Don't Explain: An Artie Deemer Mystery (5 page)

“Well, Mr. Deemer—your name is Arthur Deemer, isn’t it?— I’m not at liberty to—”

“Rand, look at all the people watching us. People traveling to all parts of the world are watching us.” I itched to disfigure the bastard even as I looked into his baby blues, but I tried to maintain an air of calm, never mind the beads of sweat running down my flanks. “Nobody’s stalking my dog at this time, but any one of these people watching us could stalk him at some future time. Maybe the only reason they aren’t stalking him now is because
they never thought of it. You understand? I don’t want you to suggest it to them.”

“You don’t need to patronize me,” said Rand. “I’m not a moron.”

“I’m not patronizing you,” I lied. “I’m asking you, don’t do this story.”

“My producer sent me to get it. I got to get something.”

“Say you missed us.”

“Serge and Tammy would never support me on that.”

“Who?”

He nodded at his crew. Serge and Tammy. Did I see the traces of tears welling in his blue eyes? “You think I’m a sellout.”

“No—”

“You think I’m a cheap little tabloid-TV clack has-been, don’t you, some submissive, bought-off talking head, don’t you?”

“No, I—”

“What would you do in my place? Join the Ice Capades? Coach? Live vicariously through a fifteen-year-old skating bunny? Until she misses a double toe loop and accuses you of sexual abuse? Huh?”

“I don’t know, Rand, I’ve seen your TV work,” I lied again. “It’s not bad. It’s good. You have presence. Not everybody has presence. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you an exclusive if you’ll drop this stalker story.”

“Exclusive? About him?” He didn’t dare point his hand toward Jellyroll, so he extended a finger close to the vest.

“Absolutely. But you have to stay away from this stalker story. Deal?”

“Well, I’d have to hear the news first.” Rand Dewy wasn’t born yesterday.

“Okay. The R-r-ruff Dog and R-r-ruff Dogfood are about to terminate their association over irreconcilable artistic differences.”

“No kidding? Wow. You’re ready to go on record with this?”

“Not me, I’m just his trainer, representing the syndicate that owns him. But you can attribute it to an unnamed source without fear of contradiction.”

“The end of an era,” he said thoughtfully. He raised himself in his chair like an Olympic skater alone on the ice as the first notes of his music swell. “All right, it’s a deal. I’ll just tell them I’m not going to do the stalker story because I have this scoop. Right? It is a scoop and it is true, right?”

“Absolutely.”

He shook my hand.

“Let me ask you this, Rand. What gave your producer the idea that the R-r-ruff Dog was being stalked?”

“Well, probably the spot on
Celebrity Sleuth
. My producer didn’t like getting scooped on that one.”

“Are you saying it was on TV already?” Calm, rational, clear—

“On
Celebrity Sleuth
. On their ‘We’ve Heard’ segment. ‘We’ve Heard’ comes on right after ‘Celebrity Birthdays.’ ”

“What did it
say??
II mean, what did it say?”

“It said they’d heard that a psycho was stalking the R-r-ruff Dog.”

“What else?”

“Nothing. It’s real short. That’s the point…You’ve never seen
Celebrity Sleuth?
”

“Oh sure. Hasn’t everybody?”

“How can I get in touch with you?”

“We’ll be out of town for a while.”

“Where?”

I looked left, then right, as if for eavesdroppers. “Pensacola.”

“Florida?”

“Florida, right.” Suddenly I felt sad and tired. This was bad. The stalker was common knowledge.

“Where in Pensacola?”

“I don’t have a number yet.”

Rand fumbled in his inch-thick wallet for about two days and finally came up with a card.

I snatched it. “So I gotta go. But we have a deal. You’ll hear from me.” And then I bolted down the concourse with Jellyroll on my heels.

The concourse came to an end. Our gate was near the top of the ramp, but I didn’t want to lead them right to it. I glanced back; so did Jellyroll. Rand, Tammy, and what’s-his-name were still standing together talking in a clot. I sat down. My flight would wait because Jellyroll and I were its only passengers. I picked up a discarded
USA Today
and pretended to read it.

