Two Time sahm-2

by Chris Knopf

  I was never very good at getting along with people. At least not according to ordinary rules of engagement. I used to tell myself I was too busy to attend to the relentless clamor and clatter of human interaction. To indulge the compulsive infantilism of the emotionally needy, the indignation of the disenfranchised, the crafty connivers and brainless bullies. Or even the sainted ones, the selfless and thoughtful. I only wanted to know the people I already knew. Those I loved. Loved so completely no surplus attention was available to divert to other purposes.

  You can’t call it a philosophy because the word implies forethought, deliberation. It was just the way I was, which I didn’t understand entirely until it all tumbled and fell. Or, more accurately, disintegrated before my eyes.

  “How those eggs going down?” I asked him.

  “Like butter through a goose.”

  “Good. Keep chewing so I can tell you what else I’m thinking.”

  He took another mouthful and nodded.

  “One of Jonathan’s clients was Ivor Fleming.” Sullivan’s eyes registered the name, but I kept talking. “For whatever reason, it looks like he’s only one of two clients unhappy with Jonathan’s investment advice. Unless you count his brother, though that’s a different kind of thing.”

  “Fleming’s got a lot of juice, or so they say. Never had a twitch out of him since he moved into Sagaponack. You’d never know he was there. Not that guys like that are big on high profiles. I can find out easy enough from the boys up island. Who’s the other unhappy one?”

  “Joyce Whithers.”

  “Well, there’s a big surprise. Owns the Silver Spoon, which makes sense since she was born with one crammed up her ass. I heard she called 911 over a guy bucking his check. Has to replace all the waiters and bartenders every season. Nobody ll work for her. Pays cash for everything ’cause she’s stiffed every supplier from here to Brooklyn. I never understood why the ones who got it all can just stick it to somebody who’s actually working for a living. Shit like that really works me up.”

  “Have another bite of eggs. Cholesterol has a calming effect.”

  “Yeah? Never knew that. What about the brother?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve only talked to Fleming.”

  “And?”

  I told him about my visit to Fleming’s house in Saga-ponack. The only thing I left out was the iced tea. Too damaging to my credibility.

  “Shit, Sam, should we be liking this guy?”

  “Maybe. I don’t put a lot of stock in reputations. Just because he’s got some dumb punks working for him. I knew a lot people like that in the Bronx. Liked to play the part, push people around. Makes it easier to get a table at the Knuckle Buster Bistro on Saturday night. The real ones you don’t know about unless you’re inside. But I wonder about him.”

  “I’ll see what they say up island. Not a lot about him in the case files.”

  “Yeah. I read that—air-tight alibi. Which is one reason I wonder about him. You wanted an angle on Mrs. Eldridge, but I think you’re better looking at Fleming. He seemed to think I was trying to peddle him something. I thought at the time he meant Jonathan’s business. But maybe there’s something else. You could apply a little heat, see what cooks.”

  “I like that. Gives me something.”

  “Just tenga cuidado.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s Spanish for watch your ass. Don’t underestimate him, or his meatballs.”

  “Nobody’s stupid enough to mess with a cop.”

  “Right. And keep your elbow up with that right. You’re just tiring yourself out without really hurting the other guy.”

  Sullivan sopped up the rest of his grease-sodden eggs with the crust of a piece of toast and stuck it in his mouth. Then he made a gesture most people even outside of New York would understand.

  “Yeah, and this is Irish for who gives a fuck.”

  —

  “I want to start over,” said Amanda, speaking through the screen door and looking down at Eddie, who was trying to push it open with his nose. I let her in and poured her a cup of coffee and one for myself while she scrunched around with Eddie’s ears. It was late morning and I was just back from helping Frank estimate a new job. She was wearing an oversized men’s dress shirt over a white bikini. I could smell freshly applied suntan lotion.

  “Okay” I said, and led her out to the screened-in porch. The day was warming up quickly, but at least on the porch we’d have a fighting chance at a little breeze.

