"I think he's the owner."
"What's his name?"
"Pine."
"What's his first name?"
"I don't know. They call him Mr. Pine. I've never met him. He never comes into the store. I don't know him at all."
"What's going on at Renaissance Antiques? Do you know that?"
"Nothing that I know of."
"Nothing? Then why did Billie leave all these photographs of the place and all its people in an ice tray before she was murdered?"
Still she said nothing, just stared at me. She wasn't even trying, so I decided to haul up the bigger guns.
"Freddy's dead," I said. "Murdered." That drew reaction. Her jaw dropped, and her black eyes blinked as if I'd just thrown sand into them. "I found him stuffed into Billie's little refrigerator like a hundred and eighty pounds of seedless grapes. The studio was ransacked. I think they were looking for these photographs."
Sybel began to cry, and my anger evaporated.
"Was Freddy a friend of yours?"
"Sort of...He took me to a Mets game with his two sons. I liked the way he treated them, bought them caps and things, banners." She clenched her eyes, squeezing out heavy tears. I don't own any handkerchiefs, but I passed her a Kleenex. She balled it up and threw it at my head. "Drop dead, fucker! All the men Billie screwed were brutes!" She snatched up her belongings and made for the door.
I caught her arm as she came around my side of the table, and I think she seriously considered clouting me with her umbrella. "Please don't go," I pleaded. "I'm not a brute. I'm a wreck. I've been through the wringer since Billie died. Please sit down. I'll tell you everything. The whole truth."
She stood there for a moment before she sat back down and regarded me through teary eyes. I told her everything step by step just as it happened. No other two days in my entire life had been so filled with events. They took a long time to tell. But when I finished, I felt tremendous relief. Not only had I shared with someone my grief, anger, and fear, I had put the events in order, made connections in that objective way required to tell anything. I told her about Billie's bathtub and the wreckage of her studio, about Freddy's forehead frozen to the aluminum, about Cobb and the stench of death in the morgue, I told her about Stretch and the mud of Union Square, about Danny Beemon, and the letter from Dibbs at the nursing home. And I felt as if I had just emerged from a terrible trek through the jungle. My shoulders, from up around my ears, drooped down to a saner level. I felt such a pleasurable easing of tension that I wanted to smile, but only a true brute would crack a smile after telling a story like mine.
Sybel sat back heavily in her chair as if I had shifted the weight from my shoulders onto hers. She held both hands over her mouth. Then she said so quietly I had to ask her to repeat it, "We didn't even know Billie."
We didn't know Billie. Maybe she was right, but I wanted her to be wrong. So I said nothing. Sybel picked up the next photo in my stack, an old woman wearing a terry-cloth bathrobe standing in a doorway. Nothing of the building was visible, just a weary old woman in a doorway out of all context. She clutched a Raggedy Ann doll against her breast. The doll's battered head flopped over her shoulder sideways. "Do you think this is Billie's mother?"
"I guess so. I don't know."
Sybel placed the old woman with the doll in the doorway beside Danny Beemon on the cover of Life. Then she placed the Raggedy Ann lady next to the photographs of the happy family at the beach and around the Christmas tree. Beemon was the father of the family, there was no question about it, but time had scoured away all resemblance between the smiling young mother and the old lady hugging her doll. I had already tried that matchup.
"Billie told me her mother was dead and her father lived in California," Sybel said. "Why did she lie like that?"
"I could take the family photos out to the nursing home and show them to Mrs. Burke. She could tell me if this little girl with the puppy is Billie or not."
"She looks so happy... I wonder what happened to her. We've got to take these pictures to the police. I bet just having them is some kind of felony."
"I've got to think Renaissance Antiques has something to do with this," I said. We were going off the track. I wanted to know something.
"And since I work there, I ought to know something about it, right?"
"I didn't say that. But if you do, I'd like to hear it."
Sybel's eyes hardened under her tears. "I just work there. I don't know how the owners run their private lives. I've never even met them, but I keep the inventory, I've seen the books. It looks like a legitimate business. Look, I'm just a drone employee. It's just a way to support my kid."
