"How would you know? You You didn't even remember him." She refilled our wine gla.s.ses. "All I'm saying is, you should give him another chance. I think you scared him. He was so blown away by how you looked in that dress he didn't know how to act." didn't even remember him." She refilled our wine gla.s.ses. "All I'm saying is, you should give him another chance. I think you scared him. He was so blown away by how you looked in that dress he didn't know how to act."

"That's ridiculous," I said. "Anyway, there's no need for another chance. I probably won't see him again. And I think you're right: he should stick with the Rockette. They could have tall children together."

We stayed up until the sun rose, talking about everything and nothing. Not since university days had I spent this kind of late-night time with women, and I'd forgotten how much fun it was. I was falling in love with my eccentric half sister.

9.

It was a scene straight out of Hitchc.o.c.k, the wide sky filled with black birds, hovering above us like crows over a carca.s.s. The birds were mostly of the Sikorsky variety, enormous helicopters flown by not one but two pilots, seating six or eight pa.s.sengers, and they waited their turn to land on a tiny square patch of asphalt with a white painted H in the center, perched right up against the edge of Shinnec.o.c.k Bay.

The small square hardly seemed big enough for the black chopper that landed in a froth of whitecaps and wind. As we watched, supposedly taking a break from a casual afternoon ride on ancient high-handled and rusted bicycles we'd found in Lydia's garage, one of the pilots came around and opened the pa.s.senger door. We weren't the only gawkers. The helipad on a Friday afternoon appeared to attract an audience. There were four or five cars of spectators in the parking lot and more than a few cyclists and walkers and older women with strollers watching the choppers maneuver into a landing. A black Mercedes with tinted windows rolled forward to pick up a dapper bald gentleman in a blue blazer emerging from the helicopter with a vase containing a fresh white flower arrangement in his hands and an attache over his shoulder.

Behind him was an elegant woman in white holding a brown-paper-wrapped parcel under one arm and a purse on the other. She wore a straw hat she had to hold awkwardly to her head as she hurried to the waiting car, while the little man in a suit and a red tie who'd picked them up pa.s.sed her to unload the rest of their things. The rest of their things included bags of groceries, a big red cooler, garment bags, golf clubs, endless small shopping bags, and four enormous matching suitcases that must have been heavy, for the little man could hardly drag them. They were the Hamptons version of the Beverly Hillbillies, and it took a very long time for them to get all their belongings loaded into the car. You could almost hear the people in the sky cursing down at them.

"Now that?" Peck shouted at me over the whir of the helicopter as she gestured toward the people overstaying their welcome on the helipad. "That's bad manners."

Finally the parade of weekend necessities was over and that bird was free to soar back up, allowing another one to buzz down. The landing looked terribly precarious, the copter tipping from side to side before touching down in a rush of wind and noise and rippling waves. This one took less time to unload, spilling out four golfers and their bags of clubs, each with one small overnight bag. These four didn't have a ride, a fact that seemed to incense each of them, and they stood in the middle of the parking lot with the bags all around them, all four of them in the same pose, clutching one ear and screaming into the cell phones that were smacked up against the other.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I shouted at Peck as we waited for the helicopter that would dispense Miles n.o.ble. "Some people don't like surprises."

"We're not surprising anyone. We're simply out for our afternoon bicycle ride. If we happen happen to b.u.mp into someone we know, well, that's normal. Everyone is always b.u.mping into people at the helipad." to b.u.mp into someone we know, well, that's normal. Everyone is always b.u.mping into people at the helipad."

Three more helicopters landed and took off before Miles emerged from one of them with a phone to his ear. He wore a striped dress shirt with the tails loose over jeans. Just as Peck was about to sail forward on her bike to greet him, he turned and gave a hand to a woman stepping out behind him. She was tall and gorgeous and preposterously chic.

"f.u.c.k," Peck mouthed in my direction. "Let's just go." She looked around frantically. The only way out of the parking lot was in the direction of Miles and his lady friend, who were headed straight toward us as they made their way to an idling car, this one with the license plate MAN3.

"Pecksland Moriarty," he called out by way of greeting, as if he had been expecting to encounter her there, on her bicycle. The helicopter took off in a rush of gravel behind him and he had to shout to be heard. "Waiting for me?"

"I've been waiting for you for seven years, buddy," Peck cried out in a jocular tone as the helicopter flew away.

