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  He started to raise the rifle, but saw he was already squarely in the sights of my .38. In an instant he ducked out the door and took all four porch stairs in one leap. I could hear him running up the street, but I didn’t have the energy to chase him. It was all I could do to make my way down to the living room and out onto the porch.

  From down by the water came the sound of a car starting. The shooter was gone into the night. Again he was beyond my reach.

  Now I heard my neighbor calling to me from his front porch. He was in his pajamas. “Ben, you all right? Was that a shot I heard?”

  “I heard it, too. Firecracker, I think. I can still smell it in the air. There were kids out here. Ran away.” I could only hope he’d buy into it. If he got antsy and called the cops, the episode could end up in the newspapers, and nobody wanted that right now — not Hector or Ingo or me. “Seems quiet now,” I said, trying to sound unconcerned.

  “Damn kids around here are a pain in the ass,” my neighbor said. “‘Night.” I heard his front door shut.

  Lisa was sitting on the bottom stair inside the house. I barely noticed her as I fell back into the easy chair and closed my eyes, the pistol still in my hand. In my head I conjured up the image of my own circulatory system, churning away fitfully inside my body. Mentally, I willed the functions to return to normal. I read somewhere once that if you focus, you can do that with your body, think it and make it happen. It seemed to work. Or maybe just sitting there quietly had something to do with it.

  “I’m a believer.” Lisa finally broke the silence. “Something bad is going on.”

  “Bad doesn’t begin to cover it,” I said.

  “Was he trying to shoot me, do you think? Or was he after you? Or both of us?”

  “Can’t tell yet. He was the same guy who shot at me out on the water today. Maybe he felt like finishing the job. Or maybe he’s somebody with a grudge against Julian Communications and wants to knock off the top people. Of which you happen to be one.” My head was still back, my eyes closed. “Of course, you were alone on my porch before I got here. For how long?”

  “Maybe forty-five minutes,” she said.

  “He could have come after you then, easy. Maybe he followed you here to find where I live, then waited for me to show up.”

  “Why follow me? You’re right there in the phonebook, easy to find.”

  “Right. If he knew my name, somehow,” I said. Then, “I got a good look at the guy tonight. I have no idea who he is.”

  “He’s still out there,” she said.

  “You bet he is. And he may want me. He may want you. Or Ingo or Hector. Or all of us. No way to know yet. This is a dangerous guy. I saw him pacing around in the front yard after he shot out the window. A wild man. You should have protection.”

  “And you?”

  I held up the gun. “I’ve got this.”

  “In your bureau drawer, under your shorts.”

  “No, it’s in my hand now, and I intend to keep it close.” I pulled myself out of the chair and walked unsteadily to where she sat. “Any reasonable person would bring the cops in. But if I do, Ingo will blame Empire Security for letting bad news get out and screwing up the IPO. He’ll fire us, and I’ll spend the rest of my life in poverty and desperation”

  “What are you talking about, Seidenberg?”

  “Just the ramblings of a man who’s been shot at twice in one day. Look, I can’t simply do nothing about all this. It’s my ass getting shot at, too — my fat ass, as you put it so delicately.”

  “A figure of speech,” she said. “Nothing personal. Your ass isn’t that fat.”

  “Whatever.” I offered her my hand. She took it and got to her feet. “Ingo doesn’t want to listen to me because he’s afraid I’ll rock his corporate boat,” I said. “Go tell Hector what happened to you tonight. Tell him I want to put some Empire people on the scene, here, and in New York, too. People who carry guns. We’ll do it discreetly, tell him, and Ingo won’t know they’re around. Will you do that?”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  I checked my watch. “The ferry is going to stop running for the night. You’d better not go back to Shelter by yourself, and walking alone is out of the question. So I and my revolver are going to drive you onto the ferry and deliver you directly to Ingo’s door.”

  She put her hands on my shoulders. “Are you as good as Hector says you are? Smart and strong? What do you think?”

  “Look, Iron Lady, I’d be flattered to have you kiss me again, but it complicates the hell out of my established relationship. Nothing personal. So you can adore me if you must, but mostly from afar.”

