Dancing in the Dark Read online

“I’ll finish it this afternoon. Here are the potatoes you wanted.”

  “Needed, not wanted,” she said, meeting me halfway and taking the bag in her thin arms. She smelled the potatoes and, satisfied, looked up at me.

  “I will go to my chambers now,” she said, “and listen to Tommy Riggs and Betty Lou and Elmer Davis and ‘The Week’s War News.’ By then I would think you will have finished my chapter.”

  “You are too generous, Mrs. P.,” I said.

  “Sarcasticisms?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  My voice must have dropped from the usual scream with which I normally addressed Mrs. Plaut because she answered with, “I can rewind my own clocks, thank you. I have since the Mister died, and I’ll probably find a way to do it after I die.”

  “I’d bet on it,” I said. “Mrs. Plaut. How old would you say I am?”

  “How? …”

  “Old.”

  “Young,” she said. “Everybody looks young. You look maybe a little older than most. Sixty.”

  “I’m not even fifty,” I said.

  “Fifty, sixty, what’s the difference,” she said with a shrug, turning her back on me and heading down the stairs, potato booty in hand, humming “Glow Worm.”

  I headed to my room, pushed open the door, and went to my cupboard. Dash was sitting in the open window, ignoring me, fascinated by something in the yard.

  “Hello to you too,” I said, fixing myself a very generous bowl of Kix and milk even though I wasn’t hungry. “Care to join me?”

  Dash turned to look at me and the Kix and then turned back to the apparently fascinating show in the yard.

  I ate cereal standing and read Mrs. Plaut’s manuscript, page by page. It began:

  Aunt Bess had an uncommon fondness for Cousin Leo. Uncommon. They were not kin. Aunt Bess was married to Uncle Seymour who sold junk to Indians. He was very bad at selling junk to Indians. He got into the business too late. By the time he heard about it and moved West, the Indians had considerable experience in being sold junk. As it was, some of the Indians sold the junk they had bought from white men back to Uncle Seymour. Should you conclude by this that Uncle Seymour was not acute, you would be right. Uncle Seymour had a son by the name of Leo who had been born to Uncle Seymour’s first wife, Hannah, who, it is reported, had a left eye that looked no place that much made sense. So, my mother’s sister Bess who was no Disraeli but neither was she a fool washed her hands of Uncle Seymour and ran away to Mexico with Cousin Leo who was pleasant to look at but not much higher of sense than Calvin Burkett who everyone knows is and will ever be an idiot boy. Uncle Seymour did not follow them. Instead, he took his junk wagon and headed to Texas where he was certain to find someone less acute than the Indians.

  In Mexico, Aunt Bess and Cousin Leo built a cabin near Juarez with an eye toward raising corn and chickens and children. This in spite of the fact that Aunt Bess was a full fifty-five years of age and Cousin Leo someone in the vicinity of twenty. No one, not even his own father, knew for sure and apparently the age of Cousin Leo was of no interest to any member of the family until I began these researches.

  It was then that Pancho Villa the dreaded bandit entered their peaceful though profitless lives. The bandit saw Aunt Bess in the market bargaining for tripe and was immediately enamored of her. Aunt Bess had a pleasant face and large body parts.

  The dreaded bandit kidnapped Aunt Bess from the market and he rode away with her dragging tripe and screaming, “I am being kidnapped by the dreaded bandit Pancho Villa.” Now since everyone could plainly see this including Cousin Leo who stood watching there was little to comment on at the moment, though Cousin Leo later reported that a woman said in English for his benefit that Pancho Villa was known to have the taste of a snout hog. Three days later Aunt Bess had not returned to the village so Cousin Leo, whose Spanish was on the minimum and lacking in refinement, donned a hat of ala ancha (which means wide brimmed), sold what he was able of the small farm including the chickens and the house and set off in search of his paramour.

  It was at this juncture that Cousin Leo’s story strains even family good will. In his travel which took him to a mountain village where Pancho Villa was reported to be staying Cousin Leo in search of someone who could speak English wandered into a drinking establishment which in Mexico is called a cantina or at least was when Cousin Leo chanced into one. There at a table dealing cards in a game of poker was a painted woman of uncertain age with a wild left eye.

