The Last Refuge

SIX

THE COMPANY I worked for created wealth out of thin air. We owned giant processing plants that sucked in atmosphere and pumped out freight cars full of pure oxygen, nitrogen and helium. We made hydrogen from water. Fertilizer from natural gas. Converted crude oil into gasoline additives, road surfaces and plastic housings for TV sets and microwave ovens. Though fundamental in our use of natural resources, we needed highly refined technology, research scientists and applications engineers to maintain a competitive advantage over the other monstrous corporations who made the same stuff we did. This technical support was so vast and sophisticated that the managers of the corporation began to view it, correctly, as a valuable product in its own right. We began by licensing proprietary processing and manufacturing technology. Then technical services and on-site support. Eventually we unbundled almost everything we did and peddled it to anyone who didn’t directly compete with our core operating divisions. The cross-pollination of ideas was an unexpected side benefit. While we were selling them ours, we’d pick up a few of theirs. This further strengthened our ability to develop new technology for the home front and stimulate development of products our operating divisions could never imagine, much less produce. We sold instruments, robotics, software, training programs and combustion-efficiency enhancers like the SAM-85. And a lot of sheer technical know-how. I kept a small stack of CDs in my right-hand desk drawer that held data people paid $100,000 just to look at on my laptop. If they wanted the disc, that was another $900K.

This was my part of the corporation. It wasn’t a simple job, but they paid me a lot of money to do it.

Eventually, people began to notice our division had gone from overhead expense to self-funding enterprise to major profit center. Even better, we proved that a hundred-year-old company living off God’s own air, water and light sweet crude could also be in the vanguard of high technology. Since I’d helped conjure all this, I was one of the few in the company who knew how to do it. This gave me a healthy share of cachet. That was a good thing for people’s careers in our company. Many had far more cachet than me, though they’d often caused the company more harm than good. That was because you could acquire cachet through means other than producing profits or good will for the firm. This is often called corporate politics, but the truth is bigger than that. It’s something more essential to the chaotic dynamics of large-scale social behavior.

Some people tried to share the success of our division by association. Others undermined us at every opportunity. Most of the people in upper management who weren’t threatened found a way to slip under the halo. A sidebar article in Fortune gave us a little outside validation and caught the attention of the board of directors.

An elderly woman who’d been handling appointments for each successive Chairman of the board since the early fifties wrote to me through interoffice mail. Never e-mail. She said I was on the agenda for the monthly board meeting at 7:30 a.m., Tuesday. This stood as an invitation. The boardroom was on the top floor of corporate headquarters on Seventh Avenue. At that altitude, you could literally conduct business among the clouds.

After passing through a metal detector, you took a special elevator run by a man who pushed the floor button for you. He wore a tiny earphone and a blank expression. The inside of the elevator cab was lined in stainless steel so you had to look at a vaguely distorted image of yourself as you took the long ride up. Vivaldi was playing through the speaker overhead. I could feel the acceleration collect around my feet, then lift up through my body as we came to a soft stop. The operator ushered me into a foyer with a dark gray carpet and wine-colored walls trimmed out in hand rubbed and oiled Honduran mahogany. Somehow they got the Vivaldi up there, too. There were a few recognizable Impressionists on the walls and two gigantic vases decorated with dragons and nicely dressed Chinese people. A very tall, very white young woman with dark hair cinched up at the back of her head appeared out of nowhere and asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee. I said sure and she disappeared again. The elevator operator was still there waiting with his elevator, one hand on the open button, the other resting comfortably just inside the front of his sports jacket. I wondered if they were playing Vivaldi through that earphone. There was no place to sit, so I paced the foyer until the woman showed up with a crystal mug filled with café noir. After I took a sip, she turned on her heel and I followed her down a long hall to the waiting area directly outside the boardroom. I settled into a chair and she took her position at the ornately carved four-by-eight table that served as a reception desk. A field of green inlaid leather covered the surface. She had a charcoal gray phone consul and a matching laptop, flipped open. No more Vivaldi. It was so quiet a pin drop would have hurt your ears. I tried to hear her heart beating from across the room, but all I could hear was my own. I unbuttoned my suit jacket and leaned back in my chair so my head could rest on the wall, and closed my eyes. I tried to fill my mind with somniferous images of sports cars, tropical waters and women I wanted to see without their clothes. It worked well enough to put me to sleep. I bathed in the soothing, narcotic effect of sudden REM sleep. My dreams were frantic and incoherent, but not disturbing. I heard someone call my name, “Sam,” several times, and when I snapped open my eyes I was looking across an acre of Persian rug at the double doors leading into the boardroom. One of the guys was standing there holding the doors open and calling out my name with a calm, amused insistence.

“We keeping you awake?” he asked as I walked past him into the boardroom.

“Seven-thirty is kind of barbaric,” I said to him.

He actually slapped me on the back.

“Always the comeback,” he said in the avuncular way a professor talks to a favorite student, which in a way it was.

The boardroom had floor-to-ceiling glass walls on three sides. If you walked straight into the room you’d be at the end of a long table facing the chairman, George Donovan, who sat a mile or two down at the opposite end. To either side were all the inside directors and the few outside directors who thought they ought to show up for form. In front of each was a maroon leather folder, closed. Inside was the agenda they’d covered before I came into the room. They looked at me with the benign disinterest of recently fed carnivores. I fought the urge to give my name, rank and serial number.

“Hiya there, Sam,” said George.

“Hi, George.”

“Why don’t you find yourself a chair and sit down. They get you coffee?”

“Thanks. All set.” I held up my half-empty cup.

I walked around to the right and sat in the first chair I came to. Louise Silberg, VP, Finance & Administration, was on my right. Jason Fligh, president of the University of Chicago and the only black man on the board, on my left. They both shook my hand and smiled pleasantly. I liked Jason; Louise was very scary. Even split.

“How’s Abigail?” George asked.

“She’s good. Thanks.”

“Lovely girl.”

“Yeah.”

Big time corporate guys are geniuses at this—remembering the names of your wife and kids. I couldn’t remember a damn thing about his wife, assuming he had one. I didn’t ask about her. He didn’t care.

“We’ve been reviewing quarterly figures,” he said, and on cue all the board members flipped open their maroon folders and pulled out a single spreadsheet. “Before the meeting I asked Joe Felder’s people to do a lookback of the last twelve quarters, and run comparisons of the performance of Technical Services and Support against the adjusted norms of the other divisions.”

He looked up at me over the top of his plastic-rimmed half glasses.

“Wanna guess how you did?” he asked, and looked around the room to see if anyone was ready to chance a position. Nobody bit. I could hear Jason making humming noises to himself, as if struck by a revelation. I didn’t think George wanted me to say anything, so I waited him out.

