“Go around the block! Or you’ll be back pickin’ shit with the homing pigeons!”
Ronnie drove off.
“Crystal, if there’s hard evidence out there that’ll land them in the joint, they ain’t gonna ask a lot of intelligent questions before they start whacking. You got to take me serious on this.”
“I do, Uncle Ray.”
“…It’d be best if we didn’t talk for a while.”
“Okay,” said Crystal without turning around.
“Do you forgive me on this?”
“Sure, Ray.”
“You need money?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Here, take two grand.” He handed the bills to Calabash. “Good luck, sweetie—” Uncle Ray couldn’t extricate himself from the car. I gave him a shove from behind. Out, he turned around and thanked me.
No one followed us back uptown. At least, we didn’t see anybody follow us uptown.
Crystal, Calabash, and Jellyroll lined up on the bed as I inserted the tape into the mouth of the machine. I couldn’t remember my bedroom ever being so full of thick tension before. Malaise, yes, sexual longing and loneliness, certainly, but never a tension like this. We had in our hands—more precisely, in my VCR—that which all the crazies wanted, the thing for which Chet had died young. I took a seat in the gallery, aimed the remote, and pressed the button…
A snowy street in a small town. Homes bedecked with Christmas ornaments. A sign on a post: “You Are Now in Bedford Falls.”
What?
The people in the homes, solid, simple, American homes, are praying:
“God, help George Bailey.”
“He never thinks of himself, God, that’s why George is in trouble tonight.”
Then cut to the night sky, the firmament—Heaven—where God and Joseph are talking:
“Hello, Joseph, trouble?”
“Looks like we’ll have to send someone down. A lot of people are asking for help for a man named George Bailey.”
“Send for Clarence. He hasn’t earned his wings yet.”
“Hey,” said Calabash, “I saw dis movie! It’s A Wonderful Life.”
Crystal and I sat staring at these old, familiar images with our jaws hanging slack. Jellyroll wagged his tail at all the togetherness on the bed. George Bailey rescued his brother Harry, future war hero, from the icy pond…For a dim instant, I thought Chet must have hidden the wrong tape in his freezer.
Then the light dawned. Suddenly I understood. Even before I could sort through the twisted logic of the thing, I understood. I was certain—
There never was any tape! It never existed.
“What is this,” said Crystal, “some kind of sick joke?”
“No,” I said.
“No?”
“Chet made it up.”
“What do you mean, Chet made it up?
On the beach at Fire Island, Chet had told me that his story came to a dead end “but then he heard about the tape.” He didn’t hear about the tape. He invented it. He invented it to shake up the principals in the story, to dislodge them from deep cover, to blow them out into the open. And it worked. He’d started a war—trouble was, he had ended up one of its casualties. Even while I thought him utterly nuts, I admired him for his dedication.
“What are you talking about!” Crystal demanded.
I had drift ed off, left her hanging.
“Chet was dying, and he knew it. He could barely talk, but he started coaching me on the contents of the tape. He told me how the assholes—Trammell, Tiny, Norm, Danny Barcelona, and the Fifth Man—were dressed, the time of day, even the color of the umbrella. Why did he waste his last breaths on that, if I could see for myself by watching the tape? Because I couldn’t watch the tape—because there never was a tape.” God and the angels watched while young George Bailey saved Mr. Gower, the distraught druggist, from ruin by not delivering those poison capsules.
“Look at it like this. Everything got started because the assholes thought there was a tape that’d incriminate them, a smoking gun, as Uncle Ray put it. Trammell decided to drown. Tiny Archibald kidnapped you as a way to get to Trammell, because he thought Trammell made the tape. Norm Armbrister showed up to help rescue you because he thought Tiny made the tape.” The dance floor parted over the swimming pool. George and Mary went in first.
Crystal was staring off, thinking. “But wait a minute. He couldn’t make up the meeting. There had to actually have been a meeting, right?”
“Yeah. Somehow Chet got wind of it. He said that the meeting took place during a garden party around Tiny’s pool. Presumably, a lot of people attended. Chet must have learned about it from one of them. He said something about a guy whose body had to be identified by dental records—”
“Great.”
