Moonlight Dance Academy (Hotshot Book 5)

by Mike Faricy

  There was a nicely done living room, a kitchen and bathroom to one side, a dining room, and what must be a hallway to bedrooms on the far side of the kitchen. The rooms were attractive but not overly done. They had a woman’s touch, warm colors, neat, clean. A lack of telltale kid clutter suggested no children lived here. Of course, he knew that much from the application form he and Val had reviewed, Judy Wagner, retired schoolteacher from Indianapolis, Indiana.

  He began in the large dining room and selected two nice round silver trays from a stack, not the largest of the bunch, but they were the heaviest. He opened the polished wooden box containing sterling place settings and serving pieces. He cherry-picked, taking two sets of salad serving pieces, two complete place settings, and a pair of silver ice tongs.

  He cautiously crept down the hall, afraid he might find someone napping in the master bedroom. The queen-size bed was slightly rumpled on one side, with nothing under the bed. Sitting on the dresser was a jewelry box with a number of gold chains and earrings, none of which seemed to look all that special.

  He worked his way quickly through the drawers. In the third drawer, tucked in the rear beneath a pile of lingerie, was a black velvet bag. The bag yielded a long string of pearls, a pair of diamond earrings, a gold bracelet, and three diamond rings. The rings looked old, gold worn smooth with time, most likely an inheritance. He debated a brief moment then took the bag, closed the drawer, and quickly left the room.

  He placed the velvet bag on top of trays in his box and left by the front door, making sure it locked on his way out. He was back in his truck, driving toward his second destination in just under nine minutes. Not bad, he thought, starting out ahead of schedule.

  At the second destination, he followed the same routine. He phoned first, listening as the call rolled over to voice mail. This was different, a building of twenty condominiums, originally apartments, most likely converted to condos in the past fifteen years.

  It was a secure building. A wall phone was in the small lobby. Visitors were required to identify themselves via the phone before they were buzzed in. But none of that was a problem for Hub. After all, he already had a key, and he used it to let himself in. Two floors up, in the exact middle of an empty hallway, he knocked on door number 204.

  A television played loudly somewhere down the hall, making it difficult to listen for any noise. He waited another half-minute and knocked a second time, eventually slipping a key in the lock and entering. If the first home was neat, refined, and well-appointed, this was the complete opposite. Chaos seemed to reign. Magazines were scattered on chairs. Stacks of china dishes covered the dining room table. There was visible dust on all flat surfaces.

  He gingerly opened the sideboard, and there sat three wooden chests, each filled with silver place settings. He opened all three, selected the one he liked best, and placed it in his box. He closed the cabinet door, thinking about all the litter and dust. No one had been in the sideboard for a long, long time. He snatched up the other two chests of silver and placed them in his box. A small cabinet housed sixteen different heavy silver trays. He took three.

  In the bedroom, the only thing under the bed was dirty clothes. A large jewelry box sat on a dusty chest of drawers. The box held a number of what looked like diamond earrings and pendants. He grabbed the largest pendant plus a pair of earrings with nice, round, medium-sized stones. The top dresser drawer held strings of pearls and a half-dozen gold chains. He untangled and sorted the gold chains. Ignoring the largest, he took the heaviest, plus a medium-size string of pearls. These, along with the pendant and earrings, went into his box. He quickly departed and hurried to his truck. It had taken him a little longer this time, a total of twelve minutes, before he was driving away. But surprisingly, the options had been much more promising than his earlier stop.

  He’d also learned a valuable lesson. He had absolutely no idea what in God’s name he was doing. He may have left the most valuable items back there on the dresser, and he would never know. If he was going to be successful at this game, he would have to educate himself in some of the basics of silver, gold, and jewels.

  Chapter 15

  By 10:15, Hub had parked his Ford Ranger across the street from the Moonlight Dance Academy. He’d entered via the backdoor and calmly stood at the edge of the dance floor with his thumbs locked in his belt loops, watching couples glide around the dance floor. The odds were about four or five women for every man in there. He suddenly heard a voice at his side.

