Dancing Aztecs

by Donald E. Westlake

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Sure you did. You’re writing a fuck book!”

  Floyd, who had grabbed a chunk of manuscript, shouted, “Listen to this part!”

  “Not out loud!” Mel screamed.

  Frank said, “You’re writing a book. What’s to be ashamed of?”

  “It isn’t finished,” Mel told him. “I’m embarrassed, all right? I didn’t want anybody to know until it was done.”

  “Jesus,” Floyd said. “This is raunchy stuff.”

  Mel pointed a trembling finger. “If either of you bastards tell anybody—Anybody.”

  “Not a word,” Frank promised.

  “Not your wives, not Angela, not anybody.”

  “Angela doesn’t even know?”

  “Nobody knows,” Mel said, and the buzzer rang. He picked up the phone: “Yeah? Yeah?”

  Ralphi’s cold voice said, “Somebody named Jerry calling you.”

  “Oh. Okay. Listen, Ralphi, I’m sorry about the problem before. It’s all over now, guaranteed.” (He could say that because Frank and Floyd were immersed in different parts of the manuscript and not listening to a word he said.)

  “That’s perfectly all right,” she said, and hung up.

  I’ll give her the day off, Mel thought. No, I’ll give her tomorrow off, and take tomorrow off myself. And he pushed the other button and said, “Hello?”

  Jerry’s voice said, “I’m on the way back.”

  Mel clutched the receiver. “You got it?”

  “Not yet The girl’s coming with me.”

  “You’re bringing her back to the city?”

  “Sure.”

  “Not all the way, Jerry.”

  “Listen, Jerry,” Mel said. “Get the statue along the road somewhere and ditch her. You bring her all the way back, she’ll blow the whistle on us before we unload the thing. We don’t know what friends she has, we don’t know anything about her.”

  “Whadaya mean, Mel? Just leave her beside the road?”

  “She’ll be okay, Jerry. She’s got some money, she’s a grown-up person, she doesn’t need anybody to take care of her. Besides, you can’t keep her with you after you get it or she might catch on, and you don’t want to wait till you get her all the way to the city, because then maybe you can’t get it at all. So grab it on the way, ditch her, and come on back.”

  “Jeez, Mel—”

  Mel said, “What’s the matter with you, Jerry? You’re usually smarter than everybody. Think about it, here’s nothing else to do.”

  A pause, a silence, a hesitation; what sounded to Mel suspiciously like a sigh, and then Jerry’s voice saying, “Okay, Mel, I guess you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right You know that.”

  “Anyway, we’re leaving now. The way I figure, we should hit the city right in the middle of rush hour.”

  “By yourself. With the statue.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ll be waiting,” Mel told him, and hung up, turning to the others to give them the news.

  Not likely. Both of them were on the sofa, each with a chunk of Mel’s manuscript and the intensity with which they were reading suggested that maybe he did have a best seller there after all.

  Mel sighed. Well, at least it was keeping them out of trouble.

  THE TRAVELERS …

  Mel was right, of course. Jerry knew that, he’d known it before he made the call. His only choice was get the statue as quickly as possible, skip out on the girl, and hotfoot back to New York. That was the idea, wasn’t it? Always had been, still was. Like, what was the alternative?

  That’s right; there isn’t any alternative.

  Leaving the phone booth, Jerry walked back to the restaurant and found her touching up her lipstick. Yet another cup of coffee had been poured at his place. “Good Christ,” he said. “More coffee.”

  “I told her I didn’t think you wanted it.”

  “They don’t push the coffee like that in New York.”

  Bobbi looked sour. “They don’t give you anything in New York.”

  “They don’t have to. You ready?”

  She was. He’d already paid the check, so he grabbed her suitcases while she pushed the harp, and they walked out together to Angela’s station wagon in the parking lot. Which bag had the golden statue in it? He hefted the things as though he’d be able to tell by the weight.

  “Well, it isn’t a Jaguar,” he said, when they reached the car, “but it’ll take you the same places.”

