TWENTY
WE RODE IN anxious silence across town to the upscale Poolroom. I stared out at the hot city as it passed, so many paths crossing, and I longed to accept Calabash’s invitation to Poor Joe Cay. When Jellyroll and I visited him there last year, we stayed in a rustic, one-room hut thirty feet from the transparent ocean, our only neighbor. The hut was a place of exquisite isolation. We had been at peace there. Jellyroll placed his chin on my knee. He’d loved the hut as much as I did. Of course, there wasn’t much going on around Poor Joe Cay, no major cultural events of the first water. I’d probably get bored in about thirty or forty years. The only thing I’d missed of the modern world was music. You don’t hear much jazz on Poor Joe.
The poolroom was a radically different place from the island hut, but I felt a vaguely similar kind of peace in its unchanging rhythms. Balls clicked together, some fell, some didn’t. Jellyroll went off to work the room. The regulars were there. They greeted us.
“Okay, Artie, come on. I’ll play you one set for Jellyroll,” said Outta-Town Brown.
“What are you putting up?”
“My business.”
“Just what is your business, Brown?”
“Successful.”
Piercing feedback bounced around the room. “Phone call for Thumper. Thumper, you gotta call.”
Never-Miss Monroe sat smoking his rubber cigar, all fifteen balls racked and ready on his table, whitey on the head spot.
“No loitering,” said Ted Bundy, just to get a rise out of poor Monroe.
“Loitering?” replied Never-Miss. “You got some fat nerve, Bundy. Loitering. If we was to play, they’d sweep you up with the cigarette butts at the end of the session. You wouldn’t get a breath of air. I’d crush you like a Dixie cup on the innerstate.”
“Okay, one game for a t’ousand, right now.”
Nobody moved.
A couple of the intellectuals—Burns, the computer crazy, and Morris, a man of unknown occupation—played gravely serious straight pool. All was as I knew it. There were few strangers.
Calabash entered, pretending not to know us, and took a stool in the center of the room. Chet Bream was not there. Crystal asked me to play some straight pool until he showed up. I got us a table and a tray of balls—
Bruce Munger, Attorney at Law, came out of the john, sidled over with his hands in his pockets, and said, “If it isn’t the couple of the year.”
“You’re looking better than the last time we saw you,” I said.
“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to discuss that with you. Crystal, I’m glad to see you safe and sound.” He said it brightly, casually, as if he were talking about her cold. “You had me worried. Nasty business…getting kidnapped.”
“You’re insane, Bruce.”
“It’s not just me. They’re all crazy. That’s what I wanted to discuss with you. Remember I told you Trammell was alive?”
“Gee, no, Bruce,” said Crystal. “Refresh our memory.”
“Well, between us, just because we’re old friends, I’ll tell you the truth. He drowned off Billy’s boat. Just like I said originally. I kept telling those guys he was dead, but they kept beating me with the fishing rod. It became clear that that wasn’t the popular position on Trammell Weems. Everybody seemed to want him alive, so I told them he was alive. But he isn’t. Alive. Unless he grew some quickie gills.”
Crystal walked away.
“What’s she so exercised about? I didn’t kidnap her.”
“If he drowned, where did you get all the money they stuff ed down your throat?”
“Playing cards.”
There was no purpose in talking to Bruce, so I went to get my cue.
Bruce hovered around as Crystal and I began to play. I could tell he had a million questions to ask, but he couldn’t stick to that card-game story and still expect answers from us. Anyway, in this, Bruce and his knowledge were obsolete. I couldn’t concentrate on our game, and neither could Crystal, but by the time Chet arrived, I was losing 68–12.
I barely recognized him. He looked terrible, porcelain pale, his features pinched in his already too-narrow face. I might not have recognized him at all were it not for the ChapStick he was smearing on his desiccated lips. His legs barely sustained balance. He took a stool near the head of our table, and it seemed a big relief to sit.
“I’m sorry I’m late. I’m sick.”
I’d expected Chet to leap upon us with questions. His hands lay limp, palms up, in his lap.
“Do you have the flu?” I asked.
“I hope so.”
