death. I don’t know. Maybe I should get another shrink to explain it to me.
Whatever the motivation, I was there at Sonny’s trying not to understand how I felt. About anything except my sore ribs. I started with some stretching, did the rope, did the light bag, then did a little on the big bag. I got so absorbed in everything I didn’t notice Sullivan standing there again, like he seemed to do whenever I worked the big bag. I stopped and held it still with both gloves.
“Hey.”
“You ready for that?” he asked.
“I’m okay.”
“Memory getting better?”
“About the guy?”
“Yeah. About the guy.”
I shook my head.
“Not yet, but it could improve with time.”
“I’m sure.”
I did a few more patterns, but it’s hard to talk and whack a big leather bag full of sand at the same time.
“I got Regina buried,” I said.
“Andre told me. What about the estate stuff?”
“No big deal. Waiting for some information.”
He stood silently with his arms crossed. Irritated.
“I’m waiting, too,” he said.
“For what?”
He uncrossed his arms and gestured with both hands the way you do when guiding a car into a parking space.
“Cough it up. What are you thinking?”
“You think I’m full of crap.”
“I do. I still want you to talk to me.”
I went back to the bag. But it’s no easier to think than to talk when thus engaged. So I gave in.
“Joe, you like to drink?”
“Off duty.”
“Let’s go get a drink.”
“Long as you’re buyin’.”
Sullivan was familiar with the Pequot. Like everybody else around town he’d done some time as a kid crewing on the charter fishing boats that ran out of Pequot Harbor. Mostly the job was to schlep stuff on and off board, clean the catch and kiss the customer’s ass. Dotty set us up with beers and menus, then left us alone.
“Ever heard of Bay Side Holdings?” I asked him.
He shook his head.
“Own a lot of property in North Sea. Maybe other places, too. Don’t know.”
“What about ’em?”
“Own Regina’s house.”
“Really. Shit bad luck for Jimmy.”
“Yeah. But he knew about it. Knew his aunt was a renter. Only I don’t think she paid any rent.”
“That I doubt.”
“Doesn’t make sense. But there’re no bank records. No cancelled checks.”
“Ask Bay Side Whatever.”
“Bay Side Holdings. I did. I mean, I went to their business address, which turns out to be a house in Sag Harbor, owned by this guy Milton Hornsby, who’s the only name I have connected to Bay Side, and he won’t talk to me. Sent me to his lawyer.”
“Who said?”
“Haven’t seen her yet. Called her. Left messages. Thinking of going over there.”
“Where?”
“Bridgehampton. It’s Jacqueline Swaitkowski.”
“Yikes.”
He looked amused.
“So I heard.”
“Fucking whack job.”
“Why’d a guy like Hornsby hire her?”
“Fucking brilliant whack job. And connected. Husband was Peter Swaitkowski. Potato field money. Political. Master of the Universe till he stuck his Porsche in an oak tree.”
“I remember that.”
“Went to high school with her. Jackie O’Dwyer. Summa Come Loudly.”
“A friend of mine, another lawyer, said I can’t compel Hornsby to talk to me. But why wouldn’t he? It’s his goddam house.”
“He’s Bay Side Holdings?”
“I don’t know that either. My friend’s finding out.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“Burton Lewis.”
“Rich fuck. Rich fag fuck.”
“Friend of mine.”
“I didn’t know you ran in them circles.”
“My ex-wife’s circles. But Burt’s okay.”
“He’s asshole buddies with Chief Semple,” he said, then caught himself. “Not literally. Lewis is a sure mark for Semple’s fundraising. They’d mixed it up a bunch of years ago over this black kid we busted up in Flanders. He was going down till Lewis stuck his nose in it. Could have been bad for the Town, since apparently the kid’d been tuned up a little, and probably wasn’t actually guilty of the crime. But then, you know, everybody gets in a room and backs are gettin’ scratched, and dicks are gettin’ jerked, and before you know it the kid’s out, the Town’s clear, Semple’s smilin’ and your buddy Burton Lewis is payin’ for open bars and fireworks.”
“Doesn’t sound like the worst deal.”
“I guess.”
Sullivan wasn’t going to press it. He also wasn’t going to give up his local allegiance, his bigotry against all things Manhattan.
“So that’s where it’s at. Besides Burton, I’m gathering up what I can on Bay Side from real-estate records. The Surrogate’s Court still has to have a hearing on making me administrator, but I can keep going. Should be a slam dunk unless Jimmy Maddox wants to make trouble, which I don’t think’ll happen.”
Sullivan drank some more of his beer and looked around the inside of the Pequot. The midday regulars were hunkered around the bar trying to hold coherent conversations with Dotty. Hodges was in the back rustling up Fish of the Day for the guys coming off boats that’d been out since four in the morning. Sullivan looked like he wanted to say something.
“What.”
“It bothers me,” he said.
“What bothers you.”
“I’m responsible for the safety and well-being of all the people and property inside about a five-square-mile chunk of Long Island. You’re put in charge of something like that, and everybody has to pretend that it’s actually possible to do the job. But it’s really not, at least not the way everybody wants you to. It’s nobody’s fault, it’s just you gotta act out this fantasy that we’re all some kind of superman. But that’s okay. I do the job anyway, my way, as best I can. Only my way makes it hard to buy into the bullshit. I can’t help havin’ a mind of my own.”
“What’s your mind telling you?”
“Nobody gives a shit about dead old ladies. And I don’t even blame ’em. There’s so much shit going on all the time, there’s so little money to ever get it all done. Out here you got homegrown idiots stealing shit and selling
