A New York Dance

by Donald E. Westlake

  Which is no way, Cohen knew, to talk to a boat. The proper hail is, "Ahoy there!" Knowing, then, that this was a landlubber, Cohen went ahead and gave the proper response anyway: "Ahoy yourself!"

  "Is Mister Ben Cohen here?"

  Ashore, Ben Cohen was Mister, but afloat the term Mister meant a mate or other junior officer, and afloat Ben Cohen was Captain, but what did a landlubber know! "Right here," Cohen said, and came down the ladder to see an ingratiating smile on the face of an under-forty man in a rumpled light-tone jacket and tie. He was standing on the dock in the sunlight leaning slightly in Cohen's direction. There was nothing about the boat person about this fellow, and Cohen did not warm to him. "What can I do for you?" he said.

  "I stopped by your house," the stranger said, "and your wife told me I might find you here."

  "Oh, she did, did she?"

  "My name's, uh, Mel George, and I'm — Uh. Could I come in for a minute?"

  "In? You mean aboard?"

  The stranger gave an affable laugh. "I guess that's what I mean. I don't know much about boats."

  "I can see you don't," Cohen said. "Come aboard, if you want."

  "Thank you." Mel George stepped carefully over the side and directly into the bucket of water. "Ak!" he said.

  Cohen shook his head. "Mostly people don't do that unless they're barefoot," he said.

  "Goddam it!" said Mel George, and in pulling his shoe-clad foot out of the bucket he tipped it over, sloshing water all over the carpet.

  "Take it easy!" Cohen said.

  "I'm really very sorry," Mel George said. He had his wet foot up in the air, like a dog taking a leak and was shaking it. Then the boat moved slightly, and Mel George lurched and kicked the hibachi off its stand.

  "Take it easy!"

  "Sorry. Sorry." Mel George leaned over, bumping into a director's chair, and picked up the hibachi. The director's chair bumped into the other director's chair, and they both fell over.

  "Holy shit!" said Cohen.

  A fairly large boat had just gone by, and that little movement of the boat a few seconds earlier had been the first wavelet of that passing boat's wake. Now a larger roll of wake tipped the Bobbing Cork II left, then right, and Mel George dropped the hibachi into the Sound. "Oh, my gosh!" said Mel George.

  "What in hell are you doing?" cried Cohen.

  Mel George clutched at various parts of the boat, getting oily fingerprints all over the brightwork. The wake passed beneath the boat in several successive rolls, and Mel George stood there wide-eyed, holding on like a sleepwalker waking to find himself on a building ledge. Cohen took the opportunity to right the director's chairs and place one of them handy to Mel George. "Sit down, goddam it."

  Mel George sat down. "I'm terribly sorry about that, uh, thing," he said. "I'll pay for it, of course."

  "You'll tell me your business with me," Cohen told him, "and then you'll go away and leave me to clean things up around here."

  "Yes, of course. I really am sorry, it was a very unfortunate way to begin, particularly because, well, in fact, I'm from UJA."

  "I gave at the office," Cohen said. Which wasn't the truth. But he had decided some time ago that he couldn't give financial support both to black causes and Jewish causes and let the Jewish causes struggle along without him. Including the United Jewish Appeal.

  Mel George, unfortunately, was not to be so easily dissuaded. "This isn't precisely a contribution I'm asking for," he said.

  "I don't have any spare time," said the master of the Bobbing Cork II.

  "Oh, we know you're a busy man," Mel George said. "We wouldn't want to take up any of your time."

  "No money and not time? What is it, then?"

  "Well as you know," Mel George said, "the project of planting trees in Israel has been wonderfully successful for many years." And he went on from there to a long rambling account of most of the Jewish philanthropies of the twentieth century, whether connected with Israel or not. B'nai B'rith was mentioned, rather confusingly, and the kibbutzim, and the annual Chanukah Festival in Madison Square Garden. All of the words formed rational sentences, and all of the subjects were familiar to Cohen, and yet he had the feeling nothing was making any sense. What, after all, was this fellow talking about? He tried to find out a few times, asking direct questions, but the answer tended to be even foggier than the phrase that had prompted the question, so after a while Cohen just sat back in the other director's chair and waited for this squall to wear itself out.

  Then Mel George coughed and said, "I'm sorry, I'm a little hoarse."

  "I shouldn't wonder," said Cohen.

  "Could I have — would you have some water?"

