Chapter 37 – The Morning Party Continues
While the dog was squealing to the writer, saving the guy’s career and reputation, the Tommy Crown Affair continued at my place. By now it was early afternoon, us decadents had finished huge plates of eggs and potatoes, Jinny had mixed Tommy his third blast of a stinger, a fourth drink for Gale and me, and a fifth one for himself. Tommy’s thoughts roved from the explanation about the woman plumber to a prediction of how bad a hangover he would have later in the evening to the excitement of being near me (his Plato notwithstanding) to his not yet abandoned hope of finding the stolen (pinched) painting and collecting a fee large enough to buy the coveted Jag. The third stinger kicked in and he decided to stir things up. He said, “The plumber done yet? Like I said, we don’t have any girl plumbers up in New York, and I’d like to see what a southern one looks like.”
Pouring booze into Jinny was like pouring it into a marble statue: no effect. I can hold my liquor with the best of them and didn’t bite on Tommy’s gambit. Gale, on the other hand, was Gale, and she took it hook line and sinker, also being ready to rumble. Gale is ready twenty four seven. She said, “You asking to take a peek at the rear of her pants? That it? That what New Yorkers do, go around harassing innocent workers, doing their job, trying to earn a living?”
Tommy smiled, knowing she was engaging with him playfully, knew more was coming, didn’t say anything. Looked at me and Jinny.
Gale went on, “Down here we live with propriety and decorum, specially where women are concerned. Besides, you don’t need to bother that poor girl, and you certainly don’t need to bother little Gwenny here, you know, the one married to a guy named Roger, in whose seat you happen to be sitting right now.” As Gale said this, unconsciously her right hand began to fiddle with the button on her slacks, the one that inadvertently had been left undone earlier that morning after I had beseeched her to get dressed. Looking at Jinny she said, “Maybe you should go check on the girl, see how she’s doing with the toilet, and see that this dork doesn’t try to mess with her.” Her tone was coy and petulant with a hint of seductiveness; in other words, fun and sexy.
Tommy said, “No offense intended. I’m getting the hang of this southern manners thing, very interesting. Of course, you can’t expect me to abandon who I am, either. Us New Yorkers are proud of our heritage and traditions, too.”
“You mean like a Brooklyn accent? You proud of that? Sitting here, listening to me and her speak, and you can say you like the one from Brooklyn?”
“You got me there. If I had the choice of listening to the harkening of female angels, or listening to the two of you give me shit, I’d take you Charleston girls in a second.”
Jinny had been enjoying the banter almost as much as the second stinger he had poured into himself on top of the three bourbons. He now spoke up saying, “I’d rather listen to you two too, much more than a babe from Brooklyn, no matter how tough she is, knowing the mob really is run by women, behind the scenes of course, but I’d really rather have a Saint Petersburg woman whisper things in my ear. That is the pinnacle, the zenith, the apex of female loveliness and seduction. Nothing like it.”
I said, “You trying to tell us sounds coming from the mouth of a Slavic woman, words spoken in a Slavic language, meanings whose etiology originated on the Steppes of Russia, can compete with the sibilance of a southern, female, accent?”
Jinny started to defend his position when Gale said, “We got carriage horses that make sounds more romantic than Russian women. We love you Jinny, but get real.”
Even with five drinks in him Jinny was a very smart boy, and now he sprung the trap he had laid for us. He said, “What about Anna?”
Tommy asked, intrigued, “Who’s Anna?”
“Anna is Anna Stirg, a close friend of ours, grand-daughter of a sometimes nemesis, currently making a movie in Italy with Steven Soderbergh, Oceans Fourteen. And she’s Russian.”
Tommy said, “Jinny seems to be saying she’s attractive.” He looked at Jinny and said, “That right?”
Jinny nodded and said “Smoking hot.” He looked at me and said, “So, maybe a Russian woman can compete with you southern belles in the accent department?”
I looked at Gale and she looked back at me, forlorn. I said to Jinny, “You got us on that one. Nice play.”
He smiled and said, “Y’all are one drink behind me, and that’s not fair. Everyone up for one more, catch up?” It was 2pm and the day was shot, so I nodded, Yes, and Gale and Tommy followed suit. While we watched Jinny mix a pitcher of stingers this time, not messing around, Tommy deviously tried to get back to the plumber thing, sensing there was something interesting there, saying, ‘can I use the bathroom.’
