Lush Life: An Artie Deemer Mystery (25 page)

“It’s hard to know what to do. It’s not like we’ve had a lot of experience.”

“I
should
have, right?”

“No, it’s all right.” But I was too tired, too confused to make it sound convincing. Besides, Crystal knew it was not all right.

The Cross Bronx Expressway has to be one of the most depressing roads in North America. From the Cross Bronx Expressway, the entire city seems comprised of dirty pre-stressed-concrete walls, rusting bridge supports and abutments, careening truck traffic, and decaying infrastructure. Because of the budget cuts, the city has stopped picking up dead and abandoned automobiles, thinking, if at all, that eventually they’ll erode away. Their stripped hulks lined the roadway. Some had been torched. Far below the elevated highway lay the South Bronx, dark and devastated like the footage of Berlin in 1945 you see on the Discovery Channel. Would we find Uncle Billy dead aboard the Zuzu?

We had to follow Ray’s Lincoln because he had Arnie aboard. Ronnie Jax was driving like a lunatic, but then so was everybody else on the Cross Bronx. Crystal’s Toyota sputtered and protested, but she managed to stay within sight. I wondered if Ray was intentionally trying to leave us in the dust.

There were too many unknowns. I brooded on them. I like things predictable. How long since things had been pre-dictable?…Norm had said he lived on a boat in Pelham. From Pelham, he could be on City Island in ten minutes. Could he find the Zuzu? What would he do if he found Billy before we did? What would the rest of those assholes do if they found Billy? Tiny Archibald, for instance. We hadn’t heard from him in—how long had it been? I tried to remember, but I couldn’t. It seemed a career ago. How long had it been since Crystal and I had made love?

The pink Lincoln swerved around the curve at the City Island exit in the shadows of Co-op City, where more people resided in a single complex than in most villages and towns in this country. We sped through the darkness of Pelham Bay Park, careened around the traffic circle near the police shooting range, where two tons of lead a year get fired into the hillside, and the rain washes the lead into the bay. God knows the mutations that swim in its black depths. Then we crossed the bridge onto City Island itself. The main drag continued straight to the other end of the island, but we took a hard, squealing left at the foot of the bridge, around a bronze monument to something. Grubby rental boats were docked in the channel. Moonlight glimmered on the poisonous water, making it look tropical, pristine. To the north I could see the high chimney on Hart Island, a black mass in the darkness. For over a hundred years, Hart Island had been a potter’s field. Now, every decade or so, prisoners from Riker’s Island plow the decayed corpses into the earth to make room for more indigent dead, something New York will never lack for.

We pulled into a stony parking lot beside a rickety, paint-peeling bait-and-tackle shop, boat rentals available. It was dark and locked. So was the snack bar and the dive shop across the street. Crystal made a U-turn and parked the car near the Lincoln, but first she turned the car around to point us at the bridge, the way out. Altogether, there were seven of us. We got out of our cars.

A squat guy with long black hair cascading from under a Mets cap, big beer gut doing the same thing over the top of his sweatpants, came out of the shadows behind the bait shop. He stopped us as we approached the docks. “Sorry, private property,” he said in a Long Island accent. He had huge forearms, just like—oh no!

Crystal must have been thinking the same thing—she clutched my hand.

Uncle Ray folded a bill into the man’s T-shirt pocket. “Take a break, pal,” Ray said without slowing down, and led us onto the wooden floating dock. It bobbed under our weight, causing us to walk with clumsy, high-kneed steps. I looked back over my shoulder at Norman Armbrister. He raised his hand and wiggled his fingers at me. Grinned.

Arnie stopped us at the Zuzu.

She looked homemade, jury-rigged, and raggedy-assed. Maybe thirty feet long, she was shaped vaguely like a lobster boat with a high upswung bow and low, open stern. A roof had been added, covering the steering wheel back almost to the stern, but the roof canted at a crazy angle because one of the support posts was too short. The cockpit was cluttered with gear.

“Ahoy,” hailed Arnie from the dock in a small voice.

When I looked back toward the bait shop, Norm was gone, but I knew he’d be lurking somewhere in the shadows, his natural habitat.

Silence aboard the Zuzu…

Uncle Ray tapped Ronnie Jax on the arm, and Ronnie went aboard, over the cracked transom and into the cockpit. He
went forward to the steering wheel, which was mounted on the extreme right side. Next to it was a hatchway that led down into the cabin, but the hatch was boarded up and locked. Uncle Ray asked Arnie for the key.

