at him he almost jumped out of his chair.
“But if you try to test me, or weasel on any of this, it’s all yours. I don’t care how much you actually had to do with it. I don’t care what it does to Amanda. I’ll make sure she thinks you were in it up to your neck. You might talk your way out of ripping her off. Killing her mother, probably not.”
Before he had time to think it all through Jackie had him on his feet, his face wiped off and his suit jacket on. We marched him through the big banking room, past Amanda, who didn’t say a word to any of us, and out to the parking lot. He got to ride in the back of the Grand Prix with Eddie, who was indifferent to his sins and avarice, all the way to the Town police headquarters in Hampton Bays where we called ahead to have Joe Sullivan and Ross Semple waiting for us.
I left him there with Jackie. She seemed to be warming to the whole idea, and Roy was so afraid of me he had to take her. Sullivan said he’d give her a lift back to my house to pick up her truck. I was glad to leave it all with them. I didn’t know how it was going to work out for Roy in the end, but I was sore all over from my little dance with Buddy, and tired from staying up most of the night cajoling and dodging questions from Sullivan. I just had to make another stop.
The Senior Center was in its usual state of glacial clamor. My friend at the counter greeted me like it was our first meeting.
“Is Ms. Filmore in?” I asked her.
“You from Mississippi?”
“No ma’am.”
“My grandmother was from Mississippi. She wanted us to call her Miz Clarke.”
“A feminist.”
“All us Clarke girls were feminine, Mister.”
“I bet I can just go in and find Barbara for myself.”
She gave an expansive wave toward the door.
It was easy to spot that big mane of ersatz hair standing out from the prevailing white and gray. Her right hand was on her hip and her left was wagging an index finger at a frightened little gnome of a guy holding a cafeteria tray piled high with creamers and sugar bowls. She clammed up when she saw me approach.
“Mr. Acquillo.”
“Hi, Barbara.”
“I don’t think Mr. Hodges is here today.”
“Too bad. Looks like you could use the help.”
Her victim had already slipped quietly out of range. She pretended to ignore him.
“Not at all, Mr. Acquillo. Everything’s quite under control.”
“Actually, I was looking for Bob. Your Bob. Sobol.”
If her back had straightened any further she’d have snapped her spine.
“My Bob? Really.”
“Okay. Bob’s his own man. Know where he is? I got a tip for him. Real estate.”
She softened a little.
“Really. He’s quite in the market.”
“Well, gotta find him to tell him.
She pondered a second or two.
“You know Moses Lane?”
“I do. Down near the Red Sea.”
“Funny. Here’s the address.”
She wrote it down on a piece of paper, then watched me walk all the way out of the building. So did most of the old folks manning the card tables and conversation pits. I thought if I suddenly whirled around and yelled boo half of them would go into cardiac arrest.
I had to drive through the Village shopping area to get to Moses Lane. It was full of Summer People who’d learned you could stretch the summer out to Thanksgiving. They mostly looked nicely dressed and well fed, but not entirely sure of themselves, as if fearing discovery. I liked it better when they all went home after Labor Day, but you have to be realistic. It wasn’t their fault that God put a place like this only two hours from Midtown Manhattan. On a good traffic day.
I noticed pumpkins everywhere, and tied-up cornstalks and cardboard cutouts of witches and ghosts hung up in store windows. Not many kids ever came to the cottage on Halloween. I always made them say please and thank you, which used to mortify my daughter. The other parents in Stamford said she was the most polite kid in the neighborhood. She’d probably grown out of that living in the City with all the other overachievers.
Moses Lane was off Hill Street just west of the Village. It was typical of the areas once lived in by Southampton locals—modest, well-kept houses, neat lawns and gravel driveways. Now you could see the encroachment of postmodernism and German cars, seeping out of the estate district and spreading out like the brown tide across the neighborhood.
Barbara Filmore’s place was a nice pre-restoration bungalow with a tiny mother-in-law building in the back. You got to the front door through an arched gate covered in wisteria. I left Eddie locked in the car and went up to ring the bell, but no answer. So I knocked loudly enough to be heard next door, which brought a muffled yell from the backyard. Shades of Milton Hornsby. When I went back there Sobol was sitting at a picnic table in the middle of the yard, just to the left of the mother-in-law shack. He was smoking a cigarette, dumping the ashes in a big bowl full of butts on the seat next to him.
“House rules,” he said to me as I approached.
“Which house?”
“Both of ’em. I got this little one here,” he jerked his thumb back to the mother-in-law place, “but I got bigger ambitions.”
“Apparently.”
I sat across from him and dug out a Camel. He offered up his lighter.
“Barbara told me you were coming over with a tip.”
“Good lookout.”
“She wanted to make sure I was around.”
“So, are you two …” I made the universal New York gesture for, you know, what we often gesture about. He didn’t like it.
“I think that’s somethin’ of a private nature.”
“You’re right. None of my business.”
He nodded.
“So, this tip.”
“Big development up in North Sea. Right next to me, as it turns out.”
Sobol’s head was just a little too small for his body, which was a solid round ball. His lack of hair and grubby little moustache did little to aid the overall effect. He’d tried to help things out by dyeing what was left of his hair an unnatural black, which contrasted poorly with the white stubble on his unshaven face. The only part of him that didn’t look like it belonged to a natural schlub were his eyes. They were hard black and fixed on my face.
“I might already know about that one,” he said, slowly.
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I thought you’d be interested.”
“Interested. Yeah. I’m interested in what your deal is in this.”
“It affects my neighborhood. I’m captain of the neighborhood watch.”
“That’d be news to the neighbors.”
“I like to keep it on a need-to-know basis.”
“Self-appointed, huh?”
“No. Hereditary.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Plus all the professional training.”
