A Hamptons Christmas (12 page)

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Authors: James Brady

BOOK: A Hamptons Christmas
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You fall in the Atlantic in winter. You're dead within the hour …
Even the ocean slows in winter here at the end of Long Island. The Atlantic is still all around us, embracing the land and its people, the green lawns and the gardens sloping down toward the beach, which is still golden if no longer warm. But in the cold, the surf slows. Not calms, I don't mean that. There are still the great waves, heavy, powerful, booming. But the pause between breakers becomes appreciably longer. Not eight but twelve seconds or fifteen. Full minutes pass between the “sets” of greater, more powerful waves that come in multiples of five, or is it nine? The surfers can tell you all about them. People say it's the molecules of sea water that slow in winter, jellied by the cold. And their sluggishness communicates itself to the actual waves as the ocean congeals, turns more ponderous, less skittish and playful. Not that it becomes less dangerous; the sea is always that. Only that its chill sluggishness may lull the unwary into complacency.
Which is surely not to say that anyone out here in the Hamptons was either complacent or sluggish, not last Christmas.
There remained gift shopping to be done, and the feast itself to be planned and laid out. The Admiral had Emma cheating him at cards, I had Alix in my bed, the Baymen were still sore about
the Old Churchyard, the cemetery trustees had until December 31 to hand down a final, binding decision, and Reds Hucko's corpse had not yet turned up. And if it did, the Baymen concluded glumly, he couldn't be buried anyway. All because of that damned Marley and his sister!
Nor had Sister Infanta de Castille gone sluggish or complacent.
The assignment handed her in Paris a week ago by the great detective agency had been a simple one. Track down a missing child who had left her Swiss convent school, presumably to spend Christmas with either of two divorced parents, but suspected not to have gone to either. Find the child, report back, and await instructions. The subject was not to be “rescued” or even approached ; this was hardly one of those bizarre cult cases that called for deprogramming. Sister—or Mile—Javert, as she really was, was ordered to do nothing unless Mr. Driver appeared on the scene, when she would instantly contact Nicole for orders.
Until then, do nothing. Just wait.
The problem? Mademoiselle was bored. As a true Javert, direct descendant of the famous Javert, “an Inspector of the Police,” who stalked Jean Valjean in Les
Misérables
and who herself despite the five generations of Javerts that separated this particular Javert from her illustrious ancestor, shared his intensity and passion. You didn't just take a Javert off a case and tell him to stand easy. When a Javert got the scent, the bloodhound in the genes came through, as he or she ran the prey to earth, much as the original Inspector Javert had tracked poor Valjean. So when she found Emma Driver so quickly (taken in by a local family called Stowe on Further Lane), and forced inactivity loomed, Mademoiselle kept herself occupied by picking at other loose threads in the puzzle:
There'd been bad blood between Dick Driver and the late Jacob Marley? Good! The late Marley was the benefactor of young Emma? Even better! The surviving Sis Marley had stoked into flame the smouldering enmity of East Hampton's celebrated Baymen? Excellent!
Simplest thing in the world: get close to the Baymen and work her way back to the Marleys through their resentments. Being paid
(and handsomely) by the day, Mademoiselle could easily have shrugged Gallic shoulders, enjoyed an American Christmas, and done nothing.
Except that a Javert never rests! What made her the best in the business was a thorough professionalism, a passion for her craft. A sleuth ought to be sleuthing. It was at this point that Mademoiselle Javert dove below the surface of her undercover role and literally became a nun, a Madame of the Sacred Tower. Mademoiselle understood, as John LeCarré reminds us, that a good agent has entertainment value. And that a great agent not only assumes a role but lives it. And who were the very best nuns? The saints! Mademoiselle Javert would not only become a nun, but a … saint!
Ministering to the hopeless and to those in despair. And who in East Hampton were the most hopeless, the most despairing people? Simple! The Bonac Boys in their grief over Reds Hucko and their anger at the Marleys for forbidding the dead their hallowed ground.
Sister Infanta summoned the anointed chief, Peanuts Murphy, ordering him a cup of the American Hotel's coffee and blessing herself.
