Riptide (14 page)

“What?” The answer to that question, Christina knew, had everything to do with the English bastard parked at the end of her driveway.

Mr. Cardiff’s fakey soothing tone was back. “Just get yourself through this.”

This was a role he had been born and bred for, she
thought. Stomping all over people when they were at their weakest. She considered the Wall Street legend of the Cardiff brothers helping early colonists with their cattle trades, and wondered how many Dutch boys got dumped in the harbor with their throats slit.

“Just get yourself through this,” he repeated.

She was about to scream that she was going to drive in there and get her son, but the line went dead.

He had already hung up.

Turning left from the Dunes onto Montauk was tricky in rush hour. The road had been widened over the years until it sprawled across four lanes, not counting the so-called suicide lane down the center for turns. Even with the new 30 mph speed limit (which everyone ignored), this section of highway was so primed for fender benders that tow trucks parked here all summer, waiting for new business.

Ben Jackson activated the flashers, hit the siren, and they were out, heading east.

Frank McManus rang Maurice Gold’s office in Manhattan. A real human answered, despite the fact it was after six.

Impressive. Frank left a message.

Arthur the bartender had been, per the job requirement, reticent. His answers regarding Jason Cardiff’s activities two nights earlier had been of the single-syllable variety. Frank McManus made a mental note to hire him to bartend at the squad’s Christmas party.

Arthur gave them a good solid lead as to where Cardiff had gone when he left the Dunes on the night of his death. “Hang Ten.”

The up-to-the-minute Southampton night spot that
had gained notoriety when one of its pretty young patrons yelled a not-so-pretty racial slur before ramming her daddy’s SUV into the crowd.

Business had skyrocketed since then.

Go figure.

They thanked Arthur and left him polishing glasses.

It was a short ride to Hang Ten.

The massive field that served as parking lot was nearly empty at this hour. A gleaming red Jaguar parked near the front entrance had vanity plates that read,
HANG10.

A few battered Fords and Chevys were parked way out back, no doubt owned by staff hoping not to get creamed if there was a repeat of the SUV episode.

The scene at a place like this did not start rocking till eleven, way past Frank McManus’s bedtime.

They parked around back and followed a sandy path to the kitchen door, which was propped open with a brick.

Jackson had to pound for a while before they heard a shout from somewhere deep inside the club. “Yeah?”

“Suffolk County Police,” Jackson yelled.

Someone pulled the plug on the Bare Naked Ladies.

Quick footsteps approached.

“Can I help you?” A young man skidded to a halt, breathless. His hair was short on the sides and spiked up at the front, like Caesar if he’d caught his finger in a light socket.

The expression on the kid’s face when he saw their badges added to the effect.

Despite the fact he looked about twelve years old, Frank guessed by the number of diamond studs lining the kid’s ears that the Jag outside belonged to him.

“Ross Middleton. I own the club. Partially,” he added hastily. “There are seven of us.”

McManus did not imagine Ross Middleton usually spelled this fact out.

The kid’s eyes were wide with nervous energy behind flashy white-framed glasses that were about ten sizes too big. “Come in. Can I get you anything?” He ushered them down a hallway into a dark cavernous room that reeked of beer and sour cherries.

The floor was sticky the way floors in bars always were.

“Tell us what you know about this guy.” Jackson pulled a photo of Jason Cardiff from his breast pocket.

“That guy who drowned. He came here a lot.” The kid looked from McManus to Jackson, relief washing over his face. You could tell he had decided this was going to be easy. They hadn’t come to pull permits or check working papers.

Arthur at the Dunes could take a lesson.

“How often?” Jackson flipped open his pad.

“Once a week, maybe more. He had a place out here and a place in the city.” The kid shrugged. “Like most people.”

Most people who were millionaires. “Except Jason Cardiff wound up dead after a night in your club,” McManus pointed out.

The kid pushed his glasses up and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Those glasses looked heavy.

