Basket Case (14 page)

So it goes for an hour. MacArthur Polk's endurance is impressive, as is his enthusiasm for self-aggrandizement. Fortunately he won't be around to read the story, as I have no intention of bogging it down with mawkish deathbed ramblings. Three or four wistful quotes ought to do the job.

Still, he is not an unlikable or tedious interview. He's feisty and coarse and colorfully blunt-spoken, as the dying are entitled to be. For me it's hardly a wasted afternoon, spent in the company of one who has led a full life. Eighty-eight years is something to shoot for.

"I always believed a paper should be the conscience of its community," he is saying for the third time. "News isn't just the filler between advertisements. It's the spine of the business. You write that down?"

"Every word," I assure him.

"Think you got plenty for your article?"

"More than enough."

"Good," Polk growls. "Now all I gotta do is croak and you're good to go."

"Don't hurry on account of me."

"Close that damn notebook, Mr. Tagger. We've got some important matters to discuss, you and I. Off the record."

I can't imagine what.

"Put it away!" the old man tries to bark, though the only sound from his lips is a flatulent sibilance. He paws at the tracheostomy valve and finally grabs for the call button. The same unflappable nurse comes in and calmly clears the valve so that MacArthur Polk can continue speaking.

"Thank you, darling." He squeezes both her hands. She bends down and kisses him sweetly on his blue-veined scalp.

"I love you," says the old man.

"Love you, too," says the nurse.

Now I get it.

"Mr. Tagger, say hello to my wife," Polk says. "Ellen, this is the obituary man from the paper."

"Nice to meet you," says Ellen Polk, shaking my hand. "Did he throw the bedpan again? Mac, are you misbehaving?"

"Sit down, darling," he tells her.

They both see it in my expression. Mrs. Polk says to me: "I'm not what you expected, am I?"

Bingo. I was expecting a shark in designer heels; a predatory blonde with store-bought boobs and probate lawyers in the closet. Ellen Polk is no gold digger; she's a hardworking health care provider.

"We met in the cardiac wing," says Old Man Polk.

"He was a regular," Ellen adds.

"She let me grab her tush," the old man warbles proudly.

"In your dreams, Mac."

"Tell the truth, darling. You wanted me."

"That's right," she says. "I've got a thing for guys on ventilators. That sucking noise really turns me on."

Polk crows. Ellen rises to kiss him goodbye.

"No, stay," he tells her. "This concerns you, too."

Then, to me, the old man says: "Mr. Race Maggad III came to visit me here, Mr. Tagger. Why is that, you suppose?"

I play along. "He thinks of you as a father figure?"

"No, he detests me."

"Now, Mac—" says Ellen.

"Oh, it's true." When the old man gulps, the valve at his throat gives off a muted peep. "Maggad hates me, Mr. Tagger, but he's kissing ass because I've got something he desperately wants, preferably before I die."

"What would that be?" I ask.

MacArthur Polk looks at his wife, who looks at me. They're both smiling. I suppose I should be smiling, too.

The old man says, "You're gonna enjoy this, Mr. Tagger."

Meeting the lovely Mrs. MacArthur Polk has got me thinking about another young wife, Mrs. James Stomarti, who might not have been so devoted to her husband. After departing Charity Hospital I impulsively decide to go see if Jimmy's widow really left for California, as she told me she would at the funeral.

What little I know about Cleo Rio comes from a back issue of Spin, which I tracked down through a friend at a guitar store. The article, which appeared shortly after the "Me" video was released, said the former Cynthia Jane Zigler was born and raised in Hammond, Indiana. At age fifteen she dropped out of school and, joined by two boyfriends, ran off to Stockholm. There she won third place in a talent contest, doing ABBA tunes in a topless rock band. The story said she moved back to the States and occasionally sang backup for Sheryl Crow and Stevie Nicks before being signed by a minor label. Buoyed by the instant success of "Me," Cleo Rio summarily fired her agent, manager, record producer and voice coach. The usual "creative differences" were cited. "It's time I broke some new ground," she told the magazine, at the crusty old age of twenty-three. Her former business manager, who claimed Cleo once tried to run him over with a UPS truck, was quoted as saying, "She's a greedy, ruthless, world-class cunt, but I wish her only the best."

