Lush Life: An Artie Deemer Mystery (4 page)

Heading home, I saw Mrs. Fishbein halfway down the block. She was going my way, lugging a bag of groceries, little shuffling strides on bunioned feet. “Hello, Mrs. Fish—”

“Ach! Ach!…Oh, Artie!
Mein Gott
, you scare me! I thought you vas a mugger!” She reached inside her coat, clutched her heart and squeezed to get it going again. The temperature approached eighty-five degrees, but Mrs. Fishbein wore a heavy wool ankle-length coat and fur earmuff s that looked like twin road kills clamped around her head.

“Want me to carry your packages?” I picked them up and about ruptured myself. What the hell was in the bags? New anvils?

“Za neighborhood, ach, it rots. All zis foreigners—zay make za neighborhood lousy. Some foreign mugger, he hit you on za head—boof, you’re a vegytable.”

I didn’t say anything one way or the other. Mrs. Fishbein never listens anyway.

“And you know who iz za vurst mugger? Za verst iz your homosessual mugger. Of course you—you’re one of za good vuns.”

“Good one what, Mrs. F.?”

“Homosessual.”

“God knows I try.”

All the way to our door, she kept slapping the palm of her hand and saying, “Boof, you’re a vegytable.”

Back at the ranch, I puttered and fussed and worried about my living room. I put Johnny Hartman’s “Lush Life,” John Coltrane’s quartet in brilliant support, on the box, stoked up the
volume, and let that glorious voice wash over me. By 7:30, I was as ready as I’d ever be…

A vision in my hallway! She wore a dress! I had never seen her in a dress. This one was yellow. It left her shoulders bare. (I admit that I coveted the hollow place between her collarbones and the upward turn of her neck.) The hem fell to a delightful spot just above her knees, and the airy fabric clung fetchingly to her breasts and hips. She wore sheer nude stockings and low-heeled shoes with open toes.

I felt flattered that she had taken our evening seriously. I too had dressed for it, in an Italian sport coat and slacks from Barney’s, the ensemble I haul out for animal-performer award ceremonies, but tonight I was rakishly tieless, at least I hoped for some rakishness. I even wore my black dress shoes, also Italian, that devastate my spinal column. I felt all runny inside. Crystal seemed girlishly shy at the door, but that probably had something to do with the way I was mooning over her.

I accepted the red roses she offered. I had been momentarily struck speechless by the contrast of their red and that of her lipstick against the black of her hair and eyes. Crystal always wore bright red lipstick, even in the Upscale Poolroom when she was mercilessly skinning a fish who thought women couldn’t play pool because their tits got in the way.

Then Jellyroll got into the act, and I was grateful for another chance to collect myself. Wagging his whole body, Jellyroll spun with excitement, his greeting mode. “No,” I said to him quietly.

“What’d he do?” Crystal asked.

“Nothing yet. But he was about to jump up on you.”

“How do you know?”

“He had that look in his eyes. Tell him to sit, and he’ll collect himself.”

Crystal told him to sit. He did, and she knelt to let him lap at her face. We finally got out of the foyer and into the living room, at which Crystal did a quick double take.

My living room always warrants explanation or visitors think I’m an eccentric hermit. The living room contains no furniture except my morris chair and Jellyroll’s Adirondack Spruce Bough Dog Bed, if that can be called furniture. This is our listening room. That’s about all we do in here. I like to keep the acoustics clean. If I lived in Montana or another sparsely populated western state, I could have a listening room without losing my living room, but I live in a three-room Manhattan apartment. I like to give my four big speakers, facing inward from the corners, an unimpeded shot at my centrally placed morris chair. I’ve had no complaints from neighbors, mainly because the widows who live above and below are as deaf as socket wrenches, a condition for which I’m not responsible. But if someone wanted to live with me, I’d gladly remake my listening room into a living room. I was open to change.

“Jazz,” said Crystal. Charlie Parker was playing “Bird of Paradise” (Miles Davis, trumpet; Duke Jordan, piano; Tommy Potter, bass; Max Roach, drums).

“Yes. Charlie Parker.”

“They called him Bird, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

I excused myself and went into the kitchen to pour us a glass of gewürztraminer. My hands trembled. Grow up, I told myself.

