The Last Refuge sahm-1

by Chris Knopf

  Roy looked up.

  “What are you saying?” he asked.

  I thought about Sullivan telling me Regina might have been a lousy old bitch, but she was his lousy old bitch. That’s how I thought about my father. He was a lousy father, but he was my lousy father. And he gave me my lousy life. People like Regina and my father, living side by side on the tip of Oak Point at the feet of the holy Peconic, never really figured out why they were here on earth, never really had a chance to know much more than hope, hard work and disappointment. And all they got in the end was the privilege of being beaten to death by people who thought they had a greater purpose, thought they could just sweep those shabby crippled lives away from their feet like so much useless trash.

  “You killed her. And you killed Julia Anselma.”

  I realized Roy was weeping. He’d been sweating so hard the tears had just blended in.

  “Lock the door,” he was saying. “Please lock the door. I don’t want anyone coming in.”

  He waited until Jackie got back in her chair. She tossed him a crumpled napkin dug out of her wool jacket. He ignored it.

  “Those bastards,” he said. “They’d say things about wasting the old ladies. That nobody’d even blink an eye. I couldn’t tell if they were just provoking me, or if they meant it. But I swear, I never ever would have done such a thing.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’re in it, you’re in it,” I told him.

  I looked over at Jackie. She nodded.

  “Oh, God.”

  He dropped his head to the desk.

  “Roy, listen to me. Look at me.”

  He looked up again.

  “Let’s take this one step at a time. You have the original trust document. I want it.”

  He started to deny it, but I cut him off.

  “That was your leverage with Hornsby. As long as you had the document, you had him by the balls.”

  I leaned forward and said, between my teeth, “Give it to me.”

  It was on the bottom of a stack of papers on one of the tables. All he had to do was roll his desk chair over a few feet and pull it out. The paper was yellowy brown along the edges. On the cover was the same label Hornsby had taped to the envelope. It was typewritten and you could feel the impressions on the back of the individual sheets. There was a table of contents. I flipped to the article describing beneficiaries, titled, “Distribution of Trust Property.” The first section said, “Upon the death of any beneficiary, as described in Article Six, the trust property shall be divided into as many shares as shall be necessary to create one equal share for each of the living beneficiaries, and one equal share for each deceased beneficiary who has living descendents.”

  I flipped to Article Six. Regina and Julia each had their own sections. Other sections described how the entire principal and net income of the trust belonged to the beneficiaries. The trustee had full powers of administration, though the beneficiaries had the right to appoint or excuse the trustee. At least Hornsby had the good manners to finally excuse himself.

  I handed it to Jackie.

  “I was going to tell her,” said Roy.

  “Who?” Jackie asked, looking down as she leafed through the document.

  “Amanda,” I answered for him, “who you knew would be gone like a shot the second she learned how rich she really was. On her own, without you. To say nothing of the betrayal. So, you were going to tell her like Hornsby was going to confess on the front page of the New York Times.”

  “I was only trying to care for her.”

  “By killing her mother?”

  He winced. Then started to whine.

  “I told you,” he started.

  I stopped him.

  “Roy, shut up. If you say one more word I’m liable to change my mind.”

  By this point he was way too desperate and terrified to think clearly.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Jackie looked up again from the trust, curious herself.

  There was so much about the world I didn’t understand. And never would. Like why my parents had married each other in the first place. It was never explained. It never even came up, but my sister and I would have cut off our own limbs rather than ask.

  It was as if some external event had brought them together involuntarily, but irrevocably, and they were resigned to their fate. It was unclear whether they loved or despised each other. They simply existed as an official pairing, charged with the responsibility of feeding and housing two children, keeping the house clean and the lawn cut, and the apartment in the Bronx free of dishes in the sink or dirty laundry on the floor. My father was in a near state of rage most of the time, much of which he directed toward my mother, but only because of her proximity. My sister and I were expert at making ourselves scarce, otherwise we’d have attracted a greater share of his wrath. Maybe as much as the guy who pumped his gas, or the checkout girls at the grocery store, or local, state and federal government officials, or the IRS, or any professional athlete who ever won or lost anything. Fury was his natural state of being, unlike my mother, for whom the situation involved a greater degree of happenstance. She bore it silently, at least as far as I knew. Yet I imagined her seeking rescue, in whatever form it offered itself. She never said it, but I always thought it. As I passed through adolescence, and my perceptions matured, I began to feel responsible for allowing her circumstances to persist. I developed an unrelenting compulsion to do something. I just didn’t know what it was supposed to be. So I did nothing, beyond wishing things would change. That something would happen to end the dreadful state of despair and indecision.

  And then it did. Two anonymous thugs, agents of a secret power, came into the world and flicked my father into oblivion.

  My mother was rescued. But she didn’t want to be. She was utterly grief stricken and furious, suddenly at odds with the entire world, as if taking up my father’s blind rage as her just inheritance.

  I wasn’t much comfort. All I could think of was my own dismal calculation. That I’d wished it all into existence, thereby denying my parents their lives and me any hope of reprieve from my remorse, for the rest of mine.

