Lover Man: An Artie Deemer Mystery

by Dallas Murphy

  "Okay."

  "They sent us, me and Freddy way the hell and gone into Dutchess County for a pickup."

  "Who did?"

  "Phone call at home from somebody, says he works for Harry Pine. We get out where he said to go, end of a dirt road, wild forests, and I'm gettin' nervous. It just didn't feel kosher. I look over at Freddy, the fucking guy's driving like we got a load of nitroglycerin in the truck. Pine owns this psycho assistant who always wears a cowboy suit. Cute guy."

  "Chucky?" I said.

  "Yeah, right. Artie, it ain't at all clear what you know and what you don't."

  "Chucky tried to intimidate my bodyguard."

  "You got a bodyguard?"

  "A big one."

  "What'd your bodyguard do?"

  "Beat Chucky senseless."

  "Nice. Your bodyguard around now?"

  "Yes."

  "Armed?"

  "Heavily."

  "Good."

  The stadium organist began to play "Singin' in the Rain."

  "So Chucky's waitin' for us out there in front of this beat-to-shit cabin in the forest, and he's got four other psychos sit-tin' on the porch for show. Chucky, that phony smile, says we should have a beer, relax. So one psycho throws a Bud in the air, this other psycho whips out his Bulldog and blasts the Bud in half before it hits the ground. Two things: Me and Freddy, we're impressed, one, and, two, we're also relieved. If these psychos meant to pop us, they wouldn't a treated us to a marksmanship demonstration. Then cowpoke Chucky tells us what he got us out there to hear. Somebody's blackmailing Harry Pine's friends, and it better not be us. Well, it wasn't us, but we both knew who it might have been."

  "Billie."

  "Yep."

  "Because you had told her something about the Antiques?"

  "You name it, we told her. But, see, I thought it was just me told her. Freddy thought it was just him, so neither of us said anything. We got back to Queens, we start makin' excuses to each other, things to do, get the trucks lubed. Christ. We both make a beeline for Billie's and show up on the stoop at the same time. She'd been porking us both, and we'd both been singin' about what big-shot wiseguys we were. We about came to blows right there, Freddy and me. Big shots. That's all we ever wanted to be, but we fucked up again, just like school."

  "Exactly what had you told Billie?"

  "About Harry Pine, about how we're his right and left nut, respectively."

  "But what specifically?"

  "About his airlines."

  "His what?"

  "You don't know about that?"

  "No."

  "You don't make much sense to me, Artie."

  "Me either."

  "Yeah, well, I know that feeling."

  The organist began to play "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," and Leon listened.

  "What a stupid fucking song."

  "What kind of airlines?"

  "It sure ain't Delta."

  "It's illegal?"

  "Yeah. Illegal."

  "Hoods?"

  "Sicilian International."

  "Drugs?"

  "Mostly more specialized shit. Money, lot of the time."

  "Money?"

  "Say you got six million in twenties, you know, from all the pizza slices you sold. Harry Pine flies it to their bank in the Cayman Islands. People, too."

  "What people?"

  "Hotshot fugitives, crooked international heavies. I heard about this crazy spic dictator, killed thousands. He's into the wiseguys for a couple mil, or the CIA owns him, I don't know. So they get Pine to fly him out right under the noses of the Commie insurgents. Rumor has it they shot a hole in his favorite airplane, so he turns around and strafes the shit outta their positions while the dictator's screamin' at him, fucker can't believe he went back. That could be bullshit. Anyway, if it's big-time and you need some flyin done, you call Harry Pine. You know what I told Billie? I told her I was his trusted copilot. The trucking business, that was just a front for my true life. Captain Leon Fucking Midnight at your service, ma'am."

  "How do you know so much about Pine?"

  "I told you. I wanted to be a big shot. Big shots know. Course only dumb fucks tell." He stopped and looked out across the covered field. "That's why Billie was such a big thing. Me with a woman like that. Educated, well-spoken, hell, an artist. Not to mention gorgeous. And she loved me. Wrong again." There was no anger in his voice when he spoke of Billie, only sadness.

  "But why the store? Why did a man like him fool with the wholesale business?"

  "To launder his own money. After a flight somebody buys his whole stock, and now he's got legit bread."

