The Last Refuge

TEN

IN FEBRUARY, the Little Peconic is painted in subdued shades of silvery gray. The sun struggles to clear the horizon before retreating again just a few hours later behind the green hills of the North Fork. The soft southwesterlies that soothe the summer months turn into brutish, sodden gales that rush down from the north to beat furiously against the wood-frame storm windows my father installed as winter protection for the screened-in porch.

The woodstove keeps the living room livable as long as it’s fully stoked, and if I put a little window fan on the floor facing out the connecting door, I can almost warm the porch enough to hold a book or light a cigarette. This allows me to stay out there through the winter. If I don’t monitor the Peconic at all times I might miss something important. Like a passing ocean liner, or the sudden appearance of a plesiosaur.

Eddie seems indifferent to the cold, especially when outside touring the grounds, but once inside he’s drawn to the braided rug in front of the woodstove.

“You look like an L.L. Bean catalog,” I tell him, but he’s unfazed. It’s all in the breeding.

That afternoon in February he jumped up and barked when he heard a knock at the door, but you could tell it was mostly for show. Looking after his franchise.

“Christ, Sam, I thought this place had central heat,” said Burton, reaching down to pat Eddie’s head after stripping the tan kid-leather gloves from his hands.

“Not as long as there’s North Sea scrub oak. God’s own fuel source.”

“And to warm the inner man?”

“Vodka or bourbon, though God’s role in either is debatable.”

“Pour it anyway, for heaven’s sake.”

His coat was camel hair and his scarf a grade of cashmere so fluid you could pour it into a bottle. Both were smudged and slightly threadbare, as if he wore them to chop wood or haul stuff to the dump, which he probably did.

I poured us both Maker’s Mark on the rocks in my best jelly jar mugs. He pointedly sat in the easy chair next to the woodstove in the living room, so I took a spot on the sofa where I could make polite conversation while keeping an eye on the bay. It was still a somber battleship gray, though the waning sunlight put a faint gloss on each of the little bay waves. A stalwart seabird swung in loose circles over the water, seeking prey numbed to distraction by the cold.

“I just came from a nice long chat with Ross Semple,” said Burton, after an appreciative slurp of the single malt.

“How’s he feeling?”

“Skeptical, I’d think you’d say.”

“Important quality in a police chief.”

“Indeed. He wanted to talk to me about Bob Sobol.”

“Too bad about Bob. But nothing to do with you.”

“Never met the man. Though we had a mutual acquaintance.”

“Last to see him alive.”

“Ross made the same observation.”

“How’s that bourbon?”

“Delightfully smooth. And subtle, like the company.”

“Not me. I’m an open book.”

Eddie tried to reclaim the braided rug, but Burton’s feet were in the way, so he jumped on the sofa and made a spot for himself by shoving me out of the way. I gave up as much territory as my dignity would allow.

“Ross wanted to know if I thought he should declare the death accidental. The County is badgering him to close out the case.”

“He asked me the same thing.”

“I said no other interpretation was plausible, given the facts at hand.”

“Me, too. Or something like that. But you’re the expert. Mean more coming from you.”

“The presence of solder in the barrel of the gun is the only aspect left unexplained. I’d call that a question of engineering, more your bailiwick.”

“Yeah, I can’t explain that either. Sobol was an engineer himself, maybe he tinkered where he shouldn’t have.”

“That’s my sense,” he said, looking at me with eyebrows arched in that way only guys with Burton’s pedigree could get away with.

“Indeed,” I said, one of Burt’s favorite words.

I lifted my jelly jar to the light. “Well, I’m ready. What do you say?”

I went back out to the kitchen to get us each a refill. When I came back Eddie had staked out a dominant spot on the sofa, but I fought back a share.

“Pain in the ass.”

“And it looks like Roy Battiston is pleading out,” said Burton.

“That’s what Jackie told me,” I said, after getting resettled.

“Rather forthcoming of her.”

“She’ll tell you anything if you catch her at the right moment.”

“He’ll only do a little jail time, but that’s irrelevant,” said Burton. “His life is over. At least the life he wanted to live.”