“You despair too quickly,” she informed Murphy, silently telling her beads, getting briskly to the point.
“What's that supposed to mean, Sister?” Peanuts asked, surly but wary at the same time. He didn't yet understand this woman.
“It means you give up your friend Hucko to the sea and lay plans for his burial, when the graveyard is forbidden to you, and as yet there's no evidence he's even dead.”
“For God's sake, begging your pardon, Sister, but Reds went into the North Atlantic a hundred miles out last month. You telling me he's still treading water?”
The rosary beads slipped smoothly through her fingers as she and Peanuts parried.
“Have you prayed?”
“Sure, lots of people prayed. We got serious Catholics out here. Irish, Polacks, Guineas. They all pray. They got novenas, retreats,
rosaries. During Lent, they give out ashes, they give out palm. Lots of stuff.”
“But have you specifically prayed for the unfortunate Hucko?”
“Not me, but I ain't much for it. Others, sure. They're praying all the time for Reds's soul. Night and frigging day.”
“See, you of little faith, you capitulate too easily, send up the white flag. I tell you, Mr. Murphy, set your priorities. Pray for the man's body first. That he survives. You have all eternity to pray for his soul. There's no rush.”
“Lady, Sister, he's dead. You know religion, your rosary beads. I know the Atlantic. You fall in the ocean in winter, you die in an hour. A couple of hours. Reds fell off the Wendy E. three weeks ago.”
Mademoiselle Javert wasn't buying. Nor was Sister Infanta de Castille.
“We shall pray together, Murphy! At the margin of the great ocean that took your friend. Each day until he returns, you and I will kneel by the water's edge and attempt to bring him back.”
“Yes, ma'am. Outstanding! Right you are,” Peanuts stammered, on his feet now and backing away. He would have agreed to anything, couldn't wait to get out of there.
That night over beer Peanuts briefed the Bonac Boys, six or eight of them gathered at Wolfies's Tavern.
“She's a whackjob,” he said. “Wants us to kneel in the surf and say the rosary and stare at the horizon. Six Our Fathers, six Hail Marys. Hymns, as well. And watch for Reds to come wading up the goddamned beach, seaweed in his hair and returned from the deep.”
“Let's have another round,” someone said.
But in the end, because it couldn't hurt, and maybe might even help, a dozen or so Baymen, with a couple of girlfriends and wives and little ones along for moral support (plus three guys Reds owed money to), gathered the following morning at daybreak (just before eight A.M. at these latitudes and in this season) on the beach below the cliffs where teeters the ancient Montauk Lighthouse, to be
addressed by Sister Infanta de Castille, now sporting a brand-new and roomy scarlet down parka, which kind of gave her the look of a cardinal of the church.
“You have no faith. Pray without ceasing, that's what the saints tell us. And the mystics. You don't just rattle off an Ave or a Pater Noster and retreat into despair. Think of St. Sebastian punctured by arrows. Or the Jesuit Isaac Jogues skinned alive by Iroquois. Did they despair? Or Peter, our first Pope, crucified upside down. This Reds of yours, well, who's to say he's lost. Really lost?”
There were shrugs and a few mutters, then the Frenchwoman clapped her hands.
“Bien
, now, let's kneel, here at the margins of the sea, and pray for Reds Hucko …”
One of the women knelt first, following Sister Infanta's lead, and then another, and then two or three of the men. Then they all knelt, including, Sister was surprised to note, Peanuts Murphy.
Who had earlier told her of prayer, “I ain't much for it.
Sis drove a powerful Range Rover with the logo altered to read “Deranged Rover.”
I would shortly learn of these dawn prayers (they were all the talk that night at the Blue Parrot, where Don Hewitt of CBS heard the story and started the reportorial ball rolling even more powerfully at
60 Minutes
), but not until later would I hear what else Sister Infanta was up to.
Lefty Odets's progress, or lack of same, I knew all about and quickly.
