Night People

BAD DREAMS

by Anthony Haden-Guest

Macmillan; 420 pages; $14.95

Rarely is a practicing journalist acquainted with all of the principals in a celebrated murder case, including the deceased. This unlikely coincidence fell into the lap of Author Anthony Haden-Guest in August 1978, when New York police arrested Howard ("Buddy") Jacobson, a successful horse trainer and all-purpose entrepreneur, for the murder of a man named Jack Tupper. The writer knew and had once interviewed Jacobson and his girlfriend and business partner, Melanie Cain, a fashion model. The victim had often been encountered, by Haden-Guest and others, in trendy restaurants and bars on Manhattan's East Side; he was an affable table hopper in his mid-30s with a reputation for shady connections. Just before his death, Tupper had also become known as Melanie Cain's new boyfriend. Buddy Jacobson, so the theory went at the time, had put a stop to that.

A jury later agreed. After escaping from the Brooklyn House of Detention for 40 days, Jacobson, then 49, was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison. A lot of odd things, though, occurred between crime and punishment, and Haden-Guest was well positioned to observe and record them all. There is little suspense in Bad Dreams; even readers who have never heard of the Jacobson affair will have no trouble guessing the outcome. But the book is an exhaustive account of the after-effects of a murder: the grindingly slow legal process, the grief of the victim's relatives and friends, their rage at seeing the accused, out on bail, pick up his life and business as usual.

In Jacobson's case, that meant characteristically garish activity. He bought and sold East Side apartment buildings, squired a constantly replenished stock of stewardesses and models half his age, protested his innocence to dazzled reporters and blew as much smoke as he could toward the prosecutors. Physical evidence at the scene of the crime was altered. Potential witnesses received threats. Rumors began floating that Tupper had been killed by drug-dealing associates. He had, in fact, once picked up $300,000 for helping a gang of old friends who smuggled hashish and marijuana through Kennedy Airport. None of these distractions before the trial could be traced to Jacobson directly, but those familiar with his icy intelligence and manipulative methods, including Haden-Guest, saw Buddy's touch in all of them.