Riptide (16 page)

“Got it.” Jason Cardiff was grateful that his wife was a no-show.

He left dinner at his first opportunity, spending the remainder of the night in the Helmsley, watching porn while the blond PR girl named Lisa sucked his dick.

T
he pounding bass and laughter from the dance floor vibrated down into the basement of Hang Ten, reminding Frank McManus of something he’d learned on his honeymoon during a tour of Alcatraz. The inmates had been tormented by the sounds of life going on without them across San Francisco Bay. If the wind was right, they could smell chocolate from the Ghirardelli factory.

The young man sitting on the folding chair had the wistful look about him that those inmates must have had. He swallowed for the tenth time, fingering the Mets cap he had removed in a fit of nervous energy.

The spot on the top of his head where his hair was thinning was now clearly visible.

Bobby Baldwin cleared his throat. “That was the first time and only time I ever went to Jason Cardiff’s house.” He shook his head. “Just my luck the guy winds up dead, right?”

“It could always get worse.” McManus let that statement hang while Baldwin attempted to twirl his Mets cap on one finger. Baldwin fumbled, and the cap fell.

Someone should tell the kid about body language. “How well did you know him?”

“Not too much, you know, just to say hello.”

Lie. “You’re a friendly guy,” McManus remarked in a tight voice.

The kid cracked a sarcastic grin before thinking better of it. “I guess.”

McManus shifted forward, quick as lightning, quick enough to make Bobby Baldwin flinch. “Helps to meet new people in your line of work, doesn’t it?”

Bobby Baldwin said nothing, swallowing so his Adam’s apple rose high on his throat before dropping again.

Keeping his voice tight and low, McManus kept his face close to the kid’s. “I know that when I get back to my office in Yaphank and turn on my computer and look in my database, your name will pop up. And when it does, I will know in two seconds how much time you’ll spend in prison, based on your priors, if we go after you for selling illegal substances.” He waited.

It was a bluff, but it worked.

Bobby Baldwin took the bait, his eyes wet with tears. He swallowed audibly. “I swear, I didn’t know Cardiff. I dealt with someone else who made the calls for him.”

“Who was that?”

“Some asshole, Daniel Cunningham.” Bobby Baldwin was bitter. “And I’ll betcha it’s a fake name.”

McManus was in complete agreement on that score. “Did Cunningham do a lot of buying for Jason Cardiff?”

Baldwin nodded. “Fair amount.”

“Like what?”

Baldwin blew a short, derisive breath out through his nose. “Cardiff was a regular garbage can, man. He
wanted anything. Pot. Coke. Chicks go for that shit, keeps the weight off.” He paused. “He was into E.”

Ecstasy.

“Cardiff was a steady customer,” McManus observed.

Bobby Baldwin shrugged. “I guess.”

“He invited you back to his place the other night?”

“No way, man.” Baldwin glared.

The kid knew what McManus was getting at. Ecstasy was known for inspiring users to screw anything that moved. A regular Love Potion Number Nine.

“I’m not into that shit, man.” Bobby Baldwin scowled.

“Was Cardiff?”

“Probably.” Baldwin shrugged. “Guy was a freak, if you ask me.”

Baldwin seemed sincere. “So how did you wind up at the Cardiff place two nights ago?”

“We got invited by one of those girls.” Baldwin shook his head, balling the Mets cap with his fist. “I wish I had never laid eyes on them. That chick Lisa and her friends, you know who I mean?” He glanced at McManus, who nodded.

“Supposedly, Cardiff rented a place for her out in Montauk while his wife’s in rehab or some shit. Must be nice, huh?” Baldwin paused.

Probably calculating how long it would take to square away that kind of money on a petty dealer’s salary. Dream on, McManus thought. “So, Lisa told you all this?”

“That bitch wouldn’t give me the time of day.” Baldwin spat. “She’s stuck-up. She was all over Cardiff, moving in to be wife number two. Acting like she already was, if you ask me. Her friends weren’t so bad,
though. One of them was kind of nice.” He stopped, embarrassed to talk about a girl he had a crush on.

McManus waited.

“The one was okay, the blonde.” He stopped. “The bigger of the other two, I mean, ’cause they’re all blond. Coulda been triplets, you know?”

McManus did know.

