Dancing Aztecs

by Donald E. Westlake

  The main object was still the statue, of course, but Jerry was beginning to enjoy this search for its own sake. Moving around the city, seeing it at different times of day, seeing the people in it, he was feeling that tug of belonging, of connection, that some people get when they stand by the great salt sea. The sea, or the city, it’s all the same, it calls to the blood, a restless endless pulse calling home all those who recognize the deep linkages. Jerry recognized them. This was the home of the hustle, in more ways than one, and hustle was Jerry’s middle name.

  Driving down Broadway from the Harwood apartment toward the orchestra office in midtown, Jerry smiled around at the jagged gray verticals of Manhattan. When this was over, maybe he’d come stay in the city for a while. Be a nice place to spend a million dollars.

  UP IN THE AIR …

  The goat-thigh sandwich was ruined, but the gluppe bottle had been tightly corked and once the outside had been thoroughly rinsed—and aired a while, perhaps—it would be just as drinkable as it had ever been.

  The gun, however, was a more complicated proposition, and that was why Edwardo was crammed into the tiny lavatory with Pedro, his nose wrinkled in disgust against the stink. The contents of Pedro’s stomach had to be removed from the gun without causing any harm to the gun’s mechanism, because it would be perhaps too chancy a matter to hijack an airplane with the aid of a gun that has been rendered inoperable by a combination of vomit and water. Not trusting Pedro to clean the gun as carefully as necessary, Edwardo had swallowed his pride—and his bile—and joined him in the John, in a space so small that some normal lavatory operation were not possible in here for full-grown adults at all. (These Quetchyl-Rosie flights tended to finish with a wholesale dash by the passengers for any available bathroom, hedge, or concealing wall. It is advisable to walk very carefully when visiting the airports at either Quetchyl or Rosie.)

  “There,” Edwardo said at last, patting the gun with a lot of paper towels, an operation that couldn’t be done without repeatedly elbowing Pedro in the ear, “I think it’s all right now.”

  “Should we test it?”

  Edwardo gazed at Pedro speculatively, almost yearningly, but then he shook his head. “No, Pedro,” he said. “We should not test it. What we should do is put it to use.”

  “Use,” echoed Pedro. And his face, particularly his eyes, immediately got that thick blunt dead-pig look that overcame his features whenever anything had been said that he didn’t want to understand.

  “It’s time to take over the airplane,” Edwardo said, and pressed the gun into Pedro’s unwilling palm. “Don’t shoot anything unless you intend to,” Edwardo suggested.

  “Shoot? Why would I intend to shoot?”

  “Because you’re going to hijack the plane now.”

  “Now? I haven’t even had lunch!”

  That word “lunch” in this tiny foul-smelling closet almost did Edwardo in completely, but he closed his eyes and his throat and his sphincter, and in a few seconds the spasm passed, and he could open his eyes and say, slowly and softly and with utter conviction, “You are going to hijack this airplane now, Pedro, or I am going to throw you out of it. Personally.”

  Pedro looked at Edwardo, and he saw eyes glittering with such fury that he could almost have read a comic book by their light. There is a time to be stupid and a time to be smart and Pedro was smart enough to know the difference. “Yes, Edwardo,” he said.

  “Yes, Pedro,” said Edwardo. “I will leave here first, to allay suspicion. You will count to fifty, and then you will leave there and walk directly to the pilot’s cabin and show him your gun and say, “Take me to New York.”

  “Yes, Edwardo.”

  “Yes, Pedro.”

  The process of cleaning the gun had spattered water on Edwardo’s clothing, particularly the front of his trousers, so now he pulled off a handful of toilet paper—they’d used up all the paper towels—and tried to pat himself dry. But it couldn’t be done in this tight space, so he gave Pedro one last warning glitter and left the lavatory.

  Stewardess Lupe Naz, having reason to keep an eye on that vomiting passenger in the first place, had been interested to see him enter the lavatory some time ago with another man. Not at all usual, though honeymooning couples had been known to do such things on these flights, not very successfully. At any rate, here came one of the men—not the up-chucker, the other one—back out of the lavatory, dabbing at wet spots on the front of his trousers with a lot of toilet paper. Lupe wrinkled her nose in disgust, which meant she was already wearing the right expression when he passed her and she caught a whiff of him. Holy Mother! What had they been doing in there?

