Page 97

Jimmy

JIMMY IS BACK IN Sag Harbor when Jed Bernstein calls and gives him an address in Barnes Landing, an almost secret section of Amagansett, on Gardiners Bay.

Jimmy knows the area, knows how the most expensive houses there overlook the small beach and the bay beyond.

Almost like a gated community without the gates.

“It’s one of Sonny’s many safe houses,” Bernstein says.

“Safe for whom?” Jimmy asks.

“Not you if you were lying to me about why you wanted to see him,” Bernstein says. “So you better not be screwing around here.”

Bernstein gives Jimmy a time then, tells him to come alone, reminds him again not to screw around, even though that is exactly what Jimmy Cunniff plans to do tonight.

It takes him about forty minutes to drive over from the bar, but he gets there right on time, nine o’clock.

He knows enough to leave his gun and his phone in the car.

He is wearing a windbreaker, jeans, old sneakers, and a Yankee cap that has more years on it than the sneakers, one he bought on the last night the Yankees played a game at the old Yankee Stadium.

God, he loved that place. The new one, on the north side of 161st, reminds him more of a giant outdoor shopping mall with a baseball diamond in place of fancy chain stores.

Blum’s house is a classic Hamptons saltbox, positioned high up and well back from the road and in line with a terrific bay view.

Two of Blum’s foot soldiers, built like jeeps, are waiting for Jimmy by the front door. Jimmy puts his hands high, almost in surrender, as he approaches them, lets them pat him down.

“Clearly not your first rodeo,” one of them says.

“Is there really such a thing as a first rodeo?” Jimmy asks.

Sonny Blum is wearing the same jacket he wore to Jimmy’s house, and the same pants, with what appear to be the same stains on them.

He is in the kind of leather BarcaLounger from which Jimmy’s old man used to watch baseball; only his looks a lot newer and more expensive than the one Jimmy remembers from the apartment in the Bronx.

Blum points to the couch.

“Sit,” he says. Then with a trembling hand he points at Jimmy’s Yankee hat. “You still root for them?”

“You can take the boy out of the Bronx,” Jimmy says.

“I’m so old I remember when they used to make the World Series every year,” Blum says. “No shit, can you even remember the last time they made it?”

“Vaguely.”

Blum says, “I’d offer you a drink but you’re not staying.”

“Glad we cleared that up.”

“So what’s so important you needed this sit-down?”

“I think I’m pretty close to figuring out who killed the Carsons,” Jimmy says.

“Talk to me.”

Jimmy has rehearsed his answer on the way over here and delivers it now, telling Blum that from everything he knows, it can only be Jacobson’s son, Eric.

Or Edmund McKenzie, once Rob Jacobson’s asshole buddy in high school.

Or maybe even both. For all the tap dancing he’s doing, this part is true.

Or it might be true. Because the more Jimmy thinks about it, the more he keeps coming back to the two of them, just because they’re the two who seem to hate Jacobson the most.

Jimmy doesn’t have any new information, or real proof, at least not yet. But the old man sitting across from him doesn’t know that.

“Can you nail this down?” Blum says when Jimmy finishes.

“Soon.”

“You know, I could just have them both killed and tell myself that was God’s way of sorting all of this shit out.”

“You want to know what went down,” Jimmy says. “I need to know. Let me handle this.”

“Don’t bother me again until you have.”

Jimmy nods. “Ask you something before I go?” he says to Blum.

“You can ask,” Blum says. “Don’t mean you get an answer.”

Jimmy says, “Why do you care so much whether Jacobson goes down for this or not? You ever plan to explain that to me?”

“Maybe someday,” Blum says. “Just not tonight.”

“Did Bernstein tell you about leaving my partner’s ex-husband alone?”

Blum tries to laugh, but it turns into coughing.

“When Pierre pays up, then I’ll leave him alone,” Blum says.

“Martin.”

“Who gives a shit?”

“Well,” Jimmy says, “I had to try.”

“You tried,” Blum says. “Now get lost.”

“Just one last thing,” Jimmy says.

He takes off his Yankee cap and reaches for the subpoena on top of his head and walks across the room and hands it to Blum.

“You’ve been served,” Jimmy says.

Blum looks at the paper in his hand, the gray skin suddenly turning red, then up at Jimmy. In that moment, Jimmy sees the killer in Sonny Blum, in total.

“You’re a dead man,” Blum says.

“Maybe someday,” Jimmy says. “Just not tonight.”