  “I have a proposal,” she said, blowing across the top of her coffee mug. “Let’s say we just met. I’ve recently moved in next door. I used to work in a bank, but now I don’t have to, so I’m just hanging around trying to figure out what to do next.”

  Eddie jumped up on the daybed where Amanda had settled with her coffee. He wanted her to do that thing again with his ears. I was at the beat-up pine table in the corner where I could keep an eye on her and the Little Peconic at the same time.

  “That’s an Oak Point tradition.”

  “Exactly. After getting settled in, I managed to strike up a conversation with my reclusive next-door neighbor. They say he’s a hard case, but he talks to me. So we get to hang out a little, keep each other company. Almost like we’ve know each other for a few years.”

  “And you’re bribing his dog.”

  “Not a difficult task.”

  “Okay” I said. “So what do we talk about?”

  “Whatever we want. As long as it isn’t emotionally challenging.”

  “Like the pennant race,” I offered.

  “Or the collapse of the stock market.”

  “You’re asking a lot,” I said. “You know how much I love to dwell on painful recollections.”

  “I know that. But there’s so much else we can talk about.”

  “Like car bombings?”

  “That’s entirely up to you,” she said.

  She looked at me expectantly. I didn’t know if I really wanted to tell her anything, but I found myself telling her anyway. I always had trouble shutting up around Amanda. Maybe she knew that.

  “I have been giving it some thought,” I said.

  “Get out of here.”

  “You might be curious yourself,” I said.

  “I am. I want to know who blew up that man.”

  “Jonathan Eldridge. Plus four customers, a waitress and a guy counting the till.”

  Eddie had enough with the ear thing. He shook his head and jumped off the daybed. She gave him a little pat on the rump to send him off.

  “Any theories?” she asked.

  “None they’re sharing with me.”

  “Not them. You. What are your theories? And don’t insult me by saying you don’t have any.”

  “I think it’s one of his clients. The whole market’s taken a dive. Have to blame somebody. Why not your investment adviser? Especially a solo operator like Eldridge. Unobscured by a big organization. Makes it more personal.”

  “But a car bomb? Seems like overkill. Literally.”

  “When you kill to make a point, you want the point unambiguous. We’ve certainly learned that by now.”

  Amanda thought about it for a minute.

  “So it should be easy,” she said. “Just grill all his clients.”

  “You working the case?”

  “No. Are you?”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  “Don’t try to Dan Rather me, Mrs. Battiston.”

  “Miss Anselma as of two weeks ago. Mr. Acquillo.”

  I took another sip of my coffee to buy time. For over twenty years I’d have conversations with Abby that always left me feeling hollow and unfulfilled. I think because she never quite understood what I was talking about. Or she’d leap to interpretations that had no basis in what I was trying to say.

  So after a while, I just gave it up. Somehow after that I lost the facility for communicating with other people, especially women. I thought forever, until I met Amanda. Now there she
was, back sitting on my screened-in porch, raising new questions about natural affinities, affection and trust.

  “Yes,” I heard myself saying, “it should be easy to figure out, but it’s not. Anyone capable of a hit that flagrant, and sophisticated, probably knew it was completely untraceable.”

  “You know this?”

  “Just a guess. But I do wonder about one of the clients. You might know him.”

  “From the bank?

  “From the bank. Ivor Fleming.”

  “Don’t know him from the bank. Heard of him from my real-estate buddies. Overpaid for a place in Sagaponack.”

  “Overpaid?”

  “I sound like a gossip.”

  “Overpaid how?”

  “The rap was he wanted to keep a low profile. No disputes, no ripples. Just walked in, plunked down the cash and moved in.”

  “The rap?”

  “Real-estate talk,” she said, cocking her head at me in the condescending way you do with a child. Or a tourist.

  “The house is tucked well out of view. Flag lot,” I said.

  “Right. Low profile.”

  “Does the gossip say why?”

  “He’s a gangster.”

  “Of course.”

  “Has a business, buying old junk cars or something. Right. Pure front. Has to be a gangster.”

  “You’ve thought about this.”

