Don't Explain: An Artie Deemer Mystery

by Dallas Murphy

  “I lost in the first round. No, no, I didn’t lose. That’s not accurate. I got stomped. By a beginner. I was supposed to be the centerpiece of the tournament, give it some weight, Ronny said. I got stomped in the first round by a beginner.”

  “You couldn’t concentrate.” I invited her to sit on my lap. Jellyroll came over to comfort her, too. She sat. Jellyroll put his snout on her hand.

  “Ronny couldn’t even look me in the eye. I told him I had the flu.”

  “Was she really a beginner?”

  “Intermediate, tops.”

  I hugged her. Jellyroll and I cosseted her for a while, then the phone rang.

  “Artie. Wayne here.”

  “Hello, Wayne.”

  “I thought of something. Perry and Dick. In Cold Blood. Truman Capote.”

  My heart sank—not that Perry and Dick—

  “Killed those Clutters, those salt-of-the-earth Clutters. Tied up those Clutters and killed them one by one with a shotgun, for no reason. This was the pinnacle of the senseless-killing school of New Journalism. Largely a sensationalized and discredited genre today, this piece was a knockout. Perry and Dick were top-drawer psychos. They hung them in the end. Nobody minded. Fair movie, too, real grim black-and-white. Robert Blake and Scott Wilson. Why do you ask, Artie?”

  TWO

  First thing next morning, my friend Clayton Kempshall, as an evil high school principal, sprinted headlong off Pier Twelve into the East River. My snarling dog chased him all the way, but my dog stopped at the end of the pier. My friend did not. Clayton made quite a bit of it, slapstick sprinting in midair. Then he hit the water. Head cocked quizzically, Jellyroll watched from the end of the high pier. People have made a lot of weird moves around him for years, he’s used to it, but this—jumping into the East River—seemed particularly bemusing to him.

  “Cut,” called Kevin James, the director, a reasonably sane man who tried to make life easy for his collaborators.

  The harbor is nature’s great gift to the City of New York. We’ve turned our back on the waterfront, but without it there’d be no New York. When I first moved to town, I’d take the train down here, sit on a dock and watch it, absorb it somehow. I don’t come down here much anymore because the South Street Seaport development turned it tame and lifeless and indistinguishable, but the water is still wild. Almost invisible out there, Clayton was being swept toward the Brooklyn Bridge by a raging flood tide.

  I was feeling a little edgy about this whole business because I got him the gig. It would be an ironic drag to drown in that slate-gray water, boat-hooked ashore seriously bloated somewhere in Queens, for the sake of a gig as an evil high school principal in a Jellyroll movie. Precautions had been taken. He wore an inflatable life jacket under his charcoal-gray suit, and chase boats were waiting to pick him up. Besides which, he didn’t need to jump in the river. They had stunt persons who got paid to do that kind of thing—

  “No, Artie, I think it’s important that I do my own stunts. It’ll come in handy in case I ever get a real role. Not to say I don’t appreciate that of an evil high school principal in a Jellyroll movie, no indeed not.”

  There seemed to be some kind of problem with the chase boats. Why hadn’t they picked him up yet? Both, low-slung plastic boats with enormous twin outboards, had gathered around his little head bobbing in racing water. But his head zipped out between them. They’d missed him cold. A police boat was standing by, as required by law, and it, too, raced after Clay, now waving his arms, trying to beat back the panic, heading out into the big middle of the river.

  Jellyroll looked over his shoulder at me to see whether or not to be upset about it. I shrugged at him. He looked back at the river.

  I saw a guy in the chase boat leaning overboard. He came up with Clayton in a bear hug, while his colleague maneuvered the boat in the current. Clayton seemed unable to help himself over the side, so the boat driver left the wheel to help. Up he came stiff as a plank. It’s a cruel business.

  Back on the pier, he sat on a low stool and, despite a thick down sleeping bag around his shoulders, shivered. Jellyroll licked his arm. Jellyroll liked Clayton.

  “Hey, Joey,” I called to a guy at the coffee-and-doughnut table.

  “Yeah, Artie?”

