“That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. Do you like her?”
Now he was a beet. “I guess so. I like the . . . way she smells.”
God that new voice of his. Basso profundo. “Do you want to kiss her?”
He looked everywhere and nowhere at once.
“I’d kiss her,” said Annelise. “If I were you. She’s gorgeous.”
She shoved off and went out through the door, and when she elbowed back through a moment later with the shop Zenith in her arms, he was right at the table where she’d left him.
He began to shake his head again. “Uh-uh. I don’t want to.”
She went past him and into the little front parlor. “I’m not asking. Get in here.” She set the radio on the stand beside the room’s one lamp and plugged it in. She dialed the tuner to a ballroom broadcast. “I’m waiting.”
Even the slide of his chair had the skid of resignation. He appeared in the doorway. “I can’t dance to this. It’s too fast.”
She beckoned with a finger. “It’s a jitterbug, it’s supposed to be fast.” She held her hands out and fluttered her fingers. He rolled his eyes but stepped forward and took her hands. “Did you learn the basic step to this?”
He nodded. “I wasn’t any good at it, though.”
“Well, let’s fix that. First things first: Speaking of grubby paws, we’ve got to scrub these mitts of yours before the real dance Friday. With Ajax, and a Fuller brush or something. You’re a regular grease monkey. Okay, I’m going to lead, at first. Just the basic box step.”
He proved a fast learner. By the time “Sugar Foot Stomp” came on half an hour later, she had him whirling through a series of basic inside and outside turns and breakaways, also a more complicated wrap step.
Or he had her whirling. She could feel the flush in her face from motion and speed, and when he began to spin her of his own impulse, she felt that delicious, half-chilling jolt, right through her spine and then way down deep. He pulled her tight into a closed position as though she were not his family at all but someone entirely different. Katie Calhoun, maybe.
Her face came to his collarbone. He was hot as a new brick and she could not only see but also scent his own flush, like a twin to hers. The damp salt on his skin, she swore she could smell it and she knew she was piqued more than she should be. She put it on loneliness. She could feel the hinge of his shoulder through the thin cloth of his shirt.
She quit and curtsied when the song ended. She didn’t really want to stop, and she was laughing and giddy, but also just one plaintive note or wistful lyric from tears.
Houston had his own smile, with a goofy sort of wonder she wished she could get back for herself.
“It’s fun, right?”
“More than I remembered,” he admitted. She’d never yet called him Huck and knew now she’d never think of him as such, not with that new voice. “So what now?”
“That’s enough, for tonight. I’ve got to catch my breath. But we’ve got three more nights before the dance. If you keep on like this, Katie’s going to have to fight me to get out on the floor with you.”
By the time the big day rolled around he had indeed developed into a pretty capable hand. Annelise taught him a series of more complicated swing steps and coached him through the foxtrot and the waltz as well.
Pop seemed to get a real charge out of the two of them. He waltzed with Annelise himself a couple of times, but pleaded out of the jitterbug. “You’ll be calling for the ambulance in one minute,” he told her. “I was already old when the Highland fling was invented.”
Friday after school she did indeed set out a scrub brush and a box of Borax. “Get that water as hot as you can. We’re going to make you look like a gentleman, not some troglodyte.”
“What’s a troglodyte?”
“A cretin. Now get to it. I’m heading for the bath. You’re next.”
He didn’t know what a cretin was either, but figured he got the general picture. By the time she reappeared, his fingers were as wrinkled and eerily white as the lifeless digits on the corpse in the river. Most of the grease was gone.
“Congratulations.” She pointed to the little bathroom. “Now for the rest of you. And wash your hair.”
He heard Pop come in a little later, heard him talking and laughing with Annelise, and knew she’d been dead right about any fanciful idea to get out of the Spring Ball with the help of that turncoat. If anything Pop was as eager to please her as anyone, and that included McKee who at least wasn’t a total stooge about it. In fact, when he thought about it, Yak alone had the sidewise charm to get her to do his bidding, and not the other way around.