  “I didn’t know he was Eldridge’s client. Anyway, you asked.”

  “I did. Maybe you know another client. Butch Ellington.”

  She’d been leaning out from the wall as we talked about Ivor Fleming. Now she dropped back and shooed me away with her hand.

  “Oh, Butch. Absolutely. Love Butch.”

  “Love Butch?”

  “He’s a hoot. Crazy artist. The definition thereof.”

  “From the bank?”

  “Definitely from the bank. I was Dione’s personal banker.”

  “Dione’s the wife?”

  “And business manager, I guess you’d say. Handled all the money, of which there was a nice amount, though I shouldn’t say how much for the sake of confidentiality. Even though I’m not with the bank anymore.”

  “He’s Eldridge’s brother.”

  She looked at me, slightly jolted.

  “No, sir. His brother?”

  “So I’m told.”

  “Ellington?”

  “Crazy artist. Changed his name. Used to be Arthur.”

  “He never said anything about a brother.”

  “They weren’t close.”

  “Probably embarrassed about it. Butch hated everything to do with money. Though he tried not to go on too much around me, given my job and all. Dione had me over a few times. I like her. We still talk pretty often. She looked in on me a lot after the thing with Roy happened. One of the few.”

  Her voice dropped off and she created a distraction by jumping up to go pour herself another cup of coffee. When she came back she dropped into the other kitchen chair at the pine table, pulling up one leg and holding it in place with her knee tucked inside the crook of her right arm.

  “How about that,” she said, “Arthur. You’d think Dione would have said something.”

  “Like you say, probably embarrassed.”

  “Probably.”

  “I’d like to ask her.”

  “Ask her?”

  “About her brother-in-law. Ask her why she thinks somebody blew him up.”

  “Really funny she never said anything. I probably never gave her the chance. Me being so completely focused on me.”

  “No self-flagellation.”

  “Another Oak Point regulation?”

  I didn’t know what she wanted, or why. I didn’t know any of those things myself. I’d been sorry to see her show up at Reginas, but now that she was there, I bought her argument. We could just pick up from a point somewhere back in the past, before a lot of things had happened. I’d told her a while ago I was a big fan of avoidance and denial. Wouldn’t be much of a life strategy if I couldn’t put it into practice.

  So I toasted her with my coffee mug and gave up the fight.

  TWELVE

  IT WAS SATURDAY MORNING when I found an invitation to a fundraising event that night in Southampton Village taped to my screen door. It was actually addressed to Amanda, but she’d written a note to me on the envelope.

  “Butch Ellington will be there auctioning some paintings. You’re my date. Don’t give me an argument. I’ve already bought your ticket. Amanda, your former personal banker.”

  When Saturday came, I didn’t see her during the day, which made it easier to work on my addition. I’d used up some more of my pay from Frank on framing material, which the lumberyard had left stacked in my driveway. I wanted to get as much into place as possible and nailed in before the wet fir started to warp, which it does a lot easier these days than it used to. It felt good to swing at big common nails after all the finish work at Melinda McCarthy’s, shooting what amounted to galvanized needles into three-quarter-inch poplar with a pneumatic nail gun. A power nailer would have been just as effective on my addition’s frame, but advanced construction techniques didn’t square with the cottage’s general disposition.

  I filled in all the rafters and finished the framing detail on both gable ends before calling it a day. Hot, sore, sweaty and covered in sawdust, I felt justified bringing an aluminum tumbler full of ice and vodka with me into the outdoor shower. A frozen bite on the tongue, steaming water on my shoulders, dust and grit circling down the drain.

  My mood adequately fortified, I was able to face the question of what to wear to the fundraiser. I still had a few clothes left over from my marriage, in which my wife Abby held full command of wardrobe selection and acquisition. Fortunately for me, she had reasonable taste, combined with an abhorrence for discount pricing, which was not so fortunate.

  “Why pay less” is what I usually said looking at the price tags, though she never heard, distracted by her scrutiny of how the fabric fell, or absorbed by where the item might fit into her master sartorial strategy.

