She is a drunk, Rojack said.
That I know.
And, I dont know if the term is used anymore, a nymphomaniac.
I dont 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 governors 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 LEspalier. 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 dont 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 dont 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 werent 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. Hed tell me all there was. Maybe more.
And there was a young man whom shed 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 wed 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 hed been designed to go with the house.
Whats this guys name? I said.
Rojack looked at Randall. Pomeroy, Randall said. Wilfred Pomeroy.
Wheres he live?
Place out in Western Mass., Waymark, one of those Berkshire hill towns.
Waymark?
Un huh.
What was Jills connection to him?
Rojack pursed his lips for a moment. Pelvic, he said.
I nodded.
So, I said, why were you after her this morning?
Rojack picked up his coffee cup, saw that it was empty, gestured toward Randall with it. Randall came over, took it, filled it, put it back. During which time I watched the red roan horse browse beneath the soft snow.
Randall took a sip of coffee. He held the cup in both hands, like people do in coffee commercials, and then they say ahhh! He didnt say ahhh! He stared for a moment into the cup and then he raised his eyes.
We agree, he said, that Jill has many failings. I nodded. At the end of the pasture, the red roan browsed too close to a chestnut with a red mane. The chestnut stretched out its neck and took a nip at the roan. The roan shied, kicked at the chestnut, and moved away. The peaceable kingdom.
But what you probably dont see is the Jill that is so He searched thoughtfully for the right adjective. He spoke as if every word were being reported to an eager world. Compelling, he said. When she is intimate with you she is totally intimate, she is completely yours and her Again he examined a choice of several words, turning them over the way a housewife buys fruit. Her aura is so enveloping its quite hypnotic.
So when she dumps you its hard to believe, I said.