The kid stopped rubbing his nose and pointed a finger at Jackson, who was taking notes. “He usually took a table in our VIP room.”

McManus raised an eyebrow. “Big spender.”

“Five hundred to get a table, drinks are extra. Five-hundred-dollar minimum on drinks,” the kid said without missing a beat.

McManus blinked. Jackson gave him a look, the kind that said,
Must be nice
.

There was no way Jason Cardiff dropped that kind of money so he could sit and listen to shitty music by himself. “Who was with him?”

The kid hesitated.

McManus leaned in close, dropping his voice into the danger zone. “I understand there’s illegal substances being bought and sold here at night, right here on your premises. The DA can shut you down for that, for an indefinite period of time while we look into it.”

The kid swallowed. The other six owners were not going to like this, the way he was about to rat out some of their loyal customers to the Man. It was practically flashing in superscript across his forehead.

But the other owners did not have their six collective asses in a sling the way Ross Middleton’s was at that moment.

“I can point them out.” He pulled off his glasses and knuckled the red spot on his nose. “Come back around ten thirty.”

C
hristina pressed the
END CALL
button as fury built inside her.

“How dare you?” she screamed at the phone.

But her father-in-law would not hear her. He had hung up.

“Who do you think you are?” she screamed, slamming her fist onto the nightstand in rage.

But Christina knew the answer to that. They were the Cardiffs, the same people who had been telling her what to do since the day they’d first met. Walking all over her as though she didn’t matter. She remembered now how they’d gone behind her back to the caterer for her wedding reception, changing the menu items at the last minute.

Christina hadn’t realized it till she sat down and took a nibble, taking care not to drop any on her gown. She had been shocked when she tasted veal.

She had ordered chicken.

Jason had shrugged. “They probably got the order screwed up.”

But Christina remembered the way her mother-in-law had turned up her nose. “Veal is elegant” was all she had said.

The Cardiffs were not going to do this to her anymore.

Christina would leave now, drive into the city, bang on their door, and not leave until they answered. She would get Tyler and take him home with her where he belonged. Right now.

She’d show them.

Christina set the stuffed camel down and headed off in search of the keys to her car.

What she found was her cache of Grey Goose in the freezer.

“Come on.” Dan was impatient now, prowling the living room while I stopped to pee in our downstairs bathroom.

I had heard him talking on his cell phone in short, urgent sentences. I did not realize this at the time, or even when the memory first floated back to me. Only when I replayed the events of that night, over and over, after more time had passed, did I remember that fact. That Dan had stopped to call someone on his cell phone from the living room of our beach house while I used the bathroom.

“C’mon, Christina.” Dan’s voice echoed through the cavernous great room. The house was empty, with Tyler away and Jason in the city until tomorrow.

“Let’s go!” Dan’s voice rose on the last syllable, in a way that reminded me of my high-school gym teacher when he urged us to do something we didn’t want to do. I laughed, not seeing what the big rush was about, or even why we needed to leave.

There was plenty of vodka, my beverage of choice, right here.

Dan rapped sharply on the bathroom door. “Christina.” He pushed the door open a crack.

I stopped laughing.

He pressed his face into the crack. “Come on.”

I was pretty drunk, but I didn’t appreciate him following me into the bathroom and telling me what to do. I wiped and stood, ready to tell him off, but I got tangled in my panties and lost my footing on the sand I had tracked in. I went down, hitting my cheekbone hard against the counter as I fell.

That cracked me up.

“Bullshit.” Dan stepped inside.

I lay on the floor. Try as I might, I could not untangle either my panties from my ankles or my sundress, which was twisted around me like a pretzel. Bits of sand clung to my bare skin.

“You’re all fucked up.”

Dan was disappointed, I could tell. “You’re a fuckin’ alcoholic, you know that?”

We were crossing a line, and I knew it. He had never talked to me that way before.

“Get up.” He grabbed my arm and yanked. “Get up.”

