Trolls in the Hamptons

by Celia Jerome

  On the way home, we passed one of those tiny vest-pocket parks between two buildings. This one had a waterfall and a pond and some benches. I knew the benches were always filled at lunchtime when workers came to eat outside, but now they were empty.

  “How beautiful,” Susan said, putting down her shopping bags to admire the view.

  I did not find the view all that appealing. A troll’s ass is still an ass, only less hairy. Fafhrd was bending over in the pond, washing the breechclout wrap I’d given him on paper.

  “Oh, look, they have trout.”

  “Oh, hell.”

  “What, did one of the bags break?”

  No, Fafhrd had turned to wave to me. “Put that on!” I yelled, forgetting where I was.

  “You’re right,” Susan said. “I need to keep my hat on and the sun off my face and hair. That’s what the cosmetologist told me.”

  Fafhrd was climbing out of the pond, walking toward me. “No, you stay there. Be good.”

  I must have shrieked that last because Susan said, “It’s only a little terrier. Your mother would have it eating out of her hand in a second.”

  A trout, a terrier, what was the difference? She did not see the troll.

  I dragged her away.

  At home I called Grant. I hadn’t intended to. Not ever. His presence added to my confusion and my angst over the whole mess. On the other hand, he had the only workable theory, the only understanding shoulder. “There was another, um, event this morning.”

  “It’s not on the police blotters yet or the TV news. Our man didn’t report anything.”

  “A man was watching me? I never saw him.”

  “We’re good at what we do. But the field agent did not report seeing anything suspicious.”

  “He wouldn’t, would he, if what you say is true that no one else can see Fafhrd?” Then I said, “I thought you were going to stay close.” I tried to keep the disappointment and, I am sorry to admit, resentment out of my voice. I guess I failed, because it sounded like a whine even to me.

  “I wish I could, but I spent the day faxing Nicky’s pictures to every school in the city with Special Ed programs. Public, private, and parochial. Then I had to check out the first replies.”

  “He could be home-schooled, if his captors want to keep him out of the public eye.”

  “Yes, I thought of that, but home-schoolers have to register with the Board of Ed, so I was in touch with them, too. I have a list of supposedly functioning autistic boys of the approximate age. There are a lot of them. I’m waiting for an ESPer to look it over to see if any name sticks out.”

  Why didn’t he cut open a chicken and read its entrails? “The troll didn’t have him.”

  “I am afraid to ask, but what did he wreck today?”

  “Nothing that I saw. I told him to be good, then hustled Susan away.”

  Grant sounded excited. “You can speak with him? Does he understand? How does he communicate back?”

  “I never tried to talk to him before. Usually he waves and smiles.”

  “And what did he do when you told him to behave?”

  “He mooned me. He turned around and wiggled his butt in the air. He understands, all right.”

  Susan yelled out from the kitchen wanting to know if I had a mandolin.

  “Sure, right next to the harmonica.” I told Grant I had to go face another crisis.

  He said, “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out better when we get to Paumanok Harbor.”

  “But I am not going to the Harbor.”

  “I think you are.”

  “Now you’re claiming to be a psychic, too? You can tell my future?”

  “No, but that’s where the power lies, where the boy and you both came from. It’s where you need to be.”

  “You cannot force me, and I don’t care what esoteric agency you work for.”

  “If you go, the perp will follow, with Nicky, to keep the two of you in proximity. And the troll will be on your heels, where he can do less damage.”

  “He can wreck my mother’s house!”

  Grant ignored my complaint, rightfully, I suppose. What was one house to a city block, a skyscraper or two? To say nothing of how many more people could be in Fafhrd’s way here if he decided to play kickball with Kias or something.

  “The countryside will be better all around. With the layout of the South Fork, we can shut down the only highway out of the Hamptons if we need to set up a roadblock. And, remember, most of that power in Paumanok Harbor will be on our side.”

  “No. As soon as Susan leaves, I am getting to work on my book. That’s how I make my living, you know, not by drawing twenty-dollar bills and cashing them in.”

