EC-04: Reynard "Renny" Jacovich
There is no way I wasn't going to do a report on Renny. Too funny.--Maer
From Irina DiSanti’s encounter reports
Personal observations = (parenthetical remarks)
Direct statements = in bold.
Anything of note = italicized.
Sunday, 24 Jul 2011
Who: Reynard “Renny” Jacovich
What: Investment banker, Fortune Teller, possible con artist
When: 2130hrs, local time
Where: Devereaux-Shields House B&B, fellow guest
Why: Chance meeting on the porch
Physical description:
- Dark brown on blue, 5'-3"to 5'-4", 140
- Wears horn rimmed glasses; reduction of face and eyes behind lenses suggests myopia
- Pale even for a white boy.
- Skinny, almost emaciated. Damn, somebody get that man a sandwich.
Demeanor:
- NYC boy, accent is Brooklyn, with a faint Slavic tinge.
- Charming in a “we’re-all-players-here” sort of way, always “on”, people person
- Observant, frighteningly so.
- (Pegged me for a PI, suggested Tribeca and Tudor City for my neighborhood before hitting Upper West Side. Which I did not confirm.)
- Good at drawing people out
- Listens well
- Nervous energy—either he’s jumpy because he’s paranoid or maybe he has a drug habit.
- Has good and expensive taste in clothes. Wears the clothes, the clothes do not wear him.
Details:
Jacovich had checked in late—early hours of the morning of the 24th—and slept through the day. The hostess remarked on it at afternoon tea. I was sitting on the front porch trying to acclimate myself to the humidity when Jacovich stepped outside. I offered him a seat. He immediately pegged me as a Yankee. I pegged him as from Brighton Beach—his accent screamed Brooklyn and something a touch Russian. Our New York affiliations firmly established, we went inside to avoid melting and continued to talk. Jacovich insisted on being called Renny. Over the course of our conversation, he revealed:
- Born in Brooklyn, at Coney Island Hospital.
- Mother went into labor riding the Cyclone
- Was raised in Brooklyn close to Gravesend by Grandmother who parented on weekends.
- Claims to have spent a lot of time down on the beach.
- (Where was Renny’s mother? Was he serious about his Grandmother or was he really left to his own cognizance Monday through Friday?)
- He asserts he’s an investment banker, handling stocks and investments for clients.
- He has a client, Lady Evelyn Carrick, British, in Hong Kong who keeps him up at night due to the time difference between them. As a result, Renny is awake at nights.
- He calls Lady Carrick “the dragon lady”. Possibly in jest.
- He has a Baba Anya and she has friends.
- He has stated: “Not much of an investment banker, these days. Mostly, I sit with friends of my grandmother and tell them things are not so bad as they think they are. That their granddaughter didn’t mean to treat her like an ATM machine and drive through restaurant.”
- (Jacovich lapsed into an “old Jewish guy” voice for the above statement, then corrected himself to his regular voice)
- He went on to say: “But they pay well for a sympathetic ear.”
- (At which point he places me in UWS and asks what I’m doing here, which I don’t tell him. Not entirely. I give him my spiel about starting out new with an agency that takes on cases to help people, rooting for the underdog. He compliments me on my laugh in a grandmotherly way.)
- He offers to read my fortune. I give him my palm.
- He states: [My fortune] “COLD, I see Cold in your future. I see recent met stranger turning a thermostat down to 60. And all slept well. . . I see you obtaining the job you seek and I see justice being handed out in a thimble. I see blood and theft. (gently releases my hand) The Spirits Tell Me No MORE.”
- (Blood and Theft? Why that combination of words? Exactly when I’m investigating a string of murders that involve exsanguinated corpses?)
- (Does he know about these murders? Is he connected somehow? Why would he let that sort of thing slip if he was?)
- (Is he trying to find out if I’m investigating them? If so, why? Who does he work for?)
- When I compliment him on his skills in Fortunes and agologize when it suggests an unsavory agenda, he says: “Oh, think nothing of it. Frankly, the Fortune Telling worked better than the stocks most days.”
- (So where was that crystal ball when I could have bought Google and Amazon.com for cheap?)
- His answer: “Hardly. The spirits can be . . . mercurial . . . in what they reveal. Also, you need to be born with it. My uncle, he said I had . . . the gift . . .” (He bows with flourish) “Whether that was for seeing the future or for delivering cleverly arranged B.S. I leave to the kind consideration of my audience.”
- I took my leave and pulled a Columbo over this blood and theft comment. His response: “Wha? No. Don’t think too much about it. When I do the fortune teller bit stuff just comes out sometimes. Also, you’re a PI, there’s always something being stolen and or someone bleeding somewheres.”
- (How did he KNOW that I’m a PI? I didn’t tell him and I haven’t told anyone else other than TFA and Sheriff Mayfield.)
- (I didn’t deny it. He said he was going for a walk. I returned to my room.)
Bottom line:
He’s funny and entertaining and a great story teller; observant and knows how to play the cues; may actually be an investment banker but has other means of making a living. Might very well be a con man but at the moment seems harmless and in need of a place to live. He showed interest in my apartment ads and I gave them to him.
If he really *is* able to see things or hear spirits, I wonder if I can get him to do a little investigating at the crime scenes. I’d like to start at the Post Office site first, it being the most recent but this isn’t the sort of thing you spring on someone when you first meet them. I’ll figure a way somehow. I don’t have to tell him any details that would endanger the case and if he’s faking it, no harm done.
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