This caught me by surprise, the conversation having distracted me from the earlier incident of Gwendy blabbing away, calling from the living room, “Gwenny. Gwenny. Gale. Jinn Jinn,” while we sat in the kitchen. I had forgotten about her, but the blue eyed boy here hadn’t, and now the little stinker had me, us, because how do you refuse to let a guest use the bathroom, and how do you follow someone to the bathroom? You can’t. And of course the bathroom is out there off the downstairs hallway, and so is the living room, and inside the living room there is a blanket hanging from something that is hanging on the wall, which is unusual in most homes, right? Shit. Now under most circumstances I would have been able to hide such a concern from a guest, but under the influence of morning bourbon and afternoon stingers, I couldn’t, didn’t. I looked at Gale, who looked panic stricken, which made me wonder if I looked panic stricken like her, which increased the level of panic I was feeling, which then was transferred to my face, ad infinitum. Somehow Jinny remained composed, probably a result of his teenage years spent under pressure in the Russian army.
Tommy continued looking at me, waiting for an answer. I gave Gale one last imploring look, but she was frozen, so I shook off my fear and got it together. I said, “Wait here. I’ll go check and see if she’s done working on the toilet,” and got up.
Tommy said, “This big house and you only have one bathroom?”
I didn’t answer him but said to Jinny, “Pour the drinks, love, I’ll be right back,” hoping he understood what I really meant was ‘don’t let this guy out of the kitchen.’ I practically ran out of the kitchen, hoping Tommy was trying a trick and didn’t really have to go badly, crossed the hallway and went into the living room. I carefully took the blanket off the painting and looked at Gwendy, whose mouth was pursed and ready to say something, so I immediately put my finger to my lips and said, “Shush.” She obeyed, but glared at me, practically leaning out of the painting into the third dimension. I said, “Keep quiet or you’ll spoil everything. He’s still in there, and he wants to use the bathroom. We can’t let him see you or it’s all over for all of us.”
She closed her mouth but looked daggers at me. Maybe it was this intimate pressure, our faces only a foot or two apart, but I had a brainstorm, quietly saying, “Listen, pretend you’re a plumber. Say everything is fixed and you’ll send me the bill.”
Her evil eye changed to a questioning look, and she said, quietly, thank heavens, “What’s a plumber?”
“Someone that fixes toilets.”
“What’s a toilet?”
Jeeze, here I’m dealing with this stuff, not only under pressure of being found out by an insurance company investigator who wants to send me to prison, but also sloshed from boozing it for the last four or five hours. ‘What’s a toilet?’ How do you answer that? I came through and said, “A commode, you know.”
“A commode was a piece of ornate furniture we had in our living room, dear.”
I tried again, “A water closet.” She shook her head. “A privy.” Nothing. “A loo.” Nada. “A bog, that’s very French, maybe Huguenot.” No. ‘Crap,’ I thought, what’s the early 1800s name for a toilet in the southern United States. OH, I said, “The shitter.”
Now it was my turn to look daggers at her, and I grabbed the blanket and threw it over the painting. I went into the hallway and opened the front door, saying to the street, “Thanks very much. Watch the steps,” closed the door and went back into the kitchen, where I said, “She’s done, but had an emergency call and had to leave. Sorry I couldn’t introduce you,” looking at Tommy, who smiled in return. I rested a minute, then had to face the next hurdle of how to let him go into the hallway to the bathroom but keep him from looking into the living room, which I knew he wanted to do. I looked at Gale and Jinny, but they were sucking down their second and third stingers respectively, fifth and six drinks of the day, and were no help at all. I could take Tommy into the hallway and show him the bathroom, but I couldn’t stand there waiting for him to come out, like a parent toilet training a child.
Just then there was a bark at the back kitchen door, which broke the tension. I opened the door and the dog came in, words on his lips, ready on the one paw to say something negative about the writer's pathetic state of mind, and on the other paw about his decent meatloaf. But he saw Tommy sitting at the counter, shut his trap, and sat down, looking from Tommy to me to Gale to Jinny and back at Tommy, badly wanting to say, ‘So this is him, huh, the home-wrecker,’ but his training kicked in and he kept mute. I detected the hint of a snarl on his mouth and hoped he didn’t go for Tommy’s leg.
