Lover Man: An Artie Deemer Mystery (6 page)

"Hey, assho'—" This was a different voice, a deeper one, a mean one, and it came from behind me. I spun. "Why don' you pick on a man y'own size?"

There were four of them, dim, huge shapes moving to encircle me. "Who are you?" I asked stupidly.

"We jus' members o' the community, tha's all, an' we don' like to see assho's beatin' up on dorfs."

"Oh, no, you don't understand," I said. "That's my old man. He's been drinking, on the sauce, you know. Mom wants him home. She's sick. Very sick. Colon trouble. That's why the old man's been on the sauce. This is just a domestic problem, but I sure do appreciate you looking out for the old man."

"No! No!" squealed Stretch from somewhere back behind the Declaration of Independence. "That man means to kill me!"

"Oh, come on, Dad. It's me, Frank."

"Don' you fret, Pop. You get on outta here. We take care o' this assho'."

On any other given evening in the dark remove of Union Square Park, these community members would have been
delighted to stomp Stretch into the cobblestones for his loose change, but not that evening.

"Hey, assho', why don' you pick on Slicer here. He's 'bout yo' size." A hulking form about the size of George Washington's horse stepped toward me. I could hear that rotten little Stretch sprinting north out of the park, leaving me with Slicer and the Merry Men of Sherwood.

I turned and ran. Ran hard. For about six strides. Until I hit a fence, a solid little wrought-iron welded bastard of a knee-high fence (except to Slicer, to whom it would seem a croquet wicket). I went ass over canteen, struck a tree trunk and landed in the mud at its base. I was hurt, and I had felt negatives brush my face when my shirt pocket upturned. The shadowy figures peered over the fence at me lying in the mud.

Conversations about urban violence aren't uncommon in New York. At a dinner party, say, someone might tell you how their doorman found this headless, limbless torso in the airshaft. In one such dinner conversation, I heard a very attractive woman say that what you want to do in the face of imminent assault is to fake a fit. "You mean like an epileptic fit?" asked a diner interested in specifics. "Hell, any kind," the woman said. "Most muggers don't have EMS training." That's what I did. Faked a fit.
All
kinds. I screamed in unbearable agony and bowed my spine in seizure, I made claws of my fingers and twitched them, I bellowed, gurgled, and I slapped my shoes together.

"Th' fuck's he doin'?"

"Dyin' looks like."

"Just what the assho' deserves, pickin' on dorfs. Hey, assho', you goin' straight to hail."

I sustained convulsion, and just before I exhausted myself, the Merry Men faded into the darkness. Then I rolled over and started digging in the mud. On hands and wounded knees I groveled in the mud for negatives, like Silas Marner searching for his stash. I was out of character to the point of derangement.
As I found one, I shoved it hysterically into my shirt pocket along with gouts of mud. I wasn't sure how many I found. Maybe all of them; probably not. When I could search no more, I dragged myself back over the fence and out of the park. I tried to hail a cab from the northern end near the subway station.

Five passed me. Then two more, even though I was waving wildly. I realized why—they thought I was a madman. I wouldn't have disputed them. I pulled bills from my pockets and waved them in both hands at the next cab.

"I'm a mud wrestler," I told the driver when he gave me that New York are-you-nuts? glance.

"Ya lost, huh?"

SIX

I
 REMOVED MY crusty clothes, then washed the negatives in a pasta strainer. I laid them side-by-side on a glass table and put a desk lamp on the floor beneath them. Too much glare. I put my muddy T-shirt over the lamp.

People, singly and in groups. All strangers to me. I felt let down and frustrated. What did I expect? A face with a sign held beneath its chin saying, "I did it"? Then I noticed that most of the subjects were standing in front of Renaissance Antiques. The rest of the photos, not of Renaissance antiques, were too grainy to make out.

I fished Sybel's number from my pocket. I could phone her, tell her about the subjects and the settings, see what she says. Unlikely as it seems, I thought maybe I could be subtle about it, feel her out, without mentioning poor frozen Freddy, utterly oblivious of the fact that it was after midnight. I phoned her.

