Beach Road

by James Patterson

  “Be careful with this one, fellas,” says Feif, meticulously lowering his kickstand and parking his eight-dollar bike between two hundred-thousand-dollar cars. “It’s a Schwinn.”

  I’ve depended on Jeff my whole life, but all these guys are indispensable to me. Roche, aka Rochie, is the deepest soul I know, not to mention a terrible sculptor, a mediocre poker player, and a truly gifted bartender. Walco is pure, undiluted human earnestness, the kind of guy who will walk up to you and, apropos of nothing, pronounce Guns ’N Roses the greatest rock-and-roll band of all time, or Derek Jeter the finest shortstop of his generation. As for Feif, he’s just special, and that’s immediately obvious to everyone, from the Dominican cashier at the IGA to your grandmother.

  This whole place is owned by the movie star T. Smitty Wilson, who bought it five years ago. Wilson wanted to show his fans he was still keeping it real, so after dropping $23 million for a big, Waspy house on four acres, he dropped another half mil on this sick basketball court. He used the same contractor who built Shaq’s court in Orlando, and Dr. Dre’s in Oakland, but he hired Walco & Son to do the landscaping, and that’s how we found out about it.

  For a month, we had the court to ourselves, but when Wilson invited his celebrity pals out to the country, it got to be even more fun.

  First came a handful of actors and pro athletes, mainly from L.A. and New York. Through them word leaked into the hip-hop crowd. They told their people, and the next thing you know this court was the wildest scene in the Hamptons—ever—a nonstop party with athletes and rappers, CEOs and supermodels, and just enough gangsters to add some edge.

  But as the celebs thinned out, one of the most expensive residential acres on Beach Road was starting to seem like a playground in a South Bronx housing project.

  At that point, Wilson made his retreat. For weeks he barely ventured from the house; then he began to avoid the Hamptons altogether.

  Now about the only person you can be sure of not running into at T. Smitty Wilson’s Hamptons compound is T. Smitty Wilson.

  Chapter 5

  Tom

  ME, JEFF, FEIF, Walco, and Rochie are stretching and shooting around one basket when a maroon SUV rumbles up the driveway. Like a lot of cars here, it looks as if it just rolled off a showroom floor, and its arrival is announced well in advance by 500 watts of teeth-chattering hip-hop.

  When the big Caddy lurches to a stop, three doors swing open and four black teens jump out, each sporting brand-new kicks and sweats.

  Then, after a dramatic beat or two, the man-child himself, Dante Halleyville, slides out from the front passenger side. It’s hard not to gawk at the kid.

  Halleyville is the real deal, without a doubt the best high school player in the country, and at six foot nine with ripped arms and chest tapering to a tiny waist and long, lean legs, he’s built like a basketball god. Dante is already being called the next Michael Jordan. Had he declared himself eligible for this year’s NBA draft, he would have been a top-three pick, no question, but he promised his grandmother at least one year of college.

  The reason I know all this is that Dante grew up nine miles down the road, in Bridgehampton, and there’s a story about him every other day in the local paper, not to mention a weekly column he writes with the sports editor called Dante’s Diary. According to the stories, which suggest that Dante is actually a pretty sharp kid, he’s leaning toward Louisville—so rumor has it that’s the academic institution that leased him the car.

  “You fellas want to have a run?” I ask.

  “Hell, yeah,” says Dante, offering a charismatic smile that the Nike people are just going to love. “We’ll make it quick and painless for you.”

  He slaps my head and bumps my chest, and thirty seconds later the crash of collapsing waves and squawking gulls mix with the squeak of sneakers and the sweet pock of a bouncing ball.

  You might think the older white guys are about to get embarrassed, but we’ve got some talent too. My big brother, Jeff, is pushing fifty, but at six five, 270 he’s still pretty much unmovable under the boards, and Walco, Roche, and Feif, all in their early twenties, are good, scrappy athletes who can run forever.

  As for me, I’m not as much of a ringer as Dante, and I’m pushing thirty-five—but I can still play a little.