  The organist: "A Rainy Night in Georgia."

  "So you confronted Billie?"

  "Confronted? Yeah, that's what we did. Like we're joined at the hip. She laughed in our faces. Laughed. Like we're a couple of clowns. Which we were. She ever do that to you? Laugh in your face?"

  "No."

  "Well, you're lucky. Then she says: 'I've got Harry Pine right where I want him.' You believe that? We told her she must be hallucinating. You don't blackmail guys like that or anybody they know. You don't even think about it. But Billie says she has these photographs. She says if anything happens to her, these photographs will ruin Harry Pine. Ruin Harry Pine. You don't happen to have the photographs in question, right?"

  "Right."

  "I hope that geek don't play any more rain songs."

  "So you and Freddy went to Billie's studio, drilled the lock, and ransacked the place."

  "Yep, and we didn't find a thing but bums. We sat down in there and talked about doin' Billie. Borrow our friend's Mako and take her fishin', she's bait, but we were just jackin' off. Christ, I still love her a little. Freddy probably died lovin' her a little, even though she as good as greased him. So we decide to bounce her around some, throw a scare into her. We flip a coin to determine who's gonna do it. The other's gonna wait in the studio in case the bouncer learns where the pictures are hid, phone it back. I won the toss. I went to her place, but I couldn't beat her around. I was gonna fucking plead with her." He stopped abruptly.

  "Well, what happened?"

  "Nothing. She never answered her door. Maybe she was already dead inside."

  "You went back to Acappella?"

  "Where? Oh, yeah. But Freddy's gone. We both know where he was, but I didn't know then. I started looking for him. I staked out Billie's apartment all the next day. That's where I saw you in your Con Ed suit. When I staked out the Antiques, I see you again. I followed Sybel just to see what she was up to. She meets you at the library. That night I saw Jones and Ricardo wheel the refrigerator across Eleventh Street. You know the rest. I greased their building. Here we are."

  I felt excited in a tingling, visceral way, as if it were a sunny day, bottom of the ninth, tied, bases loaded, two out, Darryl Strawberry stepping to the plate. It felt unified, at least this part of it. I understood the when and where and now the why of it. Pine's psychos threw a scare into Jones, and, just like the Palominos, Jones went straight to Billie. It surprised me to realize I was talking aloud; I thought I was thinking. "Jones and Ricardo tied her up and tried to drown the photos out of her. Billie didn't tell, so they killed her. Then they went to the studio and found Freddy waiting. They killed him because he made a perfect scapegoat. 'Here's the grifter blackmailers, Mr. Pine. They're dead.'"

  "Wait a minute," said Leon. "How do you know she didn't tell?"

  "What?"

  "You said she didn't tell, so Jones killed her. How do you know she didn't tell?"

  "Oh...well, I just assumed—"

  "Yeah, you assumed because you got the photos yourself."

  "You're right."

  "I don't care. Those photos don't mean dick today."

  "I know."

  "So what did they show? Just for curiosity."

  I told him what the photos showed, but I didn't mention the Family Snaps. They were none of his business.

  "Hell, I thought they'd
show Harry's pals makin' a snuff film or something, wearing Nazi suits."

  "Leon," I said, "they still have a big problem."

  "Right. Me."

  "No, another one."

  "What?"

  A mean, gusty wind whipped the center-field flags, first in one direction, then the opposite, with barely a pause in between. It felt sad to discuss such things in a ballpark, where reality should never intrude. "As of about four o'clock yesterday that refrigerator was inside the Antiques—and Freddy was still inside."

  "What? How do you know?"

  "Sybel saw him."

  "Christ!"

  "If they didn't move him between that time and the time you burned it down, then he's there right now."

  He slid down in his seat petulantly, almost boyishly. "Fucking typical. I come along and burn up my own brother."

  "If he was still in the icebox, I don't think he got burned up,... not entirely."

  Leon slowly straightened, looked at me sideways as he did so. A light flickered in his eyes. I continued:

  "The arson squad finds a corpse in a refrigerator in the ashes of a suspicious fire. That's a hard thing for the owners of the property to explain."

