Dancing Made Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 4)

by Phillip DePoy

  “The two,” she told me with a final flourish, “are not mutually exclusive.”

  “I guess not.” I smiled and continued to stare at the lovely contour of her face. “And you must be pretty proud of yourself right about now.”

  “You don’t have a copyright on the ersatz Jungian interpretation.”

  “Right.” I agreed. “I can’t even spell it. But where does all this get us?”

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded. “I’ll tell you where this gets us. It gets us back to your little trick one last time.”

  “Third time’s a charm.”

  “So they say.” She sipped again. “So go.”

  She grabbed my wineglass away from me before I could take another sip.

  I looked away. “I guess it’s kind of got me … unsettled, this thing of not being able to make the trick work like I want it to.”

  “So get right back on it.” She forged ahead. “That’s the difference between you and people who lead lives of quiet desperation. The desperate types either try something and give up or at least back off when it doesn’t work. On the other hand, the pigheaded types of this world —”

  “Of which we find an abundance —”

  “They bump their heads time after time on the same obstacle, doggedly not giving up but making the same stupid play over and over again.”

  “Which is just as bad?”

  “According to my reckoning, yes. You, on the final hand, try something, but then if it doesn’t work, you back off, think about it, and try something else. Something different. You don’t give up, but you don’t beat a dead horse.”

  “‘Don’t pull punches/don’t push the river.’” I nodded. “To quote St. Van.”

  “Van Morrison doesn’t enter into it today. He already admitted he doesn’t know what enlightenment is.” She was full speed ahead. “You’ve got to scuttle on back to your digs and uncover the gold.” She finished the wine in my glass. “And you have to keep a clear head to do it too.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “As a crutch. Now git, as my mother used to tell me when I was someplace I wasn’t supposed to be.”

  “I’m not supposed to be here with you?”

  “Right.” She stood and started shooing me off the barstool. “That’s right. I’ll finish this bottle of wine for you; it’ll be partial payment for my bathroom door. And by the way, here’s something to factor in: Ray Bolger, who played the part of the Scarecrow, was better known as a hoofer. So put that in your pipe. Now you go do your work. Go on.”

  “But …”

  “Now!”

  She had spoken and turned heads doing it. Hal, for one, was staring, a little more amused than I would have liked personally. Gwen was visibly trying not to laugh, unwinding her microphone cord. Marcia had come to the kitchen door and was peering out.

  I straightened my coat, mostly for dignity’s sake, nodded a cordial, if curt, adieu to all and sundry, and slipped quietly out of the club, as the band started their sound check.

  29. Moonlight

  The apartment was dark. The moon was coming up. The streets were relatively quiet. I was staring out the porch windows. Glass on three sides, in the daylight you call it a sunporch, but now the moonlight was spilling in, making everything look as quiet as it sounded. It was a visual hush, a silver sigh.

  Maybe it was Dally’s brief tirade about the mythological nature of Frank Baum’s writing, but I had it in my head that what I needed to do was sink into the Universal Unconscious, like swimming in the sea. That’s all. Just swim.

  Silver and shadow and the clicking of the bare tree limbs in the cold air made a nice hypnotic blanket, and it wasn’t long before I was halfway into dreamland.

  All at once I was talking to Mickey “the Pineapple" Nichols. He was staring at me across a table that was shaped like a lake and made out of water.

  “The Internet is to our intellectual life what the Universal Unconscious is to our psychological life. In fact the Internet is the new Universal Unconscious. It is not even a metaphor any longer.”

  Then we turned, because there was tango music down a long corridor. In the shadows, as I had once before, I saw a girl crawl out of a picture, disappear down the hall into the shadows, return a moment later with another, smaller picture, and hang it in place of the original, tossing away the empty frame.

  Then I saw Joepye Adder switching frames up and down the hall, like a three-card monte player. But the hall was filled with trees, like in Piedmont Park, and Joe was sitting on a little box in the woods and drinking wine. There was dance music in the background, like a movie sound track.

  When it was all over, Mick turned back to me, smiled, pulled out his piece, and said, “Whelp. Closing time.”

  Then — with a really earsplitting crack — he shot me in the heart.

  Boom. I was wrenched from my vision the way you wake up from a dream sometimes: bolt upright, heart pounding, checking to see if what happened in the dream really happened to you.

  No blood on my chest, so I assumed for the moment that I hadn’t been shot. Still, the pistol fire was ringing in my ears, and I felt a pain in my rib cage. I couldn’t remember how many years it had been since I’d given up cigarettes, but I knew I would have smoked one then if I’d had any in the house.

  I just sat in the canvas director’s chair on the porch staring out at the moon on the street for maybe half an hour. I was shaken partly because of the combined intensity and brevity of my little vision and partly because of the crystal reality of Mickey’s gunshot.

  By the time my heart was back to normal and the craving for a smoke had gone, I knew everything. It was straight in my mind. Not the answers exactly, but all the right questions.

  30. Wired

  “Who do we know that can really do something with a computer? I mean, the spooky stuff.”

  “Flap?” Dally’s voice was odd.

