Dancing Aztecs

by Donald E. Westlake

  “I’ll take the two hundred forty thousand.”

  “Two hundred forty thousand dollars?”

  “Leaving you a million between you,” Beemiss pointed out.

  “There isn’t that much left,” Krassmeier protested.

  Beemiss shrugged, smiled, and said nothing.

  Krassmeier said, “You may have the best access to the statue, but we are the only access to a market.”

  “I don’t necessarily have to play at all,” Beemiss said.

  Corella had been watching in silence, but he could see now that Krassmeier wasn’t going to get anywhere. Some negotiator. Quietly, Corella said, “All right.”

  Beemiss nodded. “Thank you.”

  Krassmeier stared at Corella. “All right? But you know yourself there isn’t mat much left. The expenses—”

  Corella gave Krassmeier his blandest look. “We can make adjustments, Vic,” he said.

  It was fascinating to watch the expressions move across Krassmeier’s face, as he gradually realized how totally Corella had been making a fool of him. Heavy expenses, Krassmeier’s share constantly shrinking— It was a pity to have to discard that whole con, but Corella was a realist and the time had come to slice the pie a different way.

  Krassmeier’s face was moving toward purple, and he might actually have started yelling accusations even with Bud Beemiss in the room, but Beemiss himself broke the spell, saying, “That’s fine, then. We’ll want to put something on paper right now, vague about the job to be done but specific about the emolument. Then I’ll start phoning my fellow committeemen, rounding up the statues. May I use a phone here?”

  Krassmeier wasn’t yet capable of ordinary speech, so Corella answered for him: “Sure,” he said. “Vic won’t mind.”

  Krassmeier growled.

  WAY DOWN SOUTH …

  Since the nation of Descalzo is draped like a saddle over the spine of the Andes, it is generally very difficult to travel between Quetchyl, near the eastern border of the nation, and Santa Rosita Rosaria (commonly known as Rosie), far in the west. To facilitate this trip for government functionaries and the better class of businessman, an ancient DC-3 travels regularly from Quetchyl to Rosie on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and from Rosie to Quetchyl on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. (On Sundays, while the pilot offers very sincere prayers at Mass, the two mechanics work feverishly from dawn to dusk to make the plane at least possible for one more week.)

  Today, a Wednesday, the plane is to leave Quetchyl for Rosie at ten A.M., and among its passengers are Pedro Ninni, José Caracha, and Edwardo Brazzo, the tickets having been bought by Brazzo with most of his savings. Pedro, like the others, is in civilian clothing today, but his official museum guard pistol is concealed in the depths of the brown paper bag containing his goat-thigh sandwich and his bottle of gluppe. (This is one adventure, regardless of what José and Edwardo think, that Pedro will not go through sober.)

  Pedro had known from the beginning, of course, that he would be the one to draw the short straw. The short end of the stick was his by right, by birth and by fate. What he didn’t know for sure was whether or not he would actually go ahead and hijack this airplane. A great big airplane full of people; it didn’t even sound right. Maybe he’d just take the ride to Rosie and then kill himself. Or, permit Edwardo and José to kill him. Or, perhaps he would flee the country on foot, although Peru and Bolivia both had an inclination to return Descalzan nationals wanted by the authorities back home. (Governments prefer to stay on good relations with neighboring governments.)

  Could a man walk to New York? It sounded no more difficult than stealing a plane to New York.

  How many armed guards there are at Quetchyl International Airport! Brown-uniformed men with automatic machine pistols, blue-uniformed men with rifles, gray-uniformed men with bolstered revolvers. And every last one of them gives Pedro a suspicious glare.