I tried to wrench my arm away, but it was no use.

He was strong. His fingers bit into the soft flesh of my arm.

I had four round bruises there for a week.

He yanked me to my feet with just one hand.

“C’mon, we gotta go.” He pulled my panties up and snapped them into place.

I reached one hand out for balance as he pulled my wrap dress into place and cinched the belt. Rough.

I felt really hot all of a sudden. “I change my mind,”
I said. “I don’t want to go.” But the words came out jumbled.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around so I faced the door. “Road trip.”

“No,” I protested. My voice was thick. The act of standing was tough. I was really thirsty. I wanted to stay here, drink a gallon of water, and finish what we started on the beach. Here, in my own bed.

Danny still had me by the shoulders.

I shook my head. “No.”

His mouth was set, the muscles in his jaw working, and for a minute, this was not the playful Dan Cunningham I knew. His eyes narrowed.

I was afraid.

He smiled, but it was a fake smile, I could tell.

The look in his eyes did not match that smile.

An eerie little sliver of something like cold water slid down my spine, and I sobered up a bit without realizing it.

I stepped back, away from him.

Danny stepped forward, so close that when he exhaled I had no choice but to breathe it in.

“You’re gonna like this.” Sticking two of his fingers and his thumb inside his mouth, he rolled his tongue across them until they were wet. Quick as lightning, he slid his hand inside the top of my dress, peeled back my bra, and began rubbing my nipple with his fingers. Hard and then harder.

Heat came on me in a rush, burning me up from the inside out, and I had never felt anything so good in my life, I swear to God. I was crazy for it and I wanted him to fuck me right then and there like I have never wanted it in my life and I begged him.

But Dan just laughed, his mouth relaxing into a real smile now like the Dan I knew and when I think back that was because he knew things were going to work out his way. “C’mon.” He pulled his hand away even though I begged him not to stop, and yanked me along by the hand. “This is gonna blow your fuckin’ mind.”

I followed, so thirsty I made him stop for a bottle of water from the kitchen and I wanted a whole case but he said it would make me pee too much.

He wouldn’t even let me drink the bottle till we got in his car.

He said nothing about where we were going, only that I would like it. I was so horny I couldn’t wait to get there, sliding around in the passenger seat with my knees up so he could finger-fuck me while he drove.

Familiar landmarks slid by. We took the Springs Fireplace Road across the island, past East Hampton Wines & Liquors (a place I knew well) and into the Springs, past the sign for the Cagramar Farms stable.

“We’re going to my place,” Dan said.

I had never seen where he lived.

He pulled into a subdivision of small ranch houses packed in close together on small lots. We parked on a rutted blacktop drive next to an aging pickup truck. There were a few more beater cars parked out front.

I remember thinking there must be a party.

Dan put the car into park, his eyes glinting in the light from the dash. “Now you get to see how the other half lives.”

B
en Jackson and his wife, Cirie, lived with their three young children in a tidy brown ranch with mustard-colored trim in Sayville, a town of working families not far from the squad headquarters in Yaphank.

The house was, like Frank McManus, vintage early sixties with some updates such as new windows and shrubs. Overall, the effect was cozy.

In the warm months, the Jacksons spent most of their family time out back on the cedar deck McManus had helped build. His reward had been more barbecued dinners than he could count.

Cirie and the kids were in the middle of one when McManus and Jackson arrived.

The mist that had been blowing all day had stopped, at least for a little while.

McManus followed Jackson around the side of the house and the aging yews Cirie wanted to replace (the sight of which made McManus’s back ache) into the yard.

Cirie was serving dinner on the deck to three “Mini-Me” versions of their old man.

Janice, age three, the only girl and the youngest, dropped her fork and squealed with delight. “Unca Fwank, you hewe!”

Her Elmer Fudd accent got to Frank like it always did, and he tried not to laugh. Ben had told him the speech therapist had advised it was best not to react.