  I thought I could redeploy the linen suit I’d worn to go see Appolonia Eldridge, but I’d used up my only dress shirt. I dug around some cardboard boxes I’d dumped in the closet when I moved in and came across a light blue silk T-shirt.

  “Dimwitted Pretense Wear from a men’s store exclusively serving the asshole in every man,” I told Eddie, who was watching disinterestedly from the bed. It was surprising the T-shirt had made its way into the boxes; even Abby’s relentless hectoring wouldn’t have got me into that thing.

  Though it wouldn’t hurt to try it on.

  “Not a word,” I warned Eddie.

  I wasn’t sure. I either looked like Don Johnson’s idiot goombah cousin or one of my own idiot goombah cousins trying to look like Don Johnson. Eddie was noncommittal. I figured what the hell, I didn’t have anything else to wear and there was a chance fundraisers and benefactors would find it idiotic enough to stay clear.

  I walked my indecisions over to Amanda’s house and rang the bell.

  “My. Don Johnson or Al Pacino. Which is it?”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Amanda, on the other hand, didn’t look like anybody but herself at her best. She was wearing what my daughter called an LBD—Little Black Dress. Made of a material that managed to define her form without giving everything away. The straps were the kind that invited a scissor snip, and helped delineate a neckline that resolved itself in distant proximity to her neck. The lower skirt part I think was simple and trim, but I was distracted by the slit feature.

  “I hope you’re driving,” she said, brushing past me and walking down her driveway toward the passenger side of her Audi A4. I caught up to her, took her arm and gently led her to the Grand Prix.

  “Got more leg room,” I told her.

  The day had made the transition from late afternoon to evening and the air was just starting to shed some of the heat of the day. The sky over the
Little Peconic was turning a shade of periwinkle above the shredded bands of magenta glowing along the horizon. Since it was late July the rangy oaks that named the peninsula were still green but had turned pale and lost much of their luster, their leaves curling brown at the edges. We drove through the Oak Point neighborhood and out to North Sea Road. I had the windows partway down to cloak the commingled residue of decaying leather, Camels and unwashed mixed-breed dogs. The artificial wind thundered in, making conversation difficult and messing up Amanda’s hair, which she didn’t seem to mind. She slipped off her shoes, which were just a few delicate straps of black leather, a sole and high heels. She laid her head back on the seat and I put on the jazz station to provide cover for both of us.

  The fundraiser was at one of the really big houses in the estate section surrounding Agawam Lake, just south of Southampton Village. The word “house” didn’t really describe it, though “mansion” seemed archaic, or overly abstract. It was more a collection of houses, aggregated into a loose assembly of forms, unified only by the capricious hand of its creator. You entered the grounds via First Neck Lane, following a driveway that seemed ten times longer than it looked from the road. The hedges in that part of the Village often had the effect of distorting perspective, disguising the trackless scale of the original estates, their acres of lawns, pools and tennis courts.

  The driveway forked off a few hundred yards from the house. A young man who looked like he sang in the glee club, in white shirt, black pants and bow tie, directed us to a rise beside the lake where cars were clustering around a huge blue-and-white-striped tent.

  “I think there’s room for you over there to the left,” he said. “About a square mile.”

  “I think he just dissed your car,” said Amanda as we rumbled across the lawn.

  “That’s just envy talking.”

  “Well, this is an auction. Perhaps someone will make a bid.”

  The atmosphere under the tent was humid and laden with social complexity. A jazz quartet of bored black guys already plotting their routes back to Manhattan provided a soothing undercurrent of sound for bored old white guys pretending they were actually listening. Some of the couples stood in a glow of hearty beneficence, pleased to have survived long enough to share their good fortune, their faces open to any opportunity to bestow kindness and generosity. A few of the women wore the proud mark of cosmetic surgery, an oxymoron, unless you like sixty-year-old women with faces tighter than the head of a drum. Bony, undernourished things with an air of profound disappointment, scanning the crowd for someone to talk to who might be more advantageous to their status than the one already filling the role.