Pop on the other hand seemed downright in cahoots with her. He’d shown up with a jacket and tie and a pair of two-toned spectator shoes. Huck looked at him.
“Borrowed some duds from Lou Candles,” he said with a beam. “He’s about your size, hey?”
Mr. Candles owned the local real estate office. He was known by the local standards as a snappy dresser. “Yeah, plus about thirty pounds,” said Huck.
“I thought of that. But your cousin here told me all the young guys these days are wearing bigger suits anyway.”
“It’s true,” she said. “Out on the coast, at least.”
“I don’t know how to put on a tie.”
“That’s why you have us.” She waved him toward the bedroom. “In there.”
An hour later the two of them left to walk back to the school. The unfamiliar necktie felt like a leghold trap around his throat and the jacket was indeed generous for his frame, but once outfitted he’d taken a gander in the mirror and had to admit he looked pretty stylish. At least Mr. Candles had the same size feet.
“You look like a grown-up,” Annelise told him. Springtime had fully arrived, the trees overhead in full leaf and the young neighborhood kids pedaling bicycles and playing baseball into the evening.
“I feel like a detective. Or maybe a gangster, in a movie.”
“No, you know who you really look like? Tall as you are?”
“Abraham Lincoln?”
She gave him a shove. “Don’t be ridiculous. You look like Charles Lindbergh.”
He felt even taller than usual. “Are you just saying that?”
She took hold of his arm. “I would never just say that. Now start acting like him, Colonel.”
The sun had dropped behind the far rim of the coulee, and dusk came on. A block from the school they walked into a streetlamp’s cone of light. Raleigh popped out of the shadows.
“Whoa, if it ain’t Dashiell Hammett,” he said to Huck. “Nice tie.” Raleigh himself had somehow come up with a pair of golf knickers and argyle socks with a matching sweater.
“You’re one to talk,” said Annelise.
“Shirley and some of the kids are out by the bleachers. Shirley’s got a jug of the good stuff.”
“Oh really,” said Annelise. “Point the way.”
Huck as usual was a little slow to catch on. “You mean hooch?”
“I don’t mean soda pop.”
Huck’s nerves were already humming like overloaded wires and this new turn jumped through him like an additional surge of juice. “Jeez, you think this is a good idea?”
“Of course not,” said Annelise cheerfully.
“What if we get caught?”
“We run like hell,” said Raleigh. “Live a little, Huckleberry. What would Tom Sawyer do?”
“He’d get caught, is what he’d do. And thrashed.”
Annelise stopped and pulled back her sleeve. Tilted her wrist toward the light behind them. “We’ve got a half hour before we’ve even got to be there.” She looked at Huck. “Just a nip or two, Houston. Alcohol exists for a reason. You’re nervous as a bat already and this might help.”
“That’s the spirit,” Raleigh chimed in. Another
rank stooge. God, this girl.
“Besides, Katie might be there.” Annelise put her watch away.
“That’s not helping,” said Huck, but he walked along beside her with at least a bubble of curiosity rising through the dread.
Katie wasn’t there, as it turned out. The only girl other than Annelise was Sharon White, the last person Huck expected to see. Otherwise just Shirley and a pair of football-addled senior lunkheads, Royce Mitchell and Bobby Duane Boyd. Bobby Duane was even now doing chin-ups off the back of the bleachers.
“Houston,” said Shirley. He took a pull on the bottle in his hand. “You look like Errol Flynn’s dog Spot.”
Royce let out a guffaw, reached over and took the bottle from Shirley. “Suave and de-boner.”
“Ignore these imbeciles,” said Annelise. “Wouldn’t you say, Sharon?”
“You look nice, Houston,” Sharon said. She herself was not in any sort of special outfit, just her plain school clothes. “Gosh, I’m surprised your mother’s letting you go. You’re lucky.”
“Not to change the subject,” said Annelise, “but what exactly do we have for cocktail hour in this establishment?”
