Lush Life: An Artie Deemer Mystery

by Dallas Murphy

  “Artie.”

  “Artie. What’s it like, Artie, to be around the R-r-ruff Dog all day long?”

  “It’s happy. He’s like a clown in a dog suit.”

  “Wow. A dog like that could break your heart.”

  “I know what you mean.” I did, too. I whistled for him, and he trotted over. He had been off working the room. “Jellyroll, meet Uncle Billy.”

  Billy’s knees cracked about four separate times as he knelt to Jellyroll’s level. They nuzzled each other for a while. Then Billy said, “This is about my favorite dog in the world.”

  Crystal squeezed my hand and said excuse me. On her way up the stairs, she gave Billy a peck on the forehead.

  Billy looked left, then right as if for eavesdroppers, then said, “Listen, I don’t mean to be a buttinski, but let me give you a piece of advice—don’t play her for money.”

  I said that sounded like good advice to me.

  Crystal made a fast change. Ten minutes later, wearing jeans with a frilly blouse, she stood on a chair and asked for the players’ attention. “Billy and I are glad to see you here. We have a big turnout today, so the winner will get $300, second $100, and third $75. We’ll play five-game matches, single elimination. Tournament rules apply: one foul—you get ball-in-hand. You’re allowed one push-out after the break, but you must call it. Those players with a spot—remember, you don’t get it wild. You must call it. And if you make your spot on the break, it comes back up immediately. If you play it off a combination, you have to call it before you shoot. And today we’re starting a new rule the pros are using: if an object ball leaves the table, that’s a foul. The ball spots, and the other player gets cue ball in hand. What else? Oh, if your opponent faces a questionable hit, call me over before he shoots, and I’ll act as referee. Any questions?…No? Well, thanks for coming, it’s nice to see you all here. Have fun and good luck.”

  We drew numbers from a bowl to determine who would play whom in the first match. I drew a heavy fellow with a face that had been around the block a time or two.

  “Hello, I’m Greek,” he said. I had to give Greek the eight ball. He flipped a quarter for the break. I lost. He broke—and made three balls. Great, it was going to be one of those sessions.

  Greek was the kind of player who didn’t aim, didn’t really get into position. He just leaned down and shot fast, but he knew what he was doing. Balls kept going in. He pocketed everything up to the six, and I was already counting myself out, the way losers do.

  But then he screwed up his position on the seven ball. Stroking it too hard, he parked the cue ball directly behind the eight, no chance for a shot. He turned red as he glared at the off ending white ball. Without pausing to line up the angle, he kicked the cue off the side rail, but he missed the seven by a foot.

  That was a foul. I could place the cue ball anywhere I wanted, and I had to make only three balls to win the game. With ball in hand, a child could get out from here. If I only had a child…I made the seven, eight, and then the nine, to win game one.

  I broke solidly. The nine went directly into the corner pocket. I’d won again. I was up two games already. There is nothing like making the nine on the break to bolster confidence. I noticed that Greek had started to wilt. I won game three off the break as well. I didn’t pocket the nine, but I left it, through sheer luck, two inches from the far corner pocket. I made the two and the three and left myself an easy combination off the four. I made the combination to go up three games to none. Gee, this was fun.

  We seesawed back and forth in game four—the balls were lying hard, frozen against their friends or against rails. We both played good safeties, and we both escaped cleverly from them. But then Greek played a bad safety, leaving me an easy shot on the five. I ran out from there. I needed one game to win the set and eliminate Greek. I won it. Greek looked sad, but he shook my hand like a gentleman.

  Jellyroll and I waited by the desk for our next match, and Uncle Billy walked over to join us.

  “Win?” he asked.

  “Yes. I played Greek.”

  Billy nodded. “Poor old Greek, he’s a shortstop. First time he misses, he folds up and goes home.”

  “Who’s tough?” I asked.

  “Anthony. That Latin kid on table two.” He nodded at Anthony, who had eyes like an underfed predator. “And Bird. It’ll be Anthony and Bird battling it out in the finals. That is unless Mr. Artie Deemer slips right in there. I’m rootin’ for you.”

  “Thank you, Billy.”

  “I just want you to be good to Crystal. She’s like a daughter to me.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Billy.”