“Billy’s got it.”

“Break it,” Ray said.

Ronnie Jax rummaged around in the fishing gear. He found an object with a long tapering point, like a fid or a big awl. He stuck the point through the padlock and twisted. Wood rended. Ronnie Jax shoved the hatch back. It was pitch-dark below. He struck his Zippo and held it into the darkness. From the dock, we could see nothing but the small flickering flame. He went below. Crystal stood with her fists clenched at her sides.

“Dark, boss,” said Ronnie Jax as he climbed back out.

“Where’s your battery switch, Arnie?” Crystal asked.

“Right behind the companionway steps.”

Crystal went aboard. Lights came on below. I didn’t hear her scream. There must have been no corpses aboard.

Ray called Ronnie back onto the dock and handed him another bill. “Go ask that asshole at the bait shop where Billy went. If he can’t tell you that, then ask him when he left. Give him the money first. If he don’t tell you anything, take it back.”

“I’ll get this round,” I said. Before anyone could reply, I bobbed up the dock. I went into the darkness beside the bait shop. There was a rancid-smelling dumpster back there, but that was all I could see.

“Hey, Norm,” I hissed. I thought about Barry dead on the bench. I never doubted that Norm would do us all if it would serve his purposes or save his ass.

“Psst—”

He was behind me, at least his voice was behind me. Could he throw his voice? I saw movement from under the barnacled hull of a sailboat propped up on steel stands. He was motioning for me to join him over there.

“Watch the noggin,” he said, pointing to the propeller at forehead level. I ducked under it. There was another, bigger sailboat on stands beside it. It was nearly pitch-dark between the two. “Who’s the lardass with the pink Lincoln?”

“Crystal’s uncle.”

“No shortage of uncles. What business is this one in?”

“Pizza.”

“You shouldn’t be hanging out with pizza hoods.”

“You bugged my apartment, didn’t you?”

“What? No. Artie, you hurt my feelings. You are not a trusting individual. Here I’ve tried to be your friend. I’ve been here when you needed me, and now you accuse me of bugging your apartment.”

“Then how’d you know Billy was here?”

“Because I never sleep.”

There was no point in pursuing it. “Okay, where’s Billy now?”

“I don’t know. If I knew, you think I’d be hanging around here in the dark, treading on fish heads? I might ask you the same question about Uncle Billy.”

“If Billy has the money, you can have it. Take it all and leave us out of it. That would be our last connection to this mess. You can have it.”

“Why do you keep insulting me? I don’t want the money. I’m no thief. Tran and I want to sail out of here, but I need the tape first. Or at least I need to know the disposition of the tape. I explained that to you once. You don’t believe me. That hurts my feelings. Again.”

“Tran’s your wife.”

“Right.”

“Tran is a Vietnamese name, isn’t it?”

“What, do you have something against the Vietnamese?”

“Absolutely not. I just wondered.”

“She was a VC sapper. A killer. I tried to tell the Pentagon they couldn’t ever defeat people like Tran, but they didn’t listen.
That’s old soup. Let’s talk about the present. Danny Barcelona got greased.”

“What?”

“His body may or may not turn up.”

“Who did it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Norm, what is Concom?”

“Shh—” hissed Norm, grabbing my arm.

Somebody was coming up the dock. Ronnie Jax. “Hey—” called Ronnie.

I looked back at Norm. Norm was gone.

I stepped out from under the sailboats.

Ronnie Jax stopped when he saw me. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Nothing. I can’t find the guy.”

“Hey, you, with the gut—” Ronnie called. No answer.

“He must have taken a break,” I said.

“Yeah. What was you doing over there among the beached boats?”

“Taking a pee.”

“I could use one myself.”

The others were walking up the dock toward us.

“He was there, all right,” said Uncle Ray. “His clothes are there, but he ain’t. What’d the dock asshole say?”

“He’s not around,” I said.

“You guys go on home,” Ray said to Crystal. “I’ll get in touch with you. Something’s funny here. Ronnie, I want you to stay till tomorrow. I’ll send Leo out in the morning.”

“Aww, boss, what the hell am I gonna do here all night?”

“Just what I tell you to do, unless you’d rather go back to drivin’ the mozzarella truck.”

“Aww, boss—”

“Take the cellular phone. Call if you see anything. But remember, any butthole with his own cellular can listen in.” Uncle Ray headed for his Lincoln. “Leo, you drive.”

