes down for colluding with Hornsby to defraud Amanda and her mother. Nobody, especially Amanda, ever learns about Julia. Or Regina, for that matter. That’s the deal.”

It took a few more minutes to get Jackie all the way on board. I really didn’t have a good reason for her to do it, which is probably what ultimately appealed to her. That and the possibility of being shut out of the whole thing, whatever it was. That was Jackie’s Achilles’ heel. Fear of being the oddball left sitting alone while all the other girls were out on the dance floor.

As Roy listened to us talk his face didn’t know whether to look hopeful or horrified. When I pointed my finger at him he almost jumped out of his chair.

“But if you try to test me, or weasel on any of this, it’s all yours. I don’t care how much you actually had to do with it. I don’t care what it does to Amanda. I’ll make sure she thinks you were in it up to your neck. You might talk your way out of ripping her off. Killing her mother, probably not.”

Before he had time to think it all through Jackie had him on his feet, his face wiped off and his suit jacket on. We marched him through the big banking room, past Amanda, who didn’t say a word to any of us, and out to the parking lot. He got to ride in the back of the Grand Prix with Eddie, who was indifferent to his sins and avarice, all the way to the Town police headquarters in Hampton Bays where we called ahead to have Joe Sullivan and Ross Semple waiting for us.

I left him there with Jackie. She seemed to be warming to the whole idea, and Roy was so afraid of me he had to take her. Sullivan said he’d give her a lift back to my house to pick up her truck. I was glad to leave it all with them. I didn’t know how it was going to work out for Roy in the end, but I was sore all over from my little dance with Buddy, and tired from staying up most of the night cajoling and dodging questions from Sullivan. I just had to make another stop.

The Senior Center was in its usual state of glacial clamor. My friend at the counter greeted me like it was our first meeting.

“Is Ms. Filmore in?” I asked her.

“You from Mississippi?”

“No ma’am.”

“My grandmother was from Mississippi. She wanted us to call her Miz Clarke.”

“A feminist.”

“All us Clarke girls were feminine, Mister.”

“I bet I can just go in and find Barbara for myself.”

She gave an expansive wave toward the door.

“Après vous, señor.”

“Grazie.”

It was easy to spot that big mane of ersatz hair standing out from the prevailing white and gray. Her right hand was on her hip and her left was wagging an index finger at a frightened little gnome of a guy holding a cafeteria tray piled high with creamers and sugar bowls. She clammed up when she saw me approach.

“Mr. Acquillo.”

“Hi, Barbara.”

“I don’t think Mr. Hodges is here today.”

“Too bad. Looks like you could use the help.”

Her victim had already slipped quietly out of range. She pretended to ignore him.

“Not at all, Mr. Acquillo. Everything’s quite under control.”

“Actually, I was looking for Bob. Your Bob. Sobol.”

If her back had straightened any further she’d have snapped her spine.

“My Bob? Really.”

“Okay. Bob’s his own man. Know where he is? I got a tip for him. Real estate.”

She softened a little.

“Really. He’s quite in the market.”

“Well, gotta find him to tell him. Carpe diem and all that.”

She pondered a second or two.

“You know Moses Lane?”

“I do. Down near the Red Sea.”

“Funny. Here’s the address.”

She wrote it down on a piece of paper, then watched me walk all the way out of the building. So did most of the old folks manning the card tables and conversation pits. I thought if I suddenly whirled around and yelled boo half of them would go into cardiac arrest.

I had to drive through the Village shopping area to get to Moses Lane. It was full of Summer People who’d learned you could stretch the summer out to Thanksgiving. They mostly looked nicely dressed and well fed, but not entirely sure of themselves, as if fearing discovery. I liked it better when they all went home after Labor Day, but you have to be realistic. It wasn’t their fault that God put a place like this only two hours from Midtown Manhattan. On a good traffic day.