But everyone was laughing a little, so Frank didn’t feel so bad, scooping her up when she flung herself at him. “Hello, princess.”

Her big brothers, Dale and Drew, piled on their old man. “Daddy’s home!”

“You made it.” Cirie nosed her way in to give her husband a peck on the cheek. “Lucky for you, I haven’t turned off the grill.” She smiled at Frank. “Hey, Frank, hope you haven’t eaten. It’s only hamburgers and hot dogs.”

“Hot dogs ah my fay-vuh-wit,” Janice announced, and they snickered again.

Cirie turned to her husband. “I thought you said you were working late?”

“I am. We’re just here for dinner. We’ve got one more stop in Southampton, but not till later.” Ben Jackson pulled a small brown bag from his pocket with a flourish. “Bought you a present, babe.” He pulled out a Bic fire starter and brandished it as though it was a dozen roses.

“Just what I wanted.” Cirie grinned. “Look, kids.”

The kids stared.

“You missed it, Daddy,” Dale piped. He was older, and the man of the house when his father wasn’t around. “Mommy started a fire in the kitchen. The smoke detector went off, and we all ran outside.”

“I did not start a fire in the kitchen,” Cirie protested.

“There’s burn marks on the ceiling,” Drew yelled.

Cirie rolled her eyes. “There are no burn marks on the ceiling.”

“Mommy had to climb on a chair to make the alarm go off,” Dale added.

“Mommy started a fire in the kitchen?” Ben let his eyes widen in surprise, which was all the encouragement the kids needed.

All three yelled to get their version heard above the others.

Ben egged them on, asking questions of each in turn, making a show of getting every detail down so they could be sure their father heard the story just right.

They took turns flinging themselves at him while their dinner turned cold.

On the whole, it was a typical dinner at the Jacksons.

Frank McManus looked at Cirie over the din and smiled. “You got the grill going, I see.”

Cirie nodded happily. “Pull up a seat, and I’ll get you something cold to drink.”

Frank did, choosing the place with the least amount of ketchup blobs.

Something bit him.

“How ’bout a Diet Coke?” Cirie was headed inside, yelling at the kids to finish eating.

“Sure,” Frank shouted in reply.

Nobody else paid her any mind.

He could already feel goo from the seat of his chair seeping through his pants. Frank McManus leaned back, thinking as he always did that Ben Jackson’s place was the one place in the world where he always felt at home.

“So?” Jackson did a half turn.

Smoke from the grill swirled around him.

“I’m thinking a lot about Torres.” Frank had called
the squad earlier, using the ancient Princess-line phone on the cluttered desk in a corner of the playroom that served as Jackson’s home office.

Their admin ran a background check on the Cardiffs’ head landscaper, Roberto Torres.

McManus hadn’t had to wait long for the results. “Señor Torres has had some brushes with the law,” he said now.

Jackson tipped up the edge of one burger, checked it, and let it drop back down to cook some more.

Frank’s mood sank a bit. Jackson always overcooked the burgers. “Buncha small stuff, and a couple of disorderly conducts.”

“Really?” The volume of smoke from the grill increased.

Frank resisted the urge to grab the spatula and rescue the burgers. The Jacksons liked their meat well done. “One for resisting arrest.”

“Was he drunk?”

It was a good question. “Nope.”

Jackson let out a low whistle before, thankfully, turning his attention back to the burgers. “Sounds like our man has a temper.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.” Frank watched as Jackson moved the patties from one spot on the grill to another. To his dismay, he left them cooking and turned back to Frank.

“I don’t see how that fits in anywhere.”

“Agreed. But there’s something.” Frank thought back to the warning looks Marisol had exchanged with her aunt. “Definitely something.

Jackson nodded.

The burgers were turning a dark, hockey-puck shade
of brown. Frank couldn’t take any more. He got up and walked across to the grill. “Can I give you hand with those?”

Things were heating up later that night when they returned to Hang Ten. The line of cars waiting to get in spilled out onto Montauk Highway.