  “We need to talk about this. Can I come over?”

  “I don’t think that is a good idea.” I did not want to spend one more minute with a man whose voice on the phone had my pulse racing, or whose far-fetched story was beginning to sound a little more convincing. Besides, I was afraid that I wanted to see Grant more than I cared about sending Fafhrd home.

  Mrs. Abbottini was thrilled to be invited to dinner with Susan and me. She brought homemade sangria, that lethal stuff posing as an innocent fruit drink. We all got tipsy. She declared that one of us ought to snabble up that charming policeman. We encouraged her to make a try for him.

  She fell off her chair, so we both walked her back to her apartment.

  Later, Susan was still uncharacteristically quiet. I worried that she was worried about tomorrow, and the talk with her oncologist. Her parents kept calling, and my mother, and various aunts and uncles. They all wished her luck, as if luck could change the results of the CAT scans. Maybe it could. Luck, prayers, wishes, whatever. Hell, if a bunch of fairy-tale folk could move an entire world, maybe the weirdos in Paumanok Harbor could cure cancer.

  And Grandma had promised.

  Right.

  I’d have to talk to the old bat about her prognostications giving Susan false confidence without foundation. I wanted to speak to her about the Royce Institute, too. She’d attended the college, I knew, and believed wholeheartedly in the whole heredity shtick. That was all she used to talk about, besides her gardens: lineage, succession, carrying on the family traditions, as if we were royalty. She claimed that with great power comes great responsibility. Or was that Spiderman?

  I fought my whole life against her and her pushing me where I did not want to go, chasing something I did not believe in. If I had, I might make more sense of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Or I might be more filled with conundrums.

  I did not want to know those pseudo-psychic secrets. I was not going to the Harbor, and that was final.

  CHAPTER 11

  I WAS GOING.

  Here’s how:

  We took a bus up Third Avenue then walked over to Memorial Sloan-Kettering, then waited an hour past Susan’s appointment to see the doctor. So far, I’d caught no sight of Grant, Lou, or anyone who wasn’t a patient or with a patient. They all looked concerned, not wary of predators.

  They did not see any trusses, trumpets, or troglodytes, either, thank heaven.

  Thank heaven, and whatever deity you chose, the doctor declared Susan free of cancer. Nothing showed on the scans; the CA-125 blood tests had low numbers; and he found no new swellings or symptoms. Susan had an eighty-five-percent chance of staying healthy, the doctor said, with the odds getting better every year she stayed cancer-free. New discoveries were leading to more effective treatments, too. He predicted a long, happy life for Susan. He sounded like my grandmother; I wondered where he’d gone to school.

  Susan seemed unaffected and unsurprised about the whole thing, while I had to wipe my eyes and blow my nose.

  While she waited on line to make an appointment—not for three glorious months!—and another to settle her current accounts, I went out to make phone calls. I had to leave a message for Aunt Jasmine, Susan’s mother, and our mutual grandmother, but my mother picked up at the first ring.

  “That’s great,
Willy, but we were expecting no less. I have some bad news elsewhere, though.”

  My mother’s usual bad news was about some rescue dog that arrived sickly or mistreated, so I wasn’t worried. Instead I heard about my father’s heart attack.

  “It was mild, so don’t panic. I told him all those chippies would kill him eventually.”

  My father’s retirement community lady friends were all in their sixties, at least. The chocolate chip cookies he loved must have done more damage.

  “He’s going to have heart surgery tomorrow.”

  “Should I go down to West Palm?”

  “I’ll go. You don’t know anything about sick people. And what if he needs a bed pan or a sponge bath?”

  “He has friends,” I started.

  “Hah. If they could be trusted to watch his diet and not let him overexert himself in that heat, he wouldn’t have keeled over on the golf course.”

  “But, Mom, you’ll only fight. That can’t be good for him in his condition.”

  “Nonsense. He thrives on it. People stagnate without a little conflict now and again. Besides, I swore to stick with him through sickness and health.”

  “Those were the wedding vows. You got a divorce.”