I noticed pumpkins everywhere, and tied-up cornstalks and cardboard cutouts of witches and ghosts hung up in store windows. Not many kids ever came to the cottage on Halloween. I always made them say please and thank you, which used to mortify my daughter. The other parents in Stamford said she was the most polite kid in the neighborhood. She’d probably grown out of that living in the City with all the other overachievers.

Moses Lane was off Hill Street just west of the Village. It was typical of the areas once lived in by Southampton locals—modest, well-kept houses, neat lawns and gravel driveways. Now you could see the encroachment of postmodernism and German cars, seeping out of the estate district and spreading out like the brown tide across the neighborhood.

Barbara Filmore’s place was a nice pre-restoration bungalow with a tiny mother-in-law building in the back. You got to the front door through an arched gate covered in wisteria. I left Eddie locked in the car and went up to ring the bell, but no answer. So I knocked loudly enough to be heard next door, which brought a muffled yell from the backyard. Shades of Milton Hornsby. When I went back there Sobol was sitting at a picnic table in the middle of the yard, just to the left of the mother-in-law shack. He was smoking a cigarette, dumping the ashes in a big bowl full of butts on the seat next to him.

“House rules,” he said to me as I approached.

“Which house?”

“Both of ’em. I got this little one here,” he jerked his thumb back to the mother-in-law place, “but I got bigger ambitions.”

“Apparently.”

I sat across from him and dug out a Camel. He offered up his lighter.

“Barbara told me you were coming over with a tip.”

“Good lookout.”

“She wanted to make sure I was around.”

“So, are you two …” I made the universal New York gesture for, you know, what we often gesture about. He didn’t like it.

“I think that’s somethin’ of a private nature.”

“You’re right. None of my business.”

He nodded.

“So, this tip.”

“Big development up in North Sea. Right next to me, as it turns out.”

Sobol’s head was just a little too small for his body, which was a solid round ball. His lack of hair and grubby little moustache did little to aid the overall effect. He’d tried to help things out by dyeing what was left of his hair an unnatural black, which contrasted poorly with the white stubble on his unshaven face. The only part of him that didn’t look like it belonged to a natural schlub were his eyes. They were hard black and fixed on my face.

“I might already know about that one,” he said, slowly.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I thought you’d be interested.”

“Interested. Yeah. I’m interested in what your deal is in this.”

“It affects my neighborhood. I’m captain of the neighborhood watch.”

“That’d be news to the neighbors.”

“I like to keep it on a need-to-know basis.”

“Self-appointed, huh?”

“No. Hereditary.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Plus all the professional training.”

“Must be a tough part of town.”

“Mostly quiet. Occasionally get a rat passing through.”

“Really. Seen any lately?”

“Last night, as it turns out.”

Sobol finally stopped trying to stare my eyeballs out of their sockets and looked down at his pack of Marlboros. I thought it was safe to blink. He flicked out a cigarette and lit it.

“That’s what exterminators are for,” he said, puffing the smoke out with the words.

“You must know our rat. I think he’s done a little exterminating himself.”

I pulled a cloth bag holding Buddy’s Glock out from under my jacket and dumped the gun on the table. It hit the wood with a loud noise—loud enough for me to realize we’d been speaking very softly to each other. Sobol didn’t flinch. He just shook his head and went back to the big stare.

“Don’t know anybody like that,” he said, “but I’ve heard there’s an unlimited supply of ’em back in the city.”

“More the reason for restrictive zoning.”

“That’s right,” he said, waving his Marlboro at me, “you’re into real estate.”

“Only a spectator.”

“I figured that. Like some of the old ladies when I was growing up. Watchin’ everything going on in the street from behind their venetian blinds. nothin’ better to do.”

“Piss you off, did it? The old ladies?”

Sobol leaned back from the table and pulled back his shoulders, grimacing.

“It’s hard sitting on these benches with no backs,” he said. “I think Filmore put ’em here on purpose.”

“Another reason to quit smoking.”

