The Last Refuge sahm-1

by Chris Knopf

  “They called me at my office. Monica was in the hospital. The nanny was too hysterical to talk to me, so I didn’t know anything till I got there. Apparently, Monica was hungry and fussy and threw a little tantrum. The nanny’s kid was alone with her, and thought he’d get her to stop crying by hitting her on the head. And then, after she was unconscious, he thought he’d hit her some more, which he did until she suffered massive, irreversible brain damage.

  “I was seriously thinking about swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills, but I was afraid to leave Monica alone. What I really couldn’t do was support myself now that I had this crazy huge expense. I came home to Southampton hoping my poor mother, bless her, could look after both of us. But look, you can’t expect a person to care for somebody in a state like that. Especially an elderly woman. I might have been young and healthy and crazy with grief, but I couldn’t do it all either. Monica couldn’t do anything on her own. There was nothing there.”

  She pulled some more tissues out of a box on the side table and wiped her face.

  “I had to keep her in the City to stay on Medicaid. They all made it clear I should pull the plug. All the doctors and Medicaid people. I can understand why. The rest of the world shouldn’t have to pay for one little vegetable. But she was my daughter. I loved her with all my heart. How could I do that, Sam?”

  She was crying now in a solid, steady kind of way. I took her hand and she squeezed hard. With her other hand she pulled out a few tissues and blew her nose. She looked at me.

  “Then she made it easy for her mommy. She just left.”

  It took a long time for her to catch her breath.

  “I’m so sorry, Sam.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Oh yes there is.”

  She shook her head and a long sweep of auburn hair fell in front of her face.

  “It’s about Roy. I knew him in high school. We dated a little. He was nice enough, but, you know, not very interesting. Not for a girl like me who was burning to get outta town. Roy had no such desire, though he had a real thing for money. His father died when he was little and his grandparents basically raised him with his mother. They never had anything. I bet you always wondered who lived in those houses along the dump road. One of them was Roy’s grandparents’. You wouldn’t believe how they lived, so close to so much.

  “But Roy was going to change all that. He was going to make money, goddammit, and he did. He did really well for himself. Paid for his own college, went to business school, joined the bank, worked his way up. I was very impressed with him, really I was. Proud of him for actually doing something he said he was going to do. It’s hard, you know it is Sam, to be around all this money out here and not have any of your own. It can twist you all up, if you let it. But Roy was never like that. He just did it the hard way, working his ass off and doing what he had to. For years he supported his whole family. Now he’s got me, and—”

  She looked at the mute wall of ashes, lowering her voice to a near whisper.

  “I could have never afforded this place. Even this tiny little place for my baby girl. Roy paid for it all.”

  She looked over at me for the first time. Beseeching or questioning, I couldn’t tell.

  “He tried to ask me out from the get-go, when I came back from the City, but I couldn’t face anybody. Finally, I went to dinner with him a few times. Invited him over. He was very sweet to my mother. He’s not a bad man, he’s just who he is. And he loved me. He told me he always had, and that when I left for the City it was the saddest thing that ever happened to him. I didn’t even know he felt that way. He was so shy and self-conscious.

  “But then he made some pretty good money—you know, he started a whole commercial lending operation out here for Harbor, and did great—it gave him some confidence. It was nice. And easy, and I was so tired and lost. When he offered to marry me I felt like an angel had come along and plucked me off the tracks. He saved me, he really did.

  “I knew this wasn’t what I wanted, but it was far better than killing myself, which I strongly considered, oh, maybe a thousand times. But then I thought about my mom, and what I was going through over Monica. So we got married and it all happened like he said it would. I didn’t love him, but I appreciated what he’d done. I tried to hold up my end, and I think I did pretty well. He was always patient with me. He liked to control things, and I was so sick inside, I liked letting him do it.

  “And then you. You. You. You.”

  She swatted me on the shoulder.

