Dead In The Hamptons by Elizabeth Zelvin Page B

my jaw and swiveled my head around so I had to meet her eyes. I breathed a little harder. “How about you?”
    I shrugged as her palm slid away from my face, scraping across my sandpapery cheek. I mostly didn’t bother shaving out here. I caught up in the city whenever I went in to do a few days’ work.
    “Am I a suspect?”
    I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not. But if an “us” and “them” got established, I didn’t want her on the other team.
    “You’re new like us— the three of us, I mean. We don’t know these people the way they know each other.”
    “Quite the clan. Is this your first group house?”
    “Yeah.” I fished in my back pocket for a pack of cigarettes. “Yours?”
    “I had a share out in Montauk a few years back.” She handed me a large clam shell. “Ashtray.”
    “Thanks. House like this? What kind of people?”
    “Not as upscale as Oscar’s house. Montauk is more down home and working class than most of the Hamptons. Bunch of folks who liked to fish and drink beer.”
    “I guess you’ve left them behind, huh? Was one of them your boyfriend?”
    “Nope. What kind of work do you do?”
    “I temp.” It sounded bald and unglamorous. “Pink collar all the way.”
    “It’s okay to have a recovery job.”
    “I suppose you could call it that. Though it was my drinking job too. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. How about you?”
    “City government.”
    “Pushing paper?”
    She shrugged.
    A burst of laughter drew our attention. The main group, clustered in the center of the deck, consisted of Oscar and a harem.
    “Sometimes charisma can be so annoying,” I said.
    Cindy laughed.
    “You don’t know you’ve got it too? Don’t worry, not everyone is drawn to the Pasha of the Hamptons.”
    It sounded like she was sending me a signal, but I wasn’t sure. To my own surprise, I got flustered. I guess flirting was one of those skills I’d never practiced sober. That meant I’d have to learn it all over again.
    Before I’d figured out what to say next, someone came over and set a bowl-sized candle with a pungent scent on the railing next to me. Citronella. Twilight had turned to night without my noticing, and the bugs were out. I picked it up and toasted Cindy with it. The light flickered on her smiling face. I decided I didn’t have to say anything. I edged a little closer till our shoulders touched. She didn’t seem to mind.
    The conversations of the others on the deck were just background noise until shouting broke out. Two angry male voices dominated the hubbub. The rest of them drew closer as if to pull the combatants apart, then fell outward, like a kaleidoscope shifting, to get out of the way as they started swinging at each other. I could see Ted’s head, higher than the rest, bobbing as he tried to land a punch. I didn’t see his opponent, but the string of curses identified Phil.
    I slid from the rail and debated whether to jump in. I wanted her to see me be a hero. But with such a crowd, did they need my help to stop the fight?
    I heard Shep bleating, “Come on, guys, break it up. Stop it. Work your program.”
    Oscar hovered well back of the action, shouting AA slogans.
    “Easy does it! Live and let live!”
    The twelve steps didn’t work so well with fisticuffs. Shouts from the guys and squeals from some of the women indicated that the fight had brought out the arena hound in most of them.
    Cindy jumped down from the rail.
    “This is ridiculous!”
    She shot forward like a cannonball, boring her way through the knot of spectators into the center of the ring. They froze in stupefaction long enough for me to slip through in her wake. I got there in time to see her chop their straining arms apart, upend Ted by hooking a leg around his, and stop Phil’s furious rush with a head butt that could have cracked a coconut.
    “Oscar!” Her command voice would have done credit to a starship captain. “Take this one in the house