Lover Man: An Artie Deemer Mystery (10 page)

"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 problem. 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."

"Died? You said died. He didn't die."

"He's alive?"

"Of course."

"But the man in the pictures is Danny Beemon."

"D.B.! Of course. I know who my husband is. Don't you think I know who my husband is!"

"Yes. I'm sorry. Danny Beemon is alive?"

"Yes! There he is right there!" She very nearly shouted it.

"Where?" I asked in a frightened whisper. She was pointing at the television. Keith Hernandez stroked a line drive two feet fair to right. Dykstra scored easily.