Mark Mills - Amagansett

Wakeley considered his words for a moment. ‘It’s not impossible.’

Manfred laughed—a short, incredulous expulsion of air. ‘No, I’ll say it isn’t!’

‘But how does he know? And what exactly? Was he there when it happened?’

Three unanswered questions strung together, and yet Manfred found them strangely reassuring. Richard was already displaying more clarity of thought than he had been able to muster all evening.

Dinner had been a living hell, spinning in the void of his own head while trying to do the right thing by their house guests. Richard had only returned from visiting friends as cocktails were being served, and there had been no opportunity to share the burden with him until now. But standing there on the bluff at the end of the garden, overlooking the ocean, the others safely in bed, he felt better already. Not exactly restored, but beginning to believe it might just be possible to shore up the crumbling edifice of his life.

Richard could have that effect on you. Even in the most adverse circumstances he remained reassuringly calm, utterly insightful. It was the reason he had been hired in the first place, the reason they still paid him so handsomely almost twenty years on. They had made him rich, rich enough not to be tempted by the rival offers of employ he must surely have received over the years. And he had earned every penny of his small fortune, isolating and ironing out problems on their behalf.

When the unions had threatened production at the Cuban sugar plantation, Richard had advised against the strong-arm tactics employed by the other operators, opting to fly to Havana himself. He did nothing for the first week other than inform himself about the enemy—the personalities, the politics and, most importantly, the rivalries, both within and between the two labor organizations in question.

And then he had destroyed them from the inside. Not completely—that would have proved self-defeating in the long term—but just enough to undermine the workers’ confidence in their representatives. He fueled tensions, ambitions, turning stewards against bosses, splitting committees, oiling the wheels of discord with cash ‘donations’, which he then ensured were brought to the attention of the workers.

Concessions were made; they had to be. Men were given two days’ paid vacation on the birth of a child. A nursery was provided free of charge, in the knowledge that few would expose their children to the coarse language of the cane-cutters’ buses. A literacy program was introduced, not that anyone in their right mind would want to spend their precious lunch break in a classroom. The cost of these measures was carefully calculated to fall well short of the losses the company had been facing. Moreover, the initiatives created a false impression of high-minded munificence: the caring face of capitalism. It had been a Machiavellian masterstroke on Richard’s part.

And when the girl had stepped in front of the car on that dark, lonely lane, Richard was the person he had turned to—Richard, who always knew what to do, who never disappointed.

Whatever his counsel had been that night, Manfred would have followed it unswervingly. As it was, he found himself driving the length of Long Island in the early hours of the morning, a traumatized Lillian sitting beside him. Their destination was a rundown gas station on the outskirts of Jamaica Bay. Two men were waiting for them near the pumps. One wordlessly got behind the wheel of the damaged Chrysler and disappeared into the night. The second drove them to a taxi rank on Broadway. He was under instructions, he explained, not to take them home. It was better that he knew nothing about them: better for them, better for him.

The cover story was in its infancy, but already hatched and finding its place in the world. It would undergo certain refinements once Richard had thought it through from every possible angle, but the skeleton was there from the first. The version of events he told them to think about and add texture to was this: Manfred had gone to the dinner dance at the Devon Yacht Club with Lillian and Gayle around seven-thirty. At nine they were telephoned at the club by Justin, who had only just arrived at his house, having been obliged to stay late in the city. They told him the evening was proving to be something of a dud, and it was decided that they leave and join him at his place. Gayle stayed on at the club.

Up until this point in the story, the presence of witnesses demanded that truth and fiction run the same course. They now parted company and Richard’s imagination came into play.

If asked, Manfred and Lillian were to say that they’d been at Justin’s for no more than half an hour when an argument broke out between the two men. Upset with her fiancé’s behavior, Lillian left with Manfred when he stormed out. Manfred was still fuming when they arrived back at their house on Further Lane, where he announced he was returning to the city. Lillian offered to accompany him back. They packed their bags and left well before midnight, something Richard would attest to if called on to do so. A few hours later, as they were entering the outskirts of New York, Manfred’s car broke down. Forced to abandon it, they thumbed a lift with a stranger to a taxi rank on Broadway and a cabbie drove them the final leg to Lillian’s apartment.

It was a good story, which had stood the test of their remorseless scrutiny, a remarkable achievement by Richard given that he had fabricated it in a little under ten minutes. He was assisted by a few pieces of good fortune, the chief one being that Justin was the only member of his family staying at the house that weekend, so no one saw the three of them leave the place at one o’clock in the morning, drunk, and in two cars.

They hadn’t set out to race, but maybe it was inevitable. Justin had spent a good part of the evening making fun of Manfred’s new Chrysler, a Town and Country Convertible. The mahogany doors and trunk lid, trimmed with white ash, made it look like a mobile sideboard, he said; and while he was sure it would draw admiring glances from every carpenter between Park Avenue and Montauk Point, it really wasn’t a fit vehicle for a man of taste to be seen driving around in. He conceded that the car had its advantages. Should Manfred ever break down in the wilderness he would always have a ready supply of kindling to hand for a warming campfire.