  Edward and José are sticking very close to Pedro, giving him no opportunity either to run away or to gulp down a lot of gluppe. While waiting for the announcement to board their plane, the three of them sit close together in the muggy airless waiting room along with the other eleven passengers for this flight, who are five government officials, two priests, an American doctor on a malnutrition survey for the United Nations, his Canadian assistant-mistress, a lima bean merchant, and a French journalist looking for examples of undemocratic behavior. These fourteen people sit crammed together in the small room surrounded by armed guards, and when ten o’clock becomes ten-thirty, becomes ten forty-five, Pedro begins tentatively to allow himself hope. Perhaps the flight won’t take off. Perhaps the plane has died. Perhaps someone hijacked it yesterday, on its way here from Rosie. Perhaps the pilot has come to his senses. Perhaps—

  “All aboard for Descalzo International World Airways Flight six-seventeen, Quetchyl to Santa Rosita Rosaria, boarding at gate twenty-seven. All aboard, please. Final call.”

  Final call? It’s the first call. But that isn’t the point; the point is that the blessed airplane apparently is going to take off after all. Cursing his fate and clutching his paper bag full of gun, goat, and gluppe, Pedro reluctantly passes with the others through the airport’s only gate and crosses the tarmac to the plane, which sags in the hot humid sunlight like a molting member of an endangered species. Painted in the national colors of crimson and orange, but in a random pattern similar to World War II camouflage stripes, the plane looks as though it is suffering from a rare but horrible dermatological disease.

  Pedro stumbles on the steps. As he is suddenly realizing, not only is this the first time he has ever hijacked a plane, it is also the first time he has ever flown in a plane. Is this monstrosity actually going to leave the ground? “Santa Maria,” whispers Pedro. “Santa Teresa, Santa Clara—”

  “No, señor,” says the stewardess. “Santa Rosita Rosaria.” A yamfed Descalzan beauty, well over four feet tall and with her ample form squeezed into a mini-skirted uniform of orange with crimson polka dots, this stewardess is named Lupe Naz and she is a four-year veteran of these flights. One look tells her that Pedro is going to be one of those problem passengers. He’ll be terrified on takeoff, he’ll probably throw up, and there’s undoubtedly something alcoholic in that disgusting paper bag. Giving him a professionally sympathetic smile, she adds, “Enjoy your flight, señor.”

  Pedro groans, and boards the plane.

  Since this plane doesn’t make international flights, it need not conform to any rules or laws other than those of the Descalzan government that owns it. It is, therefore, the only DC-3 in the world with seats five across. Edging sideways along the aisle after José and with Edwardo herding him from the back, Pedro despairingly permits himself to be placed in a middle seat on the three-seat side, with José by the window to his right and Edwardo by the aisle to his left.

  An engine starts! “Ai!” cries Pedro, and stares out the mingy little window as the filthy machine out there pops and whines and roars and chokes and smokes and whizzes and rattles and finally settles down to a sound midway between a tractor and an avalanche.

  And the other one starts up! Pedro stares in horror past Edwardo’s grim visage, and sees the wing on the far side of the plane shaking like a palm frond. “The plane is dying,” Pedro mumbles to himself, and then louder, “The plane is dying!” And then, yet louder, “The plane is blowing up!”

  Since the passengers are well scattered amid all the narrow empty seats, only a few of them hear Pedro’s cry above the tubercular spasms of the engines, and of these few the priests merely cross themselves and the French journalist merely smiles patronizingly, while one of the five government officials, the Assistant Deputy to the Associate Director of the Ministry of Involuntary Farm Labor, leaps to his feet in panic and runs off the airplane and straight home, an act he will regret bitterly later on, when he learns what a treat he has missed.

  One other pair of ears has also picked up Pedro’s squeal; those of stewardess Lupe Naz, who has been dawdling in
Pedro’s general neighborhood in full expectation that he would be causing trouble soon. She rushes forward, her orange-with-crimson-polka-dot mini-skirt riding high over her generous buttocks encased in purple panty-hose, and speaking very firmly, she says, “You will sit down at once! This airplane is not going to blow up. This airplane has never blown up!”

  Pedro stares at her, his panic abating only slightly. Then he squints, rearing his head back; he has trouble looking at her, the crimson polka dots seeming to swim and fuzz on the orange background. “What?” he says.

  “Sit down,” Lupe tells him, “or I will be forced to call the guards.”

  Edwardo and José each grab an elbow, and Pedro finds himself seated. “Ung,” he says.

  “And stay there,” Lupe tells him. Smiling at Edwardo, who is nearest her, she says, “This must be your friend’s first flight.”