"You have a kid?"
"A girl. Five years old."
I gave that some thought. "You're married?"
"I was, but it didn't take." She sat silently for a long time, maybe trying to decide whether she wanted to tell me anything about her life, then without color in her voice, she said, "I married an idiot of an actor and got pregnant. I was an ignorant hick from a dairy farm in Plattsfield, Wisconsin. Two days after Lisa was born, he left to do Measure for Measure in Texas somewhere and never came back. Last Christmas he showed up with presents for me and Lisa. He'd had his teeth fixed. He brought boy's toys. He forgot his child was a girl. I threw him out. I was living with Billie then. My husband is bringing a custody suit against me on the grounds I'm an unfit mother."
"He hasn't got a leg to stand on," I said stupidly.
"What are you, a lawyer?"
"No."
Suddenly Sybel glanced over my shoulder at the doorway and inhaled sharply, her brows popping up into arches. I spun around, but no one was there. "Leon. It was Leon Palomino!"
"Did he follow you here?"
"How would I know? But he's not here to do a book report."
"What did he look like? I mean, did he look surprised or angry or what?"
"Hell, I don't know. He's nuts. He's a hyperactive."
"You didn't see anybody behind you on the way over?"
"For all I know, he followed you here."
That had just occurred to me.
"Leon has this tattoo of the Grim Reaper on his arm. Inside this balloon, like the Grim Reaper is speaking, it says: Ia Drang 1966. It Was a Bitch."
"Vietnam?"
"Yeah, only he wasn't even there. His brother was. Freddy was. But Leon goes around talking about the war all the time. Sometimes he goes all rigid and trembles and says, 'I'm gettin' a flashback.'" Sybel pulled a notepad from her purse and wrote on it. "This is my real phone number. Let me know what the police say." She collected her bag and umbrella, ready to leave.
"Wait," I said. "I don't even know your last name."
"Black," she said, and she walked out.
Sybel Black. I wondered what her real name was, her dairy-farm name.
My lawyer was playing alone, practicing rail shots, shooting the same shot over and over, center cue ball medium hard, then the same shot with high right English. He looked pretty good, stroking the cue ball cleanly, not striking it. But he had no character. A thousand-dollar stroke with a two-dollar mind, as they say in poolrooms.
"Artie. What say? You get in?"
"Yeah."
"Another satisfied client." He leaned down to shoot another rail shot, but I laid three twenties and a ten in front of the object ball. "Ahh, a retainer. Modest, but a retainer still."
"I might be in danger," I said. "Maybe not, but just in case, I'd like to hire a friend. A strong friend."
"If you're in danger, as your lawyer, I advise you to seek help from the authorities."
"Okay, thanks anyway." I reached for my money, but my lawyer shot the cue ball at my hand.
"I'm required to say shit like that, Artie, in order to maintain my standing in the professional community. If you don't want to take my advice, okay. I certainly won't leave you without legal assistance. Besides, I'm on retainer." He folded the retainer into his shirt pocket. "You want a weighty friend. No probl
em. What kind would you like?"
"Well, I'm not sure. I don't want a guy to walk beside me like I'm Frank Sinatra."
"Check."
"Did you read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy?"
"You mean you want Alec Guinness?"
"Smiley wanted someone to 'watch his back,' someone to follow behind, stay out of sight, and make sure he wasn't being followed."
"An ass man. No problem, but they cost. You can't get the average psychopath or nightclub bouncer for a position like that. You need a hardass with a degree of intellectual prowess."
"I might need two. One for a woman."
"We can get you a swat team if you want."
"Just the one to start."
"Better give me a deuce down."
I put $400 on the table, and gave him another $100 bill.
"Want to play some nine ball for old times?" he asked.
"Nah, I have things to do."
"Come on, Artie. One game. You can even have your old cue back. For old times."
We played for two hours.
"Feels pretty good, huh, Artie? Feels like law-school days, back when we thought the world was round."
"Yeah," I said. It felt good.
