Rosaline settled herself comfortably in her father’s chair and offered me the couch, gesturing with both hands.
“Take a load off.”
When she crossed her legs her skirt rode to the tops of her thighs. Her legs were a pale version of Abby’s— smooth and muscular.
“I feel like an intruder.”
“What do you think you’re intruding on?”
“Your life.”
“What life?”
Then she laughed.
“I’m actually having a nice time. We weren’t that close when I was growing up. Too much of an age difference. It’s funny how you’re a better child when you’re an adult.”
“Or he’s a better parent.”
“Perhaps.”
She put her fingertips together in the prayerful way Burton liked to do. It usually meant he was thinking.
“What are you thinking?” I asked her.
“I wasn’t thinking. I was wondering.”
“About what?”
“About you. What happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you quit?”
“Not following you.”
“Your job.”
“I don’t remember talking about my job.”
“You’d be amazed what you can learn on the Internet.”
“I guess I would.”
“You think I’m invading your privacy.”
“Yup.”
“But you’re willing to put up with it.”
“To a point.”
“To get what you want.”
“I’d like what you have on Bay Side Holdings. It’d be a good deed.”
She uncrossed her legs and stretched them out in front of her, knees together and toes pointed, like a dancer.
“That’s supposed to be adequate incentive?”
I didn’t answer her. She kept her legs outstretched, partly supported by her hands gripping her thighs.
“Mr. Acquillo.”
“Sam.”
“You have far greater powers of perception than you seem willing to demonstrate.”
“I perceive you’re a woman of intelligence with uncertain, probably conflicting, desires.”
She pointed at me.
“There, you see? I knew you could do it.”
She dropped her feet to the floor and recrossed her legs slowly enough for me to catch a glimpse of the dark triangle and pink folds between her legs. She reassumed Burton’s prayer posture.
“I’m having it done after he goes,” she said.
“Done?”
She used a forefinger to trace the impressive arc of her nose.
“I can see why.”
“Honesty. Excellent.”
“Your father thinks nose jobs are an affront to God.”
“Right again. Give the man a cigar.”
“I think you should. Then you can face your shortcomings and insecurities like the rest of us, without an excuse looking out at you from the mirror.”
“My. Brutal honesty. Take back that cigar.”
“In the meantime, who gives a shit? You got a swell body and loads of sex appeal, and a nose that makes a great conversation starter. Consider it a gift.”
She sat up straight in her chair.
“Can I get you some coffee?” she asked.
“Sure.”
She stood up demurely, took my hand and led me into the kitchen. She poured us both coffee from an ancient percolator and had us clink the mugs in a toast.
“To honesty. Brutal or otherwise.”
I clinked with her. As I sipped the coffee she picked a stuffed number ten envelope off the kitchen table.
“Names, addresses and phone numbers of everyone who leased or rented a house from Bay Side Holdings— up to 1983 when Daddy retired. At that point, it was all passed over to the Sinitars, who bought up Daddy’s business—whatever was buyable, anyway. Plus whatever correspondence I could find with Bay Side’s office in New York, plus a photocopy of the ledger sub-account that records how Daddy received and distributed rental proceeds. I had it ready the day after you were here. I wondered if you’d be back.”
She handed me the envelope.
“Thanks.”
“Some people thought you lost your mind. Blew up your whole life.”
“Don’t believe everything you read.”
“I don’t believe anything I can’t see with my own eyes.”
“An empiricist.”
I stuffed the envelope into the inside pocket of my jean jacket.
“You’re not gonna check it?”
“I trust you.”
She put down her mug and gathered a handful of my jacket, pulling me toward her. I leaned into the kiss, which was long and warm and filled with promise. As she kissed me she felt around the front of my pants.
“You act so sure of yourself, but you’re not,” she said, pulling back far enough to see past the bridge of her nose.
“I’m not.”
Still holding me with one hand, she adjusted a lock of hair that had fallen across my forehead and tidied the area around the big scab on my head.
“Then it’s a good act. Maybe you can teach me how you do it.”
She put both hands on my chest and gently pushed herself away. That’s when I heard sounds upstairs, and the raspy wet croak of an old man clearing his throat. She gripped my arm, then went upstairs to see her father. I let myself out.
I drove directly to a picnic table in the park behind Town hall and opened Rosaline’s envelope. I put the list of names and addresses she’d prepared on top of the stack of papers. Then I got out Jackie Swaitkowski’s map, unrolled it and held down the corners with a mug and three stones I picked off the ground.
Next to the map I put an extended plot plan I’d picked up from Bonny Martinez at the Town tax collector’s office. It showed the borders and street addresses of every taxable piece of property in North Sea owned by Bay Side Holdings. They were all contiguous. Lombard’s records carried the same plot designation as Jackie’s map, so I could easily cross-reference between the three documents.
My fourth data point was a telephone directory I’d dug out of the trunk of the Grand Prix.
First I matched up the Oak Point street addresses on the tax map with Lombard’s records, which corresponded to the highlighted sweep of territory that started with Regina, curved around Oak Point following the
