Trolls in the Hamptons (32 page)

“What trawler?”

“The red one that broadsided your boss' boat.”

“My boss?”

I forgot about that when Fafhrd's head rose up behind the remnants. I'd been holding my breath, wondering if he was trapped beneath the debris. He shook his head, no. Not hurt. No, no Nicky, which I knew. “Fool.”

Rick gave me a dirty look. “Parker may be a fool, but he's still going to blame me for whatever happened.”

Then he got busy, ordering his crew to set up booms around the wreck to catch any oil spill and tow the other boats out of range in case of fire or explosion.

“No ignitions, no cigarettes. No frigging trawler.”

He shouted for the ship's store manager to call the harbormaster, the Coast Guard, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the police.

I, he felt, should call Mr. Parker.

“Me?”

“I'll be too busy trying to explain to a hundred agencies how no rogue fishing boat is at the bottom of the harbor, only Parker's
Chorine
, in pieces. Did you see what happened?”

“No, I was napping. I only looked up at the noise.”

“Maybe it was a blasted asteroid. Or a piece of a plane falling out of the sky. Does that make sense?”

Not when they didn't find anything like that in the wreck, either. “Maybe ice. A big chunk of space ice that melted when it hit the water.”

Rick rubbed his ear. “You're not telling the truth, Willy. There's the old Royce blood in my family, too, that tells me the difference. But know what? I don't want to know the truth, not if half of what I hear is real. So you go on, do what you have to. But please, don't come back this way, okay?”

Fafhrd was long gone, but I heard sirens in the distance and decided I better go before I was in the way, or my car got blocked in. Or Rick started blaming me.

My bodyguard showed up when I was halfway back to Rosehill. I pulled over when I saw Lou's silver Lexus, with blue lights flashing.

“I heard an emergency call go out. You okay?”

“Fine. Nothing out of the ordinary.” Not for me, anyway.

I
CALLED THE NUMBER FOR Mr. Parker and got a receptionist, a secretary, then a personal assistant, telling my story every time. I explained who I was, where I was, and why I was calling. No one seemed to care. Finally I got put on hold, listening to the theme from a movie I'd never seen. One of Mr. Parker's, I assumed.

After the third time through some really bad music, Curtis Parker himself got on the phone. Before I got in a word, he started cursing, shouting, acting as if I'd taken an ax to his expensive toy myself. In a way I suppose I had, but he couldn't know that. I tried to explain that Rick at the boatyard was certain the insurance would cover the loss.

“It's totaled? A total loss? I loved that boat!”

I said I was sorry, again.

“Yeah, yeah. That helps. Good thing I'm in New York this week. I'll be out as soon as I can hire a plane or a 'copter. Who the hell did you say you were?”

I could hear him giving orders to his underlings about canceling appointments, calling the airport service, and someone named Vonna. That must be the starlet du jour. I raised my voice and said, “I am your replacement dog-and house sitter. Lily Corwin's second cousin.”

“Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll need a car at the airport in East Hampton. See to it.”

See to it? Now here was a moral dilemma. I wasn't getting paid by the man, or anyone yet. So technically I did not work for him, but for my mother's cousin, my mother, or the Rosehill estate, unless I'd been drafted as a volunteer. Either way, I felt no obligation to take orders from any pompous ass. Granted his boat had imploded for no reason that anyone could explain. Granted he ought to come look at the damage himself and sign papers so his insurance people could get to work. Granted I'd been driving his car, taking baths in his Jacuzzi, and swimming in his pool. But he was only renting Rosehill; none of the stuff belonged to him.

And I did not take orders kindly. Writers seldom did. That's why they worked at home, for themselves, at their own speed, instead of in an office, listening to some Curtis Parker clone telling them what to do and when to do it.

Being treated like a servant was worse. Not that there was anything wrong with cleaning houses, chauffeuring millionaires, serving them meals. Hell, I'd made lunch for the cleaning people when they came. What rubbed me wrong was the attitude that if you work for me, you aren't as good as me, so I can treat you like shit because there's always someone else to take my money. Kind of like publishing, only less polite.

Maybe that was it. I appreciated good manners. Mr. Parker had none.

On the other hand, I liked his dogs. I didn't want to just walk away from them without knowing that he was going to feed them on time, see that they had their nightly treats, or take them back with him when he left Paumanok Harbor. For all I knew, he intended to keep the chartered plane or helicopter—which the airport's neighbors despised because of the noise—waiting for him at the airport. That way he could play potentate for the marina masses and still get back to whatever big deal he had to make tomorrow.

In which case, was I still expected to be the dog sitter?

So I waited for the message to tell me what time to pick him up at the airport. It never came, only a furious call asking where the fuck his car was? The asswipes at the rental counter had no more cars available and were closing up for the night.

I said I'd be there in twenty minutes.

It was more like forty, because I had to pack up my stuff and Red's. I wasn't staying in the house with the foulmouthed movie mogul.

I called the guesthouse from my cell phone to notify my bodyguards and sped through the back roads to avoid Montauk Highway with its lights and traffic.

Parker was pacing outside the single terminal, swatting at flies with his cigarette. I guessed him to be nearing sixty, trying for forty, looking like a foolish fifty with his tanned skin and surgically smooth face. The paunch gave him away. His jacket was rumpled, his tie loose around his neck.

The dark-haired woman on a bench beside him was young and beautiful, if you liked that hard pouty look. She wore stiletto heels and a short, tight, black spandex dress—and diamonds. She might as well have “Bimbo” written across her impressive bosom. I wish I could remember what Pauline said her name was, or what movie she was in so I could avoid it.

