Dancing Made Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 4)

by Phillip DePoy

  “By the way,” I tried to make it sound like an afterthought, “what do you make of the note you found on the kid?”

  “The tarantella? It’s some kind of dance, they tell me.

  “Right,” I smiled, “but what does that mean? Kind of an unusual suicide note, isn’t it?”

  “Not only that.” He didn’t bat an eye. “It’s written on old-style computer printout paper, the kind that used to have holes all along the sides and then you’d tear off the holes?”

  “So,” I smiled politely, “it is an unusual suicide note, you’re saying.”

  “I’m saying I’ll see you tonight.”

  Huyne and I shook hands on it. I walked Dally to the door. She was headed over to the club.

  “So what do you really think about that note?” Her voice was low.

  “Well, I’ll tell you. At the moment I think that somebody wants all and sundry to think it’s what you’d call a clue.”

  “What?” She stopped for a second.

  “That’s right,” I told her. “It’s too … dramatic to be anything but a deliberate lead — or a mislead.”

  “Did seem a little much.” She agreed, but she could see my mind was somewhere else. “Give you a lift?”

  “No.” I took a step back inside the station house. “I’ve got another stop to make here.”

  *

  Wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to get to talk to Mickey Nichols, but I’ve got my ways, including some ex-service buddies on the force, especially one Internal Affairs detective, a guy named Winston, who just happened to have had a hand in saving my life once — but I digress. Suffice it to say that twenty minutes after I’d said goodbye to Dally I was in a holding cell with the man who’d thought about killing me only the night before.

  “Mick, say again what you told the cops about trying to kill me?”

  He tilted his head at me. “Like I said last night, I admitted that you were an innocent bystander and that the gunplay was from when I had tried to pop you, so they would not haul you in with me —”

  “So I could look into —”

  “‘Look into,’ hell, Flap.” His eyes flashed. “You’ve got to find out who killed Janey. I mean it.”

  “Easy, Mick. I’ll do it.”

  He folded his arms. “You are known far and wide as a guy who has no belief in the notion of coincidence.”

  “Correct.” Why was he bringing that up?

  “Coincidence is for saps, as everyone knows. How far would I get thinking, for example, that Frankie Bottles had just happened to show up at a particular time in a particular place exactly when I also did?”

  He was referring to Frankie “Bottles” Ording, whose primary income seemed to come from cases of liquor he’d “bought,” “found,” or even — my favorite — “inherited”. He and Mickey had been rivals for Janey’s affection in the younger days, and Frank would often show up at parties where the happy couple were just to irritate Mickey. Brawls would often ensue.

  He pointed to the palm of his right hand. There was a stigmata-like scar.

  “This is where Frankie tried to put an ice pick in my temple. As luck would have it, Janey saw him coming, let out a holler, and I reflexed my hand in this manner.” He demonstrated the move that had saved his life. “But as you can see, I still carry a reminder of the evening’s festivities.” He pointed again at the scar, then wagged the same finger at me. “No. Do not try and tell me he just happened to be there. He came to put a sharp object into my brains, my friend.”

  I folded my arms. “As you were saying, you’re preaching to the choir. I myself am not that big a believer in coincidence.”

  He wrinkled his brow. “It would not explain, for example, how it is that you get asked by me to find out who took Janey out on exactly the same night as you are called up by a famous bass player to look into the very strange murder of his niece.”

  So that’s where he was going.

  “You’re not suggesting,” I asked him, “that the two murders are related?”

  “I’m not?”

  I shrugged. “And, by the way, how do you know so much about this, being stuck, as you are, in jail?”

  He smiled. “I’ve got ways.”

  I shook my head. “Okay, but see, it would be too much of a coincidence if the two things did have something in common.”

  “Have you seen a picture of what Dane’s niece looked like before she got dead?”

  I nodded. “He gave me a photo.”

  “Do they favor, this niece and my Janey?”

  “Oh.” I stared off. “That’s why Dane’s niece looked familiar. They did look alike — like cousins maybe.” I had just realized it in that second. “What are you getting at?”

  “Didn’t I just say I’ve got my ways? One of my ways is intuition.” But I could tell there was more to it than that.

  I sighed. “All right. Let’s just get a few facts before you launch off into your intuition.”

  “Fair enough. For instance?”

  “When did you last see Janey alive?”

  “New Year’s Eve party at Foggy’s.”

  Foggy Moskovitz. Even though his given name was Schlomo, no one ever called him that — mostly because he was, perhaps, the finest booster in the Atlanta metropolitan area. His specialty was cars, but he often claimed he could steal the shine off a policeman’s badge if the situation called for it. He went to temple every Saturday and claimed to keep a kosher home, although I’m not certain what kind of kosher home it is that’s filled with mostly stolen items.

  “Foggy Moskovitz invited you to his New Year’s Eve party?”

  He opened his hands. “What invited? We just went. Everybody was there.” He closed his eyes. “What a mistake that was.”

  “Mistake?”

