Dancing Aztecs

by Donald E. Westlake

Unfortunately, the depressed nature of the economy, both domestically and on the international front, has made short-term liquidity measures more than usually difficult to sustain or initiate. Although Victor Krassmeier remains a sound and stable structure, with assets (in property, stocks, partnerships and other interests in various business operations) in the realm of one point six million dollars (see Appendix 1), this problem of short-term liquidity remains a knotty one, and in fact has become increasingly serious.

  Cash Flow

  The cash flow situation is briefly stated. (See Chart 1.) In the fiscal year just ended, cash intake has failed to keep pace with cash outgo ten of the twelve months. This negative cash flow has created a situation in which various recurrent obligations, such as chauffeur’s salary and the apartment on West 65th Street with occupant (see Appendix 2), are in very real risk of default before the end of the current calendar year.

  Alternatives

  Quite simply, there are two alternatives open to Victor Krassmeier at this juncture.

  (1) He can cut back some of these out-of-pocket expenses.

  (2) He can find an additional alternate source of cash income to close the budgetary gap.

  The difficulty with (1) is that every suggested economy measure produces great complications in the Victor Krassmeier life-style. (Firing the chauffeur, for instance, would force Victor Krassmeier either to learn to drive at his age, or spend time vying with the masses for taxis.) The difficulty with (2) is that additional alternate sources of cash income don’t grow on trees.

  Management Decision

  Having rejected the first option listed above after much soul-searching, Victor Krassmeier has put considerable effort into an exploration of the viability of the second, and has at last emerged with a potentially useful one-time source of income. This has necessitated a brief business relationship—an unofficial partnership, in fact—with a not entirely savory individual named August Corella.

  The New Partner

  August Corella is not the usual business partner. He does not, for instance, appear in Who’s Who. Although he has some sort of administrative post with a bakers’ union in New Jersey, his actual interests appear to be much more wide-ranging.

  Previous Relationship

  Through his tax-deductible charitable connection with various local museums (see Appendix 3), Victor Krassmeier has become aware of the trade in antique art and artifacts of dubious pedigree. That is to say, items that American museums and the American government see as free trade items that can be bought and sold without question of legality, but items that certain foreign governments, such as Mexico and Italy, see as their own property and therefore “stolen” merchandise. While himself partaking in the negotiations for some of these pieces representing the museum side, Victor Krassmeier first came to have dealings with August Corella, who on occasion appeared as a representative of the seller or dealer or “thief” side.

  The Current Relationship

  August Corella initially brought to Victor Krassmeier’s attention the potential acquisition by the Museum of the Arts of the Americas of the Dancing Aztec Priest of Descalzo. When Victor Krassmeier conveyed to August Corella the positive early response of the museum officials involved, August Corella proceeded to arrange for the transfer of the object from its present location to the museum. When there arose a question of financing this transfer, Victor Krassmeier suggested an equal partnership, with which August Corella happily agreed.

  Responsibilities of the Partners

  Each partner has provided an equal amount of seed money for the project. August Corella’s responsibility has been to effect the transfer of the object from its present location to the museum. Victor Krassmeier’s responsibility has been to arrange with the museum the details of the sale.

  Advantage of the Partnership

  Since the museum remained unaware that Victor Krassmeier had himself become one of the principals in the sale, he was able in effect to negotiate with himself and thus to push the museum to a far higher figure than had originally been contemplated.

  Anticipated Return

  The Dancing Aztec Priest of Descalzo is made entirety of gold, except for its green eyes, which are matched emeralds. In addition to its intrinsic value in terms of precious metal and precious stones, it has an added value as an art object and a pre-Columbian artifact, in that it is unique. Once the statue has been delivered to the museum, therefore, in good condition, and once it has been authenticated by two waiting experts in pre-Columbian art, a check will be turned over to Victor Krassmeier in the amount of one million two hundred forty thousand dollars. After the partnership has been dissolved and all the other expenses of the transaction have been paid, Victor Krassmeier can anticipate a clear profit for himself of between one hundred seventy thousand and two hundred thousand dollars. In cash.