“You got it, boss.” Delighted it wasn’t him assigned to stay, Leo leapt behind the wheel.

Uncle Ray hugged Crystal. “Don’t worry, sweetie, we’ll work this out. Ronnie, you get down on the boat. And stay awake. Arnie, you get in the back.” Uncle Ray slid into the passenger seat. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said out the window as Leo drove the Lincoln away.

Crystal, Calabash, and I stood in the dark until the Lincoln crossed the bridge.

“That was Norm, wasn’t it?” said Crystal.

“He told me somebody killed Danny Barcelona.”

Crystal moaned.

“He didn’t know who did it. At least he said he didn’t.” We waited awhile, but Norm didn’t reappear. With Ronnie Jax around, we didn’t wait. We went home and went to bed. We managed, but barely, to crawl out of our clothes first.

TWENTY-TWO

T
HE PHONE RANG early next morning. Chet bream didn’t say hello; he just began speaking. His voice was thick and gurgly. “I’ve got it,” he said.

“Got what, Chet?”

“The tape. I’ve got the tape! The whole story’s gonna blow wide open now. This is Pulitzer material!…Only trouble is it’ll have to be a posthumous Pulitzer.” He giggled mirthlessly.

“Why?”

“Because they’ve killed me.”

“How?”

“I want you to have it. Look, if you use it right this tape can save your lives. Please come, otherwise it’s all pointless. If they get it, my death is useless!”

“I might, Chet. That’s all I can—”

“Do you know where I am?”

“Yes—”

“Don’t say it. I gave you a card, right? That day on the beach. Do you have it? Can you get it in front of you?”

I got it from my wallet. The address was 214 West Eighteenth Street.

“I moved,” said Chet. “Here’s where: add ‘one-oh-two’ to the house number…Got it? Now add ‘two’ to the street number. Got that?”

“Yes.” 316 West Twentieth Street.

“Apartment One B. Come today. Tomorrow’ll be too late.”

I motioned for Crystal and Calabash to follow me into the bedroom. We sat in a row, me in the middle, on the edge of the bed. Thinking that looked cozy, Jellyroll hopped aboard. I told them exactly what Chet had said. Jellyroll placed his wet nose against the back of my neck to say, “Hey, remember me? I’m here, too.”

“Chet thinks his phone is tapped?” asked Crystal.

“Or mine,” I said.

“What the hell good do his precautions do us? So they won’t know his address, all they got to do is follow you!”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“Does he t’ink dey
gave
him de disease? Are we talkin’ fooking germ warfare?”

We planned precautions. Crystal would leave first, catching a cab right in front of the building. She would go across town on the Ninety-sixth Street transverse, but when she got to Park or Lexington, she’d ask the driver to turn around, she’d forgotten something back on the West Side. She’d get out of the cab at her car, then drive it to the corner of Twenty-third and Tenth Avenue. There she’d wait for us.

Calabash would go next, by cab, to the IRT stop at Fourteenth Street. He’d catch the local uptown two stops and meet Crystal at the car.

Jellyroll and I—I was afraid to leave him alone, even though he made travel difficult—took another cab to Union Square. There we changed cabs, taking this one to Crystal’s car. I had a little trouble getting the second one with Jellyroll along. Dogs-in-cabs is one of New York’s ironies. No matter what a degenerate piece of rubble they’re driving, when cabbies realize you mean to take this dog—the one you’re plainly standing beside, the one attached to the leash in your hand—they often take personal offense, as if you’d just made rude noises about their sister’s tits. Finally an aged Russian picked us up.

“Dogs is goot,” he said to me in the mirror. “Dogs is goot, man is shit.”

“Be careful. Don’t do anything brave,” said Crystal from the driver’s seat as I got out. Crystal had taken routinely now to carrying one of Calabash’s smaller guns in her purse. She drove away as planned.

Number 316 was a dilapidated four-story building in a block of well-maintained, expensive brownstones. The eighties gentrification—a word almost forgotten these days—had missed 316. It had the shape of its neighbors, but its facade was covered with sooty stucco. Cracks spider-webbed it. The window frames were rotted. Healthy locust trees flourished up and down the block. The two in front of 316 were dead and sere. A couple of winos sat stupefied on the stoop. Were they really winos? A half a block away, Calabash was pretending to be one himself, sucking on a bottle in a brown paper bag. Maybe these guys had the same ruse. Not wanting to do anything brave, I walked right past and down the block toward Calabash. I crossed the street and doubled back.