I got a call later that morning from a guy up in Tannersville who said he had some stuff he wanted to sell: he sounded youngish and hippish, said his stuff was sixties and seventies, so I was interested. My customers didn’t want fuddyduddy-frillywilly-cutesywutsy crap. And I got a lot of calls from people trying to clear out a dead aunt’s house, which usually turned out to be a musty mausoleum reeking of mothballs, talc, and ancient body odors, and jammed with Depression glass, freaky little figurines, Victorian furniture, and third-rate landscapes. That stuff set my teeth on edge.
But this lead sounded promising, so I got in my car and headed west out of the village—Tannersville was up in the mountains. The day was still and humid, with a low gray cloud cover that was flat as a table. I slipped Charlotte Gainsbourg into my CD player as I drove—her moody monotone went well with the weather. I decided to take one of my favorite roads, the Platte Clove Road, a seasonal track that started in West Sawyerville and snaked up the eastern escarpment of the Catskills. The scenery was spectacular as it wound its way up the Plattekill Gorge, but the road was poorly maintained, with no guardrail and a loooooong drop down into the gorge. It was also pretty narrow, so that if a car approached from the other direction, both cars had to slow to a crawl and ease by each other.
I left the village and headed west. It was nice to have something to take my mind off Daphne’s murder. After all, buying and selling was what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I was just starting up the mountain road, with rock face on my right and the gorge on my left, when a hulking SUV appeared in my rearview mirror. The windshield was tinted at the top so I had a hard time making out the driver, but he looked big and impatient. Well, if that porker in his pigmobile thought I was going to race up this road he had another thing coming.
As I wound up the mountain, he kept getting closer and closer until he was tailgating me. I slowed way down and eased over to let him pass. He stayed right on me.
I was starting to get a bad vibe.
Just then he gave my right-rear fender a smack!—pushing me toward the edge.
Holy shit!
Sweat started pouring out of me.
He smacked me again.
I looked down into the gorge—it was steep and a long way down, my car would just keep
plunging
plunging
plunging
until it crumpled into the Plattekill.
I hit the accelerator hard and took off—putting some daylight between me and the motherfucker. Within seconds I was hauling ass around a tight curve, praying that no one was coming from the other side.
The SUV roared up behind me.
He rammed me hard from the left, forcing me into the mountainside. There was a terrible crunch and crush. I spun the wheels out, away from the rock face.
He rammed me again, kept pushing me along the rock, sparks boiling off my front end.
I jammed into reverse—a sickening clang and clunk from the engine.
The SUV pulled back about twenty feet.
Pray he’s done with me.
Then it roared forward and nailed me like a bullet—SMACK! My head whiplashed, my teeth quaked, my front end crumpled into the rock.
As the sonofabitch peeled past me he tossed out a manila envelope. I got a quick look at him—it was Hammer’s henchman Marcus.
I stumbled out of the car, stood there gulping air.
It took me a minute or so, but I realized I was still in one piece.
That’s when I started to get pissed.
Amazingly, my trusty Camry started. I drove it down the mountain to Zack’s. He was off creating earth art, but I knew where he kept his spare key. I let myself into the cabin and headed for the television. There was a DVD in that manila envelope and I slipped it into his player.
An empty room, black and white, shot from above. It took me a second to realize that it was Vince Hammer’s safe room. Then the hidden door swung open and an ordinary looking woman of around forty ducked in and closed the door behind her. My first thought was that I really had to do something about my posture—I looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s long-lost sister. Then again, I was skulking around—who stands up straight when they’re skulking? I watched as I looked longingly at the half-played solitaire game. Tragic. More than anything, I looked like one of those sleazy reality-show contestants who are caught by a hidden camera trying to undermine one of their competitors.
There it all was: me photographing the entries in the date book, and salivating over the cash.
I turned off the DVD. And sat there. I really didn’t appreciate Vince Hammer’s little delivery method. If he’d hoped to scare me off, he’d been wrong. I’ve got this thing about bullies.
They bug me.
I drove—gingerly—down to the dealership in Kingston and within an hour I had a decent used car. Franny Van Kirk’s check came in very handy.
I drove up Route 28 to Ohayo Mountain Road.
“Yes?” a male voice asked over the intercom at Casa Cielo.
“Janet Petrocelli, I’m here to see Vince.”
There was a long pause and then the gate swung open. Hey, this time I was arriving at the front door. I parked in the circular drive and headed up the steps. The door swung open and a dark-suited goon was standing there.
He jerked his head in the direction of the living room. Through the window wall I saw Vince striding around on the huge deck, barking into his cell phone. Nearby, Marcella—in a hot pink leotard—was doing yoga.
I walked out to the deck. Even though it was a cloudy day, Vince was wearing sunglasses so it was a little hard to read his expression, but he didn’t seem surprised to see me. Maybe it was just that he was too preoccupied by his phone call, which was clearly pissing him off.