  “Friend?” says Edwardo, with a big innocent smile on his face. “We’re not together. We’re all strangers to one another.”

  Lupe looks at the three of them crowded together in this one row, then glances around at all the acres of empty seats. “Ah,” She says, and walks away, and looks back to see the strangers whispering furiously among themselves.

  Pedro is whispering, “She’s a crazy woman! This plane has never blown up? What does that mean? Things can only blow up once!”

  Edwardo, throughout all this, is whispering, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

  And José, simultaneously, is whispering, “She’ll suspect we’re together! We have to split up!”

  But then the plane jolts, and they are all stunned into silence. (This is also José’s first flight, and Edwardo’s third.) They look out the windows, and the airport is moving! “Aiiiiii!” moans Pedro.

  “Calm down!” cries Edwardo, pounding the seat arm with his fist.

  The airport is moving faster, rushing backward toward safety. A terrible jouncing has overtaken Pedro’s seat. His ears are full of sea water. A crimson haze full of orange polka dots pulsates before his eyes. “Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!” cries Pedro, and as the DC-3 struggles upward off the patched and bumpy runway Pedro lunges his head forward and throws up into his paper bag, all over his gluppe, and his goat, and his gun.

  ON THE WEST SIDE …

  Jerry was looking for a parking space on West End Avenue when he saw two faces he knew: Oscar Russell Green and Professor Charles S. Harwood, both squinting in the morning sunlight as they walked north toward 72nd Street. Green was talking, steadily and emphatically, with many hand gestures, and the professor was nodding in a professorial way, the while puffing on a black or dark-brown pipe. The professor was dressed now, in rather rumpled and dirty shirt and slacks, and on closer examination his shoes didn’t match.

  The hell with a parking space. Jerry pulled in at the nearest hydrant, took his parking sign out of the glove compartment—a hastily scrawled Broke Down Gone For Help on the back of an envelope—left it prominently atop the dashboard, and went off on the trail of Green and Harwood.

  Who were just reaching 72nd Street and turning east, Green still expostulating and Harwood still ruminating. Jerry, wishing he could get close enough to hear what these two had to discuss, followed them half a block along 72nd Street, until they entered a small restaurant of the sort that features bare wooden tables, many hanging plants, and jumboburgers on rye bread. They’d be sharing breakfast, apparently, meaning the professor’s wife hadn’t yet come home.

  Briefly, Jerry considered following them into the restaurant and having a meal at the next table, but both of those fellows had seen his face last night. Also, this would be a fine time to look over Harwood’s apartment again, in search of clues to the whereabouts of the little woman.

  So off he went, back to West End Avenue—a cop lacking any milk of human kindness was writing a ticket on the station wagon—and this time there was no trouble at all entering the building, since a sullen skinny black man in green work clothes had the door propped open and was sloshing the vestibule with soapy water. He gave a dirty look when Jerry walked on his wet floor, but Jerry gave him a dirty look back, took the elevator upstairs, and credit-carded himself into the Harwood apartment.

  Very little had changed in here, except there was no longer anybody living in the closet. Also, a small mound of filthy wrinkled clothing lay on the bed; a scant percentage of last night’s clothing rainfall.

  A quick look through the apartment convinced Jerry that the only place that might at all be useful was the rolltop desk in the living room, messily crammed with papers. On close examination most of these turned out to be bills, but among the Second Notices and Third Notices (and a few Final Notices) were some letters, old grocery lists, notes about meetings (“Madge, Russian Tea Room, 1:30”), and an address book. This last was a little too helpful; it appeared to contain everybody in the Western Hemisphere. That there were as many as four addresses beneath some names, three of them crossed out, showed this to be an old address book only sporadically updated. Certainly many of the people in here hadn’t seen or heard from the Harwoods in years.

  Okay. Back to the reminder-type notes. Jerry went quickly through these again, keeping track of the frequency with which people’s names appeared, and at the finish there were three names that recurred the most in the neat small handwriting he’d decided belonged to Bobbi Harwood. (The other handwriting, large and messy and hard to read, seemed suitable to the professor.) These three were Madge, Bill, and Eleanor. The address book produced one each of Madge and Eleanor (Madge Krausse, 18 Waverly Place, and Eleanor Bonheur, 298 East 81st Street), but seven Bills.