  “In that case, I take back what I said about you.”

  “What?”

  “That your ass isn’t that fat. Let’s be honest. It really is.”

  CHAPTER VI

  The autumn fog that hung across the bay was so heavy I could barely make out the contour of Shelter Island from Wally’s Marina, a distance of three quarters of a mile. If I were going out fishing, I’d play it cautious, keep the Elysium safe in the slip and drink coffee for an hour, until I was sure the morning sun was well on its way to burning off the mist. The sun’s supposed to do that, but sometimes it refuses. I don’t like fog, anyway, not since it unexpectedly descended on me in Plum Gut one afternoon, and the New London ferry coming across Long Island Sound passed Elysium’s stern with fifteen feet to spare.

  But the fog was no threat today because the Elysium wasn’t going fishing, or anywhere. When I arrived at the slip, a mechanic was busy cementing a new piece of glass into the windshield frame, and hadn’t yet started on the broken gas line.

  Wally stood next to me looking into the boat, his thumbs hooked into his belt. “He’s got another hour, maybe two.”

  “At seventy-five bucks an hour,” I said.

  “Eighty-five. Plus parts.” He pointed to the stern. ”You know the bullet tore out a plug of fiberglass? Not all the way through, though. Way above the waterline. No big deal. We’ll patch it when we put her away for the winter.” Wally turned and walked up the ramp to the yard. I followed. “Listen, amigo, I asked everybody here if they knew a commercial boat named Lulu. Nothing Then I called marina guys I know in Sag Harbor, Orient, Shinnecock, Mattituck, Jamesport. More nothing. Now, there’s a lot more marinas than that around here, but I don’t know all those guys.” He took a box of black Napoli cigars out of his shirt pocket, shook one out and lit it, cupping his hands around the flame of the match. He took a big drag and let the pungent smoke out, making me regret I was standing near him in the still air. “One thing, though.”

  “And that is?”

  “There is a Lulu. But this Lulu isn’t the boat you’re looking for, it’s an actual live woman, Lulu Lumpkin.”

  “Really? Lulu Lumpkin? Unfortunate name.”

  “She’s been around for years. Everybody knows about her. Owns a bar on the South Fork, in Shinnecock. Runs the place herself. Kind of a shit-hole where the commercial salts hang out for their shots and beers. I stopped in for a drink with a guy one time, asked for a martini. She made it for me, said it was the first martini’d been ordered there in nine years. Gives you an idea. Es muy colorful, I suppose, but you have to be pretty desperate for some sauce to belly up to Lulu’s bar. Anyhow, she’s not a boat, is she?”

  “Maybe somebody likes her enough to name a boat after her,” I said.

  “I already talked to Bill Evans at the Shinnecock marina. If there’s a commercial boat called Lulu anyplace around there, he’d know. I’m not so sure Lulu Lumpkin’s the kind of woman somebody’d name their boat after. She’s not a great beauty, and no kid, either. Tough old broad.”

  “Could be you’re right,” I said. “But Lulu’s such a curious name these days. Kind of old-time stuff, right? I mean, did you ever know anybody else actually named Lulu?”

  “No. So?”

  “Such an offbeat name. I know it’s a stretch, but what the hell. It’s a place to start. Only one I have,�
� I said. “What time does she open, you think?”

  “First thing in the morning. Her customers, some of ‘em, their breakfast is a cup of coffee and a shot of Seagrams Seven.” He looked at his watch, raising up his cigar hand and giving me another whiff that distinctive Napoli aroma. “She’s been serving for a couple hours already.”

  “You know where her place is, right? Come along and show me.”

  “Got work.”

  “It’s October, Prager. The season is over. Whatever’s left to do, your people are doing. Not only don’t you, personally, have anything to do, you won’t until March.”

  “Just shows what you know about running a business. Now I understand why that Teague guy in New York has you by the balls.”

  “I’ll buy your lunch,” I said. “Hell of an offer, I think.”