TEN
I STOOD ON the bow of the staten island ferry and watched the Statue of Liberty slide by on the right until the rain ruined visibility. I went inside where, shivering on a fiberglass bench with the universal ass molded in, I sat brooding on that family in the photographs. If it was Billie's, it lay in wreckage, two-thirds dead, the other moldering in a grubby, overpriced Staten Island nursing home. If not Billie's, what was she trying to tell me by putting someone else's family snapshots in that ice tray? What was she trying to tell me, anyway, and why the fuck didn't she tell me when she was alive!
"Excuse me," a woman seated nearby asked a man passing up the aisle. "Where does this ferry go?"
"It'ly," the man replied.
As we docked, I watched a half-eaten watermelon bob red side up in our backwash like a huge disembodied wound. Dibbs had promised me an easy walk up Bay Street from the ferry slip to the Bright Bay Nursing Home. On a fair day it might have been pleasant enough, the Statue glinting in the sun, the towering Lower Manhattan skyline, and all that shiny water, but today it was a nasty slog into the teeth of a wet sea wind.
I passed six other nursing homes on the way to Bright Bay. The dying district. You linger here for a while; then, when you finally cash your check to everyone's relief, they truck you over to one of the huge cemeteries in Queens, a view of Manhattan available from both places. I arrived at Bright Bay in a bad funk. Externally, the place was no different from the others. They were all low-slung single-story buildings that looked like budget motels on a southern interstate. She might have posed in any of these doorways to have her picture taken with her Raggedy Ann doll.
If you were casting an old western and you needed an undertaker, Dibbs would be your man, with a long buzzard neck, sallow, sunken cheeks, and hooded eyes. When he met me in the lobby, his hawk hand outstretched, I thought this trip would exceed all my expectations of gloom. This grim little bastard was making nice to my money while he kept the old folks drugged stupid and lost in their own filth. I'd read about guys like him and his Medicare racket. No, when he shook my hand, I saw that his eyes were kind—you can't fake eyes—and his home was warm and spotless. Cheerful fresh flowers stood on end tables, and the old folks, neatly dressed and groomed, sat around in soft sofas and smiled in conversation.
Dibbs ushered me toward a door with his name on it. He paused en route to talk to an elderly woman with blue hair, who had entered from the hallway, supporting herself on an aluminum walker. Dibbs patted her gnarled hand and asked, "How are those feet, Mrs. Florian?" I didn't hear her answer, but it made Dibbs chuckle. He pinched a white mum from a vase and stuck it in the top buttonhole of her sweater. Mrs. Florian giggled.
Dibbs's office was only slightly more spacious than a walk-in closet. He had a plain metal desk with an extra chair and a Mr. Coffee machine. There was hardly room for anything else. Dibbs turned his desk chair around, offered me the extra one, and we sat knee to knee, his back pressed against his desk, mine against the wall. "Coffee, Mr. Deemer?"
"Yes." I passed him a check for $2,158.68.
"Ah, I'm much relieved. Frankly, I was frightened you wouldn't or couldn't assume care for Mrs. Burke. The hardest thing I do is send these people off to municipal care. Harder than watching them loaded into the funeral car. Mrs. Burke, you should know, is in no physical pain, but for her, reality is a moot point. Would you like a splash of rum in that coffee, Mr. Deemer?"
"Yes."
He poured us both a big splash from a bottle of Mount Gay.
"Old age is nature's cruelest joke, Mr. Deemer. Makes one angry at one's own God." He poured us another splash.
I showed him the picture of the woman with the doll. "Is this her?"
"Yes. Not a flattering likeness, however. You've never met her?"
"No. I promised Billie that if anything happened to her, I'd take care of her mother. That is her mother, isn't it? The woman in the picture?"
"Yes. Ms. Burke came regularly to visit. She called her 'Mom.' But I have no legal proof of their relationship."
"Did Billie or her mother ever mention the name of Beemon?"
"Beemon? Why, no."
"Billie told me that her father lived in California. The police haven't been able to locate him. He should be informed."
"Mrs. Burke did mention her husband once or twice, not recently, though. She said he was killed in an aviation accident."
"She did? She said that?"
