Lush Life: An Artie Deemer Mystery (11 page)

“When I didn’t pay, he told me Trammell drowned.”

“Maybe he did.”

He gave me a sardonic sidelong glance.

“You know, for a reporter you’re not very objective.”

Crystal, small in the distance, watched us approach from the porch. She waved like a sea captain’s wife to his ship in the offing. Maybe she thought then that Bream was just a stranger who happened to be going our way, until we trudged through the soft sand at the head of the beach, Chet Bream on our asses.

We stopped beneath the porch where Crystal stood. She stared down at us. Jellyroll smiled at her. “Crystal, this is Chet Bream. He’s a reporter who wants to talk to you about Trammell.”

“Tell him to beat it.”

NINE

I
T SEEMED TO take two days to tell it all. Crystal just shook her head when I was done. Her shoulders hunched. She withdrew. I made us some coffee. It was only a little after eight, but I felt like I’d already put in a full day loading concrete blocks.

“Everything looked gray to me,” she said when I returned to the living room.

“What?”

“Even the neon lights at the beach looked totally”—she pronounced it “tot’ly”—“gray.”

“You mean back in Miami?”

“Yeah. Especially when they were taking me away in handcuff s.”

“You were depressed.”

“I was a doper.”

“You told me our first night together.”

“I’m sorry, Artie.”

“You don’t need to apologize for an unhappy past.”

“No, for getting you into this.”

“Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe this guy Bream’s just a conspiracy weirdo. He’s a ChapStick junkie.”

“He is? How do you know?”

“He kept slathering it on.”

“You think he’s just a goofball, and we don’t need to worry about it?”

“Sure. But we can get out of town if you’re worried about it.” Flight is my best response to reality.

“We are out of town.”

“Way out of town.”

“Artie, I can’t just leave. I have commitments. If you want to go I’d understand.”

“As your attorney, I’m under retainer to stay.”

“Do you mind if we go home?”

We returned in heavy traffic. The air was blue. A funk of effluviahung over the city, and the backs of our necks felt gritty just driving through it. In these conditions the population moves more from memory than intent. Everywhere, fire hydrants gushed. Gutters flooded as litter-clogged drains backed up. People sat on their stoops with their arms and legs spread so flesh wouldn’t touch flesh, a city full of prickly-heat sufferers. Rain clouds gathered over New Jersey, but they never developed into showers, dashing hopes for relief. Come nightfall, tempers would fray, and people would begin to hurt each other senselessly.

Crystal and I didn’t go out the rest of that day except to take Jellyroll to the park. We listened to Benny Carter compositions. I’m very fond of his version of “Lover Man” from the 1985 recording
A Gentleman and His Music
. Maybe Mr. Carter will live forever. We didn’t talk much; we ate Chinese food and listened. We did, however, make love, and, doing so, we felt the doubt and anxiety fade like storm clouds passing away over the horizon. Storms have a way of lurking out beyond the curvature of the earth and doubling back to clobber you when your guard goes down.

That night Crystal and Earle Grundy played high-stakes nine ball. Most of the regulars recognized Earle when he came in and sat down on a stool, ostensibly to watch Crystal and me
play. Earle was hard to miss. He was a black man, very tall and slim. His graying hair was shoulder length and scraggly, and he always played with a pair of reading glasses perched on his crown. Crystal pretended not to see him. He went along with the pretense. I don’t always understand these ritual preliminaries to gambling sessions, often as elaborate as aboriginal rain dances. Crystal beat me and immediately unscrewed her cue. I followed her lead.

“Oh, hello, Earle,” she said.

“Hi, Crystal.” His voice seemed heavy with some personal sadness. “Looks like you’re in stroke.”

“It comes and goes. Earle, this is my friend Artie Deemer.”

We shook hands cordially, but he didn’t smile. He and Crystal were doing business.

“Ready to go, Crystal?”

“You’re too good for me, Earle.”

“I’m way past my prime.” He was no older than me.

I returned the tray of balls to Davey at the desk and paid the table time. When I returned, Crystal and Earle were sitting on adjacent stools, but they weren’t speaking. The regulars were watching, waiting for serious action to enrich the routine of their lives. For once they were silent.

“One-pocket, Crystal?” Earle Grundy was one of the best one-pocket players in the country.