  So it seemed inevitable that I would marry someone I’d never want to know and help create a child who didn’t want to know me. That I’d destroy my working life and burn my future to the ground. I couldn’t save any of it.

  Just like I couldn’t save Regina, even though she was the only thing left for me to save.

  “Here’s the deal,” I said. “You tell the cops and Amanda about the whole scam, including your thing with Hornsby and the development project. In return I let the old ladies stay dead of natural causes.”

  Jackie’s mouth actually dropped open.

  “What are you saying?”

  “It’s how I want it.”

  “I don’t think it’s up to you,” she said. “There’s the matter of the truth.”

  “I’m in charge of the truth. I got all the evidence, all the information. It’s not going anywhere without me. Anyway, this is in the best interest of your client, Mr. Battiston.”

  “Hold on a minute,” she started to say.

  “You’re the only one who can make this come out right. Roy goes down for colluding with Hornsby to defraud Amanda and her mother. Nobody, especially Amanda, ever learns about Julia. Or Regina, for that matter. That’s the deal.”

  It took a few more minutes to get Jackie all the way on board. I really didn’t have a good reason for her to do it, which is probably what ultimately appealed to her. That and the possibility of being shut out of the whole thing, whatever it was. That was Jackie’s Achilles’ heel. Fear of being the oddball left sitting alone while all the other girls were out on the dance floor.

  As Roy listened to us talk his face didn’t know whether to look hopeful or horrified. When I pointed my finger at him he almost jumped out of his chair.

  “But if you try to test me, or weasel on any of this, it’s all yours. I don’t care how much you
actually had to do with it. I don’t care what it does to Amanda. I’ll make sure she thinks you were in it up to your neck. You might talk your way out of ripping her off. Killing her mother, probably not.”

  Before he had time to think it all through Jackie had him on his feet, his face wiped off and his suit jacket on. We marched him through the big banking room, past Amanda, who didn’t say a word to any of us, and out to the parking lot. He got to ride in the back of the Grand Prix with Eddie, who was indifferent to his sins and avarice, all the way to the Town police headquarters in Hampton Bays where we called ahead to have Joe Sullivan and Ross Semple waiting for us.

  I left him there with Jackie. She seemed to be warming to the whole idea, and Roy was so afraid of me he had to take her. Sullivan said he’d give her a lift back to my house to pick up her truck. I was glad to leave it all with them. I didn’t know how it was going to work out for Roy in the end, but I was sore all over from my little dance with Buddy, and tired from staying up most of the night cajoling and dodging questions from Sullivan. I just had to make another stop.

  The Senior Center was in its usual state of glacial clamor. My friend at the counter greeted me like it was our first meeting.

  “Is Ms. Filmore in?” I asked her.

  “You from Mississippi?”

  “No ma’am.”

  “My grandmother was from Mississippi. She wanted us to call her Miz Clarke.”

  “A feminist.”

  “All us Clarke girls were feminine, Mister.”

  “I bet I can just go in and find Barbara for myself.”

  She gave an expansive wave toward the door.

  “Après vous, señor.”

  “Grazie.”

  It was easy to spot that big mane of ersatz hair standing out from the prevailing white and gray. Her right hand was on her hip and her left was wagging an index finger at a frightened little gnome of a guy holding a cafeteria tray piled high with creamers and sugar bowls. She clammed up when she saw me approach.

  “Mr. Acquillo.”

  “Hi, Barbara.”

  “I don’t think Mr. Hodges is here today.”

  “Too bad. Looks like you could use the help.”

  Her victim had already slipped quietly out of range. She pretended to ignore him.

  “Not at all, Mr. Acquillo. Everything’s quite under control.”

  “Actually, I was looking for Bob. Your Bob. Sobol.”

  If her back had straightened any further she’d have snapped her spine.

  “My Bob? Really.”

  “Okay. Bob’s his own man. Know where he is? I got a tip for him. Real estate.”

  She softened a little.

  “Really. He’s quite in the market.”

  “Well, gotta find him to tell him. Carpe diem and all that.”

  She pondered a second or two.

  “You know Moses Lane?”

  “I do. Down near the Red Sea.”

  “Funny. Here’s the address.”

  She wrote it down on a piece of paper, then watched me walk all the way out of the building. So did most of the old folks manning the card tables and conversation pits. I thought if I suddenly whirled around and yelled boo half of them would go into cardiac arrest.

  I had to drive through the Village shopping area to get to Moses Lane. It was full of Summer People who’d learned you could stretch the summer out to Thanksgiving. They mostly looked nicely dressed and well fed, but not entirely sure of themselves, as if fearing discovery. I liked it better when they all went home after Labor Day, but you have to be realistic. It wasn’t their fault that God put a place like this only two hours from Midtown Manhattan. On a good traffic day.

  I noticed pumpkins everywhere, and tied-up cornstalks and cardboard cutouts of witches and ghosts hung up in store windows. Not many kids ever came to the cottage on Halloween. I always made them say please and thank you, which used to mortify my daughter. The other parents in Stamford said she was the most polite kid in the neighborhood. She’d probably grown out of that living in the City with all the other overachievers.

