I leaned in, believing her; she said nothing frivolously. Dena shifted in her seat, too, and I caught a glimpse of a fallen black bra strap. A faint charge of arousal went through me and, under the circumstances—the memory of my mother—it was unnerving. Staring straight into my eyes, she pulled the strap back up, with what seemed intentional slowness. Fathers and mothers; falling bras and crying clowns; everything seemed to be mingling, in ways I didn’t understand. Whatever it was made both of us look away.
But I knew one thing for certain: I trusted Dena Savitch. So I went ahead and told her what I thought.
“I think your father may have died … for The Day the Clown Cried.”
She didn’t hesitate.
“Do you?” she said.
“Yes.”
“So do I.”
Neither of us spoke for a second. Then she said, “Roy? Would you like to go to the Hamptons with me?”
DENA DIDN’T LIVE ON THIS PART OF LONG ISLAND, A WORLD OF MANSIONS on the water, two hours or so from town. She worked for a man of whom, not surprisingly, she had barely heard.
Most people, however, were more than familiar with Howie Romaine.
Romaine was a stand-up comic who had parlayed an observational gift—creating routines from mundane details of everyday life—into an enormous success. He’d recently ended his stupendously popular TV sitcom, Romaine World, which had made him untold millions. Now married with a child, he lived in a compound in East Hampton, essentially retired at the age of forty. Dena was the au pair to his young son and lived on the grounds.
The job made sense for her. At lunch, Dena’s motherly aspect had made me confess more than I’d intended. I told her of my own mom and my unfortunate alliance with Abner, in such a miserable way that it made her think, as she always seemed to, practically.
“Howie spends all his time buying things now,” she’d said. “Fancy cars used to be his obsession. Now he’s into showbiz collectibles. So he might have some information on this, whatever, Clown film.”
I hesitated. Romaine’s comic oeuvre had always struck me—and, frankly, anyone with any taste—as pathetic. Who really cared about the rivalry between an electric and a manual toothbrush, as one of his routines dramatized?
Dena read my mind and was, as ever, sensible. “Don’t be such a snob. This is a way to keep our investigation going. I’m having my father’s belongings from his flophouse shipped to me at Howie’s place. You can help me go through them there.”
I sensed this was her real motivation and, to my surprise, I didn’t mind. It was very comforting being around Dena. She had suffered a greater loss than I—my silent mother was still alive—yet had been made stronger.
“Okay,” I found myself saying. “All right.”
“Oh,” she said, as she paid the check, “and you’ll want to lose that gun, I think. I hate those things.”
Just as she heard what she needed, Dena saw what she needed, as well.
—
At home, I stashed the gun in my underwear drawer. Then I logged onto Quelman House. The site featured An Open Letter from a Special Guest. Mimicking the gossipy style of Abner’s PRINTIT!.com, it read:
Well, Quelman lovers, your cinematic ordeals are over. Prince Corno and Lady Beluga are going to stay a peninsula apart.… And what former Internet bigwig is maintaining the integrity of the world’s favorite fantasy trilogies? I don’t have to print it here.…
There was a coda:
And stay tuned. This particular cool cat will soon announce his acquisition of one of the world’s most lusted-after films. That won’t be a day anyone cries.…
Abner, of course, had written his own tribute. Typically, he had also taken very premature credit for finding the film.
Annoyed, I e-mailed him a vague account of my hotel encounter. Then I told him the address where I was headed, ending with a cursory: Might get info there. Then I cashed his check.
—
I accompanied Dena on the Jitney, the elegant bus line to the Hamptons from Manhattan. On the way, they served complimentary Perrier in plastic cups and gave out copies of the Wall Street Journal, a paper I had never read. When I got tired of trying to fold its oversized pages, looking for film reviews, I crumpled it beneath my seat.
I thought that maybe Dena hadn’t merely wanted to help me or to receive my help. After what happened to her father, maybe she could use my protection, too. Even though she seemed parental, she was in fact the younger one.
Was I up to it? As I looked out the window at the Long Island Expressway, I thought of Martin Ritt’s abandoned film from the early eighties. It starred Sally Field and Matthew Broderick in a May-December romance. It was resurrected as No Small Affair starring Demi Moore and Jon Cryer.
There was a limo waiting for us at the East Hampton bus stop. With a hidden driver, it took us through secluded lanes and protective hedges behind which lived the likes of Steven Spielberg and P. Diddy. And Howie Romaine.
In person, Romaine was as tall as he’d seemed on TV. He’d gained a belly and lost some hair since his early retirement, though. His handshake was very weak, as if, now so rich, he no longer needed to make an effort of any kind.
“It’s nice to meet a cousin of Dena’s,” he said, clearly not giving a damn one way or the other. I was just a slacker relation and of no use to him.
Dena thought that, by introducing me as her family, it would eliminate any uncomfortable questions. But Howie, who literally yawned a second after our handshake, was not about to ask any.
I glanced around his massive living room, decorated in conventional leather and plaids. Four Emmy Awards were placed in plain view on a mantel. Dozens of framed photos of his old sitcom cast adorned the walls. There were copies of his recent best seller, Fatherhood Is No Joke, the cover of which showed him dandling a baby, lovingly. But only one small shot of his wife and child sat, nearly hidden, on a desk.
“I loved your show,” I lied, to win him over.
Howie’s eyes brightened, and his whole demeanor changed. He stood up straighter and patted my shoulder and spoke louder. “Thanks, thanks. It was just a little, you know, bagatelle. But it made a lot of people happy. Or at least that’s what people say. To me, it was just … a romp, you know? But we need romps, that’s what people tell me. So thanks, thanks.”
“Sure,” I said, shrugging, and wincing from his volume.
“Now I’m a family man, though,” he went on, unbidden, “and that’s how I like it. I don’t miss doing the show for a minute. I think people like you miss it a lot more than me!”
