Two Time Read Free Page A

eighty percent in my left. Jackie’s right came all the way back. Her left is gone forever. Funny break.”
    Sullivan still wore a smirk, but it slipped a little.
    “Yeah. Luck’s an odd thing. You’re lucky you’re alive.”
    “Don’t get metaphysical.”
    “No problem there. You’re not my type.”
    I tried to keep part of my mind calculating the rafter cuts, but it wasn’t happening. I stared up at the precariously placed ridge plate and waited for inspiration.
    “Don’t you ever wonder why?” Sullivan asked.
    “All the time.”
    He nodded like I’d just won him a private bet.
    A windsurfer came into view. He was long and muscular, wearing a small blue tank suit and gripping the boom with a lanky confidence. His hair, long enough to fall down his back, was pressed wetly between his shoulder blades. There wasn’t nearly enough wind to give the guy much of a ride. I wondered what my father would think of windsurfing and jet skis and parasailing and the other modes of modern recreation that flew by on the bay. Not that he ever paid much attention to all the salt water sitting there outside his front door. Except for the occasional trip out to catch bluefish for dinner, he was a land guy—all grease, earth and dust.
    “They’re not getting anywhere,” said Sullivan.
    “I figured.”
    “Not what they’re telling everybody, of course. They’re calling it an ongoing investigation, which means they got squat. I ran into the lead guy over at Bobby Van’s. Having dinner with his wife. She didn’t want him talking shop, but you could tell he was fed up with the whole thing. He used to think it was a ticket to Hollywood. Big high-profile thing. Now two months later it’s an embarrassment. Even I’m embarrassed for him.”
    “You’re an empathetic guy, Joe.”
    “Embarrassed, empathetic, it’s all the same to me. Adds up to nothin’ for the prosecutor, nothin’ for the press. Nothin’ for the grieving widow.”
    “Nothin’ for the innocent bystanders.”
    “Yeah,” he said, “that, too. Not a happy place.”
    He seemed pensive. Almost philosophical. Even empathetic.
    “So, you got a deadline on this thing?” Sullivan asked, looking up at the addition.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You work on it every day?”
    “When I’m not working for Frank.”
    “A lot of work doing a whole addition. Especially doing it yourself. Lotta work.”
    “Yup.”
    “I know. I’ve done it. It’s tough.”
    “Definitely.”
    “Hard work.”
    “Yeah.”
    We sat in silence for a while, then Sullivan let out a noisy sigh to fill the dead air.
    “Of course, I’m the only one officially working,” he said.
    “And drinking on the job.”
    “Long as we’re not out of beer.”
    He dragged himself out of the Adirondack and lumbered into the house. While he was gone I busied myself thinking about the geometry and load distribution of roof rafters. And my high school girlfriend Sylvia Granata’s jawline, which I’d always admired as one of God’s acts of architectural perfection. Sullivan rolled back across the lawn and flopped into the chair, disrupting the image I’d almost formed in my mind. He handed me a Sam Adams and kept the microbrew from a case my friend Burton Lewis gave me the last time he was over. Sullivan never let his working class roots drag down his finer sensibilities. Especially when I was buying.
    “What do you know about the guy that was blown up?” he asked.
    “Papers said he was some sort of securities broker. Up island.”
    “Close.”
    He dug a small notepad out of his back pocket. It was covered in a cramped but orderly script.
    “Investment adviser. With a broker’s license. Had one office, in Riverhead. Spent part of the time there, the rest on the road. Specialized in high tech. IPOs. LBOs. SOBs, that kinda stuff.” He looked over at me. “Typical smart young prick, like we got out here a dime a dozen.”
    “Along with all the smart old pricks.”
    “BMWs and cigars.