“Try a screwdriver. At least the orange juice makes you feel like you?re doing something decent for
your body.”
“1 couldn?t stand the vodka.”
“It?ll get your heart beating again. What can I do for you? I?ll bet you?re here about that mess last
night.” She leaned over the table and said quietly, “Everybody in town?s talking about it,” flagging
down a waiter as she spoke and ordering me a screwdriver.
“No kidding?” I said, trying to act surprised.
“It was ghastly. I had calls before the maid even opened my drapes this morning. I hardly knew this
Turner man, but he seemed like a charming old gentleman.”
“Charming?” I said. Uncle Franco was probably smiling in his grave.
“Well, you know. He contributed to the ballet and the symphony. He was on the board of the
children?s hospital. And he was quite modest about it all.”
“No pictures, no publicity, that sort of thing?”
“Mm-hmm. Why?”
“Just wondering. I always suspect modesty. It?s unnatural.”
“You?re a cynic.”
“Very possibly.”
“I always suspect cynics,” she said.
“Why?s that?” I asked.
“There?s security in cynicism,” she said. “Usually it covers up a lot of loneliness.”
“You the town philosopher?” I asked, although I had to agree with her thesis.
“Nope,” she said rather sadly. “I?m the town cynic, so I know one when I see one.”
“So what?s the pipeline saying about all this?” I asked, changing the subject.
She lowered the glasses again, peering over them at me. “That he?s a gangster from Toronto,” she said
with a smirk.
“Couldn?t be, I never heard of him,” I said.
“Just what is your angle?”
“1 do travel pieces.”
“Really.”
“Yeah.”
“And lie a lot?”
“That too.”
“To gossip columnists?” she said.