  “You know Foggy. He would stare at Janey while she was swing dancing — you know how she could cut a rug. Anyway, that night he started into flirting with Janey, asking her to dance with him, the way he sometimes did. And then, on top of that, I maybe had one too many of the Hot Tom and Jerry — which is an excellent New Year’s Eve drink, by the way — and I get irritated, and maybe I mouth off a little.”

  “A little?”

  “I call Foggy a thief.”

  I blinked. “Excuse me for mentioning it, but technically, Foggy is a thief.”

  “It was the way I said it.”

  “I see.”

  He shook his head. “Then Janey, you know, gets real mad and calls me a dope, which I am not, and I try to explain that to her, and all she can seem to do is ask Foggy is he okay.”

  “Which only made you worse.”

  He inclined his head. “Unfortunately. I would have to say that I took a pop at Foggy.”

  “Did you clip him?”

  His voice got duller. “That’s the worst part. He ducks, and I catch Janey instead. I mean, she was standing so close to him, I could hardly miss. Boy, she let me have it then. She left almost immediately — with Foggy, who was, by the way, tossing no small amount of insult my way as he egressed.”

  “Egressed. I see.” I knew there was more. “Go on.”

  He hesitated. “And so I may have threatened to zotz the both of them while they slept. But you know me. I’m liable to say just such a thing in the heat of the moment which I would never do in the cold light of day.”

  I leaned toward him. “But you can see that it’s just this sort of thing that would make the police think you had something to do with the murder.”

  His eyes grew cold very quickly. “Lucky for me that you don’t share this view.”

  I stared for a moment. I knew it was a question. “Well, Mick, I know you loved Janey. You had your little fights, but nearly everybody does.”

  And then the cold look left his eyes, and he stared at the floor. “Why did I ever fight with her, Flap? What’s the matter with me?”

  “Didn’t I just say nearly everybody has these little tiffs?”

  He looked up at me. “Not y
ou and Dally.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Again, it is widely known.”

  “Yeah.” I smiled, but not entirely at him. “Well, Dally and I are the exception to nearly every rule I know about.”

  He shrugged a little. “Yeah. I guess I can see that.” He looked me in the eye. “So when are you two kids going to get together, anyway?”

  “We are together.”

  He shook his head. “No. I mean in the together sense.”

  “Oh. Well.” I stood. “The day after that’s any of your business, I may drop you a line.”

  He held up his hands. “Okay. I can leave it alone.” I was about to call the turnkey when it occurred to me to show the Polaroid of Beth Dane to Mick. I slipped it out of my coat pocket.

  “This is a photo of Beth Dane, by the way.”

  “Jesus, will you look at that kisser?” He stared. “I guess she could have been Janey’s cousin. Like you said.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  “At least” — he stared harder — “that’s what I thought when I … Flap? Now, I can’t be positive, of course …”

  “Positive about what?”

  He shook his head. “But I think I even remember commenting on it that night.”

  “What night?”

  He squinted, thinking hard. “I thought so.” He looked up at me. “This kid was at Foggy’s party too. I thought I saw her there.” He sat back. “So it wasn’t just intuition. I saw her before.”

  “At the Foggy Moskovitz New Year’s Eve party?”

  He looked back down at the picture. “I’m pretty sure. I remember thinking how odd it was that she would be there — babe-o-liscious as she was and looking so much like Janey — in the company of that park ghost.”

  “Park ghost?”

  He handed me back the snapshot. “You know, your pal. That little goofball Joepye what’s-his-name.”

  6. Spider Rhythm

  All I really knew about Janey Finster’s life away from Easy — and the dance floor — was what I’d heard from other people, mostly about her charmed life. What I knew for myself was her sweet temperament and the things she’d told me in those late-night confabulations at the club. Mostly she talked and I listened. She was just a kid, and had a kid’s sense of telling an older guy like me a thing or two she’d discovered about life.

  “Take it from me, men are a strange lot.” She’d toss back her Jagermeister and then slap her little hand down on the bar.

  I would nod, sagely. “Yes, they are. Men are, generally speaking for a person such as yourself, no good.”

  She’d grin and put her hand on my arm. “Ah, Flap. If it wasn’t for Dally, I’d ask you out so fast.”

  At this I would lean back. “No. You would not. I am nearly old enough to be your father, and that’s what you like about me: I’m safe.”

  This would hand her a laugh. “You’re not close to that old — and you’re about as safe as a blasting cap.”

  I would smile then. “You make me very happy. Now go home.”

  And she would.

  There were probably lots of guys who would have taken advantage of a situation of that sort. I just wasn’t one of them. I thought of her as a little sister. Nothing noble about it, I just knew what was what. The real thing in this life is primarily what they call the marriage of true minds. True minds are minds that are alike. Here’s the moral: To get a great thing going, you each have to have a good mind to do it.

  Case in point: “Flap. What’re you doing? Thinking about Janey?”

  I looked up at Dally. “How’n the world would you know that?”

  She smiled. “I read you like a book.”

  See?

  I looked at my wineglass. “Yes, you do.”

  “What about Janey?”

  “I need to know a little more about her actual background.”

  She brought the rest of the less expensive Côtes du Rhone — signaling how low my backroom stash was, incidentally — and poured. I’d come directly to Easy from my visit with Mickey.