Hope so? Why? As opposed to what? I didn’t really have the energy for this talk with Chet, and neither, apparently, did Crystal. She was listening but not participating, shooting the balls around without caring if they dropped or not.
Nor did Chet seem to have the energy. I was about to suggest that under the circumstances we forget the whole thing when Chet said, “So Armbrister was after the tape?”
“Right. He’s retired and ready to leave the country with his wife, but he can’t while the tape’s out there making him look foolish. That’s what he said. How’s that sound to you?”
“Like a load of horseshit…” He was still trying to do the worldly-wise reporter number, but there was nothing behind it now, no enthusiasm. The Chet on the beach was enthusiastic, if jumpy. This Chet was spent, but I liked this one better.
“So he’s not retired?”
“No.”
“What’s he do?”
“He’s a gunrunner. Have you come across Concom yet?”
“No,” I lied for no clear reason.
“Yeah, well, you will. Concom’s at the bottom of this, you watch. I’ve been saying that for years. Would anybody listen? Concom owns everything. For instance, remember back when we were supposed to give a shit about Nicaragua?” He fumbled with the ChapStick applicator, having trouble removing the cap. “Well, Norman Armbrister and the rest of the spooks were down there selling SAMs to the Contras, and at the same time selling choppers to the Sandinistas. See the pattern here? Shoot down the choppers with the SAMs, then you sell replacements for both. You duplicate that pattern all over the world—and Armbrister did—you stand to make some real money.”
“But what did Concom do?”
“Concom bankrolled the deals! Then used VisionClear, which it owned, to launder the profits. And how do you keep the law off your ass while you’re illegally selling American arms to anybody with the money to buy them? You buy it. The law, I mean. You buy the law, or you become it.”
I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. But one thing was clear—he believed it. I glanced back at Crystal. She looked like she was about to throw up.
The ChapStick dribbled from his hands and bounced on the cigarette-burned carpet. I picked it up for him. As I straightened, I realized that Chet was sobbing silently. His body jerked. His eyes were clenched, but tears still poured from the slits. His lips were drawn away from his teeth in a rictus grin.
“I wish I’d never heard of the bastards! I had a family, a kid, but I fucked it up. I could have been a family man, love and all that, Little League games, but now I’m going to die alone, goddamnit!”
“Aww,” I said like a fool, “it’s just the flu. It really gets you down—”
“No, I think they’ve killed me!”
“What?”
“I never thought they’d kill me!”
“Who?”
“Concom!”
“Killed you?”
“Hell, I can hardly lift my arms.”
“How? I mean, how—?”
“Look, I’m going now.” He slid off the stool and stood unsoundly. “I’ll call you or something.” He snaked a path to the door.
“Chet,” I called, but he waved me off.
One of the regulars hit on him for a game before he left.
Calabash joined us. “What was dot?”
I told him. He said, “Hmm.”
Bruce was heading our way, so I whistl
ed for Jellyroll and we left. We were back in Crystal’s car and on the move uptown before I realized I still had Chef’s ChapStick clutched in my sweaty fist.
We found a parking place near my building, but then decided to put the car in a garage, where you pay exorbitant overnight rates in the hope that your car will be there when you want to drive it again.
Calabash watched our backs as we walked up to Akmed’s newsstand on Broadway. Akmed and Jellyroll made their daily fuss over each other.
When the greeting subsided, I handed Akmed my laundry slip and asked him to translate. His brow furrowed as he read.
“One pants…Two shirt—”
“I’m sorry, Akmed, the other side.”
He turned it over, looked at the writing I had copied from Uncle Billy’s living-room wall, then looked back at me.
“I don’ understand,” he said.
“Isn’t that Arabic?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Squibbles. How do you call it?” He drew “squibbles” in the air.
“Thank you, Akmed.”
As we headed for Riverside Drive, Crystal said, “That sounds like something Trammell would do. Write ‘Pool Is Satan Game’ and a bunch of phony Arabic bullshit on the wall. This is making me very depressed, Artie.”
