The Last Refuge sahm-1

by Chris Knopf

  “Just stuff I need. I didn’t know you could hand it over.”

  “You just had to ask.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that kind of shit.”

  I curled the top of the bag over and stuffed it under my arm.

  “It’s all yours, Jimmy, but I’m not gonna give it to you now.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  I used the bat to point to my cottage.

  “Say, Jimmy, come over to my place and have a drink with me.”

  I walked away and left him standing there by his truck. I could hear him snorting and shuffling his feet around in the grass.

  “I want my stuff,” he called after me.

  I kept walking.

  “You’ll get it. Come on and get a pop. Do you good.”

  I walked the rest of the way without looking back. The night hadn’t changed much in the last half-hour, but I was a lot more tired out. There’s only so much adrenaline your body can soak up over a normal twenty-four-hour period. I was starting to feel fuzzy with exhaustion. I unlocked the door and was about to push it in when Jimmy came up behind me.

  “That’s all you got? Soda pop?”

  “Not soda pop. A pop. A drink. I got anything you want. Beer?”

  I parked the Harmon Killebrew bat next to the side door and let the scruffy jerk into my house. Eddie greeted him like a long lost friend. Big deal watchdog.

  I got Jimmy a beer and showed him out to the porch. I sat him down, then went back to the bedroom to stow the bag. I tossed it on the floor of my closet and dumped my laundry on top. Guys don’t like to touch other guys’ dirty socks. I went back out to the porch, partly refilling the tumbler on the way, like I needed it.

  “I didn’t know you could see the water from this place,” Jimmy said when I came out on the porch.

  “Sure. The sacred Peconic.”

  “I thought it was the Little Peconic.”

  “Yeah. That’s right. The little one.”

  “I don’t know about religious stuff.”

  “How’s the beer.”

  “It’s all right.” He took a sip. “Why’re you driving that old Pontiac? Can’t afford a new car?”

  “Came with the house.”

  “Can’t see driving some old piece of shit like that.”

  “That’s ’cause you never drove one. Try it once,” I snapped my fingers, “you never go back.”

  “Yeah, bullshit.”

  It was clear over the Peconic, and colorless under the brilliant moon. Night was locked in solid. I started to fantasize about pillows and blankets. Jimmy looked all settled in with his beer.

  “You’re not gonna give me my shit, are you?”

  “Not now. Later. I promise.”

  “You’re some kind of strange fucker.”

  “Glad you noticed, Jimmy. It usually takes people longer to figure that out.”

  He was content to drink his beer and pet Eddie’s head. Every asshole in the world seemed to be a dog lover. I wondered what that said about me.

  “Jimmy, do you remember your Aunt Regina’s husband?”

  He looked at me blankly.

  “What’re you trying to do now?”

  “Nothing. I’m just curious about her husband. I’m having trouble remembering him.”

  “I can never tell whether you’re bullshitting me or not.” He finished his beer and set it down on the table with more force than necessary. “She didn’t have no husband. Now, tell me you didn’t know that.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “What do you know, anyway?”

  “Less than I should, I guess. When I was growing up my parents always acted like there was a Mr. Broadhurst.”

  “Jesus. You don’t know shit.”

  “So, okay, you got me again. Enlighten me.”

  “Why should I tell you anything?”

  “Aw Christ, Jimmy, give it a break. I gave you a beer. And I’m gonna give you all kinds of stuff from Regina’s house.” I took a sip of the Absolut. “Eventually.”

  Jimmy thought about it for a few moments. Anger and defiance are tough habits to break.

  “My mom told me she called herself Mrs. Broadhurst because she didn’t want guys hittin’ on her, if you can believe that. A million years ago she had a guy, but it wasn’t her husband. Carl something.”

  “Carl? You sure?”

  “Yeah. fuckin’ Carl. I never seen him, but my mother’d talk about him.”

  “Carl Bollard?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Carl Bollard. Owned that piece of shit factory over there, was what my mom told me. She was wicked pissed about the whole thing, my mom. I don’t know why. fuckin’ women always pissed about everything. You can’t ever figure out why. She was a lot younger than Aunt Regina, even though she died a lot sooner.”