“Tell them we’ll counter sue! Tell them I’ll hire every lawyer from Albany to Manhattan! And call Speaker Silver’s office at the capital. I want to talk to him today! That bastard owes me.” He slammed the phone shut. “You believe this shit?! They found three fucking endangered newts at River Landing and Riverkeeper has filed an emergency suit to stop the whole project. Newts! I don’t even know what the fuck a newt is! Motherfucking fuck fuck!”
Marcella, who had clearly seen Vince’s tantrums before, just kept up her yoga—she was very in touch with her hair and make-up chakras. In spite of her serene expression, I could see her clock my entrance, antennae up. Then I noticed Marcus hanging back, just inside the doors to the deck.
“Is this a bad time?” I asked.
On a dime, Vince collected himself. He sat down and put his feet up on a table. The message: next to the newts, I was a fly.
“What can I do for you?”
“I just thought I’d return this.”
I held out the DVD.
“Keep it. In fact, how about taking another copy, there are a lot more where that came from,” he said, giving me a loaded look.
“If this one didn’t grab me, I don’t know why I’d want another.”
“Sometimes it takes a couple of viewings for the message to really sink in.”
“Oh, I got the message. But don’t you think your means of delivery was a little overkill?”
“It wasn’t hand-delivered?”
“Yeah right, from a speeding SUV.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said in a way that made me believe him.
“Your loquacious friend lurking over there rammed my car into rockface on the Platte Clove Road.”
Vince’s mouth tightened, Marcella froze in up-dog.
“Marcus, get out here,” Vince called. Marcus came out. “Is that true?”
Marcus looked down.
“I hope your dick is bigger than your brain.”
Marcella went into down-dog.
“I’m listening.”
“I’ll buy it from you.”
“It’s yours to begin with, I can’t take money just to give it back.”
“I like everyone to be happy,” he said.
“Even Daphne Livingston and Esmerelda Pillow?”
“For all we know, they could be very happy right now.”
A maid came out with a cappuccino on a tray. Vince took a sip and looked out at the view. The deck jutted out over the mountainside, it felt like we were suspended in midair. The reservoir, the valley, the mountains looked muted under that flat gray sky.
“I love this valley,” Vince said. “I know you think I’m just some greedbag developer who wants to pave the whole thing over to make a buck.”
I was silent.
“And I think you’re a nosy two-bit do-gooder who’s in way over her head.”
“Well then, we understand each other.”
“I’m not so sure,” he said. “Yeah, I want to make a buck, nothing wrong with that. But I care about this place. Did you know I was born down in Poughkeepsie?”
“Interesting town.”
“It’s a shithole.” He took another sip of his cappuccino. “My Mom got multiple sclerosis when I was five. It took her eight fun-filled years to die. You have any concept what it’s like to watch your Mom die like that? Losing control of her arms and legs, her speech, her bowels, her breathing. My dad shut down. He delivered heating oil, just went to work, came home, and drank in front of the television set. He was a loser. Mom lived in this crummy room behind the kitchen.”
In spite of everything I knew and felt about this guy, I was interested.
“I spent as little time as possible in that house. My bike and my brain were my best friends—I’d ride all day long, up to Hyde Park, even Rhinebeck. I’d look at the fancy houses and think that the people living in them must be so happy. I was a smart kid, I applied for a scholarship to a fancy boarding school outside Boston. I got in. But the rich kids there gave me the cold shoulder. They were all over the minority scholarship kids, but I was white trash. It sucked. I decided to skip college. Well, guess what? I’m richer than any of them. And I’m going to own Westward Farm. And I’m going to give three hundred of the acres to the State of New York with a nice fat endowment and we’re going to create the Kathleen Hammer Nature Preserve.”
Marcella started oooommm-ing.
“Nice way to honor your mom’s memory.”
“Not really, she hated nature.”
“It’s also a nice way to earn some good press and a fat tax write-off.”
“I’m going to invite my whole fucking class from St. Marks to the dedication.”
“Still holding on to that resentment.”
“I love that resentment—it drives me.”
“Maybe too far sometimes.”
“Janet, I’m as clean as a whistle in the thistle. Vince Hammer doesn’t fuck up. Marcella, will you cool it with the goddamn chanting, you know I have a headache.”
Marcella oooommm-ed one last time and then stood up. She walked over to us, giving me a lofty little smile.
“Sounds like you two are having a heavy-heavy over here,” she said.
“Not really, we’re just getting to know each other a little better,” Vince said.
“Be careful, Vince has a lot of drive,” Marcella said.
“You’ve got as much drive as I do, baby, you just keep it in a prettier package. This lady is brilliant. She has a B.A. from Yale, an M.A. from Penn, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from UCLA.”
And she was putting all those degrees to good use in that leotard.
“What was your thesis topic?” I asked.
“Ego, Sex, and Money—Kierkegaard versus Voltaire.” She gave me a wry smile.
“Weighty, huh?” Vince said. “I love smart women. I think we’re a pretty damn good team.”