Rand and his crew turned and walked off, Rand leading, the crew elbowing each other as they blatantly ridiculed him behind his back. As soon as they were out of sight, I ducked into the rest room in case they doubled back.

Except for one guy, we were alone. He was middle-aged, wearing a blue blazer, chinos, a London Fog draped over his arm. It took me a moment to notice precisely what was wrong with the picture. The guy was standing between two urinals peeing on the wall. I double-checked to see if it were some kind of optical illusion, but no, he was peeing on the wall. A trail ran between his shoes. Jellyroll and I turned on our heels and exited. There’s no telling what a wall pisser will do.

We headed for the nearest telephone. It was in a bank with about twenty other telephones. I finally found one that worked—

“Shelly, goddamnit, they all
know!
”

“What! What do you mean? Who?” Shelly shouted.

I told him about Rand Dewy, about
Celebrity Tonight
and
Celebrity Sleuth
.

“Okay, Artie, you got to relax. That’s the thing to do, relax. Deep breaths.” I could hear him wheezing.

“Maybe the stalker’s telling them. Maybe he’s making his own press.”

“Artie, did they know where you were going?”

“No, I tried to throw him off by giving him the scoop on the R-r-ruff business.”

“I could threaten to sue their firstborn. They fear your lawyer. They know Myron’ll have their hair on his belt, but what good would that do? It would just call attention to us, give the loonies all kinds of sick ideas they didn’t have before. Look, I’ll ask my brother-in-law how he thinks we should proceed.”

“Who?”

“The man I was telling you about before—Sid Detweiler’s his name. What, didn’t I mention he was my brother-in-law?”

“Sid Detweiler? Shelly, I don’t need a CPA.”

“CPA, your ass. This guy recently retired from the NYPD, homicide branch. You ought to hear his stories. Sid has seen the heart of darkness. Besides, he’s family. Family’s always best. Speaking of R-r-ruff, those idiots have been calling about every fifteen minutes. I’ll let ’em stew in their own juices for a while, unless you have strong feelings one way or the other.”

“I don’t.”

“Call me as soon as you get there. I’ll make some inquiries about how they all know. In the meantime, take lots of deep breaths. Oxygen does wonders.”

Then I put in a call to Poor Joe Cay in the far remotest Bahamas, a low, flat, peaceful place more of the sea than the land, to talk to my friend and bodyguard Calabash. His uncle Warren answered. Trying to sound reasonably calm, I chatted for a while with Uncle Warren before I asked for Calabash.

“He at sea.”

“At sea? When will he be ashore?”

“A hard t’ing to say about Calabash when he go to sea. He do so periodically. Get off by hisself somewhat.”

Then that crass white TV light struck us from behind, jerked our necks like a big comber at the beach.

“Gotta go, Uncle Warren. I’ll call again. Good talking with you.”

FIVE

T
he adrenaline surged again, the same blast as in Riverside Park, the sort that takes years off your life. It would be tough to maintain the deadpan. Jellyroll was peering up into my eyes. I scared him. He knew every nuance of my mood, and he didn’t like it. I turned to face the wattage—

It wasn’t for him! The cameras weren’t even pointed at us. They were aiming at someone else, apparently a notable or a group of notables deplaning in an entourage, and we were being hit by the light spill. The camera crews bustled about the edges of the entourage, poking into gaps to get a look at the object of all this fuss. I was curious. Who needed fifty people to carry his luggage? This entourage, made up of some very tough customers with stern faces and darting eyes, moved like a phalanx that parted the ways for the honcho inside. I liked the concept.

“That’s His Excellency,” said a thin man with a pencil moustache and a black suit standing nearby. He was obviously an admirer of His Excellency. He was bobbing his head with obeisance even as he mentioned Him. “This is His Excellency’s first trip to the Apple. He is very pleased. He has tickets to
Les Miz
.”

“Well, I hope he has a grand time,” I said. I was panting with relief. It was clearly time to get out of town, get way out of town.

