Beach Road Page 9

  If Manny is disappointed that I’m not a talent scout looking to sign him to a huge deal, he keeps it to himself. He looks at me hard, as if he’s running through his loop of images from that night.

  “You’re the ballplayer,” he says. “I seen you there. You were a pro.”

  “That’s right. For about ten minutes.”

  “You got a tape recorder?” he asks.

  “No, but I’ve got a pad. I’ll take careful notes for now.”

  “Good. Let me hit the bathroom. Then maybe I got a story that could save that tall black boy.”

  I wrestle my legal pad out of my case and hurriedly scribble a list of key questions in my barely legible shorthand. Stay calm, I tell myself, and listen.

  I’ve been lost in my notes, and Manny still isn’t back when the waiter drops the food on the table. I twist around, and I see that the bathroom door is wide open.

  I jump out of my chair and run like a maniac to the street.

  I’m just in time to see Manny Rodriguez hop into a cab and roar away up Tenth Avenue. He finger-waves out the back window at me.

  Chapter 49

  Loco

  THERE’S A GRAY, pebbly beach on the bay side of East Hampton where on Sunday afternoons the Dominicans, Ecuadorians, and Costa Ricans play volleyball. During the week, they put in seventy hours mowing lawns, clipping hedges, and skimming pools. At night they cram into ranch houses that look normal from the street but have been partitioned into thirty cubes. By Sunday afternoon, they’re ready to explode.

  These games are wild. You got drinking, gambling, salsa, and all kinds of over-the-top Latin drama. Every three minutes or so two brown bantamweights are being pulled apart. Five minutes later they’re patting each other on the back. Another five minutes, they’re swinging again.

  I’m taking in this Latin soap opera from a peeling green bench fifty yards above the fray.

  It’s six fifteen, and as always, I’m early.

  It’s no accident. This is part of the gig, the required display of fealty and respect. Which is fine with me. It gives me time to light my cigar and watch the sailboats tack for home at the Devon Yacht Club.

  I should cut back. The Davidoff torpedo is my third this week. But what’s life without a vice? What’s life with a vice? Did you know Freud smoked half a dozen cigars a day? He also died of mouth cancer, which I like to think was poetic payback for telling the world that all every guy wants to do is kill his father and boff his mom. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t need to know that.

  Speaking of authority figures, a drumroll please, because here comes mine—BW—and he’s right on time, eleven minutes late.

  With his three-hundred-dollar Helmut Lang jeans, torn and faded just right, and his God-knows-how-expensive light-blue cashmere hoodie and week-old growth, he’s looking more like a goddamn weekender every day. But who’s got the stones to tell him? Not me, bro, and they call me Loco for a reason.

  “What’s up?” asks BW, but not in the convivial way most people use it. Out of BW’s mouth, it sounds more like “what’s your problem?” or “so what’s your problem now?” But this time it’s not just my problem, it’s our problem, which pisses him off ten times more.

  “Apparently, we had company,” I say. “Out behind Wilson’s house.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who told you that?”

  “Lindgren.”

  “That sucks.” For all his peccadilloes, BW has an impressive ability to cut to the chase.

  Down in the sand, a drunk volleyballer is pointing at a ball mark and screaming bloody murder in either Spanish or Portuguese.

  “What should I do now, boss?”

  “Whatever you think is best.”

  “Whatever I think is best, BW?”

  “And let me know when you’ve done it.”

  Then, like a puff of smoke from an overpriced cigar, BW’s gone, and it’s just me, the night, and the salsa.

  Chapter 50

  Loco

  WHATEVER I THINK is best, huh? I think I get BW’s point, which means another trip to Brooklyn and another shitty, shitty, bang, bang.

  Like his compadres out in the Hamptons, Manny Rodriguez works way too hard. It’s three in the morning, and I’ve been parked across the street from Manny’s apartment since eleven, and everyone in Bed-Stuy is asleep but him. Is it that immigrant work ethic or is something boiling in their blood? Quien sabe, ay?