“I don’t play that game, Earle.”

Feedback tore through the room, and Davey said over the PA: “Phone call for, Thumper. Thumper, you gotta call.”

“Well,” said Earle languidly, “I guess I’ll go say hello to Davey. I haven’t seen him in years…Unless you want to play some other game. Like nine ball.”

“You mean a friendly game?”

“Sure, just a friendly game.”

“How friendly?”

“A hundred a set?”

Crystal didn’t say yes, and she didn’t say no. “I can’t play you head up,” she said finally.

The regulars were edging closer to hear.

“What do you need?” Earle wanted to know.

“The six.”

“The six? Naw. I’ll go say hello to Davey.” But he didn’t move.

“Well, we have to leave, anyway. We’re late already, aren’t we, Artie?”

I pretended to look at my watch. “Almost,” I said.

“Maybe some other time,” said Earle.

“Yeah.”

“Better not wait too long. I won’t have any eyes too much longer. Teeth, neither. So I’ll give you the seven tonight.”

“I’ll take the seven and the break.”

“Naw, your break’s too good.” Crystal was known to have a savage break. “I’ll give you the seven, and winner breaks.”

“Then I’ll need the seven wild.”

“Out of the question.”

“That’s okay, we have to go, anyway.”

“The seven and the break. But I must be feeling generous. I don’t usually.”

“Hundred a set?”

“Want to make it an even two hundred, since you got the break?”

Crystal nodded. The preliminaries had ended. Let the games begin.

While Earle warmed up—by pounding in cross-side banks, never missing a one, then doing the same thing long-rail—the regulars descended on me to know the arrangements and the stakes. I told them. Spanish Jackie started making odds, waving bills folded between his fingers. The regulars placed their wagers, and Crystal pretended not to notice.

“Look at that guy bank,” commented Outta-Town Brown.

“All black guys can bank,” said Ted Bundy. “They’re born with banking in their bones.”

Feedback: “Phone call for Ernie’s wife. Ernie’s wife, you gotta call.”

A hush fell around the table. Crystal crushed the balls. Two dropped. She stood staring at the rest. She had a clear shot at the one ball, and the nine had stopped near the corner pocket. The nine was makable off the one ball, but it was a dangerous shot, what good players call low percentage. Each nine-ball game presents a problem, and there is a crux, a one-shot turning point, to each. Sometimes the crux comes immediately, sometimes not until near the end. We were at the crux right now.

Play the one-nine combination or try for the run out? If she elected to run the balls, she’d have no trouble until she got to the six, which lay frozen against the eight on the foot rail. She’d have to figure out a way to break that cluster. She decided to run them. She leaned down to shoot the one, an easy cut in the side. She missed.

The crowd gasped. You could tell how the side betting had broken down. Those that had bet against her smiled. The others glowered. Expressionlessly, she sat down. She’d have to forget it, not let the early mistake defeat her. Earle ran the game out. They were playing what in the parlance is called a race to six games for the two hundred dollars.

Crystal broke, but nothing dropped. The table was open. Earle never got out of line. He left himself a straight, short shot on the nine. Crystal didn’t even make him shoot it in. It was a foregone conclusion. She put her stick on the table between the cue ball and the nine, the sign of concession. The sweaters who had bet on Crystal fell silent and morose. Crystal broke, and again nothing fell. She never got another shot in game three.

She knew she was in big trouble, but nothing showed on her face. They seesawed back and forth in the next game. One safety was more devious than the next. Then Crystal made a
mistake. Earle had a shot. That’s all he needed. He was out. What was her problem? Was her head not on the match? Was the crowd making her nervous, or was Earle just too good for her?

I realized that Bruce was standing beside me.

“Hey, counselor,” he said.

“Hey, Bruce.”

“What’s the action here?”

“Race to six for two hundred.”

“What’d she get from him?”

“The seven ball and the break.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

“Suicide.” He went looking for Spanish Jackie. He didn’t have to go far, not even out of earshot.

“No credit, no credit,” said Spanish Jackie when he saw Bruce coming.

“Did I mention credit? Did you hear me say credit? Just tell me the line.”

“Three to one on Earle, but you can’t bet this set. Too late this set.”

“Obviously, Jackie. Here’s a hundred on Earle for the next set. No, make it a deuce.”

