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ROB JACOBSON’S RENTAL HOME is, as we like to say on the South Fork, on the south side of the highway. It means he’s living closer to the ocean than where I am, on my own side of the highway.

Jacobson’s lady friend, at least of the moment, is just leaving when I show up unannounced following my phone conversation with Danny Esposito.

“Jane,” my client says amiably, “this is Paula. Paula is about to walk to the Jitney stop.”

The Jitney is the luxury bus that shuttles people between the Hamptons and Manhattan.

“Don’t talk to strangers,” I say to the girl, who looks just like all the rest of them.

Tall, young, blond, so skinny I really want to recommend a hot meal as soon as she gets to Manhattan, jeans so tight I find myself wondering how long it takes for her to get into them.

Getting out of them apparently isn’t an issue.

After Paula kisses Rob good-bye, I say to her, “Does it ever bother you, being in bed with this guy?”

“Hey, I’m a lot cheaper than you are,” she says, and then adds, “Adios,” as she gives me a wave of the hand, theatrically shaking what I have to admit is an almost perfect butt as she walks away.

“No dumb blonde that one,” Jacobson says.

“Define dumb,” I say.

When we’re both seated in the living room and after I’ve declined to join him in a glass of wine, he says, “Is this a business call, or social?”

“I am all business today, Rob.”

“Damn, I was afraid of that,” he says. “So what’s up?”

“The gun your other squatter found in the town house is the one used on the Carson family,” I say. “Bullets are a match.”

“Wait … what ?”

“You heard me.”

“Janie,” he says, “my answer on that gun hasn’t changed. I have no goddamn idea how it got there.”

“Don’t lie to me!”

I surprise myself with how hot the words come out. Sometimes I’m able to resist the urge to yell at him this way. Not today. Fuck him.

He gives me what I now think of as The Smirk, a smile that is smug and arrogant and almost breathtakingly annoying, sometimes all at the same time.

“You want me to stop lying to you now ?” he says. “What would be the fun in that?”

He reaches into the ice bucket on the coffee table, pours himself some white wine, takes a healthy swallow of it, and smiles approvingly.

“I’m sure I’ve mentioned before what a scumbag I think you are,” I say.

“Repeatedly.”

“With cause.”

He’s still smirking then as he says, “Hey, I’ve got an idea: Want to go upstairs and fool around a little bit? Paula won’t be back until next weekend.”

I stare at him. I’ve long since lost the ability to be shocked by anything he says, or anything I find out he’s done. But then he acts like a pig, or sounds like one, all over again.

“Now that I think of it,” I say, “‘scumbag’ might actually be insulting to all the other scumbags in the world. So I take that back.”

He shrugs.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” he says. “I was just thinking that if you’re going to talk bad to me, it would be much more fun for me if we were in bed while you did.”