No one introduced me. I was a better person than that, so I held up the Pomeranian and said, “This is Red. He bites.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Parker threw a suitcase in the backseat, but made to get in the driver's door, so I stepped out. The female got in the passenger side, clutching her tote bag.

He put the car in gear.

“Hey, what about me?”

“Lily always left the car here.”

“Well, I am not Lily, and I need a ride home.” That was a lie, but I hadn't found out how long he was staying, or if he knew how to tell which of his own dogs was Ben, which was Jerry. Besides, I wouldn't give puff-gut Parker the satisfaction of dismissing me so easily.

“But you promised me dinner at The Palm in East Hampton,” the bimbo whined. “We never got to eat.”

She was so skinny she most likely never ate anyway, so I didn't feel sorry for her. Besides, my macaroni and cheese was still in Rosehill's kitchen. Ha ha.

Parker looked undecided.

I held up Red again. “In case you didn't notice, I have my dog with me. I also have my suitcases and laptop in the trunk. It's getting dark, and this place is miles away from anywhere, and deserted at night. You cannot just leave me here.”

Parker threw his cigarette—still lit—onto the pavement. “Get in.” He lit another cigarette while I shoved his valise over to make room for Red and me, then he put his other hand on the starlet's knee. “We'll go to the new place in the Harbor, sugar.”

I didn't bother to tell them that the new place was still closed on Tuesdays.

Red growled. He didn't like the backseat or the cigarette smoke or maybe the animosity in the car.

“This car stinks of dog,” Sugar complained, with a snarky glance at Red.

I couldn't see how she could smell dog over tobacco, but I said, “I've been taking the poodles places with me. They don't get so lonely that way, or so anxious that they get destructive.”

Parker turned the AC on high. “Some bitch was supposed to come straighten them out.”

I held Red closer to me to keep him warm, and to keep me from throwing Parker's suitcase at his hair-woven head. “That bitch is my mother.”

“Yeah, yeah. It's only an expression.”

And Fafhrd was only a troll.

Snark-face complained some more. “There's sand on my seat.”

What did they expect, when they had a beach house? “The cleaning ladies don't do cars.”

He went through a red light at Newtown Lane in East Hampton. “So what happened to my boat?”

He didn't care about the pedestrians trying to cross the street, or the car trying to make a left turn, so I didn't care what I said. “A really big, heavy troll jumped on board.”

He laughed. “I like you, honey. You've got balls, I'll say that for you.”

The actress didn't say anything, but she did give me another look, then stared out the window, sulking.

“So what really happened?”

“I'm not certain. They're looking for whatever hit it, junk from space maybe.”

“Come on, doll, that's the plot of one of my movies. Stuff like that doesn't happen in real life.”

Now I remembered why I never saw his movies. “They have to wait to haul out the debris to see if the engines blew up, but there wasn't any fire. I know that.”

“The insurance will cover it.”

Not if it was declared an act of God, but I didn't say that. Maybe boats were insured differently.

With his sweet young thing turning sour on him, Parker looked in the rearview mirror, taking stock of me for the first time. I felt dirty.

“What did you say your name was?”

“Tate, Willy Tate. I write books.”

“Everyone does, doll, everyone does. That's why there are so many house sitters and dog-walkers out there.”

“Gee, I thought those were unemployed actresses.”

That got me a glare from the skinny starlet, but another laugh from Parker, who tossed another burning butt out the window. Thank God we'd had so much rain the other night or he'd set the Hamptons on fire.

After a few minutes of silence, while I made sure my seat belt was tight, the female turned around. “Willy is short for Willow, isn't it? I've heard of you.”

I doubted she could read, but I smiled graciously and said, “A lot of people have my books, mostly kids.” I couldn't help bragging, after the insults. “I won a GRABYA award last year. That's Graphic Arts Books for Young Adults.”

Parker laughed. “Grabya, heh?”

The arm candy wasn't amused. Or impressed. She waved a hand in the smoke, showing off long nails with red polish and rhinestones. “No, not that. Your mother is the one who's good with dogs, you said, and your grandmother is some kind of witch.”

“She's a master gardener and an herbalist. Being good at what you do is not unusual for the residents of Paumanok Harbor.”

Parker patted her knee again, and left his hand there. “I told you, sugar, lots of local color at the Harbor. Besides, you were the one who wanted me to rent a place out here. I would have gone somewhere with more . . . ”

“Celebrities?” I offered. “Stars? Cachet?”

“Yeah, yeah. Cachet. That's it. Now you do sound like a writer, doesn't she, Vonna?

Ah, sugar had a name. Now I remembered, she was Vonna Ormand, who once dated Brad Pitt, according to Pauline the manicurist. I asked why she picked little Paumanok Harbor instead of the flossier Hamptons. I'd have thought a busty—that is, budding—actress would want the chance to meet influential people, get the publicity, be seen. “Have you been here before?”

“Oh, I always heard it was pretty.” She went back to sulking out the window.

Parker wore smoke rings over his head, like a demonic angel. The image got worse when he said, “I'm thinking of making a documentary movie out here.”

Just what we needed. Make Paumanok Harbor a tourist trap like Salem, Mass. Have every UFO-junkie, ghost-hunter, and cult-worshiper land on the beach.

Since we were already coming into Amagansett, the town before the turn for the Harbor, I quickly proceeded to tell them how to care for Ben and Jerry. She yawned; he took out his cell phone and barked into it at someone. He was driving with one hand again, the hand that held a cigarette.