  Wait just a second—here comes Manny. Just in time, because my stomach couldn’t take any more bad coffee tonight.

  Even now, our boy is still hopped up, bouncing to the music pumping through his headphones.

  If you ask me, nothing’s ruined the city more than headphones and iPods and computers. It used to be New York offered the kind of random interaction you couldn’t get anywhere else. You never knew when you might have a moment with the beautiful girl waiting next to you for the light to change.

  Or maybe you’d say something to a guy, not a gay thing, just two people traveling through this world acknowledging each other’s existence. Now everyone walks around obliviously listening to their own little music downloaded from their own little computers. It’s lonely, brother.

  Plus, it’s dangerous. You step off the curb and don’t hear the crosstown bus till you’re under it, and you certainly don’t hear the Chinese guy pedaling around the corner on his greasy bike.

  Well, now you can add the sad cautionary tale of Manny Rodriguez. He’s so caught up in his own tunes he doesn’t hear me walk up behind him and pull out my gun. He doesn’t sense anything’s the slightest bit amiss until a bullet is crashing through the back of his skull and boring into his brain. The poor guy doesn’t know he’s been murdered until he’s dead.

  Chapter 51

  Kate

  THE BLUEBACK LAYING out the formal complaint against Randall Kane hits my desk at Walmark, Reid and Blundell around 2:30 p.m. I shut my door and clear my calendar for the rest of the day.

  I’m well aware that this choice assignment is not based entirely on my skill as a litigator. For the high-powered CEO charged with crossing the line, walking into court with a female lawyer is pretty much textbook. And I don’t have a problem with that. There are still so many more disadvantages than advantages to being a woman, career-wise, that in those rare instances where it plays in your favor, I believe in going with the flow.

  Once I read the language at the top of the complaint, I’m confident this is something we can win not only in court but in the media. It’s sprinkled with phrases like “hostile work environment,” which usually refers to off-color jokes and pages of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues pinned to cubicle walls.

  Then I read the affidavit from the first of Randall Kane’s alleged victims. She’s a thirty-seven-year-old mother of three who spent nine years as Kane’s executive secretary. In her written statement, sworn under oath and the penalty of perjury, she describes how on more than thirty occasions, she repelled Kane’s physical and verbal sexual advances, and how when she finally quit and filed a complaint, he used all the corporate resources at his disposal to destroy her life.

  By the time I finish reading the complaint, I realize that Randy Kane’s problems aren’t going away with a scary letter or pretrial motion. And there are eleven other women whose sworn testimonies are essentially identical, right down to the phone call they receive from Kane’s corporate lackey telling them they’ll never work again if they keep this up. Three of the women recorded the calls.

  I close the file on my desk and ponder the East River. Kane apparently isn’t just an unfaithful husband. He’s a scumbag and possibly a serial rapist who just happens to be worth a billion dollars. He deserves to pay a high price for his actions, and if I help him avoid it, I’m no different from that in-house lackey of his making obscenely threatening phone calls.

  For a decade I’ve punched all the right tickets, from Law Review at Columbia to two years prosecuting white-collar crime for the DA’s southern circuit, and after thr
ee and a half years at Walmark, Reid and Blundell, I’ve got senior partner in my sights.

  You know how many female senior partners there are or have been at Walmark, Reid and Blundell? None.

  So why am I walking down the corridor to Tony Reid’s corner office?

  Is it possible that Tom’s midnight pitch hit the mark? God help me if it did. Tom has made me feel like crap in a hundred ways, but I never dreamed he’d make me feel professionally jealous, or worse, that he’d pass me on the ethical ladder.

  But now I’m a very well-paid consigliere, and he’s defending someone he believes is innocent—for free.

  Reid waves me into his office, and I drop the stack of affidavits on his antique desk.

  “You better read this,” I say. “We go to trial, Randall Kane will be exposed as a ruthless sexual predator.”

  “Then it can’t go to trial,” says Reid.

  “I can’t represent this man, Tony.”

  Reid calmly gets up and closes the door. It barely makes a sound.

