Crime of Privilege

“Hi. How are you? You know Jason Stockover?”

Her eyes flicked, rolled; her mouth grimaced. “Pretty much. Until I get to this one man, owns a restaurant on the beach.”

“Wouldn’t be the place with coconut pies, would it?”

“You’ve been there, I see.”

“That’s supposed to be the place Jason owns.”

“Well, the real owner’s name is J. T. Bauer. Balding guy, pretty muscular, about forty-five. He comes from Key West.”

“Doesn’t sound like Jason.” I remembered what Howard Landry had said. I had a flash of Howard flapping his hand under his chin.

“Nope. What’s more, he claimed never to have known any Jason in Tamarindo. What he admitted, and this is what I’ve been trying to get to, George, is that he did know Lea

She clearly thought this was going to detonate, bring me flying out of my chair. She was disappointed when it didn’t.

“Lea

“J.T. said she came into town, met him, hooked up with him, as the kids say these days. Stayed a couple of weeks, even helped him run the restaurant. Then she moved on.”

It was possible. If someone had told Peter what I was doing enough time before I got to California, he could have called Lea

I swallowed.

“What is it, George?”

“How do you know it was the real Lea

“Well,” she said, the word coming out slowly, lingering, “that’s kind of hard for me to say, never having met or seen Lea

I had to agree and was about to tell her that when she added, “But this much I do know. The girl moved in with J. T. Bauer. He paid her in cash, never saw anything with her name on it, came home one day and she was gone.”

“No note? No message, no forwarding address?”

“Nothing. And J.T. didn’t seem all that upset about it, tell you the truth. He says that kind of thing happens down there sometimes. He said same thing used to happen in Key West. People come in, shack up, move on.”

Barbara’s legs crossed again. The upper one began to bob up and down expectantly. The woven sandal dangled from her foot. I had the feeling she was remembering something that I didn’t. I tried to think what it could be.

“Key West is kind of a big sailing town, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah.”

“This J.T., he didn’t happen to know Peter, did he?”

One eyebrow went up. Barbara looked at me approvingly. “Bingo, George. You win the prize. What he didn’t know, what he couldn’t tell me, was whether the Lea

“Except they were both from Massachusetts.”

Barbara shrugged. “I’m not even sure about that. J.T. seemed to think the Lea

It was making perfect sense. Go to another country, look for a man who isn’t there. Get threatened by a woman who isn’t who you think she is. Heck of an effort, George. Keep up the good work. Want a new office?

5

.

IWAS BEING PLAYED BY PEOPLE WITH A LOT MORE RESOURCES THAN I had. I asked myself if that was the message Barbara had come to deliver. Barbara Blueblood Belbo

Except Barbara had cried, hadn’t she? And what was in it for her, protecting Peter, ru

I called Buzzy. It had been a long time since we had spoken and he seemed to jump when he recognized my voice.

I told him I needed a favor.

“Anything for you, buddy.”

I had to choke back my first reaction.

“Georgie? You all right?”

“What can you tell me about Barbara Belbo

“Your dungeon-mate? Used to be Barbara Etheridge?”

“She told me she grew up with you.”

“Well, she did, sorta. I mean …” Buzzy wanted to be helpful; he was looking for ways to do that. “I mean, she was one of the rich kids. Into sailing and all that shit, and I wasn’t. She was like Hya

He stopped then, thinking he had answered my question.

“But you did go to school with her, right?”

“Up to about, I don’t know, age fourteen, maybe. Then she went away to boarding school and, like, next time I saw her, she was married to Tyler Belbo

“Did that surprise you? Her and Tyler?”

“Okay, I gotta back up. When we were little, Tyler was, like, legendary. Like I said, I wasn’t into sailing, but everyone knew who he was. His picture was always in the paper, wi

“Including Barbara?”

“Oh, yeah. Early, early on. In fact, I think that was why they sent her away. It was pretty much common knowledge she was banging him.”

“Sent her away to prep school, you mean?”

“Yeah, Tabor, I think. Then four years to Sarah Lawrence or someplace like that. I’d see her around in the summers and we’d say hi and stuff, but that was all. And then, what I heard was that she was going to law school at B.U. and she ran into Ty again. By this time he’d been all over the world, and once he starts telling her about Saint Bart’s and the Greek islands and Tahiti, and it was like—fuck law school. That’s, I guess, when it happened.”

“When what happened?”

“She got knocked up. Preggers.”

“But Ty did marry her.” It was a question, really. I was trying to find out if anything she said was true.

“I don’t know if it was that time or the next. What I can tell you is he signed on to a crew that was competing for the America’s Cup and he was gone to Australia for a year while she was here by herself. Then he returns and everything starts up all over again. I think she and Ty were living in some dump down in Harwich while he was working in a marine supply store, and she was back trying to go to law school at night and you just knew that wasn’t going to last. She has the second kid and the kid turns out to have Down syndrome and Ty sails off to the Azores.”

“Before or after they had Malcolm?”

“I don’t know, George. From what I understand, the syndrome is something you can find out about during pregnancy, so they must have known. Or at least she must have.”

“You think it’s possible she didn’t tell him because she wanted to keep her hold on him?”

“Jeez, I don’t know, George. I’d like to think she’s not that stupid. I mean, I know she’s not stupid, but sometimes people do things … you know?”

“I know, Buz.”

“Look, I was shocked as hell when you told me she was working in your office. She was, like, one of the great tragedies of my lifetime. My lifetime—what am I talking about? Of the Cape … of … of … I don’t know, of all time. Here was this beautiful girl, rich family, has everything going for her, and she lets her life get all fucked up by the local cool guy who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything but himself.”