  Unless you’re a basketball junkie you haven’t heard of me, but I was second-team All-America at St. John’s and in ’95 the Minnesota Timberwolves made me the twenty-third pick in the first round of the NBA draft. My pro career was a wash. I blew out my knee before the end of my rookie season, but I’d be lying if I told you I couldn’t still hold my own on any playground, whether it’s a cratered cement court in the projects or this million-dollar beauty looking straight out at the big blue sea.

  Chapter 6

  Tom

  PARADISE COULDN’T BE too much better than this.

  Seagulls are flapping in the breeze, sailboats are bobbing on the waves, and the green rubberized surface is bathed in dazzling sunshine as I dribble the ball upcourt, cut around my brother’s double-wide pick, and snap off a bounce pass to an open Walco under the basket.

  Walco is about to lay it in for an easy hoop when one of Dante’s teammates, a tall, wiry kid I will later find out is named Michael Walker, comes flying at him from behind. He blocks the shot and knocks Walco to the court. It’s a hard foul, and completely unnecessary in my opinion. A dirty play.

  Now the Kings Highway squad is bringing the ball upcourt, and when one of their players goes up for a little jumper, he gets mugged just as bad by Rochie.

  Pretty soon, no one stretched out on the grassy hill beside the court is noticing the flapping seagulls or bobbing sailboats because the informal Saturday-morning game has escalated into a war.

  But then a beat-up Honda parks beside the court, and Dante’s pretty seventeen-year-old cousin, Nikki Robinson, steps out in very short cutoffs. When I see the way Feifer checks her out, I know the Montauk townies still have a chance to win this shoot-out by the sea.

  Chapter 7

  Tom

  NIKKI ROBINSON LEANS provocatively against the wire fence, and the shameless Feifer immediately takes over the game. He uses his quickness, or stamina, or surprising strength to force three consecutive Kings Highway turnovers.

  When Jeff taps in my missed jumper, we’re all tied at twenty.

  Now Nikki isn’t the only one up against the fence. Artis LaFontaine and Mammy and Sly and everyone else on the hill are on their feet, making a lot of noise.

  Michael Walker races upcourt with the ball.

  With five pretty women paying attention instead of just one, Feifer swoops on Walker like an eagle bearing down on a rabbit on one of those TV nature shows. He effortlessly strips him of the ball and races the other way for the winning lay-up.

  This time, however, he doesn’t stop at the rim. He keeps climbing, showing that Montauk boys got ups too. When he throws the ball down, Artis, Mammy, and Marwan go crazy on the sidelines, and Nikki Robinson rewards him with a little R-rated dance that seventeen-year-old girls aren’t supposed to know how to do.

  This provokes Michael Walker to shove Rochie, Feif to shove him back, Dante to shove Feif, and Feif to really shove Dante.

  Ten seconds later, on the prettiest day of the summer, Feif and Dante are squared off at half-court.

  At this point, both sides should jump in and break it up, but neither does. The Kings Highway crew hangs back because they figure the white surfer boy is about to get a whupping and don’t want to bail him out. We stand and watch because in a dozen barroom brawls we’ve never seen Feif lose.

  And right now, despite giving up a foot and more than fifty pounds to Dante, Feif’s holding his own.

  But now I really have seen enough. This is bullshit, and I don’t want either of them to get hurt.

  But as I jump between them, catching glancing blows from both for my trouble, the court falls silent.

  There’s a high-pitched scream, the blur of people scatteri
ng, and then Artis yells, “Tom, he’s got a gun!”

  I turn toward Dante, and he’s holding his empty hands up in front of his face. When I turn to Feif, he’s doing the same thing.

  I am the last person on the court to see that the guy with the gun isn’t Dante or Feifer. It’s Dante’s homeboy Michael Walker. While I was breaking up the fight, he must have run and grabbed it from the car.

  I didn’t see him or the gun until just now, when he walked back onto the court, lifted it to the side of Feifer’s head, and with a sickening click, thumbed back the hammer to cock it.

  Chapter 8

  Dante Halleyville

  WHEN MICHAEL PUTS that gun up beside that boy’s head, no one is more freaked than me. No one! Not even the bro with the gun to his head—although he looks plenty freaked too. This is my worst nightmare coming true. Don’t pull that trigger, Michael. Don’t do it.