The girl-she looked familiar, as if maybe we'd seen her in a Ralph Lauren ad-at his side was checking her BlackBerry, a device my Belgian boss always referred to as "ze Crackleberry," and seemed unfazed by this revelation. Miles too appeared unfazed. "Hey, I thought you were going to stop by," he said, still talking loudly to be heard. "Why don't you come now?"

The woman with Miles went around to the other side of the car and hopped into the backseat without saying h.e.l.lo as Peck explained that we were just out for a ride but we were also checking on the helicopter arrival of some friends.

"Really? Who Who?" Miles asked Peck.

"Houseguests," she answered quickly, shouting over the noise. "My friend Nacho. Do you know him?"

"The polo player?"

She smiled indulgently. "Another Nacho. And two of his friends."

"There's another Nacho?" he asked, glancing down at the BlackBerry that appeared fused to his hand.

"This place is infested infested with them." At that moment, I adored my half sister. She seemed so brave, her spine erect, shoulders thrust back like an army cadet's, chest magnificently on display, as she leaned against the old bicycle. Her acting skills might not be developed enough for a career in the movies, but they certainly could be put to enough good use in her everyday life. I could see Miles being drawn in by her. "They're with them." At that moment, I adored my half sister. She seemed so brave, her spine erect, shoulders thrust back like an army cadet's, chest magnificently on display, as she leaned against the old bicycle. Her acting skills might not be developed enough for a career in the movies, but they certainly could be put to enough good use in her everyday life. I could see Miles being drawn in by her. "They're wild wild, those Argentines."

"Well, if you want to come by now, I'll be home in a little while." He looked almost childishly disappointed at the thought that Peck and I were going to be entertaining some crazy party boys from Argentina, but he tossed this invitation out casually.

"Maybe we will," Peck called out as another chopper hovered above us, making it difficult to hear anything.

He paused on the running board of the car, seeming reluctant to go, despite the Ralph Lauren model waiting in the backseat. "I can give you a ride right now."

Peck shook her head. "No, no. We're getting our exercise. But we'll go home and then take a drive over, ourselves."

The Escalade pulled out of the parking lot in a roar of dust and Peck turned to me, shouting, "I told you we should get some houseguests."

The fictional Miles n.o.ble, the well-read, well-traveled, well-off version that existed in Peck's imagination, would have known there was an F. Scott Fitzgerald suite at the Ritz hotel in Paris. He would have been there. Many times. He would have sipped c.o.c.ktails at the Bar Hemingway and known that it was there that the b.l.o.o.d.y Mary was rumored to have been invented. But the real Miles n.o.ble, Peck was surprised to learn, had never stayed at the Ritz.

She brought it up as we set out on what was to be a lengthy and detailed tour of the thirty or forty rooms in the house Miles n.o.ble had built for himself. To hear her tell it, she'd practically grown up at the Ritz, but Miles misread his audience.

"The Ritz is for tourists," he declared, after making sure we'd been handed flutes of champagne by a man with dyed blond hair and a serious stare. And then he must have noticed that this was not what Peck wanted to hear, because he quickly added, "That's what I've heard, anyway. I usually stay at my friend Jamie's apartment."

He was wearing another version of the collarless jacket that seemed to be his signature style, and he'd gotten too much sun on his unfortunate nose, so it was peeling. He'd appeared genuinely pleased to see Peck and me at his door when we arrived and immediately suggested a tour. It was that sort of house, the kind that was built for showing. Now he looked mystified as he listened to Peck explain how writers could receive mail at the Ritz hotel, just as Scott and Zelda had when they lived there. People often looked this way around my sister. Miles stared at her as though she were speaking a language he'd never heard before.

The layout of the house was that of a traditional colonial, but one gone berserk on cheap rum and wanton s.e.x. There was the center hall, in the colonial tradition, but this one was a soaring two-story s.p.a.ce with an immense staircase. And then there were other halls, which seem to run in all different directions, with extra alcoves, unnecessary rooms, and odd seating arrangements popping up at strange junctures. It seemed to go on forever. Some parts of it were "upside down" to take advantage of the field views, so the kitchen and the dining room were on the second floor, and there were living rooms on every floor. The woman who'd been on the helicopter was nowhere to be seen as Miles led us through hallways that seemed to go on and on, proudly pointing out details he wanted us to notice: hand-hewn beams flown in from France; floors that were battered and treated in Tuscany; plaster walls that took thirty men more than a year to finish properly; pewter doork.n.o.bs the size of footb.a.l.l.s.