When I returned, Crystal was sitting in my morris chair with her head bowed. Jellyroll had sprawled against her shoes. “Gee,” she said softly, “I didn’t know he was so, you know, so spiritual.”

That made my heart go pitter-pat. She liked Bird.

We listened to “Yardbird Suite,” “Max Making Wax,” “Ornithology,” “Scrapple from the Apple,” and “Carvin’ the Bird” without speaking. I sat on the windowsill. Occasionally I refilled our glasses. Jellyroll stretched languorously, circled in his Adirondack Spruce Bough Dog Bed, and flopped. He
sighed with contentment. Things looked fine to him. Me, too.

She wanted to hear more. “I’ve heard of these people before, but I’ve never really listened to them. I mean, when listening was the whole point.”

We tried some Monk. She dug it. When we got to “Pannonica,” Crystal said, “What’s that mean?”

“Oh, that’s the Baroness Pannonica de Konigswater.”

“Who?”

“She was an early patroness of bebop. She used to live at the Stanhope Hotel until they kicked her out because she held jam sessions until dawn. All of the greats were there at one time or another. Charlie Parker died in her apartment. Before that, she was a pilot and member of the French Resistance. I think she got captured by the Nazis.”

“The Baroness, huh? What else do you know about her?”

“I have a book that talks about her. Would you like to borrow it?”

“Yes. I’m always looking for heroes.”

“Women heroes?”

“Yes.”

I got Crystal the book. “I like Amelia Earhart.”

“Yeah, me too. I did her about three years ago.”

“So this is an organized search?”

“Absolutely.”

I needed to start cooking the crabs.

“Do you want any help?”

“No, but your presence would be nice.” I caught her looking at me in a kind of scrutinizing way. Jellyroll followed us into the kitchen.

The soft shell crabs were all set to go, according to Julia Child. I popped them into the appropriate preheated pan.

“So did you grow up in Sheepshead Bay?” I asked.

“Yeah. Over a poolroom. What about you?”

“I’m not really from anywhere particular. My mother married a lot of pilots, and we moved around. I never finished one year of school in the same place I began it.”

“A rolling stone, huh?”

“Yep, a man on the periphery.”

She grinned and leaned against the sink. Jellyroll sat at her feet and peered up at her, his “don’t-you-want-to-pet-me?” look. She scrunched down to do so. She didn’t seem uncomfortable with the long lovely line of stockinged thigh that came visible.

“Did your family own the poolroom?”

“My father did.”

“What was it called?”

“The Golden Hours. It’s still there. I still live in a little apartment upstairs.”

“Did you start playing pool when you were an infant?”

“Just about.” A dark look came into her eyes.

“A sore subject?”

“No. My father died recently. When I was about six, he gave me a sawed-off cue and stood me up on a box. I loved his attention, but as I got older the whole thing became a drag.”

“You mean he pressured you to play?”

“Yeah, well, I felt a little freakish. When I was eleven or twelve, I was playing pretty good—for a twelve-year-old kid. And he’d put me on display. It was okay to be a kid who played good, but not a young woman. Like when I was in college, somebody would suggest we go over to the student union and play some eight ball. I’d shoot left -handed so I didn’t look good. Poke at the ball. Then he died. He just dropped dead over a rack of straight pool. He’d given me this skill, but I was ashamed of it. Luckily for me, that was about the time women’s professional pool was just getting started. Now I’m a sportswoman. Before I’d have been a bum. A bummess.”

I tried to picture the little girl standing, maybe in a stiff little organdy dress, on the stool, a crowd of men watching, the old man gloating.

“What about your mother?”

“What about her?”

“Is she alive?”

“I don’t know.”

“She left?”

“Yeah, she ran off with a West Coast road hustler. I found out about twenty years later that they called him Jesuit Johnny, because that was his dodge. Pretending to be a priest. You know, play a little friendly nine ball before his audience with the Pope. I have a tacky past.”

“No, full of character.”

“Yeah, right.” She thought I was kidding. She rose from her crouch and took a seat at the dining-room table. Jellyroll went with her.

So did I. The crabs were sizzling in the pan, nearly ready. I was reasonably well in control of my meal. I no longer felt like a stumbling prom-night geek.

“I rented Jellyroll’s first movie last night,” said Crystal, as she removed her right shoe to rub his spine with her stockinged foot. She wore a gold chain around her ankle.

