FOUR

“CAN YOU TELL us how it feels to own the R-r-ruff Dog and know that at any time a stalker may strike?” the handsome, sandy-haired media person shouted after us. He and his crew of two were catching up. I could feel their hot lights on the back of my neck as Jellyroll and I accelerated down the concourse ramp at La Guardia.

Travelers’ heads turned all around us. Suddenly I was looking down a dozen different gaping mouths. Jellyroll attracts attention anyway, but here he was in a major transportation center pursued by about twelve million candlepower of stark white TV light and three straining assholes.

There was no refuge for us, nowhere they wouldn’t follow. Running would only encourage them. The breathless reporter in hot pursuit of the truth. If he’d been eating lunch, I’d have kicked it in his face. But of course you can’t do that on TV. TV demands deadpan; you can’t ever be real on TV or it will eat you alive. I would have to deal with him. I stopped. We turned to face the light.

He had this thirty-million-dollar smile. His teeth fairly sparkled. He was an all-American boy. I hate that kind of fucker. I’d seen him somewhere before, but I couldn’t place where. His camera operator was a woman, but the camera covered her identity. All I could see beside the fish-eye she jammed in my face were enormous tits erupting under a black sweater. The sound man, tall and gangly, in tight jeans and lizard cowboy boots, proud of himself, smirked at me.

“I’m Rand Dewy from Celebrity Tonight. We hear that there’s a stalker situation with respect to the R-r-Ruff Dog. Would you care to comment?”

“Weren’t you a figure skater?”

“Why, yes, I was, Olympic bronze, actually.”

Jellyroll sniffed his shoes.

Rand knelt down to pet him—

“Don’t!” I said.

“What?”

“He’ll take your hand off.”

Jellyroll thumped the floor with his tail, peered sweetly up into Rand’s face.

“The R-r-ruff Dog?” Rand looked devastated.

“Vicious. He’s always been vicious. He was born vicious. Two weeks old, he killed his littermates.”

“No—”

“Rand, could we step over here and talk in private? It’s very important.” I didn’t wait for an answer; I took the microphone from his hand and handed it to the sound man, who seemed to have something stuck down the front of his jeans, a rope or something. I led Rand to a seat in the back of a vacant departure gate area. As I seated us in the plastic chairs, I made a big thing out of positioning myself between Jellyroll and Rand. “Now, Rand,” I said, jaw clenched, “where did you get the idea that Jellyroll is being stalked?”

“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? I 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.”