"Haw-wo?" An Asian woman. I woke her up.

"May I please speak to Sybel?"

"Ha?"

"Sybel."

"No See-ball! No See-ball!"

"I'm sorry."

I hung up. I'd have to call again to be sure I didn't misdial.

"Haw-wo!"

I knew I should call the police. However, Billie had placed in my hands something important. Billie hadn't sent it to the police. She sent it to me. She was trying to communicate with
me
. But
what was she trying to say? I smoked a gasper and essentially passed out.

I got up at eight, because Jellyroll had a nine o'clock call. I'd have skipped it, called in dead, but I didn't relish the idea of sitting around thinking about Billie and the photographs. Besides, I'd promised. Ordinarily, he doesn't have to audition. They know him. They just phone our agent with the gig. But a week ago I'd agreed to audition for a TV movie called
Dracula's Dog
because they were going to shoot in Samoa. The way I heard the idea, Dracula had this dog, a pet that he took everywhere and that, I guess, lay around the coffin all day and pissed in the hometown dirt. They originally wanted a mean-eyed rottweiler with rabies, but then some dork decided "to go the other way!" Get Dracula a cute and cuddly dog and film the whole thing in Samoa. The dog is so cute and cuddly that Dracula, moved, mends his bloodsucking ways and joins the Polynesian Legal Aid Society. Or something. When the alarm went off, I almost called to cancel, Samoa or no Samoa, but I went because I respected the director and didn't want to fuck him up.

"Hey, Artie, how's it goin'?"

"Hi, Vinnie." Vinnie was lame. His knee didn't seem to work. He lay nearly supine on the black leather couch in the reception room at ABC over on Sixty-ninth near Columbus. A buff-colored cocker spaniel named Roger sat at Vinnie's feet and panted nervously.

I told the receptionist at her little window that Jellyroll was here. Everyone hops to when he shows up. Sometimes it's embarrassing. She asked me if I wouldn't please have a seat for just one moment. Then she went off to pass the word to the heavies.

I took a leather seat beside Vinnie. Jellyroll and the blond cocker sniffed and circled and wagged their tails.

"Hello, Mr. Deemer," said a fleshy woman from across the room.

"Oh, hello, Mrs. Sackley." Mrs. Sackley was a professional handler who always wore gloves, as if she didn't want actually to
handle
an animal.

"I see your Jellyroll every time I switch on the set," she said with a frigid smile. Jellyroll moved over to sniff her schnauzer, but Mrs. Sackley didn't approve of sniffing. She shielded the schnauzer with a mammoth leg. "Isn't your Jellyroll sweet." I called Jellyroll back before Mrs. Sackley slipped him a ground-glass burger.

"Hey, Artie," said Vinnie. "Last Hurrah in the fifth at the Meadowlands. Great mudder, best mudder I ever saw in twenty years. Pontoons for hooves. A sawbuck on the nose'll land the smart man two bills. I just wanted you to know."

"Okay, thanks, Vinnie," I said, but I knew he'd never leave it at that.

"I got pals in the paddock. They showed me his hooves. The size of your head!" His eyes, the left one clouded with cataracts, pleaded with me to show interest. "Last Hurrah could water-ski, you had a boat big enough. Roger ain't been workin' all that much or I'd put down my own twenty."

"I tell you what, Vinnie, here's forty. Put it down for both of us." What else could I do?

His good eye sparkled, and he excused himself to go in search of a phone. I ruffled Roger's ears.

"Yes," said Mrs. Sackley, "every time I switch on my set."

"Right this way, Mr. Deemer." The receptionist smiled. Of course it's unfair, but what can I do about it?

The receptionist led us into a chilly black TV studio. Three fellows wearing headphones argued intently but silently up in the control booth. I knew one of them, but he was too busy arguing to return my wave. Idle camera operators stood drinking coffee and talking about sex. Camera operators, I've noticed, talk about
sex a lot. Then three producer types, identical in every respect, approached me with three big smiles, sincere smiles that made you want to believe them. But of course you can't. They each in turn shook my hand with equal firmness, after which they kneeled down to fuss over Jellyroll. One looked up at me and said, "Could we just get to know him for a while?"