He kept returning to the subject, laughing more raucously each time he did so. Manfred took the joshing in good grace, although he didn’t appreciate Lillian’s disloyalty, chortling at his expense. It was maybe out of guilt that she chose to ride with him when they decided to head over to their house on Further Lane.

Justin led the way in his Packard, heading south down Old Stone Highway, the narrow road weaving its way through the oak woods. As they rounded a bend, a short straight presented itself to them. Lillian, with her uncanny sense for reading his mind, said, ‘Go on. If you must.’

Manfred floored the throttle, and the Chrysler swept effortlessly past the Packard. Justin was better acquainted with the road, but Manfred knew it well enough to head him off each time he came back at them and tried to pass. The turning on to Albert’s Landing Road whistled by on their left—a flicker in the headlights, a vertical break in the trees.

A little further on, Manfred slowed for a sharp left-hand bend. The Packard closed, Justin anticipating the straight that lay beyond, but at the last second Manfred swung the wheel, turning into Town Lane. It was a hard right-hander that seemed to go on and on, the road almost doubling back on itself, the tires screeching in protest, Lillian doing a good job of mimicking them. Manfred couldn’t afford to take his eyes off the road, but he didn’t need to, he could see the headlights of the Packard sweeping over them, still in pursuit.

Justin had taken the bait. It was a mistake. If he’d kept on going he might well have beaten them back to Further Lane and justifiably claimed victory. As it was, they would pull away on the long straight that was Town Lane, ground that Justin would never be able to make up.

The Chrysler didn’t disappoint. As soon as they were clear of the woods shrouding Quail Hill the headlights revealed a road as straight as a city avenue, and the car came into its own, powering away from its pursuer through open countryside. Manfred permitted himself a satisfied chuckle.

‘That was damn stupid!’ snapped Lillian above the rush of wind.

‘Don’t worry, it’s over now.’

But his foot remained pressed to the floor. The needle nudged eighty miles per hour. He glanced over his shoulder to see the Packard falling behind, its headlights barely penetrating the clouds of dust thrown up in their wake.

‘Manfred!’

The idea that time slowed down in such situations, Manfred now knew to be a myth. It didn’t. If anything, it speeded up, compressing moments into an instant: his head snapping back to the road, the ghostly figure frozen in the headlights and the sickening thud of the impact.

The body was hurled heavenwards, clipping the top corner of the windshield as it spun off into the darkness at the side of the road. Manfred could remember turning instinctively and thinking that nothing could possibly spin so quickly in the air, certainly not a body, whirring like the blades of a fan.

He hit the brakes and the car slewed dangerously before coming to a halt. Justin overshot them by a good hundred yards.

‘Oh my God,’ gasped Lillian.

‘I didn’t see him.’

‘It was a girl.’

The figure had made no attempt to move, but had just stood there, facing the oncoming car.

‘She stepped into the road,’ gasped Lillian, ‘just stepped into the road…Oh my God.’

Manfred was aware of a sound filling his head, building in volume. It was the scream of the Packard’s reverse gear. Justin drew alongside.

‘Wait here,’ he said.

He swung the Packard round, the headlights cutting through the night, settling on something in the hedgerow, surprisingly close. Despite appearances, the impact had propelled the body some considerable distance back down the road.

‘Don’t look,’ said Manfred as Lillian made to turn.

Justin was out of the car now, approaching on foot. There was no need to get too close. The angle of the limbs placed the matter beyond any doubt.

Justin hurried over. ‘Manfred, look at me. I said look at me. You have to follow me. Can you do that?’

His hands were trembling, but he appeared to have control of them. ‘Yes,’ he said.

Lillian only spoke once on the seemingly endless drive through the back roads to their house on Further Lane.

‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.

‘Richard will know.’

Richard was asleep, flat on his back in his bed, arms by his side, like a body lying in state. Manfred was a little surprised to find him wearing a hair net, but any embarrassment Richard might have felt was soon forgotten as Manfred described the events of the past fifteen minutes. When he was done, the questions began, rapid-fire: Did anyone at the yacht club know where you were going? Yes. Was there anyone else at Justin’s house? No. Was the girl killed? Yes. Did you take her pulse? No. How’s Lillian taking it? How do you think? Is Gayle back yet? No, I don’t think so.

Richard thought for a moment then said, ‘Move the car into the garage then pour yourself a large whiskey. I need a little time to think.’

A little time proved to be less than ten minutes, during which he made a call from his room, judging from the small ping given off by the phone in the drawing room. When he came downstairs he had swapped his silk pajamas for slacks and an open-necked shirt, crisp and clean as always.