Beach Road by James Patterson

plan, Parcells?” Jeff has always worshipped Parcells and even looks like him a little.
    “I was about to ask you the same thing, baby brother. What I hear, you need a plan more than me. An
escape
plan.”
    “You could be right.”
    There’s a punt on the screen, and the pigskin seems to hang forever in the fall air.
    “All I did was help a scared kid turn himself in,” I say to Jeff. I don’t tell him that I’ve been asked to represent that kid. Or that I’m actually considering it.
    “What about Walco, Rochie, and Feifer? You don’t think they were scared? I don’t get what you’re up to, Tom.”
    “I’m not sure I do either. I think it has something to do with meeting Dante’s grandmother. Seeing where they lived, how they lived. Oh, and one other small detail—the kid didn’t do it.”
    Jeff doesn’t seem to hear me, but maybe he does because he flicks off the projector.
    “Between you and me,” he says, “season hasn’t started and I’m already sick to death of football. Let’s grab a beer, bro.”
    “See, there’s a plan,” I say, and grin, but Jeff doesn’t smile back.

Chapter 42
    Tom
    FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Jeff stops in Amagansett and parks in the lot behind McKendrick’s, the one bar most likely to be full of townies on a Wednesday night. But I guess that’s the point. Or the plan. Make peace with the locals?
    We enter through the back door and grab a booth by the pool table, so it takes a minute or so for the place to fall silent.
    When Jeff is sure that everyone knows we’re here, he sends me to the bar for our beer. He wants me to see exactly what I could be getting myself into, wants me to feel the hate up close and personal.
    Chucky Watkins, a crazy Irish laborer who used to work for Walco now and then, is sitting at a table as I shoulder my way to the bar. “Guess you’re afraid to come here without your football-coach chaperone?”
    “Kev,” I say, ignoring Watkins, “a pitcher of Bass when you get a chance.”
    “
When you get a chance, Kev,
” says Pete Zacannino, mocking me from the corner. By the way, a week ago, every face in this room was a pretty good friend of mine.
    Kevin, who’s a particularly good guy, hands me the beer and two mugs, and I’m ferrying back to the table when Martell, another former pal, sticks out his foot, causing half my pitcher to spill onto the floor. Snorts of laughter erupt from one end of the bar to the other.
    “You all right, Tom?” asks Jeff from the back booth. A week ago, with Jeff or alone, I’d have cracked the pitcher over Martell’s skull if only to see what would happen next.
    “No problem, Jeff,” I shout back at the room. “I just seem to have spilled a little of our beer, and I’m going to go back to the bar now and ask Kev if he would be so kind as to refill it.”
    When I finally get back to our booth, Jeff takes an enormous gulp of beer and says, “Welcome to your new life, buddy.”
    I know what Jeff’s trying to do, and I love him for it. But for some reason, knee-jerk contrariness or just blind stupidity, it must not sink in. Because three beers later, I stand up and unplug the jukebox in the middle of a Stones song. Then, with a full mug in my left hand, I address the multitudes.
    “I’m glad all you rednecks are here tonight because I have an announcement. As you all apparently know, I helped Dante Halleyville turn himself in. In the process, I’ve gotten to know him and his grandmother Marie. And guess what? I like and admire them both a hell of a lot. Because of that and other reasons, I’ve decided to represent him. You heard correct. I’m going to be Dante Halleyville’s lawyer, and as his lawyer, I’ll do everything I can to get him off. Thanks very much for coming. Good night. And get home safely.”
    A couple of seconds later, Chucky Watkins and Martell come at me. Something goes off inside me, and this is a side of Tom Dunleavy most of these guys know. I hit Watkins full in the face with