Lush Life: An Artie Deemer Mystery (23 page)

The wiseguys watched us park. Crystal’s Toyota was dwarfed by the Cadillacs and Buicks. Crystal left the engine running and got out alone. She said hello, by name, to a couple of the wiseguys as she went in. I think they made rude remarks about her ass as she did so. Calabash and I stared straight ahead.

Five minutes later, Crystal came back out with Uncle Ray, a fat man of several chins and arms that didn’t touch his sides. He wore a blue three-piece suit, expensive but still ill-fitting in the shoulders. He was bald on top, but he’d made a futile attempt to cover it by combing sparse strands of black hair over the hole. When Uncle Ray saw Jellyroll, he stopped dead in his tracks in the gutter and clapped his hands together.

“Christ, it is!” he exclaimed, chins twittering. “Crystal tells me, I think she’s kidding her old uncle!”

I rolled down the rear window. Uncle Ray stuck his big face in, and Jellyroll licked it. Uncle Ray squealed.

We got out of the car.

“Hey, you guys, here, look here!”

A half a dozen wiseguys gathered. They all wore pegged pants and silk shirts buttoned up around the neck. I wondered where they hid their guns.

“This is my niece, Crystal, and
this
is the R-r-ruff Dog!”

“Naw—”

“No shit?”

“Jumpin’ Jesus, it
is
!”

“Lookit that smile! That’s him, all right!”

“Can I pet him?”

“Holy shit, I petted the R-r-ruff Dog. I’ll never wash my hand again!”

“Okay, boys,” said Uncle Ray, “beat it.”

They dispersed, chattering, and Ray was clearly pleased with his power to assemble and disperse lackeys.

Crystal introduced Calabash and me.

“You
all
get in that little car together!” He bellowed laughter. “Welcome Calabash, welcome to Ray’s
Real
Original Pizza Parlor, where I’m Ray. Say, Artie, how much you want for that dog? We can come to terms on this. Cash, services, you name it, pizza for life, whatever. Gimme a starting figure on which we can bicker—” He laughed and clapped me on the back with a fat, soft hand. “Come on in.” He put his other arm around as much of Calabash’s shoulders as he could reach and led us into the pizza parlor-cum-money laundry. He stopped in the threshold, turned, and said, “Hey, you guys, keep an eye on that Toyota.”

Wiseguys sat at round Formica tables and dropped cigarette butts into cups of Coke. Two Mexicans cooked pizza behind the counter. They humbly averted their eyes as the boss and his entourage entered. Ray led us around behind the counter, between the ovens.

“Hey, Jesus. Hey, Pancho. Look here, this is the R-r-ruff Dog!”

The cooks looked sheepish, grinning uncomfortably.

“El pero de R-r-ruff ?…”

They returned blank stares.

“Never mind—”

He led us through a beaded curtain, into a closet-sized back room. It was already crowded to capacity by a little Formica bistro table, four mismatching chairs, and ceiling-high stacks of Coke cases that seemed to loom over us like Stonehenge. We squeezed in and took seats at the table.

“How ’bout some wine? I mean good wine. Want some top-of-the line wine? Jesus!”

A Mexican man appeared at the beads.

“Wine, Jesus. The good stuff. You know. El vino primero.”

Jesus went to fetch it.

“Gee, it’s good to see you, Crystal. I ain’t seen you in, what, must be two years, since at Billy’s birthday party.”

Jesus returned with a bottle of Chianti and four glasses. He poured a taste for Uncle Ray, who swilled it around like mouthwash. “Mmm, good.” There wasn’t room for Jesus to enter, so he reached an arm in through the beads and poured from without.

Uncle Ray was right about the wine. He arched his eyebrows and nodded, wanting us to like it.

“Excellent,” I pronounced.

“It’s Billy I’m worried about, Uncle Ray.”

“Billy?” Uncle Ray looked at Calabash and then at me. He was wondering, no doubt, what we had to do with Crystal. I looked in his eyes. This guy was no fool, even if he acted like one. Acting like one might have been his strategy for survival.

Crystal, too, was thinking, debating silently. “Remember Trammell Weems?”

“Sure. He drowned, right?”

Crystal paused. “I think he’s alive.”

“I’m glad you’re not trying to kid me, Crystal. That would hurt my feelings.”

“I thought about it, Uncle Ray, but, no, I’m not going to kid you. It’s possible Uncle Billy was—or is—involved with Trammell.”

“Uh, would this have anything to do with a bank?”

“I’m afraid it does.”

Ray nodded gravely.

“Why, Ray?”

“There’s talk on the street. Professionally, it ain’t in my best interests to get near the banking business…Where’s Billy now?”

“I don’t know. That’s why we came to you. I thought maybe you could ask some questions around town.”

“Where was he last seen?”

“An employee at the Golden Hours told me he went bluefishing up to Montauk with Arnie Lovejoy.”

“Arnie Lovejoy, the lush?”

“I hear he quit. Talk to me, Uncle Ray. What are they saying on the street?”

He paused, considering…“Crystal, who are your friends?”

“Artie is…my boyfriend.” She glanced at me to see if I minded her putting it like that. I certainly did not. “We haven’t known each other that long, but we like each other. Now my ex-husband’s crooked business affairs are ruining it. Calabash is Artie’s friend. He’s here to help us.”

“I’m de bodyguard of dem both.”

Ray nodded again. “So you got no other interest, like financial interest? You ain’t kiddin’ me?”

“We’re interested in being left alone,” said Crystal. “But I want to find Uncle Billy. I want him to be safe, too.”

“I’m a pizza man. I ain’t in the banking business. I’m in the pizza business.”

“Okay, Uncle Ray, I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.”

“Of course family is family, blood is thicker than what-have-you. Marinara sauce.”

“There’s something else I should tell you, because maybe you’ve heard of him. The name Danny Barcelona has come up.”

This didn’t seem to surprise Uncle Ray. “Who raised it?”

“A guy who used to be in the CIA. He’s one of the people we want to leave us alone.”

“CIA, huh? I told them not to get mixed up with those guys, they’re crazy. But they wouldn’t listen to me, a pizza man. Uh, what about the name Archibald? Tiny Archibald? Did that name come up?”

“Yes, it came up.”

“I heard things. On the street.”

“That’s why we came to you about Uncle Billy. Maybe you heard something.”

“Not about Billy.” He looked down into the surface of his wine, and his head hung, at least as far as his chins allowed, in
silence for a while. “We got to do this carefully. Little cat steps…But hell, he’s my relative. No reason why I can’t look around for him, right? Hey, Jesus—”

Jesus appeared behind the beads.

“Jesus, call Ronnie Jax in here.”

Ronnie Jax was a hood in his late twenties with an unsuccessful mustache and long, slicked-back black hair. “Yeah, boss?”

“I want you to go over Sheepshead Bay and find an old guy, late sixties, gotta big booze gut, name of Arnie Lovejoy. Tell him I wanna talk with him. Bring him back here if you can. But be polite. If he can’t make it, tell him get in touch with me, tell him today.”

“You got it, boss.” Ronnie Jax left.

“Uncle Ray, somebody ransacked my apartment and did the same to Uncle Billy’s place. We just came from there.”

“Who did?”

“I don’t know.”

“You mean like they were looking for something?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t know what?”

“No.”

“Where should I get in touch with you?”

I gave him my phone number.

He leaned down to pet Jellyroll, then he straightened and said, “Crystal, it’s good to see you. I been missing you.”

TWENTY

W
E 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.”