  The Future

  Victor Krassmeier’s physical plant remains active and capable, with only slight depreciation, except for a continuing problem with the prostate gland, which should not prove to be a serious factor in future business activity. On the national and international economic scene, over the long haul, Victor Krassmeier remains optimistic. The system continues to suffer one of its periodic dislocations and adjustments, but he anticipates—along with most of the rest of the financial community (see Graph 1 and Chart 2)—that the long-awaited upturn will begin to make itself at last evident in the second or third quarter of the next calendar year. His portfolio and other holdings remain basically sound. The “South America matter” should solve the negative cash flow problem, at least until the expected turnaround. Should that turnaround take longer than anticipated to emerge, further partnerships with August Corella or others could certainly be considered. On balance, Victor Krassmeier considers his current posture to be nerve-racking but positive.

  Victor Krassmeier (senior partner, Winkle, Krassmeier, Stone and Sledge, Members of the New York and American Stock Exchanges; Member of the Board of Directors, Ohio & Indiana Railroad; Trustee, Museum of the Arts of the Americas; Member of the Governing Board, Metropolitan Ballet) gazed bleakly across his desk at August Corella (date unknown), and said, “Another delay? Another?”

  “Not exactly a delay,” Corella told him. “There’s problems.”

  The office containing these two men was of such hushed opulence that it seemed as though their words were borne to one another on small plush pillows. Krassmeier’s desk, of rubbed mahogany with gold fittings, was the kidney-bean shape of in-ground swimming pools, and its smooth glowing surface featured a complex telephone console, an onyx and gold desk set, and a memo pad blank of memos. The semi-abstract cityscape hanging on the side wall over the long low corduroy sofa seemed a fog-drenched reflection of the actual sunny city through the broad windows across the room, but without the stutter of the World Trade Center. Here in this private office on the top floor of the Benchmark Building, surrounded by the symbols and implements of his power, Victor Krassmeier was wont to sit, a big balding man whose meaty shoulders and heavy waist were almost completely disguised by first-rate tailoring, and bask in the pleasant sensations of comfortable self-esteem. He was not at all used to this sudden panicky roiling of the stomach. Blinking sullenly at his crude partner, he said, “Problems? What do you mean, problems?”

  August Corella, a blunt-featured man who looked like a cabdriver dressed up for his daughter’s graduation, said, “The messenger didn’t get it.”

  “Didn’t get it? It’s lost?”

  “Not exactly,” Corella said. “What happened is, our piece got mixed in with fifteen copies, and they all got given away as prizes.”

  “Prizes?” Krassmeier shook his head, as though to jangle these incomprehensible words out of his ears. “Prizes for what?”

  “I don’t know, Vic.” Corella was the only person in the history of the world ever to call Victor Krassmeier “Vic.” “And I don’t think it matters that much, do you? The point is, sixteen different people got the pieces, and we don’t kno
w who got ours.”

  “But that’s awful. We have to get it back.”

  Corella nodded. “Sure. Somebody has to trace out who those sixteen people are, and then go to all their houses and see which one has the winner. The question is, who’s the somebody? You want to do it?”

  Krassmeier stared at him. “Me? Personally?”

  “Send somebody,” Corella suggested.

  “Impossible. No one knows I’m involved in this.”

  Corella had nothing to say. Krassmeier sat looking at him, waiting for something more, but all at once Corella was content to be silent Krassmeier, feeling himself in a situation he didn’t entirely understand, progressed cautiously, saying, “What about the messenger? Isn’t it his responsibility?”

  Corella shook his head. “In the first place, he didn’t cause the screw-up. In the second place, he isn’t part of the organization, he’s an independent operator out at Kennedy. That’s all he’s ever used for, picking things up at Kennedy.”

  “Use him anyway.”

