Free Some Like It Hot-Buttered by JEFFREY COHEN

happy. He wasn’t sad , you know. He didn’t mope around. But if you asked him how he was, he’d say, ‘Fine.’ Before, he’d say something cute, like ‘That’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it?’ He’d just lost his spark.”
    “But he wasn’t depressed.”
    “No. He seemed more . . . mad , I guess. Angry. He started sniping at the other actuaries. Not a lot, but he’d kind of jump down your throat if you made a simple mistake. It was the kind of thing he’d have laughed off a few months before; but now, he’d just lose it.”
    “Any idea what changed?” I had taken three sips of my Anchor Steam, before remembering that I was driving Moe’s client’s car. Hell, I weigh 185 pounds; I should be able to handle one beer.
    “I don’t like to gossip . . .” Marcy said. But the look in my eye encouraged her. “There was talk around the office that he had, you know, trouble in his marriage.”
    “His wife was cheating on him?”
    “No. I heard the other way around, but I don’t know if it’s true.” She backed off. “You know what they say about speaking ill of the . . . you know.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said. We sat for a few moments in silence, and I finally got up the courage to say, “Were there rumors about whom he was cheating with?”
    “Of course. But no consistent ones. Everyone from his secretary to Julia Roberts, to . . .”
    “You?”
    “I’ve heard that was going around, but nobody said anything to my face.” Her face was, at the moment, pinched and angry. “In any event, it wasn’t true.” That led to an even more awkward silence. And Marcy looked down at the table.
    “You’ve already eaten, haven’t you?” she asked me.
    “I’m afraid so.”
    She smiled a sad smile. It was actually a very nice smile. “And you’re not really a reporter, are you?”
    My eyebrows might have raised a bit. “How could you tell?”
    Marcy smiled another half-smile. “Most reporters probably would have put a tape in the cassette deck,” she said.

8
    We sat and talked for quite some time after that, as I had to explain myself to Marcy, which is something I’m not terribly skilled at doing. She didn’t really understand why I was pursuing information about Ansella, but then neither did I, which made explaining it that much harder.
    Finally, she realized she was overdue back at her office, and I needed to bring the car back to Moe, so we parted ways in the Applebee’s parking lot, doing that awkward-handshake-when-you’re-not-sure-if-you-should-hug thing that adults do if they have social skills deficiencies, like I do. Ask my ex-wife.
    On the drive back to Midland Heights, I ditched The Magnificent Seven for a Susan Werner CD I found in the console. I couldn’t sing along with a voice that feminine, but I could appreciate it, and it fit my mood, which was somewhat wistful but also a little bit amused.
    What I had discovered about Vincent Ansella had been less a relief and more a cattle prod: he was another rabid comedy fan, and someone had offed him when he should have been in his element. Something had been bothering him lately, possibly involving his marriage. I can’t say that kind of issue is completely alien to me, either. He didn’t like jokes. I don’t like jokes. Friends send me e-mails containing what they think are hilarious jokes all the time, because they figure the “comedy guy” must love these things. I hate jokes. I like wit, not contrived stories that end with someone making an obscene pun or confusing his wife with a horse or something.
    Let’s face it: if I had been Italian, drawn to actuarial tables, and dead, I could be Vincent Ansella.
    Meanwhile, I was, in fact, the owner of a theatre that couldn’t open, with a projectionist who had vanished into thin air upon being suspected of video piracy. And I was tooling around Central New Jersey in a borrowed car, looking into the life of a man I had never actually met while he was, you know, breathing. I’m