Dancing Aztecs

by Donald E. Westlake

  “A museum won’t help you,” the fellow said. “Let me get you a cup of coffee. My name’s Edgar, by the way.”

  “Pedro,” admitted Pedro.

  “Come on with me,” Edgar said.

  So Pedro went with him, having nothing else to do, and his new friend led him across alternate swatches of sod and concrete until they suddenly stopped for no reason at all somewhere in the middle of the grid. “Be here in a minute,” Edgar said.

  Pedro had no idea what would be here in a minute, nor did he care. Walking in these ridiculous red shoes would have been difficult at the best of times, and for Pedro this was one of the worst of times. That they were no longer walking was success enough for him. Traffic continued to curve by on a couple of roadways, several million cars were parked in neat clusters here and over there, the sun glared down like the eye of a disapproving god, and a bus angled out of nowhere to cough to a stop at Pedro’s red feet.

  “Come on,” said Edgar.

  Pedro got on the bus with him. Edgar said a few words to the bus driver in English, and the driver glanced without interest at Pedro and nodded. Then he glanced again at Pedro, looking him up and down, and raised an eyebrow at Edgar, who laughed and said something else in English. He and the driver chuckled together, and then Edgar led Pedro to a nearby seat, and the bus jolted forward once more.

  This was one of several bus lines connecting the spreadout parts of Kennedy Airport, this one being a free service exclusively for airport employees. A dozen or so people were aboard now, most of them reading newspapers, and when a man in white coveralls like Jerry’s got off at United leaving El Diario behind Edgar took the paper off the seat and began to read. Beside him, Pedro rested in the cushioned seat and watched dull-eyed as more and more and more airport went by.

  “Huh!” said Edgar.

  Pedro turned his poor head and saw Edgar staring at him in wild surmise. “What?” said Pedro.

  “Descalzo, huh?” And Edgar pushed the newspaper toward Pedro, folded to one particular story. “Take a look at that.”

  Pedro tried, he really did, but his eyes refused to cooperate. They showed him two overlapping newspapers, with all the words fuzzy. He could see it was in Spanish, and he could see there was a murky photograph of an airplane, but that was about it. “Oh,” he said, because staring at the paper was making him feel sick. “I can’t,” he said, and closed his eyes. That, however, was a mistake; quickly he popped them open again.

  “I’ll tell you what it says,” Edgar offered.

  “Thank you.”

  “It says three men hijacked an airplane to here from Descalzo last night. It says two of the men are in custody but the third one got away.”

  “Oh,” said Pedro.

  “It says the police are looking for him.”

  “Oh,” said Pedro. Fatalistically he said, “They’re going to hang me by my tongue.”

  “The police?”

  “In Descalzo.”

  Edgar gave him a keen look. “It’s political, huh?”

  Pedro could say yes, or he could say no. If he said no, he’d have to explain what it was other than political. If he said yes, the conversation would be over. “Yes,” he said.

  Hispanics have a long tradition of defiance against authority. Come to that, the Irish and Italians and Jews also have a long tradition of defiance against authority. Thinking it over, everybody has a long tradition of defiance against authority. (Except the Germans, of course.) Therefore, it was only natural that Edgar would smile encouragingly at Pedro, pat his dungaree-fringed knee, and say, “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you.”

  “You will?” And Pedro, virtually for the first time in his adult life, found himself smiling.

  THE CASTAWAY …

  Since Bobbi had already given up her room, she’d been taking all these phone calls at the Holiday Inn desk, and after the second conversation with the girl from Beacon Auto Transporters, she spent a minute leaning against that desk, brooding. It wasn’t fair, that’s all. Denied that terrific car, just after she’d gotten it. Falsely accused. And forced now to turn around and go back to New York, probably spend the whole weekend there before she could get another car to the Coast.

  The desk clerk, a neat and friendly young man in a 1957 haircut and a yellow blazer, came over and said, “Anything wrong?”

  “Hardly at all,” Bobbi told him. “What time did you say the bar opened?”

  “Not till twelve noon. Sorry, it’s the law.”

  “I’ll never make it,” Bobbi told him, and went away toward the restaurant, to have another cup of coffee and try to figure out what to do next.