“A helluva lot better,” he said, sitting back to take another look around the room. “Forget the percentages. Let’s just say it’s a hell of a lot better.”

A few of the inside directors ran divisions of their own—massive enterprises more like city-states than business ventures. They were the landed gentry of the corporation. Survivors of the big hike up the ladder. Obsolete, but secure for the balance of their working lives. Even so, they’d all made runs at me when it looked like my little division was generating a decent flow of cachet. None successful. Their faces were neutral.

“It helps to be small,” I said to the group at large. I was trying to tell the operating guys that George was doing this all on his own. I wasn’t looking to bite any elephants on the ankle.

“Yes, of course,” said the Chairman, “but profitable. Extremely. We like that.”

Assent burbled around the table. I took a sip of my coffee and sat back in my chair. It was late summer and a witches’ brew of auto exhaust, industrial fumes and sea-borne mist lay like a hot towel over the city. I looked at it through the tall walls of glass. As high as we were, there were even higher buildings that broke up what would have been a perfect view of the Hudson. Beyond the river, New Jersey was a distant, hazy lump.

Everyone down on the street was stripped down and crabbier than usual, forcing their way through the dense, malodorous air with stern, unforgiving faces. Along the horizon charcoal-gray clouds threatened thunderstorms. Against the dark backdrop a 747 making its approach to Newark stood out like a brilliant white bird.

“Sam, did you hear what I said?” George was asking me.

“About our profitability. Sure. It’s been pretty good.”

“No. About the opportunity.”

“Opportunity? No, I guess I didn’t hear that part.”

George frowned up at the ceiling.

“How’s the hearing there, Sam?”

“I guess not what it used to be.”

George dropped a stack of reports down on the table with a disdainful flourish.

“Well, that’s what we’re talkin’ about here, Sam. An opportunity. For the company. For you.”

“Ah.”

“No better way to impact shareholder value,” said Mason Thigpin, our corporate counsel, who was sitting across the table from me.

I tried to imagine Mason as a teenager, or even a college undergrad. He was about five years younger than me, but looked much older. His hair had retreated from most of his scalp, leaving behind a monkish ring of curly gray fuzz. He was at least thirty pounds overweight, which actually smoothed out some of the lines of his face before adding back a lot of extra years. He wore heavy horn-rimmed glasses. This intrigued me. I imagined him at the optometrist, picking out these glasses from thousands of possibilities, choosing, helplessly, the one pair that would most clearly confirm his allegiance to the soulless aridity of his calling.

I struggled to concentrate on what George Donovan was saying.

He was explaining to me the future of my division. It was expressed as an option, a possible course, as yet undecided, though everyone in the room understood the language well enough to recognize a done deal. Our corporate management was patterned after the early English monarchy. George needed the general support of the nobility, but each individual decision was unilateral and absolute.

They all smiled at me. All but Mason. They were pleased. I had accomplished great things. Recognition had been bestowed. A royal gift was being given. George folded his arms and leaned out over the table to receive my approval pro forma so he could move on to the next item on the agenda.

Jason gave my shoulder an affectionate, congratulatory squeeze. Louise smiled with her lips pinched together. The tall woman who’d greeted me at the elevator came in with a tray of fresh coffee, causing a minor disturbance, so George asked me to speak up.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” he said, “I guess my hearing’s going south, too. What’d you say?”

Whatever I said, I said it again, but still not loud enough for Donovan to hear at the other end of the room. I wasn’t speaking to him anyway, but to Mason Thigpin on the other side of the conference table. He said something back, which I don’t remember either, though I think it’s in the DA’s file. I do remember lurching across the table and grabbing Mason by the fat Windsor knot he had cinched up around his throat. I remember pulling back my right fist and hearing Louise Silberg yelping in my ear.

It actually wasn’t that hard to find Jackie Swaitkowski’s place in the oak groves above Bridgehampton. You just had to count the driveways down from the big oak tree with the giant scar halfway up the trunk. I worked my way down the long dirt and gravel driveway and pulled the Grand Prix next to her pickup truck. I grabbed my coffee, tucked my cigarettes in my pocket and rang her time-off bell.

Marijuana smoke, Nirvana and Jackie Swaitkowski poured out the front door. A firm grip on the doorknob was the only thing that kept her from being propelled into my arms. I spilled some of my coffee getting out of her way. She jerked up her head and tried to focus on my face.

“Oh.”

“Hi Jackie. Got a minute?”

“Holy shit that door opens easy.”

“Sorry I didn’t call ahead.”

She scooped up a handful of blond mane and tossed it back over her head.

“You didn’t?”

“Can I come in?”

She swung back into the room without letting go of the doorknob, almost closing the door in my face.

“Sure.”

I eased through the opening and followed her into the living room. She was wearing an extra large flannel shirt, blue jean shorts and bare feet. She moved with deliberate care over to the stereo stack and stared for a few moments before finding and turning down the volume. Now it was barely audible, though it made the atmosphere in the house a little less demented.

She spun around and got a bead on where I was standing.

“What can I getcha?”

I held up my cup.

“Brought my own.”

“A roadie?”

“Coffee.”

“Cool.”

She took a few steps and launched herself over the big coffee table, clearing the mountains of papers and catalogs and landing butt down on the couch. It was too difficult a maneuver to have been unrehearsed. I took the land route and came around to sit next to her. She slapped my thigh.

“So, how you been? Still full of bullshit?”

“I guess. How’s your case?”

She slumped deeper into the couch.

“It’s going really well, goddammit.”

“That’s bad.”

“I’ll have to keep working on it. Killed by my own competence.”

She pulled herself back out of the cushions and searched the tabletop with her eyes.

“Ha.”

She found a slender, tightly rolled joint and stuck it in her mouth. When she spoke it jumped up and down between her lips.

“You want a hit?”

I took out a cigarette and a pack of matches.

“I’m fine with this.”

I lit us both up. Jackie consumed about half the joint on the first pull, her eyes and cheeks squeezed tight. The smoky aromas commingled and billowed around us on the couch. I wondered how much sin the atmosphere of a single room could absorb.

“So’s this a social call or you still diggin’ around?” she asked me, once again languidly composed within the depths of her fluffy cushions.

“I was wondering about Milton Hornsby.”

“Def’nately not social.”

“How was he to work with?”

She rolled her eyes.

“I told you, man. A stiff.”

“As a lawyer.”

“Aw, Christ, don’t make me think.”

I sat back into the overstuffed cushions to give her more breathing space.

“Did you know Bay Side Holdings was a WB subsidiary? The old plant sitting on the property?”

She rolled up on her right side and looked at me over the top of a cushion.

“No.”

“No?”

“No I won’t talk about it.”