“I’ve got to do that R-r-ruff shoot now,” I said. I’d thought about calling in sick, and with the slightest encouragement from Crystal, I would have. “Do you want to go?” I asked when she offered none. She seemed numb.
“Can I stay at your place in case Uncle Ray calls?”
“You can stay at my place forever.”
“Thank you.” She put her arm around me. A fine romance.
Mr. Fleckton pounced on us before we’d finished signing in at the security desk in the lobby.
“Is he eating it?”
“Yes, he—”
Mr. Fleckton seemed to levitate with joy and relief. His two lackeys, James and Willard—I can never get straight which is which—clapped each other on the back and made those pumping-piston moves with their fists you see so much these days as signs of masculine delight on beer commercials. After the day I’d had, I was glad to spread a little happiness. Jellyroll wagged his tail with a “what’s up?” look on his face. He cocked his head from side to side.
“Look at that wonderful animal! Will you just look at him!” Mr. Fleckton giggled like a seventh grader. “And he’s eating it!”
“Congratulations, Mr. Fleckton,” said James or Willard.
Mr. Fleckton turned to them. “James, Willard, Willard, James—it’s been a grand campaign. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
It was almost touching. Jellyroll looked up at me for a cue as to what was going on. I didn’t know what to tell him.
We went into the studio.
“Clippity-clop, clippity-clop,” went the soundtrack as lights came up on a painted backdrop: the fruited plain. The pioneer prairie. Yellow hills faded away in forced perspective all the way to the shining Rockies. A yellow wagon-rut road, also in forced perspective, curved across the studio floor. There was a bowl of New & Improved R-r-ruff at the end of the road.
Then horses, real horses, f four of them, came on from stage left. I’m no student of horseflesh, but these horses looked like the kind you’d put King Arthur on if you were doing a King Arthur thing, magnificent creatures with rippling flanks and huge tossing heads…They were pulling a stupid Conestoga wagon made out of plywood with a muslin cover. “R-r-ruff or Bust” was painted on the muslin.
The Pioneer (ex-Space Traveler) sat on the wagon seat going “Giddy-up, giddy-up” to these glorious animals. The Pioneer’s full-leg cast was covered by a big set of leather chaps. (Somebody had suggested to the director that you don’t wear chaps while riding on a wagon. “Who gives a rat’s ass?” he’d replied.) A happy grin on his face, Jellyroll sat beside the Pioneer. No matter how absurd the humans’ concept, Jellyroll always seemed to enjoy himself, smiling, glancing around the studio until he caught my eye. That attitude takes a lot of guilt off my shoulders.
“Won’t be long now, R-r-ruff, boy,” said the Pioneer in a bullshit general-western accent. “We’re in New-and-Improved territory now, boy.” Clippity-clop, clippity-clop. “Whoa! Whoa!” The Conestoga wagon came to a stop. The horses fidgeted and flared their nostrils.
I glanced over at Mr. Fleckton. He stood in the light spill behind the cameras with both hands pressed over his mouth. It wouldn’t be long now.
“There it is!” said the Pioneer from his perch, pointing at the bowl of New & Improved R-r-ruff as if at the Promised Land.
At this point, Jellyroll was to jump from the wagon, which he did, and run to the R-r-ruff. Originally, the Pioneer was to have jumped down as well, but that was out of the question with a fresh compound fracture. Everyone held their breath as Jellyroll approached the bowl…
He slowed, sniff ed, approached, leaned down—and he began to eat heartily. Everyone in the room cheered—silently, but you could feel the vibrations—as he ate. The cameras rolled. But then he stopped abruptly.
His stomach heaved. Uh-oh. I’d seen that move at the beach. That’s how it always began. Now his whole body heaved, and he began to retch. As the room watched, Jellyroll threw up this horrible, wet, brown mass of congealed New & Improved R-r-ruff. Silence. Interminable silence. He sniff ed his expulsion and walked away.
The room trembled with the pressure of suppressed laughter. Then it started at one of the camera positions. A titter. Somebody else giggled, and that was enough. All at once it burst out, bellows of it, paroxysms of giggles and cackles. Jellyroll loved it. He delights in human mirth. He pranced.