  "Water? Of course." Rising, Cohen said, "Would you prefer seltzer?"

  "No, thank you, just plain water would be fine."

  "Ice cubes?"

  "Why, yes, thank you. Thank you very much."

  So Cohen went inside to the galley and got a glass of water with ice cubes, and when he came outside Mel George was gone.

  No, he wasn't. There he was up by the wheel, smiling around in that infuriating ingratiating way of his. God alone knew what damage he could cause up there. "George!" cried Cohen. "Come down from there!" And then, in somewhat less harsh tones, "I have your water."

  "Thank you, thank you!" Coming down the ladder, he smiled and said, "I was enjoying the view from up there. Beautiful, beautiful. You have a beautiful boat, Mr. Cohen."

  It was until you got here. But Cohen didn't say that aloud. Instead, he said, "Here's your water."

  Mel George thanked him again, drank the water, and then said, "Well, I don't want to keep you. But you will bear us in mind for when we call again, won't you?"

  "Bear you in mind for what?"

  But Mel George was returning the glass, smiling, saying a lot of fuzzy things, and preparing to leave the boat. Off he went, his left arm held oddly down at his side as though he'd hurt himself on the ladder — wouldn't that be nice — and while Cohen watched in bewilderment the man stepped ashore, waved his nonstiff hand, and turned to walk back down the long wooden dock to the land.

  Had the fool hurt himself by breaking something up by the wheel? Cohen hurried up the ladder and saw at once what was missing; the Other Oscar. The bastard had stolen it! The stiff left arm, concealing the statue beneath his coat!

  Turning from the wheel, Cohen saw Mel George still walking away along the dock. And then, providentially, a young man appeared on the shore, coming this way. Grabbing up his pale-green megaphone, Cohen yelled at him, "STOP, THIEF! STOP HIM!"

  The young man, a tall and skinny fellow in pullover shirt and grey slacks, apparently understood at once, because he suddenly ran forward to block the end of the dock. Mel George, seeing him there, stopped and pointed at him and seemed to be saying something. Some lie, no doubt.

  Cohen hurried down the ladder, off the boat, and along the dock, running as fast as his sure-grip sneakers and his middle-aged spread would permit. Mel George, looking over his shoulder, saw him coming and dithered a bit, like a base-runner caught between the second baseman and the shortstop. Then, making the only decision he could, he suddenly jumped forward, trying to run either through or around the younger man.

  Who wouldn't permit it. He and Mel George feinted one way, then the other, and as Cohen came panting up the young man punched Mel George in the nose and Mel George sat down hard on the wooden dock. The statue of the Other Oscar dropped out from under his jacket onto his lap.

  "Thank you," gasped Cohen. "Thank you." Stooping, he picked up the statue out of the thief's lap and turned to smile pantingly at the young man. Who then punched Cohen in the nose, grabbed the statue, and ran away.

  In the sound…

  WALLY GRABBED THE statue out of the fat man's hand and ran, taking off toward the parking lot where he'd left the car.

  But he didn't get there. Angela's damn husband was after him again, and damn if he wasn't a fast runner. He headed Wally off, and Wally had to veer to the right a
round a big open-fronted structure full of boats on trailers. The heavy crunch of the husband's feet on gravel sounded close behind him, closer and closer, and he veered away again, through a space in a chain link fence and out over a blacktop parking lot — not the one with his car, damn it — and off to the right again when the husband's grasping hand slid off his shoulder.

  It was like one of the bad dreams, running and running and getting nowhere, with doom smashing and thundering behind. Out through a gate, across more gravel, around a small white clapboard building, across a wooden pier. Veering again, crying out, gasping for breath, staring desperately at the sky, dashing out along a network of docks with boats moored all around, running across the back of a boat whose startled occupants all looked up gaping from The Price is Right, down along another dock with the pounding feet still close behind, and—

  The end of the dock. Far out there the weathered grey boards came to an abrupt end. There were no boats tied up that far out, nothing but Long Island Sound and Connecticut far, far away. "No no no!" screamed Wally, still running. "It's mine! It's mine!" Clutching the golden statue to his chest, he ran full-tilt off the end of the dock and into the Sound. And the pursuing footsteps right after.

  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. And each of them horses, they got a fella in a black suit standing up there with him, by he head. And the cab them trucks, they been spray-painted black, and the drivers them trucks, they in black suits, too. 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 horseshoes and flowers. They white flowers and yellow flowers and red flowers and orange flowers and blue flowers and purple flowers and pink flowers.