  “Can you get this guy something hot?”

  “Sure. Like hot chocolate?”

  “You like hot chocolate, Clay?”

  “Yeah. Great.” His shoulders were hunched. “It looked good, didn’t it, Artie? I mean the running gag? I don’t think it’s out of character, do you?”

  “No, it’s good.” I hadn’t actually read the whole script on this one. I’d skimmed it. The plot had something to do with stolen Nazi treasure, an evil school board, a sympathetic little boy, and, of course, his dog. The latter two set the world right at the end. At least I assumed so; that’s what usually happens, but it doesn’t matter. People don’t go to Jellyroll movies for the narrative. They go to watch Jellyroll be sweet and smart, maybe do a trick or two. It’s not an artistically rewarding gig for the humans.

  “Jellyroll, what do you think? Was it top-drawer physical comedy or not?” Clayton asked.

  Jellyroll cocked his head from side to side inquisitively as he does when you ask him a question, and all the while he smiled up at Clayton. Jellyroll smiles. His sweet nature reflected in that smile has made him the most famous dog in the country. He barked sharply at Clayton.

  “What?”

  “He wants to chase you off the pier again.”

  “Fun idea.”

  Kevin James, our director, approached pursued by a half-dozen folks who wanted his undivided attention. He’d directed a few other Jellyroll movies, Nick Danger’s Dog, Dog of Poker Flats, and another one I forget, but the projects he cared about were not getting any green lights, as he put it. I could understand his fear he’d be pegged as a dog director for the rest of his life. Consequently he was a little cold to me, but he never fucked me up. What more can one ask?

  “Great leap, Clay. Love the running in midair. Classic gag, no kidding.”

  “Hey, thanks a lot, Kevin.” Poor Clayton leapt to his feet.

  “And Jellyroll—brilliant as always.”

  “You don’t think it was out of character?” Clayton nudged.

  “What was?”

  “The running. Too slapstick?”

  He patted Clayton and Jellyroll on the shoulder and moved along, but he didn’t get far before another group of attention seekers headed him off.

  “He liked it,” said Clayton to me. “Then why doesn’t he use me as something other than an evil principal? Kevin’s doing some interesting stuff. Did you hear about the Bosnia Project?” He hugged his legs to his chest and shivered like a little boy at the end of a day at the beach. Clayton had a face full of angles, like a broken pencil, with a stiff shock of hair that stood straight up in an electrocuted way. His brows furrowed vertically and twitched. The poor sod. He was getting a little too old. “Plus, Kevin’s adapting Three Sisters. Don’t you think I’d make a great Judge Brack?”

  “…Judge Brack?”

  “I don’t think I’m right for Masha. You free? You want lunch? Maybe we can find a little fish boîte that takes dogs? You want fish?” he asked Jellyroll, who cocked his head side to side.

  “We’ve got to go uptown for a R-r-ruff Dogfood shoot.”

  “How is that? Is that a good gig?

  “It’s lucrative but not rewarding.”

  “Yeah, I know that kind of gig.”

  “Jellyroll’s just walking through it now.”

  “What about those tricks? The tricks are new. Do you teach him that?”

  I said I did. I teach him a trick or two to keep him interested.

  “Hey, Artie—” He lowered his voice. “I heard a disturbing thing the other day. I heard that there’s a stalker after Jellyroll?”

  “What? Who did you hear it from?”

  “Woman I’ve been seeing from the soap.”

&nbs
p; “When was this?”

  “Yesterday. But she said she’d heard it from her personal trainer out on the Coast last week.”

  “Last week?”

  “I guess it’s true, huh? There is a stalker, from the look on your face.”

  “I’ve been getting threatening bowling sheets.”

  “What are you doing about it?”

  “Well, I’m trying to keep it quiet, but that hasn’t been successful, has it?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “I wonder if the stalker himself’s putting out the word,” I said.

  “Publicity, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I played a stalker in a reenactment on Serial Killers Update. Severely twisted fucker. I got to talking to the writer. He told me he couldn’t say on reality TV what he really learned from his stalker research.”

  “What was that?”