“You knew all along.”

“Can’t go there.”

“Or at least figured out along the way.”

“You got an imagination,” she said.

“You spin a good story.”

“Works on judges.”

“Not so well on engineers.”

“No imagination?”

“Too analytic.”

“I need a good analyst.”

“So you say.”

“Need my head examined.”

“What’ll they find?”

“Conflicted interests.”

“Caught between the Bar and a hard place?”

She sunk deeper into the couch and draped her long bangs over her face the way my daughter would do when she didn’t want to talk about something or finish all the peas left on her plate.

“You’re not as funny as you used to be.”

“That’s why you’re so pissed at those guys,” I told her, “not because they wouldn’t press the case. Because you thought they weren’t telling you everything you needed to know to do your job. They were holding out on you, treating you like a lesser partner. Like a local.”

“You’re also not as nice.”

“Quite a conflict. On one side, a great case, lots of interesting law, the kind you could take advantage of out here. Lots of money. And a heartthrob for a co-counsel. On the other side, a feeling you’re aiding and abetting the enemy. The City People, with all the money and none of the feeling for the real Southampton. Where you were born and raised and still refuse to leave, even though you’re smart enough and capable enough to have a real career anywhere you want.”

“Time for the fifth.”

“I could get you one.”

“The amendment, dummy.”

“Something about this whole scene really bothered you. But you’re constrained by attorney-client privilege. Though not enough to stop you from giving me that map.”

“You know, I’m either too stoned or not stoned enough to listen to all this.”

She gave my leg a squeeze, then used it to haul herself up on her feet. I gripped her forearm and hauled her back down again.

“You don’t have to tell me anything. Unless you want to.”

After that she seemed happy enough to stay put. I slurped my coffee and lit another Camel. We sat quietly for a little while.

“I never saw them.”

“The clients?”

She nodded. Then shook her head.

“Client. Only spoke to one guy. Never saw him in person. Just talked to him on the phone. Me, Hornsby and Hunter would sit in Hornsby’s office with a speakerphone. Hornsby always made sure he knew we were all in the room. Never even heard his name. When I asked Hunter, ‘Does this guy have a name?,’ he’d say ‘Mr. Client.’ He was nice enough about it, but you know. Mr. Client was a very uptight person. Insistent, or insinuating, or insulting, one of those ‘in’ words. Hunter handled him fine. Whenever the guy handed him some crap, he’d hand it right back. That’s what made me think there were other clients behind the client. I know it sounds terrible, but the real giveaway was the way Mr. Client talked. You know, a little of the ‘dese,’ ‘dem’ and ‘dose.’ I guess that’s snobby of me.”

“A little.”

“And the profanity. Fuck this and fuck that. Like he was trying to sound tough. He did sound tough. And the way he talked about handling the Appeals Board, and the DEP, how to get around this and get around that, and who do you have to take care of, and whose arm do you have to twist and who’s got the juice with who and all this stuff that had no regard for due process or the spirit behind all these regulatory hurdles, no matter how stupid they might look to these developers. Jesus Christ Almighty.”

She reached over and took my cup out of my hand, downed a gulp and handed it back. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and burped. I wondered how Jackie got to sleep at night with all that noise in her head.

“Of course, they had a lot of hurdles to leap,” she said. “They probably couldn’t believe the regulatory resistance they were getting. All the signs, stated and unstated, that said this project was going to get the full treatment. And that’s no idle threat from a town that’ll fight like rabid badgers over the slightest variance. If they’re in the mood. Mr. Client was nervous as a cat. Until the Town told us the next steps and he pulled the plug.”

“Stopped the project?”

“Cold. Just ended it. I got a check, cutie pie went home. That was it.”

“What did the Town want?”

“Neighborhood Notice. Couple different types. For a normal variance, you only need a four-hundred-foot radius around the property. Send the neighbors a postcard, tell ’em there’s going to be a zoning hearing, if you want to come and raise a stink, here’s your chance. Appeals Board takes these things seriously. Neighbors can make board members miserable.”

“What other kinds of notice?”

“Bay Side pulled the absolute worst kind you can get because of the old factory. It’s a DEP thing—they go out like a mile and send everybody this big questionnaire that just about begs you to come up with environmental reasons to oppose the project. It’s really punitive, frankly, but that’s federal Super Fund shit and nobody screws with that.”

“Bummer.”

“So who gets blamed? The co-counsel. The local. Like I’m supposed to anticipate this kind of thing? I felt so bad.”

“Was Hunter mad at you, too?”

She looked thoughtful. “I guess not. He didn’t ask me out afterwards, like I thought he would, despite it all. But, no. He wasn’t pissed. He said I’d done my job as well as I could.”

I realized she was crying. I should have seen it earlier. It was the kind of insensitivity I’d honed through years of practice. I hauled myself from out of the white couch and went to the bathroom for tissues. I’d done a lot of that, too. Going to get tissues was one of my specialties.

She looked up at me after she blew her nose.

“Is this some investigation? Are you really from the goddam FBI? Are you going to ruin my life?”

“I’m an industrial designer. No arrest powers.”

She pulled another joint out of the ashtray, then tossed it back.

“Enough of that shit. Makes me all weepy.”

We sat quietly for a little while. Talked out. I tried to listen to the sub rosa soundtrack coming from the stereo while I looked around the heap of a room, wondering how you could maintain all that chaos and your sanity at the same time. Maybe that was part of the point. Maybe sanity wasn’t such a great thing to aspire to.

“I’d really like to talk to Milton Hornsby,” I said to her.

“Not a very talkative guy.”

“Tell him I think I know why he won’t talk to me. At this point, I’m keeping it to myself. Which is not going to last forever. If he’s interested in getting a little ahead of things, he’ll sit down with me. With you present if he wants. It’s up to him.”

“Officially I’m fired. What’s my interest in this?”

“I got your name from the public record. You’re just facilitating communications.”

“I guess you won’t tell me what’s really going on. After I spill my guts and violate every canon in the book.”

“Probably better if you didn’t know beforehand.”

“Because I’m a dumb local?”

“We’re all dumb locals. That’s the problem.”

Drove down from Bridgehampton and out to the shore. I meandered through the new developments carved out of the potato fields and joined the parade of vans and pickup trucks that constituted most of the traffic between weekends. At Mecox Bay I turned north again and got on Montauk Highway until I cleared the water, then dropped back down Flying Point Road toward the sea.

I stopped off at the Town’s beach access. This close to the ocean the sea air dispersed the sunlight, deepening all the colors and setting snares for unsuspecting painters and sentimentalists. The wild roses that lined the parking lot were still enjoying the last cool autumn days before winter; they would stay green and semi-floral well into December. Sand, blown over the dunes, formed a grainy skim-coat over the black asphalt, empty now since early fall. In the spring, maintenance crews would sweep it all up again and renew the illusion that you could halt nature’s irresistible advance.