  Mother? Leo inquired and sure enough the woman dealing poker in that cantina was his mother Hannah. There is no report from Leo—his story having been told to me by his daughter, also Hannah—that mother and son embraced. After the hand of cards was dealt Hannah did inquire of Uncle Seymour and learned the story of her son and her husband’s second wife. Since Hannah’s Spanish and connections in the town were more than adequate and she was up for something like adventure after having dealt poker for more than ten years she and Leo set forth in search of Aunt Bess. In the mountains they came upon a quartet of banditos who claimed they were in the army of the dreaded Villa. They had a powwow on whether to ravish Hannah and dispatch Leo but Hannah’s Spanish and advanced age saved the day. She claimed to have some information of military import for Villa’s ears only.

  To make a long story a short story they were led into the presence of Villa his own self. Villa, a portly man of no great beauty, was seated upon a rock sucking out the marrow of what appeared to be the bone of a goat. Though his view of the dreaded bandit had been but fleeting Cousin Leo was as certain as his poor mind would allow that this was not the man who had taken Aunt Bess. As it turned out he was correct. It had been an underling of Villa who had taken Bess. Oh the ignominy. Villa readily agreed to exchange Aunt Bess for Hannah which suited Hannah though she knew the adventure would be short lived. Bess was returned to Leo but the union did not last. She abandoned him in Puerto Del Sol claiming she had forgotten her comb and had to go back to the Villa camp to recover it.

  Cousin Leo sat in the town square of Puerto Del Sol for seven days exhausting his money and the patience of the town folk and singing various hymns particularly “Rock of Ages” to pass the time. He was driven out by stick and stone, running down the road with one hand upon his wide brimmed hat to keep from losing it and screaming as he ran, “Life is too much work for a simple man.” Cousin Leo found himself in Stickney, California, married a woman named Leona who was if the story is to be believed for I have never met her of even less wit than Cousin Leo, who opened a hat shop and made a living.

  Aunt Bess and Aunt Hannah emerged in Mexico City some months after Leo’s departure and running as the Gringa Sisters were elected to the newly formed Godless government of Mexico.

  There is more. Oh time triumphant! Would that I endure to tell the whole of my tale.

  I laid the pages of Mrs. Plaut’s manuscript flat on my small table, looked to Dash for support and guidance, and went to the phone in the hall to call Carmen, the cashier at Levy’s. I invited her to a movie. I told her that I was in pain and needed a gentle hand to cover my sore spots with salve. She said her son had chicken pox. Mrs. Plaut wasn’t around so I left the manuscript in front of her door with a note saying, “Brilliant work. The plight of Cousin Leo particularly touched me. Villa was a cad.”

  I walked downtown carrying a pillow under my arm and a look on my homely face that challenged anyone to ask me why I was carrying a pillow. It wasn’t more than a mile, and walking was better than trying to get back in the Crosley. I went to the movies by myself, sat on the pillow, and saw Across the Pacific, with Bogart and Mary Astor. The newsreel told me that the Office of War Information had asked deferments for Kay Kayser, Edgar Bergen, Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Nelson Eddy, Freeman Gosden, and Lanny Ross so they could contribute to the war effort by entertaining the troops. I couldn’t keep sitting so I got up and watched most of the show from the back of the theater, leaning against the wall. The manager
, who recognized me as a more-or-less regular, came over to ask me in a whisper if there was something wrong with the seats.

  “War wound acting up,” I said.

  “I’ve still got a piece of metal shaped like a small fish in my back from the Marne,” he said sympathetically.

  I picked up a couple of hot dogs at The Pup and brought them home to share with Dash. Mrs. Plaut hadn’t touched the manuscript that still lay in front of her door. I went to my room, gave Dash a dog without the bun, dropped my pants and underwear carefully, and did my best to swab the salve on my behind. At first it hurt. It stung. It cried. It made me wish I could say something in Indian that even Gunther might now know but that would be the major verbal attack in the long and violent life of Kudlap Singh, the Beast of Bombay. I danced around the room for a few minutes and it began to feel better. In about five minutes, I felt well enough to get stomach-down on my mattress to listen to Milton Berle and “We, the People.” Mrs. Lou Gehrig was the guest.

