“Here is fine,” Jake answered. “They can kiss my ass and wait.”
“We’ve been at your home almost an hour,” answered Luke, looking back in his rearview mirror at now four cars behind him. “I thought it was like a panic . . .”
“It is a fuckin’ panic thing. If you can, please, turn your van around and come back to my house. That would be helpful to me and my family.”
A few minutes later, Luke walked up the modern-day glassed-in tomb five steps behind the owner, wondering what the hell was going on. He prayed on his mother’s eternal happiness, wherever she was, that this had nothing to do with Kona and Julia.
When they got to the back deck, Jake told Alexa quietly to leave them alone. She whined, but Jake put his index finger right onto her lips and said, “Don’t even talk,” at which she raced to her room on the second floor and slammed the door hard, like a six-year-old.
Jake stood before Luke and Kona. He was about six inches shorter than both of them, with a much rounder physique resembling Humpty Dumpty. He stared straight into Kona’s eyes, as if Luke was invisible. Then he reached up his hand on Kona’s shoulder. “Listen, dude, first things first: I drove into town the other day and saw you on the bench. Outside the surf shop. Way too close to Julia.” He stretched his neck so his face was right under Kona’s. “Don’t fuck with me, don’t fuck with my wife.”
“I, I didn’t, we’re just . . .” Kona took a step back.
“Yeah. So here’s the thing: you touch her legs again and I’ll choke you to death with some Hawaiian puka shells. You got me?”
Kona nodded, man enough to let Jake know his point was made.
“That’s good. Because we got a bigger problem with Alexa.” And then, gesturing them to come sit, he yelled, “Evan, get off your ass down there, we’re going to have a talk, the four of us.”
Kona tried to relax. No one had seen him and Julia together in public. Okay, he’d caressed her oiled-up legs a few times on the bench, tried to sniff her pussy a little when she did a yoga down dog move four inches from his face. Maybe once or twice or three times, he grabbed her hips from behind and ground his hard dick into her ass just to let her know he was human. Maybe he placed his hand on her tanned and toned thigh in the Jeep on the way to a paddleboard lesson, proposed that butterfly trick with his tongue, as a joke, kind of. But he hadn’t gone to work on her in a way that the husband could bust him for. Yes, he’d tried, but who wouldn’t? Ola ole loa awiwi, life is short.
Jake grabbed Kona’s elbow and yanked him into a little cluster on the deck with Evan and Luke on either side. “We got a huge issue. I need your help . . . all of you.”
“Dad, you’re not going to involve these guys in our family business,” Evan pleaded. “It’s private. She’s my sister; I have some say in how we are going to handle this.”
“Oh, fuck, yes, I am going to get their help,” Jake said, crossing his arms with his chest out, his fists clenched tight. “I’m going to run this piece of shit dirt bag out of town, off the town board, and far away for good, like a fuckin’ cowboy in a Western. Not even involving the authorities, just Bucky and I are going to talk when I have the goods, and he’ll vanish, you’ll see. But I need these guys. It’s my baby he’s touching. All hands on deck.”
Luke nodded to show they were onboard.
“And don’t think I’m a dickhead and forgot about your camp closing. My wife reminds me every day,” Jake explained. “When the shit’s hitting the fan for real, then I concentrate and step in. Maybe I should’a gone into a town meeting sometime this summer, that’s right. But if it was a day from closing I would have.”
Luke stepped in. “Well, thing is, it could be a day from closing. We have no way of knowing. Your kids have loved camp and there’s like sixty families, plus our income . . .”
“Luke,” Jake interrupted, grabbing his thigh in a vise clench that made Luke jerk back. “When I move for real in my business, I fuckin’ pulverize the competition. We got an enemy here, and I’m using the same skill set. There will be no more summons from Bucky Porter. Ever. Watch this.”
Luke breathed out and looked at Kona. “Well, okay then. We are onboard, Jake. Anything you need.”
“Tomorrow, at the public lot, in the spot right across from the front bench of the Seabrook Club, I’m gonna wait with my car, back side out, the gears into Reverse so the rearview camera is on my dashboard. Then I’ll use my iPhone to film the screen.”