  “Didn’t she crash with you just before she got it?" Dally asked.

  “Yeah, but we didn’t talk about stuff like that.’’

  Dally set the bottle down. “You seem to have sunk to a pedestrian grape.’’

  I shrugged. “It’ll do. And I’m a little short on cash.’’

  “You still haven’t taken Dane’s check?’’

  I shook my head. “Haven’t decided what to do about that exactly. It’s already getting a little confusing.

  “How?’’

  “For instance, I showed the snapshot of Beth Dane to the Pineapple? He said he thought he remembered seeing her at Foggy’s on New Year’s Eve. He also commented on her resemblance to Janey.’’

  Dally leaned on the bar. The place was mostly empty. I guess it was around two in the morning. “Right. What did you talk about?’’

  “Who? Me and the Pineapple?’’

  “No, I mean you and Janey — when she was at your pad. You said you didn’t talk about her background or whatever.’’

  “Oh. Well. Mostly her troubles with Mickey, how she had a crush on Foggy Moskovitz, which I told her was just because he treated her nice and the grass is always greener and once she hooked up with him it might be the same as Mickey — that sort of thing.’’

  She looked at me sideways. “So maybe that’s the place to start — sans your advice to the lovelorn.”

  I sipped. “Oh, I know a thing or two about l’amour.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Or anyway, I know what guys like that are like.”

  She shook her head. “No, you don’t. You’ve got about as much in common with Foggy and the Pineapple as I do.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.” And with no warning, she leaned over and popped my cheekbone with her lips. “Thank God.” Then she was off, down to the other end of the bar.

  “From this,” I called after her, “I determine that it is easier to understand a young girl than it is know a real live woman.”

  She didn’t look back. “And don’t you forget it.”

  Well, there is probably no circumstance in this old wide world where Dalliance Oglethorpe couldn’t make me smile.

  Even last call. I finished my glass and put the pressure stopper back in the bottle. The two weeknight barmaids began to tally out. Dally was busy at the register. I was the only customer left in the place, which was filled with the satisfying undertones that come after the final chord of the song. The light was warm, like candlelight.

  I stared down at the snapshot on the bar. I was trying to get it straight in my mind just how much these two kids actually looked alike. I knew that their faces had collided in my mind, but I figured it was just because they were both dead — and I didn’t even blink at the morbidity of that thought.

  I did blink at the visitor, though; also smiled. “Detective Huyne. This is something of a surprise — at this time of night. I expected you more around the seven o’clock hour.”

  He looked over at Dally. “Too late for a final dram?”

  She didn’t even look up. I suppose she’d seen him come in. “Dram?”

  He slumped a little. “Imagine how tough it might be to live up to a name like Burnish. You have to use words like that.”

  She turned to him and smiled. “And how do we choose our words if we have a name like Dalliance?”

  He smiled right back. “Beautifully, in my book.”

  She brought a glass. I poured us both out what was left of the Côtes du Rhone.

  He nodded at the bottle. “It’s French and red.”

  I sipped. “Next time it’ll be this nice little St. Emilion that I like.”

  Shrug. “Okay.”

  I set my glass down. “So, should I ask why you’re so late, or should I ask why you’re here at all?”

  “I’m late because of work. I’m here because of you all.”

  I raised my ey
ebrows. “I’m flattered.”

  “Skip that. I just didn’t enjoy telling a person like you that the kid up the lamppost was a suicide.”

  I folded my arms. “I didn’t care much for that myself.”

  He sipped. “But that’s her file. That’s the story.”

  “You know better.”

  “Wouldn’t anybody?”

  I nodded.

  He met my eyes straight. “Like I said, there’re plenty of dead hookers to go around, and usually nobody comes around asking any questions, and the sorry fact is, they get written off. That’s just life in the big city.” He set the glass down. “But I suppose you’ll be happy to know that this particular case has been opened back up.”

  I nodded. “Thanks to Dane.”

  “Exactly.” He absently turned his glass. “He knows a lawyer.”

  “I’d imagine.”

  “So,” his voice was hesitant, “we’re doing all kinds of tests and whatnot.”

  “I see.” I could tell he wanted to ask me something.

  “So, I just thought you ought to know.”

  I opened my hand. “Now I know.”

  “If you don’t tell me …” He stared straight ahead, and went on. “I could look it up, you know.”

  I shifted in my head. “Look what up?”

  “The tarantella.”

  “Oh.” I smiled. “Well. I guess you could look that up.”

  He sighed. “But you already know what it is, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” I took in a breath. “I guess I do.”

  “Okay, look.” He finished his glass. “I know what your rep is. I admire it in an odd way. It’s not police work, but you seem to get the job done most of the time. And I like the company.” He stared up at Dally.

  I looked at Dally too, and I had to ask her then, “Since when did you come to be known as the policeman’s friend?”

  She shot me a look. “The what?”

  “Ham biscuits at Christmas.” I smiled back. “Detective Huyne here, making with the compliments all of a sudden —”

  “You can’t run a place like this,” her voice was light, “at least not on Ponce, without becoming chummy with all sorts of people. How many times do you think the cops have kept this place from being messed up?”