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applied soon to the aforementioned snowy clapboards the word “shabby “ would affix itself to the directions I e-mailed customers: “The Georgian house near the flagpole.”
    I was marveling how diplomat King had blundered into this clumsy affair, when he reminded me that he was no dummy. “Look at it this way, Abbott. Not only do you pick up a fat fee for making peace, but you’ll get your full commission on any land you can get him to sell me.”
    â€œWould that include your buying the lease?”
    â€œI will buy the lease and every damned acre he’ll sell me besides.”
    I nodded, tempted by the chance to swing a land deal.
    King raved on, “I’ll buy his whole goddammed house. Hell, I’ll buy him a mountain he can move to.”
    â€œYou’re offering to buy him another place?”
    â€œAs long as it’s on the other side of town.”
    â€œI’ll go talk to him,” I said. “But don’t get your hopes up. I was just a friend of his kid.”
    â€œYou’re friends with that criminal?”
    I ignored that and said, “I noticed some heavy security at the gate. Are there any incidents I should know about?”
    â€œThis morning, Butler drove in here with a shotgun.”
    â€œDid you call Trooper Moody?”
    â€œWell, he didn’t point it at anyone.”
    â€œYou mean it was in the rack.”
    â€œIn the back window. Very visible, very obviously there.”
    â€œHe’s not the only man in town with a shotgun in his truck. It doesn’t mean anything more than wearing a cap.”
    â€œI found it very threatening. Frightened my staff. What if I had been entertaining clients when he came roaring up my driveway?”
    â€œHow’d he get past the gate and the spikes?”
    â€œThe place was wide open for my lunch guests. Now, I want something done about him before someone gets hurt.”
    â€œWhat did he come for?”
    â€œHe was yelling to stay off his land.”
    â€œIs this the fence thing?”
    â€œWell…” King hesitated.
    â€œPlease,” I said. “I can’t talk to him if I don’t know what’s going on.”
    â€œI’m building a lake—here, I’ll show you.” He whipped aside the plot plan, revealing a landscape designer’s rendering of a twenty-acre lake to be formed by erecting a fair-size dam across a brook that started up on Butler’s farm, cascaded through their adjoining woodlots, and emerged from the leased pasture.
    â€œFantastic,” I said.
    It sported an island, with a Corinthian avant-garde gazebo. One could imagine rowing out to it in the moonlight with a bottle of Moët and Ms. Devlin.
    â€œThat’s going to be a hell of a dam.”
    â€œIt’s going to be the biggest dam in the county,” said King. “But my engineers have to divert the stream to work on it. Run it through a temporary pipe, here.”
    â€œHere” was on Butler’s leased pasture. I turned back to the plot plan and traced the topo lines.
    â€œYou know you could simplify this by running the pipes here.” I pointed to a gully well on his own land.
    â€œMy engineers—”
    â€œAnything else I should know?”
    â€œNo. That’s pretty much my side of it. Why don’t you go hear his?” He took my elbow in a friendly way, again, and walked me back through the library. “I don’t know where the hell your coat is with the goddammed butler quitting.”
    â€œI’ll find a closet near the door.”
    â€œHere. Here’s something to amuse you.” He plucked a DVD from a shelf that contained a row of them and scribbled his signature on it. “A&E just shot my biography. It’s mostly kind. And fairly accurate.”
    I didn’t know what to say but thank him, so I did, and hunted up my winter jacket. I looked for Julia Devlin on the way to my car. But the Range Rover