sycamore and copper beech. Assuming you could get past the gate.
“You don’t like me to say this, but you really should call ahead,” Isabella squawked at me over the intercom.
“I’d need a cell phone for that. Can’t afford it.”
“People living in huts in the rain forest have cell phones. You just don’t like to call anybody.”
“So, is he there?”
“No, I’m trying to tell you. He’s at the club for the Wednesday cocktail hour. You can’t go there.”
She was certainly right about that. Besides the lack of portfolio or pedigree, I’d never be seen at a cocktail hour. Not when there were so many more hours available for drinking cocktails.
I drove into the Village to use the last lonely pay phone in Southampton. People coming in and out of the restrooms looked at me like the curiosity I was. At least on the other end was a cell phone. Burton’s.
“Yes, they have these every Wednesday,” said Burton. “First I’ve been to this year. Trying to get my money’s worth.”
“That’d take a lot of cocktails.”
“Why don’t you join me. As my guest.”
I looked down at the khakis and blue Oxford-cloth shirt I’d worn to the
“I think I’m actually suitably dressed,” I told him. “I just need a jacket at the door. A medium long. Something with gold buttons, but no embroidery unless they have the Acquillo crest.”
“I’ll check with the staff.”
Back at the Grand Prix I realized I had another impediment. Eddie, who always came as he was.
“Talk about a lack of pedigree,” I said to him on the way over there.
Burton probably could have cleared the way for Eddie to come inside, but having me as a guest was enough blemish on Burton’s good standing. So I left Eddie in the car with the windows open where he was just as happy spread out across the huge back seat.
A thin, nicely groomed guy in a traditional suit greeted me at the front desk with a blue blazer draped over his arm. I thought about introducing him to Lionel Veckstrom. They could compare haberdashers.
“Mr. Lewis has retired to the billiards room,” he said to me.
“That’s where I want to retire. Only I’m more into eight-ball.”
“All we have is a pair of pool tables. Billiards sounds more sophisticated,” the guy explained with commendable honesty.
They weren’t just pool tables. More like massive empire furniture made of carved mahogany and topped with almost silken green felt.
I was glad to see Burton was alone.
“I wonder why I’d want to play with you after that last demonstration,” he said, twisting the tip of his cue into a cube of green chalk.
“Everybody gets a lucky game.”
“I suppose I’ll have to let you break.”
I dropped a pair of solids but did little to scatter the pack. So I took care of that with my second shot. I never liked picking balls out of a crowd, even if it meant losing my turn.
“No word from the grand jury, I suppose,” he said, leaning down for his first shot at a duck in the corner. The cue ball came back nicely, putting him in good position to sink two more before rushing the third with ill effect.
“Not yet. Probably dotting i’s and crossing t’s,” I said.
“I’ve had several lively meetings with Ms. Swaitkowski. I think she’s doing all she can before we get the indictment. It’s hard to mount a defense when you don’t know the particulars of the prosecution.”
“It’s liable to be particularly imaginative,” I said, sinking number three and number four, each in a side pocket, after which I told him about my conversation with Lionel Veckstrom.
“Imaginative indeed,” said Burton when I was finished. “But tricky to make work in a courtroom. Subjective argument can always be neutralized by subjective argument, with the advantage going to the defense who only has to establish reasonable doubt. If I were them, I’d emphasize the tangible evidence. Murder weapons and footprints at the scene.”
“The murder weapon was mine and I was at the scene. That doesn’t mean I killed him.”
“That’s where the prosecution portrays your character.”
“I thought that was a subjective argument,” I said, feeling genuinely at sea.
I thoroughly muffed my next shot.
“Combined with the physical evidence, enough to tip the scales,” said Burton, reassuming control of the table.
I watched him clean up his share of the balls using his gentle, precise touch. Every ball dropping on its last roll. I waited until I had the next game in the rack before I brought it up.
“So Hayden told you about our fun at the 7-Eleven.”
“He did,” said Burton, giving nothing away by his inflection.
“I thought he would. Get out ahead of it.”
Burton’s break dropped a solid and a stripe. He tried for another solid and missed.
“I’m getting older, Sam. A little constancy would be welcome at this point. Something you ought to consider yourself. Since you’re older than me.”
“How much are you willing to pay for constancy?” I asked him.
“How much are you?”
I’d heard a similar question, phrased a different way, at a party in New Canaan back when I was married to Abby. The interrogator was a woman at least ten years younger than me. She was married to a tall twitchy scarecrow of a guy who was in the process of making a half billion dollars in the technology infrastructure. Oblivious as I usually am about these things, her proposition was pretty clear. I told her I was all set, but thanks anyway. That’s when she asked me if it was worth the cost of my life.
I let two more rounds go by before attempting to answer Burton’s question.
“I’m sorry I asked you that, Burt. It’s none of my business.”
He stood up straight and chalked his cue.
“I’m not sorry,” he said. “Tell me your answer first.”
It felt like candor was more important than usual.
“I don’t know.”’
He leaned over and sighted down the pool cue.
“Exactly,” he said.
I let him play for a while, then said, “Of course, I have a little less to lose than you do.”
“How do you value the human heart? By the net worth of the owner?”
“I love debating with lawyers.”
“Not a debate. An inquiry into an important subject.”
“I meant it when I said it’s none of my business. I’m just trying to look after you. You’ve certainly done enough of that for me.”
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“Didn’t know what?”
“You said to Hayden, ‘don’t think he doesn’t know,’ which is what compelled him to confess to me.”
“You’d have gotten there.”
“Maybe. Did you know it’s possible to be a successful legal writer and a cheap hustler? Or a mechanical engineer and a prizefighter. Dual personas within a single person is not uncommon.”
“We’ve known a few of those.”
Burton stood holding his pool cue out at an angle from his body like a lance.
“I want to give this one a try,” he said quietly, “not in spite of the confusion in his mind, because of it. Now that I know it’s there. Thanks to you.”
I nodded and tried to look happy about it.
“You’re a good man, Burton,” a truthful thing that was easy for me to say. “Just watch your back.”
“That’s a task I’d rather delegate to you. Since you’ll be doing it anyway,” he said, before winning the game,