Arriving at Silver Beach, I select a municipal lot in the shadow of the monstrous condo tower where I interviewed Cleo. I luck into a parking spot with a view of the eastern face of the building. Closing one eye, I count upward to the nineteenth floor. Nobody is on the balcony, and the shades are drawn.

I take out a secondhand copy of Stomatose, Jimmy's solo CD, which I found at a discount record store. The cover features a photograph of James Bradley Stomarti taken in his Roger Daltrey phase, curly golden tresses spilling to his shoulders. He has been posed in a hospital bed with his eyelids taped and tubes snaking from his ears, nostrils, mouth and even his navel.

Stomatose, comatose. Nobody ever accused a record company of being too subtle.

Surprisingly, the first cut on the album is acoustical. It's called "Derelict Sea," and Jimmy's vocals are stunning; beautiful, really. The next song is "Momma's Marinated Monkfish," a dissonant heavy-metal screechfest that repeats itself for nearly twelve dirge-like minutes. It's so awful it could be a parody, AC/DC doing a cover of "A Day in the Life." The whole record is similarly uneven and self-indulgent, suggesting an overabundance of cocaine in the studio. By the sixth track I can't take any more. I switch to FM and doze off serenely to Bonnie Raitt.

It's dusk when passing sirens awaken me; a southbound fire truck, followed by an ambulance. I think of MacArthur Polk and wonder if I dreamed the interview; it wouldn't be the first time. Then I notice my notebook lying on the passenger seat. Flipping it open to the first page, I see written in my own hand: Put down that I was a fighter…

So it really happened, which means the old loon really asked me to do what I remember him asking me. Which raises the possibility he is clinically insane.

More research is required.

Peering upward, I now see lights in the apartment of the widow Stomarti. Two figures stand side by side on the scalloped balcony, looking out toward the Atlantic.

From the glove compartment I retrieve a nifty little pair of Leica field glasses, a gift from a woman I once dated. (A life member of the Audubon Society, she had hoped in vain to get me hooked on birding.) Steadying the binoculars, I slowly bring into focus the two figures—Cleo Rio and the coppery-haired, cologne-soaked young stud I'd encountered in her elevator. It would appear they're having cocktails.

Cleo is wearing a hot-pink ball cap and a loopy big-toothed smile, her free hand stroking her companion's phenomenal mane. They turn to face each other, setting their drinks on the concrete parapet. Next comes the predictable kiss and the slow clinch, followed by Mrs. Stomarti's inevitable descent to her knees and the commencement of piston-like bobbing.

Jimmy was everything to me, you know?

Cleo said it. I put it in the newspaper.

I never met James Bradley Stomarti but I find myself pissed off on his departed behalf. I shove the field glasses into the glove box and start my car.

Grubby, tacky, low, slimy, shabby—I know there's a better word for such behavior from a new widow.

Try wrong.

Yeah, that's it.

12

Jimmy Stoma's sportfisherman is docked bayside at the Silver Beach Marina. It's a thirty-five-foot Contender called Rio Rio. The name painted on the transom looks new, Jimmy having rechristened the vessel in honor of his child bride.

Led Zeppelin blares from the cabin, where a light is visible. I step aboard and rap on the door. The music shuts off and there's Jay Burns, filling the companionway. He's wearing a black tank top, crusted khaki shorts and skanky flip-flops. He looks drunk and he smells stoned. His pouchy Gingrich cheeks are splotched vermilion and his pupils are shrunk to pixels. The unfortunate ponytail appears not to have been groomed since the funeral.

"Who're you?" Burns blinks like a toad that just crawled out of the bog.

"Jack Tagger from the Union-Register. We met at the church, remember?"

"Not really."