  “Yes. Who did you think it was?”

  “You sound” — she seemed worried — “different.”

  “I am different. I thought it was one of the things you liked about me.”

  “Flap …”

  “I did the thing, and I know the score. So who knows computers?”

  “You already did your thing?” She was still a beat behind. It was my fault.

  “Look,” I started, a little impatiently, “I’ll explain it all in a minute, but I don’t want to lose the momentum I’ve got now, okay? It’s like I got electroshock or something. I’m buzzed.”

  “Okay, okay.” She was trying to catch up. “How about Dirt Gainer?”

  “Who?”

  “Remember the cop who followed you home the other night when you got shot at? That kid. He’s a whiz, they say.”

  “That cop? His name is Dirt?”

  “Short for Dirt Bike, he loves dirt bikes. His given name is Gyles. And he’s on nights this week, obviously.”

  “He’s a computer whiz?” I shook my head. “Why do I find this hard to believe? He’s just a kid.”

  “Who do you think it is that knows computers these days, pal? They’re all kids.”

  “Okay.” I shrugged. “How do I get him to help me look something up?”

  “You can’t.” I could hear her smile. “But I can. Pick you up in five.”

  *

  We met at the front of the Midtown Station, and Dirt was standing in the doorway.

  “Hey, Ms. Oglethorpe.” He was smiling ear to ear. “It’s a honor.” He stuck out his hand; she shook it.

  “Hey, Mr. Tucker.” A big smile and a shake to me too. “Now what can I do exactly? Ms. Oglethorpe was kind of sketchy on the phone.”

  Once inside the little building, we moved right away to some sort of special computer lab, not to the kid’s desk. All Dally had told him on the phone was that we needed to do some first-class snooping, and he’d said he would help in any legal way he could. She told me he’d stressed the word. She seemed to admire it. Just made him seem young to me.

&
nbsp; In the lab he sat at one of the keyboards; Dally and I flanked him.

  “Could you look up Irgo Winfred Dane?”

  “Who?” He turned my way.

  “He’s a musician, plays bass for the symphony and the opera, also jazz. Just type in ‘Dane.’”

  “Naw.” He smiled. “You do that and you’d get three hundred million matches. See, anything at all with the word Dane in it would be a match.”

  Dally squinted at the screen. “You mean there could be, like, a thousand references to people in Denmark?”

  He nodded. “Probably more.”

  “So we have to be more specific.” I leaned back. “How about, Irgo Winfred Dane the bass player?”

  “Well, see” — he shook his head — “you could end up with a million references to bass players and still be looking at half of Denmark. That’s why I think we should just try looking up his E-mail address in the old electronic phone book.”

  “You can do that?” I suddenly felt myself alive in an age of miracles.

  “Here it is,” he said, almost to himself. “HWDBass at south dot net.” Then he turned to me. “Now, what are you really looking for?”

  I stared at the screen distractedly. “I honestly don’t know. But there’s something not right about the guy, I’ve really got that in my head. I’ve been told several times how strange he is. I’d like to know what that means.”

  He nodded. “The problem is, these search engines, they just love specificity.”

  I looked over at him. “I want to know if Dane is into anything weird on the computer, on the Net. How about that?”

  He nodded. “That would all be coded probably. You mean, like drugs or stolen items or pornography?”

  “You can get all that on the Internet?” I looked at his profile.

  Dally peered over at me. “You really do live in another time zone, don’t you, pal? At least read Time magazine every once in a while. Even if you don’t have a computer, they’ll tell you what’s going on in the cyber world.”

  “As it happens,” I told her, with a great amount of specificity, “I don’t want any part of the so-called cyber world. Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve got my hands full with my own little world.”

  Officer Gainer cleared his throat. “How about,” he said, not looking at either one of us, “if I try a few things and you all go get some coffee or something?” Then he looked at me. “This is about those two hanging girls, ain’t it?”

  I nodded. It was a good guess on his part, and I was once again adjusting my attitude about the kid.

  He smiled grimly. “Good. I surely would like to help out on that one.”

  “Where’re you from, Officer Gainer?” I smiled back. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “Shoot, I don’t mind at all. I’m from Jasper. It’s way south. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, Dally and I were born down that way too. Not Jasper, but definitely South Georgia. I just thought I recognized something familiar in your accent, that’s all.”

  “Is that right?” He lit up even more. “Whereabouts you all from?”

  “I hate to be the one,” Dally interrupted, “but let’s do a little work, and save this for later, could we?”

  “Oh,” he nodded, “sure thing.” He wasn’t the least bit put off. “Here we go.” And he started typing things into the computer right away.

  Dally and I headed for the coffee.

  *

  Just a couple of blocks up the street was a fancy Italian place where I’d had lunch a couple of times in the presence of one William Fred Scott, artistic director of the Atlanta Opera. Fred was one of those guys some people found intimidating: “That Fred Scott, he thinks he knows everything.” But the irrefutable fact was he actually did know everything, so I always enjoyed our little lunches. When Fred showed up in the doorway of the place, you’d have thought the pope had come in.

  “Maestro! It’s so good to see you! Quickly. Our best table for the maestro and his friend.”

