The Last Refuge sahm-1

by Chris Knopf

  Hardly seated, she bounced up again and asked if I wanted anything, like coffee or tea. I said coffee and she disappeared for a few minutes to rustle some up.

  While I waited, I looked around at the overflowing bookcases and poster art plastered on every scrap of wall space. There were probably thousands of books and CDs, but no TV. On a side table was a stack of used dinner plates and there was a roach in the ashtray.

  “I’m actually kind of glad to be getting away from this god-awful case,” she said as she came back in with two mismatched mugs.

  “So I hear.”

  She huffed.

  “That’s Judy, she’s such a pain. We talk all the time, of course. She should be paying me, I’m so entertaining.”

  She climbed back into the couch, slumped down and put her feet up on the coffee table. Her legs were pinky brown and freckled like her face. They’d seen a lot of beach time. She held the mug with two hands and blew the steam off the top.

  We talked about Southampton past and present and tried to find common ground. It was the kind of conversation you have on a barstool or at a checkout counter. With a little prompting, she talked enough to hold up both our ends.

  “Always practiced out here?” I asked her.

  “What, does it show? Yeah, of course. Born, raised and so on. Except for law school. Even married a Polish potato boy. He’s dead,” she said quickly, before I could comment. “Sold the farm, then bought the farm, so to speak. Stuck that cute little car about halfway up the side of a great big oak tree. Right out here on Brick Kiln Road. Perfect, huh?”

  “Sorry.”

  She set down the coffee and sat back, throwing her arms across the back of the couch. “Hey, what am I doing here telling you my life’s story.”

  “I got you started.”

  “That’s right, you did.”

  She looked me over a little more carefully.

  “You gonna tell me what happened?”

  “To what?”

  “Your head.”

  “Oh.”

  I reached up to feel the wound. I’d actually forgotten it was there. Maybe those cumulative effects had begun to accumulate.

  “I didn’t know it still showed.”

  “I’m observant. So what happened?”

  “I ran into a wrecking ball.”

  “Really?”

  “Just felt like one.”

  “Which means none of your business.”

  “Means it’s a long story.”

  “It sort of suits your face.”

  “That’s what they said at the hospital.”

  Her attention suddenly became unmoored and started to drift away. She looked out the window for a while, then around at the disarray in the living room as if unsure how it got that way.

  “Okay,” she said, looking back at me, “what can I do you out of?”

  “I was wondering if you could tell me anything about Bay Side Holdings. Milton Hornsby.”

  The air inside the room dropped about ten degrees.

  “Who did you say you were with?”

  “I didn’t. I’m the administrator of an estate. Regina Broadhurst. According to the real-estate and tax records, she was living in a house owned by Bay Side Holdings. I went over to Sag Harbor to tell Milton Hornsby and he basically threw me off his property. Your name was on some documents submitted to the Town appeals board. So here I am.”

  “Do you have any identification?”

  I got out my wallet and tossed her my driver’s license. I also tossed her a death certificate and the Surrogate’s Court paper naming me administrator.

  “Are you an attorney?” she asked, looking up from the court papers.

  “Industrial designer. And the old lady’s next door neighbor.”

  She got up from the couch to hand back my license and the Surrogate’s Court document. She left the death certificate on the table. She scooped up her coffee mug and took a sip, standing over me.

  “You’re aware of attorney-client privilege,” she said.

  “Yeah, of course. I’m only here because Hornsby won’t talk to me. All I want is to give him back his house. After I clear up whatever might be hanging, and get her stuff out of there. That’s all.”

  “Industrial designer?”

  “That’s what I did. I’m an engineer.”

  “What you did?”

  “Don’t do it anymore.”

  Somebody threw another switch in her head and she tossed herself back into the couch, sprawling out across the entire length. She put her forearm up to her head.

  “I was sane until those assholes drove me crazy. Honest, Doc.”

  “Define crazy.”

  She looked over at me from her swoon.

  “You shrinks are all alike. All talk and no cure.”

  I drank some of my coffee. It was just a little more viscous than the transmission fluid I used in the Grand Prix. I sat back, therapist style.

  “Maybe if we started with your childhood.”

  “Nah, too depressing. Anyway, I was fine until I got handed that dumb case.”

  “I could use some help on this. If it doesn’t violate attorney-asshole privilege.”

  Jackie hooted.

  “Where’d you get the act?”

  “MIT. Comedy’s part of the curriculum. Everyone knows that.”

  “My dad was an engineer.”

  “I knew you’d drag your childhood into this.”

  She rolled over on her side and flipped off her flip-flops. She let her hand fall to the coffee table so she could fiddle with a bunch of rose-colored glass grapes.

  “I guess I’m not much of a lawyer,” she said, much in the way people do when they want you to disagree with them.

  “You’re probably great when you feel like it.”

  That was the right tack.

  “Hey, affirmation. I like that. Yeah, I’m actually pretty good at the job itself. I’m just really bad at being a person. Really fucks up the career.”

  That sounded like me. Maybe Jackie and I should start a club.