  “Do you dance?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” she said. “Do you dance?” She had thick blonde hair, swept back away from her tan face. She had an expression that suggested she knew an inside joke.

  “You want to dance?” he asked. He attempted to buy a little time and come up with an excuse.

  “Yeah, I’ve already asked that. I know it sounds strange, with dance lessons and all going on here, but yeah, do you want to dance?” she asked as couples glided past them on the dance floor.

  He dumbly nodded yes.

  She took him by the hand, led him out to the dance floor, saying, “Great, let’s get started, Fred Astaire,” and automatically directed his arms into position.

  He did his best to ignore her assistance, setting off to the music. After three or four steps, she suddenly stopped, looked up into his eyes, and said, “You can’t dance at all, can you?”

  “Well, yeah, I can,” he said. “It’s probably just a step you don’t know yet.”

  She smiled at his answer and ignored it completely. “Liar,” she said, moving his hands. “First, this is how you hold a lady.” She moved his arms back to the initial position she had placed them in four steps previous. “No,” she corrected, as he attempted to move his hand once again.

  “Keep your hand a little lower on my back. Yeah, now then, you start off on your left foot,” she said, gently kicking the top of his left ankle. “That’s this one. Were you ever in the service?”

  He shook his head no.

  “Well,” she said, kicking his left ankle again, “this is your left foot. Lead with that, then the right, then two short steps like this.” She pushed him back and forth in time to the music, pulled him gently forward two medium steps, back again with two shorter steps. “There, not hard at all, you’re getting it. Just think slow, slow, quick, quick. Okay?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, so now, let’s try it with me leading.”

  “Depends on where you’re thinking of leading me,” she said and laughed. She had a charming smile, lovely lips, and little freckles on her cheeks.

  Moving with this woman was easy, and it had been too long since he’d laughed with a woman. She shot him a little look each time he stepped on her foot. Fortunately, it was a laughing look, maybe another one of her private jokes. She had sexy hazel eyes. He kept staring into her eyes, not concentrating on his dancing, and managed to find her feet twice more before the music stopped.

  Val was suddenly at the boom box, a new CD in hand. Before Hub had a chance to ask her name, they were off, attempting to glide around the dance floor like the other couples. He had all he could do just getting his feet to move, not daring to attempt conversation at the same time. He felt like a little old lady driving forty-five on the expressway, with everyone else racing past him. He decided he would pick up the pace and immediately found her feet again.

  This time, she shot him a look that suggested pain. Then immediately softened the look a little. “So, what’s your name?” she asked.

  “Hub,” he answered, not looking at her. Just now he was working extremely hard to stay off her feet, concentrating on the two larger steps, then the two short steps, attempting to guide her around the outside of the dance floor. All the while, positive everyone was snickering and giving him the finger behind his back.

  “So, is Hub a nickname, short for something else?” she asked, glancing up at him. “You know, like is your last name cap?” she giggled.

  He’d hated
that joke since kindergarten. “My full name is Hubbard. It got shortened to Hub when I was still too young to remember. It’s one of those names, you know, I’m the only one. So if anyone ever mentioned Hub, well it was always me. That can be good and bad, depending on the subject.”

  He steered them past a couple who looked to be in their late seventies, the woman spinning back and forth, apparently effortlessly. The guy was gliding in perfect time, positioned where he should be when she finished spinning. Hub was envious but didn’t dare attempt to spin his partner, concentrating instead on counting his four very basic steps.

  “Hubbard, like the squash?” she had leaned back, looking up at him with another one of those private joke looks on her face.

  He continued counting steps, giving short answers, trying to hold onto the count, and losing it. “Yeah, that’s right, like the squash,” he said, remembering the other joke he’d hated since kindergarten. “Your name?” he asked slowly in time to the music before silently counting quick, quick.