  “Th at the best way to handle a stalking situation is to kill the stalker before he even gets started.”

  “Come on, Clay—”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just telling you what he said.”

  How did all those people know? Why was I the last one to know they knew?

  “Hey, Artie, you all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Look, maybe you don’t need to take it so seriously. It’s probably nothing.”

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  “…Did you say you’ve been getting threatening bowling sheets?”

  “With cartoons on the back about ax murderers.”

  “…Artie, I have an offer for you. Why don’t you disappear to my island?”

  “Did you say your island?”

  “Absolutely. I’m a very rich young gentleman. You don’t think I’m jumping in the river for the bread, do you? Absolutely not. I jump for the artistic satisfaction. Look, I’m not kidding you here. It’s remote and unspoiled, way up north on the ocean. You’ll stay in the boathouse at the head of a pristine cove. Well, it’s not really a boathouse, but that’s what we always called it. Why don’t you and Jellyroll and your lovely new squeeze—what’s her name?”

  “Crystal.”

  “Crystal. Why don’t you and Crystal take the boathouse with my compliments? Have a private little interlude, no show biz, no commercials, no psychos.”

  “It’s really your island?”

  “Kempshall Island, absolutely. Kevin’s been up there, as a matter of fact. He came in his own boat and spent a week. He loved it.”

  Kevin passed us again with a determined stride. He didn’t slow down or make eye contact, but he said, “Take him up on it, Artie. His island is one of the world’s beautiful places.”

  “It’s true,” said Clayton. “I never go.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because of my old man. The islanders despised the bastard. He was a millionaire over and over by the time he got up there, but he was still an acquisitive little Dickensian prick. He was real wrinkled, and he always had bad breath. He took over their island. It was pretty easy since the locals don’t have two nickels in cash money. He built his dream castle and ran them off. In fact that’s what he called it: the Castle. That’s where I spent summers until one night my father burned it down with me in it—I was ten—and he disappeared one step ahead of the feds.” His expression no longer matched his glib tone. “I was lucky to get out with my life.”

  “Jesus, Clayton, I had no idea.”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s movie-of-the-week material, my youth.”

  “What became of him?”

  “He was never seen again.”

  “Never?”

  “About two years ago, I hired a detective agency to find him. I got the best. Your best detectives, by the way, are still based in L.A. I spent a lot of the old man’s money to pick up the trail. But there was no trail, not a trace, nothing to go on. The agency eventually fired me as a client.”

  “Could he have died in the fire?”

  “No, the local law had top experts in to poke through the ashes. There were no remains. He was running all kinds of financial scams, robbing people who trusted him. He was scum, but he was very good at whatever he put his mind to. He put his mind to disappearing.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “Dead. She died while I was still an infant…Some of the local people are great. I’ll fix it up with Dwight. Dwight’s a prince. He’ll pick you up at the little one-horse airport and take you to Kempshall Island. What do you say? You got me this gig, let me give you a vacation in the boathouse. It looks like you need it.”

  “Does it really look like I need it?”

  “Oh, bad.”

  THREE

  Jellyroll was supposed to play dead when his person tries to feed him some “ordinary” dogfood instead of his usual R-r-ruff Dogfood. His person prods him, picks him up, jostles him, cajoles him, but nothing works, he remains “dead,” hanging limply in his person’s arms—until offered some you-know-what. He’s great at it. Playing dead is a Lassie bit we copied one melancholy Saturday afternoon.

  But under the present circumstances, the playing dead part made me edgy. I decided, however, to let it go because the young writing team of Marsha and Brad was so delighted with the “concept,” I didn’t have the heart to make them change it. After all, he was just playing dead. Besides, the cool, dark studio felt safe, and the people inside greeted us warmly, asked if we’d like anything, coffee or a snack.

  Mr. Fleckton and his two always-terrified assistants greeted me, but they were as stiff as potato chips today, and I could tell by the way Mr. Fleckton’s brow throbbed that something was uniquely wrong. He made small talk with me for a little while, then he said, “Uh, ahem, Mr. Frank would like to, ah, see you on thirty-five.”

