The Last Refuge (43 page)

So it seemed inevitable that I would marry someone I’d never want to know and help create a child who didn’t want to know me. That I’d destroy my working life and burn my future to the ground. I couldn’t save any of it.

Just like I couldn’t save Regina, even though she was the only thing left for me to save.

“Here’s the deal,” I said. “You tell the cops and Amanda about the whole scam, including your thing with Hornsby and the development project. In return I let the old ladies stay dead of natural causes.”

Jackie’s mouth actually dropped open.

“What are you saying?”

“It’s how I want it.”

“I don’t think it’s up to you,” she said. “There’s the matter of the truth.”

“I’m in charge of the truth. I got all the evidence, all the information. It’s not going anywhere without me. Anyway, this is in the best interest of your client, Mr. Battiston.”

“Hold on a minute,” she started to say.

“You’re the only one who can make this come out right. Roy goes down for colluding with Hornsby to defraud Amanda and her mother. Nobody, especially Amanda, ever learns about Julia. Or Regina, for that matter. That’s the deal.”

It took a few more minutes to get Jackie all the way on board. I really didn’t have a good reason for her to do it, which is probably what ultimately appealed to her. That and the possibility of being shut out of the whole
thing, whatever it was. That was Jackie’s Achilles’ heel. Fear of being the oddball left sitting alone while all the other girls were out on the dance floor.

As Roy listened to us talk his face didn’t know whether to look hopeful or horrified. When I pointed my finger at him he almost jumped out of his chair.

“But if you try to test me, or weasel on any of this, it’s all yours. I don’t care how much you actually had to do with it. I don’t care what it does to Amanda. I’ll make sure she thinks you were in it up to your neck. You might talk your way out of ripping her off. Killing her mother, probably not.”

Before he had time to think it all through Jackie had him on his feet, his face wiped off and his suit jacket on. We marched him through the big banking room, past Amanda, who didn’t say a word to any of us, and out to the parking lot. He got to ride in the back of the Grand Prix with Eddie, who was indifferent to his sins and avarice, all the way to the Town police headquarters in Hampton Bays where we called ahead to have Joe Sullivan and Ross Semple waiting for us.

I left him there with Jackie. She seemed to be warming to the whole idea, and Roy was so afraid of me he had to take her. Sullivan said he’d give her a lift back to my house to pick up her truck. I was glad to leave it all with them. I didn’t know how it was going to work out for Roy in the end, but I was sore all over from my little dance with Buddy, and tired from staying up most of the night cajoling and dodging questions from Sullivan. I just had to make another stop.

The Senior Center was in its usual state of glacial clamor. My friend at the counter greeted me like it was our first meeting.

“Is Ms. Filmore in?” I asked her.

“You from Mississippi?”

“No ma’am.”

“My grandmother was from Mississippi. She wanted us to call her Miz Clarke.”

“A feminist.”

“All us Clarke girls were feminine, Mister.”

“I bet I can just go in and find Barbara for myself.”

She gave an expansive wave toward the door.

“Après vous, señor.”

“Grazie.”

It was easy to spot that big mane of ersatz hair standing out from the prevailing white and gray. Her right hand was on her hip and her left was wagging an index finger at a frightened little gnome of a guy holding a cafeteria tray piled high with creamers and sugar bowls. She clammed up when she saw me approach.

“Mr. Acquillo.”

“Hi, Barbara.”

“I don’t think Mr. Hodges is here today.”

“Too bad. Looks like you could use the help.”

Her victim had already slipped quietly out of range. She pretended to ignore him.

“Not at all, Mr. Acquillo. Everything’s quite under control.”

“Actually, I was looking for Bob. Your Bob. Sobol.”

If her back had straightened any further she’d have snapped her spine.

“My Bob? Really.”

“Okay. Bob’s his own man. Know where he is? I got a tip for him. Real estate.”

She softened a little.

“Really. He’s quite in the market.”

“Well, gotta find him to tell him.
Carpe diem
and all that.”

She pondered a second or two.

“You know Moses Lane?”

“I do. Down near the Red Sea.”

“Funny. Here’s the address.”

She wrote it down on a piece of paper, then watched me walk all the way out of the building. So did most of the old folks manning the card tables and conversation pits. I thought if I suddenly whirled around and yelled boo half of them would go into cardiac arrest.

I had to drive through the Village shopping area to get to Moses Lane. It was full of Summer People who’d learned you could stretch the summer out to Thanksgiving. They mostly looked nicely dressed and well fed, but not entirely sure of themselves, as if fearing discovery. I liked it better when they all went home after Labor Day, but you have to be realistic. It wasn’t their fault that God put a place like this only two hours from Midtown Manhattan. On a good traffic day.

I noticed pumpkins everywhere, and tied-up cornstalks and cardboard cutouts of witches and ghosts hung up in store windows. Not many kids ever came to the cottage on Halloween. I always made them say please and thank you, which used to mortify my daughter. The other parents in Stamford said she was
the most polite kid in the neighborhood. She’d probably grown out of that living in the City with all the other overachievers.

Moses Lane was off Hill Street just west of the Village. It was typical of the areas once lived in by Southampton locals—modest, well-kept houses, neat lawns and gravel driveways. Now you could see the encroachment of postmodernism and German cars, seeping out of the estate district and spreading out like the brown tide across the neighborhood.

Barbara Filmore’s place was a nice pre-restoration bungalow with a tiny mother-in-law building in the back. You got to the front door through an arched gate covered in wisteria. I left Eddie locked in the car and went up to ring the bell, but no answer. So I knocked loudly enough to be heard next door, which brought a muffled yell from the backyard. Shades of Milton Hornsby. When I went back there Sobol was sitting at a picnic table in the middle of the yard, just to the left of the mother-in-law shack. He was smoking a cigarette, dumping the ashes in a big bowl full of butts on the seat next to him.