A threesome of goons, keepers of the red velvet ropes, gave Detectives McManus and Jackson the once-over as they approached.

One of them spoke into the tiny mouthpiece that hung down over his powerful jaw.

“The word,” Jackson muttered, “is ‘Thunderbird.’”

McManus snorted, even though he knew he had nothing to laugh about. They had picked over the contents of Jackson’s closet for their visit to the nightclub.

Of the two, Jackson had fared better, squeezing himself—just barely—into a pair of black denim jeans left over from what his wife termed his Mr. Soave Bolla days when he was single and on the prowl. He topped it off with a T-shirt of black metallic mesh that highlighted the portion of his gut that hung over his belt.

Cirie covered her mouth with her hands at the sight of him, which set the Jackson progeny racing through the house in gales of laughter.

“Hey, you kids, stop!” Ben Jackson used the same tone of voice he used on the job. “Or you will all go to bed right now!”

This only added to the merriment.

Frank McManus didn’t fare as well. None of Jackson’s hot-young-blood duds were suitable for Frank, who was only an inch shorter than his partner but fourteen years older. And twenty pounds heavier.

In the end, they settled on a surfer-dude look for Frank, using a Hawaiian luau shirt Cirie’s father had left in a closet. A pair of flip-flops, one size too big, completed the getup.

Frank allowed Cirie to apply a dollop of hair mousse to his head.

They had been aiming for Charlie Sheen’s character on
Two and a Half Men.

The result more closely resembled Fred Flintstone.

Little Janice fixed Frank with a look that was a dead ringer for her old man’s. “Unka Fwank, you come back faw Halloween.”

It was too much.

Ben Jackson roared until his metallic-enrobed belly practically fell off.

Cirie laughed until her eyes turned wet with tears.

The boys stopped pelting each other with hair-mousse snowballs and joined in.

“I wasn’t hired for my looks, you know,” Frank grumbled.

Dale found the camera, and they posed for pictures.

Cirie and the kids waved good-bye from the doorway. “Happy cruising,” she called merrily.

Jackson made a hissing noise through his teeth. He threw the Crown Vic into reverse and pulled out.

Getting old is tough, McManus thought.

He was reminded of that fact now, when the Hang Ten bouncers parted the velvet ropes to let them in.

“Enjoy yourselves,” one of them called, not bothering to hide the smirk on his face.

Frank wondered whether a high-and-fast left hook would knock that pompous mouthpiece from his face.

Inside, surf-guitar music blared so loud Frank felt his large intestine re-coil itself.

Jackson turned to Frank. “Revels.”

Frank responded with the title. ‘“ Church Key.’”

It had been a monster hit for the Revels in 1961, well before Jackson’s birth. Frank gave his partner a nod of approval.

Earlier this afternoon, the place had reeked of stale beer. Now it smelled of the real thing (Southampton W on tap, brewed right up the road at Don Sullivan’s Publick House, and that, at least, showed good taste) mixed with a flowery cloud of cologne and sweat hovering above several hundred gyrating young bodies.

Ross Middleton, Boy Owner, stood at the base of a recessed staircase on the far side of the room. He motioned them over, wearing a pair of Flavor Flav rhinestone-studded glasses.

His evening look, Frank decided.

While Jackson took the circuitous route around the edge of the dance floor, Frank plowed right in.

It was like the parting of the Red Sea. Dancers twisted, shook, and shimmied as far away from Detective Frank McManus as they could get.

He couldn’t blame it on the department’s regulation sport-coat dress code this time.

They followed Middleton upstairs to a small room with windows overlooking the dance floor. Security screens mounted on the opposite wall relayed flickering images from a variety of locations both inside and out.

Once Frank’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, the crowd below appeared less chaotic and freewheeling. Patterns emerged. Groups of dancers clustered around an
alpha male. Interspersed were dancers in pairs, groups of girls dancing together (a phenomenon that had puzzled Frank since he had attended his first dance in junior high), and even a weirdo or two waltzing solo.

