Dancing in the Dark tp-19

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

The crowd was still applauding wildly and asking for more.

  “Toby is more or less my bodyguard,” Astaire explained. “I think he just saved my life.”

  Betty Grable took my hand and said, “I’ve got to get ready for my number. I don’t know what this was all about, but I think it was fun.”

  And she was gone.

  “Mr. Astaire, Miss Hayworth, please clear the stage for the next number,” the guy with the clipboard said, looking at me.

  We moved off stage and as I passed Cornel Wilde I handed him his jacket. He patted my shoulder and moved onto the stage.

  “Rita,” Astaire said, taking one of her hands in both of his, “trust me.”

  She looked at me, shook her head, and said, “Well, it was an experience I haven’t had before.”

  And she was gone.

  The orchestra had already started its next number.

  “Best dancer I’ve ever worked with,” Astaire said, hands in his pockets as we watched her move away through the backstage crowd. And then he turned to me: “Toby, is it over?”

  “Almost,” I said. “I’ve got to go. I’ll send you a bill.”

  “You were pretty good out there,” he said.

  “I had a great teacher,” I answered and moved past Barry Lorie and the other guard.

  I went through the stage-door exit, down an alley, and back to Wilshire. I didn’t want to run into Phil. He’d want me to give a statement and help make sense out of what Carlotta might be telling him.

  If he got her talking, there was one big piece of the puzzle she couldn’t help him with. Carlotta had murdered Willie Talbott and her husband, but she hadn’t killed Luna Martin.

  I was hungry. I was tired. I had just danced with Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth on the stage of the Wiltern Theater and I was on my way to do something I didn’t want to do.

  Chapter Fourteen: After the Ball Was Over

  “You look rotten,” Lester Gannett said when I leaned against the bar of the Mozambique.

  There wasn’t much of a crowd, maybe fifteen, twenty people, and Evelyn the chanteuse was not holding them in the palm of her gloved hand with her version of “Lili Marlene.”

  “It’s been a long few days,” I said.

  “Make that a lifetime,” said a fat woman on the stool next to me.

  “I thought you were never gonna come back here,” Lester said. “We had an agreement.”

  “I’ll make it quick,” I said.

  “You still look rotten. You need a shave and a bath.”

  “He’s not the only one,” the fat woman said.

  Evelyn belted and Lou rippled the keys behind her.

  “I’ve been dancing with Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth,” I explained.

  “Right,” said Lester. “And I’ve got Gene Tierney waitin’ for me upstairs. Toby, make it fast and get the hell out of here.”

  Sidney the cockatoo let out a shriek, upstaging Evelyn. Then Sidney said, “Phooey on the Fuhrer.”

  “Amen to that,” said the fat lady, holding up her glass.

  I made my way to a booth and sat in the shadows till the set was over. There was a round of applause to which Evelyn and her pink boa responded with a bow. There was no second round. When she had left the stage and Lou had announced that he would be back in a few minutes to play favorites, I got up and followed him.

  Going across the platform of the Mozambique was not like playing the Wiltern.

  As soon as I got through the door, I could hear Evelyn shouting, “You were off. You were off half a goddamn beat the whole set. Where’s your mind, you old fart. This is my career here.”

  I found them in Lou’s dressing room/home. He was sitting at his mirror. She was still going.

  “I gotta take hold here,” she said, lowering her voice a little but not much. “I’m down to playin’ toilets like this with a piano player who. . oh, shit. Forget it.”

  She turned, saw me, pushed past, and slammed the door.

  “Lady’s upset,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Lady can’t carry a tune,” Lou answered. “When she talks the song through, she is somewhere between terrible and dreck. When she sings, she can drive a musician to suicide.”

  “I heard that,” Evelyn said, bursting back into the room.

  “Listening at the door,” Lou said, looking at me. “No privacy. No respect.”

  “I’m gonna have your ass.”

  “Good,” said Lou. “No one’s wanted it for thirty years.”

  “I’m gonna get you canned,” Evelyn said, advancing on Lou, who stood up.

  “Leave,” he said softly. “This is what I have left of a home. I don’t want the shrill and untalented intruding.”

  “I’ll. .” she started.

  Lou took her arm in his thin hand and turned her around toward the door. She tried to pull loose but couldn’t do it. Lou opened the door. Evelyn began to cry.

  “This is not fair,” she sobbed.

  “What you need is another line of work,” said Lou, ushering her out and closing the door behind her.

  “You’ve got strong hands,” I said.

  Lou looked at his hands.