  Her pal from last night was in there now, surrounded by several breakfasts; sunny-side-up eggs on one plate, Canadian bacon on another, a stack of pancakes on a third, several slices of toast on a fourth, pats of butter and little containers of jelly on a fifth. Plus coffee, plus orange juice, plus a glass of water. Stopping by his table, Bobbi said, “When do you expect them to arrive?”

  He looked up, a happy smile on his face. “Hey, there. When do I expect who?”

  She gestured at all the food. “The Boy Scout troop.”

  “Oh.” Grinning, he said, “I ordered this stuff for you. Sit down.”

  “I already had breakfast,” she said, sitting across from him. “But I will take a cup of coffee.”

  “Fine.” He waved his fork at the waitress, who was already on her way, empty cup in one hand and Pyrex coffeepot in the other.

  Bobbi accepted her coffee, asked for Sweet and Low, got it, stirred, and said no, thanks to Jerry’s offer of pancakes, toast, a piece of bacon, one of his eggs. “No, really, I’m fine.”

  “I thought you were going to be on the road by now,” he said.

  “So did I.”

  “Trouble?”

  So she told her story, with appropriate expressions of surprise and sympathy from him, and as she was finishing the mechanic came in and said, “Could I talk to you for a minute, miss?”

  “Pull up a chair,” Jerry told him.

  “He’s the mechanic,” Bobbi explained.

  The mechanic, having pulled up a chair, rested his elbows on the table and turned a worried frown toward Bobbi. “The owner called again,” he said.

  “He did, huh?”

  “I’m supposed to tow the car in, look it over, let him know what the problem is.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  “But I’m not supposed to let you drive it any more.”

  “I already know about that.”

  “So what do I do with your luggage?”

  “Oh.” Depression was settling over Bobbi like a stationary low. “I guess they better come in here for now.”

  “Okay.” The mechanic made as if to go, but then hesitated, frowning again at Bobbi. “There is something else,” he said.

  “Oh, I hope not.”

  “About this thing of the car being vandalized.”

  “Oh, that.” Depression gave way briefly to anger.

  “The owner wanted me to let him know if it looked like anything had been done to the car on purpose.”

  “He really stinks,” she said. “He really does.”

  Jerry, who’d been watching and listening to all this, now said, “The owner thinks somebody screwed up the car on purpose?”

  “He thinks I did,” Bobbi told him.

  “The fact is,” the mechanic said, “I looked it over some, and I think maybe something really was done to it.”

  Bobbi stared at him. “That’s impossible!”

  “Transmission fluid on the ground,” said the mechanic. “Looks like the pan was poked with an icepick or something. And your fuel mixture looks to me like it’s screwed down so you wouldn’t get any air at all. You didn’t drive in here like that.”

  Bobbi said, “Do you think I wrecked his car?”

  “No, I don’t,” said the mechanic. “But I think maybe somebody did. And if it was you, I wouldn’t blame you. If you’ll pardon my s
aying so, I think that guy’s a prick.”

  “You’re excused,” Bobbi told him. “But I really didn’t do it, you know. That car was supposed to take me to California. Besides, I don’t even know what those things are that you said. I wouldn’t know how to wreck a car.”

  “No, thanks,” the mechanic told the waitress. “No coffee for me.” To Bobbi he said, “The thing is, if I tell him what happened to the car, he’ll blame you and he’ll maybe make trouble for you.”

  “Oh, God. What a mess. And who would do such a thing?”

  The mechanic shrugged. “Fancy car,” he said. “New York plates. Somebody in a bad mood, maybe.”

  “I sure hope they feel better today,” Bobbi said.

  Jerry said to the mechanic, “Listen, you know she didn’t do it. So why not cover, tell him it was just an ordinary breakdown?”

  “Maybe,” the mechanic said. “If there aren’t any parts screwed up. That’s not like some Chevy or VW, you know. We don’t have Jaguar parts laying around this part of the country.”

  “But if you can,” Jerry said.

  The mechanic shrugged. “If I can cover without getting my own ass in a sling,” he said. Then he ducked his head at Bobbi, saying, “Pardon the expression.”