All my major joints had turned runny by the time we took our seats on the airplane. But now we could relax. We didn’t even have fellow passengers to engage, because I had chartered the whole airplane. The world is not a fair place that I should have the wherewithal to hire a twin-engine aircraft while others must
crawl, but there it is. We were aboard an Airstream by British Aerospace, I think, the one with the big wing strut running across the aisle. It was meant for about fifteen passengers. I hadn’t asked for such a big airplane.

The pilots turned in their seats, head to head, to wave at us. They wore starched white shirts with crisp epaulets. The pilot was dark, the copilot fair, but both had rugged outdoors faces. They were probably based in Crested Butte, Colorado, and Big Sky, Montana, respectively, where they liked to ski with their well-adjusted, tight-bodied wives. I’d like to have been a pilot of some kind, even though I don’t look the part. I look more like the navigator.

“Welcome aboard, Mr. Deemer. I’m Ron,” said the captain. “And this is Dave.”

“Call me Artie.”

“Well, it’s good to know you, Artie. We’ll be getting airborne right away, but before we fire ’em up, the FAA wants us to tell you a few things you probably already know.” Ron had fine pearly teeth.

Meanwhile, Jellyroll investigated the passenger compartment, sniffed everything as if he were considering acquiring the airline.

Ron recited from a plastic card, and I felt safe for the first time in days. I like airplanes. My father got killed in one before I was born. I used to read books about angles of attack, lift, drag, inertia, and thrust, but I don’t anymore. Nor do I read about air combat anymore. Maybe I’ve buried my father; though literally, there probably wasn’t much to bury, a smoking boot, perhaps. Had he lived, he might have looked something like Ron and Dave, tall, slim, stalwart, cool, sunglasses rakishly worn up on the forehead. At least that’s how he looked in the old photographs.

They started the engine on the left side, and the plane began to vibrate, then the right, but the noise was surprisingly light. I motioned Jellyroll to jump up on my lap for takeoff. I hugged him
tightly against my chest. I’ve never been able to think of a better way. Seat belts just don’t work for dogs. He licked my ear as our wheels left the New York metropolitan area.

After we leveled off at about ten thousand feet, Captain Ron asked what my ultimate destination was—after we landed in Oglevie.

I felt a stab of suspicion. “Why, Ron?”

“Up north where you’re going, there aren’t many rules. We got some flexibility with regard to flight plan. Sometimes people like to overfly their cabin or whatever.”

“Oh, I see. I’d like that. It’s tiny, I hear. A place called Kempshall Island. Near a town called Micmac.”

“Let me see if I got the charts.”

“Okay.”

A door latch opened behind me. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else aboard, yet someone was coming out of the lavatory— Christ, it was Barry from the thirty-fifth floor!

“Barry, what are—” Then I saw that Barry had an ax in his hands, a big two-blade Paul Bunyan ax.

“Look, Artie, I don’t want to do this, but the board insisted. I tried to talk them out of it. I got two daughters in the Ivy League. Do you know how much that
costs?
” Barry was advancing on us down the short aisle. “I’m going to have to kill him for family values.”

“Don’t kill him, Barry. You said yourself it wasn’t him, it was me they object to. Kill me.”

“I’m sorry, Artie, but I have no choice in this thing—”

“Haw!”

The copilot—what was his name?—was tapping my forearm. “I’m sorry, Artie, I guess you were dreaming.”

“Yeah, I guess I was.”

“Ron found Kempshall Island. Wondered if you’d like to see it from forward.”

“Oh, great. Thanks a lot.”

“I’ll sit back here and pet the star dog, if that’s okay with you.”

“You stay, pal.” He hated those words, and he gave me the stink eye, but sometimes he has to stay.

I slid over the throttles and into the right-hand seat without kicking anything vital to level flight.

The azure ocean was spattered with green islands. The largest were about the size of a New York City block, and the smallest nothing more than barren rock piles and exposed ledges around which waves broiled. Humans played no part here, only the long slog of geologic time. Even the verdant, forested islands looked forbidding. Few had protected coves, none had anything like a natural harbor. The ocean clawed constantly at them. Maybe the ledges and rock piles had once been islands, but the elements had reduced them to their essence—rock.