  Oh, well. A cute telephone stood on the rolltop desk, a modern re-creation of the tall phone reporters used to use in thirites movies, and Jerry now drew this close and began calling Bills.

  1) “Hello?”

  “Hello. Is Bobbi there?”

  “Who?”

  “Bobbi.”

  “Bobby who? Do you have the right number?”

  “No.”

  2) “Hello?”

  “Hello. Is Bobbi there?”

  “Hold on.”

  (Pause)

  “Huw-wo?”

  3) “Hello?”

  “Hello. Is Bobbi there?”

  “My name is Billy.”

  “Hi ya, Billy. Is Bobbi there?”

  “Well, there was somebody here named Brucey, but he went home. Could a Billy help?”

  “No.”

  4) Eleven rings. No answer.

  5) “Hello?”

  “Hello. Is Bobbi there?”

  “Not right now. Do you want his L.A. number?”

  “No.”

  6) “Hello?”

  “Hello. Is Bobbi there?”

  “Knock-knock.”

  “What?”

  “Come on, come on. Knock-knock.”

  “Okay. Who’s there?”

  “Bobby.”

  “Bobby who?”

  “Bobby pin! Hyar hyar hyar hyar hyar hyar hyar!”

  “Terrific. How about Bobbi Harwood?”

  “I don’t get it.”

  7) “Hello?”

  “Hello. Is Bobbi there?”

  “Listen. Do you mind if I tell you something?”

  “What?”

  “Nobody calls me any more. Listen, I know why, I don’t blame anybody, there’s nobody to blame but myself. I come on too strong, that’s the problem, I scare people away. But it’s just I’m so lonely, so damnably lonely, this feeling of depression, this grayness, this—I haven’t shaved in three days, do you know that? I’m afraid to go near the razor. And the window. I was just walking toward the window when the phone rang. Nobody wants me, that’s what I thought, nobody cares, nobody will even know I’m gone. But then the phone rang, and I thought, maybe. Maybe somebody does care, maybe, maybe it matters, after all; maybe there’s one small spark of hope left!”

  “Sorry. Wrong number.”

  So much for the Bills, except number four, who could be tried again later. And
that left Madge and Eleanor, and for no particular reason Jerry called Madge first.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Madge?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is Bobbi there?”

  “No. she left. Chuck?”

  “Yeah. Where’d she go?”

  “I think you might catch her at the orchestra office. And Chuck?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I think she really means it, you know. If you want her back, you’ll have to work at it.”

  “Oh, I want her all right,” Jerry said.

  ON CLOUD NINE …

  “Good luck, darling.”

  “You’re my good luck, sweetheart.”

  “And hurry home, darling,” Angela said.

  “Oh, I will,” Mel promised, and they kissed once more, long and lingering, before he at last left the house and trotted out to his battered station wagon, its sides still streaked with bark from the trees of Connecticut.

  What a wonderful new world this was! The sun was shining, the air was clean and clear, and Mel’s heart was overflowing with the tenderness of love. What had happened in the past, with Angela and—that fellow—had turned out to be for the best after all. For the best. They’d seen that, he and Angela; they’d both finally seen it last night, during the long hours of talk with Mandy at the kitchen table. And later last night, in the wonderful warmth of their bed together, they had exchanged new vows, sincere heartfelt vows, and this morning there was a kind of soft glow surrounding the both of them, like overripe cheese. Their marriage, on the very brink of disaster, had been saved.

  Luck was with him now, Mel was sure of it. He would find that golden statue today, because this was Mel Bernstein’s day. Hear that, world? Today is Mel Bernstein Day!

  Meaning that the golden statue presently had to be in the possession of either Ben Cohen or Mrs. Dorothy Moorwood, the two Open Sports Committee members left for Mel to check out. Had to be, had to be. One of those two had the statue, and Mel would find it, because this was his day.