Jay Burns is wide and untapered, though not as tall as I am. He would have played middle linebacker in college, before all that lean meat went to lard.

"I'm doing a story about Jimmy. You said we could chat."

"Doubtful," he mumbles. "How the hell'd you find me?"

"Off the police report in Nassau. It listed this marina as your home address."

"Not for long," says Burns.

"It's a helluva nice boat," I say.

"Make an offer, sport. Cleo's selling."

"May I come in?"

"Whatever," he says indolently. Burns is so loaded that our brief chitchat has tired him out.

The cabin is a mess but at least it's air-conditioned. Using an empty Dewar's bottle as a probe, I clear a place for myself among the porn magazines and pizza boxes. Jay Burns sprawls on the floor with sunburned legs extended and his back propped against the door of the refrigerator. He relights a joint, and I'm not at all offended when he doesn't offer me a hit.

Breaking the ice in my usual smooth way, I say: "Hey, I was listening to Stomatose on the way over. You played on a few of those cuts, right?"

Burns responds with a constipated sigh: "Jimmy asked me to."

"The notes said you co-wrote 'All Humped Out.' "

"That's right," he says with a sneer, "and I'm saving up the royalties to buy me a Mountain Dew."

I abandon bogus flattery as a strategy. "How old is the boat?"

"Four years. Five, I dunno." Jay Burns is barely glancing my way. The cabin air is severe with pepperoni and reefer.

"Cleo said you brought it across from the Bahamas by yourself."

"No biggie," he says.

"Where'd you learn to run blue water?"

"Hatteras. Where I grew up."

"Ever been through anything like this before?" I ask.

"Anything like what?"

"You know. The diving accident, losing your best friend—"

Trailing blue smoke, Burns levers to his feet and lurches toward the head. "I gotta take a crap," he says, shedding a sandal en route.

I use the interlude to pluck from the galley stovetop the latest issues of Spin and Rolling Stone, both of which are open to obituaries of Jimmy Stoma. The articles are kindly written and differ little in the details of the drowning. Even Cleo Rio's words are practically the same. "Jimmy died doing what he loved best," she is quoted as saying in Spin. And in Rolling Stone: "Jimmy died doing what made him happiest."

Interestingly, there's no mention of her "wicked bad vibe" in advance of her husband's fatal dive. Perhaps because I'd braced her at the funeral, the widow Stomarti has omitted the tale of the tainted fish chowder. She has not, however, failed to plug her upcoming Shipwrecked Heart in both articles. I would have been flabbergasted if she hadn't. I also expected at least one of the magazines to get wind of Jimmy Stoma's unfinished solo project, yet there's not a word about this—maybe Cleo told them it wasn't true.

When Jay Burns finally emerges, unzipped and shoeless, I ask about Cleo's premonition on the day Jimmy Stoma died. Burns squints blearily. "You lost me on that one, sport."

"She told the New York Times she'd begged him not to make the dive. Said he'd gotten food poisoning and was in so much pain he could hardly put his tank on."

As stoned as he is, Burns still senses quicksand. "Cleo would know," he mumbles, "if anybody."

"Jimmy didn't say anything to you before he went in the water?"

"He wasn't no complainer. He coulda had a broken neck for all I know and he wouldn't of said word uno. That was Jimmy."

Burns is growing jittery. He spits his doobie and gropes over my head for a pack of Marlboros, stashed beside the CD player. He sucks down half a cigarette before speaking again.

"I'm fuckin' bushed, man."

"Got anything to drink?" I ask.

Burns stares heavily at me.

"Relax, Jay. I'll get it myself." I squeeze past him toward the refrigerator. The cabin is cramped and rank. A cold beer takes the sour burn out of my throat.

Burns says, "These questions, like I tole you, Cleo would be the one to say. She could help you."

"That wreck you guys were diving on—what kind of plane was it? Cleo wasn't sure."

To signal his annoyance, Burns emits a rumbling gastric grunt. "DC-6," he says, cigarette bobbing.

"She said it was a drug plane."