Tommy sat looking at the dog, temporarily forgetting his bathroom ploy to check the rest of the downstairs for the mystery voice which he was convinced didn’t come from any female plumber who if she crouched on the floor and her shirt road up and her pants road down wouldn’t thereby offend the viewer the way male plumbers do. Then he looked at me and said, “Is this him, the wonder dog?” Looked back at the dog, then back at me. “Doesn’t look special.”
Now the dog looked at me and said, telepathically, hiding it from Tommy, “You told him? This bozo? This lout trying to get into your pants while your husband’s away on business? You told him the family secret? Are you crazy?” He stood up on all fours, the snarl growing more pronounced across his face, which got Gale’s and Jinny’s attention. He went on, “I told you I was gonna protect you from yourself, and protect my master while he’s away, earning money to buy you things. And that was BEFORE you told him my family secret, so now I got double reason to tear his leg off, bury it out in the back yard.” And a growl emanated from within the snarling canine face.
Gale and Jinny were no help at all, soused by now, standing there just listening to the one sided conversation, not cognizant of the snarl and the threat to remove one of Tommy’s legs from his person, and I wasn’t any better, having used up what little brains I had left at this point in the binging session on dealing with the plumber thing. We just watched as the dog took a step towards Tommy, Tommy set his drink on the table, and then leaned towards the dog. I thought maybe Tommy was trying to intimidate the dog with an intense look on his face, but he wasn’t, because the look on his face was the opposite of intense and intimidating; it was composed, respectful, and, and....friendly.
The dog stopped his advance, the snarl reduced itself by fifty percent, he looked up at me, back at Tommy, and sat down. Then he looked at me again and said, “You teach him to do that?”
“Do what?”
“Talk like that.”
“He said something?” I asked.
“You didn’t hear it?” He looked at Gale and said, “You hear it?” She shook her head No. The dog looked at Jinny, who also shook his head. “You telling me this guy can communicate in a way you guys can’t?”
We looked at each other, then back at the dog, shrugging but thinking, ‘This Crown boy is full of surprises.’ I said, “What’d he say?”
The dog said, “He said you and him were just friends; platonic friends; and he wasn’t trying to get in your pants. Said that would be a good thing, but he made a deal with you and would try to keep it. Said no reason for me to tear his leg off, take it out back.”
“He said all that in like, three seconds?”
The dog nodded, said, “He’s pretty good at this telepathy thing, for a beginner. Got a nice voice too, don’t you think?”
I nodded and said, “And you know what a platonic relationship is?” He nodded. “Do dogs have platonic relationships?”
“Hell no, are you crazy. What a dumb idea.”
I said, “The guy that thought that up is considered to have been pretty smart.”
“By your standards, maybe.”
I let that line of conversation drop and looked at Tommy, who now was sitting back in his chair and sipping his stinger. “How’d you do that?” I asked.
“Intuition. Just followed it, out of desperate self-preservation, him being about ready to clamp onto my shinbone, which I like the way it is now, attached to my body. Something came to me and I did it. Got lucky, I guess. Pretty cool, though.”
“Can you do the telepathy thing with us, me and Gale and Jinny?”
Tommy looked at the dog for guidance, who said, “How ‘bout for right now we keep this just between ourselves. Maybe later we’ll let them into the game.”
Tommy nodded at the dog and said to me, “No. Just me and him. You, I still gotta do the regular thing. That all right?”
I said to the dog, “Can he understand me when I do this with you?” The dog shook his head, No. “Ok. Listen, I got an idea how to get us out of the mess with Gwendy. He’s still sniffing around for her out in the living room, I can tell. He didn’t buy the plumber thing.”
“What plumber thing?” asked the dog.
“Never mind, tell you later. Right now we gotta get him out of here without giving him a chance to see the painting.”
“What’d you let him in here for in the first place?”
“Under normal conditions I wouldn’t have.”
“What are the abnormal conditions prevailing today under which you did let him in?”
“The three bourbons before lunch condition.”
“And that being on top of the four bottles of wine for two people condition that existed last night?”
I nodded.
