pinot.
So when Robin and Laura from House Hunters of the Hamptons called me on the cell phone I felt free to join them at a place in Southampton suitable to their social aspirations.
I was met at the door by a guy in a white coat and black bow tie. He was a lot taller than me, but about the same weight. He spoke with an accent, though too quickly for me to make it out. All I heard was something like “the ladies has been waiting you to be here.” I followed him through the noisy roomful of entrenched City people, the ones who got to stay on after the season because they owned the houses they lived in during the summer. Most of them probably knew each other. None of them knew me. Except for Robin and Laura, who made a ridiculous show of standing and waving me over to their table.
“A rare man to get such greeting,” said the maitre d’, pulling out my chair with one hand and fiddling with my place setting with the other.
“Medium,” I said to him. “Medium rare.”
“Don’t let him fool you,” said Robin. “Red meat all the way.”
“Just bring the vodka,” said Laura. “There’s plenty of time for ordering.”
Laura’s wavy head of dark brown hair had been recently cropped and inexplicably combed and glued into jagged stalagmites. I’d known her to be the staid and restrained member of the pair, so it caught me by surprise. Robin was still her loud, brassy blonde self, with a lot more lipstick than self control. Judging by Laura’s stiff posture, despite the hair and a green drink in a platter-sized martini glass, their respective social styles remained stubbornly unresolved.
“So, things are good?” I asked.
“Been worse,” said Laura.
“
“Co-brokers. Discounted commission,” said Laura, looking out across the big low-ceilinged room. Scanning for the next prospect. “Some la-di-da.”
“She’s such a killjoy. It’s in the genes.”
“Scandinavian.”
“Bergman on quaaludes.”
“I’m an ant,” Laura said to me, pointedly. “Robin’s a grasshopper. What can I say.”
“So, you called,” I said, snatching my vodka off the waiter’s tray as he lowered it to the table.
“Somebody asks me for something I put out,” said Robin.
“There’s a straight line deserving attention,” said Laura.
“Can you believe what I have to suffer?” Robin asked me.
“I like your hair,” I said to Laura, stopping them both in their tracks. “The ants are going to heave you out of the anthill.”
“Is he a goof or what?” asked Robin, fumbling for a cigarette, then realizing they were banned. She folded her arms and sank back in her seat.
“Robin’s the one who called you here, but I’m the one who got the goods,” said Laura.
“This is not a competition,” said Robin.
The waiter, who’d discreetly disappeared for a while, reappeared with pad and pen in hand. Both woman looked defensive, caught unprepared.
The waiter covered the moment by reciting specials and making doodles on his order pad. I focused on the vodka. The women kvetched and bickered over the menu until the suspense became nearly unbearable. I saved the waiter’s sanity by ordering a selection of appetizers for the table. That and another round of drinks.
“So you got the goods,” I said as the two of them sipped on single malts served neat in tiny brandy snifters. “I’m all ears.”
Robin jumped in.
“We found the Japanese girl’s rental. Or rather, Laura did.”
“Is she still there?” I asked.
“Don’t know about that. She wasn’t on the lease. We found her through Mr. Dobson, who was. The agent lent me a copy of the file. Out of professional courtesy.”
“And for a free dinner at the Silver Spoon,” said Robin.
“How do you know Iku was there? Or is there?” I asked.
Robin looked at Laura, eager to tell the story but afraid to grab the floor. Laura made a show of looking nonchalantly around the restaurant.
“Oh, just clever detective work, you could say,” she said.
“Clever detective work. She read the file.”
“The
“Police file?” I said.
“They had a note in the file that the Town cops paid a call on the place one night. Noise complaint,” said Robin, unable to resist stealing Laura’s thunder. “I think ‘noise complaint’ and ‘group rental’ are the same words in the dictionary.”
“Synonyms,” said Laura.
“Sin’s another story,” said Robin. “Plenty of that, too.”
“The cops usually alert the owners through the rental agent whenever they’re called to a property. This is a big issue around here, you probably know. Lots of people want more control on the groups, which is fine with me. Who needs them?”
“People who want to come to the Hamptons and can’t afford a kazillion dollar rental,” asked Robin.
“So this complaint,” I said, wedging my way back into the conversation, “what was it about?”
Laura shrugged.
“No biggie. Some neighbor said they were blasting their stereo out the window. Cops get there, a woman named Iku Kinjo apologizes and immediately turns off the music. Cops leave. No further complaints. Not exactly an earth-shattering event in the history of law enforcement.”
“Didn’t make the cover of
“Maybe page three.”
“Do you have the names of the cops who made the call?” I asked.
They looked at each other, then nodded.
“Sure. It’s right in the report. Don’t remember their names, but it’s in there,” said Laura, pulling a big pink envelope out from somewhere under the table and plopping it down on top. “Address, telephone number, owners’ names, square footage, number of bedrooms, instructions on cleaning the swimming pool, it’s all there.”
“Us agents are thorough,” said Robin.
“We’re anal,” said Laura. “You’d be, too, if you had to deal with these owners. You’d think we were renting out their children.”
“That’d be easier. Kids are an expense. The house in the Hamptons is an asset.”
“You’re so cynical.”
I slid the envelope off the table and onto my lap, and then sat on it.
“You’re both brilliant,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
That stopped them faster than the comment about Laura’s hair. Robin nodded appreciatively.
“That is the nicest thing I’ve ever heard you say about us, Sam. Shit, it’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard you say period.”
Laura nodded, too.
“I hate to agree with her, as you know. But it is.”
The waiter came to the rescue again with the appetizers. While he hurriedly spread them around the table I ordered the next course, lecturing everyone on the merits of the selected dishes, entirely contrived for the occasion. The women didn’t object. In fact, they seemed to like it. I toughed my way through the meal, which I tried to pay for, but Robin had already slipped the waiter her credit card.
After I got out of there I headed to another place partway up North Sea Road, where I could take a look at the envelope. It was one of the last local hangouts that still looked like it did twenty years ago, when a City person would as soon pop in for a drink as stroll naked through Bedford-Stuy. Though compared to the Pequot, it was like