Once started, there was no stopping it. The place was paralyzed with hilarity. But the laughter, or something, seemed to be spooking the horses. The horses were growing restive, agitated. One’s agitation spread to its adjacent teammate, and in that way it built. They sputtered, stomped, shook, and neighed. Fear fed on itself. One of the lead horses, a huge white one, reared up on its hind legs. Handlers sprinted from the back to calm their horses, but they were driven back by flying hooves.
“Get me off this fucking wagon!” screamed the Pioneer/Space Traveler, hanging on for dear life. “Get me off—! Jesus, please! Get me off—!”
The wagon lurched violently. I saw the white of his cast as it was hurled over his head and he disappeared into the back of the wagon. Another wave of handlers rushed onstage. They had black horse hoods in their hands. I called Jellyroll away from the wild horses so he wouldn’t get his snout kicked off.
Finally the handlers got their horses quieted and under control. Techies heft ed the Pioneer, rigid as a railroad tie, out of the back of the wagon. He was babbling and whimpering. The giggles took hold again. They quickly spread. The people in the control room had their heads down on their consoles, lurching with silent laughter.
Mr. Fleckton leaned against the back wall, staring off into space like a shell-shocked doughboy. James and Willard wrung their hands and paced around him:
“We could cut right before he threw up.”
“Sure we could!”
“It was great up until then—”
“Excellent until then.”
“He was eating it—”
“Until then.”
But Mr. Fleckton didn’t even blink. He was looking into the nihil. What could I do? I had troubles of my own.
There was a pink Cadillac double-parked in front of my building when I returned. Two wiseguys were hovering around it. The day would never end.
TWENTY-ONE
THE MOOD WAS tense, but then that was nothing new. Tension was our life now. Crystal and Calabash were there. So were Uncle Ray, his man Ronnie Jax, and another wiseguy who went unintroduced and who looked just like Ronnie.
The clear focus of attention was sitting in my morris chair. He was a man near seventy with a beer gut, bald head, a reddish-purple nose with bad veins, and black eyes that da
rted here and there. The others were gathered loosely around him. The man’s head was down. He had the demeanor of a man who’d been badgered. When I opened the door, he looked hopefully up at me as if I were there to extricate him.
Crystal met me in the foyer as Jellyroll went directly to the man in the middle. Jellyroll can recognize focus. “I hope this is okay with you,” she whispered. “They just showed up at the door. What could I do?”
“It’s okay, don’t worry. This is what we’re doing now. Arnie Lovejoy?”
“Yeah. Wait’ll you hear.”
Jellyroll was sniffing Arnie’s shoes for a clue to his identity. “This is himself, isn’t it?” Arnie said to me as I approached.
“Yes, that’s him. He likes you.”
Crystal introduced us. Arnie Lovejoy stood up and gripped my hand with both of his. Frightened puppy eyes peered up at me from under his brow.
“Okay, Arnie,” said Uncle Ray gently, “tell him what you told us.”
“Well…” Arnie sat back down. “Uncle Billy drowned.”
What? I looked to Crystal. She rolled her eyes at me.
“We was fishing way out on Baltimore Canyon, but we ain’t catchin’ nothin’, and…and he fell overboard. I go down to get us our sandwiches, and I hear a shout and a splash. I come runnin’ up on deck and, sure enough, there’s Billy in the water. I throw him a life ring, I get my hands on him and try to get him back aboard”—he leaned forward in his chair as if over the rail of a boat and heft ed at the man in the water—“but the current carried him off …and he went down.”
“Did you report the drowning to the cops?” Ray asked.
“…No.”
“Did you report it to anybody?”
“No.”
“Why not, Arnie? Thing like that ought to be reported to the proper authorities. It’s the law of the sea.”
“Because it never happened.”
“Billy didn’t drown?”
“No.”
“He didn’t even fall off the boat, did he?”
Arnie shook his head. “Hell, we didn’t even go fishing. But that’s what Billy wanted me to say. He sorta wanted to disappear. Billy was scared to be seen anywhere.”
“Why?”
Lush Life: An Artie Deemer Mystery Page 19