Hard Stop (25 page)

“It’s involved,” I told her.

“It always is,” she said, taking a final half-hearted wipe at the table and going back behind the bar.

Eddie greeted Honest Boy at the door, delighted with a newfound relationship: “Cool, this guy is, like, everywhere!”

For his part, Honest Boy looked somewhere between repelled and vaguely alarmed. The Pequot often had that effect on people. Once they got to know the place, the repulsion wore off.

“I didn’t know they let dogs into restaurants,” he said as he pulled up a chair.

“Eddie rejects those artificial social barriers.”

“I thought it was the health department,” he said, looking around the joint.

“You’ll have to take that up with them.”

“Judson said you had mental problems,” said Honest Boy, half to himself, then realizing what he’d said, quickly added, “Not that I think that.”

Dorothy arrived in time to hear.

“I don’t believe you,” she said to him.

“He has to tell the truth. His name’s Honest Boy.”

Dorothy looked impressed, not an easy thing to achieve.

“Get out of here.”

“That’s the handle. Honestly,” he said, for the fourteen millionth time. She reached out to shake. He looked at her hand, taken aback by the fingerless glove that went up well past her elbow. Then he took it, tentatively.

“Glad to meet you, Honest Boy. I’m Dissembling Dorothy. Not officially. What’re you drinking?”

“She’s the official bartender,” I said.

“Any imported beers?”

Dorothy continued to look at him like he hadn’t said anything. He looked to me for help.

“From as far away as Wisconsin,” I told him.

“Sounds just right,” he said, smiling at Dorothy’s back as she strode through the double doors into the kitchen, black leotard–covered hips in full swing.

“Unusual girl,” he said.

“I think she likes you.”

“That’d be a first.”

“Keep your insecurities to yourself. She’ll smell it on you like a dog smells fear.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to imagine you ran Technical Services and Support from almost nothing to, what, a billion dollar enterprise?” said Honest Boy, eager to change the subject.

“A billion point two,” I said.

“Not that I’m criticizing. I’ve spent a lot of time with the
big dicks that run Con Globe. Bunch of uptight, self-serving, humorless pricks.”

“Pricks or dicks. You have to make up your mind.”

“It’s no wonder they’re afraid of you.”

I laughed at him. It surprised both of us. I don’t laugh a lot. Not built for it.

“As the fox fears the rabbit,” I said.

He smiled broadly.

“Right. Like I said, it’s no wonder they’re afraid of you. Crazy like a fox.”

Dorothy showed up with a mug and a can of Budweiser, which she poured for Honest Boy, something I’d never seen her do before. He thanked her warmly. Before things got out of hand, Eddie intervened, whining for French fries and his regular bowl of water.

“Okay, handsome, keep your fur on,” she said to him.

“What kind of dog is this, again?” Honest Boy asked, scratching Eddie’s head.

“A Zen retriever,” said Dorothy. “Knows where the stick is going before you throw it.”

“Make a good bird dog,” said Honest Boy.

“Not if you ask the birds,” she said. “You want anything to eat? We got imported burgers and local fish. With imported tartar sauce and imported French fries.”

“
Pommes frites
, my mother called them,” I added. “She was French-Canadian.”

“You people obviously know what works here and what doesn’t,” he said. “You decide.”

“He wants the fish,” I said to Dorothy. She nodded, of a mind.

“I’ll take a burger,” I called to her as she headed back to the kitchen. The front door opened loudly enough to cause Honest Boy to turn around and look. A half dozen smelly
crew off one of the sportfishing boats crowded through the narrow entrance, leading with their beer bellies, coats open and baseball hats turned to the back, proud of their hard-won, rugged ignorance.

No one else in the place took much notice, but I caught Honest Boy tapping his chest under his left arm.

When Dorothy came out of the kitchen they started to chant “Dot-ty, Dot-ty!” and only stopped when she told them to shut the hell up, which they did, immediately. Though not soon enough to evade the notice of Paul Hodges, who followed his daughter out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his off-white apron, his eyes bristling with irritation.