  "Yeah...that's right. That would be their ass!" He grabbed my hand before I understood what he meant to do with it. He meant to shake it, delighted, exactly as if Strawberry had just homered to right to win the game.

  "Who knows you torched the store?"

  "Just you, pal."

  "I gave Pine your message."

  "You did?"

  "If you vanish, I don't think anyone will come looking for you. So don't do anything with those guns," I stressed, but he seemed not to be listening, staring out across the field. "Do you hear what I'm saying?"

  "I hear you, Artie. Great seats. Too bad they ain't gonna play." He paused for a long time. "You know what Jones and Ricardo do for a hobby? Raise fighting dogs. He was tellin' me once how you train the dogs to kill. Starve 'em one week, little puppies, beat shit out of them the next week. Dog gets hurt in the ring, can't fight no more, you know what he does with him? Ricardo thought this was real intelligent. He ties the hurt dog's front legs together and lets the healthy dogs tear him apart. Good practice, he said. I'd love to grease that motherfucker."

  "You don't need to."

  "That don't make me want to any less."

  "Let me ask you one more question. Why do you think Billie taunted you like that? That doesn't seem like sound business. If you're blackmailing someone for money why taunt those involved? Why even mention those photographs to you and Freddy or to Jones?"

  "Why? Because she was nuts, that's why."

  Was she? Was she? If she was nuts when she died, was she nuts when I was with her? If so, why didn't I notice?

  The announcer told us that the game had been officially called. Leon shook his head. "Good luck, Artie." He got up to leave.

  "Good luck, Leon."

  "And good luck, Mets," he said with a wave at the field. Then, hands in his pockets, head down, he walked up the aisle and away. Shortly afterward I did the same, glad to have Calabash behind me. I walked through the runway and into the corridor, lined with refreshment and souvenir stands leading to the exit ramp.

  Calabash wasn't behind me; he was ahead of me. He stood by the men's room door, looming over the straggling diehard fans. With the tiniest movement of his head he nodded at the door, then went in. I went in after him.

  I chose a urinal with a vacant one beside it. Calabash stepped up. I did not look at him, nor he at me. "You're bein' tailed," he said without moving his lips. I froze. "You go out. He'll pick you up, unless dey got a team workin'. I gonna walk right behind him so you can view him. If you want the bastard cracked, you itch de crown of your head." Calabash walked out.

  I was so far out there that little bits of reality, when they could reach me, left me reeling. The dirty tiles above the urinal, the spot of crust I had been watching when Calabash said, "If you want de bastard cracked" seemed to swell with meaning. All I had to do was scratch my head. Someone had written "fuck the circus" on the tile above the spot I stared at. I walked out the door, wondering what it meant.

  Vendors were packing up their gear. I didn't look left or right until I'd passed through the turnstiles and onto the patio that fronted the parking lot on one side and the elevated walkway to the E train on the other. Then I stopped. I tried on a couple of Mets caps from a wet vendor who clearly wished I'd leave him alone. Careful not to touch the top of the cap once I put it on, I looked back to where Calabash towered over a short man in his mid-thirties, black hair. He wore a blue anorak. As I paid the vendor, I realized I recognized the man. From where? I looked back again. He had a dark Fu Manchu mustache. I didn't remember that, so I tried in two brief glances to picture the face without it.

  Jay Kiley! A playwright Billie and I met years ago at a party somewhere. I was being tailed by a playwright?

  EIGHTEEN

  "HEY, ARTIE, WHAT say, dude? I thought that was you."

  "Hi, Jay. Long time."

  He looked deep into my eyes, his soulful act, and said, "What a tragedy about Billie, what a tragedy."

  I nodded and resisted the temptation to scratch my cap. I saw a play of his once at some showcase house. All the women were cardboard, and all the men were him.

  "Actually, I've been wanting to discuss that with you. Drink a beer, cry a little, know what I mean?"

  I'd hang myself first.

  "Actually, I wanted to talk a little business. Funny I should run into you like this. I wanted to talk with you about some photographs."

  I didn't respond at all. He clearly sprung that on me to check my reaction. I gave him none.

  "What photographs, Jay?"

  "Billie's photographs."

  "Billie took a lot of photographs."

  "Yeah, but these are special."

  "How so?"