  Pedro, alone in the lavatory, was counting fifty swallows of gluppe. His bruised and terrified stomach was reacting like a pit of snakes when a flaming torch is thrown in, but he didn’t care. All right, he’d agreed to hijack this terrible airplane, and he would hijack this terrible airplane, but there was nothing in the agreement that said he had to be conscious while he was doing it. If you’re going to hijack a plane at all, it might just as well be during an alcoholic blackout.

  Fohty-eight, fohty-nine, fifty—

  Not much left in the bottle. No point carrying the damn tiling around, not with, um-ung, ung, ung, ung, ung, ung—only six swallows left in it. Pedro belched fire and smoke, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, ignored his raging stomach, left the bottle of gluppe in the toilet, and at last went out of the lavatory. Passing the stewardess without noticing her dirty look—nor her surprised look, nor her revolted look—he made his lurching way down the aisle and tried to climb over Edwardo back to his seat in the middle. And Edwardo kicked him very hard in the shin.

  “Ow!” said Pedro. “Wha’d you do that for?”

  It isn’t possible for a human being to hiss a sentence with no ess sounds in it. But Edwardo did the impossible. “Get up to the pilot, you idiot!” he hissed.

  “Oh,” said Pedro, and then became aware of the gun, which he had tucked into the front of his trousers, under his flapping shirt-tail, which he never tucked into his trousers. “Sorry,” Pedro said. “Forgot” And he burped at Edwardo and José—both flinched—and staggered off toward the front of the plane.

  Stomach and head were both buzzing now. A field of orange with crimson polka dots was all around the periphery of his vision; or was that the stewardess? No, it was a field of orange with crimson polka dots all around the periphery of his vision, and steadily closing in, like the shutting of an iris.

  He was at a door. Knobs never had been his strong point. He stood there fumbling for a while, until the stewardess officiously arrived, clutching at his elbow and saying, “Sir! Sir!”

  “S’okay,” Pedro assured her. “I got it.” And he did, because at that instant the doorknob turned and he and the stewardess both lurched into the pilot’s quarters, the door slamming again behind them.

  Edwardo and José, both of whom had been watching proceedings with slitted eyes, now looked at one another. “Well,” said José “it’s in the hands of God now.”

  “If only it were,” Edwardo said. “In truth, it’s in the hands of Pedro.”

  In truth, the stewardess was in the hands of Pedro. Given her height and weight and general build, she seemed to consist almost entirely of primary sexual attributes, and try as he might Pedro couldn’t seem to get his hands off them. The two of them lurched back and forth off-balance in the tiny pilot’s cabin, behind the bewildered pilot and co-pilot, and it was only when Lupe Naz reared back and slapped Pedro’s face that he woke up enough to catch his balance and remember what he was here for. And also to realize that his stomach’s protests against gluppe and lurching in combination were getting much more imperative.

  Meanwhile, everybody else was talking at once. “What’s going on here?” the co-pilot was saying, while the pilot was saying, “Get him away from the controls!” and the stewardess was saying, “Rapist! Pervert! Degenerate!”

  First things first; the stomach would have to wait
. Lugging the gun out from under his shirt, Pedro said, “Take me to New York,” and threw up on the pilot.

  UPTOWN …

  Leroy, he say, “Lu dah.”

  Buhbuh, he said, “Wuh?”

  Leroy, he say, “Dah.”

  It the funeral. Aloysius ‘Mole Mouth’ Dundershaft, he going to Queens, get himself buried next the Long Island Expressway.

  Man, it some funeral. It start with horses, four black horses and four white horses. Only the police, they say the horses, they can’t walk cross no Hundred Twenty-Fifth Street blocking traffic all the time, so F. Xavier White, he put them horses up on flatbed trucks. Two trucks, with four black horses on the first truck and four white horses on the second truck. And each one them horses, they got a fella in a black suit and a white shirt and a black tie standing up there with him, by he head. And the cab them trucks, they been spray-painted black just before the funeral, and the drivers them trucks, they in black suits and white shirts and black ties just like the fellas with the horses. And the horses, they lifting their tails and shitting on the trucks.