“Anyway, the kind of chubbier one talked to me a little. We danced.” He shrugged. “She told me about Jason Cardiff dating her friend, Lisa, how he has a big mansion out in East Hampton. Guy’s got serious bucks.” He studied his Mets cap. “Guys like that, they don’t even have to try. Chicks are all over guys like that.”

“So, he’d come out here and invite people to parties back at his place?”

“Sometimes. Guess he liked to show off his mansion, you know?” Bobby Baldwin’s voice was soaked through with bitterness.

“And that’s what he did night before last, invited you back to his place so he could show off?”

“Pretty much.” Bobby Baldwin shrugged, stared sullenly down at his Mets cap.

“Nothing out of the ordinary happened?” McManus let his skepticism show.

“Nope.”

“Just some friends getting together by the pool?”

Bobby Baldwin twisted his Mets cap some more. “That’s right.”

Two nights earlier, the one that would become his last on earth, Jason Cardiff was tired. The late-night scene at Hang Ten was beginning to bore him. He’d put in a half day at work in his office on lower Broadway that
morning, and was now feeling every bit of the fifteen-year age difference that separated him from Lisa and her friends.

His sister Pamela had called his office that morning, inviting him to a barbecue at their place in Southampton over the weekend. It was, in unspoken terms, something she would not have done if Christina had been with him. “Richard is doing some kind of fishing rodeo with the boys for charity. We’re having people over after. Nothing fancy, just friends from Southampton Bathing Corporation.”

The über-WASPy beach club Jason’s family belonged to. Jason and Christina had applied when they first bought out here. Jason had gotten admitted for membership. Christina had not.

Jason flashed back to blind dates Pamela had arranged with her sorority sisters from Wellesley, right up to the weekend before his wedding. He laughed now. “I’ll see.” Lisa was bringing two friends out with her for the weekend at the place he’d rented for her in Montauk. She had assured him they could look after themselves or join in the fun if that was what Jason wanted. The place had a hot tub.

Jason liked the sound of that.

His sister’s voice took on a note of concern. “Don’t tell me you’re going to rattle around in that house on your own this Saturday night?”

He’d told his family the truth—that Christina had gone away to rehab.

Jason’s mother absorbed the news in the kind of silence that made you wonder about symptoms for stroke.

His father shook his head. “I pray Tyler doesn’t find out.”

Jason didn’t point out that Tyler had been bringing his mother ice chips in bed since preschool.

In the end, Jason told his sister he’d let her know about the weekend.

He didn’t live to make that call.

Jason Cardiff drove out to East Hampton alone in late morning, making plans to hook up later that night with Lisa and her friends. He spent Wednesday afternoon lying by his pool checking e-mails.

He showered and changed for an early dinner at the Dunes with his attorney, Gil Stanton.

“How are things going for Christina?” Gil Stanton asked in a voice that was, as usual, low and discreet. “Out there?”

Meaning “out there in rehab,” Christina’s latest “stunt.” The timing was terrible, considering Jason was preparing to sue for divorce. He was fed up with his wife, drunk or sober. Jason shrugged. “No news is good news. I mean, what the fuck.” He shook his head. “I don’t give a shit what she does anymore.”

Gil Stanton was an elegant man, a gentleman’s gentleman. Harvard undergrad, followed by Harvard Law. And a roster of clients whose names came right from the Social Register, including but not limited to, the Cardiff family.

If Gil Stanton was of the opinion that Jason Cardiff IV was a spoiled and cruder version of Jason Cardiff III, whom Stanton represented and held in high esteem, he had always been careful to hide that fact. He concentrated on his plate of seared tuna, the spe
cialty of the day. “Has Maurice Gold been helpful?”

Jason brightened. “Gold’s a genius.” He was about to say more, but Gil Stanton stopped him with a warning look.

A waiter approached, asking if their entrées had been prepared to their liking.

Without giving the waiter a glance, both men assured him they were.

Gil Stanton waited till they were alone. “Maurice Gold is a creative thinker.”

Jason Cardiff chewed through a mouthful of filet mignon. “He found a way around my prenup.”

“Good.” Stanton swallowed his tuna and dabbed at his lips before making a reply. “I never liked that prenup. As I recall, she’s entitled to thirty percent of your assets after ten years. More as time goes on.”

“Yeah.” Jason’s jaw tightened. “We’ve been married almost sixteen years.”

“You’d have been better off to marry Christina in her home state of Michigan, which I advised at the time,” Gil Stanton pointed out.