Mary and George sang, “Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight—”
“It doesn’t make sense any other way…Something else Chet said before he died—he said, ‘If you use it right, this tape can save your lives.’ ”
“Right, it worked great for him.”
“But his purposes were different from ours. He wanted to stir things up. We want to do the opposite. I think he meant that if they thought we had the tape, if they thought that harming us would cause the tape to go public, then they’d leave us alone.”
“Yeah, when they hear we got our own copy of It’s a Wonderful Life, they’ll be paralyzed with fear.”
“I love dot angel Clarence,” said Calabash.
The phone rang. “Every time a bell rings, it means an angel gets his—”
“Hello?”
“Jesus, Artie, I just heard—” It was Shelly, Jellyroll’s agent. “He actually threw up? Right there o on the set, he barfed it right up—?”
“Shelly, can I get back to you—?”
“I just got a call from the Mr. Big Butthole at R-r-ruff. He said Fleckton’ll never work in this town again. He’s a goner. Mr. Big said New and Improved R-r-uff ’s a goner, too. You know how he put it? He said, ‘We’re gonna have to eat this one.’ I picture the dumb fucks sitting around this big boardroom table munching tons of kibble. Tell me, Artie, was it hilarious? When he hooped?”
“It was pretty hilarious.” Poor Mr. Fleckton.
“They want to renegotiate. We’re within our rights to stick them with the rest of the contract. As Jellyroll’s agent, I suggest that we’ve got them by the short ones, and we ought to run with it.”
“Whatever you think, Shelly.”
“You okay? You don’t sound too good. Jellyroll’s okay, right?”
“Everything’s fine. I’ll get back to you.”
The phone rang again as soon as I hung up. “Hello.”
“Can I speak to Crystal, please?”
“Uncle Billy? Is that you?”
Crystal leapt up beside me.
“This is Uncle Billy. Is this Artie?”
“Yes, Billy.”
“Is Crystal there?”
I passed her the receiver.
He spoke for a while. Head bowed, Crystal listened. “Come on up, Billy.” She hung up. “What could I do?” she asked me. “He was right around the corner.”
“It’s okay.”
“There’s probably a string of assholes following him. But I couldn’t tell him to hang around on the street. Could I?”
“Of course not.”
“I gonna go down and clear de way for him,” said Calabash, sliding a gun into his waistband. I’d noticed that as time had passed, the guns Calabash stashed on his person had grown larger and larger. This one looked like a small bazooka.
I walked him to the door. “Be careful of yourself first, Calabash.”
“Don’t worry about dot.”
When I returned to the bedroom, I found Crystal supine on the bed, her arm across her eyes.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I was trying to remember what it was like. When we’d just met. When we’d make love. They t
ook that from us.”
“I still love you.”
“You do?”
I lay down beside her. I felt inopportunely aroused.
Calabash knocked his tap-tap-tappity-tap on the front door.
I got up to open it, and Calabash ushered Uncle Billy into the room. He was the picture of contrition, hands clasped in front, head down. I wanted to say something encouraging, but I couldn’t think what.
“I hope you’re not mad at me, Crystal.”
“Don’t worry, Uncle Billy, I’m not. I’m just glad to see you safe.”
Uncle Billy, knees crackling, crouched laboriously to pet Jellyroll. I made coffee. We sat in the living room after Calabash and I dragged chairs in from the dining table.
“Where have you been, Uncle Billy?”
“I been hiding. People’ve been after me. That’s why I decided to drown…like Timmy. But that didn’t work out so good. I hid on Arnie Lovejoy’s boat—remember Arnie?—but that didn’t work out so good, either. People came. I’m tired of hiding, so I came here.” He looked from one to the other of us and, finally, even to Jellyroll. Jellyroll licked his hand. I thought Billy was going to cry. “I never loved Timmy more’n I loved you, Crystal. I loved you both.”
“I love you, too, Uncle Billy.”
“He liked me to call him Timmy. He was like a son to me.”
“Do you mind if I call him Trammell?”
“No.”
How long had it been since I’d heard a measure of jazz?