  Because of my promise to my grandmother Marie, I’ve got sixteen months to get through before I go into the NBA, and the only thing that can stop me is some ridiculousness like this. That’s why I never go to clubs or even parties where I don’t know everyone, because you never know when some fool is going to pull out a gun, and now that’s exactly what’s happening and it’s my best friend doing it, and he thinks he’s doing it for me.

  And it’s not like Michael and I haven’t talked about it. Michael wants to have my back, fine. But he’s got to stay between me and trouble, not bring it on.

  Thank God for Dunleavy. He doesn’t know this, but I’ve watched him since I was starting out. Till me, he was the only player from around here who amounted to much. I used to track him at St. John’s and then for that short time with the pros in Minnesota. He never got the big tout, but if he hadn’t got hurt, Tom Dunleavy would have done some damage in the League. Trust me.

  But what Dunleavy does today is better than basketball. It’s like that poem we read in school—if you can keep your head screwed on tight, when all around you motherfuckers are freaking.

  When Michael puts the gun to the white guy’s head, everyone scatters. But Dunleavy stays on the court and talks to Michael calm as can be.

  Not fake calm either. Real calm—like whatever is going to happen is going to happen.

  I can’t say for sure it was like this word for word, but this is what I remember.

  “I can tell you’re Dante’s friend,” Dunleavy says. “That’s obvious. As obvious as the fact that this guy should never have thrown a punch at Dante, not at someone who’s about to go to the NBA. He hits Dante, maybe one of his eyes is never the same and the dream is over. So I’m sure there’s a part of Dante that would like to see you mess him up right now.

  “But since you’re Dante’s best friend,” he goes on, “it’s not what Dante wants but what he needs. Right? That’s why even if Dante was screaming at you to kill this punk, you wouldn’t do it. Because it wouldn’t help him in the long run. It would hurt him.”

  “Exactly,” says Michael, his gun hand shaking now even though he’s trying to cover it. “But this shit ain’t over, white boy. Not by a long shot. This shit ain’t over!”

  Somehow Dunleavy makes it look like it was Michael deciding on his own to put down the gun. He gives Michael a way out so it doesn’t look like he’s backing down in front of everyone.

  Still, the whole thing is messed up, and when I get to my grandmom Marie’s place, I’m so stressed I go right to the couch and fall asleep for three hours.

  Nothing would ever be the same after that catnap of mine.

  Chapter 9

  Kate Costello

  “OH, MARY CATHERINE? Mary Catherine? Has anyone here seen the divine MC?” I call in my sweetest maternal-sounding voice.

  When there’s no answer, I jump up from my little plasticized lounge chair and search my sister’s Montauk backyard with the exaggerated gestures and body language of a soap-opera actress.

  “Is it truly possible that no one here has seen this beautiful little girl about yea big, with amazing red hair?” I try again. “That is so peculiar, because I could swear I saw that same little girl not more than twenty seconds ago. Big green eyes? Amazing red hair?”

  That’s about all the theatrics my twenty-month-old niece can listen to in silence. She abandons her hiding spot on the deck, behind where my sister, Theresa, and her husband, Hank, are sipping margaritas with their neighbors.

  She races across the back lawn, hair and skinny arms flying in every direction, the level of excitement in her face exceeding all recommended levels. Then she throws herself at my lap and fixes me with a grin that communicates as clearly as if she were enunciating every syllable: “I am right here, you silly aunt! See! I am not lost. I was never lost! I was just tricking you!”

  The first ten years after I finished college, I rarely came home. Montauk felt small to me, and claustrophobic, and most of all, I didn’t want to run into Tom Dunleavy. Well, now I can’t go two weeks without holding MC in my arms, and this little suburban backyard with the Weber grill on the deck and the green plastic slide and swing set in the corner is looking cozier all the time.

  While MC and I sprawl on the grass, Hank brings me a glass of white wine. “Promise you’ll tell us when you need a break,” he says.

  “This is my break, Hank.”

  Funny how things work out. Theresa has known Hank since grade school, and everyone in the family, me included, thought Theresa was settling. But seeing how much they enjoy each other and their life out here, and watching their friends casually wander in and out of their yard, I’m beginning to think the joke’s on me.