Bobby Duane dropped down from his chin-ups and took the bottle from Royce. “Old Quaker.”
“Appropriate.” She extended her arm. “May I?”
Bobby pulled the bottle to his chest with both hands, like a football he’d just intercepted. “Well, let’s just see. What’s in it for ol’ Hero?”
“Not a thing, unless you have trouble with your homework or something. I’m sure I can get Raleigh to help.”
“How ’bout you show us your bobbers?”
Royce guffawed again. Shirley slapped his leg. Even in the low light Huck could see the bottle was already half gone.
“Fat chance,” said Annelise. “And for future reference, it’s best to ply a girl with booze before you cut to the chase.”
Huck turned to Sharon. “I’m surprised your dad’s letting you go tonight.”
Shirley did an exaggerated double take. “Dang, son. Suave is right.” He took the hooch from Bobby and held it out. “Welcome to the men’s club.”
He realized Shirley hadn’t seen him since his voice dropped. He glanced at the bottle and waved it along to Annelise. She took a delicate swig and passed it to Raleigh.
“He’s not,” Sharon told him. “Remember, I had to sit out in class? I’m pretty mad about it, actually.”
“Whoa,” Raleigh cut in. His own voice still hadn’t made the shift and Huck found it almost impossible that he himself had sounded so young and squeaky not a week before. “What in tarnation are you doing out here, then?”
To Huck’s surprise, Sharon received the bottle from Raleigh and took a very healthy pull. He could practically see the stuff burn its way down her throat, watched it light right up in her face. “He had to make a visit somewhere, and my mother took supper over to Mrs. Muldoon.” She took another drink. “So I left my brothers to themselves for a while.”
Shirley took the Old Quaker back. “I’ll drink to that. Better be careful those brats don’t rat you out, though.”
“I don’t care if they do. If I’m going to be grounded in advance, I may as well earn it.”
“Well, if it’s any help,” said Huck, “my mother is sort of in the dark about it.”
“You’re lucky,” she said again.
Shirley again offered the bottle to Huck, and Huck again declined. He and Raleigh had sneaked a cigarette of Pop’s back in the winter, and the thing had lifted his head like a bottle rocket. Any similar sensation was the last thing he needed going into this dance.
“It’ll put hair on your chest, son,” Shirley told him. “Suit yourself, though.”
Annelise and Raleigh each had another moderate slosh apiece, and they started for the gym.
“We’ll be along,” Royce bellowed after Annelise. “Hope you’re ready to cut a rug.”
Annelise did not look back. “Hope you can keep up.”
“He is around the bend,” said Raleigh. “I’ll dance with you, though. If you don’t mind a younger, slightly shorter gent.” He picked that precise moment to catch his toe on a crack in the walk. He stumbled but stayed on his feet. “Who put that there?”
“Your chances are rapidly waning,” she told him.
He didn’t have a retort, but he did manage to hold a level line until they turned up the front walk to the school. A throng waited in the lamplight. Huck scanned the sea of heads and spotted Katie halfway up the granite steps with a couple of girls.
Her hair was slicked back, with a red flower tucked above her left ear. She glanced down and her eyes seemed to fix right on him for a split second before she looked away. No expression on her face at all, the set of her mouth like a flat horizon. He didn’t know if he should feel disappointed, or let off the hook. Then her head ratcheted back, and her eyes clearly met his. She smiled. He felt his mouth move, form the word hi, although no sound came out.
She rolled her fingers at him and again looked away.
Annelise dug in her purse. “You’re in the door, Colonel.” She fished out a pack of gum and offered him a stick. “Don’t blow it. And ditch the gum before you ask her to dance.”
She folded a piece into her own mouth and handed one to Raleigh as well. “I can practically see the fumes on your breath,” she informed him. “Like a Bunsen burner.”
From inside they could hear clarinet doodles and the plucking of a bass, the shimmer of cymbals. A live dance band had come clear from Billings. Huck wondered why they weren’t letting anyone through the door yet.