He settled himself back into his original uncomfortable position.

“Didn’t you come over here to give me a tip?” he asked. “Like, where’s the tip?”

“The project in North Sea. Looks like Roy’s going to have to turn the whole thing over to his wife, now that he’s in jail for defrauding her. Actually, at the moment he’s spending some quality time with Chief Semple. You know, unloading everything. Clearing his conscience, I guess. I’ll bet it’s a pretty interesting story. But I thought you should know Amanda’s in the driver’s seat now. I remember you asked her to help you find a place.”

“Good-looking girl, Amanda. You say Roy was trying to screw her?”

“Yeah, imagine trying to screw your own wife.”

“Why I never got married.”

“Don’t touch it.”

“What?”

Sobol’s hand had somehow moved to within a foot of Buddy’s gun. I placed my hand on the table at approximately the same distance.

“I’m an ex-fighter, Bob. I got reflexes like a mongoose.”

Sobol pulled his hand back a few inches.

“I hate weird fuckers like you, Acquillo.”

“There’s gratitude.”

“Screwball fuckers. You think I don’t know all about you? About what you been up to? I knew you’d stick your fucking nose into my shit. Fucking whack job.”

“Too much time on my hands.”

Sobol still hadn’t raised his voice, but his pitty little face finally had some color in it. Suited him better.

“I still don’t know your deal,” he said to me, patiently.

“I’m the administrator.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“When my neighbor Regina died, she didn’t have much of a family, so the County named me administrator to clean up her worldly affairs. That’s all. I’m just trying to clean things up.”

He thought about that for a few moments. Sizing up the situation.

“I don’t know what you think you know, but if you think that bag of shit Battiston’s a problem for me, you’re a bigger whack job than I thought.”

I snorted out a little laugh. I couldn’t help myself.

“Roy’s not your problem, Bob. I’m your problem.”

Sobol had something else to think about, so he stalled for time by looking around Barbara Filmore’s backyard.

“It’s not bad livin’ here,” he said, “but I’d like a little more property. I need elbow room.”

“Not me. I’ve been scaling back.”

“You know what this little joint’s worth? Like, two million bucks. What’s with that? I lived in this town twenty years ago. Back then you could buy any of these places for about $50K. Now it’s like all the rich fucks decided nobody like me’s allowed in. Everything’s jacked up to the stratosphere. It’s unnatural.”

“The coffee’s gotten better.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. What am I thinkin’.”

“You might just have to look somewhere else, Bob. Set your sights on another horizon.”

“Not goddammed likely.”

“Just trying to help.”

“You keep saying that, but I’m not hearing anything that sounds like it.”

“Fair enough, Bob,” I told him. “You’re right about sticking my nose in your shit. Trust me, I know your shit inside and out. Everything, every step of the way. So, the tip I’ve got for you, if you will, is more like a proposition.”

The word “proposition” seemed to register with him.

“You don’t talk to Amanda Battiston. In fact, you don’t talk to anybody. You clean out that little hole you’re living in and scurry back to wherever you came from. Whatever Roy gives up on you can’t be helped. Otherwise, I keep your shit to myself.”

Bob wasn’t immediately receptive to the idea. In fact, it caused him to crack a little bit of a smile.

“Unless I’m imagining things, I think I just heard a threat,” he said.

“More of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“Yeah. A threat.”

“Okay, a threat. Have it your way.”

“Nobody threatens me.”

“I just want you gone. When you consider the alternative, not a bad deal.”

“You don’t have anything,” he said.

“I got everything. Hell, Roy’ll get me most of the way there, all I got to do is push it over the edge.”

He was back to his staring thing. I broke away from the deadly gaze long enough to light my second smoke of the conversation. Nothing like a cigarette to give your hands something to do. Only, it’s a good idea not to forget they’re supposed to be guarding a Glock automatic.

