FOUR

“LOOK HOW SAD,” said Crystal before I knew she was awake.

“Huh? Who?”

She leaned up on one elbow. “Jellyroll. Is he sick?”

“No, he’s theatrical.” When he’s ready to go, he sits peering at me with forlorn eyes, ears adroop, betrayed loyalty itself. The bed is low, so in the mornings he sits breathing on me—dog breath smells vaguely of fish. This morning he was doing his number on Crystal. I rolled over and kissed her. Her body felt sweet. Life felt sweet. Maybe this relationship had legs.

She hugged and kissed Jellyroll. He looked across Crystal at me as if to say, “Watch, now she’s going to ask you what I want.”

“What does he want? Breakfast?”

“He wants to go to the park.”

“Park” was one of the first words in what has grown over the years into a huge vocabulary. At the sound of it, he began to wag his tail and whine. Pretty soon he’d begin to puff out his cheeks with suppressed barking sounds. His lips would flap soon, and he’d begin to make long, sustained moaning sounds. Dogs are ego cases. I could have lain there naked with Crystal for a decade or two.

“Let’s take him out,” she said.

“You mean you want to go with us?”

“Sure. We’re going, Jellyroll.”

“No barking,” I reminded him. He has several barks, depending on the matter at hand, but the hot-damn-we’re-all-going-to-the-park is the worst, high-pitched, brain piercing. I discourage it. But I shared his joy that Crystal was going with us. While we watched, she got up and put last night’s clothes on, minus the stockings.

“Does this look ridiculous for the park?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Sure it does,” she said, checking herself in the mirror. “I can’t go to the park in a dress at nine a.m.”

“I see what you mean.” I considered the problem. The next step in our romantic development would occur when Crystal began to leave clothes in my closet. I longed for the day when I’d see her cue case leaning against the closet door. That would bespeak commitment.

“You have to put on your clothes from last night. It’ll look like we’re going to brunch, or something.”

“Okay. Do you want to go to brunch?”

“No, I hate brunch.”

It was another hot day, and by noon, when the bricks and concrete heated up like a tandoori oven, the city would slow to a lethargic, dispirited pace. But now, before the day’s assault by 800,000 automobiles, the air was still cool and thin enough to breathe. I felt wonderful strolling arm in arm with Crystal. On the way to brunch.

Jellyroll and his collie friend Barney played tug of war with a stick while a half dozen other dogs frolicked and gamboled and milled about sniffing. Atavistic juices flowing, Jellyroll and Barney snarled and growled as they dug in and yanked at the stick as if it were a caribou tibia.

Groggy looks on their faces, the human contingent stood around watching their dogs’ delight. The contrast was striking. Dogs have been blessed with life in the moment, humans cursed with expectancy. The humans expected to go to work, most by subway. I know how the other dog walkers talk about Jellyroll in the light of their own tedious employment.

“Hell, Freddie’s as cute as Jellyroll.”

“Sure he is, so’s Sascha.”

“So how come Jellyroll’s pulling down the big bucks, while I’m working for a living?”

“Aw, it’d be a drag. You got to be real pushy. You got to be a stage mother. Mama Rose for your dog.”

“Yeah.”

“I’d rather stay with the firm.”

“Yeah.”

The dog walkers looked Crystal up and down covertly. I introduced her to the Chinese lady who owned Barney, to Phil and Les, the gay couple who jointly owned two overweight golden retrievers, and to Amy and Phyllis, actresses with their first dog, an ex-stray they’d named Uta. And I introduced Crystal to Seth. Even Seth’s dog, an overweight lhasa apso, seemed bitter. Seth grinned at Crystal in a way he probably thought was sexy.

“You’re all dressed up,” noted Seth.

“Brunch,” I said.

“On Wednesday?”

There were other dog walkers with whom I had nodding acquaintance, but they didn’t seem to want to be introduced. I didn’t know their names anyway, only their dogs’ names.

“Did you hear?” Seth asked.

“No, what?”

“Somebody took a shot at me yesterday afternoon.”

“No!”

“Look at this.” He led Crystal and me to a nearby English plane tree, and a few dog walkers followed. Their faces were grim. Seth pointed at the tree trunk.

A thumb-sized hole went deep into the heart of the tree. I seemed to be the only dog walker who hadn’t heard. The others, standing around the tree, nodded gravely at the hole. One of the goldens peed on the tree trunk.

“When I moved here, the last thing my father said to me was, ‘Don’t get hit by any stray bullets,’ ” Phil remarked.

“You?” said Seth. “It was me they shot at.”

“Stray bullets aren’t shot at anyone,” Phil countered. “That’s what makes them stray.”