  “All busted up yourself. Big sad eyes and crunched-up nose. Flirting with you wasn’t a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but it was the only pleasant thing happening to me. I prayed I wasn’t being too obvious, so I wouldn’t scare you away. But you kept coming in every once in a while, and I’d look forward to it. I could tell you liked me. I wasn’t that far gone. And I knew I would really like you if you’d only let me in a little. Then you starting asking me about Regina and that made me think of my mother, and before I knew it we were spending time together. It made my heart just leap right out of my body.

  “But you know what the problem was?” she asked.

  “Roy knew.”

  “No, worse than that. Oh, God.”

  She’d stopped crying when the story moved off her daughter, but then she started again.

  “It was his idea,” she said, ripping out the words through her tears, “Roy’s.”

  I waited till she was ready to get back on track.

  “Soon after we were married, Roy came home from work more excited than I’d ever seen him. He said we had the opportunity of a lifetime. A big real-estate deal, the biggest in the Hamptons, he said, our ticket to the ball. You should have seen him. Roy’s a very positive person on the outside, but he worries, and broods a lot when nobody else is around. Nobody but me. This was so different. He was like a little boy. He went on and on about it, though I had a hard time following everything. I love science and technology, but all this financial stuff, it bores me.”

  “Not a good thing for a personal banker.”

  “The bank would handle financing, and Roy was going to take a position personally, which was the main thing, but we’d also make out because my mother’s house would be part of the plan. That upset me a little, which I know is silly. But, what the heck, he was so happy, and it seemed like a long way off. I don’t know.

  “The next year was wonderful. Roy was crazy busy at the bank, especially with this big project. He worked late a lot and went into the City at least once a week, which was very nice for me. It gave me a little break. People also came out from the City to talk to him, to help with the Town, I guess, and other things. I admit I didn’t pay much attention to it all.

  “Then something happened. It wasn’t all at once, but slowly Roy got more and more nervous. Distracted. Something was going wrong with the project, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Not at first. Then he told me there was a snag with Environmental Protection. Nothing real, just a bunch of regulations that could stall progress and endanger the deal.

  “‘The neighbors,’ is what he kept saying. ‘Amanda, the neighbors could ruin the whole thing.’ He always insisted we keep everything hush hush. He said if one word of this got out, other players could elbow their way in. Investors would come out from the City and he’d say, ‘Don’t even act like you know them. People will put two and two together.’”

  “Bob Sobol,” I said.

  She looked impressed.

  “That’s right. The creep. Always trying to knock me off balance. I wouldn’t give him the pleasure.”

  “He brought the deal to Roy.”

  “No, it was Roy’s deal, all the way. Bob Sobol and this guy in Sag Harbor are investors. Or front the real investors, I can never figure out which, though frankly, I don’t care. I don’t like either one of them.”

  “Milton Hornsby.”

  She swiveled over on the bench so she could get a clear look at me.

 
“You know him?” she asked.

  “A little.”

  “What an unpleasant person. He always looks like he’s swallowed a frog or something. No sense of humor. How did you know he was involved?”

  “It’s a long story, too.”

  “So I guess you know they’re old friends, Bob Sobol and Milt Hornsby. Or something. Can’t honestly say Hornsby was friendly with anybody. Bitter old bastard.”

  “So Roy was worried about the neighbors.”

  “He said there’d be public hearings and that some people with adjoining properties might put up a fight. He was mostly concerned about you.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Oh, you were a big topic at the dinner table for a while there. He said you were a retired executive with a reputation as a first rate SOB, his words not mine.”

  She smiled for the first time.

  “Though you can be difficult,” she said.

  “So I’m told.”

  “It was obvious you liked me. Roy told me to pal around with you. Find out what you were thinking.”

  “Mata Hari.”

  “Hardly. All I wanted was to kid around and have a nice time. Who cares about Roy’s dumb project? And you made it easy. Even when I tried to tell you the truth.”