Sobol snatched it up, checked the clip, slammed it back in and had a round racked in front of the hammer before I had a match fully ignited.

“Some fucking mongoose,” he said, pointing the barrel directly at my chest.

The gun had so much of my attention I almost burned my fingers, but I finally got the cigarette lit. Another way smoking can get you killed.

“That’s not going to solve your problem,” I told him.

“Yeah, well, what the fuck. Just say it’ll make me feel better.”

I hadn’t seen the barrel of a gun from that vantage point since those carefree days after leaving Abby. The experience hadn’t gained any allure. It was a strange feeling, otherworldly. You think you’d imagine the impending impact of a .40 caliber round ripping into your body, but you mostly think about all the dumb stuff you did that led you to the situation you’re in. It must be some sort of denial. Otherwise, you couldn’t think at all.

This time, though, mostly what I thought about was my daughter. After the divorce the only asset I had that was worth anything, beyond the cottage, was a gigantic, paid-up life insurance policy. I’d been able to drop Abby as a beneficiary, so it would all go to my daughter. It had some symmetry. She’d be done with me and set for life in one fell swoop.

“I don’t care,” I said to Bob Sobol.

“About what?”

“If you shoot.”

“Everybody cares.”

“No, I really don’t. Haven’t for years. Actually, I’m glad you thought of this. You’ll be solving both our problems.”

“More head-game shit. It doesn’t work with me.”

“Typical engineer.”

“fuckin’ right. Villanova. Three point eight average.”

“At least you put it to good use.”

“What, like you? Pathetic, burned-out whack job.”

I couldn’t think of much to add to that. I wondered what my father said when he fully realized his big mouth would finally get him killed. I wanted to think he kept it up anyway, right to the end.

“You’re actually going to do this,” I said to Sobol.

“I actually am.”

“So whatever I say really doesn’t matter.”

“No, I guess it doesn’t.”

“Okay, then let’s just say, fuck you, Sobol. You’re a dick.”

“Last words?”

“Last words.”

“Okay.”

And he pulled the trigger.

The sound was really loud. The air filled with an acid gray smoke, blood spray and tiny pieces of Bob Sobol. Not much of which reached me, miraculously. The concussion made my brain bang around inside my skull and my ears ring for days afterward, but all the destructive force went in Bob’s direction. It seemed to kick him up and back, till he was clear of the table and splashed out across the grass. Somehow the bowl of cigarette butts got in the act, so when I bent over him lying there on the lawn I was more struck by the ugliness of all that tobacco ash than the sight of the shattered slide from the top of the automatic sticking out of his forehead. Those murky little eyes were still open, staring up through bright red blood at the clean blue October sky.

“Thing about a mongoose, Bob,” I told him, “is they never come at a rat straight on.” But he was past listening.

I promised Sullivan I’d go to see Ross Semple that day, so I just left Sobol there on the ground and drove over to Hampton Bays. I figured it was better for Barbara Filmore to call it in after she got home, but as it turned out, she didn’t find him until the next morning. That got me tied up again with Sullivan and Ross for the better part of the next day, but I spent that evening productively, drinking Absolut cut with a little orange soda and tossing tennis balls across the lawn without getting out of the Adirondack chair. Eddie liked me to show a little more effort, but did his part anyway, retrieving the yellow balls from off the beach and dropping them at my feet.

The Peconic was all worked up over something, even though the sky was moonlit and clear and the prevailing winds out of the south-southwest were only slightly more gusty than usual. Whitecaps were springing up all over the bay and a herringbone pattern was etched across the surface of the water. The bay turned out to be a harbinger, as it often does, as bigger, northerly winds swept in on the heels of roiling dark gray clouds and colder air, filled with a frigid mist. The evening slowly darkened into night, so we were finally forced to give it up and head into the house.

The fresh wind from out of the north was icy, but I thought it also had the faint hint of redemption mixed in with the salty spray and bitter brine from off the sacred Little Peconic Bay.