Bruce counted two bills from a fat roll. Naturally, I figured he had all ones stuck beneath the thin skin of hundreds, a so-called Minnesota roll. But no. There were hundreds at the heart of the roll. He had several thousand dollars there. Bruce never had real money. Where’d Bruce get real money?

Spanish Jackie was asking himself the same question. He looked suspiciously at the bills, crinkled them, looked at them again, snapped them beside his ear. He even sniff ed them before he accepted Bruce’s bet.

“Could I have a word with you, Bruce?” I asked when he stood beside me again.

“You don’t even need to say it, Arthur.” He peeled off three more hundreds and stuck them in my shirt pocket. “Does that bring me current? Here, have another.” He slid it into the pocket.

“Looks like you came into some money.”

“Playing cards.”

“I see.”

Crystal was in dreadful shape. With only three balls left in game five, Earle had dumped her on the rail behind two balls. The one she needed to hit, the seven, was frozen on the opposite rail. She made a good try, going three rails, but she failed to hit the seven, a foul. Earle had cue ball in hand. Crystal didn’t even make him shoot. She racked the balls. Earle’s lead was insurmountable.

“Ever heard of Tiny Archibald, Bruce?”

Bruce blinked, but he didn’t look at me. “The basketball player?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just wondered.”

“Tiny Archibald? Hmm. No, doesn’t ring any bells. Seems like I’d remember a guy named Tiny Archibald. Why do you ask?”

“How about Chet Bream?”

“Chet Bream?”

“Yeah, a journalist. He’s been doing a story on the CIA and the banking business. I figured you’d know him.”

“Why?”

“He said he spoke to you about Trammell’s death, you being the only witness.”

Bruce shot a glance at me. You could see the wheels turning. “Would you like to step away from this gambling element?”

“Sure, Bruce.” I saw Crystal pay Earle two hundred dollars. They were getting set to go again. Bruce and I walked over to the drinking fountain.

“This Bream, was he a twitchy fellow, did a lot of ChapStick?”

“Yeah, that sounds like the fellow.” I told Bruce first about the cop’s visit, then about Chet Bream’s. I told him that both wanted to talk to him about Trammell’s death, that both suspected Bruce had lied about the circumstances surrounding it. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

“Trammell drowned, Artie. No shit. I didn’t actually see him go down for the third time, but he wasn’t on the boat and he wasn’t swimming around it. He drowned.”

“Okay. It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other, but I thought you’d want to know.”

“Okay, pal, thanks a lot.”

“So where’d you get the money? You didn’t get the money for bullshitting the cops about Trammell’s death, did you?”

“I told you. I got the money playing gin with a fish at the Salmagundi Club. Nobody believes me. Why doesn’t anybody believe me?”

“Because you’re a liar.”

“Listen, guy, you got to loosen up. Smoke some of this when the going gets tough.”

“Okay, see you around.” I had a drink of water, then went back to the game.

“What’s the score?” I asked Thumper.

“Two to nothing in the second set. Crystal’s down. Say, Artie, you wouldn’t be interested in a Wagner Power Painter, would you?”

“When I came in here tonight, I hoped desperately someone would offer me a good deal on a Wagner Power Painter.”

Bruce came out of the rest room. Head down, he strode to the front door, then out into the night. My heart sank. That was a very bad sign. If Bruce won the bet, Spanish Jackie would still pay off; it wasn’t that. But betting on pool isn’t like betting on a horse at OTB. You stay to watch. That’s part of the point. Bruce wasn’t staying. He was
walking out
on a two-hundred-dollar bet.

Earle sank the nine in a long combination off the five. Devastating. Three to zero…Maybe Bruce just went out for coffee…They had excellent coffee right here. I kept looking over my shoulder at the door. He never returned.

The rest of the set lasted a mere forty minutes. Crystal never had a chance. On the rare occasions she got an opening, she failed to capitalize on it. She unscrewed her cue, paid Earle another two hundred dollars, and shook his hand. I let her sit by herself on a bench in the corner for a while, then I joined her.

“I was terrible,” she muttered, staring out. “I was terrible in Philadelphia, and I was terrible here.”

“Do you want to play him again?” I said after a while.

“I don’t have any more money. I just dropped four hundred bucks.”