The Man Who Loved Women to Death (23 page)

“You can.”

“I’ve met someone else, okay? And he’s nice and he’s got a good job and it’s pretty serious. So I’m thinking I wanna get out of this. Not that I been deceiving him. He knows I’m an entertainer and everything. And he says it’s okay with him. Only, this life makes you kind of hard if you don’t get out in time. I got nineteen thousand saved up. I want to go to college, become like a nurse.” She looked across the table at me imploringly. “Y’know what I’m saying?”

The stripper up on the stage finished her dance now to a smattering of applause. The throbbing disco died. Briefly, there was quiet.

“Yes, Luz, I believe I do. You want Tuttle Cash out of your life.”

“That’s right,” she said, relieved that I understood. “That’s it.”

“He often has that effect on people—particularly women.”

He had made his score at the bar. Four shots of whiskey cradled carefully in one big hand, four bottles of Rolling Rock in the other. Slowly, he started his lurching journey back across the club toward us. Only, he wasn’t going to manage it and he knew it, so he stopped to dispose of one of the shots. And then another one.

I turned back to Luz and her swollen orange lips. “What kind of lipstick is that you have on?”

“It’s Solar Sunburst by Maybelline. I do my whole look myself, y’know, on account of I got a flair for design.” She sipped her cranberry spritzer. “Why you asking?”

“It’s most becoming.” If you like orange. Only it was the wrong brand of orange. The answer man was a Revlon man. What did that mean? What did any of it mean? Was Tuttle stalking her? Was she in danger?

I looked around for him but he seemed to have disappeared. Possibly under a table somewhere. I took a sip of my Rolling Rock. I glanced at the tab and was suitably outraged. I reached for my wallet. And then I heard it:

I heard Ethel Merman singing “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”

It’s true, The King was up there on the stage of Ten’s belting out his old dining hall showstopper at the top of his lungs. The man was singing it. The man was shaking it. The man was stripping it. Off came the jacket and tie, then the shirt. He flung them out into the audience.

Luz gasped in horror. I guess Tuttle hadn’t shared all of his hidden talents with her. And you don’t find a lot of Ethel Merman fans anymore among the young.

There were a few half-hearted snickers from the crowd. One guy called out, “Go for it, Tut!” Mostly, there was indifference. They had come to look at the babes, not some beefy ex-jock with too much booze in him. Mostly, Tuttle was just plain ignored.

Except by the bouncers, of course. Three of them were on him before he could get his pants off. One of them was Eddie, who’d come to Luz’s rescue. They hustled him off the stage to our table. Tuttle was cackling with delight.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you gentlemen to leave,” Eddie informed me while the other two tried to wrestle Tuttle back into his shirt and jacket. “I warned you, we can’t tolerate any disturbances.”

“I have no problem with that,” I assured Eddie pleasantly. “We were just leaving, as it happens. Come on, Tuttle. Let’s get out of here.”

Tuttle stood his ground. He had that zonked, disoriented look on his face again. “What, you want to leave?”

“I want to leave.”

“Oh, okay. Sure, Doof. Whatever you say.” He was looking at Luz. He was smiling at her. She was not smiling back at him.

Eddie grabbed his arm. “Okay, let’s go.”

Tuttle’s eyes instantly turned to angry blue pinpoints. “Get … your … hands off of me.”

“I said let’s go,” Eddie persisted, steering Tuttle toward the front door.

“And I said get your fucking hands off of me!” Tuttle snarled. “Don’t you know who I am? I am The King.”

One of the bouncers snorted. “Fucker thinks he’s Elvis.”

“Actually, he is somebody,” said the other. “Played ball, I think.”

Eddie moved in closer. “Let’s talk about it outside, Mr. Presley, okay? We don’t want any trouble.”

Tuttle nodded his head obediently. “Oh, okay. Why didn’t you say so? You don’t want any trouble.” To me he said, “He doesn’t want any trouble.” To Luz he said, “Not a problem. I understand completely.”

I saw the punch coming from a mile away. I don’t know how Eddie didn’t. Maybe good bouncers are hard to find these days. All I know is that Tuttle’s right caught Eddie flush on the nose, staggering him. Blood spurted from Eddie’s nose. A lot of blood. This made Eddie mad. A lot of mad.

It certainly didn’t help that Tuttle was standing there laughing at him.

One of the other bouncers pinned Tuttle’s arms back while Eddie rammed a huge fist into his belly. An animal groan came out of Tuttle. Then he went completely limp, his face ashen. They hustled him toward the door, his feet trailing along feebly behind him.