  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, and the answer is, F. Xavier, he made a deal with a wholesale florist what his flower cars would deliver all the wholesale florist's flowers what was going to Queens, if F. Xavier, if he would use them first at the funeral. So Mole Mouth, he got all the flowers in the world, and they a lot of weddings in Queens, they gone be late.

  Then after the flower cars come the hearse, and after the hearse come another hearse. Two hearses. The first one, that a Cadillac Fleetwood, black and shiny as a brand new bowling ball. And the casket, it so pretty it a shame to bury it. Make a nice stereo cabinet.

  Inside the casket where nobody can see it, they so much padded pink satin it look like a fat lady 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 turtleneck 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 what say on it MISTER RIGHT-ON. Pity nobody thought to take a picture.

  Then the second hearse, that another Cadillac Fleetwood and the casket in the second hearse, it almost as terrific as the casket in the first hearse. It sure look pretty. And inside is all Mole Mouth's favourite threads, and all his favourite tapes, and his favourite 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 every blessed finger, and a long-armed bass player with a bushy moustache 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 loooowwwww 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.

  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 nine black Cadillac convertibles, and these 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, because celebrities they don't want to go to no Mole Mouth Dundershaft funeral. Because Bad Death, he calling up all the time, he saying, "You got them celebrities yet?"

  "Working on the list, Bad Death."

  "You better be."

  So F. Xavier, he think about things, and when Maleficient, she start bad-mouthing him he turn around 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 to tell them send over a whole lot of 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 of 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. But, listen, 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."

  "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."

  So now the celebrities, they in five convertibles in the funeral procession, two celebrities per convertible. Only not the front two convertibles, cause in them is Mole Mouth's immediate family, a bunch of wooly-head niggers from Down South someplace, staring around at everything and eating Kentucky Fried Chicken outa plastic buckets on the floor the convertibles and generally making fools a they selves. But starting with the third convertible, here come the celebrities.

  Leroy, he say, "Lu dah."

  Buhbuh, he say, "Lu wuh?"

  Leroy, he say, "Dah! Ain dah Sammy Davis Junyuh?"

  Buhbuh, he look, he say, "Nah."

  Buhbuh, he right. That ain't no Sammy Davis, Jr. That F. Xavier's cousin Jim Haye from South
Ozone Park, what look a little like Sammy Davis, Jr., special when he got that black eyepatch on what the real Sammy Davis, Jr., don't wear no more.

  So now Leroy, he say, "Well, ain' dah Muhammad Ali?"

  Buhbuh, he look, he frown, and he say, "Nah."

  Buhbuh, he right again. That ain't no Muhammad Ali, that F. Xavier's nephew Lucius White from New Rochelle, sitting in there next to Jim Haye with his jacket shoulders all full a paper towels and his arms up in a boxer's handshake with himself.

  So that the first car celebrities. Jim Haye with a eyepatch on and Lucius White wearing paper towels, both a them nodding and waving to the multitude, what stare back. And that F. Xavier he had to be pretty smart and pretty dumb, try to pull a stunt like this.

  So now the next Cadillac convertible come along, and Leroy, he say, "Gah dammit, Buhbuh, ain' dah Diana Ross?"

  "Nah," say Buhbuh.

  "How bow Flip Wilson?"

  "No way," say Buhbuh.

  That Buhbuh, he batting a thousand. That ain't Flip Wilson, that a casket salesman from Detroit name a Happy Charlie Lincoln, who do look like Flip Wilson. He look like Flip Wilson so much that people say it all the time; they say, "Man, you look like Flip Wilson." And right away they sorry they say that, 'cause right away Happy Charlie Lincoln, he do fifteen minutes a Flip Wilson imitation. It awful.

  And nor ain't that Diana Ross. Who that is, that Maleficient's little nephew Alexander Sternfeather. When F. Xavier, he call him and ask him help out in a matter a life and death that Alexander, he say, "I ain' gone dress up like any girl." And F. Xavier, he say, "This ain't dressin' up like any girl, Alexander. This dressin' up like Diana Ross. This dressin' up like a star." So he talk Alexander into it, and they give Alexander some really heavy threads, and they give Alexander a wig almost tall as he is, a scale model a Versailles made outa yak hair. And now Alexander, he getting such a big kick outa being a star, he singing "Stop in the Name of Love" while waving at them multitudes. Good thing they can't hear him.