  “This is getting awfully heavy for people who just met each other,” she said, abruptly launching herself off the couch. “Let’s find another venue. All I gotta do is see a couch and I start baring my soul. You oughta see me in a furniture store. It’s like Pavlovian.”

  I followed her out to a glassed-in porch that had been converted to office space. There was Masonite paneling below the windows and indoor-outdoor carpet on the floor. It smelled like a greenhouse. She dropped into an expensive-looking ergonomic desk chair, spun around once and put her bare feet up on the desk. I cleared a space for myself on a long wooden bench.

  “Bay Side Holdings, is that where we’re at?” she asked.

  “Trying, anyway.”

  “Okay,” she said, “I can tell you I was young and stupid. Stupider, anyway. I was hired by the lead, Milton Hornsby, who’s general counsel for Bay Side Holdings, as you know. He wanted me to come in as consulting on a big zoning appeals case. Hornsby paired me up with this city guy named Hunter Johnson, believe it or not. He was like incredibly gorgeous, intelligent, rich, witty and handsome. Did I mention athletic and a good cook?”

  “And an asshole?”

  “Not at first. No, not ever, really. It’s not like they did anything, it’s more like what they didn’t do. Which was actually try to get the funky job done. When you’re going for a variance and you hit a little resistance, you’re like supposed to at least try to make your case. I mean, that’s the way you play the game. The appeals board’s not just gonna jump down off their freaking platform and give you a great big hug and say, hey, you want to change a whole bunch of setbacks? Excellent! We’ve been here sitting around on our asses just waiting for something like this to happen. I mean, hel-lo. I told them how to play the course. I mean, I do know how to play. I do know how to deal with Southampton zoning issues. My God, I used to babysit for the planning chair’s kids. One of the guys on the appeals board has been hitting on
me since high school. I know this shit, inside and out.”

  “I didn’t know Hornsby was a lawyer. He didn’t tell me. So I guess he failed to take your counsel.”

  “Yeah, I guess. They wanted to completely reconfigure a whole slew of properties over in North Sea. Here, it’s in here somewhere. I’ll show you. Though I shouldn’t.”

  She spun around again and pulled open a deep legal-sized drawer. She curled her feet around the base of the chair to keep from falling into the file cabinet.

  It was a copy of the aerial map I’d pulled from the Town records. Each lot was outlined with white ink over the black-and-white photographic image. They were all numbered, though several, about a dozen, were marked with a yellow highlighter. Only this one had a transparent overlay, which showed an alternate configuration of the lots. Through various combinations and border adjustments, my neighborhood had become an entirely different animal. Maybe twelve properties were converted to five, all bordering the bay or the deep harbor inlet that formed the east coast of Oak Point. The largest of these was at the center of the plan, marked “common area.” Which put it right in the middle of the WB site. A similar reformation was repeated opposite WB’s other shore on Jacob’s Neck. The entire development was enclosed by a green line labeled “privet.” A hedge. The way it was roughed in, the hedge ran down the middle of my side yard. And there was a question mark, also in yellow marker, right on top of my roof.

  “This ain’t some third rate pre-existing, non-conforming, switch-a-couple-things-around-all-approved-thank-you-very-much-have-a-nice-day kinda shit here. This is big-time surveys and wetlands hearings and bulldozers. You’d think a little due diligence mighta been in order.”

  While she talked I noticed my heart had contracted down to the size of a cherry tomato. My sore tongue started to throb. Jackie was poking the map with her right index finger and ranting about something or other.

  “Due diligence?”

  “Well, we hardly got near any actual hearings. Just a lotta backroom chats with all my dear friends on the appeals board, and with the building inspector and some County schlubs. All we ended up with was a list of things we’d have to do if we wanted to pursue. My point being, why go this far and at the first sign of any real tussle, fold up faster’n an origami master on amphetamines? Nobody thought to check this stuff out beforehand?”

  She moved away from me and sat back in her desk chair. She slumped down and put her feet up on the desk. Jackie made an art of repose, however briefly maintained.

  “Sorry,” she said, “it just still pisses me off.” She gnawed on the cuticle of her right thumb, stopping occasionally to check the results. “It was a big project and I coulda used the damn work. Not the damn money so much, but the complexity. And the credentials. And the trips to the City for lunch meetings with Mr. Johnson, who, forgive me for saying, was a major piece of ass. We don’t get enough of that around here. Not loose anyway.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Though I guess not really loose enough. Not if you count all the floppsies and moppsies draped all over him day and night. Including some other guy’s wife, which can irritate the hell out of a person.”

  “Especially her husband.”

  “He’s a drip. She’s a babe. Happens all the time out here. Probably not to you.”

  She looked me over.

  “You don’t look the type. Too craggy.” She held up her left hand and wiggled her fingers. “No ring?”

  “Divorced.”

  “Kids?”

  “A daughter.”

  “My age?”

  “A little younger.”

  “That’s how I like my men. Sorry.”

  She grabbed a clump of her reddish blond hair and held it up to the light, looking for split ends.

  “That makes me sound so ageist,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Ageist. Like sexist.”

  “Oh.”

  She was suddenly back up on her feet.

  “So, what else can I do for you? Legally.”

  “Who’s Bay Side Holdings?”