I continued to follow the coast until I was all the way out on Dune Road in Southampton Village, where giant shingle-style mansions and architectural fantasies stood like devotional monuments before the sea. To my right, the sun dropping toward the Shinnecock Bay was airbrushing the underside of the clouds a soft reddish yellow. In the morning, people who lived on Dune Road could walk to the other side of their houses and watch the sun rise over the ocean. All for an admission price that started around twenty million dollars. When my father first started digging the foundation hole for his cottage, nobody but reclusive eccentrics wanted to live out in the dunes. It was a wilderness where locals like us camped and had family barbecues and risked our lives bodysurfing in storm-swept seas. Now it was the realization of billionaires’ dreams.

I recalled what Amanda’s friend Robin said as she distractedly searched the Playhouse for someone to break her heart. “What do you get when there’s more demand than supply, and the demanders have more money than God and all His angels put together?”

I added to the list of things I knew one thing I knew so well I’d completely forgotten it. People made huge fortunes somewhere else so they could bring them out here. And there was only so much here to go around.

This time I didn’t have a newspaper to give Rosaline when she answered the door. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her clothing was in the same loose, deconstructed style I’d seen her in before. Comfort designed for the long haul. I held my hands up.

“No offering.”

“I think we’re past that,” she said quietly. “Come on in.”

Arnold was in his seat in the living room, asleep. Rosaline put her finger to her lips and led me into a graceful study across the hall. It was walled with overstuffed bookshelves and furnished in early-twentieth-century oak. A pair of brown leather chairs were placed side by side in the middle of the room, each with an ottoman and reading lamp.

“My parents’ inner sanctum.”

“Readers.”

“Never owned a TV.”

“My kind of people.”

“Good. I share the genes. What can I get you?”

“I’m intruding again.”

“You are.” She checked her watch. “Close to cocktail hour. Forces me to offer you a drink.”

“Vodka on the rocks. No fruit.”

“Coming up.”

I sat in the chair and rested my manila folder on my lap. It felt better to have a prop, more official.

“Did the information I gave you do any good?” she asked, coming back with my drink and a large red wine.

“Yeah. Helped a lot.”

“But you want more.”

“After I thank you again for what you did. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Though I’m not sure if you’re the one to ask about this other stuff.”

“Ask.”

“I was thinking about what you said about the Internet.”

She looked a little uneasy.

“I was nosy.”

“Not what you said, but the fact of it. You’re probably a good surfer.”

“What, with all the time I have on my hands?”

“That’s right. You need to tie up that busy brain.”

“Is that what you do?”

“I don’t own a computer. I’ve never seen a website that wasn’t a print out. People did that stuff for me.”

“Mr. Big Shot.”

“I had a PC, but I used it to access technical data from the central servers.”

“So what do you want from me?”

I took a sip of the vodka.

“Nosy work.”

“For pay?”

“For the hell of it.”

We were both jarred by the sound of Arnold calling from the other room.

“Who’s there?” he yelled.

Rosaline put a calming hand over her heart.

“Can usually sleep through an atom bomb.”

She got up and waved to me to come along. Arnold was trying hard to make out who I was. He wasn’t wearing his glasses.

“Sam Acquillo, Daddy. You remember he came to visit last week.”

Arnold put out his hand to shake.

“Sorry to bother you again, sir. I was asking your daughter for a favor.”

“Sure, go ahead,” he said. “I do it all the time.”

He liked to tease her. She liked it, too, only not as much.

“We’re drinking, Daddy. Care to join?”

This sent him into a prolonged deliberation, but he was clearly interested. He looked at the glass in my hand.

“That’s vodka. You want rye on the rocks?” she asked, loudly.

He nodded, as if convinced by a superior argument.

Once we were all set with our drinks I explained to Arnold how I needed Rosaline’s help looking up some things on the Internet.

“She’s the one to ask. Spends a lot of time on that thing,” he said, then he had another thought. “Maybe you could explain something to me.” Rosaline looked like she knew what was coming. “I know you can look up anything you want on the computer, but how did all that information get in there in the first place? Who put it in there?”

It took him a while to get out the whole question. But not long enough for me to come up with an answer.

“It’s kind of complicated.”

Rosaline was enjoying this.

“Mr. Acquillo supervised hundreds of engineers, Daddy. What could he possibly know about computers?”

“You haven’t told him about shared databases and search engines?”

“He doesn’t know, Daddy. Nobody does. It’s a modern mystery.”

“Phoof,” said Arnold, a sentiment I shared.

“I do have something for you, however,” I told him. “I asked you about Bay Side Holdings and you thought they were a captive. Turns out they were. Part of WB, the old manufacturing plant out there between Oak Point and Jacob’s Neck. Bay Side was WB’s real estate arm.”

“I suspected as much.”

Rosaline looked proud of him.

“I told you he knew his stuff.”

“How well did you know Carl Bollard and Willard Wakeman?” I asked.

He worked on his drink while he pondered.

“I never met Wakeman, he died many years ago. But I knew Carl Bollard well. And his idiot son.”

“Daddy.”

“Not my cup of tea, Carl Junior. A wasteabout. Most people in town were glad to see the place close down, except for the ones working there. Not the right image people thought Southampton should have, even though it was up there in North Sea. There was a deep harbor there long ago. You could bring a large vessel all the way down from Greenport, which had ships coming in from all over the world.”

“What’s that got to do with Carl Junior?” asked Rosaline, gently keeping him on track.

“He shut it down. Everyone thought it was his fault. Though, in truth, a little outfit like that wasn’t going to make it out here. That sort of plant belongs in New Jersey, for God’s sake, not a resort area like this.”

“You still didn’t like him.”

“My father came to this country with nothing. He had to work like a dog, and so did we. This was the way it was. And this boy is handed everything, and what does he do? He drinks it all away.”

He punctuated every sentence with a knuckle pointed at my chest. You’d think he took lessons from Regina.

“He drives expensive cars and lives in nightclubs. Dishonors his father. All he cares about are the fancy people at the Meadows. As if they would ever accept a boy like that.”

There it was again. The ultimate betrayal. Consorting with City People.

“Carl Senior must have been disappointed.”

“Broke his heart. Every day I thank God for a daughter like Rosaline.”

Her face looked skeptical, but she was clearly pleased.

“Only because I feed him rye on the rocks.”

“So if your agency was retained to manage the Bay Side rentals, in effect you were hired by Carl Senior. He didn’t tell you?”