  Crystal called me for the second match, and Jellyroll and I strode toward the table she indicated. My heart sank. My opponent was Bird. Tall and slim with piercing black eyes, this bird was a raptor. We shook hands. His was bony…

  Well, I beat Bird five games to four. It was close all the way; he’d win one, I’d win the next. A crowd gathered to watch. He was a better player than I. That was clear from his stroke and by the way his cue ball took English. He did things with the cue ball I couldn’t do, but I was playing well, making the hard shots, and I got two lucky rolls, which, I admit, made the difference. Bird knew he was the better player, and he didn’t like those lucky rolls one bit. After it was over, he shook my hand and walked away without looking me in the eye. Crystal had been watching. She made a small nod my way.

  I felt high, flushed with victory. I was moving up in this tournament. My next opponent, named Vic, was about seventeen years old. He was a veritable beginner. He had the six for a spot. I cautioned myself against overconfidence, but I was counting on a win. I played well. They were going in like they had eyes. I didn’t try to do anything fancy with the cue ball, just play the natural angles and use speed of stroke to put me where I wanted to be. And then I happened to glance into the faces standing around the table. Thus far I had avoided doing that. I don’t know if unconsciously my mind’s eye had taken him in or whether I chanced to look up right into his face.

  It was Trammell Weems. The jaunty bastard stood with his hands in his chinos pockets and grinned at me. I tried not to see him, but what could I do? There he was. I missed the nine by a half a foot. The stroke was so bad, I was lucky I didn’t hurt myself. Vic, reprieved, leapt to his feet, his eyes shining like an eight-year-old’s on Christmas morning. He pounded it in.

  Trammell strolled up in his floppy boat shoes. “What say, counselor?”

  I was speechless.

  “It would have been best if you’d made that nine ball. I think this kid has heart. Actually, I’m a little surprised to see you’re still at this vulgar game, a man of your standing in the legal community.”

  “Hello, Trammell.”

  “I hear you’re brazenly escorting my wife about town.”

  “Yeah, I figured it was all right, because she’s not your wife anymore and because she doesn’t like you very much.”

  “How about putting in a good word for me? She’ll listen to you.”

  I didn’t see Crystal until she was upon us. Her jaw was fixed, and her eyes were hard. “What are you doing here, Trammell?”

  “I’m watching my old schoolmate dog the pay ball.” He leaned over as if to give her a peck on the cheek.

  She bobbed away like a boxer. “Get out, Trammell. And leave my uncle alone. He doesn’t need your shit.”

  “He’s the only one in the Spivey family who’ll give me the time of day.”

  “I’ll give you this cue in the head, I’m not kidding.”

  “Okay, okay.” Still grinning his charming grin, he headed for the door.

  He looked good, I thought with some regret. I tried to get Crystal to see me, but she just glared at the back of his head.

  I was finished in this tournament.

  I should have conceded, walked out. Vic stomped me five to two. I couldn’t shoot the cue ball in the hole. The kid couldn’t believe his luck.

  After I absorb
ed that dreadful drubbing, put my cue back in its case, I wandered over near the desk. Crystal was giving Billy hell. “Did you give him his money back?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t, Crystal. We already made a deal. That would be welshing. I couldn’t welsh.” His voice cracked. I thought for a moment he was going to cry.

  Crystal softened her voice. “He hurts people, Billy. That’s his career in life. He’ll hurt you.”

  “I’m sorry, Crystal.”

  “Okay.”

  “But I couldn’t welsh.”

  “Okay, but let this be it. Stay away from Trammell.”

  “I understand.”

  Crystal went away to referee a hit, and I walked over to Billy, calling Jellyroll with me. He has a knack for making humans feel better. He sat and peered up at Billy, whose knees cracked as he lowered himself to my dog’s level.

  “Crystal’s mad at me.”

  “She probably won’t stay mad.”

  “No…Are you out?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, you probably lost concentration.”

  “I sure did.”

  Crystal returned. She kissed Billy on the cheek. “I think we’re gonna go, Uncle Billy.”

  “Sure, you go on. I can handle things from here.”

  “It was nice meeting you, Billy.”

  He said he hoped we wouldn’t be strangers, and I assured him we wouldn’t, though I was very glad to get out of there. Trammell’s presence had always changed the complexion of a room.

