A New York Dance

by Donald E. Westlake

  Meanwhile, Leroy and Buhbuh downstairs, they been thinking and wondering, and they figure what the hell, it Leroy's house, ain't it? They can go in the goddam house, can't they? They can see what's going on, can't they? So they go in the house and up the stairs and they don't see nothing, and when they going by Leroy's door it open and the cops come out with the two statues Leroy and Buhbuh got today at that restaurant. And Leroy, he say, "Wuh duh hell?"

  And the cops, they begin to yell and holler and wave their arms, and one of them accidental hits the statue against the side of the door, and the statue's head, it fall off. And the other one, he yell, "Forget it! That ain't it!" And he hit the other statue against the wall and he head don't fall off, and the two white men both stare at the statue with big eyes, and then they push past Leroy and Buhbuh and run downstairs, with the statue that didn't get broken.

  And Buhbuh, he yell, "You come back here, my statue!" And he take off down them stairs after them sons bitches.

  And Leroy, he run down after Buhbuh.

  And all the way down the stairs, them white men, they yelling real loud. "We got it! We got it!"

  And down on the sidewalk, Buhbuh, he catch up with them, and he grab the one's arm and he try to get the statue back, and they fight this way and that on the sidewalk while lots a people on the block, they decide they been outside long enough, maybe they gone amble on inside now, see what's on the TeeVee. And then the white man, he hit Buhbuh across the nose with the statue, and this time the statue's head do come off, and the white man yell, real real loud, "Well, shit! Here, goddam it!" And he shove the statue in Buhbuh's hand, and him and the other white man, they turn around and they run their asses right outa that block.

  And Leroy, he shake his fist and yell after them, "Stinkin cops!" Because in Harlem the cops, they don't got much reputation.

  2

  From Floyd's list:

  F. Xavier White

  211 Riverside Drive

  Maleficient is always in a bad temper when she's been dieting, and she's always dieting, so she's always in a bad temper. However, being in a bad temper always makes her break her diet, so besides being on a diet and in a bad temper Maleficient is also gaining weight. As F. Xavier said about her recently, behind her ample back, "Next thing you know, I'll have to get that woman license plates."

  But even Maleficient, no matter how fat or bad-tempered or hungry she might become, knows there are times to be quiet and permit someone else the centre of the stage, and one of those times is right now, so when F. Xavier, with his oily unctuous smile showing every blessed one of his huge capped teeth, makes the introductions, saying, "Mr. Jonesburg, I'd like you to meet my wife, Maleficient; sweetheart, this is Mr. Jeremiah Jonesburg," Maleficient doesn't respond with any of her usual rude tricks at all. Instead, she smiles sweetly and even does something that might be a curtsey—if it isn't an earthquake — and all she says is, "Pleased, I'm shoo-uh."

  Mr. Jeremiah "Bad Death" Jonesburg smiles, with his mouth open, revealing some nightmare version of Ali Baba's cave. Gold and ivory intermixed, with spaces where removals have already taken place, and all guarded by the dragon of his thick, yellow-stained, scabby red tongue. This ugliness smiles, and says, "Hello, fat mama."

  Maleficient winces at that one, and so does F. Xavier, because he knows he'll pay for it later, but at the moment Maleficient merely goes on smiling, and merely says, "Oh, you. You sure are the one."

  Jeremiah "Bad Death" Jonesburg is the one, in fact. He's the Man, the Main Man from 96th to 155th, east side and west. Them Italians downtown shake when they hear the name of Bad Death, because he's the one run them out, run them right out of Harlem and the whole patch. He's the meanest, the baddest, the biggest, the toughest, the coolest and the hottest son of a bitch ever to hit the street. Where he walks tombstones grow, and where he sits the sun never shines. His bed is made of politician's bones, and for lunch he eats policemen's orphaned children. He picks his teeth with pool cues, and blows his nose on traffic tickets. He wears Datsuns when he roller-skates, and his toilet seat is lined with pussy fur. His hand can crumble bricks, and his piss cuts through solid steel. He stacks his women three at a time like cordwood, and makes love to them all at once. The Queen of England irons his shirts, and his Cadillac runs on Dago blood. When he's angry bullets melt, and when he smiles trees die. He's so mean he can't look in a mirror, for fear he'll annoy himself. When he speaks transistor radios give up the ghost, and when he farts entire neighbourhoods turn into deserts. He is the Man, and nobody forgets it.