  “One thing has nothing to do with the other. I do not go back on my word.”

  Logic wasn’t a high priority in my family. “Okay. When do you leave?” I figured I’d call every other hour, to make sure sharp words were the only weapons they used.

  “There’s a problem.”

  Yeah, my father had a heart attack, I was seeing stone giants, and Prince Charming was a fork-tongued finagler.

  No, this was a real problem, according to my mother. Another one of her cousins, Lily—I told you, nearly everyone in Paumanok Harbor is related—has a daughter in New Jersey, Connie, my third cousin, I think. Connie was having high-risk, premature labor, so she was in the hospital. Connie’s husband could not get leave from the Army, so someone had to go take care of the couple’s two-year-old daughter.

  “Me?”

  “Don’t be foolish. You know less about toddlers than you do about middle-aged men. And whose fault is that, I ask?”

  So I wasn’t being asked to go to a scary situation in New Jersey, but I was still concerned about my father. Should I go to West Palm anyway? Mom might need someone to take turns with Dad, or run errands. Or keep them from killing each other.

  But Cousin Lily was the housekeeper for Rosehill, the biggest estate in the Harbor. I remembered Susan saying something about a movie mogul renting it this winter. Lily worked for the estate, not whoever rented the place. She had an apartment of her own in the big house. “So? Mr. Mogul can mop his own floors for a week.”

  “But his dogs are there.”

  I should have known, talking to my mother, that a dog would appear sooner or later.

  “Mr. Parker leaves them with Lily, instead of dragging them back and forth to the city or to California. They’re nice dogs, standard poodles, obedience-trained. Both are black males. One is—”

  “Mom.”

  “What? Oh, yes, well, I agreed to stay with the dogs when Connie had the baby. I would have brought them here, but I already have two rescue dogs at home, senior citizens. Besides, that little Pomeranian I told you about is still here.”

  Mom wasn’t worried about the Pom; she feared for the poodles. The six-pound furball had three legs and a nasty temper. No wonder it was found abandoned.

  “Send him back.”

  “They’ll put him down.”

  Which was unthinkable in my mother’s world. Nipper could be adoptable once my mother did her magic, which was a bad choice of words for today.

  “So ask Grandma to keep him at her cottage.”

  “He dug in her garden.”

  Which was just as unthinkable, in Grandma Eve’s realm. The ankle-biter was lucky to be alive. “Then let Aunt Jasmine fill in for Cousin Lily at Rosehill. Or ask Susan. She’s feeling better and can use the money.”

  Neither of my suggestions was feasible. Susan’s father was sick, but no one was telling her how seriously until she got home. They thought he had babesiasis from the tick bite, and they were on the way to Stony Brook, the nearest big hospital to the Hamptons. And no, Susan couldn’t stay with the dogs, because her uncle Bernie needed her at the restaurant as soon as possible. His cook eloped with a Portuguese tuna fisherman, and the under cook sliced her finger off. Oh, and the poodles suffered from separation anxiety. They’d chew the furniture, chew on each other, chew holes in their feet if left alone too long. They were already on puppy Prozac, which my mother did not believe in.

  And they said things were quiet in the country.

  “So you’re going to Florida, Aunt Jasmine’s going to Stony Brook, Cousin Lily is going to New Jersey, Susan is going to cook, and you want me to watch some over-bred, neurotic animals?” Suddenly my life was sounding like an Abbott and Costello routine.

  I reached for a different script. “I don’t cook. Or clean.”

  “The owner’s hardly there, and we’re hiring a service for the rest.”

  “Then hire a dog-walker, too.”

  “They need more companionship. And I need you to look in on the shelter dogs and your grandmother, none of which are getting any younger.”

  “Grandma hasn’t brewed an herbal potion to cure old age yet?”

  “Do not be sarcastic, darling. It is not becoming.” She sniffed and went on: “And Nipper needs care, too, to make him feel more secure. He’ll be fine at home if you go over there a few times a day. He has pee-pee pads.”