“Yeah, but what if it wasn’t a stray bullet?” said Seth gravely. Then he looked from face to face around the tree, cuing each of us to ask, “What do you mean, Seth?”

No one did.

“What do I mean?” said Seth. “I mean there’s a lot of people who would like to see me dead. Producers, directors, hell, costume designers, for that matter, Equity. This was an assassination attempt, pure and simple.” Seth would rather have been assassinated than ignored.

“Did you call the cops?” Crystal asked.

“Sure. You know what they said? They said, ‘Probably just a stray bullet.’ They don’t want to entertain any conspiracy theories. Just call it a stray bullet, that way you can forget it. Another stray bullet.”

“Where was it fired from?” I asked.

Seth pointed to the wall that separated us from the northbound lanes of the West Side Highway, cars whizzing past, any number of them driven by crazies toting automatic weapons.

A tall, gawky stranger approached. He carried a guitar case festooned with travel stickers from places like Busch Gardens and the Kennedy Space Center. Exuberant Barney ran in front of the stranger. He had to stop abruptly. “Hey,” he snarled, “those goddamned dogs are supposed to be leashed!”

“Don’t take it out on dogs just because you got no talent,” said Seth.

“It was probably him,” said Phyllis after the stranger had moved on. “He probably hates dog owners because he stepped in dog shit once when he was a child. Now he goes around the city parks killing dog owners. There’s probably been dozens killed, only the cops never made the dog-shit connection, so it doesn’t get reported for what it is: another dog-walker killing.”

“Now, don’t get yourself all upset, Phyllis,” said Amy. “You don’t have any proof of that. Without proof, it’s paranoia. Besides, it was probably just one of Seth’s ex-collaborators come back for revenge.”

“Yeah,” said Seth gravely.

The dogs continued to frolic, but we took little pleasure in it now. No dog has ever discharged firearms in a densely populated urban area.

I put my arm around Crystal’s shoulder to shield her from mass murderers and New Jersey drivers as we re-crossed Riverside Drive. Commuter traffic had clotted, and the drivers honked at each other mindlessly. The car commuters always seem surprised and thus outraged to find traffic in New York City at rush hour. Day after day, the same inevitability seems to befuddle them and turn them dangerous: “Why can’t we go sixty miles an hour up West End Avenue, goddamnit?”

Crystal said, “I have to go.”

“Go?”

“I’m running a tournament for my uncle at the Golden Hours. The Golden Hours is the reason I don’t have to have a part-time job. Look, how about coming with me?”

“Sure. But I don’t play in tournaments.”

“No? How come?”

“Too challenging.”

“Nerves? After a while you get over that. Would you bring Jellyroll?”

“Jellyroll, you want to go to Brooklyn?”

He wants to go anywhere.

“I told my uncle I was going out with the guy who owns the R-r-ruff Dog. He loves the R-r-ruff Dog.”

 

Deeper and deeper into Brooklyn we drove, and with each mile my nerves tightened further. Out of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, Crystal picked up the Gowanus Expressway, southbound past the derelict piers rotting on their pins and listing into the slate-gray waters of the upper bay.

“Crystal—”

“Yes?”

“Maybe I’ll play.”

“Oh, good. You’ll enjoy it. It’s just a friendly local tournament.”

“Nine ball?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, you play good. You just need to concentrate.” She turned onto Shore Road, the scenic route that looped along the water’s edge around incongruously luxurious homes in Bay Ridge, where a lot of mafiosi live. We passed beneath the foot of the Verrazano Bridge onto the Belt Parkway.

Why was my mouth so dry and my palms so wet if this was just a friendly local tournament, nothing at stake? I tried to hide my nerves from Crystal, a seasoned pro.

“Are you the tournament director?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Do I get a spot?”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“What’d you expect?”

“The seven.”

“Forget it. You’re too good for that. I can’t show up with a ringer and give him a spot. Especially a ringer I just slept with.”

“Did you hear that, Jellyroll? No ringer Crystal sleeps with gets a spot.”

“At least not the first time,” she grinned.

I needed a spot. It would make me look better. But I didn’t want to whine.

We were close now. The defunct parachute drop that still looms over Coney Island like a headstone hove into view.

“I can’t pass Coney Island without thinking of Topsy,” I said before I could stop myself, which I probably would have done, but the Topsy story had always troubled me. I never went to Coney Island because of Topsy.

“Topsy? Who’s Topsy?”