  Moses Lane was off Hill Street just west of the Village. It was typical of the areas once lived in by Southampton locals—modest, well-kept houses, neat lawns and gravel driveways. Now you could see the encroachment of postmodernism and German cars, seeping out of the estate district and spreading out like the brown tide across the neighborhood.

  Barbara Filmore’s place was a nice pre-restoration bungalow with a tiny mother-in-law building in the back. You got to the front door through an arched gate covered in wisteria. I left Eddie locked in the car and went up to ring the bell, but no answer. So I knocked loudly enough to be heard next door, which brought a muffled yell from the backyard. Shades of Milton Hornsby. When I went back there Sobol was sitting at a picnic table in the middle of the yard, just to the left of the mother-in-law shack. He was smoking a cigarette, dumping the ashes in a big bowl full of butts on the seat next to him.

  “House rules,” he said to me as I approached.

  “Which house?”

  “Both of ’em. I got this little one here,” he jerked his thumb back to the mother-in-law place, “but I got bigger ambitions.”

  “Apparently.”

  I sat across from him and dug out a Camel. He offered up his lighter.

  “Barbara told me you were coming over with a tip.”

  “Good lookout.”

  “She wanted to make sure I was around.”

  “So, are you two …” I made the universal New York gesture for, you know, what we often gesture about. He didn’t like it.

  “I think that’s somethin’ of a private nature.”

  “You’re right. None of my business.”

  He nodded.

  “So, this tip.”

  “Big development up in North Sea. Right next to me, as it turns out.”

  Sobol’s head was just a little too small for his body, which was a solid round ball. His lack of hair and grubby little moustache did little to aid the overall effect. He’d tried to help things out by dyeing what was left of his hair an unnatural black, which contrasted poorly with the white stubble on his unshaven face. The only part of him that didn’t look like it belonged to a natural schlub were his eyes. They were hard black and fixed on my face.

  “I might already know about that one,” he said, slowly.

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why I thought you’d be interested.”

  “Interested. Yeah. I’m interested in what your deal is in this.”

  “It affects my neighborhood. I’m captain of the neighborhood watch.”

  “That’d be news to the neighbors.”

  “I like to keep it on a need-to-know basis.”

  “Self-appointed, huh?”

  “No. Hereditary.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Plus all the professional training.”

  “Must be a tough part of town.”

  “Mostly quiet. Occasionally get a rat passing through.”

  “Really. Seen any lately?”

  “Last night, as it turns out.”

  Sobol finally stopped trying to stare my eyeballs out of their sockets and looked down at his pack of Marlboros. I thought it was safe to blink. He flicked out a cigarette and lit it.

  “That’s what exterminators are for,” he said, puffing the smoke out with the words.

  “You must know our rat. I think he’s done a little exterminating himself.”

  I pulled a cloth bag holding Buddy’s Glock out from under my jacket and dumped the gun on the table. It hit the wood with a loud noise—loud enough for me to realize we’d been speaking very softly to each other. Sobol didn’t flinch. He just shook his head and went back to the big stare.

  “Don’t know anybody like that,” he said, “but I’ve heard there’s an unlimited supply of ’em back in the city.”

  “More the reason for restrictive zoning.”

  “That’s right,” he said, waving his Marlboro at me, “you
’re into real estate.”

  “Only a spectator.”

  “I figured that. Like some of the old ladies when I was growing up. Watchin’ everything going on in the street from behind their venetian blinds. nothin’ better to do.”

  “Piss you off, did it? The old ladies?”

  Sobol leaned back from the table and pulled back his shoulders, grimacing.

  “It’s hard sitting on these benches with no backs,” he said. “I think Filmore put ’em here on purpose.”

  “Another reason to quit smoking.”

  He settled himself back into his original uncomfortable position.

  “Didn’t you come over here to give me a tip?” he asked. “Like, where’s the tip?”

  “The project in North Sea. Looks like Roy’s going to have to turn the whole thing over to his wife, now that he’s in jail for defrauding her. Actually, at the moment he’s spending some quality time with Chief Semple. You know, unloading everything. Clearing his conscience, I guess. I’ll bet it’s a pretty interesting story. But I thought you should know Amanda’s in the driver’s seat now. I remember you asked her to help you find a place.”

  “Good-looking girl, Amanda. You say Roy was trying to screw her?”

  “Yeah, imagine trying to screw your own wife.”

  “Why I never got married.”

  “Don’t touch it.”

  “What?”

  Sobol’s hand had somehow moved to within a foot of Buddy’s gun. I placed my hand on the table at approximately the same distance.

  “I’m an ex-fighter, Bob. I got reflexes like a mongoose.”

  Sobol pulled his hand back a few inches.

  “I hate weird fuckers like you, Acquillo.”

  “There’s gratitude.”

  “Screwball fuckers. You think I don’t know all about you? About what you been up to? I knew you’d stick your fucking nose into my shit. Fucking whack job.”

  “Too much time on my hands.”