by Chris Knopf
They were sitting on a slate patio beneath a pergola laden with emerging clematis and wisteria. Hayden was in a white-and-blue-striped tennis outfit last worn by Jay Gatsby and Burton was in a state of exhaustion. Since he could never talk specifically about his work, the only polite thing to say was, “So, workin’ hard?”
“Indeed,” he said, telling us he’d been up all night preparing a bankruptcy filing that was big enough to affect global financial markets when it was announced later that day. “You won’t be surprised to know there are weighty tax implications surrounding the implosion of a large corporation— rather like a pack of jackals feeding on a staggering herbivore. Get it while you can.”
“I feel that way about the waffles,” I told him.
Amanda and I did our best to catch up with the breakfast routine while Burton and Hayden picked their teeth and debated the merits, or even the technical feasibility, of a fixed tax code versus our current system of intricate variability. A system Burton admitted was beautifully designed to enrich those capable of navigating and optimizing ambiguities and approximations. People like Burton himself.
“Or you could take my approach,” I said. “Maintain a tax status well south of the poverty line.”
“Ingenious,” said Hayden.
“Only if his friends keep feeding him breakfast,” said Amanda.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to speak with you straight away, Amanda,” said Burton. “I think I have the gist, but let’s hear the details. I hope you don’t mind if Hayden sits in. He’s quite the legal scholar.”
“I knew nothing about underground cellars or anything like that until those two guys from the DEC pulled out their maps,” said Amanda.
“I told her to say that so you didn’t have to ask,” I said.
“This is what they’re accusing you of?” he asked.
“Not directly. By implication.”
We told him everything we could think of about the DEC guys as well as Amanda’s successful phase-one environmental study.
“You were wise to conclude that meeting,” said Burton. “These sorts of administrative actions have very few built-in protections.”
“Kafka lives on,” said Hayden.
“I’m telling the truth,” said Amanda. “I swear to God.”
“We’ll draw up a letter to the commissioner expressing your eagerness to cooperate fully in the field investigation,” said Burton. “Not as good for the soul as swearing to God, but more legally persuasive.”
“Anything,” she said.
“At least it undermines any claim that you resisted their investigation,” said Hayden. “Should they charge you with anything.”
“Kafka would do the same thing,” I said.
“We shouldn’t delay further,” said Burton. “Hayden, if you would, bring Amanda to the office and write something up for her. Isabella can notarize it. She loves to get out the stamp,” he said to me.
“Really.”
“Anything you need to tell me?” Burton asked, once Hayden and Amanda were beyond earshot.
“There’s something fucked up going on.”
“Put that in layman’s terms.”
“I don’t know exactly,” I said.
“Is Amanda telling the truth?” he asked.
“Define truth.”
“So you’re not sure.”
“I’m not sure of anything,” I admitted.
“But you have theories.”
“None that make any sense.”
“The DEC doesn’t pursue these things without cause. Deterrence depends on credibility.”
“I want a closer look at that drawing.”
“Right now Amanda needs to cooperate as fully as possible,” said Burton.
“Can I borrow your cell phone?” I asked.
“Certainly. Phone service comes with breakfast.”
I fished Dan’s number out of my wallet. He didn’t answer at the motel so I called his cell.
“Mr. Acquillo, nice to hear from you.”
“I’m calling to tell you we’re eager to cooperate as fully as possible.”
“Good decision.”
“We just wanted to make that intention official.”
“We’ll be faxing a letter to the commissioner’s office to that effect,” said Burton.
“We’ll be faxing a letter to the commissioner’s office to that effect,” I told Dan.
“That is official.”
“We just don’t want any misunderstanding about Amanda’s willingness to give the DEC total access and cooperation.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Dan. “Tell your lawyer I said hello.”
I cupped the phone.
“He said to say hello.”
“So when can we get on the site?” Dan asked.
“As soon as you want if you have a pair of bolt cutters.”
“We’ll call if we need anything. I’ve got all the drawings.”
“More than we do, obviously. Do you mind if I get another look at that cellar elevation?” I asked him.
“Long as I’m there when you do it.”
“Fair enough. I think I know where to find you.”
“You betcha,” said Dan.
I signaled to Burton that I was ready to end the call and he nodded his okay.
“How was that for full cooperation?” I asked him.
“And you with so little experience.”
After that we caught up on my own legal matters. I told him of my visit with Jeff Milhouser, leaving out any mention of Amanda. I didn’t want to be talking about her when she got back with Hayden. She could smell a sudden change in conversation a mile away. I also told him about Rosaline Arnold and my sentimental trip to Southampton High.
“What do you expect that to achieve?” he asked me.
“I don’t know. But it was worth it just to see Rosaline again.”
I was about to tell him more, but seeing Amanda and Hayden walking down the path, I took my own advice and asked him about the NBA playoffs instead.
“Yes, that’s a yearly contest the New York Knicks seem committed to boycott.”
“Despite the gentle encouragement of their fan base.”