  And he has come to F. Xavier White, Harlem's Finest Mortician ("Your Every Need Anticipated — Service with a Sympathetic Smile"), to make the final arrangements for a funeral. (There's a rumour that Bad Death also made the initial arrangements for this particular funeral, but that's a rumour no one mentions in Bad Death's presence.)

  "Mole Mouth was a friend of mine," Bad Death says, and nobody disagrees with him. "Now, there's a lot of funerals take place in this town in a year, but not many of them is the best. What I want for Mole Mouth is the best."

  "Oh, that's what you'll get," F. Xavier assures him. He smiles a big smile and washes his hands together and says, "You come to the right man, Mr. Jonesburg. I specialize in the best."

  "Mole Mouth comes from down South," Bad Death continues. "Before he come up here and got himself into businesses he shouldn't of got himself into. Now, a lot of Mole Mouth's family gonna be coming up from Louisiana, Georgia, Arkansas, and I want them to see the best. The best."

  "You'll want a band," F. Xavier says.

  "The best band."

  "I wouldn't inflict on your ear anything but the best band."

  "That's right," Bad Death says. Then he gazes a moment past the simpering bulk of Maleficient, and he says, "Now, the Dagos, in the old days, when one of their big boys got it, his competitors all got together and gave him a big funeral. A special kind of big funeral.''

  "A send-off," F. Xavier agrees.

  "That's what we want for Mole Mouth," Bad Death says. "He was my competitor, and I'm giving him the best funeral, and I want it to be a send-off. Better than any send-off them Dagos ever give anybody. I want them to see it, and I want them to know it's the best."

  "Flowers," F. Xavier says. "Great big horseshoe wreaths of flowers. Lots of black limousines."

  "Make 'em white limousines," Bad Death says.

  "White limousines," F. Xavier agrees. "And lots of wailing women in black dresses, to throw themselves in the grave. Or, do you want white dresses?"

  "White dresses? This ain't a wedding, this's a funeral!"

  "Right you are," F. Xavier says, nodding and beaming, while perspiration is running like the Orinoco River down the middle of his back. "Black dresses," he says.

  "Then there's something else," Bad Death says. "When a police commissioner kicks off, they gave him a big funeral with processions."

  "Horse-drawn hearses," F. Xavier says, and tentatively adds, "black horses?"

  "Horses, that's good," Bad Death says, "But uniforms, too. And big shots."

  "Liberation High has a marching band," F. Xavier says. "With uniforms."

  "That's not the band we were talking about before."

  "No, no, this is another band. The first band'll be real down home Dixie."

  "Two bands. Hmmmm." Bad Death strokes his chin — it makes a raspy noise — and considers that. "I like it," he decides. "Snappy uniforms?"

  "Four colours."

  "Good. And what about the big shots?"

  F. Xavier has spent the last half-minute thinking about that, and growing increasingly desperate, because of course most true bigshots — mayors or baseball players, for instance — wouldn't be caught dead at a funeral like this. But there has to be an answer, and so F. Xavier keeps smiling and keeps thinking, and Bad Death just keeps looking at him.

  The fact is, F. Xavier actually does know a lot of big shots of various kinds, a lot of different people in the community. To become director of
Harlem's Premier Funeral Parlour, which has always been his dream, he has deemed it advisable to associate himself with all sorts of local organizations and activities. (The Open Sports Committee, for instance.) Trying not to show doubt, F. Xavier says, "I'll get them for you, Mr. Jonesburg. I can't give you an exact list right this minute, but I assure you you'll be satisfied."

  "I better be," Bad Death says.

  "Then there's the question of a chorus," F. Xavier says, hurrying along.

  "Yes," says Bad Death, and one of the dozen men that Bad Death has stationed around the outside of the funeral parlour walks in, raising a hand to catch Bad Death's eye.

  "A female chorus," F. Xavier is saying, "in floor-length robes. Black? Or white? Sometimes red can look very—"

  "Just a minute," Bad Death says, and asks his man, "What's happening?"

  "Two white men."

  "Two white men? Where?"

  "Climbing the fire escape in back."

  "Dagos?"

  "Irishmen. We looked in their wallets, and they're both named McCann."

  "They're still alive?"