“Well, I guess we’ll be leaving now, Luz,” I said. “Real nice meeting you.”

“Nice meeting you, too, honey,” she said. “You got manners. You can come back anytime. I’ll show you my moves.”

I gave her my card in case she ever needed to reach me. Friends of Tuttle often needed to reach out to each other. Then I strolled out with Lulu prancing along ahead of me. She was downright jolly now. She loves to get thrown out of places. Gives her something to brag on to the other dogs in the elevator of our building. Most of them lead boring, predictable lives.

Tuttle was causing another scene at the front door. The man wanted his coat. They were having none of it. Just tossed him out onto the cold, wet sidewalk. They did it extra-rough, like he was a no-good, penniless, stinking bum.

“Was that absolutely necessary?” I asked Eddie.

“That crazy fucker
hit
me!” Eddie howled in response, fingering his bloody nose. He was big, but he wasn’t tough. “Don’t come back, mister. You aren’t welcome here anymore.”

“I’ll try to mask my disappointment. May I have our coats?”

“Gimme the tabs. I’ll have her bring ’em out.”

Tuttle was on his hands and knees in the gutter, getting rid of his dinner. The cabbies who were standing around there waiting for fares were having a good, mean chuckle over it.

Yes, the crowd was roaring, all right. With laughter.

The girl who’d checked our coats came outside with them, Eddie standing watch in the doorway. I gave her a couple of bucks and put mine on. Then I helped Tuttle to his feet and she handed him his. My own turn to be stupid. I forgot what was in his coat pocket. He sure didn’t—went right for the Smith & Wesson and took dead aim at Eddie with it. I dove for Tuttle just as he was about to fire, tackling him hard to the pavement. I didn’t stop him from getting off the shot. But I did mess up his aim. Instead of taking out Eddie he took out one of the smoked-glass doors. Pebbled safety glass cascaded everywhere. A security alarm wailed.

I wrestled the gun away from him and pocketed it. And then the two of us did the only thing that proper, well-bred gentlemen can do under such circumstances.

We ran, Tuttle limping noticeably on his bad knee. But the bastard was still faster than I was. And Lulu was faster than both of us. She was waiting for us at the Jag, Eddie and the other bouncer bringing up the rear by half a block, bellowing curses at us. We jumped in and sped off, Tuttle cackling again, happy as a clam.

“I cannot believe this,” I said, when I’d caught my breath. “I tackled you to the ground. I actually brought Tuttle Cash down.”

“Hey, put it back in your pants, rookie. I’m half the man I used to be.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Tuttle. You’re six tenths, easy.”

“May I have my gun back now?”

“You may not.” But I did give him my linen handkerchief to wipe his mouth with. “Did you pay for those drinks with a credit card?”

“No, I lost them all when I declared bankruptcy. Why?”

“They’ll try to make you pay for that door, that’s why.”

“Let them try.”

“They can sue you.”

“They can get in line,” he said, without apology or regret. For him, lawsuits were just one of those things you ended up with in life, like ingrown toenails.

A red light stopped us at Twenty-first and Broadway. The Flatiron Building sliced through the night sky overhead. I stifled a yawn and glanced at Grandfather’s Rolex. It was three-thirty. Tuttle still didn’t seem the least bit inclined to pack it in.

“I want meat,” he declared lustily. “Meat and wine for my troops.”

“Where does that come from, anyway? I’ve always wondered.”

“My appetite?”

“Your Ethel Merman.”

“I never told you?”

“You never told me.”

He thumbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I guess I know you well enough by now …”

“I guess you do.”

Tuttle winked at me. “I’m her illegitimate son, Doof.”

And who’s to say he wasn’t.

I TOOK US TO
Billy’s, a crusty-old-workingman’s steak house on Gansevoort and Ninth Avenue in the heart of the wholesale meat packing district, where the streets are still cobbled and the stench of beef never leaves the air. Billy’s stays open all night: In that neighborhood, there’s always someone coming off work or going to work. There’s sawdust on the floor, a tin ceiling, a battered mahogany bar. A pair of gnarled old citizens were perched on stools there, drinking up whiskey. A much younger couple sat at one of the tables, drinking up each other. He had on a tuxedo. She wore his topcoat over her formal gown. Both of them looked trembly and grave and sixteen.

We ordered T-bones and eggs and coffee. Tuttle asked for a shot of brandy to go with his coffee. Lulu elected to snooze in the car. It was well past her bedtime, and there was nothing on Billy’s menu to interest her.

“Why are we doing this, Doof?” Tuttle said, attacking his food hungrily.