The crowd at the bar was three deep, like any place in the Hamptons.

A line of girls waited to use the bathroom.

An indoor beach-hut stand sold popcorn and hot dogs.

Couples made out in booths and, in a sign that times had changed, some of the kids going at it were boy-on-boy and even girl-on-girl.

High on a huge screen on the opposite wall, Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon were leading their friends in a soundless Technicolor sing-along from
Beach Blanket Bingo
.

If you liked music loud enough to rattle your porcelain crowns, Hang Ten was the place to be.

The group that caught McManus’s attention was positioned along the wall at the entrance to the men’s room. At ground level, they would hardly be noticeable.

“Your guys.” Ross Middleton pointed. “They’re here most nights.”

These were not your typical frat boys crammed into an overpriced summer share. No J. Crew, for one thing. If they were first- or second-year associates at a Park Avenue law firm, then it was one that offered free tattoos.

The tallest, who wore a Mets cap in the rally position, was approached by a potential customer as they watched.

After a whispered exchange, the Mets guy led the
way into the men’s room.

The kid from the dance floor followed, digging for his wallet.

“Looks like steady business,” Jackson remarked drily.

Business in which Ross Middleton and his six partners most certainly shared a stake.

In the spirit of cooperation, Middleton began spilling his guts as fast as his boy mouth could form words. “The guy with the Mets cap is Bobby Baldwin. And the guy standing outside the bathroom door right now, the one who’s uh—”

“Standing watch?” Frank supplied helpfully.

“Yeah.” Middleton kept his gaze steady, aimed down below. “That’s Bruce Zachari. I can spell it.”

“Good.” Ben Jackson flipped open his pad.

“They’re both local guys, from around here, both graduated from Westhampton Beach High School,” Middleton pointed out.

Like it mattered.

Frank McManus scowled, which had the intended effect of further loosening Ross Middleton’s tongue.

The Boy Owner fingered another guy whom, he said, had left the club two nights ago in the company of Jason Cardiff. “Plus another guy who isn’t here.” He checked his watch. “He moved in on things at the beginning of the summer, and now he’s a ringleader. He’ll show up. It’s still early.”

Frank checked his watch. He was usually on the couch by now.

Middleton tapped his finger on the glass excitedly.

Three women had arrived. All blond, the type that could be in an ad for cosmetic surgery.

“That one there, that’s Jason Cardiff’s girlfriend from the city, Lisa-something. The one with the big…” Middleton’s voice trailed off.

But there was no mistaking what he meant.

Lisa was dressed in a skintight white leather miniskirt that didn’t leave much to the imagination.

Her friends shimmied in time to the music.

In the next instant, everything changed.

A thundering sound shook the club’s floorboards.

“Get ready for the special effects,” Middleton murmured.

McManus braced himself.

White lights strobed, throwing the dance floor into bas-relief. The sound system surged impossibly higher into the unmistakable drum intro to “Wipe Out”

Jackson looked at McManus. “Surfaris,” he mouthed.

Impressive. McManus gave an approving wink. Another sixties jewel.

A ton of glittering confetti rained down on the crowd, whipping it into a fever pitch.

Lisa threw back her head and let out a war whoop, opening her mouth wide enough to show off her back molars, before launching herself onto the dance floor.

Her Barbie Doll posse followed suit.

Detectives McManus and Jackson exchanged a look.

Everybody grieved in her own way.

“Things will wind down soon.” Ross Middleton proceeded to tell them all he knew about Lisa’s girlfriends. They showed up for the first time the other night, leaving with Lisa, Jason Cardiff, Mets cap guy, and his cronies. “One of them told my bartender they were on their way to a party at a mansion in East Hampton.” Middleton saw something down on the dance floor
that made him tap the glass excitedly. “There. That’s the other guy who hung around with Jason Cardiff.”