”What do you wish to know?“
”Anything,“ I said. ”I can’t get her to tell me her birthday. I don’t even know enough to ask an intelligent question. Tell me anything about her, and it will be progress.“
”She is a drunk,“ Rojack said.
”That I know.“
”And, I don’t know if the term is used anymore, a nymphomaniac.“
”I don’t think it is, but I know that too.“
”She uses drugs.“
”Yeah. “
Rojack shrugged. ”So what else is there to know?“
”How do you know her?“ I said.
”At a cocktail party,“ Rojack said. ”The governor had a party in the State House rotunda for the stars and top executives of Fifty Minutes, when it first came to town to shoot the pilot. Three years ago. I went-I am a substantial contributor to the governor’s campaigns-and I met her there. I gave her a card. A couple of days later she called and said that she was alone in town, living in a hotel, and wanted someone to take her out and help her not be lonely.“
Far down in the pasture, at the edge of the stream, one of the horses put his head down and drank. He was a red roan horse, and he made an ornamental contrast to the white pasture and the black trees, blacker than usual with the snow melt glistening on their sides.
”I was pleased-most men would be. I took her to dinner at L’Espalier. We had wine. We went to the Plaza Bar. We came home here…“ Rojack made a shrugging hand-spread gesture; among us men of the world, it would be clear what happened next.
”So you were going steady?“
”I don’t enjoy your manner very much, Spenser.“
”Damn,“ I said. ”Everybody says that. Did you and Jill Joyce spend a lot of time together?“
”We were intimate for several years. Then she stopped seeing me.“
”Why?“
”I don’t know. I had done her several favors. Perhaps once they were accomplished she felt no further need of me.“
”Tell me about the favors,“ I said. My cup was empty. I put it down on the coffee table. Automatically Rojack picked up a small napkin from the coffee service tray and put it under my saucer.
”Some were merely routine: reservations at a restaurant, tickets for a sold-out event, a drunken driving charge-I have a good deal of influence.“
”Congratulations. Were there any favors weren’t routine?“
Rojack leaned back thoughtfully and gazed out at his trees and horses. He looked healthy and very satisfied. He was talking about himself, and he took it seriously.
”I suppose one must define routine,“ Rojack said. I waited.
”There was a somewhat salacious piece of gossip that I was able to keep out of the papers.“
I waited.
”It involved a young driver on the show and Jill in an elevator.“
I nodded encouragingly. There was no need to prod him. He liked talking about the things he could fix. He’d tell me all there was. Maybe more.
”And there was a young man whom she’d known before she went to Hollywood.“
Rojack said Hollywood the way that a lot of people did, as if it were a place where one might actually run into Carole Lombard on any corner. As if it were glamorous. The sun had edged up to its low winter zenith as we’d sat talking, and now it shone directly in on the atrium from above and reflected in whitely from the unlittered snow. Everything shone with great clarity.
”Apparently this young man had been calling Jill, trying to see her, and Jill wanted nothing to do with him. But he persisted until Jill spoke to me about it, and I sent Randall to ask him to stop.“
”And he stopped?“ I said.
”Randall can be very convincing,“ Rojack said. Leaning on the archway, Randall looked as pleased with himself as Rojack did. He was one of those rawboned, square-shouldered Yankee types with long muscles and big knuckley hands-all angles and planes, as if he’d been designed to go with the house.
”What’s this guy’s name?“ I said.
Rojack looked at Randall. ”Pomeroy,“ Randall said. ”Wilfred Pomeroy.“
”Where’s he live?“
”Place out in Western Mass., Waymark, one of those Berkshire hill towns.“
”Waymark?“
”Un huh.“