  “I play piano. Seventy years I play piano. Of course I’ve got strong hands.” He turned his chair and sat to face me. “So,” he said. “First you give me financial security and now you come to me with bad news, right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “You know?” he answered.

  “I know,” I answered.

  “Tell me, so I know we’re talking about the same thing,” he said.

  “You killed Luna Martin.”

  “We’re talking about the same thing.”

  “You were in the hall,” I said. “She couldn’t have gone more than a few feet when she died. You had to see who did it. They had to do it while you were standing there.”

  “How did I do it, Philo Vance? I didn’t have a knife.”

  “Piano wire,” I said. “There was a bad note on the piano. You were working on it, went out, probably to get a new wire from a piano somewhere else in the hotel. Who knows. You met Luna in the hall. You killed her. You took the wire and put it in your pocket. She staggered in, pointed to the piano, and dropped dead. Unfortunately for Shelly Minck, he was standing between Luna and the piano when she pointed.”

  Lou smiled, shook his head, and touched his mustache. He looked a lot older than eighty.

  “You know how I got away with it?” he asked. “I’m an old man. Nobody pays attention to an old man. Nobody would even consider that an old man could kill a big young woman. I was invisible. The police barely talked to me. I was just a crotchety old fart who was losing his memory.”

  “Why, Lou?”

  “Nothing fancy,” Lou said with a sigh, looking around his small room. “She insulted me, ridiculed me, like Evelyn, only worse. You heard her. She was even worse in the hall, and she caught me at a bad time. My liver’s going. My heart is bad. All I’ve got is my memories and a bagful of old songs. She said I had ruined her lesson, called me an old sack of shit, said I should have died long ago. I told her I had played for Nora Bayes, Sophie Tucker, played with the best in Orleans, the best, colored and white both. She laughed and turned her back. I had the wire.”

  Lou shrugged again.

  “I guess this means I won’t be meeting the mysterious Mrs. Platt.”

  “Plaut,” I said.

  “You think they’ve got pianos in prison?” he asked. “Hell, I’m gonna die soon anyway. I’d die faster without a piano, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I know, Lou,” I said getting up. “I’ll get back to you.”

  “Life is a surprise,” he said.

  “I’ve noticed,” I said.

  An hour later I was on my way up the steps inside Mrs. Plaut’s boardinghouse. It was two in the morning and my shoes were off. I made it to my room. There was no one there but Dash, who was sitting on the ledge of the open window, looking up at the moon. He turned to
look at me for an instant and then turned back to the moon.

  I got undressed and made myself a bowl of Wheaties with milk. I did the same for Dash, who tore himself away from the nightlife to join me at the table.

  When we were finished, I scratched Dash’s head for a minute or two and then turned out the lights and got down on my mattress. Moonlight lit the room gently, and Dash curled up next to me, purring.

  I was asleep before I could review the day and worry about tomorrow.

  Chapter Fifteen: Save the Last Dance for Me

  “The dawn has broken,” came the voice of Mrs. Plaut, waking me from a dream of dancing on a cloud with Anita Maloney.

  Anita was wearing her prom dress and a big white corsage. The cloud was in the middle of the Glendale High gym. Anita was sixteen and I was eighteen.

  “The dawn has broken,” Mrs. Plaut repeated.

  Anita and I began to sink into the cloud.

  I opened my eyes. Mrs. Plaut stood over me in a blue dress and an apron. She was carrying a feather duster.

  “Thanks for the information,” I said, checking to see if she was wearing her hearing aid. She wasn’t.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “Where what?” I shouted.

  She looked at me as if I were feebleminded and said, “You have a call.”

  She turned and left the room. The Beech-Nut Gum clock said it was a little before seven. I got up, slipped on the pants I had thrown on the chair the night before, and went into the hall to get the phone.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “She confessed,” Phil said. “Killed Talbott and Forbes, said they were blackmailing her. Said she got her father to try to scare you off. She says she, Luna, and Talbott were planning to get rid of Forbes. Carlotta was a busy lady. She was having affairs with Luna Martin and Willie Talbott. She claims she didn’t kill Luna. She loved her. Steve and I have been up all night with her.”

  “You think she killed Luna?”

  “Who else?” Phil asked. “Goddamn perverted city. Women making love to women. Men making love to men. If any of my kids. .”

  “Get some sleep, Phil.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Cawelti wants to see you. He’s mad as hell that Steve and I broke the case. He said if you want your gun back and you want to keep your license, you be in his office before ten.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “You did a good job, Tobias,” he said.

  He hung up. It was the best conversation I had ever had with my brother.

  I shaved, showered, got dressed, and tiptoed past Mrs. Plaut’s door. This morning I wasn’t so lucky. She came out of her door and blocked my path.