  “A McDonald’s Value Meal in Riverhead, you mean? Not likely. I do this, I want to come back on the North Road and get a lobster roll and a slice of that chocolate mud pie. Cost you twenty-five bucks, with the tip, mi compadre. More, if you eat, too. But what the hell, it’s not your money, right? You’re going to put in for it, anyway.”

  “We leave in fifteen minutes,” I said.

  “Why not right now?”

  “Because it’ll take you that long to smoke up that hideous cigar. You’re not getting into my car with that thing.”

  It hardly mattered that Wally’d finished his smoke and disposed of the butt in the approved GI fashion, pulling it apart and scattering the tobacco. The smell of cigar smoke still clung faintly to him as he sat next to me in the car. “I still smell that cigar,” I told him.

  “Tough shit.” His quick reflex answer. “It goes away. Two hours, tops.”

  I swung onto Route 27 and headed west toward Shinnecock. There was barely any fog now, because we were away from the water. I said, “What can you tell me about this Lulu?”

  Wally thought for a moment, staring ahead at the road. “Every bayman, dock hand and rummy out here seems to know her. Story is, she just showed up one day and bought herself a saloon. It used to belong to John Argyris, an old Greek who figured it was time to pack it in and go back to Athens to die. Along comes Lulu with a handbag stuffed with hundred dollar bills, and the next thing you know, Lulu’s behind the bar, and Argyris is on an airplane. That was, like, a dozen years ago.”

  “Where’d she come from?”

  “All kinds of stories. One is she was a madam from Pennsylvania someplace. Another, she was on the lam, embezzled the money from a tire factory in Ohio. And get this. Somebody even said she was the bastard daughter of Lyndon Johnson, and that the bar was paid for with hush money from the Democratic National Committee. All bullshit dreamed up by drunks. The truth is, nobody knows, really. And she’s never said. Hey, you want to find out, I think you should ask her.”

  We drove on until the highway crossed the Shinnecock Canal, a man-made waterway that connects two of Long Island’s big bays. Boats can go from the Atlantic Ocean on the south up into Shinnecock Bay, then through the canal, with its lock, into Great Peconic Bay. It’s a practical route for boats of all kinds, and Shinnecock is ringed with docks and marinas.

  “Turn off here,” Wally said. “Then take the third left, and another left. Over there. See it?”

  I saw it. An exhausted old building covered in asbestos tile that hadn’t been painted in so long it was hard to tell what color it used to be. The sign on the roof still said John Argyris Tavern, no apostrophe, in faded green and blue letters. I had to look hard to decipher it. The car rocked as I drove it across deep ruts in the graveled lot. I parked.

  “How do you like it so far?” Wally said.

  Though the morning sun was out full, once the tavern door closed behind us, it was late afternoon inside, dismal and totally drained of color. Two grizzled old-timers sat murmuring to each other near the door, as they filled the air with cigarette smoke. There were empty coffee mugs and shot glasses on the pitted wooden table in front of them. The only other customer was an obese woman in a ghastly green housedress who sat at the bar drinking Coors from a long-neck bottle. Her hair looked as though she hadn’t combed it since Elvis Presley died.

  “That’s not her,” Wally said, quietly.

  “I hope not,” I said.

  The centerpiece above the bar was an ornate advertising clock, framed in red and purple neon, that said Hale’s Pale Ale. I remembered the Hale brand, an extinct regional brew that quenched its last thirst sometime in the late 1970s, I think it was.

  A door behind the bar opened and it was the fabled Lulu Lumpkin who appeared, as I could tell by Wally’s smile and nod to me. She carried a full pot of coffee. I had to agree with Wally’s assessment of her looks. With an ample nose and chin that gave her face the coarse appearance of someone right at home pulling draft beers and breaking up fights, she was not a beauty queen contender. Still, she had a remarkable figure for a woman of what? sixty, maybe more, and an unmistakable come-hither presence. She wore a denim workshirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows, and jeans.

  Lulu Lumpkin came from behind the bar and filled the mugs of the two old guys with coffee. “And what can I get for you gents?” she said to us.

  “Two coffees,” Wally said.

  “Got any donuts?” I said.