“Okay . . .” Kona looked at Luke, relieved this had nothing to do with a little pussy whisperer harmlessness, and everything to do with something more serious. “I get it. The reverse camera in your car is like a spy camera. And you are spying on what?”
Jake answered, “Bucky Porter, that preppy pervert who’s all over Alexa!”
Kona elbowed Luke.
“Fuckin’ lecherous creep, saw them together at the party I threw on Memorial Day, but I didn’t think they were actually . . . well . . . can’t even say it out loud,” Jake explained. “And then the fight on the beach between them, you all saw. I’m not a dumb shit . . . that fight wasn’t over her fuckin’ board in the water. Face it: she’s a spoiled rich kid, she goes in the water like four times a summer. It wasn’t a board issue.
“So I confronted Alexa the next day, and told her I was calling the cops if she didn’t ’fess up, which she did, finally. She’s got photos of where she and Bucky, well . . . you know, they got to business. First, some cabana at the club, and in the sea grass near my house. These kids and their phones, documenting everything, Jesus. I played it cool with her, like, ‘Okay, just please let’s find you a boyfriend your age.’ I was all understanding and calm, ‘This is your life, honey, I’ll trust you to make decisions.’ I left it at that so she didn’t warn him.”
Luke looked at Kona . . . The guy from the party with the jacket flapped open to the sky was Bucky? Holy shit.
Jake went on, “I figured out I needed an ally inside that club where Bucky hangs out. There’s this Seabrook bartender Henry, cool old black guy, his son caddies at my friend’s golf club. I always tip this kid big because he’s a good caddie, tells me when to use the seven or nine iron because I suck at golf.
“I happened to remember his father, Henry, has worked at the Seabrook for forty years. I needed someone who hated Bucky Porter more than we all do. I thought, if Henry has been there for forty years, and Bucky has been in that club for his whole forty year life, Henry might just want to annihilate this asshole, too.”
Luke and Kona nodded while Jake went on. “I know you guys think I’m a tool . . .”
They couldn’t help nodding again.
“But I got more street smarts than I seem, good at figuring out relationships and motivations, so stick with me here,” Jake continued. “I’m right: turns out Henry despises Bucky Porter. Big-time. Wants to nail him, too. For another matter with young girls. Henry trusts me because I’m good to his son. The kid and I joke around on the course, I talk to him. He knows I come from nothing. Like him.
“Henry is going to signal me when Bucky leaves to sit on his bench. All day, apparently, he steps out of the club to get on his phone, because they don’t allow phone calls inside. I’ll be there with the Range Rover, but this is where you all come in.”
“We’re with you so far,” Luke said. “You got the rearview camera targeted on Bucky on the bench.”
“So, after camp, during camp, whenever the fuck I tell you Bucky’s out there on the bench, you all are gonna get Alexa off the beach, down to the lot. Don’t say anything, just get her to stroll over there to the bench. Tell her to get something in your car, park your trucks near there early, or come up with something, anything. Then she’ll bump into Bucky, they’ll talk. I’ll be recording on the reverse camera of the Range Rover. And we’ll do this again and again until that fucker touches my baby when he thinks no one is looking. Then I show him the tape, the photos from his iPhone that Henry has, and I run him out of town for good. Vigilante style. Your
camp is golden. Win-win.”
Luke asked, “I don’t mean to sound hesitant, I’ve got my own reasons I’m not a Bucky fan. Believe me. We all do. But Jake, you hire so many people, how come you don’t get a firm, or some private eye?”
“I’m telling ya, dude, and you don’t listen.” Jake leaned in. “I drove a fuckin’ laundry truck all night to get myself through college. You can’t build the biggest Laundromat business in America if you didn’t once drive the fuckin’ truck for real. This is my kid. I’m doing this myself. And I’m trouncing this creep my own way.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Nail Him
Tuesday, August 22
Henry Walker texted Jake the next morning.
This isn’t going to be that hard. Your man’s out on that bench half the day in late summer. He’s out there now. We got him.