  Ever since then they’d been very cordial to me, the maestro’s friend. Fame by association. It’s what allowed Dally and me to have a table, order up some thick espresso, and stare out the window talking without being bothered by a lot of “What else will you be ordering this evening?”

  “They treat you well here.” Dally smiled when we were seated.

  “This is where Fred and I come for lunch sometimes.”

  “I see.” She looked at the tablecloth. “Funny your mentioning Fred, what with Dane’s being associated with the opera and all.”

  I knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to vex me with coincidentals so that I would spill my whole story to her. But for just this once, because everything else about it was so odd, I’d decided to play it a little close to the vest, as they say.

  “Yeah.” I watched the waiter hurry back with our espresso. “Fred loves this place.” I turned to her. “You should try the risotto sometime.”

  “Okay.” She slumped a little. “So you’ll tell me what you want to when you want to — I get it.”

  “I’m not trying to hide anything.” I softened a little. “It’s just that everything I have in mind at the moment is so out of the ordinary.”

  “How do you mean, if that's okay to ask?”

  “I mean …” I waited while the waiter set down the cups and asked if there was anything else he could do for us at the moment. He turned the saucers, offered us our napkins, and straightened the tablecloth before he left.

  “Fred must really make an impression on these guys.” She watched him retreat.

  “He makes an impression on everybody, don't you think?”

  “So you were saying …” she prompted.

  “That this is all out of the realm of how this ordinarily happens for me. I mean, how many times have I told you that it’s just a question of seeing the big picture, finding things stuck in your head you’d forgotten were there — that sort of thing?”

  “Okay, about a million.”

  “Right.” I nodded and sipped my brew. “But this feels different.”

  “How?”

  I leaned forward. “What if Mickey really shot me and all this since that night has been a deathbed hallucination? You see that sort of thing in movies all the time.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Not that again. Haven’t we already been over all — I’m not even talking about that with you, Flap.”

  “I woke up from my little dream thing convinced that Mick shot me.”

  “Shot you?”

  “Yeah.” I sipped again. “Just now, just earlier. I was shaking from it for half an hour before I could call you.”

  She stared at me. “Well, I can explain that … if you want me to.”

  “Oh, really?” I think even the waiter heard my skepticism, and he was fifty feet away.

  “Yes, really.” She plunged ahead. “You’ve got yourself a time bomb.”

  That stopped me.

  “See” — she leaned on her elbows — “when Mick tried to kill you, you had to be tough. Probably gave him the ‘bullets bounce off me’ speech.”

  I laughed. She’d heard parts of the speech on several previous occasions.

  “So you think you’re calm,” she continued, “but then he actually pulls the trigger and shoots the gun, and your body has a chemical reaction. Can’t help it. Fear is biochemical. Only you’ve suppressed it. You’ve ignored it. This little panic you’ve got going in your subconscious — which you wade around in while you’re doing your little trick, see? — it’s just waiting there for you, going ‘Hi, remember me?’ when you bump into it.”

  “‘Hi, remember me?’”

  “Along those lines.” She sipped delicately from her cup.

  “What the hell have you been reading?”

  “Just trying to keep up with you.” She smiled sweetly. “That’s all.”

  “So my suppressed fear is a time bomb that goes off when I least expect it because I haven’t dealt with my panic from the o
ther night.” I looked at her. “Do you know how much I hate Freudian analysis?”

  “Actually” — she gave me the big shrug — “I’m reading D. H. Lawrence, if you must know. I’m only inferring Freud.”

  “From Lawrence? It’s not that big a leap.”

  “So you see my point?”

  “No.” I was getting irritated, for some reason. “I don’t see your point at all. You’re just trying to get me to tell you what’s going on, and for once I don’t feel like it.”

  “Repression.” She said it just to make me mad, and I knew it.

  So instead of blowing my top, which would have been the cowboy way, I took a moment of reflection instead.

  Why exactly didn’t I want to tell Dally everything about this? I considered the big three reasons men do anything: hunger, fear, sex.

  Hunger we could eliminate right away, because I was always hungry, so that was a constant. Constants are not, by definition, variables: ipso facto. Sex was a subject Dally and I had danced around for most of our lives. I’d been married, she’d had boyfriends, we were generally all right about it. Still, I had sensed a little jealousy from her concerning the dearly departed Janey Finster. And I knew I’d had a monkey brain-territorial moment myself concerning Huyne’s attention to Dalliance. So maybe something was coming to the surface there too. But fear — there’s something to really mess you up. Fear motivates without seeming to; fear is the unseen mover; fear wages war behind many a mask — to paraphrase, among others, old Joe Campbell.

  But it wasn’t, as Dally had begun to formulate, a fear of death. Death was not the thing. Death’s okay by me: stepping, at last, through the golden curtain and into the brighter reality. Something to look forward to, really.

  Still, I was afraid of something. Sitting there considering it, I had a moment to feel the flint, notice the numbness from the rush of adrenaline.

  “Hey.” Her voice seemed to be coming to me from a million miles away. “What’s the deal? Where are you?”