  “I wouldn’t think I’d have to remind you, of all people, how important Randy Kane is to this firm. In every department, from corporate to real estate to labor management, we bill him hundreds of hours a year. A dozen unfortunate women have been manipulated by a shameless lawyer, an ambulance-chaser out for his own gain. You know the game. And if by some chance they’re telling the truth? Guess what, ladies? It’s a tough world.”

  “Get someone else then, Tony. Please. I’m serious about this.”

  Tony Reid thinks about what I’ve said before he responds. Then he speaks in the same persuasive tone that has made him one of the most successful trial lawyers in New York.

  “For an ambitious attorney, Kate—and everything I know about you indicates you are as ambitious and talented as any young lawyer I know—cases like this one are a rite of passage. So unless you come back to this office at eight tomorrow morning and tell me otherwise, I’m going to do you and this firm the favor of pretending this conversation never happened.”

  Chapter 52

  Kate

  THAT NIGHT, I get back to my apartment at the unheard-of hour of 7:00 p.m. Three years ago, I bought this insanely expensive one-bedroom apartment in the eighties on the Upper West Side because it had a garden. Now, having poured myself a glass of pricey Pinot Noir, I’m actually sitting in my garden and listening to the sounds of the city as the lights blink on in the surrounding apartments.

  I watch the sky go black on this late October night, then go back inside for a refill and a blanket. The scene is almost but not quite right. So I drag out my ottoman and put my feet up. Now that’s more like it—comfortable, warm, and miserable, my life in a nutshell.

  That arrogant prick Reid is right about one thing: I should hardly have been shocked to discover Randy Kane is a scumbag. Wealthy scumbags pretty much fill the coffers at Walmark, Reid and Blundell. If the firm is ever in need of a catchy motto to chisel into the marble lobby, I’d suggest Scumbags Are Us.

  But I don’t want to be the person defending those clients anymore. How did this happen? When I went to law school, aiding and abetting white-collar crime couldn’t have been further from my career goal. But then I did well at Columbia, got on the fast track, and wanted to prove I could stay on it, earn just as much money, make partner just as fast, etc., etc., etc.

  Sitting in the cold dark of my lovely garden with my third glass of Pinot, I realize there have been other consequences of my fab career. You may have noticed that I’m sharing my depressing thoughts with myself tonight rather than bouncing them off a succession of dear old friends. That’s because I really don’t have any. Forget a boyfriend. I don’t even have a really close girlfriend I’d be comfortable pouring my heart out to right now.

  I think it’s that competitiveness and pride thing again. In law school I had two wonderful, very close friends—Jane Anne and Rachel. The three of us were thick as thieves and swore we’d be soul mates to the end and bring the bastards to their knees.

  But then Jane Anne gets happy and pregnant, and Rachel stays on a fast track for a couple of years before dropping out to work for Amnesty International. Both resent my “success” a little, and I’m miffed by their resentment. Then one time a week goes by without one of us returning a call, and then it’s a couple of weeks, and eventually no one wants to give in and pick up the phone. So I finally break down and make the call but feel the chilliness on the other end, or think I do, and wonder who needs that.

  It turns out I do, because the next thing you know I’m alone in the dark with only a blanket and a glass of wine for company.

  Now it’s 2:00 a.m., and the empty bottle of Etude lies next to the half-empty box of Marlboros, which was full when it was delivered from the bodega three hours ago. Let the record show that I never once represented a cigarette manufacturer. Of course, no one asked me to, but it should still count for something.

  An hour and a couple more cigarettes later, I’m dialing the number of the one person on this planet I’m reasonably confident will be delighted to hear from me at three in the morning.

  “Of course I’m not sleeping,” says Macklin as if he’s just been told he hit the Lotto. “At my age you never sleep, unless, that is, you’re trying to stay awake. Kate, it’s so lovely to hear your voice.”

  Mack, why did you have to say that? Because now I’m crying and can’t stop. It’s five minutes before I can blurt, “Macklin, I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? What are you talking about, darling girl? That’s what unlimited minutes are for.”

  That sets off more sobbing. “Macklin, you still there?”

