Mark Mills - Amagansett

To have dropped it then and there would have been impolite. Thankfully, Joe took it off him.

‘Must have developed hisself a taste for kitty meat. Best dispose of the evidence while I figures what to do.’ He lobbed the fur ball out into the creek.

Hollis noted that it floated.

Joe suddenly clamped a hand on his shoulder. ‘There’s a clam pie needs eatin’ and some cold beers to wash it down with.’

‘Thank you, God,’ thought Hollis.

They went and dunked themselves in the creek before dinner to wash away the sweat and the grime, stepping gingerly through the rushes, the mud oozing between their toes. Hollis was forced to confess to Mary that he couldn’t really swim. He knew that at a push he could flail his way to the side of a swimming pool, because he’d been forced to do so once on a day-trip to Coney Island when his father had tossed him into the deep end of the marble pool in the Pavilion of Fun. But the atavistic impulse to survive which had driven him through the water that day had little in common with the pleasure others appeared to get from swimming.

He stood near the bank up to his chest in water while Mary stroked around leisurely in the dying rays of the sun, glancing over every so often to check that he hadn’t lost his footing and slipped beneath the surface. He was warmed by her concern, and surprised by the force of the urge that welled up inside him when she stepped from the water.

She slapped his hand away and told him to behave.

They ate dinner inside by the light of a kerosene lamp hanging from a beam. The clam pie was hot and the beer, as promised, cold—manna and nectar after a day’s hiking.

‘So, bub, you get to see the sights?’

‘I think we covered pretty much everything between East Hampton and here.’

Joe laughed. ‘It’s the one comfort now that my legs is goin’—Mary don’t get to drag me around with her.’

‘He’s lying,’ said Mary. ‘Everything I showed you, Joe showed me first.’

‘Have you lived here all your life?’ asked Hollis.

‘Since the war, the one with the South—1861. Born right over there in back of Hog Creek.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Hollis, ‘she’s related to you too.’

‘Goin’ back some, but they don’t like to talk of it, them Nor’fleets.’ Unseen to Mary, he winked at Hollis.

‘That’s not true,’ she said indignantly.

‘We’re Bonackers, you see, us Milnes—clam-diggers. We was poor as muck when we first come here to tend sheep for them Gardiners out on the island; three centuries on we still ain’t got enough real estate to put in a flower pot. There’s some things you can’t change, I guess. What mule ever had another mule for a ma or a pa?’

‘Excuse me?’ said Hollis.

‘You can’t breed mules from mules,’ said Mary. ‘And you can stop bellyaching, for one,’ she continued, turning back to Joe.

‘Why not?’ asked Hollis.

‘What?’ asked Mary irritably.

‘Why can’t you breed mules from mules? I mean, where do they come from?’

‘They’re horses crossed with donkeys. They’re sterile.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m proud of my Bonacker blood,’ said Mary to Joe, defensively.

‘I know you is. And you know most in these parts ain’t of your mind.’

It was the low point of the evening, watching Mary brought to heel, Joe retouching the rose-colored picture she had painted for Hollis over the course of the day. But he loved her all the more for the speed with which she recovered, abandoning her pout for lively banter designed to draw him into the conversation.

He was being presented to Joe—that much was clear—for the old man’s scrutiny, his seal of approval. Normally, he would have kicked against such a test, but he rose to the challenge without effort, assisted by the bottle of whiskey that landed on the table with a welcome thump once the plates were cleared. And when it came to explaining how he’d come to join the East Hampton Town Police Department, he almost believed his own lies.

It was Mary who brought the evening to a close, attending to the dishes at the sink, prompting Joe to insist that she let them alone. Armed with a couple of extra blankets, they were banished to a large hut out back. It was a shed used for shucking scallops in season, Mary explained, and the mountain of empty shells heaped up outside gleamed white in the moonlight.

They used the blankets to enlarge the bed Joe had made up for her, and they undressed by the glow of a kerosene lamp that cast their shadows around the timber walls.

‘Lie back,’ said Mary, reaching into her knapsack. She removed a pot of Pond’s cream and scooped some on to her fingertips.

Hollis closed his eyes, anticipating some delicious prelude to a sexual romp. The cream was cool against his chest, his neck, his face, his arms. It was all becoming a little too matter-of-fact, her attentions drifting away from the center of his body towards the extremities.

