James Patterson - The Beach House

"Feast your eyes on this."

I looked over Mack's old bony shoulders and read the big, beautiful headline one more time: murder inquiry set into suspicious death of montauk man. Then we wolfed down the story with the same rapt attention that we'd given our breakfast.

For the first time in two months, I felt celebratory. I pumped the air with a fist. We were too full to jump, so I scampered to the liquor cabinet, and at seven in the morning, with the feast still settling in our bellies and minds, we did a shot of the good stuff.

"Here's mud in your eye, Jackson," Mack said.

"Do you realize what we've done," I said excitedly. "We've shocked the goddamned system."

"The goddamned system is a clever old whore, Jack. I'm afraid all we did was piss it off."

AT WORK THAT WEEK, I kept my head down. Literally. I figured if no one saw it popping out of my office, no one would think to lop it off. I don't recommend it as a long-term career strategy, but' at that point I wasn't thinking long-term about Nelson, Goodwin and Mickel, or anything else.

Since we still hadn't gotten a response regarding the Mudman, it left me plenty of time to contemplate the upcoming inquiry.

Early on Thursday morning Pauline called and asked me to meet her for lunch. She said it was "important," and Pauline tends not to exaggerate. She suggested an out-of-the-way place on First Avenue, in the Fifties, Rosa Mexicana.

When I arrived, I saw her at a table in a back corner. As usual, she wore a dark suit and had her hair in a ponytail. And as usual, she looked great. But she also looked anxious, or maybe in a hurry.

"You okay?" I hadn't seen her in almost a week, and I'd missed her. Streetwise Pauline seemed rattled. I had an awful feeling she was about to tell me that working on Peter's case had been a big mistake and she'd finally come to her senses. Maybe she had been threatened.

"The more I look into Neubauer's file," said Pauline in a whisper, "the nastier it gets."

"Nastier than throwing young women off yachts?"

"I've spent more time than I can spare doing a background check on him. I went all the way back to when he was still in Bridgeport. Bridgeport is not exactly Greenwich and four-acre lots. It's gangs and housing projects.

"In 1962 and again in 1965," Pauline continued, "when Neubauer was in his early twenties, he and a guy named Bunny Levin were arrested for extortion."

"He has a criminal record? That's great."

"It isn't great. In both cases all charges were dropped when the key prosecution witnesses suddenly changed their testimony. One witness disappeared completely."

"So we can't use any of this in the inquiry?"

"That's not my point, Jack."

"If you want to quit, Pauline, please just tell me. You've already helped me enormously. I understand what you're saying to me about Neubauer."

Her face twisted and I thought she was almost going to cry. But she just shook her head. "I'm talking about you, Jack. Listen to me. These people make problems disappear."

I wanted to lean over and kiss her, but she looked spooked enough already. It didn't seem like a good idea. I finally reached under the table and touched her hand.

"What was that for?" Pauline asked.

"For giving a shit."

"You mean for caring, Jack?"

"Yes, for caring."

PAULINE HAD NEVER ACTED LIKE THIS in her life. Not even close. As she and Jack stepped out of Rosa Mexicana, she felt flustered and exposed. "I really don't think we should be seen going back to work together," she announced.

Jack held out a faint smile, but Pauline left him standing slightly befuddled as she vanished up the street. Without looking back, she walked west to Third, headed downtown ten blocks, then turned west again, all the way into Grand Central, where a number six train was waiting with open doors.

As soon as the doors closed, her equilibrium returned. Heading downtown always felt good. Making the trip in the middle of the day added a lovely hooky-playing frisson.

She got off the train at Canal and continued downtown on foot until she pushed through the heavy doors of a former girdle factory on Franklin Street.

An exchange of buzzes got her into an untagged service elevator that opened directly onto a raw loft strewn with a motley collection of artifacts from its owner's eccentric resume. Pauline walked past a dusty massage table, a cello, and circus stilts, toward the square of light at the far wall.

It wasn't until she got to the very back of the space that she spotted the wavy-haired head of her sister, Mona, bent under the light of her worktable. She was soldering a pin onto a gold circular earring embossed with what looked like hieroglyphics.

Two years earlier Mona had hung up her cha-cha shoes for the security of a career as an avant-garde jewelry designer. In the past few months her earrings, necklaces, and rings, all based on castings of actual Con Edison manhole covers, were flying out of pricey boutiques all over Manhattan and L.A.

Mona didn't notice her visitor until Pauline sat beside her on the bench and rubbed up against her like a friendly Siamese cat.

"So, what's his name?" asked Mona without taking her eyes off the back of a twenty-four-karat gold earring.

"Jack," said Pauline. "His name is Jack. He's great."

"It could be worse," said Mona. "It could be John or Chuck."

"I suppose. He's this guy at work who lives with his grandfather and whose brother was probably murdered. I've known him three months and already he's got me doing things that could cost me everything I have. What's really screwed me up is, I'm more worried about him than me. Mona, I think he actually has a conscience."

"Sounds like you're penis-whipped. Are you?"

"Totally. Except that I haven't even seen it yet. He is a cutie, though. Best of all, he doesn't seem to know it."

"Sounds like you," said Mona. "So, what do you want me to tell you?"

"No point telling me anything. I just need a hug."

Mona turned off her soldering iron, flipped off her gloves, and wrapped her arms around her savvy, streetwise, utterly romantic sister.

"Be careful," she said. "He sounds too good to be true, this Chuck of yours."

I WAS DOING SOME DECENT LAWYERING on behalf of the Mudman. Actually, the work was a lot like a legal aid defender clinic I had participated in that spring at Columbia. I had a couple of publications from the National Institute of Trial Advocacy spread out on my desk. Also Fundamentals of Trial Techniques, by Thomas Mauet, referred to by us law students as "Mauet."

The phone rang and I snatched it up. It was Montrose's executive assistant, Laura Richardson. Damn.

"Bill asked me to see if you could come up," she said.

"It's not really a good time for me," I said. "I'm up to my eyeballs down here."

"I'll meet you at the elevator."

Her call set off the same adrenaline rush as the earlier one. This time I was less afraid of what Montrose had in mind than of how I might react. To get my heart rate down a notch, I slowly walked the full circumference of the floor before getting on the elevator.

"What kept you?" asked Laura as I arrived on forty-three.

Instead of her walking me down the plank to Monty's office, she led me to an elegant little conference room and parked me at a jet black table illuminated by four recessed spotlights. Now, what is this?

"It shouldn't be more than a couple of minutes," she said before closing the door. "Wait here." If you've worked in a big corporation, you may have been the victim of this kind of bloodless violence. First you're summoned to an urgent meeting, then met by an assistant who politely asks you to sit and wait.