  “I told you, Vic, he’s an independent operator. If I let him know that wasn’t any ordinary package, he’ll go after it for himself, not for you and me. So when he called I cooled him out, I told him it wasn’t that important.”

  “What about the person who did cause the mixup?”

  “He got punished a little,” Corella said. “He isn’t in any shape to go look for things.”

  Krassmeier did not at all want to hear such details. Returning to the main point, he said, “We can’t just let this matter go. The statue has to be found.”

  “Right” said Corella. And once again he closed down into that silence.

  Krassmeier studied him. Suddenly tentative, he said, “You could do it, couldn’t you?”

  “I got a lot of other stuff on my plate, Vic,” Corella said. But he didn’t say no.

  “You have people who could help you.”

  “Not for free.”

  All at once, Krassmeier understood where they were and what was coming. Business was business, after all. “Oh,” he said:

  “No matter how you look at it,” Corella said, with a little smile, “this is going to cost.”

  “I see,” said Krassmeier.

  “I think you and me, Vic, we’re going to have to do, whadayacallit? Renegotiate.”

  HOWEVER …

  When Jerry Manelli came out of the library at Grand Army Plaza he felt like he’d been given Novocaine in his whole body, and it was just now wearing off. He kept blinking, and looking around, and when he got behind the wheel of the van he didn’t start the engine right away but just sat there, staring across the wide roadway at the Civil War statues all looking so busy and sure of themselves.

  Well, now he knew what the story was, and the knowledge was like electric tingles in his brain. It was like the feeling when your car’s been totaled in an accident and you walk away from it without a scratch and every part of you is trembling, vibrating like the beginning of an earthquake; hands, knees, elbows, ears, all shimmering while you stand there with your new high-pitched voice and you say, “I’m okay, I’m fine, I’m okay.” And you’re never exactly the same guy after that, ever again.

  His new knowledge was like that, some informational absinthe eating into his brain. It had moved him up, out of himself, into something new. The Ultimate Hustle.

  No turning back now. How could you spend the rest of your life knowing you’d walked away from the Big One?

  What brand-new feelings these were. Jerry had always figured he was one of the sharpest citizens in the sharpest city in the world, and nothing before this had ever fazed him. Driving the van for the first time out past the “Authorized Personnel Only” sign at Kennedy, pulling that jukebox scam, or stealing from the numbers operators, he’d never been playing in a bigger league than he was ready for.

  Well what the hell, there was no bigger league. He was the same guy he’d always been, in the same town, and he was still ready for anything that came along. Right? Right.

  Jerry reached out a faintly trembling hand and started the engine. He was okay, he was fine, he was okay.

  UNFORTUNATELY …

  “Listen!”

  Wally Hintzlebel reared up on his elbows and listened. All he could hear was his own heart pounding. He whispered, “What is it?”

  The woman beneath him, a married lady named Angela Bernstein, whispered, “I think it’s my husband!”

  Wally, a swimming pool salesman whose avocation was afternoon sex, had an absolutely Pavlovian reaction to the word “husband”; he would immediately leap into his pants. That’s what he did now, trampolining off Angela, who gave a little yip of surprise and pain and fright, and he was already kicking into his loafers and reaching to the nearby chair for his shirt when the dreaded male voice came from downstairs: “Angela? You home?”

  Angela too was scrambling out of bed, engaging in a swirling frantic wrestling match with her robe and whispering at Wally, “Hide! Hide!”

  “Out the back way!” he whispered. He was nearly dressed.

  “Too late!” They could both hear the footsteps on the stairs. “In the closet!”

  “What!?”

  “In! In!” And she kicked and shoved and packed him into the closet and slammed the door in his face.

  He would have argued the point, if there’d been time. Never in his career, never, had he been forced to hide inside a house occupied by a husband. If one couldn’t get out the door, one could always get out the window. This time, though, it had been impossible to push Angela out of the way, and so here he was in the damn closet, just knowing the husband would open this damn door pressed against his nose, and he’d never felt so foolish in his life.