  The corporate headquarters, the brains, of H. & R. Casswell Comestibles, the corporate parent of R-r-ruff Dogfood, was known to its minions as “thirty-five.” It was always spoken of in hushed, reverential tones, even when ridiculed, as in “those dick-heads on thirty-five.” It had its own elevator, a carpeted, paneled, and mirrored one that stopped only there. On thirty-five.

  “Uh, Artie,” said Fleckton in a quivering voice, “no animals allowed on…thirty-five.”

  I paused. “He’s been up there before,” I told Fleckton.

  “Yes, but that was special.” Mr. Fleckton’s eyes pleaded.

  Did I want to leave Jellyroll alone under the circumstances? Or did I want to tell them all to fuck themselves?

  “We’ll take great care of him right here,” said Marsha and Brad. Jellyroll loved Marsha and Brad.

  So I agreed. The elevator shot upward at orbital velocity putting undue strain on the ligaments in my knees. Nobody needs to go that fast unless he’s an astronaut.

  A jovial, round-faced fellow in an expensive suit met me when the door opened onto the decorated (the concept was mauve) reception area. On thirty-five. He pumped my hand and led me into his corner office. The floor-to-ceiling glass walls overlooked the southern reaches of Central Park and most of Manhattan to the north.

  “Artie, nice to see you again. Barry Frank, you remember me?”

  “Sure. How do you do?” I’d never laid eyes on this guy before. Why was he so nervous? His smile was about to fall off his face and disappear in the mauve carpet. Was this about the stalker? Had they, too, heard about the stalker?

  “Come on in, have a seat. Coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He pressed a button on his desk somewhat smaller than a snooker table. “Wanda, coffee. Wanda, ASAP.” He smiled at me. He sat on the corner of his desk, swung his leg back and forth. “So how’ve you been?” he asked as if we were old buddies at the frat house smoker. “Have a seat.”

  I heard water splashing somewhere. Did he have a fountain in here? I looked for it, didn’t see one.

  “Oh, that?” he said. “That’s a little idiosyncrasy of mine. Nature tapes. That’s the Babbling Brook. For relaxation purposes. Does it bother you? I can turn it off. Dam it up, as
it were, ha-ha.”

  “It doesn’t bother me.” I sat in a leather chair facing him. His smile never faltered, but beads of sweat sprang from his forehead.

  The coffee arrived, delivered by a beautiful young woman in a tight little black skirt and ruffled white silk blouse. She bent from the waist and placed the tray on a glass coffee table. Then she turned and walked out.

  “Artie, I’m afraid the fact is we’re going to have to get a new R-r-ruff Dog.”

  “What?”

  “Well, Artie, first I want you to know this is not my idea. I was against it from the gitgo, and I made my opinion known. Very loudly. But the corporate boardroom is not a level playing field. Frankly, Artie, there is a faction on the board that, well, to put it charitably, is concerned with values.”

  “Values?”

  “Appearances, ah, in the family-values arena.”

  “What are you talking about? Jellyroll’s neutered.”

  “Ha-ha, good one, Artie. No, Artie, actually, from their point of view, it’s not Jellyroll that’s the concern, it’s you.”

  “Me?”

  “You see, Artie, they learned that you live with a professional pool player. And, well, this faction on the board, the one concerned with family values, can’t in good faith be seen to support the homosexual household. Now, I have no problem with gay people. Some of my best friends are gay.”

  I sputtered inarticulately at first, but then I said nothing.

  “I know how you feel, Artie. I tried to tell them, but they were adamant—”

  “She’s a woman.”

  “What? Who is?”

  “The pool player.”

  “A woman pool player? I didn’t know there was such a—”

  And at that moment I felt suddenly sorry for Barry, just a minion who probably made three hundred thousand bucks a year, but still a minion without a wealthy dog to rescue him from the workaday humiliations.

  “You’re not ga-ga—?”

  “Barry, I want to talk to you about this coffee. This coffee is cesspool overflow.” I handed him the cup. “This coffee doesn’t even deserve the name coffee. I’m going to sue you and the board for attempted murder by antifreeze poisoning.”