  “You mentioned yesterday, I believe, that you knew a possible gentleman caller.”

  “I did,” I confessed.

  “Give him this and tell him I will be receiving in my parlor on Saturday next between noon and four. There will be tea and sweets.”

  “I’ll tell him,” I said loudly, taking the package.

  “Meyerpresent cakes,” she said, pointing at the package.

  “Smells good,” I said, lowering my voice. “About the gentleman. You should know he’s a murderer.”

  “That is fine,” she said. “The Mister was a Methodist.”

  Ten minutes later I was having a pair of tacos and a cup of coffee at Manny’s. Manny told me the war news and I kept an eye out for Juanita. If she came, I planned to retreat through the back door. She didn’t come.

  Shelly was in the office, humming away. Violet hadn’t yet arrived.

  “Mildred welcome you back?” I asked.

  “With conditions,” he said, turning to me as he set up his instruments for his first victim of the day. “I’ve got to take her to Mexico for a vacation and I’ve got to fire Violet.”

  “And you’re going to fire Violet?”

  “No,” he said. “You are. We’re partners.”

  “We are?”

  “Always have been,” he said. “We share an office, a receptionist. You call on me when you need a hand. I call on you.”

  “We are not partners, Shel. You want to fire Violet, do it yourself.”

  “Concessions,” he said, turning to me and removing his morning cigar from his mouth. “Two months’ rent on the sublet free. You fire her.”

  “Tell Mildred Violet works for me. I’ll pay her.”

  “But Mildred. .”

  “Forget it, Shel. I pay her. She works for me.”

  I headed for my cubbyhole office with the package of Meyerpresent cakes for Lou Canton. Hell, I wouldn’t be seeing Lou till next Saturday. I knew I’d be picking him up to call on Mrs. Plaut. The package smelled great. I got behind my desk and opened the box. There were four round cakes. I started to eat one while I pulled out a sheet of paper and started preparing my bill for Fred Astaire.

  Shelly burst in. “Maybe we can work something out,” he said frantically. “I tell Mildred Violet works for you and she’ll have to talk to you about firing her. I cut four dollars a month from your rent and you tell Violet to keep doing what she’s been doing for me.”

  “No more rent on this closet, Shel, and I pay Violet. Best offer. Take it or leave it. You want a Meyerpresent cake?”

  He took one, removed the cigar from his mouth, adjusted his glasses, and took a gigantic bite. That left two cakes for Lou. I knew I’d eat them. They were great and they’d be hard as coconuts by Saturday.

  “All right,” Shelly said, taking the remains of his cake and leaving.

  There were four notes on my desk, all in Violet’s neat hand. Before I looked at them, I typed up my bill for Fred Astaire:

  Bill for Investigative Services:

  Basic retainer (three days). . . $75.00

  Accompanist (Lou Canton) for dance lessons. . . . . . $50.00

  Parking (Monticello Hotel parking lot). . . . . . . $7.00

  Actors (Pook Hurawitz, Jerry Rogasinian). . . . . $40.00

  Cab fare for accompanist. . . $4.00

  Poplin jacket (torn during pursuit of killer). . . . . $5.40

  For information from desk clerk at Monticello. . . . . $10.00

  Parking ticket. . . . . $3.00

  Gas to Huntington Beach (two round trips). . . . . $5.00

  Total. . . . . . . . $199.40

  Astaire had given me a $200.00 advance. I subtracted my own fee ($75.00) which left $125.00. The total expenses listed came to $134.40, which meant that Fred Astaire owed me $9.40. I looked at the finished bill and tore it up. I still had what was left of the five hundred bucks one of Cortona’s men had left on the front seat of my car, and all of the five hundred Forbes had given me.

  I looked at my phone messages.

  Hy of Hy’s for Him called. He had a job for me.

  Jack Ellis, a house detective at one of the downtown hotels, wanted to know if I would cover for him when he went on vacation next month.

  A woman named Levine called, saying, “Where’s my cat?” I had searched for her missing cat more than three years ago. I had returned her fee. I had begged her to forget it, but she emerged to haunt me every four or five months.

  The last message was the most interesting. It read: “Mr. Fields would like you to call him as soon as possible. A matter of great importance.”

  There was a phone number and a time.

  My day was planned. Finish my bill to Astaire. Go see Captain Cawelti. Retrieve my.38. To Mack’s Diner for lunch and Anita and an invitation for her to go out dancing Saturday night.

  I hummed a few bars of “Lovely to Look At” and picked up the phone to call W.C. Fields.

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