  “What did you report?”

  “I told him you were upset about Regina Broadhurst, which wasn’t big news. You’re the executor of her estate.”

  “Administrator.”

  Her eyes shifted away from me and she looked at the floor. Quiet suddenly. I thought she might be about to cry again, but then I realized her face had hardened into a mask.

  “I didn’t know about Buddy until that night at the Playhouse,” she said, almost through her teeth. “I didn’t know Roy was capable of such a thing.”

  “Bodyguard.”

  “Thug. Friend of Sobol’s. Fucking gumba. Pardon the language. But I’m allowed to say that, I’m Italian.”

  “Me, too. About a quarter.”

  “I told Roy if that bastard laid another hand on you I’d leave him. I can’t have a person’s death on my conscience.”

  “But he’s still around?”

  “He and Sobol come out a lot. They’re meeting Roy at the bank tonight. Another big to-do. I don’t know what it’s about this time. Roy was all worked up. I thought it was a good time to slip away and visit Monica.”

  She looked over at the wall, as if saying her daughter’s name broke some sort of spell.

  “My precious baby.”

  I thought about my own daughter, beautiful and accomplished and living like a princess in New York City. I knew what she did for work, and where, but I didn’t know if she liked it or not. I knew her address and phone number by heart, but I hadn’t ever called her because she told me not to. I knew she was a huge social success, but I didn’t know any of her boyfriends. What kind of guys they were, or what kind of life they would make for my only daughter, my only child. I knew almost nothing except I loved her as much as Amanda loved Monica, and that I constantly asked God, a God I didn’t want to believe in, to please keep my daughter safe. Take whatever you want from me, but please keep her safe.

  “I’m so sorry I lied to you,” she said. “You have a right to hate me.”

  She was rubbing her hands together, the way I saw her do at the cottage. Warming the climate of her mind.

  “You never knew your father?” I asked her.

  “No. He died when I was too little to remember.”

  I was really tired. The combination of everything— the shock of Hornsby lying in his garden, the stress of working on Jackie and Sullivan, all the vodka, the chase across Bridgehampton and the lingering effects of the concussion courtesy of some asshole named Buddy, as it turned out—had begun to take its toll.

  I wanted to go to sleep.

  “I’m sorry to bother you here,” I said. “Not the right place to talk about these things.”

  She shrugged and looked around.

  “They can’t hear us.”

  “I’m still sorry.”

  “How much sorry do we have to have, and for how long?” she asked.

  “People die.” I said. “You can’t do anything about it. It’s not your fault.”

  Amanda crossed her arms over her chest and squeezed, as if trying to keep her heart contained within her body.

  “Is that what you tell yourself?”

  I sat with her until all the tears were exhausted. Then I left her alone in the little mausoleum. There wasn’t anything else I could do, and there were people I had to call. And a dog to let out.

  As I drove the bouncy little Toyota pickup around the hairpin curves of Noyack Road I wondered how long it would take to pay all my debts to Jackie Swaitkowski, mounting by the minute.

  When I emerged from the tree cover I could see the moon, almost full, high above the Little Peconic. The air was clear, but the water was being churned up by a stiff northeasterly. An unusual wind for that time of year. Unless there was a storm on the way, or passing off the coast.

  I stopped at the mailbox and pulled out a stack of envelopes and junk mail. The moon was so bright you could clearly see the cottage, my yard and Regina’s place, lit only by the porch light I kept on since my night with Jimmy Maddox. Probably the only reason I saw the car pulled into her driveway. It was backlit by the porch light, but as my night vision improved I could make out the contours. A series-seven BMW.

  I saw a black shape explode out from behind a stand of trees just in time to throw my arms up over my head and duck. The blow landed on my right shoulder with enough force to knock me off my feet, but it wasn’t very damaging. It gave me an opportunity to roll away and get back on my feet and face him head on. For a change.