  Ugh. “If the movie guy is so rich why can’t he get his own temporary serf?” I never liked the class system at a summer resort and never would.

  My mother sniffed again, and not from allergies. “Because he is a movie guy, Willy. And because he just might take an interest in one of your books if you happen to leave them lying around.”

  Hmm. “But what about my work?”

  “It’s not like you go to an office or answer to a boss. I’m sure you can think just as well here as in the city. Better, without all those mishaps going on in Manhattan. And we do have a library.”

  One room, two computers, and an ancient librarian.

  “The family needs you.”

  I sighed. What could I say, other than to ask how soon?

  Grant found me outside the hospital’s covered entry-way. He was the fittest looking man in sight, including doctors, orderlies, and taxi drivers. Women headed toward hospice stared at him. So did I.

  Today he was wearing khakis and a polo shirt, with a navy blazer. I’d figured out he did not remove his jacket over dinner that other night because he had a weapon under it. Which meant he thought the situation was scarier than bedpans and babies. Maybe I’d be safer out of the city, after all.

  He took one look at my face and asked, “Bad news?”

  I shook my head, but said, “Yeah. Paranoid poodles and a three-legged attack Pomeranian.”

  “Notes for your new book?”

  “No, messages from my mother.” I tried to explain some of the twisted strands of fate that had me swinging in the breeze. “Maybe there is a conspiracy theory, after all.”

  “You do live an interesting life, Miss Tate.”

  My life was getting more interesting by the moment when he broke into a smile, a real smile. Strangely enough, I felt better about everything, seeing the humor in the situation because he did. He wasn’t laughing at me, either, but for me.

  “I am going to Paumanok Harbor.”

  He leaned over and kissed my cheek, then he stepped back and looked around. “I am terribly sorry,” he said in his most formal Brit. “That was unprofessional. But I am delighted you see things my way.”

  I was seeing stars. Wow. If a friendly brush to my cheek could start fireworks, I wondered what a full lip lock would do. Then a horn honked, and I was back in the middle of the covered walkway.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s not your w
ay; it’s my mother’s.” This time I made better sense of explaining about my father, Cousin Connie, and the rich guy’s pets. “Oh, and Susan got a good report.”

  “Wonderful. How about if I take both of you out to dinner tonight to celebrate? I need it. I’ve been in and out of special needs schools all day. I never knew there were that many handicapped kids out there.”

  I could hear the sorrow in his voice. Here was a problem he couldn’t fix, and that bothered a take-charge guy like Grant, not because of pride but because of caring. His remarkable blue eyes were shadowed by concern.

  I asked about the one boy we maybe could help. “Any trace of Nicky?”

  “No, nor from the real psi-pros in the field. We called in everyone we could, with no results so far. We’re checking on the home-school kids tomorrow. I won’t be able to follow you to the Island for a couple of days. But we’ll have people there, and I’ll be in touch. It should take the perp a day or so to realize you’ve gone, before he follows. Hopefully, with the boy. Whatever his plan, he needs both of you. He cannot accomplish much beside local havoc with one troll. So . . . dinner?”

  I accepted for both Susan and myself, but when she appeared she had a young man in tow. She’d met Toby Kellerer in radiation, then had the appointment after him five days a week for a month, long enough to become friends. He had good news, too, so they wanted to celebrate together, but quietly at the apartment over pizza, if it was okay with me, so she could keep checking on her father. She saw no reason to rush home when her parents weren’t even at the Harbor, so she’d go east with me tomorrow.

  I wasn’t sure how wise it was for me to have dinner with Grant on my own. Did it count as a date? Or was it just more brainwashing business? More likely he just wanted to stick close to me in case Fafhrd came out to play. But Grant did kiss me.

  I ought to say no, what with having to get myself ready to leave town for who knew how long. I’d need to ask Mrs. Abbottini to bring up my mail, and call Don at DCP so he didn’t send any page proofs or copy-edits while I was gone. I ought to stay in with Susan, but she and Toby did not seem to need company, not with all they had in common. And Grant did kiss me. So again I asked how soon.