His first answer was “home,” and after that came Paris and a clutch of French resort areas -- until I had to revise the question and eliminate France altogether.

Finally he settled on Hong Kong. “Why?” I asked. His face relaxed in a broad, mischievous grin. “Because a friend of mine is head of the police there,” he said, “and when I go to Hong Kong I can do anything I want.”

I laughed, seeing it all on film -- the adventures of a filthy-rich French cowboy, turned loose in Hong Kong with total police protection. With J.-C. Killy as the hellion and maybe Rod Steiger as his cop-friend. A sure winner. . .

Looking back, I think that Hong Kong note was the truest thing Jean-Claude ever said to me. Certainly it was the most definitive -- and it was also the only one of my questions he obviously enjoyed answering.

By the time we got to Chicago I'd decided to spare us both the agony of prolonging the “interview” all the way to Baltimore. “I think I'll get off here,” I said as we left the plane. He nodded, too tired to care. Just then we were confronted by a heavy blonde girl with a clipboard. “Mister Killy?” she said. J.-C. nodded. The girl mumbled her name and said she was there to help him make connections to Baltimore. “How was Sun Valley?” she asked. “Was it good skiing?” Killy shook his head, still walking very fast up the corridor. The girl was half trotting beside us. “Well, I hope the other activities were satisfactory,” she said with a smile. Her emphasis was so heavy, so abysmally raw, that I glanced over to see if she was drooling.

“Who are you?” she asked suddenly.

“Never mind,” I said. “I'm leaving.”

Now, many months later, my clearest memory of that whole Killy scene is a momentary expression on the face of a man who had nothing to do with it. He was a drummer and lead singer in a local jazz-rock band I heard one night at a New Hampshire ski resort where Killy was making a sales appearance. I was killing time in a dull midnight bistro when this nondescript little bugger kicked off on his own version of a thing called “Proud Mary” -- a heavy blues shot from Creedence Clearwater. He was getting right into it, and somewhere around the third chorus I recognized the weird smile of a man who had found his own rhythm, that rumored echo of a high white sound that most men never hear. I sat there in the dark smoke of that place and watched him climb. . . far up on some private mountain to that point where you look in the mirror and see a bright bold streaker, blowing all the fuses and eating them like popcorn on the way up.