He opened an eye.

‘For the mosquitoes,’ said Mary. ‘They can be pretty fierce around here.’

She wasn’t joking.

Twenty-Three

‘Are you sure you heard him right?’

‘For God’s sake, Richard, of course I’m sure.’

‘Tell me again exactly what he said.’

Manfred drew hard on his cigarette and exhaled. ‘He said he knew about Lizzie Jencks. And he said it wasn’t all he knew.’ His head snapped round towards Wakeley. ‘I’m not imagining it. He was at me all day, nothing obvious, small things, niggling. He knows. Believe me.’

Wakeley considered his words for a moment. ‘It’s not impossible.’

Manfred laughed—a short, incredulous expulsion of air. ‘No, I’ll say it isn’t!’

‘But how does he know? And what exactly? Was he there when it happened?’

Three unanswered questions strung together, and yet Manfred found them strangely reassuring. Richard was already displaying more clarity of thought than he had been able to muster all evening.

Dinner had been a living hell, spinning in the void of his own head while trying to do the right thing by their house guests. Richard had only returned from visiting friends as cocktails were being served, and there had been no opportunity to share the burden with him until now. But standing there on the bluff at the end of the garden, overlooking the ocean, the others safely in bed, he felt better already. Not exactly restored, but beginning to believe it might just be possible to shore up the crumbling edifice of his life.

Richard could have that effect on you. Even in the most adverse circumstances he remained reassuringly calm, utterly insightful. It was the reason he had been hired in the first place, the reason they still paid him so handsomely almost twenty years on. They had made him rich, rich enough not to be tempted by the rival offers of employ he must surely have received over the years. And he had earned every penny of his small fortune, isolating and ironing out problems on their behalf.

When the unions had threatened production at the Cuban sugar plantation, Richard had advised against the strong-arm tactics employed by the other operators, opting to fly to Havana himself. He did nothing for the first week other than inform himself about the enemy—the personalities, the politics and, most importantly, the rivalries, both within and between the two labor organizations in question.

And then he had destroyed them from the inside. Not completely—that would have proved self-defeating in the long term—but just enough to undermine the workers’ confidence in their representatives. He fueled tensions, ambitions, turning stewards against bosses, splitting committees, oiling the wheels of discord with cash ‘donations’, which he then ensured were brought to the attention of the workers.

Concessions were made; they had to be. Men were given two days’ paid vacation on the birth of a child. A nursery was provided free of charge, in the knowledge that few would expose their children to the coarse language of the cane-cutters’ buses. A literacy program was introduced, not that anyone in their right mind would want to spend their precious lunch break in a classroom. The cost of these measures was carefully calculated to fall well short of the losses the company had been facing. Moreover, the initiatives created a false impression of high-minded munificence: the caring face of capitalism. It had been a Machiavellian masterstroke on Richard’s part.

And when the girl had stepped in front of the car on that dark, lonely lane, Richard was the person he had turned to—Richard, who always knew what to do, who never disappointed.

Whatever his counsel had been that night, Manfred would have followed it unswervingly. As it was, he found himself driving the length of Long Island in the early hours of the morning, a traumatized Lillian sitting beside him. Their destination was a rundown gas station on the outskirts of Jamaica Bay. Two men were waiting for them near the pumps. One wordlessly got behind the wheel of the damaged Chrysler and disappeared into the night. The second drove them to a taxi rank on Broadway. He was under instructions, he explained, not to take them home. It was better that he knew nothing about them: better for them, better for him.

The cover story was in its infancy, but already hatched and finding its place in the world. It would undergo certain refinements once Richard had thought it through from every possible angle, but the skeleton was there from the first. The version of events he told them to think about and add texture to was this: Manfred had gone to the dinner dance at the Devon Yacht Club with Lillian and Gayle around seven-thirty. At nine they were telephoned at the club by Justin, who had only just arrived at his house, having been obliged to stay late in the city. They told him the evening was proving to be something of a dud, and it was decided that they leave and join him at his place. Gayle stayed on at the club.

Up until this point in the story, the presence of witnesses demanded that truth and fiction run the same course. They now parted company and Richard’s imagination came into play.