  Then after the horses come flower cars. Four flower cars, all piled up with wreaths and sprays and bunches and horse-shoes a flowers. They white flowers and yellow flowers and red flowers and orange flowers and blue flowers and purple flowers and pink flowers. They carnations and gladioluses and roses and lilies and delphiniums and sweet Williams and irises and peonies and daisies and chrysanthemums and baby’s-breath and gillyflowers and phlox. And they a bunch other flowers, too, and green from ferns and rhododendron leaves. And some, they got satin ribbons on them with words on them, like SYMPATHY and GOOD LUCK and TO A PAL. But if you look real close, some others got satin ribbons on them what say like CONGRATULATIONS and MAZEL TOV and BON VOYAGE, which is only right in a certain way of looking at things, and the answer is, F. Xavier, he made a deal with a wholesale florist down on Sixth Avenue below Macy’s, what his flower cars would deliver all the wholesale florist’s flowers what was going to Queens, if F. Xavier, if he could use them first at the funeral. So Mole Mouth, he got all the flowers in the world, and they a lot a weddings in Queens, they gone be late.

  Then after the flower cars come the hearse, and after the hearse come another hearse. Two hearses. Mole Mouth, he getting a send-off to beat all.

  The first hearse, that a Cadillac Fleetwood hearse, black and shiny as a brand new bowling ball. It have maroon upholstery inside, and it have a lectric slab that swivel out the side door to put the casket on and then swivel back in, so nobody, they got to break their back bending over. And they got on the side windows black lacy curtains like the kind undies for women they sell in the men’s magazines what women don’t read. And the casket, it so pretty it a shame to bury it. Make a nice stereo cabinet. Great wood, resonate like crazy, put the woofers right in the son bitch. Dark rich wood, stained the color ox-blood shoe polish. Chrome handles, chrome hinges, shine like fenders. Nice shape, lots a turned wood, plenty beveled edges, look nice in the dining room.

  Inside, where nobody can see it, they so much padded pink satin it look like a fat lady at a wedding turned inside out. And Mole Mouth, he in there too, lying on his back, his left hand on the family jewels and his right hand on his left hand. He dressed up something fierce, in three-tone platform shoes, and pleated green-and-black check pants and an amber turtle-neck shirt and a two-tone green Edwardian jacket and a green beret. And he got his earring on, and four sets a beads, and three rings, and the digital electric watch (it keeping perfect time, right this second), and the chrome ID bracelet (a gift from a lady) what say on it MISTER RIGHT-ON. He look terrific, except around the face a little and except for some seepage down around the base a the spine. Pity nobody thought to take a picture.

  Then the second hearse, that another Cadillac Fleetwood hearse, the same as the first one except it got gray upholstery instead a maroon. And the casket in the second hearse, it almost as terrific as the casket in the first hearse. In fact, it look like the same casket but it can’t be, on account it cost a hundred twenty-seven dollars less. But it sure look pretty. And inside is all Mole Mouth’s favorite threads, and all his favorite tapes, and his favorite transistor, and his copy a Penthouse what showed up too late for him to read it, and his address book, and his two net bathing suits, and a live dove as a symbol that now there’s peace between Mole Mouth and Bad Death Jonesburg. And that dove, he making a mess.

  And after the two hearses come the band. The first band. It up on a flatbed truck, too, like the horses, and it a sextet, everybody dressed up in black and looking real solemn. They a piano player, a fat fella with a big wide mouth and a bowler hat, and a skinny little clarinet player with a black string tie and long long fingers with maybe six big bony knuckles on ever blessed finger, and a long-armed bass player with a bushy mustache and a bald spot on top he head, and a chubby little trumpet player with sweat drops all over he forehead and great big pop eyes that roll when he play, and a long sad-looking trombone player with gold-frame glasses falling off the end he nose, and a nervous little drummer shape like a spider sitting up top a whole big set snare drums with a picture a palm tree on the bass.

