“It was obvious you liked me. Roy told me to pal around with you. Find out what you were thinking.”
“Mata Hari.”
“Hardly. All I wanted was to kid around and have a nice time. Who cares about Roy’s dumb project? And you made it easy. Even when I tried to tell you the truth.”
“What did you report?”
“I told him you were upset about Regina Broadhurst, which wasn’t big news. You’re the executor of her estate.”
“Administrator.”
Her eyes shifted away from me and she looked at the floor. Quiet suddenly. I thought she might be about to cry again, but then I realized her face had hardened into a mask.
“I didn’t know about Buddy until that night at the Playhouse,” she said, almost through her teeth. “I didn’t know Roy was capable of such a thing.”
“Bodyguard.”
“Thug. Friend of Sobol’s. Fucking gumba. Pardon the language. But I’m allowed to say that, I’m Italian.”
“Me, too. About a quarter.”
“I told Roy if that bastard laid another hand on you I’d leave him. I can’t have a person’s death on my conscience.”
“But he’s still around?”
“He and Sobol come out a lot. They’re meeting Roy at the bank tonight. Another big to-do. I don’t know what it’s about this time. Roy was all worked up. I thought it was a good time to slip away and visit Monica.”
She looked over at the wall, as if saying her daughter’s name broke some sort of spell.
“My precious baby.”
I thought about my own daughter, beautiful and accomplished and living like a princess in New York City. I knew what she did for work, and where, but I didn’t know if she liked it or not. I knew her address and phone number by heart, but I hadn’t ever called her because she told me not to. I knew she was a huge social success, but I didn’t know any of her boyfriends. What kind of guys they were, or what kind of life they would make for my only daughter, my only child. I knew almost nothing except I loved her as much as Amanda loved Monica, and that I constantly asked God, a God I didn’t want to believe in, to please keep my daughter safe. Take whatever you want from me, but please keep her safe.
“I’m so sorry I lied to you,” she said. “You have a right to hate me.”
She was rubbing her hands together, the way I saw her do at the cottage. Warming the climate of her mind.
“You never knew your father?” I asked her.
“No. He died when I was too little to remember.”
I was really tired. The combination of everything— the shock of Hornsby lying in his garden, the stress of working on Jackie and Sullivan, all the vodka, the chase across Bridgehampton and the lingering effects of the concussion courtesy of some asshole named Buddy, as it turned out—had begun to take its toll.
I wanted to go to sleep.
“I’m sorry to bother you here,” I said. “Not the right place to talk about these things.”
She shrugged and looked around.
“They can’t hear us.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“How much sorry do we have to have, and for how long?” she asked.
“People die.” I said. “You can’t do anything about it. It’s not your fault.”
Amanda crossed her arms over her chest and squeezed, as if trying to keep her heart contained within her body.
“Is that what you tell yourself?”
I sat with her until all the tears were exhausted. Then I left her alone in the little mausoleum. There wasn’t anything else I could do, and there were people I had to call. And a dog to let out.
As I drove the bouncy little Toyota pickup around the hairpin curves of Noyack Road I wondered how long it would take to pay all my debts to Jackie Swaitkowski, mounting by the minute.
When I emerged from the tree cover I could see the moon, almost full, high above the Little Peconic. The air was clear, but the water was being churned up by a stiff northeasterly. An unusual wind for that time of year. Unless there was a storm on the way, or passing off the coast.
I stopped at the mailbox and pulled out a stack of envelopes and junk mail. The moon was so bright you could clearly see the cottage, my yard and Regina’s place, lit only by the porch light I kept on since my night with Jimmy Maddox. Probably the only reason I saw the car pulled into her driveway. It was backlit by the porch light, but as my night vision improved I could make out the contours. A series-seven BMW.
I saw a black shape explode out from behind a stand of trees just in time to throw my arms up over my head and duck. The blow landed on my right shoulder with enough force to knock me off my feet, but it wasn’t very damaging. It gave me an opportunity to roll away and get back on my feet and face him head on. For a change.
I set my stance and danced to the right. Buddy just walked toward me, his long coat open to the breeze, the chains around his neck reflecting the bright moonlight. He used both meaty hands to point to his stomach.
“Hey, fucker,” he said, “check it out.”
There was the butt of a big automatic sticking out of his belt.
“You going to shoot me?”
His mouth was a wide, humorless grin.
“Fuck no, I’m gonna beat you to death.”
He made a quick little move inside my reach, then backed out again. It caused me to dance back to my left, which I never liked. He tried to meet me with his right, but I leaned out of the way and he missed. Not a good tactical fighter, but fast for his size. And very big.
He came straight in, trying to catch me on a turn. I closed and tried out a combination left jab and right undercut to the body, but it didn’t do much against the mass of fat and muscle around his waist. It also left my own less-protected gut exposed.
Buddy caught me on the right side at the bottom of my rib cage. I felt the air phoof out of my lungs. I had to roll back sharply and drop my arms so I could catch my breath. Buddy just kept moving forward, steadily, deliberately, eager for a chance to close again.
I rotated to the left as I moved backwards to keep my right side protected. I was afraid of his longer reach, and I couldn’t risk clinching—he outweighed me by half a guy and I’d never win a wrestling match. My only hope was to get in and out fast enough to hurt him before he could get those gorilla arms into play. But I didn’t know how. The moon was so bright I could easily see his face. He was really enjoying himself.
I heard Eddie in the house, barking his head off. That gave me an idea. I turned around and ran as fast as I could toward the Peconic.
“Run if you want, asshole,” he called to me in his dumb trained-bear voice. “You’re a dead motherfucker.”
I ran straight up to the front of the cottage. Then I turned and stood at the front door. Buddy loped up behind with his fists clenched and the tails of his leather coat flapping back behind his arms. Before he could reach me I cut left and ran around to the side of the house.
“Stand and fight, pussy,” said Buddy, almost cheerfully, as he followed me around the shrubs and into the side yard. I leapt on the landing and stood facing the side door, listening for him to get closer. I made a rough guess at timing, took a deep breath, wrapped my right hand around the handle of the Harmon Killebrew bat and swung around backhand with everything I had.
I misjudged the distance by a few inches. The tip of the bat caught him in the front teeth. They snapped off, spraying my hand with spit, blood and little white splinters. His hands flew to his face and I swung again, this time like a baseball player, with both hands.
The bat cracked across his temple, but his fingers were in the way and took some of the edge off the blow. He spun away and bent down, covering as much of his head as he could with his hands. I stepped into the breach and, taking careful aim, put my whole body into the swing. This one connected well. His hands flew away and his