The color scheme seemed to be "multi"-lots of purple and orange and patterned greens mixed with striped yellows-and chosen to be as jarring to the eye as possible. Really, I'd never seen anything less conducive to comfort. It was all layers upon layers of silks and velvets and mirrors and a mix of spindly coffee tables and squat chairs and expensive-looking pieces that served no purpose. The art seemed to have been chosen by four or five different people, all with competing tastes. None of it went together, or with the house. Or with Miles, who, despite the contrived clothing, was more appealing than I would have expected. He was self-deprecating in a charming way and seemed almost childishly eager to impress both Peck and me.

Peck didn't feel the need to ooh and aah. She acted like she toured forty-room palaces every other day. Somehow she managed to sound both imperious and seductive and, in a pretty sun-dress that highlighted her tan and her figure to great advantage, she was definitely having an effect on Miles as she chided him for not remembering that he'd given her The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby in the first place. in the first place.

I was surprised to see petulance used effectively-it so rarely works-but Peck was an expert at it. Miles was practically melting under her haughty glare. I felt like the third wheel as he kept gazing at her in wonder, but he made sure I was included in the conversation, touching my arm as he pointed at a detail-the bullet hinges on the doors, for example-I might not have noticed on my own.

"You were good too, like a lit major," she went on, airily amused, as though the memory was just coming back to her now in the vaguest way. "I remember staying up all night talking about that d.a.m.n book."

Miles raised his shoulders to his ears with a sheepish look. "I wanted to go to bed with you, babe."

We'd been slowly moving through the house, and Peck stopped to give him an exasperated look. "That's ridiculous. It probably took you as long to read the CliffsNotes as it would have to read the whole book."

"Sorry," he said. He didn't sound sorry; he sounded like he wasn't in the habit of having to be sorry but knew it was the right thing to say. "A guy'll say anything to get a girl to go to bed with him. Haven't you heard that about us?"

"But you knew so much about it." She had her arms folded over her chest in the cla.s.sic pose of a woman discontented with male behavior. "You could've written a thesis on Gatsby and the American dream."

He shrugged again, looking pleased with himself. He seemed absolutely delighted by her, as though she'd gone on to become the famous actor she'd always intended to be, and was now a celebrity who'd deigned to visit his humble abode.

"And then," she continued, as we started walking again (at the rate we were going, it would take the whole evening just to see the house), "you didn't even remember that you gave it to me." Here she looked at me. "What is it with you people and your faulty memories?"

"What people?" Miles glanced over at me for explanation.

"Stella here doesn't remember a thing," she said, gesturing at me. "Her brain is a sieve."

"Sorry," he said again. He wore a look that indicated he might once again say anything at all to get her to go to bed with him. For all his braggadocio, there was something very sweet about the way he seemed so enamored of Peck, and I couldn't help but wonder about the explanation he'd given Peck for how she ended up at his house on the Fourth of July in a white dress and a hat for a Gatsby-themed party. He had told her that both the theme and the guest list, as well as the menu, decor, and music, were the work of an overzealous party planner who took it upon herself to invite everyone in his address book. But the kind of guy who just told us he chose every single doork.n.o.b in this house of his would not have left details like the theme and the guest list for his first party at this house to chance, would he?

"Some house, huh?" he said, trying to prompt a response from Peck, who thus far had not offered one word of praise about the house. He led us into the living room-or the largest of the many rooms that might have been designed for such a purpose, living living, which, in this extravagantly unattractive house, meant displaying far too much presumably expensive but ill-chosen furniture, art, and decorative objects. He gave Peck an eager look. In his gaze, I could see a glimmer of what she'd said about men who build their own house and then look to fill it with a wife. He was like a film producer, both auditioning and wooing a reluctant leading lady for what he believed, whether she knew it or not, would be the juiciest part of her acting career.

"It sure is big," I offered when it became clear that Peck was not going to answer him. She looked around dispa.s.sionately, as though she wasn't impressed at all. In fact, she looked slightly horrified, as if she hadn't fully realized the magnitude of the poor taste on display. Miles gave me a fleeting grin, the kind that leaves you unsure whether you'd been granted a smile at all, or just given a sneak peek at private thoughts that were meant to be hidden. Had he smiled like that at Peck when she fell in love with him the first time? Or was this a newer variation, acquired later, along with the money and the other things?

