Dancing Aztecs Read online

  Which left nowhere but the closet. Unlocking the door, Jerry opened it and found Harwood brandishing a wooden hanger clutched over his head in his right hand while more or less covering himself with the splayed fingers of his left He looked like some Dada parody of the Statue of Liberty, and he was truly stoned. He’d gulp-smoked that entire joint in the few minutes after Bobbi left, and the effects had fully caught up with him by now. “A man’s home is his castle,” he announced.

  Jerry ignored him. Gazing around at the completely empty closet—empty except for Harwood and a bunch of hangers—he said, “What the hell is going on around here?”

  “I am defending my castle,” Harwood explained. “And I’m going to report you to the building.”

  Jerry prodded him on the chest with the plunger end of the plunger. “Where’s the statue?”

  Harwood blinked at him. The wooden hanger lowered to half-mast. Harwood said, “What?”

  “Statue, statue. You got it today at lunch. Two of them. Bust one in the fireplace, Where’s the other one?”

  “Isn’t it here?” Harwood, apparently with real surprise, leaned forward against the plunger and gazed over Jerry’s shoulder at the bedroom.

  “No, it isn’t here,” Jerry said. Not wanting to carry Harwood’s weight on his plunger any more, he pushed till Harwood had his balance back and then put the plunger down at his side. “I can guarantee you it isn’t here,” he said.

  “Then she must have taken it with her.” That seemed to give him food for thought.

  “Who? Your wife?” Jerry stepped back a pace and considered the situation. He remembered the angry young woman downstairs, with the suitcases. “Oh, is that what happened? She walked out on you, and she threw all your stuff out the window.”

  “I can’t understand it,” Harwood said.

  “And she took the statue with her. Where’d she go?”

  “I really don’t know,” Harwood said.

  Jerry turned the plunger around and poked Harwood a little with the wooden end. “Take a guess,” he said.

  “Ouch,” said Harwood. “Don’t do that.”

  “Guess.”

  “But I don’t want to guess.”

  “No,” Jerry said. “You do want to guess. What you don’t want is for me to poke you any more.” And he poked again, as demonstration.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Harwood said. “It makes me lose my equilibrium.”

  “Look Jack—”

  “Chuck,” Harwood said.

  “I’m losing my patience,” Jerry told him.

  Harwood looked sympathetic. “Oh, are you a doctor?”

  “What?”

  Harwood frowned, saying, “What on earth do you want with that statue?” Then, before Jerry could decide what or whether to answer, he became pensive and said, “Do you suppose she’ll come back?”

  Jerry knifed through to the meat of the conservation: “From where?”

  “From out,” Harwood said vaguely, and gestured with the hanger like a man trying to point at a flag on a windy day.

  “Out where?”

  “Perhaps I should learn to drive.” Forgetting to cover himself, Harwood raised his left hand to pull at his left earlobe, a thing professors do as an aid to thought.

  Jerry said, “Does your wife have a boyfriend?”

  “Oh, dear,” said Harwood. He sighed and leaned against the rear wall of the closet, lost in wistful meditation.

  Jerry said, “What’s his name and where does he live?”

  Harwood slowly focused. “Who?”

  “The boyfriend.”

  “Bobbi’s boyfriend?”

  So women give themselves men’s names; so what? So Jerry was standing talking with a naked man in a closet who’d just said, “Bobbi’s boyfriend.” So what? “Right,” Jerry said.

  “Oscar,” Harwood told him.

  “Oscar?”

  “Not the Other Oscar. The other Other Oscar.”

  “Terrific,” Jerry said. “Oscar who?”

  “Oscar Russell Green.” Harwood frowned. “I distrust men with three names.”

  Oscar Russell Green, a name already on the list “Fine,” Jerry said. “See you later.”

  Harwood frowned at him. “Were you going to get me a pair of pants?”

  “Not that I remember,” Jerry said. He closed and locked the door again, and went away.