  But of course the best part of their life is MC, who, believe it or not, they named after yours truly, the so-called success of the family.

  Speaking of my darling namesake, I think she’s slinked off again because I can’t seem to find her.

  “Has anyone seen Mary Catherine? Has anyone here seen that scruffy little street urchin? No? That is just too odd. Bizarre even, because I could have sworn I just saw her a minute ago right under this table. Beautiful red hair? Big green eyes? Oh, Mary Catherine? Mary Catherine?”

  So peaceful and nice—for the moment anyway.

  Chapter 10

  Tom

  AFTER ALL THE DRAMA, a night on the couch with Wingo and the Mets won’t cut it. I head to Marjorie’s, which is not only my favorite bar out here but my favorite bar anywhere in the known universe. The Hamptons have hundreds of heinous joints catering to weekenders, but I’d sooner play bingo at the Elks Club than set one foot in most of them.

  Marjorie’s definitely skews toward townies, but the owner, Marjorie Seger, welcomes anyone who isn’t an ass, no matter how bad their credentials might look on paper, so it doesn’t have that bitter us-against-them vibe of a dyed-in-the-wool townie institution, like Wolfie’s, say.

  Plus at Wolfie’s, I’d never hear the end of it if I ordered a Grey Goose martini, but that’s exactly what I want and need, and exactly what I order from Marjorie herself when I grab a stool at the outdoor bar set up on the docks.

  Marjorie’s eyes light up, and while she puts a glass on ice and washes out her shaker, I listen to the ropes groan and the waves slap against the hulls of the big fishing trawlers tied up thirty feet away. Kind of nice.

  I was hoping one or more of my fellow hoopsters would already be here, but they’re not. I’ll have to content myself with Billy Belnap, who was in my history and English classes at East Hampton High. For fifteen years, he’s been one of East Hampton’s finest.

  Belnap, in uniform and on duty, sits on the stool next to me smoking a cigarette, sipping a Coke. That could mean he is drinking a rum and Coke, or a Jack and Coke, or, unlikely as it may sound, a plain old Coke.

  Either way, that’s between him and Marjorie, who is now concentrating on my cocktail. And when she places the chilled glass in front of me and pours out the translucent elixir, I stop talking to Billy and give her the respectful silence she deserves till the last drop brings the liquid to the
very rim, like the water in one of those $200,000 infinity swimming pools.

  “I hope you know I adore you,” I say, lowering my head for my first careful sip.

  “Keep your affection, Dunleavy,” says Marjorie. “A couple more of these, you’ll be pawing my ass.”

  As the Grey Goose does its work, I’m thinking about whether or not I should tell Billy, off the record of course, about the events of the afternoon. For the most part, so little happens to us townies, it seems ungenerous not to share a good tale.

  So trying to strike the right balance of modesty and humor, I give it a shot. When I get to the part when Michael Walker puts the gun to Feifer’s head, I say, “I thought for sure I was going to be scrubbing blood off Wilson’s million-dollar court.”

  Belnap doesn’t smile. “Was Wilson there?” he asks.

  “No. I hear he’s afraid to set foot down there.”

  “I believe that.”

  I’m wrapping it up, describing Walker’s last face-saving threat, when a scratchy voice barks out of the two-way radio lying next to Belnap’s half-full glass. He picks up the radio and listens.

  “Three bodies in East Hampton,” says Belnap, draining the rest of his drink in one gulp. “You coming?”

  Chapter 11

  Tom

  “THREE MALES, EARLY twenties,” says Belnap as he drives. “A jogger just called it in.”

  I want to ask from where, but the hard way Belnap stares through the windshield and the way the car squeals around corners discourage me from any questions.

  I must have lived a sheltered life, because this is my first ride in a squad car. Despite the frantic flashing and wailing, it seems eerily calm inside. Not that I feel calm. Anything but. Three dead bodies in East Hampton? Outside a car crash, it’s unheard of.

  The roads out here are wooded and windy, and the powerful beams of Belnap’s cruiser barely dent the dark. When we finally reach the end of Quonset and burst into the glaring light of Route 27, it feels like coming up from the bottom of a deep, cold lake and breaking through the surface.