I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“Don’t try to Dan Rather me, Mrs. Battiston.”
“Miss Anselma as of two weeks ago. Mr. Acquillo.”
I took another sip of my coffee to buy time. For over twenty years I’d have conversations with Abby that always left me feeling hollow and unfulfilled. I think because she never quite understood what I was talking about. Or she’d leap to interpretations that had no basis in what I was trying to say.
So after a while, I just gave it up. Somehow after that I lost the facility for communicating with other people, especially women. I thought forever, until I met Amanda. Now there she was, back sitting on my screened-in porch, raising new questions about natural affinities, affection and trust.
“Yes,” I heard myself saying, “it should be easy to figure out, but it’s not. Anyone capable of a hit that flagrant, and sophisticated, probably knew it was completely untraceable.”
“You know this?”
“Just a guess. But I do wonder about one of the clients. You might know him.”
“From the bank?
“From the bank. Ivor Fleming.”
“Don’t know him from the bank. Heard of him from my real-estate buddies. Overpaid for a place in Sagaponack.”
“Overpaid?”
“I sound like a gossip.”
“Overpaid how?”
“The rap was he wanted to keep a low profile. No disputes, no ripples. Just walked in, plunked down the cash and moved in.”
“The rap?”
“Real-estate talk,” she said, cocking her head at me in the condescending way you do with a child. Or a tourist.
“The house is tucked well out of view. Flag lot,” I said.
“Right. Low profile.”
“Does the gossip say why?”
“He’s a gangster.”
“Of course.”
“Has a business, buying old junk cars or something. Right. Pure front. Has to be a gangster.”
“You’ve thought about this.”
“I didn’t know he was Eldridge’s client. Anyway, you asked.”
“I did. Maybe you know another client. Butch Ellington.”
She’d been leaning out from the wall as we talked about Ivor Fleming. Now she dropped back and shooed me away with her hand.
“Oh, Butch. Absolutely. Love Butch.”
“Love Butch?”
“He’s a hoot. Crazy artist. The definition thereof.”
“From the bank?”
“Definitely from the bank. I was Dione’s personal banker.”
“Dione’s the wife?”
“And business manager, I guess you’d say. Handled all the money, of which there was a nice amount, though I shouldn’t say how much for the sake of confidentiality. Even though I’m not with the bank anymore.”
“He’s Eldridge’s brother.”
She looked at me, slightly jolted.
“No, sir. His brother?”
“So I’m told.”
“Ellington?”
“Crazy artist. Changed his name. Used to be Arthur.”
“He never said anything about a brother.”
“They weren’t close.”
“Probably embarrassed about it. Butch hated everything to do with money. Though he tried not to go on too much around me, given my job and all. Dione had me over a few times. I like her. We still talk pretty often. She looked in on me a lot after the thing with Roy happened. One of the few.”
Her voice dropped off and she created a distraction by jumping up to go pour herself another cup of coffee. When she came back she dropped into the other kitchen chair at the pine table, pulling up one leg and holding it in place with her knee tucked inside the crook of her right arm.
“How about that,” she said, “Arthur. You’d think Dione would have said something.”
“Like you say, probably embarrassed.”
“Probably.”
“I’d like to ask her.”
“Ask her?”
“About her brother-in-law. Ask her why she thinks somebody blew him up.”
“Really funny she never said anything. I probably never gave her the chance. Me being so completely focused on me.”
“No self-flagellation.”
“Another Oak Point regulation?”
I didn’t know what she wanted, or why. I didn’t know any of those things myself. I’d been sorry to see her show up at Reginas, but now that she was there, I bought her argument. We could just pick up from a point somewhere back in the past, before a lot of things had happened. I’d told her a while ago I was a big fan of avoidance and denial. Wouldn’t be much of a life strategy if I couldn’t put it into practice.
So I toasted her with my coffee mug and gave up the fight.
TWELVE
IT WAS SATURDAY MORNING when I found an invitation to a fundraising event that night in Southampton Village taped to my screen door. It was actually addressed to Amanda, but she’d written a note to me on the envelope.
“Butch Ellington will be there auctioning some paintings. You’re my date. Don’t give me an argument. I’ve already bought your ticket. Amanda, your former personal banker.”
When Saturday came, I didn’t see her during the day, which made it easier to work on my addition. I’d used up some more of my pay from Frank on framing material, which the lumberyard had left stacked in my driveway. I wanted to get as much into place as possible and nailed in before the wet fir started to warp, which it does a lot easier these days than it used to. It felt good to swing at big common nails after all the finish work at Melinda McCarthy’s, shooting what amounted to galvanized needles into three-quarter-inch poplar with a pneumatic nail gun. A power nailer would have been just as effective on my addition’s frame, but advanced construction techniques didn’t square with the cottage’s general disposition.
I filled in all the rafters and finished the framing detail on both gable ends before calling it a day. Hot, sore, sweaty and covered in sawdust, I felt justified bringing an aluminum tumbler full of ice and vodka with me into the outdoor shower. A frozen bite on the tongue, steaming water on my shoulders, dust and grit circling down the drain.
My mood adequately fortified, I was able to face the question of what to wear to the fundraiser. I still had a few clothes left over from my marriage, in which my wife Abby held full command of wardrobe selection and acquisition. Fortunately for me, she had reasonable taste, combined with an abhorrence for discount pricing, which was not so fortunate.
“Why pay less” is what I usually said looking at the price tags, though she never heard, distracted by her