“I’m beginning to wonder about that myself,” I said, chewing on my steak. “The meat here is a lot tougher than it used to be.”

“I mean, why are you hanging around with me?”

“I’m beginning to wonder about that, too.” I pushed my plate away. “Tuttle, why are you following Luz?”

“Luz?” He frowned at me, befuddled. “I’m not following Luz.”

“She says you are.”

“Well, she’s wrong.”

“Uh-huh.”

He raised his chin at me. “That’s all you have to say—‘Uh-huh’?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“That you believe me would be nice.”

“Uh-huh.”

He shrugged his big shoulders and went back to work on his steak. Cleaned his plate, sat back with his coffee. “I know of an after-hours club on Eleventh Avenue that has a pool table. How about we head on over there? I’ll kick your butt.”

“And what will you kick it with? I understood you to be broke.”

He mulled this over, poking at the bone on his plate with his steak knife. “Okay, I got it,” he exclaimed, brandishing the knife and a devilish grin. “You lose, I get to cut off one of your pinkies.” This was like out of the old days. Always, there was some crazy dare. Always, there was someone fool enough to take it. Me, usually.

“No chance.”

“Don’t tell me you’re wimping out on me, Doof.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.”

“Chicken,” he jeered. Honestly, the man hadn’t matured one bit in twenty years. Not like me. “Pussy.”

“That’s me, all right. A great, big ten-fingered pussy.”

And then suddenly his jaw went slack and he was off pursuing his post-graduate degree at Catatonic State again. It seemed to come and go with him, like a tide. “You don’t have to worry about me, Doof.” His voice was almost a whisper now, his eyes glassy. “I just wondered, that’s all. What it would feel like to have your life in your hands. But I won’t do it, honest. I’m fine.”

“Sure you are, Tuttle. We’re all fine.”

“Hey, Doof?”

“Yes, Tuttle?”

He motioned for me to lean closer. I did. “Who’s The King?”

I sighed inwardly. “You are, Tuttle. Come on, I’ll run you home.”

Tuttle Cash lived in the bottom two floors of a rose-colored-brick town house on East Sixty-fifth Street. For me, Tuttle’s place had always been the ultimate New York bachelor apartment. There was a living room with a working fireplace and built-in bookcases and comfortable leather chairs. There was a gourmet kitchen, a snug dining room. Out back a private garden with a patio, a fountain, a shed for firewood and garden tools. Upstairs, there was a paneled study with more bookcases and floor-to-ceiling windows. The master bedroom suite overlooked the garden. Tuttle’s place was exactly the sort of place I thought I’d live in when I came to New York to be a writer. Who knew that only in Hollywood movies did struggling young writers live this way. Who knew that the tab on a place like this was $4,500 a month, which explained why Tuttle was three months behind and on the verge of losing it.

“Care for a nightcap, Doof?” he asked when we pulled up out front. He seemed totally alert now.

“All right.”

Lulu groused at me unhappily. She wanted to be home in her nice warm bed. I insisted she join us. We’re a team. If I work, she works.

One wall of Tuttle’s living room used to be nothing but his trophies and awards and magazine covers. No longer. The living room walls were completely bare now, except for a framed black-and-white photograph that hung over the fireplace. It was a portrait of Tansy standing against a rough fieldstone wall with her hands thrust deep into the pockets of a rakish tweed blazer. She was all cheekbones and attitude, a faintly mocking smile on her lips, her lush blond hair thrown carelessly over one shoulder. It reminded me very much of a Hollywood portrait that the great George Hurrell took of Carole Lombard in the late thirties. I had never seen this picture before. It was superb.

“Who took it, Tuttle?”

“I did,” he said offhandedly.

“I wasn’t aware that you took photographs.”

“I don’t anymore.”

“Let me guess—not good enough, right?”

He limped toward the kitchen. “What’ll it be?”

“What do you have?”

“I have brandy,” he said.

“What else?”

“I have brandy,” he said again.

“Mmm … make it a brandy.”

I heard him open a cupboard in there. Then I heard a crash of broken glass, followed by a heavy thud. I looked down at Lulu. Lulu was looking up at me. I sighed and went into the kitchen. Tuttle was good and passed out on the kitchen floor with his mouth open, a saliva bubble forming between his lips. Tracy does that, too. There were two broken glasses on the floor. No sign of any brandy. I cleaned up the broken glass and put it in the trash. I dragged him by his feet into the living room, wrestled him up onto the sofa and threw his coat over him. I stared at him. Lulu stared at me, wondering if this meant we could go home now.