Amanda, meanwhile, only looked like she wanted to slaughter the guys from the DEC.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“You know,” said Dan, as if disappointed in himself. “I haven’t done a very good job explaining the information we’re working with. What got the State’s Attorney’s interest was the possibility that the owners of this property, and I guess that would be you, Amanda, might have, how do I put this, had some foreknowledge of this potential hazard. Who might be, you know, hoping nobody’d find out, given the concealed nature of the situation and the fact that a phase-one study had already given you a clean bill of health. Understandable, considering the money at risk, but you can also understand why the DEC would want to have a little look- see ourselves.”
I reached over and took one of Amanda’s hands in both of mine. Her skin was dry and cool to the touch.
“Say fellas,” I said to Dan and Ned, “I just realized we got another appointment.” I checked my watch. “And damn, we’re already late.”
I let go of her hand and gathered up her papers, shoving them back into the briefcase.
“We’re gonna have to catch up with you later,” I told them, standing and pulling Amanda to her feet. “Where’d you say you were staying?”
Dan stayed deadpan.
“The Breezewater, out on Montauk Highway. Nice view of the Shinnecock.”
He handed me a card from the motel.
“I’m in twenty-three. Unless we’re out painting the town. So what about tomorrow morning?”
“We’ll get back to you.”
“Here,” he said, pointing to the card, “let me write down my cell number. If I don’t pick up leave a message.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to say you’re working out logistics. So we can have full access. If anybody asks,” said Dan, at once more and less inscrutable.
“Thanks.”
“Until I hear from you tomorrow. Say by noon. After that, everything escalates.”
“Okay,” I said again, then slipped my arm though Amanda’s and escorted her out of the room, down the hall and back outside into the cool daylight of early spring.
“What the hell was that all about?” Amanda asked, once safely in the front seat of the Grand Prix.
“Deep water.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That, beautiful, was a set-up.”
“What on earth for?”
“I don’t know. I can guess, maybe, but I’m done with assumptions.”
“Don’t we have to let them in?” she asked.
“That’s a question for Burton. You’re paying that damn lawyer, you oughta get your money’s worth.”
“I’ve never paid him a cent.”
“All the more reason.”
——
When we got to Burton’s I called Isabella from the gate. I could tell by her pleasure in reporting Burton was back in the City that she was telling the truth.
“Did Hayden go with him?”
“No. But you can’t talk to him. He’s swimming in the pool.”
“Little chilly for that.”
“That’s what I tell him, but he’s like you. All polite talk and no convincing of anything.”
I drove from there to one of the last pay phones in Suffolk County, next to the men’s room in the basement of a restaurant on Job’s Lane. They probably forgot it was down there and it just lived on, a ghost in the machinery of modern telecommunications.
I had a secret phone number for Burton when I really needed him. It wasn’t a direct line, but his executive assistant would usually pick up, which was the next best thing.
“Sorry, Sam,” she told me. “He’s out of reach until later today. I think he’s playing chess in Central Park. If it’s really an emergency, I can send out a runner.”
“That’s okay. If you could give him a message and have him call me or Amanda as soon as he can. With my apologies. We’re on a bit of a deadline,” I said, then tried to make a long story short.
I’d left Amanda in the car. When I returned she was lying back in her seat with her eyes closed. It reminded me of how she looked on the way home from the incident with Robbie Milhouser. Either bitterly dejected or simply gathering strength for the next round. Composing herself. At rest, but on the verge.
When I told her we’d have to wait for Burton to call she asked me to take her home. She was quiet on the way back to North Sea. Just as well, since there were lots of questions floating randomly around the inside of the old Pontiac, most of which I wouldn’t be able to answer.
Then she surprised me by sliding over and wrapping two strong arms around my shoulders. She squeezed hard, her face pressed into the crook of my neck.
“You try to be a good person,” she said. “Most of the time.”
“Ah, come on.”
“You want to think that isn’t true. It makes it easier for you, which I suppose makes sense. It’s much harder to accept that even good people can do evil things.”
I waited until she made it all the way to her house and disappeared inside before letting Eddie take her place in the front seat of the car. I headed south again, through the Village and all the way to the parking lot at the end of Little Plains Road where you could pull up and look at the ocean. When I was a kid I lived with the delusion that looking out on that vast and irritable body of water would inspire answers to any question. What I know now is that the questions you’re likely to ask while looking at the ocean are impossible to answer. So instead, I took the experience for what it was worth. A chance to allow the solemn sea to remind me of how little Nature cares that human beings want their existence to make sense.
A chance for a respite from the ceaseless and untenable struggle to prove Her wrong.
SIXTEEN
AFTER THE MONTAUK HIGHWAY flows like an ancient tributary across the western border of Southampton Village, it disperses into a confusion of side streets, storefronts and neighborhoods, losing all distinction until it reaches the other side of town, where its identity is restored and volume engorged by merging with County Road 39, itself a descendant of Sunrise Highway, the other main artery connecting the South Fork with the rest of Long Island.
In an open area overlooking the confluence of traffic is a wooden building, not much more than a swayback row of storefronts welded into a single edifice, exhausted and forlorn.
This is where Jefferson Milhouser had his office, if that described the miserable little closet he’d stuffed with a heavy mahogany desk, a pair of file cabinets and a leather easy chair serving the dual purpose of guest seating and storage repository that would make Jackie Swaitkowski feel right at home.
My original plan for the day, delayed by meeting with Amanda and the DEC, was to pay Milhouser a visit. It was late morning when I dropped Amanda off at her house, so there was still plenty of time.
I thought I’d break the ice with a phone call, but his number was unlisted. Robbie’s number was still active, so I tried that and got to listen to a dead guy tell me he was unable to come to the phone, but if I wanted to leave a message, he’d call back as soon as he could. I fought the urge to see if he was as good as his word and called Frank Entwhistle instead.
Frank didn’t have Jeff Milhouser’s number either, but he knew where I could find him.
“I’d tell you to give him my regards, but I don’t think I have any,” he told me.
Then I placed another call, to Jackie Swaitkowski.
“Are you nuts?”
“People keep asserting that,” I told her.
“Sometimes I think you’re working for the prosecution.”