"Yes, she has her lucid moments."
"Have you ever seen this?" I showed him the photograph of the Life magazine cover. "That is Danny Beemon."
He looked at Ace and looked back at me, his eyes full of questions. I think my excitement was making Dibbs a little nervous. I drank up to collect myself. Billie lied about her mother and father. Her father was dead, her mother alive. And her father's name was Beemon.
"You see, Mr. Dibbs, if her father's dead, then there's no one to claim her body. Except her mother."
"Is it likely that the authorities will want to question Mrs. Burke about the crime? In my opinion, that would be most undesirable."
"I'll try to prevent it."
"You have that power?"
"No, but the police think Billie's mother died when she was a child."
"And why is that? If you don't mind my asking."
"Because that's what Billie told us all."
"I see." He didn't, of course, but he seemed willing to let it ride, and I appreciated that.
"Could I speak to Mrs. Burke?"
"Certainly...She leads a very tranquil life, Mr. Deemer. I think the best service we can do her is to keep it that way."
"I'd like to show her these photographs, that's all."
"Finish your coffee."
The recreation room was adjacent to the lobby. We entered through a set of French doors with crinkly-clean drapes. Five old guys in suits played stud for money and smoked mean-looking black cigars. Intent, none of them looked up when Dibbs and I walked past the table. Other old folks sat before the big picture window reading or watching the shipping maneuver in the harbor.
She was sitting alone watching a televised baseball game. On the field the sun shone cheerfully. She held the Raggedy Ann doll to her chest with both hands.
"Hi, Eleanor," said Dibbs. "How are you doing today?"
"Fine. Gooden's pitching. The Mets just scored four, and it's only the second." Her wrinkled cheeks twitched with glee.
"Well done, Mets. Eleanor, I'd like you to meet someone. This is Arthur Deemer."
"Artie. How do you do, Mrs. Burke?"
"Eleanor. How do you do?" We shook hands. Her eyes seemed clear and cogent to me.
"Artie would like to watch a few innings and chat awhile."
"Oh, how nice."
I sat beside her. I
could smell her perfume, floral, lilacs perhaps.
"They're at Atlanta. Top of the third, four-zero."
The count went three and two on Dykstra while I watched her profile and Raggedy Ann eyed me ambiguously. Mrs. Burke still owned pieces of Billie's face, the masculine cleft chin, the steep forehead, and the long, narrow nose. Dykstra fought off several tough pitches, then walked.
"He's good," Mrs. Burke nodded her approval. "Now they can do all kinds of things with a four-to-nothing lead."
I looked away from her mother's beautiful cleft chin before it made me sob. I looked to the game, but there was no refuge on the diamond. I looked back into Raggedy Ann's button eyes. Backman bunted Dykstra to second.
"May I show you some photographs, Mrs. Burke?"
"Pictures?"
"Yes. Billie gave them to me."
"Billie takes nice pictures. Clear. Sad, though."
I laid the four Family Snaps side by side along the edge of the glass coffee table at her knees. Memories seemed to cross her face like mountain clouds across the sun. I pointed to Mom beside the Christmas tree and at the ocean's edge. "Is this you, Mrs. Burke?"
"That was a long time ago. There's Billie. Sweet little girl." She petted Billie's childhood face with her index finger. "Oh. There's Petey."
"Petey?"
"Petey the puppy. He lived to be eighteen."
"Oh."
"Yes. Petey. He was sweet."
"Mrs. Burke, this man in the pictures, was he Billie's father?"
"Sure," she said.
I pointed to Danny Beemon on the cover of Life. "He must have been famous."
"Oh, yes. A hero. He traveled all over with the stars. Who are you, Mr. Deemer?"
Good question. "I'm a friend of Billie's. She gave me those pictures, but I don't exactly know why."
"Why don't you ask her?"
"Well, I think she wanted me to find out on my own."
"Billie's an odd one, all right. She takes after her father." She giggled.
"Did you remarry after he died?" I asked.
"What?"
"Please pardon me for asking."
Lover Man: An Artie Deemer Mystery Page 7