  Then I listened to “Amos and Andy.” Kingfish was taking it easy at home when his wife, Sapphire, came in and complained about the Kingfish not earning a living. She threatened to leave him unless he found a way to buy a car. Kingfish and Andy joined forces to make the investment. Before they got six blocks from the dealer in their 1926 Overland Roadster, the car broke down and they opened the trunk. There Andy and Kingfish found a body. Lawyer Algonquin J. Calhoun told them to sell the car. They tried to stick Shorty the barber with it, but he couldn’t drive. Eventually, they discovered that the body was a mannequin. The boys had escaped the electric chair.

  The world was right again.

  I went to bed early and slept badly. Because of my bad back, I’m not supposed to sleep on my stomach, but I had no choice. Sometime in the night I got up, staggered to the bathroom in the hall, bare-assed and not caring even though Mrs. Plaut had one female roomer, Miss Reynal, a pretty enough woman, a little younger than myself but too skinny to rouse my interest. I wiped the salve off my throbbing behind, made it back to my room unseen, placed a pillow beneath me, and eased myself onto it, facing the ceiling. Not good, but better than the alternative.

  I slept and dreamed of my senior prom. Everyone there was a kid but me. I was the same me I saw in the mirror every morning. I didn’t belong at a senior prom with Anita Maloney, who looked the same as she had on that warm May night thirty years ago. Everyone was looking at me, everyone but Anne, who was a girl again and dancing with Koko the Clown, who gave me a big, lecherous open-mouthed grin and a wink.

  I woke up with Dash sleeping on my chest, my tongue twice its normal size, and my behind still screaming.

  The next day, Friday, I took the pillow from my sofa, the one that had “God Bless Us Every One” sewn in red on it, placed it on the seat of my Crosley, and found that I could drive with less discomfort than I had the day before. With Shelly, Pook Hurawitz, and Jerry Rogasinian as backup, I returned to the Monticello Hotel for a final try at convincing Luna Martin that Fred Astaire wasn’t coming, not ever.

  As it turned out, it wasn’t necessary to convince her.

  Chapter Four

  Dancing on the Ceiling

  I stood in the middle of the finely polished white floor and placed Pook behind me on the left and Jerry on the right, after paying them both up front and assuring them that there was no danger.

  While we waited, Jerry reminded me that he had been trained in Shakespeare in Fort Worth, and I was suitably impressed. Pook said he had an audition in Culver City for a Roy Rogers movie at one.

  Lou Canton shuffled in a few minutes after us, carrying a small metal toolbox in one hand and a folder of sheet music under the other arm.

  “Lou,” I said. “I told you I’d call if I needed you.”

  Lou continued toward the bandstand.

  “You said today. I’m here today. You pay today.”

  He began setting up and I decided to deal with Lou later.

  Another five minutes and Shelly showed up. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, adjusting his glasses and stumbling toward me.

  He was wearing denim pants, a blue work shirt, and a brown leather flight jacket that was at least a size too small for him. It was Shelly’s tough-guy attitude. When he was close enough to see Pook and Jerry, Shelly stopped cold.

  “Are these? …” he whispered to me so that his voice echoed through the room.

  “No, this is Pook and Jerry. They’re with us.”

  Jerry shook his head in disbelief. Pook gave me a what’s-he-playing-comic-relief? look.

  “Shelly’s the perfect decoy,” I said to Pook and Jerry. “They see us and we’re just what they expected. They see Shelly and they get scared. He must be something special. Nothing else explains his being with us.”

  “Thanks, Toby. Great teeth,” Shelly said, admiring the actors. “Who’re we? …”

  “Woman named Luna Martin and a man named Arthur Forbes,” I said, watching the doors. “Stand over there, Shel.”

  I pointed in the general direction of the bandstand, where Lou had the top of the piano open again. “They didn’t fix it,” he groaned. “How can I play on this? You want rinky-dinky ragtime, I’ll give it, but forget quality here.” He stood up, toolbox in his hands, and headed for the door. “I’ll be back,” he said. “I’ll fix it myself and charge you.”

  I didn’t try to stop him.