  His voice fell away at the end of the sentence. He picked up his empty beer to cover the moment.

  “’Nother one?”

  “Sure.”

  I got it for him. I sat at the table and slid over his beer.

  “Carl Junior or Carl Senior?” I asked him.

  “Shit, I don’t know. Carl Bollard’s all I know. He didn’t have a wife, just a bunch of girlfriends all over. If he’d been married my mom would’ve disowned Regina, if you can do that to your sister. My mom was into religion. fuckin’ Presbyterian, you’d think she was Catholic the way she went on.”

  It did the kid a lot of good to see me surprised, so I saw no harm in digging in deeper.

  “Jimmy, you told me Regina didn’t own her house, that it went back to some fucker after she died. Were you talking about Carl Bollard?”

  “Yeah, of course. That’s why my mom was so rip shit.”

  “Let me get this straight. Are you telling me that wiry old broad was Carl Bollard’s kept woman?”

  “That’s not the way my mom would’ve put it. Religious or not.”

  I laughed. That ornery, flinty old harpy was Carl Bollard’s honeybee. His mistress—wanton and alluring. And in return, a house of her own? Maybe. Complete with the dubious gift of the Acquillos to look after her, put up with her crap, pull her busted body out of the bathtub and plant her in the ground. For the first time I truly missed my mother. I finally had some news worth telling her.

  Jimmy was laughing, too.

  “Aunt Regina fuckin’ some old guy for a free house.”

  We just sat there and laughed for a long time. It felt good.

  When we were done laughing, Maddox left and I fell back on the bed and crawled under the covers, still dressed, tapped out and supine before life’s hallowed irregularities.

  The next day I drove over to Sagaponack to look at the ocean. Normally, staring at the Little Peconic helped me think. I needed something bigger this morning to stare at. Something with a horizon that curved off into infinity.

  The Atlantic Ocean was looking big and moody, and unconcerned with my fears and compulsions. There was an offshore breeze, so the waves were neatly formed and evenly spaced. The surf was taller than normal, probably from a storm out at sea. I looked for surfers, but saw none. The beach was empty in all directions except for seagulls, sandpipers and dead horseshoe crabs. The sky was big and the wind hard. We were almost past hurricane season, but this time of year almost anything could piss off the Atlantic. It was vast and dangerous and unknowable. I got out of the car and went and sat on the beach to watch the early-hour sun warm the color of the sand and turn the salt water an inky blue.

  Billy Weeds and I once went bodysurfing right after a big storm. The day was dry and washed clean by the Canadian air that often swept down to push tropical storms out to sea before they could crash into Long Island. The full weight of the storm missed us, but its energy had thrust up gigantic waves that broke over sandbars a quarter-mile off the coast. It took us a half-hour to fight through the messy chop close to shore to reach the real action.

  We eventually met mountainous swells coated in foam that broke in twenty feet of water, creating im
possibly enormous waves that we rode for an hour, heedless and awestruck, oblivious to the risk. We were young, strong and stupid, and I will always remember Billy laughing hysterically at the craziness of it all, and the angry power of the ocean that was too involved with its own majesty to bother drowning us like it should have. When we decided we’d had enough, we tried to swim to shore, but we couldn’t get past the undertow. We kept getting knocked back into the surf. It took another hour to get all the way in, and only because we’d ridden the current all the way to the Shinnecock inlet where the undertow let go.

  After that, I knew it was possible to die. The lesson didn’t stick as well with Billy Weeds.

  I was only a few blocks away from Burton’s house, so I could honestly say I was in the neighborhood. I pulled up to the gate and pushed the call button on the intercom. Isabella was her regular welcoming self.

  “He’s working in his study.”

  “Can you tell him I’m here?”

  “If you want.”

  “Yeah, why not? Since I’m out here at the gate.”

  “Okay. Up to you.”