“Carl Bollard died a few years after the war. His company lasted another twenty years or so. I don’t know what happened to his son. I never met the people who retained the firm. It’s hard for you to understand, but this happened over a very long period of time.”

I’d probably worn him out. That and the rye on the rocks. We both noticed it, and Rosaline gracefully picked up the conversation so Arnold could rest. I spent another hour with them before Rosaline said she had to fix dinner.

“You’re welcome to stay.”

“Nah. I’ve already taken too much of your time.”

“Time we have in abundance. You spoke about a project.”

“I just got a lot from your dad. Maybe enough for now.”

“Really.”

“Though if you learn anything more about Carl Bollard, Junior, I’m interested.”

Her eyes scanned my face.

“You ask a lot for someone who doesn’t give up much in return.”

“I’d tell you more if I knew myself.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’d tell you more if I knew what was true and what wasn’t.”

“Better.”

She kissed me again as she escorted me out the door. It wasn’t as serious a kiss as the last time, but more confident. Arnold called for her again and she slipped quietly back into the house, a place where time both advanced and stood still, a paradox that was understood and embraced by the occupants.

The next day I had to do something I didn’t want to do, so I hoped the ride over to Hampton Bays would help me feel better about doing it. It didn’t.

The Town police HQ was just north of Sunrise Highway in an area reminding me of the pine barrens that started in earnest a few miles to the west. I’d called Sullivan on his cell phone and he asked me to come there since he was deskbound for the day doing paperwork. I asked for him when the lady desk sergeant slid open the security glass.

“He said you’d be here,” she said, buzzing me in. “Wait over there.”

I stood in an outer office that had a general purpose feel about it, with safety posters and duty rosters covering the walls and casual debris strewn around the desktops. A bulletin board displayed a crowded gallery of federal fugitives, artist’s sketches and missing children. Also a notice from the Labor Department that gave explicit instructions on how to rat out management for hiring violations. It was partially obscured by a note about one of the cops’ kids selling giftwrap to raise money for the school band.

Sullivan was in full uniform, armed and ready.

“You can’t wear civvies to fill out forms?” I asked him.

“Professional discipline. Improves performance.”

He took me into the main office area, which was predictably filled with glass-walled cubicles and serious-looking men and women staring at computer screens and talking on the phone. The air was close and composed of gases found only in cheerless administrative offices. Just like the division I ran in White Plains, only more overtly concerned with criminal behavior.

“The chief wanted to say hello when you came in. I’ll see if he’s there.”

“Semple? How come?”

“He helped me wire in the Broadhurst thing. Just wants to meet the Good Samaritan.”

Sullivan led me to the back of the building where Ross Semple had his office. He wasn’t there, but his assistant told us to wait. Sullivan got us both coffee to drink while we waited. Mine was French Vanilla served in a decorative paper cup. Not exactly Dirty Harry. I noticed a full ashtray on Semple’s desk, so I asked Sullivan if I could smoke.

“Your lungs.”

While I smoked and drank coffee, I admired the studied lack of adornment Semple had achieved in his office. Only family photos in a single plastic cube on his desk. In one of the photos the chief wore a shirt featuring random-width vertical stripes and a collar that buttoned above his Adam’s apple. His wife was an equally bad dresser. The kids looked panic-stricken, as if they’d been trapped with their parents for all eternity in the little plastic box.

Semple burst into his office and dropped a stack of files on his desk. He stuck his hand out to me, looking at Sullivan to confirm he had the right man.

“Ross Semple.”

“Sam Acquillo.”

He sat in his chair and pushed it back against a metal credenza, getting himself settled. He had thin, curly brown hair, a high forehead and a small chin. He wore heavy tortoise-framed-glasses that seemed on the verge of sliding off his nose. Like me, the Chief smoked Camel filters, though with a lot more flourish, like the cigarettes were little conductor’s wands used to orchestrate his life. I saw him as a physically weak man with a strong sense of mission and a cynic’s determination.

“How’s it going?” he asked. “County giving you a hard time?”

“Going fine. Haven’t had much to do with the County. Have a hearing coming up that Goodfellow said was pro forma. The Town’s been good. I appreciate your help.”

He looked over at Sullivan.

“Joe sold you pretty hard. His beat, I thought, his call.”

“I appreciate it.”

Semple rolled the lit end of his cigarette in the ashtray. He was the type who had a large repertoire of mannerisms continually engaged in releasing excess nervous energy.

“So you’re thinking everything’s routine. About the old girl’s estate.”

“Estate’s a big word for such a little thing.”

“Still has to get done.”

“I think I’ve collected all the information. She’s buried. I found her nephew, Jimmy Maddox. He’s cool with everything. Probably just a few more details. It’ll all be done before they hold a hearing on me doing it.”

Semple nodded.

“And the assault. Still the memory lapse?”

I could feel a slight increase in the room’s air pressure. Sullivan sat there impassively.

“I wish I could do better there. I got my eyes open.”

“Do that,” he said, stamping out the butt and standing up to let us go. “We take everything seriously.”

I believed him.

Sullivan took me through his office so he could pick up a pad, and then led me out to a concrete patio where we could sit at a picnic table and talk in private.

“That was interesting,” I said.

“In case you wonder if I keep my boss informed.”

“Never doubted it.”

“He’s all right, Semple. I wouldn’t want his job.”

I wasn’t sure that was true.

“Don’t say that out loud. They’ll give it to you out of spite.”

“Not management material, unlike yourself.”

He tried to get more comfortable on the picnic table bench. Probably hard to do with all that leather and hardware around his waist.

He pointed at my manila folder.

“Go ahead. I’m all ears.”

“That’s what I want to talk about. What you can hear.”

I really hated the feeling this was giving me. It was making me tense.

“Don’t forget,” he said, “you’re the one that was all over me about this.”

“I know.” I took a breath. “Look, I don’t know how things work here, but I bet you’re obliged to act on anything you genuinely believe is police business.”

“That’s how it works.”

“You also told me once there’s a real criminal investigation, you’re out of it.”

“Basically.”

Making lists is an engineer’s habit. When I moved into the cottage I made up a short list in my head of all the things I never wanted again. Near the top of the list was wanting itself. I never wanted to want, to hope for, to wish, to have anything more than a vague expectation that could ever be thwarted again. I didn’t want to care enough to want.

“If you ask me to tell you what I’m thinking, I’ll have to tell you, because I promised I would. Once I start talking, there’s no going back. And what I have to say will take us both out of it in pretty short order.”

“Then you have to start talking.”

I took another deep breath.

“I’m not ready yet.”

“Not ready.”

“I need a little time. Not a lot. I’m asking you not to push it right now.”

“You called me.”

“I promised I’d talk to you. We’re talking.”

“I knew you were trouble.”

“What do you say?”