  She shook her head. “No it won’t The Jaguar would have taken me to California.”

  “Sorry,” he said, grinning at her. “That’s a little off my route.”

  “I know.”

  He stashed the luggage, they got into the car, and he headed for route 80.

  A funny thing happened—or almost happened—when they got to the interchange. Jerry saw the sign beside the road, saying Junction 80 and West with an arrow to the right, East with an arrow straight ahead. And it suddenly came over him to get on 80 West instead of East, and line out for California. Tell the girl the truth about the statue, call the guys later on when they stopped for lunch, and then just head out to see the world. Floyd could take over the Inter-Air route, at least for a while, and Mel could arrange for the sale of the statue back in New York, with Jerry to make delivery when and where the buyer wanted. So what if the world wasn’t New York? He could go look at it, couldn’t he? And go back to the city any time he got bored.

  All of this flashed through his mind, as a complete and detailed plan, in the blink of an eye. Then he turned to look at Bobbi’s profile, and the whole thing vanished, like breath off a window.

  In the first place, he didn’t even know this girl. They weren’t shacked up together or anything, and even though he was pretty sure she liked him that wasn’t any guarantee she wanted to hop in the rack with him.

  In the second place, it was her statue. If he told her the truth, why would she have to split with him, or anybody else? Then he’d have to take it away from her by force, which he didn’t want, and if he did she’d have a perfect bitch to the cops, and he wasn’t all that sure she couldn’t find him and identify him later on.

  Then there were other things. Her expression, for instance; she was depressed and angry, and that gave her a frowning, unfriendly expression that just didn’t invite the sharing of adventures or telling of secrets. And she was married, after all, which meant the odds were still that she’d go back to her husband. Also, how tied up did he want to get with a woman who threw all your clothes out the window when she got sore? Then, there was a memory of the Harwood kitchen; even Angela wasn’t that big a slob.

  On the other hand, she was fun to talk with, she was good-looking, she was a good Hustler, she was a New Yorker, she seemed bright and sharp, and he had the idea she liked him.

  Not enough. 80 East.

  THE PRODIGAL …

  “Would you like some more coffee, Wally?”

  “No, thanks, Mom. I’m full. Boy, that was sure some breakfast”

  Wally and his mom smiled at one another, full of breakfast and camaraderie. “I’m glad to be back, Mom,” Wally said, and he meant every word of it.

  “And I’m glad to have you back, Wally.”

  They’d talked themselves out over the long night, and now they were just where they’d been before all this foolishness got started. Wally had told her everything—well, almost everything. He’d left out a few things that might have upset her; the sex act he’d performed with Angela Bernstein, for instance, and one or two other items. But other than those elisions, made exclusively for Mom’s own good, Wally had told her everything. How he’d been in a house in Queens, peddling pools, when he’d happened to overhear the conversation about the million-dollar statue. How that conversation had driven him temporarily mad, and he’d gone running around like a crazy person trying to find the million-dollar statue for himself. (Just as though he didn’t already have everything he wanted and needed
right here in Valley Stream, with a fine job and the world’s best mom.) How he’d even gone so far as to become a partner with one of the crooks, who had then abandoned him way over in New Jersey. And how being alone and friendless in New Jersey, surrounded by flashy people, jet-setters, and movie stars, all of whom cared nothing and less than nothing about Wally Hintzlebel, had suddenly brought him back to his senses.

  And all at once the compulsion within him had just faded away, like smoke on a snowy mountain after a fire. All the urgency, all the frenzy, all the electric trembling, the nervous passionate craving to be, to do, to become! Gotta hustle, gotta dance! Gone, all gone, the battle over, the warm blanket of contentment descending once more, the Mason jars on the high dark shelf reconstructing themselves, imploding back to wholeness, trick photography, the film run backward. “I suddenly understood,” as Wally had told his mother last night, “that money wouldn’t bring happiness.”