“Goddammit, Pierre, I told you,” he yelled at the lead meatball, “you’re allowed to be drunk when you leave. Not when you come in.” Pierre looked sheepish.

“We’re not drunk, Mr. Hodges,” he said. “Jez happy from the catch today. She’z big, like the customer tips.”

Hodges looked over at me.

“I’m not responsible for every Canuck who comes into the place,” I said to him as I slid my chair around the table and grabbed Honest Boy by the throat, reaching my other hand into his sport jacket and plucking a little snub-nose out of its shoulder holster. I slid it into my jeans pocket.

“Hey.”

“House rules,” I said. “I’ll give it back when we leave.”

The boat crew settled down after Dorothy passed out drinks and took orders. Eddie sat next to their table trying to get in on the action, but she shooed him back over to us.

“Judson didn’t tell you anything, did he?” asked Honest Boy, when things finally settled down.

“He told me about the Mandate of ’53, meant to keep Con Globe independent in perpetuity. He implied that members of the board thought Donovan wanted to break
the mandate. That’s pretty much it, none of which has anything to do with me.”

Honest Boy sat back, looking self-satisfied.

“I knew you’d say that,” he said.

Before I could respond Dorothy and Vinko came out with our meals. Honest Boy studied the slice of lemon sitting atop the white mass on his plate.

“So what sort of fish is this again?” he asked.

“North Sea fin tail,” said Dorothy. “Caught off Hog’s Neck, right here in Noyac Bay.”

“Really,” said Honest Boy, looking suspiciously at his plate.

“Why’d you say that?” I asked him.

“I like to know what I’m eating.”

“Why’d you say ‘I knew you’d say that’?”

“’Cause I knew you would,” he said.

“Say what?”

He took a bite of the fish and smiled approvingly.

“I’ll have to get some of this when I’m home.”

“That’d be a neat trick. Did Judson tell you something different?”

Honest Boy scoffed.

“I told you what he told me. Nothing.” He pointed his fork at me. “You can belittle me all you want, but I’m a trained investigator. I’m actually capable of finding things out on my own.”

“Okay, that’s fine. I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Sensing a slight upper hand, Honest Boy took his time with the next mouthful of fish. I pretended I didn’t mind. Dorothy came over to ask about the food, which led to a discussion of North Sea fin tail, which Dorothy insisted was far flakier than talapia, a close relative. So it took a while to get back to the conversation.

“Marve’s convinced that you’re involved with Donovan’s plot to void the Mandate of ’53. An opinion shared by Mason Thigpen, who by the way Marve reports to, officially, not the full Board of Directors like he wants you to think. Marve says there’s no other reason why you’d go from ultimate corporate dead man to Donovan’s pet project. Why else would he hire outside counsel to examine your severance agreement?”

“I haven’t talked to anyone from TSS since I left. And I didn’t know anything about that mandate until I heard it from Marve.”

“Have you heard about the big patent settlement? Don’t insult me with a denial. Just keep the straight face. You’re good at that.”

My ex-wife used to say the same thing about me, though in less complimentary terms.

“How many people are talking about this?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, very few.”

I knew I shouldn’t be surprised that some version of the recent connection between me and Donovan had surfaced, however far-fetched. In fact, it was probably a good thing they’d jumped to conclusions. People are always more inclined to concoct a myth than bother with the facts.

“So what’s your stake in this?” I asked. “And don’t insult me by saying it’s only curiosity.”

He smiled.

“I was telling the truth. There’s a lot I still don’t know. But there’s more to it than that. If I’m right about what I do know, I know which side to be on.”

“Who said there’re sides?”

