Police Blotter

Social crime in East Hampton

CRIME in East Hampton? Well, it may be qualitatively different from crime in most places, but it exists. Here is a list of the reports recorded at the East Hampton police headquarters over a recent weekend:

• Tony Offish reported that Noel Costello, a visiting writer from Monterey, California, put saccharin in the gas tank of his Mercedes after an argument between the two of them as to whether the ocean seen from Main Beach early in the morning is green or blue.

• Buzz French reported that an autograph of Norman Mailer in which Mr. Mailer mistakenly misspelled his last name was taken from beneath the glass on his study desk by one of the guests at a cocktail party he gave to celebrate the publication of his novel, yphus on the Rocks.

• Ikki Best reported that her cat, Apostrophe, returned home after a mysterious absence of three days with dilated pupils and a tendency to walk into the fan.

• A chocolate mousse was found upended near the third hole of the Maidstone Club's golf course.

• Jennifer Soda reported being verbally abused in pig Latin by a writer whose name was "something Italian" while arguing with him about neo-Fauvism in an alcove at a cocktail party given by a friend of her husband ' s agent.

• Nevil Levin reported that someone broke into his house while he was out pricing golf carts and rearranged the bottles in his wine cellar according to label colors.

• Pudden Tate complained that she had received an entirely euphemistic obscene telephone call from a man who sounded like someone she had met during an introductory est session in San Francisco last fall.

• Carol Linen reported that a pair of ballet slippers, a black leotard, and a half-pound of Godiva Lions of Belgium were taken from the glove compartment of her parked car while she shopped for pasta and impasto in the village.

• Bill Marbles reported the loss of a notebook containing several Expressionist doodles and original palindromes while he jogged in Maidstone Park.

• Nelson Rathdrum parked his car in the swimming pool of his neighbor while driving under the influence of alimony.

• Vehicles driven by Jill Kahan of East Hampton and Olivia Moon of Bridgehampton collided when both drivers were distracted by a pedestrian they took to be Barbara Walters.

• A life-size cardboard replica of Rosemary Rogers used in the promotion of her latest novel, Love Against Walls, was molested in the Print Bam Book Shop by an unidentified patron who bent the Figure's cleavage.

• Robert Coffee reported being pelted with veal piccata and capers while jogging past several teenagers in a bice Renault with a HONK IF YOU LOVE NARCISSISM bumper sticker.

• Ethelwulf Wolfe reported that his wife had attempted to commit suicide by taking an overdose of .22-caliber bullets.

• Taz Romano reported that a lavender-and-sand-colored BMW "with Dolby sound" driven by a man wearing a Lacoste shirt, plaid Indian-madras trousers, and a pith helmet crashed into his mailbox, breaking a Waterford-crystal nimbus in a package a friend had sent him from Boston.

Larry Tritten