“Topsy was a performing elephant at Coney Island about 1910. They treated her like shit and made her mean. She killed three men, the last of whom had just fed her a lighted cigarette. They decided Topsy would have to be put down. They tried cyanide-laced carrots, but it didn’t take. Then they decided to hire Thomas Edison’s people from New Jersey to come over and electrocute Topsy. They chained her up, put electrodes on her ears and legs, and flipped the switch. They filmed the whole thing and then marketed the film. I somehow saw it as a kid. It took several minutes for Topsy to die, twitching and shaking and screaming.”

She took her eyes off the road and peered at me. “That’s a terrible story. Fuck you, Coney Island.” She gave it the finger as we passed. “You’re a sad guy, aren’t you? I mean, sort of in general, all things being equal.”

“Oh, no, not me. I’m a laugh a minute. You’ll see when I play in this tournament.”

We drove in silence for a while, then Crystal said, “My uncle Billy’s not all there. I just thought I’d tell you so you wouldn’t be surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s sort of like a child.”

“Was he born that way?”

“When he was a kid, he almost drowned. He and his father were fishing from a boat off the Rockaways. Somehow Billy fell in. Billy’s father jumped in to save him. Nobody’s sure what happened exactly, but Billy’s father drowned. So did Billy. He actually drowned. He was clinically dead, I guess. They brought him back to life, but the lack of oxygen had ruined his brain. Before my father died, he asked my permission to leave the Golden Hours to Billy and me jointly. He said I could make it in the world on my own, but Billy couldn’t. I just wanted you to know ahead of time.”

I thought about that for a while, dying and then being brought back to life. Maybe it wasn’t the lack of oxygen that blew Billy’s mind but the sights he saw on the other side.

She took the Sheepshead Bay exit. A sign pointed toward Emmons Avenue. “Funny,” she said to the rearview mirror.

“What?”

“Probably nothing.”

“What?”

“Can you see out of the side mirror? You can adjust it with that little knob there—”

I turned the mirror so I could see behind us.

“That blue Buick with four guys in it—they’ve been behind us since upper Broadway.”

“Following us?”

“I don’t know. Hell, maybe they’re playing in the tournament. Let’s make a couple turns.” First onto Neptune Avenue and then into a maze of short residential streets lined with single-family red-brick houses, left, right—the Buick was no longer behind us. “I guess it’s just my imagination,” she said without conviction. “The last few days, not quite a week—I felt like I’ve been followed, like somebody’s back there.”

“Those same guys?”

“No, never the same. It’s hard to know in New York whether you’re being followed or not. Whenever I do something to be sure, like make a lot of turns, they disappear, so it’s probably nothing. But I’m getting sick of making all those turns.”

I didn’t think any more about that because after one more turn, we had arrived at Golden Hours Billiards. It was situated on the ground floor in a block-long strip of two-story shops all sharing the same mansard roof. There was a Chinese restaurant called Wu Fat’s on one side and an H&R Block on the other.

Two little old ladies built like fire hydrants and dressed in black from top to toe, despite the heat, greeted Crystal in heavy Italian accents as we entered the Golden Hours.

I stood in a short line with other cue-toting competitors to pay my $20 entry fee, collected by a bleachy teenager whose jaw dropped when she got a load of the celebrated dog at my heels. There were thirty or so tables, all occupied. The players warming up and the spectators standing around waved or called to Crystal. She called some by name, returned a few quick quips, and I realized how at home she was here. Most everybody gave me the once-over.

Then things changed, as I’ve seen them do so often when folks spot Jellyroll. First a thin ripple of recognition passed through the room. It began at the nearest tables and quickly crested in the center. People nudged each other and pointed. Play stopped.

“Naww,” I heard someone say, “couldn’t be.”

“No, it is,” another insisted. “Look at him smile.”

I motioned for Jellyroll to sit in a naked demonstration that he belonged with me as I forked over my twenty. I had brought my own ringer. He’d blow their concentration entirely.

The room was dim, even in broad daylight, except for hot puddles of light over the tables. I liked that. That’s how poolrooms should be. The Jellyroll stir was bolstering my confidence. Even if I didn’t play well, I was still the guy with Jellyroll and Crystal.

What I feared was humiliation. Pool can, in my case often does, humiliate. At a certain level—after you learn how to stroke, not hit, the cue ball, after you learn how to control the ball in order to get position for the next shot, and the next, after you learn the moves—the game steps up onto a mental plane, and that’s where my problem lies. Mentally, I’m lemonade. I think like a loser. But now Jellyroll was helping. While he brought the room to a standstill, I wasn’t thinking like a loser, not a winner yet, but at least not like a fall-down loser.

“Come and meet Uncle Billy,” said Crystal. “Then I’ve got to go change before the neighbors start whispering about promiscuity in Manhattan.” She took my hand and held it while she introduced me to her uncle.