“The one where he plays the Seeing Eye dog to the blind detective?”

“Yeah, pretty stupid, all right. But he was wonderful. He has so many expressions. How did you teach him how to do all that stuff?”

“He just does it. One of these days he’s going to catch on to my irrelevance. I don’t have much to fall back on.”

Crystal giggled. “Maybe he’ll keep you around to hail cabs, pick up the laundry, like that. I also saw
The Big Top Caper
.”

“A classic.” In it, Jellyroll plays a performing dog who investigates suspicious circus accidents.

“It must be tough to be a human in a Jellyroll movie.”

That was true. Most had some kind of substance-abuse problem.

“Could I ask you a favor? You can feel free to say no. Could I go with you once when he’s working?”

“Oh, sure. Anytime. He just finished another of the blind detective movies, but I have a feeling there’s still more to shoot. You could go to that.”

“I’d love to. I suppose every woman tells you this, but I’m a big fan of his.” Maybe with time she’d become a big fan of mine.

My crabs were successful. We ate them all. We drank a lot of wine. We talked without pause through dinner and laughed at each other’s jokes. We discussed the city’s general decline, the differences in day-to-day life between Manhattan and Brooklyn, the right-wing Supreme Court, the urban riots, and we talked about leaving New York, a topic that comes up often these days. In the eighties, you couldn’t go to any sort of gathering without having to listen to real estate talk. Now the talk is of departure before it’s too late.

“Yeah, but where would you go?” Crystal asked.

And that was always the question that ended the conversation.

“Doesn’t Jellyroll need to be here?”

“Or L.A. But I think about retiring him sometimes.”

“No!”

“No, probably not.”

“Think of all the people who’d be disappointed, me included.”

“You can see him anytime you want.”

“I meant on the silver screen…but thanks.”

We discussed
fie Hustler
, Jackie Gleason’s pool skill, the real Minnesota Fats, Weenie Beanie, Wimpy Lassiter, Willie Mosconi, and whether or not pool’s new fashionableness had taken color from the game. Somewhere in there, in a largely spontaneous gesture, I touched her hand. She turned it over and squeezed mine.

Then I told her that I happened to have known her ex-husband. It seemed dishonest to pretend I didn’t.

She stiffened, but she didn’t withdraw her hand.

“I mean, I used to know him. Not well. We weren’t close or anything like that. We were classmates. In law school.”

“You’re a lawyer?”

“No, I—”

“He was a crook. You’re not a crook, are you?”

“No, no, I didn’t even finish law school.”

“Good. ’Cause Trammell was a crook who tried to ruin my life.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t mention him again.”

“It’s all right. Sorry I reacted like that.”

“Sure—”

“That’s what he does for a living—ruin people’s lives.”

I said, “Are you free tomorrow night?”

“Yes, but I have to go to a tournament in Philadelphia day after tomorrow.” (She pronounced it “torn-ament.”) “You seem civilized…Evolved. Most men aren’t. Especially those you meet in poolrooms.”

“Or law school…Would you like to stay? Tonight, I mean.”

She peered at me with those black eyes.

Was that a crude question? I hadn’t thought about it. I just blurted it out. It was spontaneous. Spontaneity can kill.

“Do you have furniture in the bedroom?”

“Huh? Oh. Yes indeed, and I can prove it.”

“We need to talk first. I’ve never used needles. Have you?”

“I smoke a little dope, but only on special occasions. The Olympics, like that.”

“What about condoms? Do you object to condoms?”

“Some of my best friends are—”

“Come on, Artie. This is serious.”

“I know. That was nervous humor. I have no objections to condoms.”

“I have a tattoo.”

“You
do?
”

“I thought I’d tell you.”

“Fascinating. Where?”

She pointed to a spot on her right hip, about four inches below her waist.

“What is it? I mean what does it depict?”

“A parrot, about a half inch high.”

“A half inch? Oh. The way you said you had a tattoo, I thought you meant something like a road map of Florida running down your leg.”

“I used to be a doper, Artie. I’m recovering. I just wanted to tell you.”

“Really? What kind of dope?”

“Pills. I woke up one morning about dusk and found myself with a tattoo on my hip, but I had no idea where I got it. I went straight into treatment. I’ve been sober for three years.”

Gee, I didn’t have a tattoo or an ex-drug problem or anything interesting. I did have a dog.