“We do our part. We’re talking about the Knicks,” he said to Hayden as he drew near.
“I’m only there for moral support,” said Hayden. “Unless the Sixers are in town. Then we get to watch a game with a little meat on it.”
“Hayden’s from Philadelphia,” said Burton, “where every sport is a variation on the theme of thuggery.”
“Home of Smokin’ Joe Frazier and the Italian Stallion,” said Hayden.
“One of whom was an actual person,” I said.
“Sam used to be an actual thug himself,” said Amanda as she settled back into her chair.
“Me and Smokin’ Joe prefer fighter.”
“Retired fighter sounds even better,” she said.
“I think for Sam ‘recovering’ is closer to it,” said Burton.
“Not me, Burt. I’m done with it for good. Doctor’s advice.”
“Smart doctor.”
“Big doctor.”
I managed to steer the talk back into professional sports and away from further commentary on my personal circumstances, legal or pugilistic. When it looked like Burton was starting to nod off, we made a graceful exit. As we walked through the house, I looked back through a window to see Hayden combing his hand through Burton’s hair. Since I’d known him, Burton had resisted getting into a steady commitment. We never talked about it, but I guessed the reasons were economic as well as romantic. He never seemed to suffer for it, though I always wondered if that was just his well-bred self-discipline.
Watching the roll of Amanda’s hips as she walked ahead of me—almost gliding through a series of opulent rooms—I thought, fear and anger aren’t the only things that make you stupid. Something else, also buried deep in the medulla oblongata, the part Markham would call the lizard brain, was even more likely to interf
ere with judgment and overthrow the rule of common sense. Something neither Burton nor I, despite our arrogant faith in the intellect, would ever be able to control.
——
When we got back to the cottage there was a unmarked patrol car in my driveway. The driver was sitting out in one of the Adirondacks throwing tennis balls into the bay so Eddie would have an excuse to leap like Rin Tin Tin off the breakwater. Amanda wanted to get back to salvaging her demolished house, so I got to take the other chair.
“He ever get tired of this?” Sullivan asked, giving the tennis ball another throw.
“Only when you stop being impressed.”
“I had a long talk with Ross Semple about your case.”
“What’s his mood?”
“Optimistic. But I convinced him to let me back in. You told me he would. You were right.”
“Great.”
“Took a while, so I only just started doing anything.”
“Like cozying up to the suspect’s dog?”
“Like having a little chat with Patrick Getty.”
Eddie ran up to the chairs, dropped the tennis ball and shook out his fur, spraying us with sand and salty bay water.
“Nice,” said Sullivan.
“All part of the experience.”
Sullivan threw the ball into the bay again and Eddie looked at him like, what did you do that for?
“Go get it,” I told him. “Go on.”
Now on a practical mission, he trotted across the lawn to the beach access, skipping the heroics off the breakwater. “Ever wonder what goes on in their brains?” Sullivan asked.
“Not that one. You don’t want to know.”
“Did you know your boy Patrick has a record?”
“No.”
“A few B and E’s early on, worked his way up to larceny. Did five years. Mostly clean after that, though there was one assault charge the accuser later dropped.”
“Too bad. Be good to know who won the fight.”
“Ervin’s been keeping an eye on him as best he can. Can’t exactly afford surveillance.”
“What about his posse?”
“Need to look at their IDs, but I’m guessing the same deal. Have that feel about them.”
“What did you and Patrick chat about?”
“I told him I wanted to get to know each other a little. Got the usual bullshit about a paid-off debt to society, not looking for trouble, yadda yadda. He said you were the one I should keep my eye on. You and your crazy bitches.”
“He’s safe from me. The bitches will have to speak for themselves.”
“Not your kind,” he said to Eddie as he approached with the tennis ball in his mouth.
“So what does this tell us?” I asked him. “Patrick’s an ex-con. Should have figured that out ourselves.”
“Jail time is the difference between big talkers and the genuine product,” said Sullivan. “Much more serious cats. I want them out of my town.”
“Do you think Robbie knew they were cons?” I asked him.
“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“All I do is wonder, Joe,” I told him.
I left him in the Adirondacks and went back to the cottage to grab a couple of beers. Besides needing the drink I needed a few minutes alone with my brain, hoping something useful would shake loose and drop out on the lawn. But all I got was more confusing mental clutter. So I decided to concentrate on the beer instead. Something simple I could understand.
“Veckstrom doesn’t want to be my mentor anymore,” said Sullivan when I got back to the breakwater.
“I didn’t know he was.”
“He told me when I first got promoted where to put my files and how to get calling cards printed with my name and the official Southampton Police emblem.”
“Really knows the ropes.”
“He’s actually younger than me, but he’s got a college degree. In criminology, plus two years of law school.”
“That explains the tie.”
“Don’t ask me why he decided to be a cop. Ross thinks he’s smart. I think he’s smart.”
“I think he’s a dickhead.”
“So I hear.”