  Crystal and I were passing Coney Island before she spoke. “I saw how you were playing before he showed up.”

  “Pretty good, huh? What did he want from Uncle Billy?”

  “His boat.”

  “His boat?”

  “Yeah, Billy has an old fishing boat. He and Trammell, and sometimes Bruce, go fishing in it. They’re pals, Billy and Trammell. He paid Billy seven hundred dollars to use the boat.”

  “Seven hundred dollars seems like a lot.”

  “Yeah, but it probably isn’t.”

  I didn’t want to talk about Trammell Weems anymore.

  FIVE

  I TOOK HER TO dinner at an alsatian restaurant I like on West Nineteenth, and before we’d finished a light first course, we weren’t thinking much about Trammell. At least, I wasn’t, and since the glimmer had returned to her black eyes when she smiled, I assumed Crystal wasn’t either. It felt, in fact, as though Crystal and I had weathered a small piece of adversity together and were stronger for it. Hell, this was real relationship stuff.

  We made love with Thelonious Sphere Monk doing his work, but gently, in the background. I felt like a teenager who’d never felt sex and love together before. Maybe I hadn’t. Damp, we lay together listening. I watched her breasts rise and fall with her breathing.

  “Artie—”

  “Humm?” I had orally occupied myself with the nearest nipple.

  “Artie, I have to go.”

  “Noooo.”

  “I have that tournament.”

  “Could you mail it in?”

  “That would be unprofessional.”

  “What’s first place pay?”

  “Eight grand.”

  “Jellyroll will pay you ten to stay.”

  “Do you want to go with me?”

  “Oh…Sure.” The idea excited me—Crystal running balls in a floor-length, low-cut evening gown, say, of basic black, with shoes and stockings to match. In a crudely male way, I added a garter belt gripping the turn of her hips, perhaps even a black lace merry widow, but of course no pool player could wear that kind of gear, all those wonderful snaps and stays to chafe against the table. Pool players probably wore sensible shoes and panty hose with their evening dresses. I wanted to ask but suppressed the impulse. “Where is it? The tournament, I mean.”

  “Philadelphia.”

  I noticed a wave of misgiving wash over her face. I asked why.

  “…Can I take the invitation back?”

  “You couldn’t concentrate?”

  “I wouldn’t care. So I dogged the nine? I’d be thinking of you in the stands. And in the room. Those women would have me for breakfast.”

  “You need solitude.”

  “And celibacy.”

  She couldn’t spend the night. She had to go home and pack. “Will you be here? I’ll call you. I’ll be back by Monday. Unless I get eliminated early.”

  That was four days, almost a week. I could always hope for early elimination. “I have to do a Jellyroll shoot tomorrow,” I said, “but I’ll be here tomorrow night waiting for your call.” I would pine for the sound of her voice by then.

  I had given no thought at all to the shoot or to any other Jellyroll business, but what difference did it make? These things just happen. I merely attend to protect him from assholes.

  “Trust me, Artie. There is no danger here. Do you think I’d endanger our star? Of course I would not,” pronounced Dirk Black, the director, in his sincere voice, brow furrowed with real caring. “Why, he’s the only reason we’re here.”

  The first two Seeing Eye–dog movies had been directed by a friend of mine, a talented man who had moved on to bigger things, leaving us with Dirk Black, headed in the other direction.

  We stood, Dirk, Jellyroll, and I, amid the ruins of the South Bronx. Production vehicles were parked nose to tail on the shattered street. Most of the cast members were taking a break in their individual trailers, where they figured they wouldn’t get mugged, while the crew fiddled with gear, struck their lights and reflectors from the “set,” one of the few buildings still standing—it was roofless, floorless, void. This was the bad guys’ hideout, and Dirk had just finished the Bad Guys’ Hideout Scene. Now he was ready to bullshit Jellyroll and me—

  “It’s a piece of cake, Artie.” He flipped an arm around my shoulder. “Nat rides from that block right up there to this block right down here where we’re standing. Two blocks, that’s it, two blocks only. What’s two blocks? What could go wrong in two blocks?” He led me across the street, and we stopped at the edge of a watery pit where the sidewalk used to be. “Artie, I happen to be aware of how much weight you place on artistic integrity, so I know you’ll appreciate my problem. I tried it with the dummy, but it didn’t work, artistically. It didn’t have that artistic credibility. I can’t put a thing up there on the big screen that lacks artistic credibility. TV Movie of the Week, that’s one thing, sure, but this is the big screen, Artie. You can’t bullshit the big screen. So that’s where we are today, Artie.”