  "Oh, sure. They didn't make no trouble. When we threw the light on them, one of them fainted."

  "Bring 'em in here," Bad Death says, and when his man goes away Bad Death shakes his head and says, "Irishmen. Huh."

  Frank and Floyd (Floyd is the one who fainted), having been roughed up by a lot of mean-looking black men, and then having been locked away in a room with a stack of coffins, are not feeling very rosy. "I don't know," Floyd says at one point, "maybe a million dollars isn't a million dollars."

  "If it turns out, after we go through all this," Frank says, "and somebody else found the damn things hours ago, I'm gonna be pissed."

  "If I'm even around later on to find that out," Floyd says, "I'll be so happy I won't even care. If I ever get back to America, I'll get down on my knees and kiss the ground."

  A bunch of the black men come into the room then, and take Frank and Floyd by their various elbows, and walk them away to the room containing Bad Death and F. Xavier and Maleficient. Frank and Floyd don't know it, but F. Xavier and Maleficient are just as scared as they are that some sort of bloodshed is about to take place.

  Bad Death, whose leadership is immediately obvious, looks Frank and Floyd up and down and says, "Irishmen. What in hell is a couple of Irishmen doing, sneaking around after me?"

  Frank and Floyd blink at him. Frank says, "You?"

  Bad Death gives them his penetrating stare. "What mob you goofs with? You tied up with them Dagos downtown?"

  "We're fire escape inspectors," Floyd says, and Frank gives him a disgusted look.

  "You come snuffin' around Bad Death," Bad Death tells him, "you in trouble."

  Frank, who has figured things out by now, gives Bad Death a crooked grin and says, "Come on, Bad Death, you know we're not with any guinea mob downtown."

  Bad Death's eyes narrow. "That's what I know, is it?"

  Frank, after all, is a member of a backstage union, and his theatrical background is coming in handy. Grinning at Floyd, and shaking his head, he says, "Well, Steve, looks like our cover's blown."

  Floyd has no idea what in hell is going on. He says, "Steve?"

  "Our cover's blown," Frank repeats, and turns to Bad Death to say, "You know Irishmen don't work with guinea mobsters. You know where Irishmen work."

  Bad Death's eyes by now are so narrow he looks like a character in Dick Tracy. He says, on a rising note of doubt and disbelief, "Cops? Cops?"

  "Not exactly cops" Frank says. He still has the same off-centre grin on his face.

  Floyd is just as baffled as ever, except he can see that Frank is getting some damn message across to this spook, so now Floyd chimes in, saying, "That's right. Not exactly what you'd call cops."

  Bad Death is leaning forward like a child watching a cake get its icing. In a hushed, delighted whisper he asks, "Fed-eral?"

  "You know what we are, Bad Death," Frank tells him. Taking his pencil flashlight from his jacket pocket he points it at Bad Death and says, "And you know what this is, too."

  "It's a flashlight," Bad Death says.

  "Don't count on it," Frank says. Suddenly stepping backwards, he points the unlit pencil flashlight this way and that, saying, "Everybody freeze."

  Two of Bad Death's men, who have actually been more or less frozen up to this point, immediately make moves toward bulging pockets, but Bad Death snaps at them, "Cool it! That's one of them disguised guns!"

  Bad Death's men are bewildered, and frown at everything and everybody. One of them says, "Boss, that's all bullshit. Those creeps didn't have no ID or nothin'."

  "That's 'cause they're undercover, you damn fool," Bad Death tells them. Hasn't he, after all, seen all the James Bond movies and all the Gravedigger Jones-Coffin Ed Johnson movies and all the Fred Williamson movies and all the Pam Grier movies? "And that's why they don't carry a regular gun," he says.

  "That's right," Frank says, and he suddenly grabs Maleficient, who has been standing to one side paralyzed, like a jelly doughnut turned to stone. Jabbing the end of the pencil flashlight into Maleficient's side, Frank ducks around behind her — there's plenty of room for Floyd back there, too, who immediately joins him — and Frank says, "Gangway! One move out of anybody, and she's dead?"

  "Oh!" cries Maleficient. "Oh, Savior!" which is the way she pronounces her husband's name.

  "Go ahead and pray, lady," Frank says. "But back up while you're doing it. Slow and steady."

