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world. It s a tiny wooden shack on the side of the road in Menemsha - a
stone s throw from the commercial fishing dock with only two picnic tables
next to it. But Karen and Jackie Quinn turned out thousands of the most
lightly fried clams from late morning through late night in season, which was
only from the Memorial Day weekend through Columbus Day.
I turned the ignition key on in our rented car as Mike asked, Who s Luther
wound up about?
He s so rigid, he didn t give a lot away. He s got Richard Burrell, the
ex-husband, in his sights.
Sound right to you?
Not really, especially if he s off the coke. But there s no question she was
with him in Boston last weekend, so who knows if he followed her here. And
Wally?
Wally says they re trying to find an old boyfriend who was sort of a loose
cannon. An actor or stunt guy named Johnny Garelli. Ever hear of him?
Shit, I should have thought of him, too. Isabella used to call him Johnny
Gorilla. Remember when she did one of those Tom Clancy movies, about gun
runners and dope dealers in some Central American country?
Johnny was a great-looking, brain-dead ex-Marine who had a bit part in the
movie, and they had an affair during the filming. Hit all the tabloids and
supermarket magazines.
I must have missed it.
It worked fine for three weeks in the jungles of Guatemala, but once she got
him back to Bel Air, he had trouble holding up his end of the conversation.
Anyway, she came to New York for a shopping trip without the gorilla and we
met for brunch at Mortimer s on Sunday morning. The place was packed, everyone
there knew who she was, and in the door comes this wild-eyed, oversized madman
who d gone straight from the red-eye to her hotel, where the concierge who had
put Isabella in a cab directed him to the restaurant.
What did he want? Mike asked.
He just raged at her for leaving him behind. The usual stuff of a B-movie she
thought she was too good for him, she thought she could buy him off, comments
about her sexual interests.
I was halfway under the table and he wasn t talking about me but she just took
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it in great style, put down her bloody mary, rose to her full height, told me
she d be right back, and walked him out to the sidewalk. The people in the
front half of the restaurant the ones who count watched as she hailed a yellow
cab and put him inside, then left the taxi door open as she came back in to
whisper an apology to me. As she started for the door again, she turned and
smiled at ten or twelve of us within hearing range and announced, Let this be
a lesson to you, girls always fuck your own rank. I sat there dumbfounded
until my friends Joan and Louise, who were at the next table, stopped laughing
long enough to invite me to finish my salad with them.
And the gorilla? Mike asked.
He hung on for a while. Could still be an occasional one-nighter for all I
know. I don t think she d brag it about to me after the episode I witnessed.
She s made a lot of mistakes like that with her personal life. Whilethey re
looking for Johnny they ll find ten more just like him. Isabella desperately
wanted respectability a man who was solid, not show biz, not drug-involved
there just weren t a lot of them in her orbit. She never stopped searching for
one, though.
I nosed the car onto the dirt shoulder of the road just before we reached the
Bite. Karen saw me first and practically squealed with excitement.
Alex, what are you doing here? You told us you wouldn t be back till the
weekend we close. She realized as soon as the words were out that she knew
the connection.
Oh,
I m sorry. Isabella Lascar was staying at your place. I m so sorry.
Thanks, Karen. We re up here trying to help Wally. This is my friend Mike
Chapman.
She was here, Alex. She was here on Wednesday.
Isabella? I should have known I could get a pretty good scouting report from
the Quinn sisters. They were enthusiastic, hardworking young women who loved
celebrities, and if they trusted you with the information, they could tell you
when Vernon Jordan or Billy Joel or Mike Wallace or Princess Di had his or her
last order of clams and oysters.
Yeah, did you send her to us?
Well, of course, you re on the top of my list, Karen, and I would have sent
her here, but I actually never got to speak with her on Wednesday.
Mike casually began to ask for more details.
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