  I set my stance and danced to the right. Buddy just walked toward me, his long coat open to the breeze, the chains around his neck reflecting the bright moonlight. He used both meaty hands to point to his stomach.

  “Hey, fucker,” he said, “check it out.”

  There was the butt of a big automatic sticking out of his belt.

  “You going to shoot me?”

  His mouth was a wide, humorless grin.

  “Fuck no, I’m gonna beat you to death.”

  He made a quick little move inside my reach, then backed out again. It caused me to dance back to my left, which I never liked. He tried to meet me with his right, but I leaned out of the way and he missed. Not a good tactical fighter, but fast for his size. And very big.

  He came straight in, trying to catch me on a turn. I closed and tried out a combination left jab and right undercut to the body, but it didn’t do much against the mass of fat and muscle around his waist. It also left my own less-protected gut exposed.

  Buddy caught me on the right side at the bottom of my rib cage. I felt the air phoof out of my lungs. I had to roll back sharply and drop my arms so I could catch my breath. Buddy just kept moving forward, steadily, deliberately, eager for a chance to close again.

  I rotated to the left as I moved backwards to keep my right side protected. I was afraid of his longer reach, and I couldn’t risk clinching—he outweighed me by half a guy and I’d never win a wrestling match. My only hope was to get in and out fast enough to hurt him before he could get those gorilla arms into play. But I didn’t know how. The moon was so bright I could easily see his face. He was really enjoying himself.

  I heard Eddie in the house, barking his head off. That gave me an idea. I turned around and ran as fast as I could toward the Peconic.

  “Run if you want, asshole,” he called to me in his dumb trained-bear voice. “You’re a dead motherfucker.”

  I ran straight up to the front of the cottage. Then I turned and stood at the front door. Buddy loped up behind with his fists clenched and the tails of his leather coat flapping back behind his arms. Before he could reach me I cut left and ran around to the side of the house.

  “Stand and fight, pussy,” said Buddy, almost cheerfully, as he followed me around th
e shrubs and into the side yard. I leapt on the landing and stood facing the side door, listening for him to get closer. I made a rough guess at timing, took a deep breath, wrapped my right hand around the handle of the Harmon Killebrew bat and swung around backhand with everything I had.

  I misjudged the distance by a few inches. The tip of the bat caught him in the front teeth. They snapped off, spraying my hand with spit, blood and little white splinters. His hands flew to his face and I swung again, this time like a baseball player, with both hands.

  The bat cracked across his temple, but his fingers were in the way and took some of the edge off the blow. He spun away and bent down, covering as much of his head as he could with his hands. I stepped into the breach and, taking careful aim, put my whole body into the swing. This one connected well. His hands flew away and his head snapped back. He staggered as he tried to regain his balance, arms flapping. Blood gushed from his forehead, blinding him. I held the bat with my left hand and plucked the automatic out of his waistband with my right. I tossed the gun into the bushes, then stuck a right jab into the red pulp that used to be his mouth. He fell back further, swatting open handed at the air.

  “Motherfucker!”

  I dropped the bat and hit him again with my right. I didn’t measure out the punches the way the trainers always told me to do. I didn’t care if I kept my balance, stayed up on my toes or exposed my right kidney. I didn’t have to care. The bear was through. I hit him with a combination. His knees began to bend and he had to spread his feet to stay upright. He was mumbling something, but I couldn’t hear him through the roar in my ears. I brought my foot up between his legs and felt the splash of soft tissue. He doubled up and fell headfirst into the grass. I kicked him in his bloody face and went back to get the bat.

  I scooped it up off the ground and walked over with it held slightly off my right shoulder. I stood over him, picking a spot. He wasn’t moving. The last kick had rolled him over on his back. The mass of crushed tomatoes that now composed his face stared up at the moonlit sky. He was still breathing, rasping wetly through the blood in his mouth. I let the bat down slowly. I nudged him with my toe. Still didn’t move.