Sixty-Two

SIXTY-TWO

ROB JACOBSON ASKED HIS court-appointed officer for permission to meet me for lunch at il Buco al Mare, on Main Street about a mile from his rented house.

The restaurant's open design gives the feeling of eating outside on a beautiful day. Jacobson convinced the host to bend the no-reservations policy and booked one of the front tables. In the Hamptons, any kind of celebrity is better than none.

He arrives wearing fashionable, string-tied white slacks. The cut, I notice, strategically hides his ankle bracelet. I've recovered from last night's near-death experience for his wife, which feels as if it happened to me.

"The money and gold in the house, that's my wife's version of mad money," he informs me.

"How much money are we talking about, exactly?"

"A couple of million or thereabouts. She keeps it in a safe I used to call Fort Knox."

We've both ordered salads. He's having a glass of white wine. I'm having an iced tea.

"Didn't you used to take mad money with you on dates, back in the pre-Uber days?"

"Didn't need it. I usually had a gun in my purse."

A few minutes ago, I spotted a photographer on the south side of the street, discreetly taking pictures. The restaurant's manager had probably given him a call. Mobsters eating at your restaurant, or getting shot in front of it, is as good for business here as it is in the city.

"Who else knows where the safe is?"

"Just Claire and me," he says. "And the kids."

"Do the kids have the combination?"

He looks shocked. "Are you on drugs?"

"As a matter of fact."

"You know what I mean," he says.

"Before I noticed Claire in the pool, I saw somebody running away. I thought it might have been your son."

"Maybe he got tired of her turning down his requests for money and decided to take things into his own hands. Literally."

"Why wouldn't she tell me it was him?"

"A rare burst of maternal instinct?"

"After he left her for dead?"

"My loser son, having blown through his trust fund, seems to be getting increasingly desperate," he says. "About a week ago, he tried to strike a bargain. If Claire would just give him some money, one last time, she'd never hear from him again. She laughed him off, told him that's what he always says. That's when he threatened her, said he'd kill her if she didn't give up the combination to the safe."

He shrugs. "As soon as you told me what happened, I called her, asked if her attacker was him. Eric. She insisted that the person concealed his identity by wearing a mask."

"But this person knew about the safe."

He nods. "She told me she tried to get away, remembers only being hit in the back of the head until you brought her back from the great beyond."

The best of families.

"Is it worth me going back at Claire on this?" I ask.

He laughs. "All she seems to care about is that she refused to open the safe and nobody got her money. She's taking the win on that, even if it nearly got her killed."

My lunch date grows quiet, oddly so for someone who regards an unspoken thought as being against the law.

"Something else on your mind today?" I ask him.

"As a matter of fact, there is."

Now he's the one leaning forward, lowering his voice. I idly turn my head and see the photographer snapping away, not even trying to hide in plain sight.

"I need to tell you something, just in case none of us makes it out of this alive."

"Now there's a cheery thought."

"I think I'm falling in love with you," Rob Jacobson says.