  “Be my guest.”

  “Anyway,” the mechanic said, getting to his feet, “if I do have to report it, I got a cousin on the state troopers, I’ll let him know the situation. But probably you’d be better off if you weren’t around here any more.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “I’ll get your stuff.”

  “Thanks.”

  He went away, and Jerry said, “When he comes back, slip him a thank-you ten bucks.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so. What are you gonna do now?”

  “Christ knows,” she said. “Get back to New York somehow, I suppose.”

  “I’ll give you a lift,” he said.

  She looked at him in surprise. “I thought you were heading west.”

  “I got what I came out after,” he said. “Now I’m going back. Come on along.”

  She frowned at him, unsure. Wasn’t she being hustled into some sort of relationship? It was all too fast, and far too soon; she’d had barely a day of independence, and here’s some brand-new guy on the doorstep.

  Correctly interpreting her frown, he grinned at her and spread his hands, saying, “No strings.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, and at that point the desk clerk in the yellow blazer appeared, saying, “Another phone call for you, Mrs. Harwood.”

  “Ah!” Getting to her feet, she said, “Maybe he changed his mind! Maybe he’ll let me drive it after all!” And it was only natural she should misread the look of annoyance that crossed Jerry’s face.

  But it wasn’t Van Dinast on the phone, it was goddam Chuck. “Bobbi,” he said, “I miss you terribly.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Chuck, forget it.”

  “I don’t want to live without you, Bobbi. You’re too important to me.”

  “That’s a lot of bullshit, Chuck, and you know it. How on earth did you find out where I was?”

  “I’ll find you at the ends of the earth, Bobbi. Doesn’t that prove how much I need you?” But male voices were speaking somewhere in the background.

  “Where are you?” she said. “Who’s there? What are those voices?”

  “Voices? There aren’t any voices,” he said, and the conversation behind him abruptly cut off. “There’s just you and me, Bobbi, in the whole world, that’s all that matters.”

  He had never spoken like that in his life before. Never. Something was screwy, though she had no idea what. “Chuck,” she said, “I’m sorry, but I haven’t changed my mind. We’re through, that’s all. Good-by.”

  “Wait! Bobbi, stay there, I’ll fly right out, I’ll be there this afternoon. Wait for me, Bobbi!”

  “Not on your life,” she said.

  “Wait for me! I’m coming out anyway, please don’t leave without at least seeing me, talking with me. Give me that much, please. You have to!”

  “Forget it, Chuck. I’m leaving right now.”

  “Don’t! I’m on my way, I’ll be there just as soon as I can!”

  “Don’t you dare!” But he’d hung up. He’d hung up, and he was actually going to come chasing out across the world after her, and none of it made any sense. That wasn’t his style, to act like that; his style was to find out where she was supposed to arrive in California, and be there ahead of her, smirking and looking superior.

  And who were those people talking in the background?

  And how had he found her?

  Good Lord; was he in league with Van Dinast?

  Bobbi marched back to the restaurant, where her two suitcases now stood next to Jerry’s chair, with the harp looming in its black case on the other side. He grinned a welcome when she sat down, saying, “I took care of the mechanic.”

  “Fine,” she said. “And now you can take care of me. I’ll go back to New York with you, if the offer still holds.”

  He smiled like Christmas morning. “Glad to have you,” he said.

  THE PROFESSIONAL …

  “This is a fine office you got here, Mel,” Frank said.

  “Thanks,” Mel said. He was grumpy, and he didn’t care who knew it. He didn’t like these guys cluttering up the Zachary George Literary Agency office; they didn’t look right.

  It had been Angela’s idea to switch the command post from their house to his office, since she and Mandy intended to do a lot of intensive spring-cleaning today, but when Mel had agreed all he’d expected was maybe a phone call or two from Jerry. Instead of which, here were Frank and Floyd hanging around for no reason at all, using up his phone and poking into things that didn’t concern them and getting Ralphi the receptionist all upset.

