and fame. But, after he flipped his car at ninety on Fireplace Road and died at forty-four, I found that though I still loved the art, I’d lost my taste for the competition.”
“Edward became a professor,” Madame informed me.
“I started writing first,” Edward corrected. “Then teaching—art history, criticism. Of course, the others I knew continued to stay in the game. There’s an old joke about de Kooning looking out his window every morning at the Green River Cemetery, just to make sure Pollack was still under that fifty-ton boulder!”
“You see, Clare,” said Madame. “Edward’s been around here forever.”
“Nearly,” said Edward, interlacing his fingers with Madame’s and bringing her hand to his lips.
“That’s why I thought he could help us with David’s little, shall we say—” Madame glanced to the full tables to her left and right—“
Madame turned to Edward. “Tell Clare what you told me…about the foreclosure and the town trustees.”
Edward nodded, leaned close and motioned me to bend toward him. “This place wasn’t sold in the regular manner.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“What Edward means is the previous owner closed the place last summer during a messy divorce,” Madame quietly informed me. “Because of tax delinquencies, this property ended up in the hands of the town itself.”
“O-kay,” I said slowly. “So how is that important?”
“How much did you tell me a single chair in a Hamptons’ restaurant makes in one season?” Madame asked.
“On average, about 180,000 dollars per chair.”
Edward gave a low whistle.
“Well,” Madame said, “don’t you think that’s enough of a reason to be fairly angry if your dream to open a restaurant here was thwarted?”
“But David did open a restaurant,” I pointed out.
“No, Clare, you’re not following me,” Madame said. “Edward told me that someone else wanted this place, too.”
“It was in the local papers over the winter,” Edward interjected. “There was a war, a bitter one over this place. It came down to two proposals. The town trustees chose David’s.”
“But what’s the big deal?” I said. “So the other bidder lost this place. It happens every day in Manhattan. Why not just move along and buy another building?”
“Edward, tell her,” Madame prompted.
He shrugged. “Here in East Hampton, you don’t just buy a building and open a restaurant. This is the Land of No, my dear. It’s governed by very strict rules to keep commercial growth down. If you’re an aspiring restaurateur, you must wait for one of the existing restaurants in the area to close, then you must outbid others for the property, and gain the approval of the myriad planning, zoning, and design appeals boards for the town.”
“Oh,” I said. “David never mentioned any of that.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Madame said. “Apparently, things got pretty ugly during the fight for the property. And David doesn’t like ugly.”
“So…who was the other bidder?” I asked.
“Bom Felloes,” Edward replied.
“That famous TV chef?” I said. “The one with the Good Felloes restaurant chains all over the country?”
“The very same,” Madame said. “Apparently, he’d been chomping at the bit to open an East Hampton Good Felloes restaurant like his others.”
“But the town trustees practically retched at the idea of a chain restaurant coming into this tony area,” Edward said. “And, quite frankly, the name didn’t help his case much.”
I could see what he meant. “Good Felloes” was a play on the celebrity chef ’s name, of course, but (as my dear old dad once told me) “goodfellows” was one of the ways Mafia “wise guys” referred to each other.
“Oh my goodness,” Madame said. “The very idea probably made the East Hampton officials turn green.”
“It’s absurd when one contemplates the fact that something as historic as Motherwell’s home and studio can be demolished, yet a new restaurant cannot be built,” Edward said with another grave sigh. “But in any case…they rejected Bom’s proposal and approved David’s. I can see why they were impressed. Just look around you. Mintzer clearly spent a great deal of time and effort on designing the decor alone.”
“Not to mention a small fortune,” I added.
“You’ve got to spend it to make it,” Madame pointed out.
“So, what else do you know about Felloes?” I asked Edward.
“Not really much more. Just that he’s a single man, young and good looking, and he bought The Sandcastle about three years ago.”
I frowned, not liking that news. “The Sandcastle? That’s right near David’s place. And it sounds like he bought it the same time David bought his land out here.”
Edward nodded. “The original Sandcastle grounds were huge. When it fell to a younger generation, they broke it into two pieces. The acreage with the residence on it was bought by Bom. David Mintzer bought the plot of land next to it and built from scratch.”
I’d never seen The Sandcastle. It was completely surrounded by a wall of high green privets, and the ornamentation on its wrought-iron front gate was so Byzantine, I couldn’t see beyond it. Certainly I was aware The Sandcastle abutted David’s property. But I didn’t know that Bom Felloes was the owner. David had never mentioned Bom—I would have remembered if he had.
I tapped my chin with my ordering pencil. “David obviously has a serious rival. But I don’t doubt the man has serious rivals in all of his businesses.”
“You think Bom wouldn’t mind seeing David under a fifty-ton gravestone?” asked Edward.
“I hope Bom isn’t the one trying to put him there,” I replied. “But I need to know more about him…a lot more.”
“Well, my dear, never fear,” chirped Madame, the caffeinated sparkle in her gaze making me understandably nervous. “Edward and I are on the case!”
Ten
It was close to midnight when I finally returned to David Mintzer’s oceanfront mansion, dead tired from hours on my feet and emotionally drained after my latest, unhappy confrontation with Joy.
I’d had no luck convincing Madame to move out of David’s because of the shooting, but I’d hoped I could at least pull rank on my own daughter. So after we closed the restaurant, I’d waved Joy into the empty break room and tried to convince her to leave East Hampton and go back to the city.
She flatly refused.
“Look, Mom,” she said. “I was ready to go into a share house, but you stopped me. I need this job, and I need the money. I’m really, really sorry Treat got shot, but it’s obvious that bullet was meant for him. He’s dead now, and it’s over. If you force me to leave David’s house, I won’t go back to the city. All the share houses are full up by now, so I’ll just move in with Graydon. And if you get me fired from Cuppa J, I’ll just find another job out here—I hear cocktail waitresses make much more if they wear a little less.”
I was flabbergasted. I stood in front of my daughter speechless. I may have trumped her earlier, but now she was trumping me, and needling me with that last comment. She had cast me as a prude and herself as a slut, just to win her point. It wasn’t fair to either of us. But that’s the trouble with children—they know just how to twist your guts.
Joy sighed. “I’m twenty-one, Mom. Stop treating me like a child.”
“You know very well why I’m worried,” I calmly reminded her. “The shooting aside, moving in with Graydon’s hardly a solution. He’s even less of an open book than Treat. What do you really know about him?”
“I know what counts. He’s sweet. He’s fun. He likes me and he treats me like I’m beautiful.”
