James Patterson - The Beach House

I did as instructed, but my mind was rioting. Why am I sitting here with my hands on my lap? Why am I cooperating? After maybe ten minutes, I couldn't stay in the hot seat any longer. I wandered outside.

When Richardson saw me walking free, I thought she was going to yank an alarm.

"Going to the bathroom," I explained.

A relieved Richardson rearranged her face.

When I returned to the conference room, I saw Barry Neubauer waiting there. Instead of the surprise or shock I probably should have felt, I was kind of teed off. This was actually his first response to Peter's death. "Hello, Jack," he said. "I don't know if anyone mentioned it, but I'm a client here."

Neubauer pulled his custom-made Italian black suit jacket snug across his square shoulders and sat down. I tried to maintain some perspective. He was just another medium-size, middle-aged man, after all, but he was buffed and art-directed. Every touch, from his perfect tan to his perfect haircut to his thousand-dollar silver eyeglass frames, argued for his special status in the world.

"Do you know why I'm here, Jack?"

"You're finally getting around to paying your condolences? That's touching."

He slammed his fist on the table. "Listen, you insolent punk bastard. Obviously, you've got it into your thick skull that I had something to do with the unfortunate death of your brother. So instead of conducting your little amateur-hour investigation, I thought maybe you'd like to talk to me directly."

He hadn't asked, but I decided to sit down, too. "All right. So where do we start?"

"I didn't murder Peter. I liked your brother. He was a good kid, with a nice sense of humor. And unlike Dana's other boyfriends, I actually liked you."

I couldn't keep back a half smile. "That's nice to know. How is Dana?"

"Dana is still in Europe, Jack. A little vacation. Now, you listen to me. The only reason I'm talking to you right now is because of the respect and affection I have for my daughter. Don't be so naive as to believe that you can slander me in the press, trespass on my property, and hack into my colleagues' computers without consequences. Please consider yourself warned, Jack. And this is a friendly warning, because as I said, I like you."

While Neubauer did his power bit, I thought of Fenton treading water with his boots on, Hank out of work, Marci and Molly afraid to drive their cars. When I'd had all I could take, I got up and moved around the conference table faster than he must have thought possible.

I grabbed him in a hammerlock and held his neck so he couldn't move. The summers I'd worked framing houses and laboring in Jepson's Boatyard had made me a lot stronger than his personal trainer was making him.

"You don't think anybody can get to you," I said through clenched teeth. "Well, you're wrong. Do you understand that?" I squeezed his neck a little tighter.

"You're making a huge mistake," Neubauer said, grimacing. He was in a little pain. I liked that.

"No, you made a huge mistake. For whatever fucked-up reasons, you involved yourself in my brother's murder case. Facts were covered up. Friends of mine were threatened for trying to get at the truth."

Neubauer began to struggle harder, but I held him firmly. "Let me go, you fucker!" he ordered.

"Yeah, all right," I said, and finally released the son of a bitch.

I started to walk out of the conference room, but then I stopped and turned to Neubauer.

"Somehow, someway, my brother is going to get justice. I promise you."

Neubauer's hair was mussed and his jacket creased, but he had regained most of his composure. "And you're going to wind up like your brother," he said. "I promise."

"Well, Barry, I guess we've both been warned then. And I'm glad we had this little chat."

I WENT BACK DOWNSTAIRS knowing that I had just blown my summer associate's job, and probably my law career.

I didn't know whether it was worth it, but I didn't think I had a choice. Sooner or later, somebody had to stand up to Neubauer. I was glad it was me.

I tried to call the Island – I wanted to tell Mack what had just happened and ask his advice – but the line out of my office was dead.

"Christ," I whispered, "they're faster than I thought."

Two minutes later the phone rang. My favorite executive assistant from the forty-third floor was on the line.

"I thought my line had been cut off," I told Richardson.

"You just can't dial out," she said. "Tell me, how did someone like you wind up in a place like this?" she asked.

"Clerical error."

"Well, it's been corrected. Mr. Montrose wants to talk to you."

He got on the line. "What happened to that ambitious eager beaver who practically begged for his job?" asked Montrose, warming quickly to the task. "We hold open a door that almost never gets opened for someone like you, and you slam it in our face. The only decent time you put in here was on a worthless pro bono case."

"You're not talking about the Innocence Quest?" I asked. "Exley told me it was the heart and soul of Nelson, Goodwin and Mickel. That would make me the heart and soul of the firm."

"You're history, Mullen," said Montrose. Then he hung up.

About five minutes later a pair of burly security guards – one African American, the other Hispanic – stood outside my office. I knew them from the firm's softball team.

"Jack, we've been asked to escort you out of the building," said the shorter, wider of the two. His name was Carlos Hernandez. I liked him.

"We were also told to give you this," he said, and handed me a piece of paper called a Separation Document.

" 'Effective immediately, Jack Mullen has been terminated from Nelson, Goodwin and Mickel for improper use of company time and resources and behavior detrimental to the firm,' " I read.

"Sorry," said Carlos with a shrug.

I wish I could tell you that when I pushed my way through the shiny steel revolving door and stepped out to the street, I felt relieved. Truth is, I was as frightened as Montrose and Barry Neubauer wanted me to be. Suddenly my threats against Neubauer seemed ridiculous and hollow. I knew I'd done the right thing upstairs, so why did I feel like such a fool?

I walked in a daze over to the New York Public Library and the beautiful paneled reading room where I used to ponder my future when I took the train into the city while I was still in high school.

I wrote a letter to the Mudman. I passed along the news that his old prosecutor finally seemed willing to submit the nineteen-year-old evidence from his case for DNA testing. I wished him luck and told him to stay in touch if he could.

I called Pauline from a pay phone, but I got voice mail and couldn't bear to leave a message.

Then I walked across town to Penn Station and crawled home to Montauk one more time. The whole way home I kept trying to solve the same riddle. What can I do to make this right?

FENTON HOISTED HIS GLASS and toasted my sudden exit from the fast lane. "You did good, my son. You've come back down to our level, maybe a little lower."

"We missed you," said Hank. "Welcome back to the real world."

It was Friday night at the Memory Motel. The membership of the Townie Benevolent Association was present and accounted for, and with the date set for the inquiry, there was a certain defiant joie de vivre.

In this group, my unemployment was hardly cause for sympathy. Despite the biggest economic boom in history and the fact that an obscene amount of that money was being frittered away in our backyard, very little was trickling down to us.

As we compared notes, it became clear we were all on the same blacklist. We weren't paranoid, either: somebody was out to get us.