  For instance. Floyd was out there right now in Ralphi’s office, sitting on the sofa with his feet up on the coffee table, trying his miserable chit-chat on Ralphi, and Mel could tell from the sound of her typing that she didn’t like it one bit. Also, Frank was wandering around like he was planning to buy the place, opening file cabinets and smelling the plastic ferns and rubbing his hand over the wallpaper. Who cared if he thought it was a fine office?

  But the worst problem was Floyd. If Ralphi got sore enough—and she hadn’t liked Mel being out all yesterday, after leaving early the day before—she might just up and quit, and then what? Because if Ralphi quit she would definitely take Ethelred Marx with her, her zonked boyfriend next door reading the manuscripts and writing the letters, and if that happened Mel would find himself back doing his own reading. The very thought made his head throb and his stomach roll over.

  And finally enough was enough. Rising from his desk, Mel marched to the connecting door, ignored Ralphi’s glower, and said, “Floyd, come in here a minute. I want to talk to you about your wife.”

  Floyd looked immediately outraged. Jumping up, knocking half the magazines off the coffee table and not picking them up, he stormed into the inner office, slammed the connecting door, and said, “Goddam it, Mel, wha’d you do that for? I was just making time with that girl!”

  “You were making a horse’s ass of yourself with that girl,” Mel told him.

  “Horse’s ass yourself! She goes for me!”

  “She doesn’t go for you, you chowderhead, she goes for an insane spaced-out poet named Ethelred Marx that she’s living with.”

  “Living with, huh?” Speculation glinted in Floyd’s eye. “Not married, huh? But living with the guy. I knew she put out.”

  “I married into a lot of wrong families,” Mel said. “Frank, get outa that filing cabinet!”

  Frank looked vaguely surprised. “What’s the matter with you?”

  Floyd, having settled onto the sofa, said, “What about this guy she’s living with? Is he married? Maybe she likes married men.”

  Pointing a finger at Floyd’s nose, Mel said, “You say one more word to or ab
out that girl, I’ll call Barbara.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  Frank, still poking in the filing cabinet, said, “Is that what’s wrong? Floyd, you been pestering that girl?”

  “What pester? A couple of jokes, that’s all.”

  “You were the only one laughing,” Mel said.

  Frank said to his brother, “Lay off, Floyd.” And just as Mel was about to thank him for the assist, he spoiled it all by grinning and winking at Mel, saying, “You got a little something going there, eh, Mel?”

  “Oh!” said Floyd. “Jeez, Mel, why didn’t you say so? I wouldn’t try to beat your time, pal.”

  “Listen,” Mel said. “You clowns may not believe this, but a woman is more than a sex object.”

  “Is that right?” said Frank, and went back to examining the contents of the filing cabinet.

  “For instance,” said Floyd.

  “For instance,” Mel told him, “that one is a receptionist! And a goddam good one. And at the salary I pay, it’s not easy to find a good receptionist. Also her boyfriend is a reader for me, and he’s good, and if she quits and he quits I’ll never be able to replace either of them, and especially him. So lay off!”

  “Okay okay,” said Floyd. “What’s the big deal?”

  Then Frank said, “Hey, listen to this! ‘Her hand unzipped his trousers, and what she found inside brought a smile to her moist mouth. “Don’t worry, Doctor,” she said. “I don’t bite.”’”

  Floyd said, “What’s that?”

  That was a manuscript in a box that Frank had found in a file drawer. It was, in fact, as Mel immediately realized, his own manuscript, The Neurotic and the Profane, his novel about the girl who kidnaps a psychiatrist to force him to cure her nymphomaniac twin sister. “Stop!” he yelled, flinging out both arms in Frank’s direction. “Put that away, right now!”

  But it was too late. Floyd was approaching Frank, saying, “What is that thing?”

  “I dunno,” said Frank. “Some kind of fuck book.”

  “Who wrote it? Lemme see it.”

  Mel shouted, “Put it away!”

  Not a chance. Frank was turning it this way and that, was finding the title page, was reading it aloud: “The Neurotic and the Profane, by Mel Byrne.” He frowned at the title page, frowned at Mel, frowned at the title page. “Mel Byrne. Mel Bernstein. Mel Byrne.” He frowned at Mel. “You wrote this.”