“Rah-rah sis-kum-ba,” Marcella drawled. She flipped her hair back. “I think mankind is going through the most profound societal transition since the Industrial Revolution. They’ve done studies at M.I.T. that prove that the brain synapses of the so-called digital generation fire differently—up to seven times faster—than people over twenty-five. Their eye-brain coordination is unprecedented, as is their ability to absorb and process information and to engage in multiple intellectual activities simultaneously.”
“I’m not sure I consider text messaging an intellectual activity,” I said.
“We’re seeing human evolution accelerating in front of our eyes. What engages and troubles me is the question of where this leaves the developing world. They still haven’t mastered the agrarian model. Without access to computers, they’ll fall further and further behind. We’ll see a de facto master race emerge, based not on race or country but on mastery of the language and tools of the digital age. If we don’t take action, the consequences for humanity will be catastrophic.” She stopped for a quick breath before delivering the topper. “I started my foundation to address these issues.”
Vince’s eyes were glowing with admiration. “Not only is she brilliant, she cares. Get this—Marcella is already on the board at the Bardavon Theater, the Catskill Center for Conservation, and Benedictine Hospital. And she’s not just a check writer, she volunteers down at Benedictine. All I can say is: watch out Hillary.” He pulled her down onto his lap. “Christ, I love this woman.”
Marcella giggled. Very intellectual.
Vince ran his hand down her arm, hip, thigh. She started unbuttoning his shirt. Now they were kissing—like serious Frenching. This was only going in one direction. Whatever happened to manners?
I would have said goodbye, but I was invisible, so why bother?
I started to leave. Marcus was still lurking just inside the doors.
“Janet?” Vince called. I turned. Marcella was licking his neck. “Friends?”
“Yeah, sure, let’s do Cancun.”
“I think he’s got the ethics of a gutter rat, but I’m not sure he’s capable of murder,” I said to Abba as I dug into her chicken potpie. I learned one thing for sure today: getting run off the road gives you a hell of an appetite. And this was a world-class potpie, specked with bits of fresh sage. “His lady friend sure is a piece of work, we’re talking fierce.”
“From what I’ve heard, she’s really pushing to become a big-time player on the political and social scenes,” Abba said. “She has her eyes on Manhattan, and conquering the valley is her steppingstone.”
“Why the hell anyone would want to be a part of those worlds is just beyond me. I’d much rather hang out in jeans and eat chicken potpie.”
“Maybe the two murders aren’t related,” Abba said. “Esmerelda was in a dangerous game. When you run serious drugs you’re playing with some vicious characters.”
“True.”
“And maybe Daphne Livingston killed herself, after all,” Abba said. “Heroin addicts tend to be very unhappy people.”
“My gut tells me she didn’t.”
My cell rang.
“This is Janet.”
“Franny Van Kirk. Ethel’s behavior is growing even more bizarre.”
“How?”
“She’s taken to chattering like a nattering nabob, I think she’s on some sort of happy pills. And she isn’t stealing mine, I counted. She’s going on about quitting her job, leaving me to fend for myself after thirty-five years. She’s putting on airs, and she won’t tell me where all this sudden money has come from. She gets very snippy indeed when I bring up Daphne’s death.”
“You haven’t gotten any information out of her?”
“No, but there is informat
ion to be gotten.”
“Any ideas on how?” I asked.
“Liquor tends to loosen her lips.”
“What kind?”
“Bourbon is her favorite.”
“Why don’t I come over tomorrow afternoon and bring you a little present of a very fine bourbon?”
“I like the way you think.”
Just as I was getting back to my food, George and Mad John burst into Chow.
“We just got a temporary restraining order on River Landing!” George yelled to the whole place, which erupted in cheers. Mad John started doing his jumping up and down thing. “The judge up in Albany ruled that the project can’t proceed until a newt census is completed. It was the newts that did it! And it was Mad John’s idea,” George said.
Mad John cackled with pride.
“How did you know they were endangered?” I asked him.
“I just knew I didn’t see ’em much,” he said with a big grin. I was starting to dig his checkerboard teeth.
“This calls for a celebration,” Abba said, taking a still-warm blueberry pie off the pass-through shelf. “Free pie on the house. Pearl, get me some vanilla ice cream.” Then she turned on the radio to WDST—Bruce Springsteen singing “Born in the USA” came on.
Mad John and George started dancing together in the middle of the restaurant. Penny, a beyond-burned-out old hippy chick who was known for quoting Gurdjieff and giving blow jobs behind the dumpster in the town parking lot, got up and joined them. A cackling, howling ,hooting Mad John grabbed Pearl and pulled her out to the dance floor, where she stood stock still. More dancers joined the bop hop. A couple of bottles of wine appeared.
Just another day at Abba’s.
My cell phone rang again. I ducked into the kitchen. “Hello.”
“It’s Claire Livingston.”
“Hi, Claire.”
“Can we meet, we need to talk.”
“Last time we talked you threatened to rip my face off.”
“I want to apologize for that, I was feeling a little emotional. But I need to see you.”
To the Manor Dead Page 11