  "Come on, Artie, let's talk."

  I told him to meet me at the Liffey Pub in two hours.

  Calabash was sitting at the bar by himself, and Kiley sat in a booth across the room. I had gone home and phoned Sybel, but there was still no reply. Phyllis had left a message on my machine wondering how I was doing and invited me to call her when I could.

  I picked up a draft beer and sat in the booth across from Kiley. "So how you been, Artie?" His brow furrowed with fake concern.

  "What did you want to talk about, Jay?"

  "Right down to business, huh? I never knew you were such a press-on sort of dude, Artie." He unzipped a leather portfolio and removed an eight-by-ten black-and-white. It was creased and dog-eared, the upper right corner gone. He dried the tabletop with a napkin and then put the photograph down before me. It was Harry Pine in front of Renaissance Antiques, back when there was such a place, taken with a long lens from the same elevated angle. Pine wore a dark knit shirt, light twill pants, and Topsiders, and he was doing nothing in particular, looking west on Eleventh. "Do you know this guy?"

  "No."

  "You don't?"

  "No."

  "His name's Harry Pine. Billie gave me this picture, told me the dude's name and that he was a war hero. That's all she knew, but she offered to pay me a hundred a day to find out more."

  "When was this?"

  "Let's see, this is May...About a year ago. Strange, huh?"

  "You tell me."

  "Okay. I was between productions. I was up for a grant, but hell, that's all fag politics, so I took the gig. Jay Kiley, playwright sleuth. I got my first lead from this old fart who runs a newsletter about old pilots." And then he stole Bessie's Harry Pine file from the file cabinet. He showed me photos of Harry Pine as a young pilot, the obligatory shot standing in front of his plane and alighting, big smile, after a successful mission. There were articles about him and a copy of Stars and Stripes from 1943. "They don't even look like the same guy, do they?"

  He was right.

  "That made it tricky, but here was my next clue. I mean, this wou
ld make a great play." He showed me a faded newspaper photo with no accompanying article. Harry Pine posed in front of a ramshackle wooden building with a sign that said Palm Coast Aviation. He tapped the sign with his fingernail and said, "This was in Moxie, Florida. Moxie, you believe that? Great details. I showed this stuff to Billie, and she said go. Gave me five hundred dollars and said call her from Moxie. I start hanging around the jerkwater airport in Moxie. Check it out, Jay Kiley, ace. Can you imagine me at the controls, Artie?"

  "No."

  "Actually I thought I cut a dashing figure. Ronald Colmanesque. I took flying lessons. I mean I didn't get a license or anything. I split without paying, thus protecting Billie's investment. I figured that's the way to get the old geezers talking about Harry Pine. Become one of them. You know, Artie, everything's got groupies, everything. There's about twenty old geezers who do nothing but hang around Moxie Field every day. They'd show up about ten with their Igloo Coolers and drink beer under a banyan tree. I don't know, this would probably make a better movie. Your dog's agent, does he handle film scripts?"

  "No."

  "So once I got these guys talking, they never shut up. I told the geezers I was doing an article for Esquire; they started bringing me show-and-tell shit. This Harry Pine was a local legend back in the late fifties. And there was another guy, another hotshot ace from the war around back then. They called him D.B. I learn his name. It's Danny Beemon. So these geezers keep bringing me clippings from old papers, and I begin to piece together this incredible story. You want to hear it?"

  "Okay," I said, and put my hands in my lap so he wouldn't see them tremble.

  '"You can't kill D.B.' That's what the old geezers used to tell me, and I'm telling you that up front because it's kind of key to the story. You can't kill D.B. Okay. It's 1967, a dark and stormy night. Just kidding. 1967. A plane, a twin-engine something or other crashes on takeoff from Moxie Field. But when cops and rescue units get to the crash site, they find no pilot. Vanished. You know what they do find? This is where it gets good. After they put out the fire, they find the airplane's filled to the roof with medical supplies."

  "Medical supplies?"

  "Yeah, and surgical supplies. They found an operating table, top-of-the-line stuff. About two million worth of stuff in 1967 dollars. Artie—" Kiley glanced from side to side as if someone might be listening. I took it for cheap theatrics. He lowered his voice. "The stuff was all stolen."