Sullivan looked really unhappy. I didn’t blame him.

“You heard Semple in there. Holding out on him is not an option.”

“What’s to hold out? We’re just talking here.”

“That’s what this is? It feels like fuckin’ Alice in Wonderland.”

“I’m stuck here. You been square with me all along. I want to be square with you, but that creates other dilemmas that I’m hoping to avoid for a little while. Just a few weeks, max. I’m asking you to trust me. Even if you have no reason to.”

“Jesus Christ,” he said, shaking his head as he leaned back and put his hands on his hips. A little lift in my guts told me he was about to cave.

“I won’t let this come back at you,” I said.

“That ain’t up to you.”

“I’ll keep it on me. I’ve got nothing to lose.”

“Except your ass, which I promise I’ll kick from here to forever if this fucks up in my face. Brain damage or not.”

I’d lied to him about the bear, but I couldn’t do it again. Now I didn’t have to, at least for a while. I was glad for that. It was another item on my list, maybe holding down the top spot. No more things to feel guilty about. That was a whole separate file, already bulging.

I left Sullivan before he could change his mind and drove back to Oak Point to look after Eddie. He could get in and out of the house through the basement hatch, but I hadn’t left out any food. If I didn’t get there soon he’d start foraging in the wetlands. I didn’t want him developing a taste for cormorant.

I kept the phone I found when I moved into the cottage, my mother’s old-fashioned black rotary Western Electric that was hard-wired through a little hole in the switch plate. My sister had badgered her to get touchtone, but she couldn’t be bothered. Neither could I. Nowadays there isn’t much you can do with a rotary besides call a number and hope you get a human being. So I was glad to hear the disembodied voice that answered the phones at Litski, Goethles and Johnson in New York City say I could wait for a human to emerge.

The phone played Vivaldi while I waited. The corporate standard.

“May I help you?”

“Can I speak to Hunter Johnson, please,” I said, after giving my name.

“Does he know what this is in reference to?”

“No. Tell him it’s about Bay Side Holdings in Sag Harbor.”

I had to wait about five minutes for him to come on the line. I didn’t mind. I liked Vivaldi.

“Hunter Johnson.”

“Sam Acquillo. I’ve got a situation here I thought you might be able to help me with.”

“Before you start, I should tell you I’ve represented Bay Side Holdings on several occasions.”

“That’s why I’m calling. I’m the administrator for an estate of a woman who apparently rented a property from Bay Side.”

“We wouldn’t be involved in estate issues. I could give you another name.”

“Milton Hornsby. I know. I’ve spoken to him.”

“Well, then there’s probably not much I can help you with.”

He spoke the words as if to propel me off the phone.

“I understand, but there’re some aspects to the estate settlement I need to address with the Bay Side principals, and I’m exploring all available means to do so.”

“Again, I think Mr. Hornsby would be the most likely to help you. He’s the company’s chief counsel.”

“As I said, I’ve spoken to Mr. Hornsby.”

“Our practice is strictly real-estate law. Mr. Hornsby retained our firm to assist with a zoning variance.”

“How did that work out?”

It was quiet for a while on the other end of the line. I half thought he was about to hang up on me. I tried something else.

“I wonder if you could give me about fifteen minutes of your time so I can share something with you.”

More quiet. That’s why I hate phones. You can’t see the other guy’s face.

“I’m not sure I understand your question,” he said. “Could you tell me your name again and what this is in reference to?”

I couldn’t see him, but I could hear the yellow pad come out of the drawer and imagined the expensive pen pop out of a marble-based holder in front of him on the desk.

“Sam Acquillo. I’m the court-appointed administrator for the estate of Regina Broadhurst, who lived for over forty years in a home owned by Bay Side Holdings. Something’s arisen that requires a discussion with the principals of Bay Side, and if you give me fifteen minutes you’ll see immediately it’s something your firm will take a keen interest in.”

At this point I could actually hear the pen scratching across the legal pad. “Well, you can send me the information.”

“I think it’s sufficiently sensitive to warrant a face-to-face discussion. How’s tomorrow look for you?”

“You say you’ve taken this up with Mr. Horsnby?”

“As I’ve said, I’ve spoken to him on other matters. This is an issue relating specifically to your firm. If you wish to contact Mr. Hornsby, please do so.”

One of the best ways to stop someone from doing something is to tell them to do it. Though I knew it was a risk. My stomach clenched. I felt way out of practice.

“Hold on a moment.”

Vivaldi again. Someone must have thought it made the firm seem sophisticated. Like you were supposed to believe they always had classical music playing around the office. Why not let the folks calling in enjoy it as well? He came back on the line.

“Mr. Acquillo. I have time in the morning.”

I interrupted him.

“It’ll have to be afternoon.”

“I’m not sure about that, could you hold again?”

Checking with his secretary or his nervous system. I couldn’t tell which.

“That’s fine. How about two?”

“Sounds fine.”

I wanted to tell him he should’ve dated Jackie Swaitkowski, but instead I hung up the phone and looked over at Eddie. What was I going to do with him? Then I wondered if the Grand Prix would overheat in traffic. And if I had any clean khakis, much less a decent shirt. I’d been improvising on the phone. Hadn’t really thought everything through.

“So, man,” I asked Eddie. “Ever been to the Apple?”

I found some clean khakis, an ironed shirt and a fresh thermostat for the Grand Prix, which I installed that morning. Then I showered and shaved and got dressed. I had a tattered plaid tie I’d brought back from an engineering conference in Edinburgh in the early eighties that went okay with the Harris Tweed I wore when I went out to hit tennis balls around for Eddie. The elbows were about to bust through, but I couldn’t help that.

I hadn’t driven any further west than Hampton Bays for over four years. It felt surprisingly strange to contemplate a drive all the way to Manhattan. What was I thinking?

On the way out of town I stopped at a pet supply store in the Village and bought a leash and harness for Eddie. I put it on and practiced walking him around in the parking lot. When I’d sprung him from animal rescue they told me he was about a year and a half old. The vet confirmed this, and said he looked well cared for. So it was possible that he’d worn a leash once before, though I didn’t know that until I tried to put it on him.

He looked a little confused by the harness, but once we started walking around the asphalt he seemed to understand the concept. I can’t say he liked it, but he was willing to put up with it. I didn’t think I had a choice, given where we were going.

Once I had the window open and we were blasting along Sunrise Highway he didn’t seem to care. I’d picked up a large Cinnamon Hazelnut at the gas station, which I hoped would get me through Suffolk County. All the traffic was heading the other way—an endless caravan of tradesmen’s vans and pickups and customized Japanese economy cars filled with Hispanic dayworkers in sweatshirts and baseball caps. And SUVs and newer cars bringing in the professionals and salesclerks who lived up island where you could still afford to buy a house.

