“No property taxes.”
“Wouldn’t tell me that, but I wouldn’t say so from the size of the checks.”
“Lived on about twelve thousand a year.”
“I’ve done it on less,” she said.
“Yeah, but not with Regina’s lavish lifestyle.”
“Which was financed by tax evasion?”
“She didn’t pay property taxes.”
“She must have paid it some other way.”
“No. Didn’t have to pay because she didn’t own the house.”
“A rental?”
“I’m not sure. Can you give me hard copies of all that stuff?”
“If I ask Roy.”
“I appreciate it.”
“He’s back in the City tomorrow.”
“Busy boy.”
“I’ve got the day off.”
“Me, too.”
There was another pause on the other end.
“I’m going to start my day off by walking on the beach. I usually park at Little Plains.”
“Must be pretty in the morning.”
“At nine in the morning the sun’s still fresh, but the mist is lifting. My favorite time.”
“I bet it’s possible you’ll be bringing along a stack of account records belonging to Regina Broadhurst.”
“Not my normal routine, but the chances are good.”
“Well, thanks for your help. Hope you have a good day tomorrow.”
“I’m guessing I will.”
Eddie was looking at me when I hung up the phone.
“What.”
He didn’t answer.
“I know. Stupid.”
When I went to bed it was unseasonably warm and humid. At 8:45 the next morning the air had switched back to clean and clear, with a steady offshore breeze blowing in cool dry Canadian air. I was sitting on the petrified remnants of an old wooden breakwater and looking out at the ocean. The wind was knocking the tops off the waves before they broke on shore, sending up a foamy spray that the sun lit into slivers of pale gray glass. The rim of my Yankees cap was pushed down low to keep the hat from blowing off my head. I was wearing clip-on sunglasses over my wire rims and had the collar of my jean jacket pulled up around my neck. The overall effect made me feel undercover. It was working with the seagulls flying overhead— none of them seemed to recognize me.
Behind me were low dunes covered in feathery dune grass that the wind combed into a green pompadour. Behind the dunes were shingle-style mansions spaced every three to four acres—mountainous houses dressed up with terraced balconies, octagonal windows and colonnaded porches. Mostly empty this time of year, they faced the ferocious sea and never blinked.
I watched her walk out on the beach from a path that led between the dunes. She stopped when she saw me and looked surprised, acting out the part. As she started walking again, the dry sand forced her hips to swing outside their normal arc. She wore a beat-up gold barn jacket, a white silk blouse, jeans and sunglasses. Her thick hair flared back from a hand-painted silk scarf tied around her head. I sat still and silent as I watched her approach. Still incognito.
She walked right up to me and stood there enriching the beauty of the beach.
“You.”
“Me,” I said back, still stumped for words.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” She looked out at the ocean for confirmation.
In profile, lit by the sun’s glare off the sea, the lines that defined her cheek and jaw looked crisper than I’d remembered them. I realized those lines were usually hidden behind heavy reddish-brown waves of hair. The wind was now sweeping it back from her face, clearing the decks. I liked the symmetrical proportions. Her skin was even smoother and more richly tinted than I’d noticed under the fluorescent lights of the bank or in my dimly lit house. It began to dawn on me that Amanda Battiston was actually a very beautiful woman. I don’t why it took that long. Maybe she’d been shrouded within a translucent veil that prevented me from seeing what she really looked like. And now, under the autumn light, everything was revealed.
“What?”
“Very nice. The ocean.”
“You weren’t looking at the ocean.”
“Yes I was. Out of the corner of my eye. You can’t tell with my clip-on sunglasses.”
She smirked.
“They’re actually kind of cute. Your sunglasses.”
“Fifty-two-year-old ex-prizefighters can’t be cute. Puppies are cute.”
She looked skeptical.
“Prizefighter?”
“Well, sort of. Sounds more impressive than it is.”
“That’s why your nose is a little off to the side?”
“That’s why.”
“Ouch.”
“That’s what I said at the time.”
“I was never a prizefighter.”
“And not always a personal banker, I’m guessing.”
She still smiled, a little less firmly.
“No. I did some other things.”
“Me, too. I improved the fuel efficiency of your Audi Quattro and sired the only perfect female to ever trod the earth.”
“Next to me.”
“I’ll take that up with your father.”
“Can’t now. He’s been dead for a while.”
“So you can be the only other perfect female. By default.”
She sat down next to me on the old bulkhead.
“Finally, perfection. And still young enough to enjoy it.”
I felt her shoulder through the various layers of denim, suede and cotton that separated us. All my nerve endings must have traveled over there for the occasion.
“You’re right,” she said. “You’re not cute. Cute’s a demeaning term to apply to a fifty-two-year-old anything. You are, however, something that has been disturbing my sleep.”
“Medication’ll fix that.”
“I haven’t been entirely honest with you,” she said abruptly, like I always did when I was having a hard time getting to the point.
“You don’t have to be even partially honest with me. You don’t owe me anything.”
She was focusing on the soft straight line of the horizon. Probably helped keep her level.
“Look,” I said to her before she could speak again, “some people think, female people usually, that you can’t properly know someone unless you spill your guts all over the place and reveal every goddam thing you ever thought, felt or did.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“Doesn’t have to be. Frankly, I think a keen sense of privacy, emotional atrophy and repression, especially as regards personal history, are highly underrated behaviors.”
A bright little laugh popped out of her.
