Free Two Jakes by Lawrence de Maria Page A

said, looking at the Mack residence.
    The
house was a reflection of its owner. There was more to it than met the eye. It
sat on a one-acre parcel on Howard Avenue in Grymes Hill, just down the street
from both Wagner College and the Staten Island campus of St. John’s University.
From the street, the dwelling was unremarkable, with the appearance of a large
brick ranch. In fact, it was three levels deep in the back, as the property
sloped down a heavily forested hill to Van Duzer Street 100 feet below. The
third, or top, floor contained a living room, dining room, kitchen, library,
master bedroom and two baths. A 40-by-80-foot deck supported by 30-foot steel
beams jutted out of the hillside. One could jump from the deck to the top of
70-foot trees, if suicidally inclined. One of the highest points on the east
coast from Maine to Florida, it was cool in the summer, and on a clear day the
view was remarkable, stretching from Coney Island and the Verrazano up the
Narrows to the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan. The middle level of the house
contained three bedrooms, two more baths and a 3,000-bottle hermetically
controlled wine cellar. The bottom level had a game room and small cabana and
bath that opened out to an in-ground pool on a rock promontory set away from
the house to catch the sun.
    ***
    Jake
Scarne and Dudley Mack met as juniors at Providence College, a small liberal
arts school run by the Dominican Order. Both their families separately hoped
the good friars would have a salutary effect on the wild boys.
    They
initially despised each other. “Deadly” Mack – as he was known to friends and
foes alike – was the chief enforcer on the varsity hockey team that frequented
the saloon Scarne managed for one of his relatives after school. It was his job
to maintain a semblance of order in the bar. After a few drinks, Mack liked to
hit people. One night he punched Scarne, who was trying to evict him. Scarne’s
temper, legendary in Montana, finally made its eastern debut. Although
outweighed by his beefy opponent, Scarne fought him to a memorable “no
decision” that left both battered before Mack’s friends, who didn’t want to be
barred from their favorite watering hole, broke it up.
    Mack,
never one to let sleeping dogs lie, came back a week later for a rematch. It
was early Monday night, typically slow, and he figured he’d have Scarne all to
himself. When he walked in, he found his nemesis already being pummeled by four
sailors. One of them, face bloodied, had Scarne’s arms pinned so the others
could use him as a punching bag. None of the winos in the bar was inclined to
interfere. Mack did, on general principles. The boys won but wound up on
adjoining chairs in the local emergency room.
    “Nice
fucking bar you run,” Mack said, “Every time I walk in, I get the shit kicked
out of me.” He extended his hand. “Dudley Mack.”
    “Jake
Scarne.” They shook hands, and both winced in pain and laughed.
    “I
owe you” Scarne said. “I was about to be turned into hamburger. What were you
doing there?”
    “I
came in specifically to kick your ass. I didn’t know I had to take a ticket.
What’s the deal with the Atlantic Fleet?”
    “Great
minds think alike,” Scarne said, smiling. “I threw them out last week too.
Listen, we should soak these hands in ice. I know just the place.”
    Dudley
Mack now had those hands in most of the illegal activities on Staten Island,
which because of its longtime isolation from the other boroughs, had developed
a small town culture alien to the rest of “the city.” As college buddies do,
Mack and Scarne visited each other’s home turf. Mack spent a summer working
construction on the reservation in Montana, where he became a favorite with the
local lunatics, one of whom even taught him how to scalp. (That would come in
handy on one still unsolved occasion back home.) And Staten Island became
Scarne’s home away from home during and after college, especially after