  And so he’d made his slow difficult way home—hitchhiking, catching buses and subways and taxicabs—arriving late last night to make a clean breast of it with his mom (almost a clean breast), and ask her to forgive him and take him back. And after a good long talk, a long talk, of course she had taken him back, and they were best friends again, just like before.

  And now Wally, just like any other day, had eaten the wonderful breakfast his mom had made for him, and was kissing her on the cheek, and was going out to sell swimming pools to the grandchildren of penniless immigrants. And he was content, all crazy thoughts of the Dancing Aztec Priest swept away out of his head.

  But if all that is true, why is he still in our story?

  THE POSSE …

  If politics makes strange bedfellows, greed makes strange fellow travelers. College professor Chuck Harwood, off to the wilds of Pennsylvania in pursuit of his wandering wife, traveled in company with financier Victor Krassmeier, thug August Corella, activist Oscar Russell Green, and publicist Bud Beemiss. All they needed was the wife of Bath.

  Their chartered plane brought the five men from New York to Greater Pittsburgh Airport in less than an hour and a half, where they transferred to a bronze Oldsmobile Delta 88, the largest vehicle Pittsburgh Hertz could come up with on such short notice. They reached the Holiday Inn near Oil City an hour and a half later, and Oscar said, “Go ahead, Chuck. We’ll wait out here.”

  “Why?” Chuck asked. “Let’s all go in together.”

  “For a husband-wife reunion? Chuck, before you get that statue you’re going to have to make friends with Bobbi.”

  “Oh, yes. I suppose you’re right.” Chuck stepped out onto the blacktop. “I’ll, uh—” he said. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  Oscar said, “You take your time, Chuck. You want her back, don’t you? I mean, besides the statue.”

  “Oh, of course,” Chuck said. “But she’ll come back anyway, you know. Sooner or later.”

  “Still,” Oscar told him, speaking out of the experience of three marriages, “you take it slow and easy with that girl. We’ll wait right here.”

  “All right.” Chuck drifted away toward the entrance.

  Now the others all got out of the car and stood in the sunshine. They were still all stretching and scratching when Chuck did come back out, barely a minute later, looking vague and disoriented. “She didn’t wait,” he announced. “The fellow in there says she left hours ago. She didn’t wait at all, she went away right after I talked to her.”

  “Terrific,” Corella said. “You got no control over your wife at all, do you?”

  “Control?” Chuck seemed ignorant of the word. “She is an adult human being, after all.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Oscar said, “So what do we do now? Chase her all the way to California?”

  Corella said to Chuck, “What’s she driving?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Corella gave him a sour look. “Fuckin’ babes in the woods,” he decided. “You all wait here, I’ll be right back.” And he marched away, smoothing down his off-white jacket and powder-blue slacks, both of which had become very wrinkled on the trip.

  The others continued to mill around beside the bronze Oldsmobile until Corella came back out, smiling in the sunlight and looking very pleased with himself. “Good thing I checked,” he said. “She isn’t on her way to California at all. She’s headed back to New York.”

  Everybody said, “New York!” Chuck said, “I knew she’d come back to me.”

  Corella sneered at him. “Oh, yeah? Your name wouldn’t be Jerry Spaulding, would it?”

  “Jerry what?”

  So Corella told them the story the desk clerk had told him, about the Jaguar breaking down and being towed away for repairs, about Bobbi Harwood engaging in any number of phone calls, and about Bobbi at last accepting a ride with a gentleman named Jerry Spaulding who was on his way to New York. The lubrication of a ten-dollar bill had oiled Corella’s way to a viewing of Jerry Spaulding’s registration card, from which Corella had copied the license plate number. According to the desk clerk, the car was a dark-green station wagon, possibly a Ford.

  Krassmeier said, “In other words, we should fly back to New York and get there before she does.”

  “Wait a minute,” Oscar said. “This fellow’s name is Jerry Spaulding?”

  “Why?” said Corella. “You know him?”

  “The guy leading the other bunch. Manelli. Isn’t his first name Jerry?”