Jake Chase’s Range Rover was already in the parking spot across from the side entrance of the Seabrook. He’d been there since eight-thirty that morning, making sure his rearview camera could film the bench where Bucky got on calls every day, several times a day. He slouched in his seat so no one would see him, while he sipped his Macchiato in a metal thermos, and ripped off the top of a boysenberry chia muffin his chef had made him.
He’d told Claudio to pack a cooler for the whole day, two meals for him and Evan, extra Parmesan crisps for snacks. When Julia had asked why on earth they needed a full day picnic, Jake told her, “I’m on a roll with an idea, Evan’s helping, a new software plan. I want to lie on the beach all day and visualize it in my head. Then I’m gonna hit the city in September and get the funding. Love you baby, but we need space to create this winner.”
“But Evan doesn’t like the beach, his toes, his hair, why . . .” Her guys were acting shady.
“The kid’s a pussy, he ain’t got a choice.”
“Yeah, Mom, I’m a pussy,” Evan added. “You know that. Dad’s right. I need to snap out of it.”
“Honey, you’re not . . .”
“Just let him be, babe. He’s going to hit a home run here.”
Evan nodded. “Sure as shit are.”
That morning at 9:42 a.m., Bucky Porter walked out the side entrance of the Seabrook and sat on the bench exactly two minutes after Henry had texted. As he got on a call, Evan, already at the top of the camp headquarters, waved his hands wildly at Luke and Kona out in the water. He and his father had texted the guys to hurry up and get Alexa up here. One issue for this motley foursome: the instructors couldn’t answer cell phones when they were battling waves. So Evan was there to signal from shore.
When Luke saw Evan, he paddled into shore, leaving three kids on the sand. “Sit here, kids. No more surfing. Don’t ask.”
“But we were out there, it wasn’t break time, no fair!” yelled a ten-year-old boy.
“Shut up,” said Luke, uncharacteristically short with the children. And he ran to Alexa, midway up the beach, who was lying on a foam surfboard scissoring her legs to keep her core taut, just like her mother had taught her.
“Alexa,” said Luke. “I need help in the lot, can you come?”
“Not now, I’m working on my abs. I’m not surfing today, so I have to do this now.”
“You never surf. You don’t need to do this now.”
“I do.”
“Alexa. Get up. Walk to the lot; get my surfer sunblock off the dashboard of my truck, it’s right in front of the bench of the club. There’s a kid with skin cancer who . . .”
“Cancer, is, like, a really sad thing to happen to, like, anyone,” she answered out of breath, counting to twenty-eight, twenty-nine . . . “But isn’t it his nanny’s responsibility to put on his sunblock?”
Luke looked up and saw that Evan was now making a motion to forget it, and he dragged his index finger across his throat to signal, No go, it had been a short call, Bucky was back in the club.
Jake Chase had a way of getting a little too excited about his ability to crush the opponent. Not having been formally trained in F.B.I., M-15, or Mossad surveillance tactics, Luke, Kona, Jake, and Evan found the sting operation more challenging than planned. Getting Henry to tell them Bucky was there, having Bucky sit on the bench for a long set of calls, urging Alexa to stroll up there at the same time, and then having Bucky make a lewd gesture on a rearview camera required a tad more lining up of the stars than Agent Chase had outlined.
At 11:00 a.m. on day two of the sting operation, or “1100 hours,” as Jake was now referring to it, Henry texted,
Your man is exiting.
Two minutes later, Bucky sat on the bench and got on a call, and Kona this time got Alexa to walk into the lot on cue. Evan cheered silently and even high-fived his new commando-in-arms surfer dude teammate. They watched Alexa as she strolled down to get Kona’s surfboard wax from his Jeep, parked right next to the Seabrook bench.
Bucky was on a call; Jake could tell from the rearview camera that he looked like he was talking to a woman or a young child. His eyebrows were raised, he was making empathetic expressions, pursing his lips like something was adorable; hopefully he was listening to a long story on the line.
Jake crouched down in the front seat, put the Range Rover into Reverse, watched the camera, and filmed it with his iPhone. He bit into some Parmesan crisps nervously, spilling crumbs all over his lap, more like the Cookie Monster than a Navy SEAL hero. He watched Alexa approach Bucky.