  Now, this band playing, and what they playing, it funeral music. Jazz funeral music. Very slow, but syncopated. Lots a looooonnnng loooowwww trombone notes, full a growl. Lots a piano left hand. The clarinet, it tootle and teetle, but it don’t make no fuss about it, and even when the trumpet, it stride, it stride soft. Same like the bass, it walk slow and stately, it go bum dum bum dum bum, like a fat man carrying a crown on a little red pillow.

  (Later on, coming back from the cemetery, this band gone wail. Then you gone hear something. You gone hear that trombone waa-do-du-deedle-du-do, and that trumpet climb up la-bat-da-badda-bah, and that clarinet skeetlee-dee-titty-dee, and them drums fa-bot-ba-ba-boo-budeh-bah, and that bass go thun-thun-tha-thun-thun, and that piano triple-skipple-dipple-whipple-fipple-ripple-roo. You gone see that piano player smile under mat bowler hat, and that trumpet man’s eyes, they gone pop right out he head, and that trombone man’s glasses, they gone steam up like in a Turkish bath. Because this the idea, on the way the cemetery you got to think about him what dead, so you play the long slow music with the heavy walking beat. But on the way back from the cemetery, it time to think about the living, it time to come up out your sadness, come up to happiness again. At least, that’s what them handkerchief-heads from Down South, them Dundershaft relatives, that what they think.)

  Now, after the band come eleven black Cadillac convertibles, on account Cadillac the only kind convertible made in the United States any more—don’t complain, you didn’t buy no convertibles neither—and these eleven convertibles, they has they tops down so the general public, it can see the celebrities.

  About them celebrities. F. Xavier, he had a lot a trouble about them celebrities. First he try calling them almost-celebrities from the Open Sports Committee, and that don’t get him nowhere at all. Nobody home, everybody busy, everybody mad about this thing or that thing, don’t nobody remember no solidarity worth a damn.

  So after that he try some other people what might be celebrities, but don’t nobody want to go to no funeral, and don’t nobody double want to go to no Mole Mouth Dundershaft funeral. And F. Xavier, he figure he got to get some celebrities to this funeral or pretty soon they gone be another funeral. Because Bad Death, he calling up all the time, he saying, “You got them celebrities yet?”

  “Working on the list, Bad Death.”

  “You fuckin’ better.”

  So F. Xavier, he think about things, and when Maleficent, she start bad-mouthing him he turn around quick and whup her with a floor lamp, which nobody ever done before, and she go lock herself in her bedroom and call the Dunkin Donuts and tell them send over a whole lot a stuff. And F. Xavier, he give himself a shock when he plug the floor lamp in again, and it just like a light bulb over a character’s head in a comic book because all a sudden he know what to do about celebrities. And he make a whole bunch
a phone calls, and everybody he call say yes, and when Bad Death, he call the next time, F. Xavier, he say, “I got em, Bad Death.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who you got?”

  “I got Sammy Davis, Jr. And I got Muhammad Ali. And I got—”

  “You shittin me?”

  “Me, Bad Death?”

  “You really got all them people? Who else you got?”

  “I got Diana Ross, and I got Flip Wilson, and I got Bob Teague, and I got Pam Grier, and I—”

  “Pam Grier!”

  “Sure, Bad Death.”

  “What she doin after the funeral?”

  “Uh. Well, listen, Bad Death, these people, you know, they all want to come on account this gone be the social event of the year, but they don’t want no trouble in their lives, so in case the police is watching this funeral—”

  “Well, shit, sure they gone be watchin the funeral. You kiddin me?”

  “Well, these celebrities,” F. Xavier explained, “they gotta pretend they don’t know you, see what I mean? They’ll just ride in the cars, but they won’t talk to nobody or nothing.”

  “Oh, sure,” Bad Death said. “I get it. You got anybody else?”

  “Let’s see my list here. I told you about Pam Grier.”

  “You sure did.”

  “So then I got Redd Foxx and Diahann Carroll and Shirley Chisholm and Jim Brown.”

  “Who was that one?”

  “Jim Brown.”

  “No, the one before that.”

  “Shirley Chisholm?”

  “Who dat?”

  “Congresswoman from Brooklyn. Very important woman, Bad Death. Big-time celebrity.”

  “Well, okay. The only politicians I knows is precinct captains.”