with a horrible sense of recognition.
"You didn't?" I rasped, scarcely able to believe it.
"I did," said Jimmy, sighing. "I have Adam making my bread and my
pizza."
The last I'd heard, Adam was bragging about getting the marshals to
yank out Sears's stoves and equipment to pay off his claim of non-
payment, claiming he was going to bash Jimmy's skull into red paste this
time, make him cry like a little girl, destroy his life. The previous year,
Adam had had to be delivered to the Westhampton train station under
police escort after one of the famous Quogue incidents: the Hampton's
first forced deportation. Jimmy was Adam's favorite obsession, a ready-
to-go revenge scenario, his number one topic of conversation. Now? Like
so many relationships in the restaurant business, everything old was new
again.
To endure Adam as an employee was to become a full-time cop,
psychiatrist, moneylender, friend and antagonist, though he does have
his sweet side.
Steven, Nancy and I went skiing with him one time. Adam was thrilled
to be doing something normal. Dr Herbert Kleckley, in his
groundbreaking work on serial killers, The Mask of Sanity, discusses this
phenomenon, where the career sociopath, vestigially aware of his
character, emulates normalcy by overcompensating—becoming a
scoutmaster, a crisis-line counselor, a Republican fund-raiser. In this
case, Adam, excited by the prospect of a wholesome activity like "going
skiing with the guys", prepared a bacchanalian picnic lunch for his
fellow skiers: two chest coolers filled with homemade caponata,
antipasto, sliced cold cuts, freshly baked Italian bread, cheese, marinated
artichokes, roasted peppers . . . he must have been up all night getting it
ready. And he skied like a hero, though he's the last person in the world