“Fuck!” he said to himself as he watched her go out of frame. He tried to maneuver the car a bit to get a few more inches of view. He then dialed Evan. “You see her, is she near the fucker?”
“No, Dad, I can’t see, I’m hiding up here behind the beach porta-potty, it stinks of spoiling hot shit back here. I see Bucky, but she walked around him I think, maybe she’s avoiding . . .”
A loud knock on the driver’s window. It startled Jake so much, he dropped his Tupperware filled with crisps on the car floor. “Fuck!” Then he knocked his orange-flavored Pellegrino can off the center console onto the precious Range Rover mahogany.
“Daddy?” Alexa knocked some more. He rolled down the window. “Camp pickup is at noon, it’s, like, eleven, are you . . .”
“Hey, baby. I just thought I’d watch your amazing surfing progress. Damn, you scared me. I just dropped my snacks.”
“Since when do you eat crackers in containers like that in the middle of the morning?”
“I was hungry.”
This is a fuckin’ shit-show, Jake thought to himself as he watched Bucky leave the bench in the rearview camera.
“Okay . . . but you know I don’t surf. Once in a while when it’s super flat, I’ll paddle out and sit and talk to everyone, but why . . .”
“I’m not allowed to see my baby girl during the day?”
“No. Parents don’t come to camp, Dad. It’s embarrassing. Can we meet in town later? I just saw your BEACH2 license plate because I’m getting Kona something. And, I was wondering why you were here? I bet you’re, like, watching me? Because of my fight with Bucky? But, you said I should handle my business on my own.”
“I’m not, honey, I was just wanting to . . .”
“Yeah, yeah. I got this, Dad. Go home now.”
Fuck. She had him.
On day three at 0800 hours, Jake rolled into the parking spot with a rental car so his daughter wouldn’t scare the shit out of him again. Day four, five, and six that weekend weren’t much different: Henry texted, Bucky would come out, Jake would put the car in Reverse. But the instructors were pretty much out of excuses to get Alexa to the sidewalk, so almost a week went by without any progress.
Though God rested on the seventh day, this commando team could not. Henry texted, Bucky came out to make a call, Jake filmed from his navy, unrecognizable Ford Taurus, and Alexa, late to camp, parked her bike up at the lot.
Kona, clipboard in hand, told her, “Alexa, next summer, you should work as a counselor, love the help you’ve given this week. Do me another favor today, get me some more attendance
sheets, they’re in my glove compartment, go now.”
Evan mashed his hands together behind the stinky porta-potty secret viewing point in prayer. Jake put the Taurus into Reverse in front of Bucky’s bench. This time, praise be to God, Alexa walked up to Bucky, all hot and bothered. She started yelling at him.
“And your point is? That you were born way last century?” Alexa asked, putting her hands on her hips right in front of Bucky at the bench, right in the center of Jake’s rearview camera. Jake crunched down, sweating like a donkey, his shaking hands filming the rearview camera with his iPhone so he’d have video proof. “I don’t know what problem you have with Instagram.”
“I’m not advertising my life on social media,” Bucky explained. “That doesn’t mean I’m out of it. It’s very showy. And frankly, immature.”
“Just FYI, you’re not the boss of me.”
“My friend showed me, Alexa. Give me a break, the photographs are linked together and called, ‘I Did It Today Here’ or something? His son showed it to him, apparently that Instagram posting card is very well known.”
“It’s not a posting card. It’s called an account. And, by the way, it’s an anonymous account, so you can chill.”
“What concerned me was seeing Cabana Number Thirty-Two, the one at the edge, where we, I mean in the high grass by your parents’ house, I saw that too, you can’t tell where that was, so it’s less of a transgression.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “But a posting about the Cabana? C’mon Alexa . . .”
“I’m not admitting to anything. My name’s nowhere near that account. It could be anyone.”
“The Seabrook Club was listed at the location. Southampton.”
“That’s called a Geo-Tag.” She looked at him like he was a grandpa.
“It’s a discretion issue that I’m concerned about. We had a secrecy pact, remember? And then this kind of . . .”
“Um, I seem to remember you get hot when we do it somewhere we shouldn’t.” She smirked at him.
It Happens in the Hamptons Page 27