Final Jeopardy

He laughed.

“I was there in ‘94 fiftieth a

“Went with my uncle Brendan, who landed with the invasion force, remember? The only other thing in town is the tapestry museum. Had to take Aunt Eunice through it twice. Relax, blondie, you can pay up tomorrow.”

Vie came back behind the bar, shook my hand, told me he was sorry he couldn’t remember my name but he was dead straight on the drink order. Maureen and I pretended to become acquainted while I waited for my host to show up. She complimented my outfit and thanked me, under her breath, for getting her out of the fleabag hotel where we stashed our recalcitrant witnesses during trials.

We three chatted about the music, the changing weather, and what the prospects were for the Knicks this season.

About ten minutes later the door pushed open and Joh

“ Jesus, Mo, would you take a look at those implants?

How’d she ever get in bed with that guy?“

“Now, now, now, Alex. You know better than that. A man’s hair is like his penis they get very sensitive about comments like that. I’ve had at least three domestics’ men who killed their wives ‘caused by fighting over that kind of insult about hair. Be nice to the man.”

Joey and Joh

“Nice of you to call. How’d you know I was in town?”

“Actually, one of the cops told me, when he was talking to me this morning. I’ve been interviewed by them a lot, too.”

“I forgot what you do. Are you in soaps? Acting?”

“No, I’m a lawyer.”

“Like a defense attorney, that kind?”

“Sort of.” Not exactly that kind, but then, he’s not really an actor either, if you want to be truthful.

“D’you know Isabella for a long time?”

Longer than you, I thought to myself.

“About three years.

I gave her some help back then, when she was starring in Probable Cause. We became friendly after that.“

Joh

“No menus here. You gotta tell Joey what you want.”

“Yes, I know.” Rao’s had the best roasted peppers I had ever eaten, so I chose them for an appetizer, while Joh

“So did Iz talk about me a lot?”

“She told me a lot about you, yes.”

“Good things, mostly?” he said jokingly.

“We had some good times together, her and me.”

The English major in me winced. He may have been great in bed, but his syntax was as atrocious as his ma

“Did Isabella tell you how we met and everything? We was a hot ticket for a while.”

Enough about me, now let’s talk about what Iz thought about me. This was going to be a long evening.

Garelli wanted to make sure I knew all about his career.

The appetizers came and he inhaled his clams without missing a beat, taking me through his days in the Marine Corps. Stallone was his role model; he’d discovered Garelli when he got out of the service and cast him as a soldier of fortune in one of those blockbuster summer movies that I would have paid dearly never to have to see in my life.

“He was good to me, man, still is. Semper Fi.”

“Did you have to learn all that technical business about guns for the movie?” I asked, realizing as soon as I did that it was not the most subtle approach for the nature of the investigation.

His head was apparently thicker than his deltoids ‘cause he didn’t seem to get the co

“Are you kidding?

Didn’t Isabella tell you how I taught her to shoot when we were in Central America making that Clancy movie? Man, I grew up on that stuff, from G.I. Joe right to the Marines.“

“No, she just talked about your romance.” That had been nearly enough to make me question her sanity. I suppose I hadn’t asked too many more details.

“We used to sit around at night, drinking and making love. There wasn’t much else to do down there. I tried to teach her how to shoot. We’d set up the empty vodka bottles on a tree stump in the jungle and blast them to pieces.

Some day what do you call those guys archaeologists?

Someday, one of ‘em will come along and do a dig right on that movie set. Iz used to say they’d think the Aztecs had invented Absolut, there’d be nothing but fragments of glass buried there.

“Then I could really make her laugh when I could nail one of them snakes, you know, like when they were moving?

Man, she hated those snakes. Green mambos. Those jungles were full of ‘em. She used to say she never wanted to see another snakeskin shoe or pocketbook in her life. I could spot those suckers as soon as they came out in the daylight to sun themselves and I could blast ’em in half while they tried to slither back into their holes. It used to be quite a game. Iz had a nice reward for me every time I killed her a green mambo.“ He winked at me, so I was sure to know that Isabella was taking good care of Joh

To me it seemed like quite a skill. Not one that I wanted to master, much as I hated snakes. But Garelli had to be pretty good with a gun to hit that kind of ski

“Do you know anything about Isabella’s murderer ”Clueless, Alice, I am really clueless.“

I didn’t correct him on my name. He was pretty drunk, and I guess his mind was on the dancer he was due to meet in another hour.

“They ran me through every conversation I had with her lately, wanted to know about the man she was with all week, wanted to know which of her lovers she’d fought with. I guess they’ll do the same with you,” I suggested to him.

“Well, they’ll get shit from me excuse my language, sweetheart. She and me didn’t see each other for weeks.

We talked on the phone, she was some kinda tease, but if these motherfuckers think they’re go

“You got a lawyer?”

“No way, man. I mean I got a lawyer back home, I got plenty of lawyers. But you walk into a police station with a lawyer, those cops know you did something wrong. I can go in by myself, tell ‘em what they wa

Garelli was working the tortoni now, for dessert, and Rick had brought over a bottle of anisette to place on the table.

The espresso was thick as mud and delicious, but Joh