Dick Driver had given Lefty roughly the same instuctions as Mademoiselle Javert's agency got from Nicole. Find his daughter, sure, but find out what Nicole (and the Impaler) were up to and how she planned to use the kid at The Hague. Lefty, who thought he was more clever than most, decided he wouldn't just camp out watching for young Susannah (Dick gave Lefty her passport name). Easier to find two high-profile jet-setters than some skinny schoolgirl.
So Lefty Odets started his search for Nicole and her boyfriend by hanging out at East Hampton airport, scrutinizing the private jets coming in. And paying a local fellow a few bucks to check the railroad station. And limos, if any.
The local fellow was the Indian chief, Jesse Maine. And before
another day and a half was out, Jesse had one-third of the population of the Shinnecock Indian Reservation on Lefty's payroll, working per diem, looking for a beautiful blonde who once skated in the ice show and a dashing European gent named Count Vlad. My father knew Joe Coffey pretty well from various undercover assignments.
“Ask him if this Odets is as dumb as he seems,” I prompted.
My father gave me a look.
“I can think up the questions all by myself, thank you,” he said.
“Okay, okay.”
When he got Coffey, they talked for a time and then the admiral thanked him and hung up.
“He says as far as Odets goes, if confidence was brains, he'd be a genius. Otherwise, except that he talks a good game and tries to get himself on some radio show …”
I called Jesse. “It's like taking candy from babies. You ought to be ashamed.”
He was, a bit, Jesse admitted when he came by the house a bit later. “But with Christmas just about here and the little ones sending their lists to Santy, we Native American fellows can use a few dollars that ain't otherwise working.”
In addition to taking Lefty's (or rather Mr. Driver's) money, the Shinnecocks were leading him seriously astray. Up the Peconic River from Riverhead in a canoe. Over to the North Fork to scrutinize a perfectly innocent potato farm. Out to Gosman's Dock in Montauk to study fishing boats. Surveillance of an abandoned house on Dune Road in Westhampton Beach. To watch deer grazing over in North Haven. Odets put hundreds of miles on his odometer and hours on the car's cell phone. In Manhattan Dick Driver cursed him out and told him he didn't want any more negative reports. Until he found Nicole and what she was actally doing with the kid, and where, Lefty should observe radio silence. “You don't know who the hell's listening in,” Dick said angrily. “If I'm running for president, I don't need
People
magazine sniffing around or a story on
Entertainment Tonight
!”
When Odets demanded a closer accounting of the Shinnecocks,
Jesse Maine looked grave and told Lefty that the Great Spirit worked in strange ways and that Odets would be rewarded for his patience.
“Strangers often become confused out here in the Hamptons, among our fens and bogs, Lady Alix,” Jesse reminded us. “Remember that Kuwaiti fellow, the archery champ who fell among turtles in Hook Pond?”
Did she not, Alix shuddered.
“Which turtles were those, chief?” Emma asked, coming into the room.
When I failed to shut Jesse up, he was off and running. “They got snappers out there, Jane, snapping turtles go a good sixty pounds. Maybe more. Take a man's foot sure as look at him. I won't pull one into the canoe with me, not a big one. Them bastards scurry around so and bite at your damned Nikes and go for a bare ankle if they can reach one. You get distracted and start to lurching about the canoe and whacking at the turtles with your paddle, and next thing you know you're capsized, flailing about the pond or worse, bogged down.”
“What's bogged down? Sounds awful.”
“Oh, it is, Emma, er, Jane,” Alix assured her. “Don't even think about it. You'll have nightmares.”
“Do tell me, Beecher, do!” Emma protested. “Not at all fair teasing innocent children with little morsels, and then not telling all.”
By now, I was on the cusp of concluding she was about as innocent as Jesse's killer turtles.
There'd been a couple of nights of hard freeze, and you began to hear talk we might have good ice for skating before Christmas. I hoped so. Even if the kid did attend school in Switzerland, skating here was something. The village had begun filling up for the holidays. Not summer-filled; you could still get a seat in the movie house and a table at Nick & Toni's or the Laundry. But the Christmas people were here and more coming in each day as the prep schools and Ivy League closed down. Is it okay to call them that, Christmas people?