Raleigh folded his gum into his mouth. “You are one swell dame, California.”
She patted him on the head. “If you say so, Dick Tracy.” She moved away a few steps to the base of the nearest lamp. Huck watched her flip a silver compact open and tilt it into the light. She ran a lipstick around her parted mouth.
Raleigh looked at Huck. “Speaking of detectives. We need to talk.”
“He call you again?”
“No, I called him.”
“What?” He realized he’d just yiped for the first time since his voice deepened.
“I called him. Or tried to, anyway. I got to thinking, after you said he hung up on you that night.”
“Yeah?”
Raleigh pantomimed a pipe to his lips. “Elementary, Watson. Think about it: Why would the Billings police have a dick on this? Bank jobs go to the G-men, and beyond that the good rev got himself shot in Musselshell County, not Yellowstone. Plus, what the heck kind of a name is Detective Blank? The whole thing just smelled like fish Friday. So I called up the station and asked for the guy.”
“Are you nutty as a dern fruitcake?”
“Houston, you ain’t getting the dern point.”
Huck hardly heard him. “I ought to turn the stupid thing in and be done with it. Take the hit, and be done with it. The last thing we need is to go out of our way to have the police—”
“Houston. There is no Detective Blank in Billings.”
Huck clammed up and glanced around. A couple of nearby kids looked on curiously. A horn blasted a few bars inside the school. He looked back to Raleigh, jerked his head out toward the darkened terrain of the lawn and started walking. Raleigh chewed his gum and followed.
“What do you mean, no Detective Blank?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. Some desk sergeant answered the phone, and I told him I was returning Detective Blank’s call, and he said it was no joke to waste his time with pranks. I told him I was serious, and he said somebody was pranking me, then. No Detective Blank. That wasn’t a cop on the phone, Houston.”
“Who the heck was it, then?”
Raleigh let his jaw drop. “Do I have to draw a picture?”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Shi
t.”
“Shit. Should we just tell Cy? Turn the blasted thing over?”
“Take the hit?” Raleigh shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe?” He stared off into the darkness. His brain, the biggest thing on him, was clearly throttling like a racing engine, Old Quaker or not. “Thing is, why do they want to know what happened to the dang watch? I get that it’s rare and all, but rare enough to risk getting nabbed nosing around after it? That don’t make a lick of sense. These guys are crooks, for Pete’s sake. Just go steal another one, right?”
A collective stir rippled in the throng at the main entrance. Kids began to move up the stairs and into the building. Huck didn’t know what he should be more nervous about, Katie Calhoun or a gang of desperadoes sniffing around and impersonating the police. “Guess we’re on,” he said.
Raleigh belched. “Guess so.”
“You drunk?”
“I don’t think so. About like I had a dose of the Tincture 23, maybe.”
They caught up with Annelise at the base of the steps, rejoined now by Bobby Duane and Royce who were both clearly beyond the influence of anything like cough syrup.
“Evening, ladies,” said Bobby Duane. He elbowed Royce for effect and nearly knocked him over.
“Class act,” said Raleigh. He offered his arm to Annelise. “Lady Ashley?”
To Huck’s astonishment, Annelise stepped over and took Raleigh’s arm. He felt a stab of something close to anger, then realized what it actually was. Jealousy. He looked up the steps for Katie, just in time to see her disappear into the building. Raleigh and Annelise started up, too.
She looked back at Huck. “Gum.”
He walked over and spit into the bushes along the stairs, then stepped up after her. Royce and Bobby lurched along behind. The band inside started up for real now, a rendition of “Stardust,” the clarinet echoing out of the gym at the far end of the hall.
“Darn,” said Annelise. “I love this song.”
“This song loves you, darlin’,” said Bobby Duane. “You know I’m captain of the football team? Oughta lose the runt, step inside with a local legend.” He hiccupped. Huck caught the fumes from two feet away.
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