The Beach House

I smelled Pauline's light perfume before I saw her. "Coming back here was insane," I said when she stepped out of the darkness.

But I didn't say it with much conviction. I figured she'd been thinking the same thing I had, that it might be our last night together for a long time.

"So, I'm insane," she said.

"Well, you've come to the right place."

Pauline lay down and leaned into me, and for a few minutes I forgot about everything except how right she was for me. The thought filled me with anguish.

"I didn't mean it, Paulie girl. I'm really glad you came back from New York."

"I know, Jack. So give the girl a kiss."

Chapter 96

AN HOUR OR SO LATER, Pauline and I were still out on the deck beneath the canopy of a thousand glittering stars.

"Did you get the blood work back from Jane?" she asked softly. For a second I was somewhere so far away that I didn't know what she meant.

"Not till tomorrow. Early, I hope. How about you? How'd it go out there in the big, bad world?"

"I did good," said Pauline with her loveliest cat-that-swallowed-the-canary grin. "Real good, jack. You're going to be happy."

"How many could you track down?"

"Twelve," she said, "out of twelve."

"And how many signed?"

"All of them. Every single one, Jack. They hate that son of a bitch Neubauer as much as we do."

"Looks like I hired the right investigator," I said, and kissed her again.

"You have an eye for talent. Oh, by the way, Jack, you're famous."

"Good famous? Or bad famous?"

"Depends on the cha

"It would make powerful television."

"Ten minutes later Geraldo compared you to heroes in the American Revolution."

"I always felt Geraldo never got the respect he deserves."

"Since when?"

"Since tonight."

"And this weatherwoman on Fox, I think she wants to have your baby."

"Someone should tell her I'm taken."

"Good answerback. You're learning."

"It's true. If there's any baby-making involving me, it's going to be done with a non-weatherwoman with the musical name of Pauline Grabowski."

There was a sweet pause.

"Pauline?"

"What's that, lawyer boy?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too. That's why I'm here," she whispered. "It's probably why we're all here, Jack."

"I love you more than I ever thought I could love anybody. I worship you, actually. You surprise me, in good ways, just about every day we're together. I love your spirit, your compassion, that sweet, fu

This time the silence was frightening. I was afraid to move.

I finally propped myself up on one elbow and leaned over her. Her face seemed to be broken into a million shimmering pieces. She looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her.

When she nodded through her tears, the riddle of my life was solved.

Chapter 97

TWENTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Ames sat tall behind the tapered windscreen of his jet-powered Blackhawk 7000 helicopter and felt as if the night were his own private video game. He was on duty, searching for the missing millionaires, but his heart wasn't in it. He didn't much like any of the millionaires he'd met. All three of them.

Eighteen miles northeast of Montauk was Block Island. Ames had spent the day flying back and forth over every square inch. Zilch. He wasn't really surprised.

Now he was racing back to Long Island, hotdogging it slightly, but nothing to get court-martialed for. He took a glance at the speed indicator: 280. Hell, it felt twice that. He was flying less than fifty feet above the cement-hard whitecaps.

At the Montauk lighthouse, Ames juked left and followed the steep, jagged coastline. In the moonlight, it seemed to be crumbling into the surf.

He figured he'd ride the cliffs for a few miles before tacking inland to MacArthur Airport. That's when he spotted the dark, low-slung mansion in the dunes.

He'd been scoping out multimillion-dollar vacation homes all day, but this one was over the top, even by the lofty standards of waterfront real estate in these parts. Sleek and serpentine, it went on forever along the cliffs.

Still, on the first big weekend of the summer, there wasn't a single light on. Strange, and a goddamned waste. Somebody ought to be using this spread.

He pulled hard on the stick, and the big bird seemed to screech to a stop in midair. It made him think of a cartoon character who realizes a beat too late that he's just run off the side of a cliff. Then, for the umpteenth time that day, Lt. Ames banked toward the mansion.

In close, he could see that the place wasn't quite finished. He spun around the grassless site like a stock car circling a quarter-mile track. His turbine engine hacked up a dirt cyclone that would settle over everything in its path – from the front porch to the big yellow steamroller at the end of the driveway.

He was about to swerve back and head for the airport when he noticed the mountain bike leaning up against one of the few trees.

He hit it with his 8,000-watt spotlight, and saw a lock hanging open from a back tire.

What have we here?

More slowly now, he circled the place again. He hovered at roof height and beamed his lights along the row of blacked-out windows.

That's when he saw the couple literally under his nose on the deck. Both of them buck naked.

Ames was about to reach for the two-way radio when the woman stood up and turned to face the lights. She was beautiful, and not in a pouting-model sort of way.

For about ten seconds she stood with her hands on her hips and stared up as if she were trying to tell him something important with her eyes. Then she raised both hands above her shoulders and flipped him the bird with each one.

Ames started to laugh, and for the first time all day remembered why he liked America.

I must have something better to do, he thought, than bust a couple of trespassers for making love in one of the most beautiful spots in North America. He put the handset back on its cradle, then swung the big bird back toward MacArthur Airport.

He was still smiling about the pretty girl who had flipped him the double bird.

Chapter 98

PAULINE AND I WERE LOST in our own little world, holding hands and watching the surf, when Fenton burst through the French doors to the deck.

"Jack, Volpi's gone!"

"I thought you were doing ten-minute checks? The doors were double-locked?"

"I was, Jack. I swear. He can't be gone more than a few minutes."

Fortunately, Pauline and I were dressed by now. We followed Fenton out onto the beach. We looked up and down the shoreline. Nothing.No Volpi.

"He would have headed west, toward the Blakely place. It's the only way that makes any sense," I said.

The three of us sprinted toward the garage and Pauline's car. With Pauline driving, we raced down the long dirt driveway, then turned left toward town.

"It can't end like this," I said.

Pauline, who was already going faster than I would have, put the pedal to the floor. It was a little before two in the morning, and the road was empty. After half a mile she took a hard left toward Franklin Cove.

"Pull over here," I told Pauline. "The shoreline is just over that dune. Either we've beaten him here, or we're fucked."

We jumped out and clambered hand over hand to the top of the dune. My heart was pounding as we topped the crest.