“Doing that with Roger’s one thing, babe. This guy, he’s a stranger. What’s up with all this?”
“Driving the Mustang 390 GT in Bullitt. Riding the Norton motorcycle all over the hills in The Great Escape. Driving the dune buggy through the water out in The Hamptons. The sandy hair, the blue eyes, and he plays chess really well. Didn’t get scared when I took the car airborne over the Ben Sawyer Bridge.”
“Ok, ok. And standing up against all that sissy stuff is a little Plato, sitting on each of your shoulders, trying desperately to keep your flaming libidos in check. Is that right?” I nodded. “And what happens when one or the other Plato has to go to the john? Steps out for a smoke? Nods off, given as I am to understand they are somewhat elderly? What happens then? You let him throw you down on the ground and ravish you then and there, wherever and whenever that happens to be?”
I said, “More like I throw him down on the ground and do the ravishing.”
The dog couldn’t respond to this information, and instead looked at Gale and Jinny, who were emptying the pitcher of ice cold stingers. To them he said, yelled, actually, “What about you two? You’re supposed to be the guardians of her virtue, her royal highness treading on very thin ice here, what with her Plato guy somewhat suspect in the performance of his duties.”
Gale looked down at him and said, verbally, “Huh?”
> The dog lay down full length and crossed his paws, his head pounding with the effort to understand human foibles. No wonder they are so inferior. Platonic relationships, for christ sake. Right. He closed his eyes and assessed the whole scene. One, everyone’s judgment impaired by alcohol. Two, another human who knew his secret and could communicate dog style. Three, Gwen and Tommy in ravishment mode. Four, Tommy is sniffing around for the painting, which would be disastrous. Five, the writer next door may or may not have the capability to use the gold he had provided him to spin the cloth of a new book, the guy currently harboring a pathetic state of human mind. Jesus. He opened his eyes, watching me stare at Tommy, Tommy stare at me, watching Gale and Jinny moving from the ‘little sister big brother’ relationship to one of carnal knowledge. He really wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep, or in lieu of that go back next door and woof for another slab of meatloaf, but he was a dog of duty, and he gathered himself now.
He stood up and said to Tommy, “Yo, stud-muffin, tear yourself away for a minute. I got something to show you out back.”
Tommy got up, went to the back door, opened it, held it for the dog to go out, followed the dog out to the porch, at which point the dog did an about face and zoomed back into the kitchen through the door which was swinging slowly shut on its hydraulic closer. He nosed the inner door closed with a slam, reared up on his hind legs, and managed to swivel the deadbolt latch to the locked position. He turned to look at me and said, “You couldn’t figure that out?”
We heard the screen door open, and Tommy started pounding on the inner door, trying the knob, pounding some more. The dog said, “Ignore him. He’s shitfaced like the rest of y’all, he’ll give up and go home. You,” looking at me, Gale, and Jinny, “into the living room.” And he started nipping at our legs like herding dogs do with sheep, moving us through the kitchen door, across the hallway, and into the living room.
I went to the sofa, Jinny went to the piano stool, and Gale sat on the floor under the painting, leaning up against the wall. The dog lay down in the center of the room, looked up at the blanket covering the painting, and said, “The old birdcage trick, huh. I bet she hates that. Gale, wake her up.”
Gale, whose front pants button was open again like it had a mind of its own, wanting freedom from constraint, could hardly stand up. I looked at the grandfather clock that said five in the afternoon. God, what a day, and on top of the night before. Gale finally got the blanket off the painting, and we heard, “Is he still here? Is he coming in? What time is it? What happened? You two make it together? You four make it together? Separately, or a foursome? What’s with the blanket? They never did that in the museum. They turned off all the lights, but they never covered us up. What’d I do to deserve that? Tell me what happened. I’m part of this family and I have a right to know. Was he as good as you hoped, Gwenny? Tell, tell. In the kitchen or upstairs?”
She stopped ranting and looked out at the room, where she saw Jinny passed out on the bench, fully clothed, Gale in her underwear again, able to divest herself of her clothes even when unconscious, passed out leaning against the wall under the painting, and me passed out on the sofa, all the lights in the room on and the clock ticking.
None of us heard it, but she yelled, “You rats.”
Gwenny June's Tommy Crown Affair Page 37