Billy was sitting on a stool near a glass case displaying pool paraphernalia, boxes of balls, tip tampers, a row of cues, and novelty items like nine balls on key chains. He was a long, gangly man with a prominent Adam’s apple that seemed to bob up and down of its own free will. Though he appeared about seventy, he was spry, sporting a full head of wild black hair. He stood up and took my hand in both of his.

“Maybe you’d tell me something, Mr. Deemer?”

“Artie.”

“Artie. What’s it like, Artie, to be around the R-r-ruff Dog all day long?”

“It’s happy. He’s like a clown in a dog suit.”

“Wow. A dog like that could break your heart.”

“I know what you mean.” I did, too. I whistled for him, and he trotted over. He had been off working the room. “Jellyroll, meet Uncle Billy.”

Billy’s knees cracked about four separate times as he knelt to Jellyroll’s level. They nuzzled each other for a while. Then Billy said, “This is about my favorite dog in the world.”

Crystal squeezed my hand and said excuse me. On her way up the stairs, she gave Billy a peck on the forehead.

Billy looked left, then right as if for eavesdroppers, then said, “Listen, I don’t mean to be a buttinski, but let me give you a piece of advice—don’t play her for money.”

I said that sounded like good advice to me.

Crystal made a fast change. Ten minutes later, wearing jeans with a frilly blouse, she stood on a chair and asked for the players’ attention. “Billy and I are glad to see you here. We have a big turnout today, so the winner will get $300, second $100, and third $75. We’ll play five-game matches, single elimination. Tournament rules apply: one foul—you get ball-in-hand. You’re allowed one push-out after the break, but you must call it. Those players with a spot—remember, you don’t get it wild. You must call it. And if you make your spot on the break, it comes back up immediately. If you play it off a combination, you have to call it before you shoot. And today we’re starting a new rule the pros are using: if an object ball leaves the table, that’s a foul. The ball spots, and the other player gets cue ball in hand. What else? Oh, if your opponent faces a questionable hit, call me over before he shoots, and I’ll act as referee. Any questions?…No? Well, thanks for coming, it’s nice to see you all here. Have fun and good luck.”

We drew numbers from a bowl to determine who would play whom in the first match. I drew a heavy fellow with a face that had been around the block a time or two.

“Hello, I’m Greek,” he said. I had to give Greek the eight ball. He flipped a quarter for the break. I lost. He broke—and made three balls. Great, it was going to be one of those sessions.

Greek was the kind of player who didn’t aim, didn’t really get into position. He just leaned down and shot fast, but he knew what he was doing. Balls kept going in. He pocketed everything up to the six, and I was already counting myself out, the way losers do.

But then he screwed up his position on the seven ball. Stroking it too hard, he parked the cue ball directly behind the eight, no chance for a shot. He turned red as he glared at the offending white ball. Without pausing to line up the angle, he kicked the cue off the side rail, but he missed the seven by a foot.

That was a foul. I could place the cue ball anywhere I wanted, and I had to make only three balls to win the game. With ball in hand, a child could get out from here. If I only had a child…I made the seven, eight, and then the nine, to win game one.

I broke solidly. The nine went directly into the corner pocket. I’d won again. I was up two games already. There is nothing like making the nine on the break to bolster confidence. I noticed that Greek had started to wilt. I won game three off the break as well. I didn’t pocket the nine, but I left it, through sheer luck, two inches from the far corner pocket. I made the two and the three and left myself an easy combination off the four. I made the combination to go up three games to none. Gee, this was fun.

We seesawed back and forth in game four—the balls were lying hard, frozen against their friends or against rails. We both played good safeties, and we both escaped cleverly from them. But then Greek played a bad safety, leaving me an easy shot on the five. I ran out from there. I needed one game to win the set and eliminate Greek. I won it. Greek looked sad, but he shook my hand like a gentleman.

Jellyroll and I waited by the desk for our next match, and Uncle Billy walked over to join us.

“Win?” he asked.

“Yes. I played Greek.”

Billy nodded. “Poor old Greek, he’s a shortstop. First time he misses, he folds up and goes home.”

“Who’s tough?” I asked.

“Anthony. That Latin kid on table two.” He nodded at Anthony, who had eyes like an underfed predator. “And Bird. It’ll be Anthony and Bird battling it out in the finals. That is unless Mr. Artie Deemer slips right in there. I’m rootin’ for you.”

“Thank you, Billy.”

“I just want you to be good to Crystal. She’s like a daughter to me.”

“Don’t worry about that, Billy.”

