He found Laurel in the kitchen, trimming asparagus. Belinda was out on the back deck reading a script, so Buck kept his voice low. “Hey,” he said. “I’m going for a walk on the beach. Want to join me?”
“I’d love to,” she said. “But I’m in charge of dinner tonight, and this is a crowd with high expectations.”
“Do you want me to stay and help?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Enjoy your walk.” She winked at him. “I never thought I’d see John Buckley in board shorts, but they look pretty good.”
She was being kind. He had nice strong legs—forty-five minutes three days a week on the treadmill, and weights two days a week with his trainer, Lexi—but they were Irish-boy pale.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
When he reached the road, his phone started to beep and ding and light up like a pinball machine. Three missed calls from a blocked number and two missed calls from Margaret. This was not a good sign. Margaret worked eight a.m. to noon on Saturdays, which was one of the reasons Buck paid her such a fortune. That, and the fact that she answered her phone whenever he called, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mother’s Day. Margaret’s children were grown but had yet to procreate, so there were no distractions; she and her retired accountant husband, Del, rattled around their big house in Katonah. Whenever Buck called, Margaret was eager to help.
He didn’t bother with the voice mails. He called her back. “Talk to me, Goose.”
Normally, this set a lighthearted tone, but when Margaret answered, she was all business. “Scarlett called,” Margaret said. “She’s been trying to reach you.”
“I have no reception out here,” Buck said.
“Surprise, surprise, she’s run out of money,” Margaret said. “Visa declined, AmEx declined, six overdraft notices from the bank. She wants to know what the… expletive… is going on.”
“Did you tell her the money is gone?” Buck said.
“I thought I would leave that up to you,” Margaret said. “I’m just the secretary here.”
Buck wished Margaret were the type of secretary who would do his dirty work for him—tell Scarlett that Deacon had wired a million dollars to save his restaurant after her uncle had pulled his funding, and tell her that she had better give up her projects and her get-rich-quick schemes and find the best job that a degree from University College could get her.
“I’ll take care of it,” Buck said. “Have we heard from either Harv or the accountant’s office?” This was the last hope: that the Board Room was sitting on a gold mine and Buck might be able to claim some of Deacon’s investment back.
“Not yet,” Margaret said.
“Okay,” Buck said, though it was not okay. Someday he was going to write a memoir entitled Don’t Shoot the Messenger. “Thank you, Margaret.”
“You’re welcome,” Margaret said. “Enjoy your weekend.”
Enjoy his weekend. Fat chance of that!
Buck walked over the dune in his bare feet until he saw the water sparkling before him. It was so much more beautiful than the East River, or even the Hudson. The ocean was a wild, living thing. The beach was deserted except for gulls.
As Buck approached the water’s edge, he thought about Scarlett. She had been justified in leaving; if Buck were she, he might have done the same thing. Deacon had gone on benders before, of course, but the one a couple of weeks before he died had been the worst ever—for many reasons. Scarlett had been away on a seven-night “silent retreat” at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. It was one of her new things: yoga, mindfulness, a break from technology, finding balance, finding her center, cutting out all white noise and conflict. That was Scarlett’s way of dealing with stress, while Deacon’s way had been drinking and drugs.
It was a Tuesday, so the restaurant was closed. A phone call came to Buck’s phone at five thirty. It was the headmistress of Ellery’s school, Madame Giroux. Ellery hadn’t been picked up, and the office had had no luck reaching either parent. It was understood that Madame Oliver was on a spiritual retreat and could not be reached, but all ten calls to Monsieur had gone straight to voice mail, and there had been no answer at his place of work. Madame Giroux then let a stream of very angry French fly, the gist of which, Buck gathered, was that she found the situation unacceptable. Mr. Buckley was listed as the emergency contact. Would he please come get the child? She had been quite traumatized.
Buck hopped in a cab to the school. Traffic was a trial at that time of day, so he didn’t collect Ellery until nearly six fifteen, and she was, in fact, weepy and shivering, as though they’d kept her in a meat locker. Buck made his extreme apologies to Madame Giroux, with her chignon, her pencil skirt, her expression of French superiority, and then he whisked Ellery into his waiting cab. He called Deacon—voice mail. He called Angie, who answered and said that yes, she would meet Buck and Ellery at Deacon’s apartment so that Buck could go on a manhunt.
Buck didn’t know where to start, so he started with the obvious—McCoy’s—but Sarah hadn’t seen Deacon in weeks, she said. Buck considered checking downtown at Five Points and then stopping at every bar on the Bowery, but his good judgment told him to go back to his apartment and wait. The call would come, eventually, and meanwhile, Ellery was safe.
A little after ten, Buck received a call from an unfamiliar 646 number.
“Mr. Buckley?” a female voice said.
Oh dear, Buck thought. “Yes?”
“My name is Taryn Ross,” the voice said. “I’m a dancer? At Skirtz Gentlemen’s Club? Your friend Deacon passed out in my car, and I can’t get him to wake up.”
Buck had met Taryn Ross on the third level of a parking garage on Twelfth Avenue. She was dressed in cherry-red hot pants, high-heeled Mary Jane pumps, and a gray New York Giants hoodie that Buck recognized as belonging to Deacon. Deacon was slumped behind the wheel of a 1994 Saab convertible; Buck’s first wife, Jess, had driven one exactly like it when he first met her. There was an open bottle of Billecart-Salmon champagne in the console.
“Whose car is this?” Buck asked.
“Mine,” Taryn said.
“You were going to let him drive?” Buck asked.
“No,” Taryn said. She jingled the car keys. “He said he was okay, he said he wanted to take me up to Nantucket so I could see it, but he was really, really drunk, and the two of us did a lot of coke.”
“A lot, like how much?” Buck asked.
“Enough to make him think he could drive,” Taryn said. “But then he just sort of fell over. At first I thought he was dead, but I checked, and he’s breathing.”
“Great,” Buck said.
“I’m sorry,” Taryn said. “When he came in, I was so surprised. I grew up watching his show. I made the clams casino dip once for my in-laws.”
“You’re married?” Buck asked.
Taryn nodded and stuffed her hands in the front pocket of the sweatshirt. Deacon had probably lent it to her because she was topless.
“Well, so is he,” Buck said. “He has a wife and child at home.”
“Nothing happened,” Taryn said, shrugging. “He just wanted to show me Nantucket. He said we were going to take a ferry boat.”
“I’m getting him out of here,” Buck said. He eyed Taryn Ross, wondering if he needed to pay her to keep her from posting this on Facebook. He decided the answer was yes and handed her two hundred-dollar bills. “Thank you for calling me.”
“Can I tell you one other thing?” Taryn said. “He seemed sad. Just really, really sad.”
At two o’clock the next afternoon, when Deacon finally woke up, Buck filled him in on what had happened because he most certainly would not remember.
“First off, Ellery is okay. You forgot her at school, but I went to pick her up.”
Deacon’s expression collapsed into one of predictable despair. “No.”
“Yes,” Buck said. “You drank too much, you wandered into Skirtz, on Thirty-Second between Eleventh and Twelfth, you met a dancer there named Taryn. Blond. Any of this ring a bell?”