“Uncle Billy, Trammell didn’t really drown. He faked it. He stole money from thieves and had to disappear.”
“No,” said Billy categorically.
“No?”
“Timmy wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t. I mean, he’d steal things. Timmy was not a good person, but he wouldn’t go away like that and not tell me where he went. We was partners. No, not Timmy. Timmy just wouldn’t.”
“You were partners?”
“Yes, partners.”
“In what?”
“Well, before Timmy drowned, he said I ought to have money for the Golden Hours and things like expenses. He put the money in a bank in Nassau, Bermuda. He said he knew he didn’t treat you too good. He said when I died, I could give the money to you, and then maybe things’d be even. See, I told Timmy I knew he didn’t treat you good as a husband, but it takes a man to be a good husband. Timmy wasn’t a man. Timmy was still a boy. That was Timmy’s problem. He did as best as boys can.”
“Uncle Billy, do you mean to say you have their money now?” Crystal asked, as if speaking to a child.
“Their money? It’s our money. Timmy gave it to us because he was sorry.”
“Okay. But you have it?”
“Oh, yes. Well, no, I mean, I don’t have it in my wallet or anything like that. It’s in Bermuda. But I have the papers. I have the papers right here.” Uncle Billy began searching himself, patting his pockets. He felt something inside his shirt and smiled at his success. He removed a green bankbook, much like a standard savings-account passbook. He handed it to Crystal.
Crystal opened it. Then she gasped. Her hand went to her mouth. Staring at Uncle Billy, she passed the little book to me.
I gasped, too. The book was stamped with twin rearing lions between which was printed “International Bank of the Bahamas” in fancy script. No transactions were noted, merely a balance in stark, naked figures: $34,888,000.27. I had to read it three times before I got it straight, before the million place became clear.
“That’s a lot of money, Billy,” Crystal squeaked.
“I know it. It’s all yours.” He was smiling now.
I flipped a page, and there it was:
Account: Crystal Spivey
Golden Hours Billards
254 Avenue X
Brooklyn, New York, USA
I handed the book back to Crystal. Absently, she passed it to Calabash. The sum knocked him back a half stride. Even Jellyroll didn’t pull down that kind of jack.
I began to feel deeply frightened at the size of this monster. Trammell had stolen nearly thirty-five million bucks, yet nobody seemed to care. They only wanted the tape. I already knew those assholes were willing to kill. Mere money never impressed me as much as murder, but there was something about seeing that absurd figure next to Crystal’s name. It felt like her death warrant.
“See, it’s real easy,” said Billy. “You just call a man at the bank and tell him your number and the password. You can change the number and the password anytime you want. The password used to be Barraclough, but I don’t know why. So I changed it to Zuzu, like Arnie’s boat. And I put it in your name.”
Looking at the bankbook, Calabash said, “Dis is Nassau in de Bahamas. Dis ain’t any Bermuda. Dis my home. We can take care o’ t’ings in de Bahama Islands, me and Uncle Fergus and a bunch o’ de hardboys.” When Calabash speaks, people tend to listen. Was he taking over? I desperately hoped so. He put a hand the size of a welding glove on Uncle Billy’s shoulder. “Say, Mister Billy, it time for you to go on a trip to my island. Nobody bother you dere. You can sit on de patio and watch de sea roll in and out.”
“Bermuda?”
“No, not Bermuda. De Bahamas.”
“Nobody’ll bother me there?”
“Nobody. My own uncle take care o’ dot.”
Uncle Billy looked at Crystal. “Will you be coming?”
“…Yes.”
“You all be my guests.”
“Gee,” said Uncle Billy, “I always wanted to go to Bermuda.”
“No, not Bermuda. De Bahamas. You like de Bahamas even better.”
“How old is your uncle?”
“He about yer age.”
“Does he like to fish?”
“Sure. Uncle Fergus love to fish.”
“Gee, maybe we can fish together…Can I go home and pack?”
“No, Uncle Billy,” said Crystal, “I think the idea is you go right now. Can you do that?”
“Well, I didn’t know what to do when I came here. I saw what they did to my house. I can’t go there. So…yes. But I don’t have any money.”