If asked, Manfred and Lillian were to say that they’d been at Justin’s for no more than half an hour when an argument broke out between the two men. Upset with her fiancé’s behavior, Lillian left with Manfred when he stormed out. Manfred was still fuming when they arrived back at their house on Further Lane, where he announced he was returning to the city. Lillian offered to accompany him back. They packed their bags and left well before midnight, something Richard would attest to if called on to do so. A few hours later, as they were entering the outskirts of New York, Manfred’s car broke down. Forced to abandon it, they thumbed a lift with a stranger to a taxi rank on Broadway and a cabbie drove them the final leg to Lillian’s apartment.

It was a good story, which had stood the test of their remorseless scrutiny, a remarkable achievement by Richard given that he had fabricated it in a little under ten minutes. He was assisted by a few pieces of good fortune, the chief one being that Justin was the only member of his family staying at the house that weekend, so no one saw the three of them leave the place at one o’clock in the morning, drunk, and in two cars.

They hadn’t set out to race, but maybe it was inevitable. Justin had spent a good part of the evening making fun of Manfred’s new Chrysler, a Town and Country Convertible. The mahogany doors and trunk lid, trimmed with white ash, made it look like a mobile sideboard, he said; and while he was sure it would draw admiring glances from every carpenter between Park Avenue and Montauk Point, it really wasn’t a fit vehicle for a man of taste to be seen driving around in. He conceded that the car had its advantages. Should Manfred ever break down in the wilderness he would always have a ready supply of kindling to hand for a warming campfire.

He kept returning to the subject, laughing more raucously each time he did so. Manfred took the joshing in good grace, although he didn’t appreciate Lillian’s disloyalty, chortling at his expense. It was maybe out of guilt that she chose to ride with him when they decided to head over to their house on Further Lane.

Justin led the way in his Packard, heading south down Old Stone Highway, the narrow road weaving its way through the oak woods. As they rounded a bend, a short straight presented itself to them. Lillian, with her uncanny sense for reading his mind, said, ‘Go on. If you must.’

Manfred floored the throttle, and the Chrysler swept effortlessly past the Packard. Justin was better acquainted with the road, but Manfred knew it well enough to head him off each time he came back at them and tried to pass. The turning on to Albert’s Landing Road whistled by on their left—a flicker in the headlights, a vertical break in the trees.

A little further on, Manfred slowed for a sharp left-hand bend. The Packard closed, Justin anticipating the straight that lay beyond, but at the last second Manfred swung the wheel, turning into Town Lane. It was a hard right-hander that seemed to go on and on, the road almost doubling back on itself, the tires screeching in protest, Lillian doing a good job of mimicking them. Manfred couldn’t afford to take his eyes off the road, but he didn’t need to, he could see the headlights of the Packard sweeping over them, still in pursuit.

Justin had taken the bait. It was a mistake. If he’d kept on going he might well have beaten them back to Further Lane and justifiably claimed victory. As it was, they would pull away on the long straight that was Town Lane, ground that Justin would never be able to make up.

The Chrysler didn’t disappoint. As soon as they were clear of the woods shrouding Quail Hill the headlights revealed a road as straight as a city avenue, and the car came into its own, powering away from its pursuer through open countryside. Manfred permitted himself a satisfied chuckle.

‘That was damn stupid!’ snapped Lillian above the rush of wind.

‘Don’t worry, it’s over now.’

But his foot remained pressed to the floor. The needle nudged eighty miles per hour. He glanced over his shoulder to see the Packard falling behind, its headlights barely penetrating the clouds of dust thrown up in their wake.

‘Manfred!’

The idea that time slowed down in such situations, Manfred now knew to be a myth. It didn’t. If anything, it speeded up, compressing moments into an instant: his head snapping back to the road, the ghostly figure frozen in the headlights and the sickening thud of the impact.

The body was hurled heavenwards, clipping the top corner of the windshield as it spun off into the darkness at the side of the road. Manfred could remember turning instinctively and thinking that nothing could possibly spin so quickly in the air, certainly not a body, whirring like the blades of a fan.

He hit the brakes and the car slewed dangerously before coming to a halt. Justin overshot them by a good hundred yards.

‘Oh my God,’ gasped Lillian.

‘I didn’t see him.’

‘It was a girl.’

The figure had made no attempt to move, but had just stood there, facing the oncoming car.

‘She stepped into the road,’ gasped Lillian, ‘just stepped into the road…Oh my God.’