  “Macey. Macey Evans. Nice to meet you, Hub,” she said and squeezed his hand. She looked over his shoulder, signaling the conversation was finished. The older couple twirled and glided past them again. If this had been a race, they would have lapped him.

  Over the next forty minutes, they danced once or twice with other people before drifting back together for the final dance. Hub was thinking he would like to ask her out for a drink but knew he had to pick up Val once everyone left. Besides, that might not be the best idea with a front seat full of silver and jewels belonging to someone out here on the dance floor. He could only hope some of it belonged to the older couple whose dust he’d been forced to eat all night.

  “So, Hub, you wanna grab a cup of coffee after this?” Macey asked at the end of the last number.

  “Yeah,” he said, completely forgetting about the front seat of his truck and taking Val home once everyone left.

  “I’d like to thank you all for coming tonight,” said Val, brightening the lights on the dance floor. “Please remember to tell all your friends to come join us. And, if you have yet to schedule your lessons, please take a moment to do so before you leave. I hope to see you all here next Thursday night and please bring a friend. Good night and thanks.”

  Hub tried not to look at Val. A part of him wished he hadn’t agreed to have coffee with Macey, but he wasn’t about to back out of her invitation. Val could cool his heels for thirty minutes. It would take that long to get everyone out the door, anyway.

  They met three blocks away at a place Macey knew called The Java Joint. Hub sipped a decaf with lots of cream, wishing he was sucking down a cold Dixie. The conversation was pleasant, but the nagging thought of Val waiting kept getting stronger and stronger in the back of his mind. After thirty minutes of dodging around a lot of her questions, he said, “I’ve got an early day tomorrow. This has been great. It’s been nice to meet you, but I really better get home. Will I see you next week, dancing?”

  “I’ll do everything I can to be there. Thanks for the coffee,” she said, giving him a slight kiss on the cheek, maybe pressing against him a half-second too long.

  He raced back to the Moonlight Dance Academy and parked a few doors down the street. He sat in the cab of his pickup, resting his arm on the box filled with trays and jewelry, watching as Val ushered out the last two older women wearing large, flashy smiles. He watched as they walked to their car and then waited for a few minutes once they drove away.

  Chapter 16

  “So, how’d it go tonight?” Val asked, climbing in on the passenger side. He pushed the large box across to the middle of the seat before attempting to look through it.

  For the briefest of moments, Hub was going to say he and Macey grabbed some coffee before he realized Val was referring to the burglaries.

  “Pretty good.” Hub checked his sideview mirror before pulling away from the curb. “But I’d feel a lot more comfortable getting rid of this stuff tonight. You can look at it when we get to the storage place. Tell you one thing, though. I got a lot of work to do beginning tomorrow.”

  Val flashed a look of concern. “What do you mean, work? What went wrong?”

  “Relax. It just dawned on me I have no idea what in the hell I’m doing. This stuff might be nice,” Hub said, thumping the box between them. “But maybe there was something else back there, just as easy to grab, something worth ten times more than this. I don’t have any way to estimate quality. I can guess, but we have enough risk riding on this already, so let’s not guess.”

  “Makes sense,” Val said.

  “If I’m gonna do this, I want to do it right, Val. So, I figure tomorrow I’ll begin an educational tour. Go to some jewelry stores that sell this stuff new. I’m gonna ask questions, start to learn what I’m looking at. Maybe grab a book or two from the library or something.

  “The other thing is, we need to get you a set of wheels and get me my own place. If we’re gonna keep doing this, we can’t be together 24/7. Someone puts us together, we’re gonna be looking at four to seven years right out of the chute. The two of us, driving around after midnight with all this in the front seat. It’s like something out of the World’s Stupidest Criminals, you know? We get caught in some silly way that’s not our fault, a flat tire or someone rear-ends us. We’re toast.”

  Val nodded and said, “So, tell me how it went tonight.”

  Hub told him the details in a matter-of-fact manner as they drove to the storage facility. He explained how he had chosen the items in the box. He kept it low key, and he left out any mention of Macey.

