James Patterson - The Beach House

With his arms pinned behind him and a knee in the small of his back, all Jack could manage was a flinching twist. But it was enough to reduce a direct hit to a glancing blow, and it sent the Fixer stumbling forward until he and Jack stood eye-to-eye in the darkness.

"Give this message to Neubauer. Can you do that for me?" Jack asked. Then he brought his forehead down on the bridge of the Fixer's nose.

The Fixer was leaking blood worse than Jack, which caused him to seriously consider taking out his hunting knife and gutting Mullen in his own garage. Instead, he started working Jack hard with both fists. This was good work, if you could get it.

When Jack stopped moving, the Fixer stopped missing. This greatly improved his spirits. Pretty soon he felt good enough to deliver a message, his words supplying a rhythm to his fury.

"Don't you ever" – PUNCH – "ever" – PUNCH – "fuck with people who are your superiors in every" – PUNCH – "fucking way," he advised.

The Fixer had some more things he badly needed to get off his chest, but by then Jack was close to unconscious.

"As for Mr. Neubauer, you can tell him yourself."

Somehow, somewhere in his consciousness, Jack heard that, and promised himself he would.

But the man with the black driving gloves wasn't quite finished. He pulled Jack's head up by the hair.

Then he whispered in his ear, "Smarten up. Your grandfather's next, bozo. It'll be easy, Jack. He's really old."

WIN A FIGHT, you think it's the world's most exciting sport. Lose, badly, and you realize what a fool you were. Once I'd peeled my face off the garage floor and done an inventory of the damage, I knew I had to get myself to the hospital.

I was thinking I'd have to wake up Mack or call Hank, but when I got to my feet, I felt I could manage it on my own, which seemed preferable. I did go in and check on Mack. He was sleeping like an eighty-six-year-old baby.

I got the key and drove my father's old truck to the emergency room in Southampton. Even at four in the morning, it took me about thirty-five minutes.

There's not a lot of mayhem at our end of Long Island. Southampton isn't East St. Louis. When I walked into the ER, Dr. Robert Wolco put down his New York Times crossword puzzle and turned his attention to my face. "Hey, Jack," he said, "long time, no see."

"Hey, Robert," I managed. "You should see the other guy."

"I'll bet."

"I'd rather not."

He began by very gingerly and thoroughly cleaning my wounds. Then he laid me down under a bright orange light, shot my face full of Novocain, and stitched it closed. The skin on my face felt as if it were being laced up like hockey skates. It took twenty-eight stitches.

Wolco thought that he had done some of his best work and that the scars would heal nicely. I wasn't too worried. I never had the looks in the family anyway. He gave me a plastic tub of Vicodin for my ribs (X rays showed that three of them were cracked) and sent me home. The night, the beating, was one more thing I owed Barry Neubauer.

And I was counting.

THINGS WERE GETTING TIGHT. The inquest concerning Peter Mullen's death was almost there.

On Monday night the Fixer parked about a block down the street from a modest-looking house in Riverhead, Long Island. There was a terra-cotta planter on the porch and an antique weather vane on the garage. Beside the retro-looking mailbox with J. davis painted across it in childlike yellow script, a stone rabbit was perched on its hind legs. Yikes.

For this little slice of heaven, the doc spent fourteen hours a day elbow-deep in stiffs, coming up with all sorts of creative theories about how they got that way. Davis 's civic-mindedness baffled the Fixer. She could be pulling down a million per in Manhattan. Instead, she was poking around in cadavers.

Why do people do this? Why do they care if someone drowned or got sunk? They probably watch too many movies. Everyone wants to be a hero. Well, guess what, Jane? You're no Julia Roberts. Trust me on this one.

He knew the doc's loyal pooch would be showing the effects of the yummy treat he'd slipped through the brass newspaper slot at the bottom of the door – another corny retro touch – a few hours earlier. She wasn't much of a watchdog now, lying on her side and snoring to beat the band.

The Fixer quietly let himself in, stepped over the dog, and walked up the stairs toward Jane Davis's bedroom.

This, he was thinking, this is why I get paid the big bucks.

Jane was sleeping, too. Yeah, Janie, you do snore. She lay on top of the sheets in her bra and panties. Not a lot up top, the Fixer noted, but decent legs for a doc.

He sat down next to her on the bed and watched her breathe. Christ, she sleeps like the dead.

He touched his hand down between her legs, and that got her up in a hurry. All full of piss and vinegar, too.

"Hey! What the hell? Who are you?" she screeched, and raised her fists as if she wanted to fight.

But then she saw the gun, and the silencer attached to the long barrel.

"You're a very smart woman, a doctor, so you know what this is about, don't you?"

She nodded, then whispered, "Yes."

"There's going to be an inquest soon, and you've already been overruled by one of your superiors. That should make it real easy for you."

Then he did something naughty – the Fixer pressed the barrel of his gun between Jane Davis's legs. He rubbed it around. Well, it worked for him.

"You owe me, Jane," he said, and rose from her bed. "Don't make me come back here. Because I'd like to do you. And, Jane, I wouldn't call the police, either. They're in on this, too. Call the police, and I'll be back real soon."

He left her bedroom, and she listened to him walk back downstairs. She finally took a breath. But then she heard the silenced pistol cough once.

She knew what the bastard had done, and Jane was crying as she hurried downstairs.

He was still there in her house, grinning, and he hadn't shot Iris after all.

"You owe me, Jane."

FIRST THEY MURDER YOU. Then they slander you. That was my "breakfast revelation of the day" when I spread out the Star beside my omelette at Estia. I sighed, shook my head, and felt sad again. Sad and really shitty.

Peter was featured in another bold, fourteen-point headline, but the story had spun 360 degrees out of control. Now we had a second opinion about how Peter died: POLICE SUSPECT RIVAL DRUG DEALERS IN MULLEN'S DEATH.

The lead paragraph elaborated: "A bitter battle over turf or a drug deal gone awry are two possibilities that police are pursuing in their ongoing investigation into the death of twenty-one-year-old Montauk native Peter Mullen, according to East Hampton Chief Detective Frank Volpi."

Mack was right. Life is war.

Volpi also said that there was the possibility Peter Mullen was under the influence of drugs at the time of his death and that a request had been made for further tests to determine if that was the case. "We have requested tests to detect the presence of cocaine, alcohol, or marijuana in the victim's blood," said Volpi, "and should have them completed in time for the inquiry."

Neubauer's lawyers were employing the same strategy that had worked so well with O. J. Simpson and so many others. Put enough semiplausible scenarios out there and it becomes almost impossible to conclude that there isn't reasonable doubt.

I borrowed the phone and finally got the Star's editor on the line. "Who is feeding you these stories?" I asked. "It's Volpi, isn't it?"

"No one is feeding us anything. We're reporting everything relevant. That's what newspapers do, Mr. Mullen."