I said sure and ruffled Jellyroll's ears before I left him to the sharks. Sometimes I think Jellyroll sees this crazy scene as just a lot of happy humans who want to pet him, but sometimes I think he sees that at bottom there is me selling him out after giving his ears a hypocritical ruffle. Those three guys were walking him around, calling him here and there and generally acting like they'd never been near a dog. I went to talk to one of the camera operators.

"Hi, Phyllis."

"Artie. I heard you were coming to save the day." Phyllis was a blond woman with a weathered face, as if she'd recently returned from a sailing trip or an expedition to the Andes, and she had about her the quiet confidence of people who do that sort of thing. We sat on some coiled cables in the corner, and though people bustled around pushing mike booms and things, they paid no attention to us. "So you met Larry, Curly, and Moe," she said.

"What's their story?"

"Fear."

"Do they test every dog that comes in?"

"In film
and
video. We've been here nine to five for two weeks."

"Well that's good for you." I liked Phyllis.

"I'm sorry about Billie."

"I had to identify her body."

"You did?" She looked squarely into my face, looked with unselfconscious concern into my eyes. "You look bad, Artie. Why don't you take some of your dog's money and go to an island somewhere it doesn't rain?"

"Will you come with me?" The idea of us scantily clad on a dry island was very appealing, but I knew she wouldn't do it.

"I work, Artie. Some people do, you know."

"Jellyroll would be honored to pick up the tab." She put her hand on my forearm and made it tingle, but that was just a way of saying no. "I have some negatives, Phyllis. About ten. I thought you might know somebody who could print them for me. Fast."

"How fast?"

"Immediately. They were Billie's." I wanted to tell her everything, lie down like a little boy with my head in her lap and tell her the whole rotten story.

"Color?"

"No, black and white. Thirty-fives. I'll pay a hundred dollars if I can get them this afternoon. Is that reasonable?"

"Sure. Let me think. It'd be nice to get the money to somebody hungry." She pulled a black address book from her back pocket, where I wanted to be. For a troubled instant I thought about Palomino and his frigid wallet.

"Phyllis, what did the
Post
say?"

"The
Post?
Jesus, why?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm scared to see it by accident in the subway or blowing in the gutter. I'd rather hear it from you."

"It said in those ugly black letters: BOUND, DROWNED. The article said some unnamed source in the police department told the
Post
that one of Billie's former lovers was under suspicion."

"Oh."

"Billie had a lot of lovers, Artie. I guess you know that."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry," she said, but I couldn't answer. "I'll go make a few calls for you."

Did the police really suspect me? Two hefty guys came for the cable I was sitting on. I stood up, and they took my seat away.

The producers were heading my way in a rank, led by Jellyroll, wagging his tail. They wore those bright, expensive smiles of
good cheer. "That's quite some dog you have there, Mr. Deemer," said Moe. "Quite some dog indeed." Larry and Curly vouched for that.

"Just between us, Mr. Deemer, we have Barnaby Price playing Dracula. We're very excited about working with Barnaby."

I had never heard of Barnaby Price, but I didn't say so. I nodded vigorously and enthusiastically, I hoped.

"And
Prudence Akroyd is playing the girl."

"Oh, great," I said, but I'd never heard of her either. It makes people nervous when you tell them you never heard of people they think are hot shit.

"And
we're very interested in Jellyroll." Larry and Curly concurred. "Can we call you Arthur?"

"Artie."

"Well, Artie, we're very interested in Jellyroll. Very. Of course, we have to see some more dogs, but between us, we're
interested
. Sincerely... Are you his handler, Artie?"

"Yes."

"Well, between us, Artie, Samoa is paradise this time of year." Moe clapped me on the shoulder like a guy who had just gotten off a neat one at the smoker. "Say, Artie, tell me, does Jellyroll always cock his head to the side like that when you talk to him? I mean, could we count on him doing that? Regularly, I mean?"