  “Yup. Always.”

  “So, Mack, I’m thinking of coming out to Montauk for a while and was wondering if that offer about your extra bedroom is still on the table.”

  “What do you think, Kate?”

  And then I lose it again.

  And in the morning I call Jane Anne and Rachel too.

  Chapter 53

  Tom

  BACK IN THE day when an East Hampton billionaire turned fifty, he’d buy his way out of his second marriage, get a Harley and a tattoo, and find a nice twenty-something girl (or boy) who admired him for what he truly was—a very, very rich person.

  Now instead of a scooter he can barely ride, maybe he buys a surfboard he can’t ride at all. And instead of a leather jacket, he squeezes into a full-body polyurethane girdle, otherwise known as a wet suit.

  I have nothing but respect for real surfers. Feif, for example, was a wicked athlete and a bona fide badass on the water. It’s the middle-aged nouveau surfers I have trouble with, the guys who wander into what used to be perfectly decent dive bars and try to get the ball rolling with that pretentiously simple two-word question: “You surf?”

  Still, the surfing craze has been good to my pals. Sometimes Feif made five hundred dollars a day giving lessons, and it’s been manna from heaven for Griffin Stenger, who owns the Amagansett Surf and Bike Shop. Grif tells me that on Saturday mornings the Beach Road crew tries to catch the baby waves that come off the breaker at the end of Georgica Beach. Since the spot is no more than two hundred yards from where Feif, Walco, and Rochie were murdered, and because there’s no point going back to Cold Ground, Inc., till Monday, I’m here to see if one of these ocean gods saw anything the night of the murder.

  Saturday morning, I’m out of the house at dawn and waiting at the breaker when the surfer lads start to waddle in.

  In the first group, flanked by a burly duo, is Mort Semel, who sold his company to eBay last year for $3 billion.

  When I approach him to introduce myself, the two younger, muscular guys drop their boards and get in my face. “Can we help you, sir?”

  “I was hoping to talk to Mort for a minute.”

  “About what, sir?”

  “I’m a lawyer representing a young man accused of committing a murder near here a couple months ago. I know Mr. Semel is a close neighbor of Mr. Wilson’s and often surfs here. I need to
find out if he saw or heard anything that night, or knows anyone who did.”

  One bodyguard stays with me, the other walks over to Semel, then trots back as if he can’t wait to tell me the good news. “Nope. Mort didn’t see or hear a thing.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, since I came all the way out here, I’d kind of like to ask him myself.”

  “Not a good idea.”

  “This is not his home,” I say, and my temperature is starting to rise a little. “This is a public beach, asshole. I’m talking to Mort.” I start to walk his way.

  Apparently not a good idea either, because now I’m flat on my back in the sand, and the bigger of the two has his foot on my throat.

  “Stay down,” he says. “Stay still.”

  Chapter 54

  Tom

  “I GET THE picture,” I say. “I get it, all right?”

  But I’m thinking, A surfer with two bodyguards. How rad is that? It’s almost funny, except, as I tried to point out, this is a public beach. Also, I’m lying in the public sand.

  So I grab the foot in my face and twist it around like little Linda Blair’s head in The Exorcist. The ankle makes a satisfyingly unnatural sound; then the cartilage around the bully bodyguard’s knee cracks, and a scream comes out of his mouth. I don’t see him fall because I’ve already turned my attention to his colleague, and the two of us pretty much break even until some of the other surfers pull us apart.

  Break even might have been a slight exaggeration on my part. When I get back to my car one eye is closed already. And back at my house, a half hour later, there’s some blood in it. But I’d be feeling worse if I let those jerks scare me off my own beach.

  Besides, one eye still works fine, so I go back to the notes from my last interview with Dante.

  In addition to the aching ribs and the eye, I must have taken a blow to the head, because I swear a woman who looks exactly like Kate Costello just walked into my backyard. The woman in question wears blue jeans, a white Penguin shirt, and black Converse sneakers, and she comes over to where I’m sitting at a wooden table and takes the chair next to mine.