  “You must be lost,” she said. “Dunkin Donuts is the one with the big orange sign over in Hampton Bays. This here, where you are, is a tavern, and everything we serve is a liquid of one sort or another. Coffee we can do, though mostly it’s a chaser for something stronger.”

  “Just the coffee, then,” I said. “Two black. Little early for stronger.”

  “Something only a sissy would say, you know that?” She went behind the bar, brought up two mugs, thumped them down and filled them with coffee. She looked at Wally and said, “Him I don’t know, but I seen you before, didn’t I?”

  “Been in a couple of times. You made me a martini once,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah, right. I remember because it was a real event. Only guy ever ordered one. None before or since.” She reached onto the back-bar and pulled out a bottle of dry vermouth. “Same bottle came with the place when I took over. No telling how long it was here before that.”

  “Could last forever,” said Wally.

  “It’ll last longer than I will, anyway,” said Lulu Lumpkin, replacing it. “So how come you two swells wandered in here this hour? I generally get just the hopeless boozers in the morning.”

  “I wanted to meet you,” I told her.

  “That’s a thrill for me,” she said. “Any special reason, or is it just my famous charm and beauty?”

  “Because your name is Lulu,” Wally said.

  Lulu Lumpkin leaned far over the bar and peered into my face. “What is it, you got a thing about my name? A Lulu freak, is that it?”

  I’d barely opened my mouth, and already Lulu had me on the ropes. She clearly could be more than the equal of any tough drunk. So feisty you just had to like her. “Lulu’s a fine name, a hell of a name,” I said. “There’s a commercial fishing boat somewhere around here called Lulu, too. I’m trying to find it.”

  “What, you’re trying to find a boat?” she said.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “Look around,” she said. “You see any boats in here?”

  “I thought you might know. Thought maybe somebody named a boat after you. An admirer.”

  “I discourage admirers,” she said. “I wouldn’t let some fool name a boat after me even if he wanted to. Just what I need, a smelly fish boat with my name on it.”

  “I think you’re saying you don’t know of any boat named the Lulu,” I said.

  “I think that’s what I’m saying, sport.”

  Wally sipped on his coffee and grinned at me. “Well, like you told me going in, muchacho, it was a long shot. But I want you to know how much I’m looking forward to that lunch.”

  Wally may have been ready to give up on Lulu Lumpkin, but I wasn’t. Maybe she kne
w more than she was giving me. I suspected she was a woman who liked to keep her own counsel, as they say. And anyway, bartenders know things. Secrets. “Are you interested in learning why I’m looking for the boat?” I said to her.

  “No. Don’t tell me.”

  “Because the guy who owns it has important information I have to find out,” I said, shading the truth in case Lulu felt protective. “Maybe you know him.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “See, that’s my problem. I didn’t get his name when I met him. I only know what he looks like. Gangly guy. Big, broad shoulders, way out to here.” I saw the expression on Lulu’s face start to change. “Kind of a flat, pushed-in mug.” There was a glint of recognition that was unmistakable, so I kept on. “Eyes close together. Long yellow hair, kind of ratty. Big snake tattoos on both arms.” That did it.

  She leaned in close again. “What do you want with him?”

  “I told you. He has some information I need. You know him?”

  “Information, bullshit, “ she said. “The only reason anybody’d want that guy is to beat the bastard to death.”

  “So you do know him,” I said. “No, I don’t want to kill him.”

  “Too bad. Somebody ought to.” Lulu poured a mug of coffee for herself, then came out to sit on a barstool next to us. “You’re no cop. You’re old for a cop.”

  “I’m investigating for a big company, a client,” I said. I got the feeling she wanted to tell what she knew, so I kept talking. “I think this guy was involved in a death on Shelter Island. Looked like an accident, but I don’t think it was. He also tried to kill me. Twice. Tell me about this guy? Who is he?”

  “I don’t tell anything about anybody. A customer comes in here, even if he’s the filthiest wharf rat on Long Island, whatever he does or says, I never repeat it.” She stopped, drank from her mug, shook her head. “But I don’t do that for Hick Sosenko. Not him. And the guy you described has got to be him. There’s nobody else on this earth looks like that.”