  The giant blue hydrangea that lined the long driveway had turned brown from the frost. A crew of landscapers were cleaning things up, trimming bushes and raking out the white-pebble road surface. They admired the Grand Prix as I passed by, I could tell.

  Burton met me at the door.

  “Sam, excellent timing. Saved me from my work.”

  “So Isabella said.”

  “Let’s go sit.”

  He led me down a long corridor, through a sitting room and out to a screened-in porch. A porch like mine only ten times bigger and furnished to look like the British Raj. Lots of teak lounge chairs with built-in cup holders and magazine racks, woven footstools and grass mat carpets.

  There was always some place new at Burton’s house to sit. I wondered how he kept track.

  It was only about ten-thirty in the morning, too early even for Burton and me. So he called Isabella on his cell phone and asked for someone to bring us alcohol-free mimosas.

  “Provide the illusion.”

  While waiting we quickly covered the baseball situation, which meant a general agreement over the appalling inferiority of every team that’s ever competed with the Yankees, including those guys who also played somewhere on Long Island. Apparently they were both in the World Series.

  “Their stadium is in Queens, I think,” said Burton. “I really don’t know.”

  “The boys lost last night. So it’s two one.”

  “Piffle.”

  We also reviewed prospects for the NBA season, in which Burton took a far greater interest. He had a box at the Garden, away from the celebrities to avoid TV exposure. I used to join him every once in a while.

  “We should do that again,” he said. “I’ve refurbished the box.”

  I looked around the screened-in porch.

  “Teak?”

  “Something more appropriate to the setting.”

  Isabella showed up leading another woman holding a tray with the drinks, a basket of croissants and some fresh fruit. She hung around to convey her general disapproval of me until Burton managed to shoo her away.

  “So, Sam. I have some information. Not a lot.”

  “Me, too. A fair amount.”

  “I received a message from an attorney named Hunter Johnson. Inquiring about you.”

  “Checking my story.”

  “I let it be known we were closely associated and left it at that. An assistant handled the communication.”

  “I dropped your name so hard it busted the floor.”

  “Hope it helped.”

  “It did. I appreciate it.”

  “Tell me what you’ve learned and I’ll see if I can fill in the holes.”

  So I went through everything I’d learned since he’d sailed over to the cottage. About Carl Bollard Junior and his girlfriend Regina. Julia Anselma’s Bay Side house and tricked-out iron. Jimmy Maddox and his midnight raid. Jackie Swaitkowski’s confessional. Harbor Trust and the Battistons. Even my encounter with the trained bear, which I’d left out of our last conversation.

  “I’m not happy about that,” said Burton.

  “No permanent damage. Nothing that shows, anyway.”

  I told him about my meeting with Ross Semple and conversation with Joe Sullivan. And finally about the trip to New York to see Hunter Johnson in his opulent offices.

  “Place is really plush, Burt. You should check it out.”

  “I’m sure. Real-estate practice,” he said, by way of explanation.

  “So what do you think of all this?”

  “You’ve been busy,” he said. “I haven’t much to add, except something on the trust.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know the beneficiary?” I asked.

  “Carl Bollard, of course.”

  “Of course. Who’s got to be pretty old at this point.”

  “Would be, but he’s dead.”

  “Dead.”

  “Died some time ago. 1977 to be exact. Alcoholism. Had a room at the Institute of Living in Hartford. Was there for one last try at sobriety.”

  “So that’s it for the trust. What happened to the assets? Who owns them now?”

  “That’s a very interesting question, Sam. We have no idea, and as far as my associates can tell, neither does anyone else. As it is, everything we have comes from a retired loan officer who reviewed the trust as part of a WB capitalization program. This was back in the early fifties. Luckily, he still had his notes. You’re going to find that most people involved in this are either long dead or past the point of clear recollection.”

  “What about Bollard’s will? His heirs?”