“House rules,” he said to me as I approached.

“Which house?”

“Both of ’em. I got this little one here,” he jerked his thumb back to the mother-in-law place, “but I got bigger ambitions.”

“Apparently.”

I sat across from him and dug out a Camel. He offered up his lighter.

“Barbara told me you were coming over with a tip.”

“Good lookout.”

“She wanted to make sure I was around.”

“So, are you two …” I made the universal New York gesture for, you know, what we often gesture about. He didn’t like it.

“I think that’s somethin’ of a private nature.”

“You’re right. None of my business.”

He nodded.

“So, this tip.”

“Big development up in North Sea. Right next to me, as it turns out.”

Sobol’s head was just a little too small for his body, which was a solid round ball. His lack of hair and grubby little moustache did little to aid the overall effect. He’d tried to help things out by dyeing what was left of his hair an unnatural black, which contrasted poorly with the white stubble on his unshaven face. The only part of him that didn’t look like it belonged to a natural schlub were his eyes. They were hard black and fixed on my face.

“I might already know about that one,” he said, slowly.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I thought you’d be interested.”

“Interested. Yeah. I’m interested in what your deal is in this.”

“It affects my neighborhood. I’m captain of the neighborhood watch.”

“That’d be news to the neighbors.”

“I like to keep it on a need-to-know basis.”

“Self-appointed, huh?”

“No. Hereditary.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Plus all the professional training.”

“Must be a tough part of town.”

“Mostly quiet. Occasionally get a rat passing through.”

“Really. Seen any lately?”

“Last night, as it turns out.”

Sobol finally stopped trying to stare my eyeballs out of their sockets and looked down at his pack of Marlboros. I thought it was safe to blink. He flicked out a cigarette and lit it.

“That’s what exterminators are for,” he said, puffing the smoke out with the words.

“You must know our rat. I think he’s done a little exterminating himself.”

I pulled a cloth bag holding Buddy’s Glock out from under my jacket and dumped the gun on the table. It hit the wood with a loud noise—loud enough for me to realize we’d been speaking very softly to each other. Sobol didn’t flinch. He just shook his head and went back to the big stare.

“Don’t know anybody like that,” he said, “but I’ve heard there’s an unlimited supply of ’em back in the city.”

“More the reason for restrictive zoning.”

“That’s right,” he said, waving his Marlboro at me, “you’re into real estate.”

“Only a spectator.”

“I figured that. Like some of the old ladies when I was growing up. Watchin’ everything going on in the street from behind their venetian blinds. nothin’ better to do.”

“Piss you off, did it? The old ladies?”

Sobol leaned back from the table and pulled back his shoulders, grimacing.

“It’s hard sitting on these benches with no backs,” he said. “I think Filmore put ’em here on purpose.”

“Another reason to quit smoking.”

He settled himself back into his original uncomfortable position.

“Didn’t you come over here to give me a tip?” he asked. “Like, where’s the tip?”

“The project in North Sea. Looks like Roy’s going to have to turn the whole thing over to his wife, now that he’s in jail for defrauding her. Actually, at the moment he’s spending some quality time with Chief Semple. You know, unloading everything. Clearing his conscience, I guess. I’ll bet it’s a pretty interesting story. But I thought you should know Amanda’s in the driver’s seat now. I remember you asked her to help you find a place.”

“Good-looking girl, Amanda. You say Roy was trying to screw her?”

“Yeah, imagine trying to screw your own wife.”

“Why I never got married.”

“Don’t touch it.”

“What?”

Sobol’s hand had somehow moved to within a foot of Buddy’s gun. I placed my hand on the table at approximately the same distance.

“I’m an ex-fighter, Bob. I got reflexes like a mongoose.”

Sobol pulled his hand back a few inches.

“I hate weird fuckers like you, Acquillo.”

“There’s gratitude.”

“Screwball fuckers. You think I don’t know all about you? About what you been up to? I knew you’d stick your fucking nose into my shit. Fucking whack job.”

“Too much time on my hands.”

Sobol still hadn’t raised his voice, but his pitty little face finally had some color in it. Suited him better.

“I still don’t know your deal,” he said to me, patiently.

“I’m the administrator.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“When my neighbor Regina died, she didn’t have much of a family, so the County named me administrator to clean up her worldly affairs. That’s all. I’m just trying to clean things up.”

He thought about that for a few moments. Sizing up the situation.

“I don’t know what you think you know, but if you think that bag of shit Battiston’s a problem for me, you’re a bigger whack job than I thought.”

I snorted out a little laugh. I couldn’t help myself.

“Roy’s not your problem, Bob. I’m your problem.”

Sobol had something else to think about, so he stalled for time by looking around Barbara Filmore’s backyard.

“It’s not bad livin’ here,” he said, “but I’d like a little more property. I need elbow room.”

“Not me. I’ve been scaling back.”

“You know what this little joint’s worth? Like, two million bucks. What’s with that? I lived in this town twenty years ago. Back then you could buy any of these places for about $50K. Now it’s like all the rich fucks decided nobody like me’s allowed in. Everything’s jacked up to the stratosphere. It’s unnatural.”

“The coffee’s gotten better.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. What am I thinkin’.”

“You might just have to look somewhere else, Bob. Set your sights on another horizon.”

“Not goddammed likely.”

“Just trying to help.”

“You keep saying that, but I’m not hearing anything that sounds like it.”

“Fair enough, Bob,” I told him. “You’re right about sticking my nose in your shit. Trust me, I know your shit inside and out. Everything, every step of the way. So, the tip I’ve got for you, if you will, is more like a proposition.”