  “How can you even find this place in the dark?” Val asked once they entered the storage facility. Hub turned down a lane of a hundred garage doors, all looking exactly alike. “All these units look the same. I’m lost here, man,” Val said.

  His comment got Hub thinking.

  Wednesday morning, Hub returned to the storage office alone. Ruiz was there behind the counter, and he smiled when he recognized Hub.

  “Hey, how’s it goin?” Hub asked. “I’ve been thinking, I might need to rent a second space next to our first space, if that’s possible.” He tried to sound laid back as he pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and set it the counter.

  Ruiz slid a pen and a 4X5 card, requesting some very basic information across the counter.

  Hub filled out the card, just like Jimmy had done a few days earlier, only this time he used Val’s name. Speaking as he wrote, “I’d like to pay this in advance. Of course, there’s an extra $20 for you, Mr. Ruiz, if you don’t send me a bill and just let me pay ahead every few months. Deal?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine with me, sir. You just remember, if the bill’s not paid, I lock your door. Then, you pay fifteen dollars to get the lock cut off. But you don’t want a bill, it’s not a problem. Just remember to pay. Okay? I can give you the space next to the one you got the other day. Are you expecting a lot more furniture?”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly it, a lot more furniture,” Hub said.

  He moved last night’s acquisitions into the new unit, the one with Val’s name. He took the diamond rings and pendant out of the little bag, laid them just inside the door on the floor of the original unit, locked both units, and left to begin his education. The rings and pendant would make a nice addition to the liquor store cash.

  Chapter 17

  Thursday night, Hub was back into his routine. He began by making copies of six new sets of keys from purses in the Moonlight’s secure room. Once made, he locked them in the small toolbox back in the workspace. Then he drove down to the Plant Park section of Tampa, carrying keys to three different condominiums he’d viewed earlier that afternoon. He gave Val a call and got the all-clear on two of the three. It went just as smoothly as the other night. He was in and out of both units in fewer than forty-five minutes and this time with a slightly more discerning eye.

  He passed on a stack of silver plate but grabbed a couple of antique trays. He left the monogrammed trays h
e saw, tempting as they were, afraid they might have potential problems if the monogram ever allowed the trays to be traced. He snatched two very nice pairs of diamond earrings and another diamond pendant for his personal fund. He took a pass on some colored stones.

  He drove to the Moonlight Dance Academy and was standing at the edge of the dance floor. He was just about to give up when he spotted Macey dancing with some big, bearded guy in a cowboy suit.

  The guy was wearing a string tie and a two-toned sport coat with cowboy type pockets trimmed in white. Unfortunately, he looked to be pretty smooth out there on the dance floor. If Macey saw Hub treading water at the edge of the action, she didn’t give any indication. He thought about cutting in and decided against it.

  As soon as the music finished, Macey whirled around and walked directly toward Hub.

  “What? Working late again?” she asked, then got a sly grin across her face. “Look Hub, I don’t care how tough it is for you, but you gotta dance with me before one of these guys goes down with a heart attack. I didn’t get all dressed up just so I could lean over some guy lying on the dance floor who needs CPR.” Not waiting for a reply, she grabbed him by the hand and pulled him onto the dance floor.

  They had a pleasant thirty minutes of dancing. At least Macey seemed to enjoy it. Hub was wrapped up in counting and recounting his steps. The good news was he only found her feet twice, but the second time, he really nailed her. He saw her wince, grit her teeth, and smile through the pain.

  “Hey, you feel like getting some coffee now, maybe leave here a little early?” he asked, figuring it might be a good idea to do so while she could still walk.

  Macey nodded or surrendered. He wasn’t sure which, and they met at The Java Joint fifteen minutes later. Over the next thirty minutes, Hub slowly drained his decaf and then ordered a second tall cup, just to make the meeting last. They talked about high school, about growing up, about everything and nothing. Macey was a college girl, graduating from Jacksonville. Hub told her he was between things, going to take some time, look around a bit before he jumped into anything right away.