  Wally Hintzlebel, a tall stringbean of twenty-four with big round glasses and an engaging smile, lived with his divorced mother in a little house in Valley Stream, just across the city line in Nassau County. Wally had been the man of the house since his parents had separated when he was thirteen, and he just couldn’t do enough for his mother. For instance, the swimming pool in the backyard was almost as big as the whole house, and although Wally had gotten a nice discount from his boss at Utopia Pools, it had still cost a pretty penny. But only the best was good enough for Mom.

  Wally didn’t suppose he’d ever marry. He was perfectly content at home with Mom, who took just as good care of him as he did of her, and as for sex, the world was absolutely full of other men’s wives. It was only natural for a swimming pool salesman to say to an attractive prospect, “I bet you look terrific in a bathing suit,” and Wally could invariably tell by the quality of the answering smile whether he was going to score or not. In four years of selling swimming pools, he had never for a minute felt deprived.

  Nor, until this very minute, had he ever been trapped in a closet with an unexpected husband on the other side of the door. Outside there now, husband and wife were meeting face to face and two simultaneous questions were being asked: “What are you doing in bed?” “What are you doing home this time of day?”

  The elbows of wire coat hangers were sticking into the back of Wally’s neck, but he was afraid of the jangling should he try to dislodge them. In fact, he was afraid to make any move at all, and so he stood teetered against the door, stuffy clothing crowding him at the back and any number of shoes trickily underfoot, while outside the questions got themselves sorted out and then simultaneously answered:

  “I wasn’t feeling good, I think I’m coming down with a cold or something.”

  “I’m supposed to meet Jerry here. He isn’t here yet, huh?”

  “Jerry? What’s he up to?”

  “It’s something about that damn box with the statues in it. Say, what are you wearing under that robe?”

  “What about the—Stop that, Mel!”

  “Well, look at you. Comere, kid.”

  “Mel, not now, I—”

  “Be good for your cold, baby. Sweat it right out of you.”

  “Mel, don’t. Mel—Mmm
mmmmmelllll.”

  “Let’s have a nooner, baby.”

  “Oh, Mel, I—”

  Wally closed his eyes, even though it was already pitch-black in the closet and he couldn’t see anything. He sighed, and rested his forehead against the wood of the closet door, and outside the voices had lowered, were murmuring, were accompanied by the squeaking of bedsprings, were getting louder and softer, were carrying on like nobody’s business …

  Could he get away now, sneak out of the bedroom and out of the house while the husband was otherwise occupied? It was possible, but it wasn’t certain, and that element of doubt stayed Wally’s hand from the doorknob, because if a cuckolded husband would be angry, a cuckolded naked husband suffering coitus interruptus would be an absolute hydrogen bomb. So Wally stayed where he was, and the team outside drove their wagon right through the pass and into the Promised Land, and men settled down to nuzzlings and cooings of a truly disgusting nature.

  Fortunately, the doorbell rang downstairs, bringing that stage of the affair to an end. With a sudden loud twanging of bedsprings, the husband said, “Damn! That must be Jerry.”

  Angela said, “That’s all right, I’ll throw on a robe and let him in. You get dressed.”

  “Tell him I’ll be down in a minute.”

  Wally listened, forehead and cheek both pressed to the door now, but there was no more conversation. Rustlings and shufflings in the bedroom, that was all, and then muffled conversation from far away downstairs.

  Then, unexpectedly loud and clear, a new male voice said, “That’s okay, I’ll wait right here.” Only this voice seemed to be coming from directly under Wally’s feet.

  “You want a cup of coffee, Jerry?” That was Angela’s voice. Wally frowned down toward his feet, but the closet remained as dark as ever.

  Jerry was saying, “We’ll take care of ourselves, Angela. The other guys are coming over, too.”

  “Who?”

  “Frank and Floyd.”

  Good Christ, thought Wally. It’s a convention.

  “I’ll tell Mel you’re here.”