They had discussed it before. “Uh-huh.” Jason made a quick, deep cut into his beef.

“What’s done is done,” Gil Stanton added quickly. “Maurice Gold is the right man to correct mistakes of the past.”

“True.” Jason Cardiff’s lips curled into a smile. “He came up with a bold plan. It doesn’t matter what Christina does now. Her free ride is about to end.”

They parted ways after dinner on what was to become Jason’s final night.

Lisa called later from her friend’s borrowed car.

Jason heard giggling in the background.

“We’re heading east on Montauk with the windows down,” Lisa trilled. “Your baby wants to go dancing.”

Jason agreed to meet them at Hang Ten.

He placed a call to Dan Cunningham, his “go-to” man in the Hamptons, and placed his order for the night.

And now here he was, bored with the view from his private booth, which the owners kept ready in case he decided to drop in. One of them, the kid with the goofy glasses, boasted they’d turned away Lindsay Lohan’s mother to hold the booth for him. Lisa had practically wet herself.

Money talked in this world, and Jason Cardiff liked what it said.

He checked his Rolex. A few minutes to eleven. He yawned.

Lisa was dancing with her two friends.

He couldn’t remember their names. They both had big tits. One of them had a horsey laugh.

They were dancing right in front of Jason’s table now, rubbing up against each other.

Jason Cardiff knew he was living out the wet dream of every guy in this place. But he was bored. Downing the remains of his Bacardi and soda, he raised one suntanned hand in the air and snapped his fingers.

Lisa rushed over.

The other two kept gyrating for his benefit.

“What, baby?” She nuzzled him.

Jason stood, watching Lisa’s friends dry-hump one another.

“Let’s go,” Jason said.

“Let’s go to your house and have a pool party.” Lisa had a tendency to whine.

Jason scowled. They had done lines of coke in the
booth a while ago, but the effects were wearing off. He shook his head. “I got business to take care of.”

Dan Cunningham watched from across the dance floor.

Ready, Jason knew, to supply whatever Jason required.

And waiting to be paid for services already rendered.

“Please,” Lisa said in her little girl voice.

It was irritating.

The girls on the dance floor were still at it. When the horsey one saw Jason glance their way, she put her hand up the other girl’s skirt.

“Please.” Lisa flicked her tongue in Jason’s ear. “I told them about your house, how big it is.” She rubbed her hand on Jason’s arm. “They really want to swim in the pool.”

Jason pulled his arm away, exasperated. “Okay,” he snapped, swiping at his ear. “Just quit whining.”

Lisa rode in the coupe with him.

Her friends rode in their borrowed car.

Dan Cunningham followed in his car.

Zachari and Baldwin rode in a fourth car.

A short time later, they held their own private rave on Jonah’s Path.

The underwater lighting system for the pool pulsed on and off in time to the music.

Dan Cunningham tended bar, serving up drinks with a side of Ecstasy.

The girls took turns doing a striptease on the diving board.

Somewhere in the darkness, Jason heard the shrill barking of his neighbor’s dog.

He turned up the volume to drown out the sound.

Detectives McManus and Jackson held off questioning Daniel Cunningham until last.

He sat in stony silence, looking too big for the battered metal folding chair.

Frank McManus watched him. Everyone he came across in his line of work was having a bad day, to put it mildly. The men and women he questioned had just stepped in a pile of shit the size of Texas, and most times they reeked of it.

Not this guy. Daniel Cunningham was not giving anything away, not so much as a twitch of his arms, which were the size and shape of Dearborn hams (bone-in), to his eyes, which held as much warmth as wrought iron.

A true sociopath. McManus kept his right hand in the ready position above his gun belt.

Ben Jackson stood, arms akimbo, just behind McManus’s chair. Blocking Cunningham’s path to the door.

If he was tired of standing, Jackson didn’t show it. On the contrary, his wide jaw was working, and he appeared to be fighting the impulse to rip the veins from Cunningham’s thick tree stump of a neck.

The club upstairs was quiet, the sound system off. Everyone had gone home, except Ross Middleton, upstairs closing the till. His responsibilities as one-seventh owner of Hang Ten included the risky job of counting cash and closing up.

Jackson and McManus were finished taking statements from the others, who had gone home. Bobby Baldwin and Bruce Zachari, Lisa and her friends, racing up the stairs so fast one of them tripped and nearly tumbled back down.