He hung around long enough to down another beer and give me some inside information on the case without seeming to do so. I appreciated the effort, though there wasn’t much new or alarming. Except the ADA’s prediction that the grand jury would hand up an indictment within the next three weeks.
“If you were planning to share one of those alternatives you were talking about, I wouldn’t wait too much longer,” said Sullivan.
“Say Joe,” I said, struck with a sudden thought, “do you remember when Jeff Milhouser got in trouble for some scam on the Town?”
He was standing. He looked down at me, took off his black baseball hat and scratched the top of his head with the same hand.
“Vaguely,” he said. “It wasn’t anything that concerned me as a beat cop. Too downtown.”
“I’d like to get some of the details.”
“Ross would know. He’s always kept it cozy with the Town board. Why the interest?”
“No particular reason. Probably a waste of time.”
He put his cap back on and nodded.
“Probably is,” he said, and left me there with Eddie and my deepening sense of anxious disorientation. It was a familiar sensation, one I’d often felt on the job when an analysis of a wayward system would start producing strange data, tangles of nonsensical conclusions, incongruities intertwined with further incongruity. I’d actually become nauseated as I tried to force an explanation out of the jumble, knowing it was a doomed strategy, that the failure wasn’t in the analysis, but in the validity of the data itself. The underlying assumptions looked so reliable, yet were somehow hopelessly corrupt.
I remembered a young Swiss process engineer named Edouard Baton weeping into his computer keyboard after the two of us had spent twenty-eight straight hours fruitlessly trying to restart his company’s hydrogen plant.
“How can it be that we always get the wrong answer?” he sobbed.
“There’s nothing wrong with our answers,” I told him as the truth, and the solution, dawned on me. “The problem’s in the question.”
EIGHTEEN
A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER I was standing naked in my kitchen talking to Rosaline Arnold. It was well into cocktail hour, and I was about to fill the aluminum tumbler I usually brought with me into the outdoor shower when she called me on the phone.
“Don’t you have to give me a credit card number if you’re going to talk to me in the nude?” she asked.
“I got rid of those things. I’ll have to send you a check.”
“Just bring it over when you come tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“I have some research findings to share. We have a deal, and I have an assortment of hors d’oeuvres, a patio and a full liter of that industrial solvent you drink on the rocks.”
“Okay.”
“Come as you are.”
The evening was warm enough to keep the windows down in the Grand Prix on the way over to Rosaline’s condominium on the east side of the Village. The sky was mostly deep blue with a bank of charcoal-gray clouds along the eastern horizon. It made for a theatrical backdrop behind the oak trees, whose fresh, light green leaves were lit up by the low angle of the sun. As I passed Hawk Pond, I could see the flags at Hodges’s marina hard out behind a stiffer easterly than the movement of the oak leaves would suggest. The surface of the water in the shallow harbor was filled with miniature blue-gray, chrome-tipped waves on which a small flock of seagulls bobbed in place as if tethered to tiny moorings.
The fresh spring air reminded me I was out of cigarettes, so I stopped at the convenience store on County Road 39. The Asian guys who ran the place had two registers going serving a steady crowd of lawn cutters, group renters and plutocrats out picking up toothpaste, six-packs of beer and quarts of half-and-half.
Back when I used to visit t
he Arnolds, I got in the habit of bringing the old man a magazine or a newspaper—a different one every time. I visited enough that it got difficult to be original. That’s why I had my head buried in the magazine racks until I came up with a copy of the Daily Racing Form. Which is probably why Hayden Grayson didn’t see me when I stepped behind him in the line at the cash register.
He had a large cup of coffee and a gigantic sugared confection. Looked like road food, but before I could wish him a good trip back to the City, he was engaged with the guy at the register. He put the coffee cup and heart-choking cinnamon roll on the counter and then dropped a twenty-dollar bill on top of the cup’s plastic lid. After the guy at the register starting ringing him up, Hayden interrupted him and asked if he could throw in a roll of Tums. When the guy turned around to pluck the Tums out of a small display behind the counter, Hayden slid the twenty off the coffee lid and replaced it with a ten. The guy put the roll of Tums down on the counter and punched at the register.
“Out of twenty,” he said, palming the ten without looking at it and pulling another ten and a few small bills out of the drawer.
Hayden busied himself collecting his booty and making a quick break for the door, so he still didn’t know I was there until I caught up to him climbing into one of those weird little SUVs that remind me of a Reebok sneaker.
Before he could snap on his seat belt, I jumped into the passenger seat and shut the door.
“Did I ever tell you about my mother’s theory on littering?” I asked him, reaching over and sliding his keys out of the ignition.
“Whoa, Sam,” he said. “You startled me. And no, never a word about your mother. And what’s with the keys?”
“Her theory was that anyone who litters is an incipient murderer. Killers in training. She thought if a person had so little concern for common civility that he’d throw a piece of trash on the ground, that he’s on the path to sociopathic disregard for the consequences of his behavior. And the trip from common thoughtlessness to depravity is little more than a short hop.”