“Oh, there’re sides all right. More than two. I just want to be on the one that sees to it that Con Globe is blown to smithereens and scattered on the wind. When I got fired it struck me like a revelation from God. I hate the bastards who
run that place. I have for a long time, I just didn’t know it. Including George Donovan. But if he’s going to be the agent of their destruction, he’s my friend. Him and anybody he brings in to help do the deed. And there’s nobody on the face of the earth better suited to that role than the guy I’m sitting across from right now. So here’s to you,” he said, raising his beer, “and to hell with Consolidated Global Energies.”

Honest Boy’s triumphant defiance was dampened by the timely arrival of Joe Sullivan, which also quieted down the noisy fishing crew.

He sat next me and across from Ackerman. Neither tried to shake hands. They stared at each other until Eddie stuck his nose in Sullivan’s lap, disrupting his concentration.

“Hey, Joe,” Honest Boy finally said, “long time no see.”

“Not long enough.”

Ackerman looked over at me. I shrugged.

“Wait’ll he has a beer. It mellows him right out.”

Which it did. That and the next two. And the usual distractions from the Hodges family and the general flow of the evening. Dorothy in particular made her presence felt, hanging around the table and salting the conversation with an occasional non-sequitur. After a while, Sullivan and Ackerman were chatting up a storm, like a couple of regular barflies ensnared by their own random nonsense.

As a signal that things had truly degraded, Paul Hodges brought out a tray full of shots with a bowl of lemon slices. After a lot of yelling and cracking of shot glasses on the pine tables, some civility returned, though less articulate.

By now Eddie was sound asleep with his head resting on the bar rail and Dorothy was sitting in Honest Boy’s lap, fussing with the thin remnants of hair at his temples and seeming to listen to his tales of undercover adventures in the Third World. Her father was over with the fishermen,
arm-wrestling and tossing gutting knives at a knot in the pine paneling above the neon Bud sign. Sullivan eventually fell asleep, snoring a duet with Eddie, leaving me alone with a bucket of ice and a bottle of Absolut Citron, which I forced down as a favor to the local vodka distributor, an enterprise worthy of conditional support.

This is how I left them. I had to roust Eddie with a gentle nudge of my boot. He stood up, shook out his coat, and followed without complaint. Outside it was cool and clear. The moon was struggling up from the horizon, a bloated red and nearly round. I watched Eddie lope across the parking lot, stopping to pee on the oversized tires of Ackerman’s SUV, and then over to the Grand Prix.

I let him in the car and headed back to Oak Point. As we negotiated the hilly curves of Noyac Road on the way home from Sag Harbor a set of headlights came up fast from behind and filled the rearview mirror. My first thought was Ackerman, but the lights were too low to the ground to be an SUV. I rarely pushed the big old car much past the speed limit whenever curves were involved, often frustrating the carloads of overachievers pouring in from East Hampton and Sag Harbor on the way back to the City. So I could hardly blame the tailgaters. I kicked it up a little, but then the car behind me tucked up even closer, until the headlights nearly disappeared under the Pontiac’s massive trunk.

Since that was all the thanks I got, I dropped back to the speed limit. He could sit there and stew until I turned off, or take his chances passing around a curve, which is all there was on Noyac Road.

He backed off a little, then pulled in close again, even closer than before. I sighed. Intimidation of any kind never sat that well with me, though lately I’d been striving mightily to control how I handled it. With calm forbearance. Maturity and reserve. An almost pacifistic turning of the other cheek. This is how I strove, not always successfully.

I waited until we hit a short straight patch of road and yanked the steering wheel to the left, putting the Grand Prix into the empty oncoming lane. Then I slammed on the brakes. The car behind shot by on the right. It was a new Mustang, black, the color of choice among automotive intimidators. I pulled the Grand Prix back into the proper lane and fought another little battle with myself.

When I was younger I’d be inclined to bring the four-mile-long nose of the Grand Prix up to about two inches off the Mustang’s rear bumper and keep it there all the way to the guy’s house, where I’d either let him slink back into his real life as a frustrated, ineffectual asshole or wait for him to get out of the car so I could stick my fist down his throat.