I didn’t know exactly what to say about that, so I didn’t say anything at all. I sat there and sipped the bourbon, scratched Eddie’s head and pretended to be contemplative. Burton finally saved us all by filling in the dead air.

“You’ll never guess who I’ve taken on as a client.”

“I didn’t think you did that anymore. Unless you’re talking about Spielberg, or General Motors.”

“Mrs. Battiston.”

“Really. Interesting.”

“I thought so. She came to me. Apparently because of you.”

“Not my idea.”

“Indirectly. She said you only had nice things to say about me.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t say you took clients. Like, what the hell for?”

“She’s filing for divorce,” said Burton. “Apparently sufficient grounds.”

“I guess.”

“She asks about you every time I see her. Tells me to tell you to call her. She won’t call you, I suppose. Can’t imagine why. You have a phone, or at least you did at one point.”

He looked around the room inquisitively.

“It’s in the kitchen,” I told him. “Good old Western Electric.”

“So, what should I tell her?”

I really do like Burton Lewis. I’m always happy to see him. Though sometimes I wish he had a better instinct for things I like to talk about and things I don’t.

“That she’s got the world’s best lawyer.”

“One skilled in pursuing evasion.”

Not knowing exactly how to respond to that, I got off the sofa and went out to the porch to get a better angle on the bay. All clear. Cloud cover was still a uniform, low-altitude gray, but you could see some clearing along the western horizon. A harbinger. I went back to my guest, hoping he hadn’t noticed I’d been gone for a few minutes.

“So how’s everything else, Burt? Isabella keeping you in line?”

“I suppose since Mrs. Battiston owns Regina’s property, that makes you, technically, next-door neighbors.”

“Amanda. Soon to be Amanda Anselma. Owns almost everything around here, which means she could be a neighbor of yours before you know it.”

“Do you know what she plans?”

“No idea. Haven’t talked to her in four months. And I don’t want to know. She could own the whole fucking world and it’s not going to interfere with my nine-tenths of an acre.”

“Just curious.”

“Indeed.”

“About your social inclinations. Planning to hole up again?” He took another sip from the bourbon and looked at me in anticipation. “Do you want to go out on the porch again before answering?”

Whenever I did a mental accounting of friendships past and present I tended to draw a line between pre-and post-Billy Weeds, demarcated by the day I learned he’d died in Vietnam. I’d always thought of him as my best friend, though in retrospect, I guess he was the only friend I had. So after he died I had trouble attaching that label to any subsequent relationship. Even to people I liked, like Burton Lewis or Jason Fligh. Or Paul Hodges. That made it easier, maybe, to ignore them. To invest almost nothing in sustaining connections with other human beings, so I could devote all my attention to doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing as an adult. Achieving, producing things, solving puzzles and developing octane enhancement technologies. And avoiding deadly threats, like human kindness and affection. The deadliest of all.

“Geez, Burt, and here I am buyin’ you a drink.”

“Just asking.”

“Jesus.”

“So you’re in the mood to be sociable.”

“What the hell do you think I’m doing? You know, we are sittin’ here talking, for Chrissakes.”

“So I can ask her in. Probably getting cold in the car.”

“You got somebody out in the car? What the hell for?”

I started to stand up, but he waved me down. Eddie jumped up and looked around, on alert.

“I promised her I’d check the temperature in here first. Soften you up.”

I sat back down on the sofa.

“What are you doing, Burt? You know I hate that shit.”

“I know. That’s why I had to talk her into coming. But now that she’s here, try to act like a civil human being. She is your only daughter, after all.”

When he left with Eddie to go out to the car I made a full retreat to the farthest end of the porch, where I had a miserable old oak drop-leaf kitchen table, brass pole lamp and assorted ashtrays. I sat down and looked out at the water. That rise in the cloud cover to the west had already made its way to about twelve o’clock high, opening a band of pale blue sky.

So I sat there and waited, fortified by bourbon on the rocks and the pallid white glare of the winter sun as it lit up the wave tips dashing across the sacred Little Peconic Bay.