James Patterson - Beach Road

I’m so eager to get into my car, I don’t notice Clarence in the front seat until my key is almost in the ignition. He’s shattered, sobbing into the back of his hand.

“They want to kill him, Tom. He’ll never get a fair trial. You see what it’s like in there.”

“Clarence, come back to my place tonight. I could use the company,” I tell him.

“I’m not after your sympathy, Tom. I’m here to ask you to be Dante’s lawyer.”

“Clarence, I haven’t been in a courtroom in over a year. Even then I was nothing special.”

“That’s because you never tried, Tom. Not like you did playing ball. Put your mind to it, I believe you can do anything well. Folks like you. They listen to you.”

“Just because Dante’s lawyer is older doesn’t mean he’s not doing a good job,” I say. “Besides, he’s Marie’s choice.”

Clarence shakes his head. “Marie wants you, Tom. She told me to ask. If you were on trial for murder, would you want that guy representing you? Or if your son was on trial? Be real with me.”

“I’m being real, Clarence. I can’t be Dante’s lawyer. The answer is no. I’m sorry.”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, Clarence opens the door and pulls himself out of the seat. “You’re a big disappointment, Tom. Not that I should be surprised. It’s been that way for years.”

HIGHLY AGITATED NOW, I drive to Jeff’s house. I need to talk to somebody I trust-because I am thinking about being Dante’s lawyer. I need somebody to talk me out of my craziness.

Ten years ago my brother bought just about the last affordable house in Montauk. I loaned him the down payment from my signing bonus, and now the house is worth five times what he paid. That doesn’t make us geniuses. Anything you bought then has gone through the roof. It’s sweet in this case, however, because Jeff’s wife had just left him for, as she put it, “not being sufficiently ambitious.” Now Jeff and his three kids are living in a house worth more than a million dollars.

When she ran out on my brother, Lizbeth assumed she’d be getting Sean, Leslie, and Mickey. But Jeff dug in and hired one of the best lawyers out here. The lawyer, a friend of mine named Mary Warner, pointed out, among other things, that except in football season, Jeff was home by three thirty every day and had summers off, and to everyone’s amazement, the judge awarded Jeff full custody of the three kids.

Sean, the oldest, just turned twenty-five, and when I pull into the driveway, he’s in the garage lifting weights. The two of us talk for a couple of minutes; then he starts breaking my chops.

“So, Uncle,” he asks between reps, “how’s it make you feel to be the least popular person in Montauk?”

“The old man around?” I ask.

“He’s not back yet. The first game of the year against Patchogue is two weeks away.”

“I guess I’ll head over to the high school then. I need to talk to him.”

“You spot me on my bench before you go?”

I’ve got a soft spot for Sean, maybe because he reminds me a little of myself. Because he’s the oldest, the divorce fell hardest on him. And he had that “son of the coach” crap in school, which is why despite being a natural athlete, he never went out for a high school team.

The last couple years Sean’s been lifting weights. Maybe he wants to look good in his lifeguard chair, or make a point to his old man. Well, now he’s making a point with me because he doesn’t stop adding black rings until he’s got 160 pounds on each end. Add the weight of the bar, that’s over 350, and Sean can’t weigh more than 170.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” I ask, looking down at his fiercely determined face.

“One way to find out.”

The son of a gun lifts it twelve times, and a huge grin rushes across his beet-red face.

“Thanks for nothing, Uncle Tommy.”

“My pleasure. Okay if I tell the old man how impressive you are?”

“Nah. It’ll only get him talking about all my wasted potential.”

“Don’t feel bad, Sean. For us Dunleavys, squandered talent is a family tradition.”

I’VE BEEN BACK in town three years, and this is my first visit to the old high school. Truth is, I’d rather have a root canal than go to a reunion, but as I step onto the freshly waxed gym floor, the memories rush back all the same. Nothing’s changed too much. Same fiberglass backboards. Same wooden-plank bleachers. Same smell of Lysol. I kind of love it, actually.

Jeff’s office is just above the locker room, and a very small step up in terms of accommodations and aroma. He sits in the corner, Celtic-green sneakers up on his metal desk, staring at a game film projected on the white cinder-block wall. The black-and-white images and the purr of the projector and the dust motes caught in the air make me feel as if I’ve fallen into a time warp.

“Got a game plan, Parcells?” Jeff has always worshipped Parcells and even looks like him a little.

“I was about to ask you the same thing, baby brother. What I hear, you need a plan more than me. An escape plan.”

“You could be right.”

There’s a punt on the screen, and the pigskin seems to hang forever in the fall air.

“All I did was help a scared kid turn himself in,” I say to Jeff. I don’t tell him that I’ve been asked to represent that kid. Or that I’m actually considering it.

“What about Walco, Rochie, and Feifer? You don’t think they were scared? I don’t get what you’re up to, Tom.”

“I’m not sure I do either. I think it has something to do with meeting Dante’s grandmother. Seeing where they lived, how they lived. Oh, and one other small detail-the kid didn’t do it.”

Jeff doesn’t seem to hear me, but maybe he does because he flicks off the projector.

“Between you and me,” he says, “season hasn’t started and I’m already sick to death of football. Let’s grab a beer, bro.”

“See, there’s a plan,” I say, and grin, but Jeff doesn’t smile back.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Jeff stops in Amagansett and parks in the lot behind McKendrick’s, the one bar most likely to be full of townies on a Wednesday night. But I guess that’s the point. Or the plan. Make peace with the locals?

We enter through the back door and grab a booth by the pool table, so it takes a minute or so for the place to fall silent.

When Jeff is sure that everyone knows we’re here, he sends me to the bar for our beer. He wants me to see exactly what I could be getting myself into, wants me to feel the hate up close and personal.

Chucky Watkins, a crazy Irish laborer who used to work for Walco now and then, is sitting at a table as I shoulder my way to the bar. “Guess you’re afraid to come here without your football-coach chaperone?”

“Kev,” I say, ignoring Watkins, “a pitcher of Bass when you get a chance.”

“ When you get a chance, Kev, ” says Pete Zacannino, mocking me from the corner. By the way, a week ago, every face in this room was a pretty good friend of mine.

Kevin, who’s a particularly good guy, hands me the beer and two mugs, and I’m ferrying back to the table when Martell, another former pal, sticks out his foot, causing half my pitcher to spill onto the floor. Snorts of laughter erupt from one end of the bar to the other.

“You all right, Tom?” asks Jeff from the back booth. A week ago, with Jeff or alone, I’d have cracked the pitcher over Martell’s skull if only to see what would happen next.

“No problem, Jeff,” I shout back at the room. “I just seem to have spilled a little of our beer, and I’m going to go back to the bar now and ask Kev if he would be so kind as to refill it.”