VAN NUYS, CA - Narcissus Johnson, Fabio Schwartz's trusted assistant, houseboy, and friend made it official at a poolside press conference today. Fabio Schwartz, missing for the last week, is dead.

According to the authorities, on August 15, during a fishing vacation in Mexico, Fabio was pulled overboard by a marlin. "It was terrible," said Dr. James Weeble, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and a close friend of Fabio Schwartz. "One momen't he's shouting 'I got it, I got it,' and the next... he sounds farther away. I looked to the back of the boat and he was gone."

"Then I saw him," Rock M. Sockem, fellow model and also a friend of Fabio's, said. "He was out on the water, standing up like a barefoot water-skier, holding onto that fishing pole as the marlin pulled him one way while the boat went the other. We waited a bit to see if he'd have the good sense to let go. When we realized that he didn't, we turned around to chase him, but by then he'd disappeared from sight and we couldn't find him."

The Mexican coastal authorities were enlisted in the search, but Fabio was not to be found. Then, on August 18th, a human body washed up on the beaches of Mazatlan. Waterlogged and partially eaten, it was unrecognizeable. Later identification using dental records proved it to be the body of Fabio Schwartz.

On August 22nd, just before the announcement by Narcissus Johnson, Fabio Schwartz was laid to rest in a private ceremony at the King David Memorial Park and Miniature Golf Course in Calabassas, California. "We placed him next to the windmill," Johnson said, "because he always wanted to visit Holland."

But while hundreds mourn, there are others who have different takes on this.

Juan Carlos Jacques Francois Marcello Mauritzio Jolly, whom Fabio had affectionately referred to as Mr. Jolly, was Fabio Schwartz's interior designer and close, personal friend. "I was at Fabio's home when it happened," Jolly says, "and the oddest thing occurred. The moment he disappeared, his black velvet painting of Mikhail Gorbachev started crying.

"I tried to find a cause, but there was nothing. The painting was spontaneously generating tears. And that's not the strangest part. After my hand got wet, I wiped it on my pants to dry it and then ran it through my hair in puzzlement."

Jolly leans over to display a full head of hair. "Look. No more bald spot. I tried rubbing some of the tears on my face... My skin has never felt so supple, so young. The tears from the painting made me beautiful... yet manly."

And that's not the end of the oddness. Goldy Guilder, Fabio's hairstylist advances this theory. "Look at the marker on the grave," she says in a whisper. "Fabio's middle name was Zachary, with a 'ch'. I asked him about it once. But on the grave marker, his middle name is spelled Z-A-C-K-E-R-Y. They spelled his middle name wrong on his grave. Just like Elvis."

One minister of the Universal Life Church, a Reverend Greg Bulmash, has proclaimed that Fabio Schwartz was a saint and the crying Gorbachev is his miracle. Is Fabio Schwartz a saint? Is Fabio Schwartz really dead? The answers to those questions lie shrouded in mystery. The only thing we know for sure is, wherever or whatever he is, Fabio is missed.