The Admiral took us to dinner at Gordon's in Amagansett, and at the next table a sleek young man, in-between cell phone calls made and received, was busily trying to convince a very beautiful young woman she ought to go someplace with him that he had to go. Or
was
he attempting to convince her?
“Look, I really, really,
really
want you to go with me. But not if you're going to hate it and be miserable.”
“You really want me there?” She was quite fine to look at and sounded sincere.
“You know I do. But I also want the right thing for you. And for you to be at ease and enjoy yourself.”
There was a bit more of this. Until Emma, sort of sotto voce but not quite, if you know what I mean, said:
“I don't think he wants her to go at all, do you?”
“My thinking precisely,” agreed Alix, her voice even less sotto and more voce.
“Let's have a look at the card then,” said my father loudly, passing around menus and talking over the others in deference to the young couple at the next table.
“Swell idea,” I said, falling in with his strategy. “And wait till you see the desserts …”
“Because,” Emma picked up again, “if you really want someone to do something, you can always tell. At least I can.”
“The swordfish steaks here are unusually fine, Jane,” said the Admiral. “Have you ever had swordfish?”
“I'm not sure. Do they serve it with the sword on or off,
cher
Admiral?”
“Off, usually.”
“And is there gravy? If I don't like a new dish but there's gravy, I can usually get it down without barfing.”
“There's a good deal to be said for that theory,” Her Ladyship remarked. “I'm told the secret of contemporary French cuisine, their savory sauces, derives from the siege of Paris by the Prussians in 1870. Parisians were reduced to eating dogs and rats, and the great chefs of the three-star restaurants saved the day by concocting and ladling on the most delicious and savory of sauces.”
“Ugh, Alix! Eating rats? Phooey on that.”
“They were parlous times, I assure you. Desperate moments, born of necessity.”
Over dessert Emma asked my father, “
Grand seigneur,
considering that Mr. Marley is dead, so there's no way I can ever thank . him properly for his kindnesses when I was a little kid, do you think it might be possible for me to call on his sister and thank her?”
The grand seigneur cleared his throat. “Well, you know how she is. Or perhaps you don't. But she—”
“Sometimes I think I remember her. But then, maybe there was another lady at Mr. Marley's house with the verandas that I remember. I can't be sure.”
My father sought an analogy.
“You know the film
The Wizard of Oz.”
“Bien sûr.
One of my faves.”
“Well, young Dorothy had an aunt, Auntie Em, I think was her name, very much like your own, and she—”
“Oh, I do hope she's like that, like Auntie Em,
Herr Grosseadmiral.”
“Yes, yes. Except that I was about to say, Ms. Marley is sort of an anti—Auntie Em, if I can make the point. There are times when Sis Marley may remind one more of, well … .”
“Oh, you mean the Wicked Witch of the West,” said Emma, making a face.
“Not quite that bad. No flying monkeys. But she has her moments.”
Emma thought for a time.
“I'd still like to pay my respects,
mein herr
. And if she's in a testy moment, I can always drop a swift curtsey and back off, no?”
Alix shook her head in admiration.
“Precisely the posture I'd take, Beecher. Wouldn't you?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. To curtsey on departing Sis Marley, or not to curtsey, wasn't the sort of thing you want to debate with the aristocracy.
In the morning the Admiral made the phone call, looking sour
about it. “I don't get on with that woman. All very well that she's the keeper of the flame for brother Jake. But she is a piece of work.”
I knew that much for myself. Sis was locally reconizable for driving, and driving fast, in a powerful Range Rover with huge oversized tires and a souped-up engine. Above the reinforced front bumper where the brand logo is located, she'd had the printing professionally altered so that it now read “Deranged Rover.”
“Mind, now, I'm only doing this for you, Beecher,” my father said.
“For me? Not my idea!”
“Well, you're forever bringing these waifs home.”
“Waifs? Waifs plural?” He was never going to allow me to forget it.
Sis Marley, the Admiral said, sounded reluctant at best. “Perhaps after Christmas. I'm occupied until then.” And hung up. He reported this to Emma, who didn't seem to feel snubbed, and said that after Christmas would be fine.

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