Route 27 was now a four-lane highway all the way to the hook-up with the Southern State. The time it saved seemed futuristic. I remember my father driving us back to the Bronx for the weekend, the endless stop and go, the lights and strip development. He’d always remind us that it took four hours when he was a kid.

When there was a lot of traffic he’d often just pull over to the shoulder and pass everybody, occasionally bumping the curb, blasting the horn and yelling at the other drivers like it was all their fault. My mother would sit motionless, my sister and I huddled in silence in the back seat. He seemed to be able to do this without ever being stopped by the police. Just when you thought the tension was about to burst open your skull he’d turn on the radio and start singing along with Paul Anka or the Ronettes. That always put a weird kink in the already psychotic mood inside the car.

I was playing whatever jazz I could get as I moved through successive PBS broadcast territories. Somewhere near the border with Nassau County they petered out and I had to settle for road noise and the basso profundo vibrations coming from the Grand Prix’s exhaust system. I stopped once more to resupply coffee and give Eddie a chance to pee. The strange smells of the place got him all worked up. He was a little hard to control, the harness notwithstanding. I had to dig a wad of gum out of his jaws that he pulled off the pavement before I had a chance to stop him.

“Obviously not a city dog.”

I took the Cross Island up to the Long Island Expressway, which took me to the Midtown tunnel and subsequently to the thirty-story building near Grand Central Station that housed Litski, Goethles and Johnson. There was a little bunch-up at the tunnel, but the Grand Prix’s cooling system showed remarkable restraint, and once I was in Manhattan, everything worked right to specs. I congratulated myself for doing the shocks and struts earlier that year. Still, you wouldn’t have picked a ’67 Pontiac Grand Prix as the ideal city runabout. I was starting to get a little seasick, but Eddie was distracted by Manhattan’s assault on the senses. I rolled the window down so he could stick his head out.

“Don’t pick any fights. It’s a tough town.”

I sampled a half-dozen parking garages before I found one with a wide enough entry to accommodate the Grand Prixs.

“Ya can’t leave the dog in’na car.”

“I’m not.”

“Twen’y dollas. Leave the keys.”

The way Eddie erupted from the car terrified a tiny Oriental couple who were waiting at the cashier’s office. I tried to reassure them, but Eddie had already moved on to the sidewalk. He raced from pant leg to lamppost to hydrant in a state of olfactory frenzy until I pulled him up short with the leash. I hated to do it, but I had to grab him by the muzzle and look into his big round brown eyes.

“Knock it off. They’ll think you’re a tourist.”

That settled him down, and after he peed on a few things, including a stack of the New York Post bundled up next to a kiosk, he slowed to a more comfortable pace.

Litski, Goethles and Johnson had only one floor of the building. The guy at the security desk in the lobby was a little unsure about their dog policy.

“They’re waiting for him,” I told him. “Has to do a deposition.”

“Deposition. No shit.”

We took the elevator up to the seventeenth floor. It opened on somebody’s den, complete with bookcases, easy chairs and a fireplace. Plus a mahogany desk with a woman working at a black computer terminal. She wore dark blue.

“Well hello, fella. Aren’t you cute.”

Women are always telling him that. Probably explains his high self-esteem.

“I’m here to see Hunter Johnson. Two o’clock appointment.”

“He’s expecting you. Can I get you anything?”

“A cup of coffee would be great. And a little water for the dog.”

Eddie was panting, but in control of himself. The china bowl she brought was a little small, so half the water slopped onto the carpet. The woman in blue took it all in stride.

Johnson came out at the stroke of two. He was movie-star handsome, with a smooth tan complexion, full head of wavy brown hair and clear blue eyes. True to his press. His handshake was firm and dry. His suit expensive. He lit up when he saw Eddie.

“I didn’t know you brought co-counsel,” he said, roughing up Eddie’s head. “A mix, right? Setter-lab?”

“Name’s Eddie. Origin’s a mystery.”

“Who’s a good boy? Hey, there’s a good boy. How ’bout the ears, how ’bout a little scratch …”

Eddie ate it up. Their display of mutual admiration lasted so long I started to feel forgotten. I made a little noise.

“So, Sam, let’s go find a room. Bring your friend.”

The office area behind reception was built out with raised paneling and thick molding, all painted a soothing off-white. The carpet was deep forest green and lint free. It was virtually silent.

We settled in a conference room next to his office. More books and high-back chairs, tea sets and original oil paintings. Abby would know if the pieces were authentic or the overall design true to form. You could rate it by how hard she tried to hide the sneer.

Johnson took off his jacket before he sat down, so I did the same. I put a yellow pad, a stack of loose papers from my Regina file and a plain white envelope, face down, on the table in front of me. He looked down at the envelope then back at me.

“So, what can I help you with?”

I liked him a lot better in person than over the phone. I think I would have even without Eddie to break the ice.

“I’m not a lawyer, I’m an engineer. I was appointed administrator by Suffolk County, so sorry if I don’t know how this stuff works.”

“I think I explained estate planning isn’t within our expertise.”

“That’s right. But zoning is.”

“You’d mentioned you had information that might be important to our firm.”

“If you could help me with the protocol.”

“Certainly.”

“I told you this was sensitive. In a moment you’ll understand why.”

I tapped the white envelope, then pulled my hand away when he caught me doing it. He still looked relaxed, but caution was forming in the air.

“You have my attention.”

I took a breath.

“Okay, say I accidentally discovered there was a criminal act committed during the course of Bay Side’s development efforts, is that something I should talk to you about, or Milton Hornsby, or should I just go to the police?”

I’d spent a lot of time with lawyers when I was running my company’s technical services division. We had a complicated array of scary legal threats, like product liability, patent infringement, unfair trade practices, environmental compliance, as well as the usual human resources and regulatory hazards that stalk every operation. I liked our lead corporate guy. Unlike his boss, Mason Thigpen, he had a degree in engineering. And a sense of humor, which meant he had a little perspective and imagination. One thing he taught me was what you say or don’t say, when and where, what you do or don’t do, how you do it and why, are all perceived in the legal world through a filter that is entirely invisible to the rest of us, and entirely outside normal intuition. What they can’t see is a straight ball right up the middle.

“And this involves our firm?” he asked in carefully measured tones.

“I don’t think so. But I don’t know.”

“This is also likely beyond our purview.”

“You’re probably right, but here’s my problem. I’ve tried to speak with Milton Hornsby about this, and he won’t do it. So I asked this lawyer friend of mine if I can make Hornsby talk to me, and my friend says no. So, I talk to Hornsby’s lawyer, Jackie Swaitkowski, and of course she’s bound by attorney-client privilege, so she can’t help me. The only guy left, who I know is connected with this thing, is you. If you can’t help me, I don’t know what’s next.”