Crystal called me for the second match, and Jellyroll and I strode toward the table she indicated. My heart sank. My opponent was Bird. Tall and slim with piercing black eyes, this bird was a raptor. We shook hands. His was bony…

Well, I beat Bird five games to four. It was close all the way; he’d win one, I’d win the next. A crowd gathered to watch. He was a better player than I. That was clear from his stroke and by the way his cue ball took English. He did things with the cue ball I couldn’t do, but I was playing well, making the hard shots, and I got two lucky rolls, which, I admit, made the difference. Bird knew he was the better player, and he didn’t like those lucky rolls one bit. After it was over, he shook my hand and walked away without looking me in the eye. Crystal had been watching. She made a small nod my way.

I felt high, flushed with victory. I was moving up in this tournament. My next opponent, named Vic, was about seventeen years old. He was a veritable beginner. He had the six for a spot. I cautioned myself against overconfidence, but I was counting on a win. I played well. They were going in like they had eyes. I didn’t try to do anything fancy with the cue ball, just play the natural angles and use speed of stroke to put me where I wanted to be. And then I happened to glance into the faces standing around the table. Thus far I had avoided doing that. I don’t know if unconsciously my mind’s eye had taken him in or whether I chanced to look up right into his face.

It was Trammell Weems. The jaunty bastard stood with his hands in his chinos pockets and grinned at me. I tried not to see him, but what could I do? There he was. I missed the nine by a half a foot. The stroke was so bad, I was lucky I didn’t hurt myself. Vic, reprieved, leapt to his feet, his eyes shining like an eight-year-old’s on Christmas morning. He pounded it in.

Trammell strolled up in his floppy boat shoes. “What say, counselor?”

I was speechless.

“It would have been best if you’d made that nine ball. I think this kid has heart. Actually, I’m a little surprised to see you’re still at this vulgar game, a man of your standing in the legal community.”

“Hello, Trammell.”

“I hear you’re brazenly escorting my wife about town.”

“Yeah, I figured it was all right, because she’s not your wife anymore and because she doesn’t like you very much.”

“How about putting in a good word for me? She’ll listen to you.”

I didn’t see Crystal until she was upon us. Her jaw was fixed, and her eyes were hard. “What are you doing here, Trammell?”

“I’m watching my old schoolmate dog the pay ball.” He leaned over as if to give her a peck on the cheek.

She bobbed away like a boxer. “Get out, Trammell. And leave my uncle alone. He doesn’t need your shit.”

“He’s the only one in the Spivey family who’ll give me the time of day.”

“I’ll give you this cue in the head, I’m not kidding.”

“Okay, okay.” Still grinning his charming grin, he headed for the door.

He looked good, I thought with some regret. I tried to get Crystal to see me, but she just glared at the back of his head.

I was finished in this tournament.

I should have conceded, walked out. Vic stomped me five to two. I couldn’t shoot the cue ball in the hole. The kid couldn’t believe his luck.

After I absorbed that dreadful drubbing, put my cue back in its case, I wandered over near the desk. Crystal was giving Billy hell. “Did you give him his money back?” she asked.

“I couldn’t, Crystal. We already made a deal. That would be welshing. I couldn’t welsh.” His voice cracked. I thought for a moment he was going to cry.

Crystal softened her voice. “He hurts people, Billy. That’s his career in life. He’ll hurt you.”

“I’m sorry, Crystal.”

“Okay.”

“But I couldn’t welsh.”

“Okay, but let this be it. Stay away from Trammell.”

“I understand.”

Crystal went away to referee a hit, and I walked over to Billy, calling Jellyroll with me. He has a knack for making humans feel better. He sat and peered up at Billy, whose knees cracked as he lowered himself to my dog’s level.

“Crystal’s mad at me.”

“She probably won’t stay mad.”

“No…Are you out?”

“Yep.”

“Well, you probably lost concentration.”

“I sure did.”

Crystal returned. She kissed Billy on the cheek. “I think we’re gonna go, Uncle Billy.”

“Sure, you go on. I can handle things from here.”

“It was nice meeting you, Billy.”

He said he hoped we wouldn’t be strangers, and I assured him we wouldn’t, though I was very glad to get out of there. Trammell’s presence had always changed the complexion of a room.

Crystal and I were passing Coney Island before she spoke. “I saw how you were playing before he showed up.”

“Pretty good, huh? What did he want from Uncle Billy?”

“His boat.”

“His boat?”

“Yeah, Billy has an old fishing boat. He and Trammell, and sometimes Bruce, go fishing in it. They’re pals, Billy and Trammell. He paid Billy seven hundred dollars to use the boat.”

“Seven hundred dollars seems like a lot.”

“Yeah, but it probably isn’t.”

I didn’t want to talk about Trammell Weems anymore.