  Shelly set himself up in front of the bandstand and turned, looking out at us with his best scowl. He pulled a fresh cigar from his jacket pocket and put it into the corner of his mouth. He was doing his Al Capone, but it was coming out as a nearsighted Lou Costello. Then it hit him.

  “Arthur For—Fingers Intaglia? The one who cut Stew Edelstein’s fingers off and fed them to his German shepherds?”

  “He wasn’t convicted,” I said. “Wasn’t even charged for that.”

  “Because Stew put his hands through the opening of his steering wheel, started the car with his teeth, and headed for Key West,” Shelly said, looking at Jerry and Pook, his face in putty panic.

  From the hallway beyond the closed doors, we suddenly heard the sounds of an argument—a woman’s shrill voice, but no words.

  I looked at Pook and Jerry. They were character actors, but not in Thomas Mitchell’s salary category. They were looking scared and starting to wonder if they both had immediate auditions at Republic.

  “Toby,” Pook said after exchanging a meaningful look with Jerry. “You didn’t tell us …”

  “Look,” Shelly broke in, stepping off the bandstand. “I just recalled. I’ve got a patient waiting …”

  It was then that the double doors of the ballroom flew open and Luna Martin in white silk dress swept in, her hair wild, her eyes wide, her breasts heaving. She looked at us and came straight for me, swaying, heels clacking—showing me, I thought, that she had indeed learned the foxtrot. I didn’t notice the blood on her neck till she stood before us, held out both hands, and melted to the floor, her dress clinging, her hair billowing out on the marble. It was an entrance worthy of applause but nobody clapped. I moved to Luna’s side.

  “Who did this?” I asked, kneeling.

  She looked up at me, pointed at Shelly, and closed her eyes forever.

  “Hey,” said Shelly, hurrying toward us, “I didn’t kill her. Never saw her before this second.”

  “She dead?” asked Jerry, moving toward me.

  I nodded.

  “A looker,” said Jerry.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Pook said, holding up two hands palm-down to keep the situation calm.

  “Maybe I looked like someone else to her,” Shelly pleaded.

  “Nobody else looks like you, Shel,” I said.

  I got up and was about to tell them that we didn’t have much choice, that we’d have to call the police. Pook took a couple of steps toward the kitchen door. It opened and Kudlap Singh filled the doorway. Our eyes met. I automatically put both hands on my tuchis. I looked toward the double doors through wh
ich Luna had staggered. Arthur Forbes stood there, looking first at me and then at the fallen Luna. His face showed nothing as he walked slowly forward, glared at me for an instant, and glanced down at Luna.

  “She’s dead,” I said.

  “That I can see,” Forbes said. “I know a dead person when I see one.”

  His face didn’t change, but his eyes were moist. He knelt at Luna’s side and touched her hair and her cheek, let out a deep sigh, and stood facing me.

  “You are dead,” he said, waving his arm in a gesture that took in me, Jerry, and Pook.

  “We didn’t kill her, Forbes,” I said. “She walked in and fell right there a few seconds before you walked in.”

  “I said,” Forbes repeated. “You are dead.”

  “Hey,” said Pook, stepping forward. “We’re just actors. Peters hired us to come in and play tough guys.”

  “That’s right,” said Jerry. “Did you see May Time? I was one of the Indians.”

  “Right,” said Pook. “And when she came in she said the fat guy killed her.”

  He nodded at Shelly.

  “He’s right,” Jerry agreed.

  Shelly was too scared to speak, but his glasses were starting to slip down his nose the way they did when he had a particularly reluctant tooth in his pliers.

  “Forbes,” I said. “She walked in right in front of you. How could any of us? …”

  “He here with you?” Forbes said, nodding at Shelly, who plunged his hands in his pockets to protect his fingers.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “No,” Pook stepped in helpfully. “He came late, just before the lady.”

  Shelly’s mouth was open. He had lost his cigar. His brow was wet and he was shaking his head no and looking to me for salvation.

  “Got it,” Lou Canton called from the door.

  Forbes turned his eyes to me. They were very gray, very cold eyes.

  “That’s two bucks extra for repairs,” Lou said, moving past us without noticing Luna’s body in the middle of the floor. “Plus it cost me two bucks plus to take a Red-Top cab here from Glendale.”