Johnson was studying me like a shrink. Looking for signs of underlying truth. Something to tell him to either throw me out or keep me talking.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m having difficulty connecting our work on a straightforward zoning appeal in Southampton with some sort of criminality, which you haven’t specified or revealed in any way.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And further, why, if you believe there’s been illegality, you haven’t already contacted the police.”

“That’s the other problem. I’m not sure about that part, either.”

Before he could say anything I said, “As you know, Bay Side Holdings is part of a trust, Bay Side Trust.”

“We were retained by Bay Side Holdings,” said Johnson.

“Right. But as I see it, the only people who really matter in this are the guys who actually own all that property, along with whoever’s controlling the trust. Which could be the same, for all I know. The beneficiaries, and those with fiduciary responsibility. Am I seeing this right?”

Johnson brought Eddie into the conversation for the first time.

“I think your master is trying to score a little free legal advice.”

We all grinned at each other.

“Actually, my lawyer friend’s already offered. It’s just, before I ask him, I’m seeing if you can help me out.”

“Is that what you’re doing, Sam?”

“Yeah, he’s a big-time guy. It’s embarrassing to ask for favors.”

“I still don’t see what sort of favor you’re asking of me.”

“Who are they?”

“Who?”

“Who runs the trust?” I asked.

“The trustee?”

“Yeah. And for whom?”

Johnson readjusted himself in the big chair, which had a back that went up way past his head. Made it harder to shoot him from behind.

“I can’t help you. I don’t know.”

“Who besides Milton Hornsby?”

“You still haven’t given me a sense of this alleged criminality.”

“He’s the only one you know? Him and Jackie?”

He lifted his hands, resigned to his state of ignorance. We sat quietly for a moment, letting a little dead air fill the room. Stalemate.

“Who’s your friend?” Johnson asked, finally. “With the free advice?”

“Burton Lewis. You know him?”

Johnson actually sat up a little in the tall leather chair. It made me feel bad to use Burt’s name, but I knew he wouldn’t mind. Though my soul didn’t feel much improved for it.

“Big-time indeed.”

I started to gather up my stuff.

“I appreciate your fitting me in. I’m sure you’re busy.”

He watched me stand without getting up himself. His expression, always neutral, gave a little.

“You realize I’m constrained by the same attorney-client privilege as Ms. Swaitkowski,” he said.

I stopped messing with my stuff and sat back down.

“Sure.”

“As is Mr. Hornsby. It’s an essential ethical principle.”

“I’m getting that.”

“In fact, it’s about the highest level of trust imposed on all legal representatives. On par with the fiduciary duty required of a trustee, though that person needn’t be a lawyer. The law is very clear on the magnitude of that responsibility.”

“Okay.”

“So, if, for example, Mr. Hornsby were both an attorney and a trustee, you might say he’s in a double bind. It would explain perfectly, if that were the case, why he’d be unwilling to discuss anything related to Bay Side Holdings with you. Or anyone else. If that were the situation he faced, which I’m not suggesting it is.”

“It’s a hypothetical.”

“Call it a lesson in law, which my partners would feel better I dispensed gratis than actual advice.”

“That’s really interesting. I still like learning things, even at my age.”

“If there was any question over Mr. Hornsby’s competence to do his job, to preserve the body of the trust, there’d be grounds to take some action on the part of the beneficiaries.”

“Whoever they are.”

“Or, civil authorities could intervene on the beneficiaries’ behalf, if there was clear evidence the fiduciary duty was being neglected or abused.”

“Hypothetically.”

“In Mr. Hornsby’s case. We’re simply discussing the issue in global terms.”

“As part of the lesson.”

“Exactly. Mr. Lewis would tell you the same if you asked.”

“Got it.”

He looked at his watch.

“And that’s about all the legal training I can afford to put in today. Unless there was something else.”

“That’s up to you.”

“I think I’ve exhausted my ability to help.”

“I appreciate it.”

I stood up again and went through the routine of gathering my papers. As before, Johnson kept his seat.

“As I recall,” he said, “you had something to show me.”

He nodded at the papers I was stacking together.

“I did?”

“The envelope?”

On my way out that morning I’d grabbed a handful of unopened mail off the kitchen table. I hadn’t bothered to look at the one I’d picked for a prop. I flipped it over. It was my monthly statement from Harbor Trust.

“Oh, this.”

I dropped it face up on the table. He reached over and picked it up.

“Cute.”

Not really, I was about to say, when he said, “I get the point.”

“Not too subtle?” I asked, hoping the point would come to me as well in the next few seconds.

He looked amused.

“Well, I’ve never known a financing source who wasn’t a ball of nerves over a big development. Could give you some leverage with Mr. Hornsby. Not that I’m suggesting that.”

“Another lesson?”

“Not in ethics. Their interest is strictly money. No moral conflicts there.”

“I guess you’d consider the Bay Side plan pretty big.”

“For Harbor Trust. At least for the branch office in Southampton. Huge would be a better word.”

“Impress the hell out of the home office.”

“Oh yeah,” said Johnson, finally getting up to steer me back out of his office and, with any luck, out of his life. “Roy Battiston would sell his soul to get that thing back on track.”

I was tempted to stop at a place I knew in Tribeca that had been there since before the revival, where I knew they’d welcome dogs who had the right introduction, but I also knew I’d get to talking and probably drink too much, and probably insist on driving home, then maybe kill us both or somebody else on the way back to the East End. It didn’t seem fair to Eddie to risk it. So instead I retrieved the Grand Prix and beat it out of there before the really big commute got underway. I followed the same route home, which was fairly unimpeded after dropping down to the Southern State and making a beeline for the Sunrise Highway.

Night fell before we made it to the cottage. Eddie was ecstatic to be back on terra firma. While he ran reconnaissance I filled my big aluminum tumbler with Absolut and parked myself outside on one of the Adirondack chairs. It was cold, but my RISDE sweatshirt, vodka and cigarettes kept me warm.

For some reason, I felt all jammed up around my chest and throat. I was hoping the vodka would loosen things up. It was a prodigal feeling, one I remembered from the past but hadn’t felt for years. I didn’t like it. Too close to home, too much like everything I never wanted to feel again.

The wind off the Peconic was sharp on my face. Only eighty miles from Manhattan, but the climate was ten degrees colder and heavy with wet, salty air. The water was black slate, not a trace of color. The wind blew from the west, but the surf was moving straight into it from the east. The resulting collision clipped the tops off the little bay waves, shooting foamy white water off the crests in little bursts of spray.

“Goddammit,” I said to the Little Peconic, who offered nothing in return.