  She frowned in thought.

  “The guys who own all the land. Investors, I guess. I never met any of them. Hornsby was the man.”

  “‘All the land.’ Where’d they get ‘all the land’?”

  “I don’t know. Groups of guys are always buying up hunks of land. That’s what they do.”

  She picked an ashtray off her desk and rooted around until she came up with a half-spent joint. She waved it in the air.

  “What do we have here,” she said.

  I demurred.

  “You go ahead. I’m all set.”

  She lurched over to a desk drawer and got out some matches. I waited while she lit the joint and took most of it down with the first drag. She talked as she exhaled.

  “What else.”

  I had to think about that for second.

  “My dad looked after Regina. She didn’t have anybody else. He’s dead, she’s dead. I’m just trying to wrap it up.”

  “A philanthropist.”

  “I’m still curious.”

  “About what?”

  “Why didn’t Regina pay rent?”

  “She didn’t?”

  “You didn’t know that?”

  “No. I mean, why would I? I was focused on revising an original plot plan. We never talked about the people living in the houses.”

  Then she switched to a singsong lampoon of sensitivity.

  “Not that I didn’t care …”

  I sensed it was time to wrap this up. I tidied up my file and made motions to leave.

  “You could give me Hunter Johnson’s address and phone number, if it’s okay. I might want to talk to him.”

  She went back into her file cabinet. She whipped out a letter.

  “Voilà,” she said. Then, “This is from Mr. Doll-face himself.” She pulled it back against her chest. “Why would you want to talk to him?”

  “Curious, like I said.”

  She handed me the letter.

  “Keep it. I got more.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Can I borrow this?” I held up the map of Oak Point.

  She wagged her head as if to shake out the right answer.

  “Sure. Why the hell not. Can’t hurt. Just don’t lose it. The case might come back.”

  “I’ll make a copy and send back the original.”

  “No problem.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Fagetaboutit.”

  She was smiling at me through the tumbled mass of strawberry-blond hair, but I felt her attention starting to dissipate again.

  “I guess I’ll let you get back to your case.”

  “Thanks a bunch,” she said, and walked out of the room.

  I slipped the map and letter into my file and followed her back through the house to the front door. She held it open and leaned her whole body against the jam. We shook hands.

  “Good luck with whatever you’re doing,” she said, “which, by the way, is more than you’re telling me.”

  I smiled at her.

  “Says who?”

  “I gave you my freaking map, for Pete’s sakes.”

  “You did. I appreciate that.”

  “So?”

  I pulled out my wallet and gave her a dollar.

  “What’s this?”

  “A retainer. To assure confidentiality. Attorney-client privilege.”

  She held up the dollar bill.

  “Never hold up in court.”

  I left her watching me from the doorway of her house, pausing for a moment’s reflection before rocketing back into the chaotic Brownian motion of her life. A vision of my daughter threatened to sneak into the receding picture in my rearview mirror, but I distracted myself with thoughts of an army of bulldozers and backhoes led by the profane Jimmy Maddox, crashing over Oak Point like the Blitzkrieg, leveling hedgerows and laying waste to the last refuge on earth.

  FIVE

  MY
HOUSE IN Stamford was in the woods not far from the northern border of town. It sat on the edge of a short cliff formed by glacial boulders. At the bottom of the cliff was a small pond that made a home for Canada geese and bullfrogs. The deck off the rear of the house was shaded by a canopy of oak and maple in the summer, and by hemlocks year round. We had a lot of freeloading birds who worked the half dozen feeders mounted off the deck and in the surrounding trees. One of the few things I enjoyed doing around the house was inventing ways to keep the squirrels out of the feeders. It was a battle of wits I never entirely won. There was one tough, mangy old squirrel who used to sit on the railing and stare at me. I thought he might be the head of engineering, sizing up the competition.

  There was a wall of glass between the deck and the living room. It was so hot that afternoon I couldn’t leave the air-conditioning, so I just sat there and looked through the windows at the competing fauna. I was on my third tumbler of Absolut when Abby came home from wherever she went during the day. She didn’t expect to see me there.

  “My God, you frightened me. What are you doing home?”

  “Drinking.”

  “Obviously.”

  She dropped a handful of large plastic bags filled with merchandise on the sofa next to me and poured herself a stiff one from the wet bar in the corner of the room.

  “And smoking, too, I see.”

  “Yeah. You can’t quit these things for too long. It’s not good for you.”

  “Yes, of course. What’s it been, twenty years?”

  “About.”

  Abby moved very gracefully. She flowed into a chair on the other side of the room, sat back and crossed her legs, resting her elbow on the armrest so she could hold her drink aloft, shaking it occasionally to dissolve the ice. She wore a silk blouse with large square pockets and an off-white skirt. A gold chain looped around her neck and disappeared down the open front of her blouse. Her legs were deeply tanned, nicely offset by a pair of white high heels. Her hair was still mostly natural blond, formed into elegant waves that made me think of Ethel Kennedy. Maintenance costs for hair, nails and face ran about five-hundred a month, not including yoga, health club and massage therapy. And it showed. Abby set an unachievable standard for women her age.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”