  “No heirs we know of. The trust was established by his father, Carl Senior, the year his mother died, leaving Carl Junior the sole heir. Within the trust were all the assets of Bay Side Holdings, which included WB Manufacturing, the real estate it sat on, plus contiguous properties around Oak Point and Jacob’s Neck, corporate equity—basically the cash in the business—and a substantial investment account with a portfolio of bonds and securities. Carl Junior, who was an only child by the way, was the beneficiary, along with his father, until his father’s death, which happened in 1950. Carl Junior also worked at WB in a succession of jobs typical of a young scion being groomed for succession. The trust at first glance looked like a typical tax vehicle used for estate management and the fluid transfer of corporate authority from one generation to the next. But it was clear to me, having some experience with these things, that it was also meant to keep young Carl in control while the father lived, and out of trouble once he died.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning the trust was revocable during the old man’s life, then unmodifiable for five years after that. Carl Junior got the benefit of the income, but he couldn’t touch the business itself until 1955, when he was forty-six years old.”

  “Arnold Lombard said he was a wasteabout.”

  “That would follow. His father made the calculation that after five years on his own his son should be ready to accept responsibility. If not, then to hell with it. This is a very common practice in family situations.”

  “So you’re saying that since, what, 1977, all that stuff’s just been sitting there, nobody owning it but a piece of paper? That’s nuts.”

  “Yes, nuts and illegal, and entirely out of the question.”

  “Okay. Keep explaining.”

  “The trust was formed in 1948 in conjunction with the wills written for both Carls. Also very common. These I have. Carl Senior’s we already know. Carl Junior’s says when he dies, the assets of the trust flow to his heirs and assigns, as designated in the trust. It doesn’t say anything about what would happen if he had no heirs or assigns beyond his father, who would get everything back if he died young. In which case Carl Senior could nullify the trust and move on with his life, all of which is purely academic at this point since that didn’t happen.”

  “
But Carl Junior had no heirs.”

  “I said heirs, not assigns.”

  “I presume an assign is just that. Somebody you say is an heir.”

  “Exactly. That’s what we don’t know, because we don’t have the trust document itself. Wills have to be registered on the death of the signer. Not trusts. Once Carl Junior was free of the restrictions, he could modify the trust any way he wanted. It became his trust, just like it was his father’s before him.”

  “We got to have a chat with Mr. Hornsby.”

  “We do indeed.”

  I stood up and walked over to the screen to look at the outside. The lawn stretched away for a few hundred yards, terminating at a tall privet hedge. The ocean was one estate away. Burton’s great-grandfather determined it was better to have twenty acres of developed real estate and landscaping between you and a big storm surge than a flimsy dune, and he was proved right in ’38 when the next-door neighbor washed out to sea with his whole family and fourteen friends who’d driven out from the city to watch the spectacle.

  “You got a theory here, Burt?” I asked him as I finished off my second emasculated mimosa. Burton was still in his chair, pensive and removed. I sat back down next to him.

  “I do. But it’s full of holes.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You know what might be happening here.”

  “I do. It’s just hard to believe.”

  “One of my law professors had a maxim. Just because you think it’s true, doesn’t mean it isn’t.”

  “Must have shaved with Occam’s razor.”

  “Sharpest blade in the drawer.”

  We went back to the NBA after that, which was a big relief to me. I knew and Burton knew that the best thing to do at this point was to hand it all over to him, so he could hand it all over to the people officially responsible for this stuff. He knew and I knew I didn’t want that. I had my teeth in it now and I didn’t want to let go till I had it worked out. I just didn’t. Can’t explain it.

  “I hate to owe people, you know that. But I’m glad for the help,” I told him before I got up to leave.

  “Piffle,” he said, and took me on the long walk to my car.

  I headed back to the cottage with both windows open to help fuel my brain. The cool, soggy October air was uncomfortable, but extra oxygen helped me focus. It was a practice I learned young. Get in a car, open all the windows and drive fast enough to fill the passenger compartment with a private hurricane. I could think better when other things overwhelmed my senses. Sometimes I’d drive home from work like this, even in the dead of winter, and when I reached my driveway I’d keep driving and use up an hour or two buffeting my brain into submission.