"Thirty f.u.c.king thousand square feet," he bragged, like he just couldn't help himself. I wished he wouldn't. He seemed determined to get Peck to comment on the house, but for some reason, perhaps because she knew it would have an effect, she seemed equally determined not to. "Not counting the indoor pool."

He had his BlackBerry in his hand and it vibrated now. He stopped in the hallway to take the call and we stopped too as he dismissed the business at hand with a few quick noes and then, "I gotta go."

He really does look like a frog, I thought as his eyes moved up and then down Peck's body in a distinctly appraising manner, lingering on the twins. She preened slightly under his gaze. Once he was off the phone, he steered us in front of a painting that hung above the sofa with one hand at Peck's lower back and the other at mine. "This is a Jackson Pollock," he intoned with a preacher's reverence as we stared at the painting, lit from above with its own bra.s.s picture light. "This is a Pollock?" I asked, surprised. I'd been expecting the recognizable Jackson Pollock, he of the wild splatters of color, the paintings for which he'd become known as Action Jackson. This painting was quieter, an abstract in browns and earth tones, but without the splatters and the energy.

"An early one," Miles explained.

Peck pulled out severe black gla.s.ses I'd never seen her use, and was quite sure she didn't actually need, and perched them on her nose so she could get a better look. I would have laughed at her but she looked so grave and humorless, like a serious art historian, as she inspected the painting that it kept me from even cracking a smile. "Is it signed signed?"

He nodded. "Pollock always signed his work."

"Tell that to the lady who bought one for five bucks at a thrift shop and then decided it must have been worth fifty million, if it was real." She was still squinting up at the painting from behind the gla.s.ses. "They made a movie about it. n.o.body would authenticate it for her and she got really mad."

"I hope this one's real," Miles said. "If it's not, I got hosed."

She examined him over the frames of the gla.s.ses on her nose and paused. Her expression softened and I watched as her entire demeanor shifted and she offered up her first smile since we walked through his door. "I doubt that."

He returned the smile with one that lingered and they gazed at each other, almost in wonder, for a few seconds. I turned away, staring more closely at the painting so as not to appear to be staring at them. I was trying to figure out a way to leave them alone and was about to suggest that I take a walk outside when Peck tapped me on the arm.

"What does this look like?" she asked, in the manner of a teacher with an unprepared student. She'd taken off the gla.s.ses and was gesturing with them toward the painting.

"I'm not sure," I said. "I might have slept through that cla.s.s."

"It looks like ours," she replied briskly. "The missing missing one." She turned to Miles. "So." She gave me a conspiratorial glance as she took his arm. "Where is it, the other one?" one." She turned to Miles. "So." She gave me a conspiratorial glance as she took his arm. "Where is it, the other one?"

"What other one?" He looked confused again, like he was having trouble aligning the woman in his memory with this person who kept shape-shifting in front of him. "I still haven't paid for this one."

At this she gave me a meaningful stare, as though this were a clue.

"Come on, Miles, we know you did it," she said softly, the way a hostage negotiator might begin a dialogue. "You know we know. But n.o.body else has to know. You can just return it, no questions asked. n.o.body gets hurt." She paused, taking in his look of utter shock. "Don't do that. Don't play coy," she said, using words I'd heard from her more than once. "It's unbecoming. Let's just cut to the chase here. Is it a game of seduction? A cat and mouse thing? Should I be casing the joint for a reciprocal take?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, sounding totally confused. I believed him. He seemed much more the type to have overpaid for a painting at auction, only to find out it was actually not authenticated, or to have bought one that was considered by all experts to be the worst of its kind, than to have stolen anything. "What is it you think I did?"

Peck smiled and held up a hand. "You took the painting that was hanging above the mantel at Fool's House."

"What painting?" he interrupted her, and then she spoke over him: "That's exactly what we're trying to ascertain."

It then dawned on Miles what Peck was insinuating. "You think I took took a painting from your house?" He sounded hurt and incredulous. a painting from your house?" He sounded hurt and incredulous.

I intervened. "No, no," I said quickly. "My sister was just wondering if you might know how we could try to get more information. The painting above the mantel went missing that night and we're trying to figure out what happened to it. And what it was. We were wondering if you saw anybody do anything strange that night."

"I'll tell you what I saw," he said to me. "That weird kid in the suit sniffed her shoe." He jerked his thumb in Peck's direction.

"Biggs?" She made a face, like she wasn't going to believe anything negative about our artist in residence. "He likes likes me. But he told us you were staring at our painting all night, like you were planning to do something with it." me. But he told us you were staring at our painting all night, like you were planning to do something with it."