  “Where’s that, Dirk?” I knew what Dirk wanted. He wanted to strap Jellyroll to the back of a Harley-Davidson while some idiot pretending to be blind drove him at high speed.

  In this edition, Nat Penn, blind PI, and Jellyroll retrieve some Dutch masters paintings stolen by swarthy, effeminate villains, but that really didn’t matter because audiences don’t go to Jellyroll movies for the plot. They go to see Jellyroll be cute. But Dirk Black had stuck in this motorcycle chase, because he thought chases were “intrinsically cinematic.” Strapped to the back of the motorcycle, Jellyroll was supposed to scratch Nat’s back once for a right-hand turn, twice for a left, or maybe it was the other way around.

  Absurdly, the traffic lights still worked. Dirk waited at the corner until the walk sign came on, then led us across the dead street. “Artie, I know you’re going to be a team player on this thing. Just this morning I was telling Victor Castaway, I said, ‘Vic, I know Artie’s going to get with the program on this thing.’ My words. I happen to know the dummy approach off ends Victor, too.”

  I happened to know Vic Castaway (Nat Penn) didn’t give a shit about anything. Vic smoked a lot of northern California homegrown in his van. I knew because the swarthy, effeminate villains and I often joined him.

  “I mean, come on,” Dirk continued, “a dog dummy on the big screen? It isn’t tenable. It’s untenable.” Jellyroll sniff ed Dirk’s shoes. “And that’s why I called you out here today. I want you to meet someo
ne, in case you imagined just any old butthole biker would be driving our star around. This guy will set your mind at ease on the motorcycle trick—”

  Dirk turned me around and led me back across the street—for a moment I thought he was going to wait for the walk sign again—down the line of shiny trailers to a long white RV parked in front of a dead bakery, its entrance cemented shut forever with cinder blocks. Two toothless derelicts sat on the bakery steps gumming pint bottles of Night Train Express and wondering who you had to know to get a piece of this intrinsically cinematic action. Dirk knocked on the white door.

  A big stubbly-faced man with ancient acne pits on his cheeks flung it open. “Ready for me, Blackie?” He was clearly the sort of man’s man a man could trust the life of his dog to.

  “Won’t be long now, Pud, boy, but first I’d like you to meet the star of the show, ta-da: Jellyroll—” Jellyroll sniff ed Pud’s boots. “And this is his handler, Mr. Artie Deemer. Artie, meet Pud Atwell.”

  “Put ’er there, Artie Deemer,” said Pud, offering me his left hand. Shaking it, I noticed his right hand. It had only one finger and a thumb. A purple scar wended a jagged path from the corner of Pud’s left eye to the point of his chin. Perhaps a chain-saw trick had gone awry.

  “Pud is known as the King of the Stunts,” announced Dirk. Then he pretended to punch Pud in the gut, and the two of them did a boxing routine, forehead to forehead, pummeling each other, man to man. Jellyroll cocked his head from side to side, trying to understand what it meant.

  “Yeah, but hell, on the Coast I’m known as king. We’re in the Big Apple now. All bets are off once you’re in the Big Apple. Ain’t that right, Artie? Is that where you live, Artie? Right in the Apple?” He said it with pity in his voice, as if we were talking about my brain tumor. “Must be hard on a dog right in the city.” Pud leaned down to pet Jellyroll. “Shake,” he said. Jellyroll doesn’t shake. “Shake,” Pud insisted. Jellyroll’s tail drooped. Pud straightened, paused, said, “So you’re the trainer of our star, huh, Artie?…You wanna know something interesting? I had a dog looked just like him. Back in Lubbock. I was a half-pint then. I called him Bubba. Yep, I’ll never forget Bubba. Bubba kinda brings up a lump in the throat. Who’d have thought old Bubba mighta been worth the big bucks? But then, this is the Big Apple, that was Lubbock. Come on in, sit a spell.”