  Everybody looked at everybody else. “Son of a bitch,” Corella said.

  “He’s got the statue!” Chuck cried.

  “And your wife,” Bud reminded him.

  “He can’t sell my wife,” Chuck said. “Back in the car! We’ve got to catch them!”

  THE GOOD FRIENDS …

  From the top of the hill they could look northward over steep slopes of pine forest, darkly green, toward higher mountains seeming violet and purple beneath the blue sky. The twin pale lines of route 80 climbed into sight to their left, sliced through a fold in the hills, then lifted over a ridge on the right, dropping out of sight toward New York. A few dynamite scars from the leveling process were still visible as red-earth-white-stone scabs against the prevailing dark green. A few trucks lumbered along the highway, emitting little black puffs of diesel smoke. A white Porsche scampered among them, eastbound, and disappeared over the rise. Far to the north small cottony white clouds were stationary in the sky. No highway noise reached this hilltop, but down the slope birds were calling and responding.

  “It’s beautiful here,” Bobbi said. “Truly beautiful.”

  “Sure is,” Jerry said, but she could hear in his voice that he wasn’t really interested. He was only being companionable.

  Turning away from the view, to where he was sitting amid the remnants of their picnic lunch, she said, “You really are a city boy, aren’t you?”

  “Never said I was anything else. Comere, have another Bloody Mary.”

  “Another? I’ve already had two.”

  “We gotta use up these ice cubes,” he said.

  So she laughed, and sat down beside him, and had another Bloody Mary.

  They had driven more than two hours across Pennsylvania, into the rising sun, while Bobbi talked about her marriage, and about the times she and Chuck had lived in Chad and Guatemala, and what it was like to work in a symphony orchestra, and what she planned to do in California, and it wasn’t until much later that she would realize Jerry had told her almost nothing about himself. Every time she’d slowed in her autobiography he’d asked another question, drawing another chapter.

  Until, simultaneously, both had discovered they were hungry. Leaving route 80 near State College, they’d found a grocery store to provide bread and cheese and cold cuts and cantaloupe and tomato juice and plastic cups, plates, utensils. A state liquor store had furnished the vodka, and a gas station’s dispensing machine had given them a bag containing enough ice cubes for an opening night party. Then they’d driven nearly another hour on route 80 before findi
ng a picnic spot they could approve; a place where the car could be pulled some distance off the road, where there weŕe no nearby fences to clamber over, and where a high but gradual slope on their side of the road suggested they’d be able to climb easily away from the influence of the highway. They didn’t know they were in Bald Eagle State Forest, and that was a pity; they would have liked the name.

  As for sex. Well, yes, as for sex, there hadn’t been any, but on the other hand it had been very much on Bobbi’s mind. A distraction, in fact. Last night, there had been a certain self-satisfaction in knowing she could have taken this fellow to bed, and probably would have enjoyed it at the moment, but that she was too smart and independent and individual to leap into that sort of messy mistake. Trailing off toward sleep, she had mused on her ten years of marriage, ten years of fidelity to one man (except for one confused, inept, barely remembered episode while a drunken house-guest on the Jersey shore), and it had seemed to her then that a return to exciting sex would soon prove to be one of the more important fringe benefits of her decision to leave Chuck. But there wasn’t any hurry. A new and different sex life would definitely be coming her way, when she was ready for it; and in the meantime anticipation was satisfaction enough.

  So much for last night. Today, the young man she’d rejected forever was somehow still in the foreground. He was no longer quite the same bar pickup, casual dance partner, thanks-but-no-thanks. He had become a personality, an individual she had to respond to in an individual way. And today the thought of sex was very insistent.

  Which could hardly be called his fault. He hadn’t come on strong, he hadn’t been suggestive or pushy, he hadn’t made any sort of blatant sexual suggestion at all. On the other hand, his ease and self-confidence and rather challenging smile were all implicitly sexual. His words were no more than questions expressing an interest in her history and opinions, but his manner insistently said You’ll be glad we did.