"That guy kept following me around. He was trying to sell me something. He wanted to come live in my house and teach me how to paint or something. I finally had to ask him to get me a drink, just to get rid of him. That's why I got out of there-he wouldn't leave me alone. There's something not right with that dude."

"He's an artist artist," Peck said. It seemed pretty evident to me that Miles had not taken our painting, but Peck seemed determined to continue believing that he had.

"If you think anyone took anything from your house that night, I'd check him him out," he said. "That guy's loco." out," he said. "That guy's loco."

"You think Biggs took our painting?" Peck looked to me for confirmation. "Why would he do that?"

"It has the ring of truth," I said, suddenly thinking Miles might be right as I replayed Biggsy's words and actions in the hours following the theft at the party. He'd been so quick to focus blame on Miles, and Peck had been so willing to go along with that theory, that we hadn't even considered the possibility that he might have had something to do with it. "He's always talking about the ghost. Maybe it's one of his pranks."

"Who was the artist of this missing painting?" Miles asked. An obvious question to which we still did not have the answer.

"We don't know," Peck explained. "It wasn't signed. On the back it just said, 'For L.M. From J.P.' " She turned to me breathlessly and grabbed my arm. "Oh my G.o.d. J.P. Jackson Pollock? Is that possible? We had a Jackson Pollock?"

I shook my head slowly. "I doubt that."

But Peck was already squirming in excitement. "Think about it. It looks like this, doesn't it? And he lived out here. She revered revered him. Maybe she met him and he gave it to her. Or she bought it from him, way back when. When did he die?" him. Maybe she met him and he gave it to her. Or she bought it from him, way back when. When did he die?"

"She would have been too young, I think," I said. "And if she'd met him for a split second, or even attended the same party as him, believe me, we would have heard about it."

Peck was nodding her head. "Literally. She would've taken out an ad. She adored him. Almost as much as she loved Fitzgerald."

"And if it was a Jackson Pollock, even a bad one, wouldn't it be worth a lot, millions of dollars?" I said, looking to Miles for confirmation.

He nodded. "He never sold a painting for more than eight thousand dollars when he was alive. But now? Well, they're hard to get."

"She wouldn't just leave something like that hanging there with no indication of what it was," I said. "And only a vaguely worded suggestion in her will."

Peck was still nodding in agreement. "Unless . . . this this is the thing of utmost value she wanted us to find." is the thing of utmost value she wanted us to find."

"You think your aunt left you a Jackson Pollock and didn't tell you?" Miles said in surprise. "And then it was stolen?"

"Possibly by the butler butler," Peck cried out, with an appreciative laugh for the increasingly zany nature of the tale. "The butler did it! Or it really was a ghost. Or, how about this? The butler is the ghost. Fool's House is is haunted, you know." She pointed at Miles. "I came here today believing haunted, you know." She pointed at Miles. "I came here today believing you you had stolen this painting off our wall. But now I realize had stolen this painting off our wall. But now I realize he he took it. And then led me, led us, my sister and me, to believe it was you. That's crazy." took it. And then led me, led us, my sister and me, to believe it was you. That's crazy."

He grinned at her before offering his arm again. "You're crazy," he said as they moved ahead of me, arm in arm. "Shall we continue the tour? We can chase down your Pollock later." crazy," he said as they moved ahead of me, arm in arm. "Shall we continue the tour? We can chase down your Pollock later."

He sounded doubtful that the painting in question could turn out to be a Jackson Pollock. I too had my doubts, but Peck and Miles had moved on to the hall and I followed them, keeping my thoughts to myself.

"I'm pretty p.i.s.sed off at that foot fetishist in the costume, trying to lay the blame on me," Miles was saying to Peck. "I'm going to go after his a.s.s."

"Tough guy," Peck cooed at him. She'd dropped the disdainful air and was now openly flirtatious. "Aren't you going to show us your bedroom?"

I was about to suggest that I wanted to see the garden and would meet them outside when Miles turned to me. "Come on, Stella. First the bedrooms, then the indoor pool."

The master bedroom was predictably and absurdly huge, decorated like a fantasy version of an old men's club, all mahogany trim and green felt with a "manly" brown rug and heavy drapes. The bed was so far from the television he'd need binoculars to watch it. And the fireplace was big enough that he could roast a goat over the gas flames if he wanted to.