Rebecca Schwartz 05 - Other People's Skeletons

guess, and thick, a heavy man, so that he looked shorter than he was. He was a blond, and slightly ruddy, his haircut procured, no doubt, at the same place the light fixture had come from— I couldn’t have said why, but I had no doubt it had been designed within the last twenty-four hours by the top hairdresser in Milan. It was a wet-look kind of thing, combed off the face, and it would have been a great deal more attractive on a teenage musician. Tommy looked like the sort who said, “What’s shakin’, Babe?” when he met a new woman.
    But he said it was nice to meet me like anyone else and accompanied the sentiment with a smile that rose to his eyes, not one of those frozen half-face facsimiles so many of my colleagues affected. “Man, I’m in lousy shape,” he said. “I miss that guy like a bastard. I loved that crazy dude.”
    “How did you meet him?”
    “Hell, I called him up. I said I liked his stuff and why didn’t he come in and have dinner on me. He said he couldn’t do that, something about newspaper ethics. I didn’t get it, but that’s what he said. But one day he dropped by for lunch and introduced himself and we hit it off.” He shrugged. “The rest is history, as they say.”
    I would have loved to know the details of that history. Had Tommy given him a little tour of the place, including the infamous private dining rooms? Had one thing led to another until Jason knew way too much for a member of the press?
    “He came back again and I sent something over— maybe champagne, I can’t remember— and then he kept coming, and I always sent something special for his lady friends. Man, he had a lot of them.”
    “Did you know his assistant, Adrienne?”
    He shrugged. “Who knows? Guy had a different woman every week.”
    “How about Sarah Byers?”
    “Good-looking redhead?”
    “No. A plain-looking woman; a little on the frumpy side.”
    “No way. That wasn’t Jase’s style at all. Now, me, I don’t go for flash.” He gave me a very sincere look, as if to say, You’d do just fine, which made me hate him. I’ve never been one for left-handed compliments. “Jeez, I miss that guy!”
    “Why?” I said.
    “Why? He was my friend.”
    “I mean, what did you like about him?”
    “He was so damn funny. He was just so damn quick , he could have you on the floor in thirty seconds. And he was generous. Best friend you could ever have. Stood by me through”— he got a faraway look— “everything.”
    “Well, look, you knew him better than just about anyone, right?”
    He looked surprised. “Hell, I don’t know. I don’t know who his other friends were. I mean, except for everybody in town.”
    “Still, you must have an opinion on what happened. Who’d want to kill a guy like that?”
    It was obviously the question he’d been waiting to answer. He sat up perfectly straight and gave Rob a steely gaze— this was man talk. “Know what I think? Know what I really think? I think it was some babe.”
    “Ah.”
    “Guy just had too many of ’em for something not to go wrong. Know what I mean?” He kept staring at Rob. “Know what I mean?”
    “Just playing the odds,” said Rob.
    “Yeah. Yeah! Just playing the odds. Some babe did him.” He finished off his Pellegrino in one draught. “Did you ever see Play Misty for Me ? Something like that could have happened. Jason was a public figure; women got crushes on him. I’ve seen it happen myself.” He swept an arm around the room. “Here. Waitresses. Women having dinner, sending him drinks and things. Maybe one of ’em was nuts, maybe she imagined a romance that wasn’t there.…”
    “You know, a funny thing,” I said. “We’ve talked to some of his girlfriends. They say he wasn’t sexually involved with them.”
    “You mean he wasn’t sleepin’ with ’em? Shit, I’m glad to hear it. I was thinkin’ maybe he was Superman or something.” He got the faraway look again. “There was a lady in here one night— regular customer— and she sent him her card. She wrote something on it, I never knew what, the waiter didn’t look, and he asked me about her. Wanted to know what I thought of her.”
    I didn’t see the relevance. “Did he go out with her?”
    “That’s not the point. Point is, she was a pro. I’m tellin’ you this because, why’d a guy like Jason need a pro? You have to ask yourself. Maybe there’s something there for you. That’s why I'm tellin’ you.” He had such a sheepish look on