“I’ll take care of it,” said Crystal with a quick glance at me.
It was all I could do not to giggle like a chucklehead.
So there it was, decided. Uncle Billy would leave for Poor Joe Cay. Calabash made a couple of phone calls to arrange for members of his family to meet Billy in Nassau, where they would catch a flight to the airport on Eleuthera. From there, they’d travel by boat to Poor Joe Cay.
Uncle Billy began to cry as the final arrangements fell into place. His Adam’s apple bounced pathetically.
“I go down first,” said Calabash. He stuff ed a howitzer into his belt and went down to scout things out. Five minutes later, Billy and I went down. I didn’t see Calabash on the street
I let the first cab go by just in case it was a setup. I let another go by and hailed the third. My street was nearly empty of pedestrians. A happy young couple strolled toward us, he carrying a bottle of wine in a bag, she a bouquet of flowers. I thought wanly about Crystal’s fuchsia top and the old days of a week or so ago. I opened the cab door for Uncle Billy.
He paused before he got in, looked at me through wet eyes, then hugged me tightly. I watched the back of the old man’s head disappear around the corner. It was dark now, ominous black clouds gathering to the southwest over the river.
I looked around for Calabash. But he was lurking somewhere in the darkness. Calabash can disappear behind a parking meter.
“Ach, Artie!”
I nearly jumped off the sidewalk. My heart pounded as I turned to face Mrs. Fishbein.
“I t’ought you vas a mugger. Waiting to pounce. Boof, boof on za brain—you’re a turnip.” Then she went into the building.
But if Mrs. Fishbein could sneak up on me, who else—? I spun around twice. There was a little old man, like the ghost of Mrs. Fishbein’s husband, waddling up the street. As he got closer, I saw that he wa
s a Hasidic Jew, in black coat, pants, hat, and earlocks.
I gave Mrs. Fishbein time to get into the elevator before I returned to the lobby. I had barely unlocked the street door when I heard a muffled squeal behind me—
It was the Hasidic man. His feet hung twelve inches off the pavement. He dangled from Calabash’s enormous arms. They were wrapped around the Hasid’s head. His hat fell off. I saw that the earlocks were attached to his hat, as opposed to his head. In the streetlight, I could see the top of the man’s head. The hairless crown was ringed by a jagged, purple scar. I opened the door.
Calabash carried him past me toward the elevator and walked his face right into the wall beside the call button. “I gonna break your sneaky neck like a twig in a hurricane.”
“Talk!” said Norm, muffled. “Talk first!”
Calabash dropped him, spun him around, and pinned his throat to the wall with one hand.
“Invite me up?” sputtered Norm.
Mercifully, the elevator arrived empty. Calabash heaved him in hard.
“If you keep doing that, I’m going to report you to B’nai B’rith.”
That’s what we needed, spook wit.
“So where’s Uncle Billy off to in such haste?”
“The Klondike. There’s been a big strike. He’s a prospector at heart.”
“Cold in the Klondike. Me, I prefer the lower latitudes. Say the Bahamas.”
The elevator arrived at my floor. Calabash peeked out, found the hallway empty, and led us to my door.
“Evening, Crystal,” said Norm congenially.
“Who are you supposed to be?” she said, looking him up and down.
“I’m Rebbe Armbrister. Calabash knocked off my hat. Without it, my disguise is incomplete.”
“When are you going to get out of our lives?”
“Chet Bream is dead,” said Norm. You could tell he threw it out to test our reaction.
“Did you kill him?” I said.
“No.”
“Then your friends did it?”
“They’re no friends of mine. Sure, we were associates in wartime. The Cold War. A great war, but it’s over now, we just have to live with that. The police stopped two guys in a moving van. Turned out the van contained Chet Bream’s body. Shots were exchanged. A policeman was critically wounded, and the two guys were killed. During this time, Chet remained in the van. Chances are the van was stolen and can’t be traced to Concom, but the Concom folks are very nervous, and they’re doing stupid things as a result.”
Lush Life: An Artie Deemer Mystery Page 22