  Bad Death and his men look tough and hang tough — and are tough, come to that — but they stand there and don't move, while Maleficient backs slowly out of the room, with Frank and Floyd peeking up over her shoulders like a tank crew. F. Xavier, hands outstretched, calls, "Don't worry, honey, they're federal men, they won't hurt you!"

  "Though it might be taxing," Floyd says, and chuckles.

  Frank, hidden by Maleficient's floor-length muumuu, kicks Floyd in the ankle, and they exit with no more bad jokes, backing all the way through the funeral parlour to the street, where Frank and Floyd immediately split, running like track stars on a bed of coals, while Maleficient shrieks once and falls over on her back.

  A little later, several of Bad Death's men will have to go out and heave Maleficient up onto her feet again, but at the moment they and F. Xavier are busy being Bad Death's audience, as Bad Death beams around at everybody and says, "How about that? You ready for that? Fed-eral, baby, they're fed-eral men and they's got an undercover eye on Bad Death himself! You know you with the power when you with Bad Death!" He looks around at the admiring, respecting faces. "Fed-eral," he says. "Huh!"

  3

  From Frank's list:

  Felicity Tower

  240 St. Paul's Court

  The Bronx

  In her bedroom, before her full-length mirror, smooth brown flesh gleaming in the lamplight, naked as the day she was born (though considerably altered and improved in size and shape), Felicity Tower is doing the Hustle, all by herself, despite the fact that the Hustle is the first new dance in fifteen years in which people dance while touching one another. The New York Times, on August 3, 1975, pointed out that, "The rise of the Hustle provides a socially acceptable way for people to get their hands on members of the opposite sex," which undoubtedly had much to do with the dance's success, even though, as the Times also warned, "One must study, practice and work to achieve success in doing the Hustle."

  Felicity Tower had read that item, and believed it without question. She did believe that the Hustle was a socially acceptable way to get her hands on members of the opposite sex (which can be read any way you prefer), and she had no doubt that study, practice, and work eventually bring success not only in the Hustle but everywhere in life.

  This belief in work had been drilled into Felicity from infancy, back in Covington, Kentucky, where her upwardly striving parents — a sanitation man and a waitress — had pushed through college each and every one of their seven children (Felic
ity was fifth) as though they were seven labours of Hercules. The work-and-education ethic permeates Felicity's life. It has led to her current vocation as a teacher at Liberation High, as well as to her activities for such worthy causes as the Open Sports Committee. Unfortunately, it has also indirectly led to her being, at twenty-nine, a beautiful sex-hungry naked brown virgin learning to Hustle alone in front of her bedroom mirror.

  If the men who fantasize about Felicity — and there are many of them — could guess the fantasies she has about them, alone in her bed on many a sleepless night, they would go off like Roman candles. They would just simply explode in Technicolour. But none of them has ever had the slightest suspicion. Felicity is a volcano, molten and surging within, but never once has she erupted, so that to all men everywhere she remains a volcano impenetrably disguised as an iceberg.

  Over the years, Felicity has struggled many ways against her virginity, but nothing has ever worked. Alcohol relaxes her, but in quite the wrong way; she simply passes out, remaining neat and prim the whole time. Analysis proved there was nothing wrong with her attitudes, only with her performance, but failed to suggest any useful ways to improve. Some drugs made her vomit, some made her paranoid, and some made her pass out, but none released her inhibitions. Group therapy enabled her to talk with other sufferers, but shop-talk alone has never solved anything. Two Caribbean cruises only demonstrated that, though she couldn't tan, she could certainly burn; but even with a peeling nose, which most men consider sexy, she remained an arctic in the tropics.

  And now, dancing. Inflamed by the Times' lure of getting her hands on members of the opposite sex, Felicity has set herself to learn to Hustle, as at one time she set herself to learn Latin or sew buttonholes. With a record on the stereo ("Ease on Down the Road," by Consumer Rapport), she is practicing the moves before her mirror. Her arms are out in front of her as though holding the hands of an invisible partner, and she is swaying with a sensual grace that would dry the throat of anyone who saw her. Her bare legs are stepping firmly on the 1-2, 1-2, and she is twirling, gliding, shuffling, improvising on the 1-2-3. The hands-out gesture is submissive, the movements of the bare brown hips and shoulders are virtually a definition of sex, and the placid cool beauty of the face would make connoisseurs of us all.