  EARLIER …

  Sitting in his Pinto on Eleventh Avenue near the newspaper library, with the back seat full of swimming pool brochures and the windshield decorated by a brand-new parking ticket, Wally Hintzlebel studied his list of Open Sports Committee members, which only included five names with addresses:

  Oscar Russell Green

  291 West 127th St.

  Professor Charles S. Harwood

  237 West End Avenue

  Wylie Cheshire

  58 Ridge Road

  Deer Park, Long Island

  Bud Beemiss

  29 West 45th St.

  Dorothy Moorwood

  5 Ronkonkomo Drive

  Alpine, New Jersey

  Through Wally’s brain and body surged emotions of rage, urgency, greed, frustration, panic, inadequacy, envy, hatred, lust, and despair. He shook in the grip of these feelings, he trembled so much that the car itself vibrated slightly, and a loose screw on the rear license plate chattered a little tune to the gutter.

  What to do? What to do? Those four men in Queens, they were surely well on their way by now. Sixteen statues, by God, sixteen statues, and he only had five addresses, and the filthy library was closed for the night.

  What to do? Break into the library? But he didn’t know how, he’d never broken into anything in his life except other men’s wives, and then only when the door had already been opened for him.

  It might be one of the five. It might be. The million-dollar prize, the true golden statue, it could be any one of the sixteen, and so it might be one of these five, the addresses he already had.

  A phone booth stood at the corner, glass-sided and unoccupied. Wally, still quivering slightly, got out of the Pinto and trotted to the phone booth, where he called his mother and said, “Mom, I won’t be home for dinner.”

  “Hello? Who is this speaking, if I may ask?”

  “Mom?”

  “Would you be so kind as to identify yourself, if I may be so bold?”

  “It’s Wally, Mom.”

  “Wally?”

  “Wally, Mom, it’s Wally.”

  “Wally, you’ll be late for dinner. Where are you?”

  “I won’t be home for dinner, Mom.”

  “Where?”

  “What?”

  “Where are you, Wally?”

  “I’m in Manhattan, Mom. Listen, Mom, I won’t be home for dinner.”

  “Wal-lee? Does Wal-lee have tum a dirl friend?”

  “Aw, come on, Mom, you know you’re my best girl.”

  “Does Wal-lee have a heavy date with a sweetsie-sweetsie?”

  “Nothin’ like that, Mom. Honest.”

  “Can’t you bring her home to your Mommy-Mommy, Wal-lee?”

  “Mom, listen, it isn’t a date or anything like that I swear it isn’t. It’s business.”

  “Is Wal-lee extra special positive?”

  “Business, Mom. No girls.”

  “What business at this hour, Wally?”

  And Wally knew he was beaten. There was no way out of it. “I’ll, uh—” He stared through the glass at Eleventh Avenue. I’ll come home,” he said. “I’ll uh, I’ll explain it to, uh, these business people. I”ll be right home.”

  He hung up on her bubbling appreciation, and raced back to the Pinto. In the car, he kicked the engine into life and yanked the car out among the cabs, turning toward the Midtown Tunnel.

  He’d eat fast, that’s all. Eat fast, claim he was—claim he was going to a movie, rush back to the city. It could still be done. Blinking through the windshield (the parking ticket, still stuck under the wiper, blinked
back, flapping in the breeze), he urged the Pinto toward the tunnel.

  ALSO …

  Oscar Russell Green was drunk as a skunk. He was drunker than two skunkers. Nayamba had taken refuge at her mother’s place over in Newark, and Green was letting ’er rip. Letting ’er tear. Letting ’er do anything ’er damn well wanted to do. Sum-bitch!

  It isn’t easy to be a leader of men. Whether you’re fronting a crack Marine brigade or a fat-bellied lynch mob, you still have to bring to bear the same leadership qualities of self-reliance, decisiveness, control over others, and unflagging determination. Oscar Russell Green had those leadership qualities in abundance, but unfortunately he also had all the opposite qualities as well, such as self-doubt, indecision, defeatism.

  When actively engaged in being a leader, Green had to smother all those qualities in himself that were inappropriate to the Leadership Profile. Which meant that every once in a while, every once in a great while and only at moments when the demands of Leadership were temporarily lifted, Green had to let that other side of himself out of its cell and into the exercise yard for a quick walk around. With a bottle in its hand.

  It had started today right after lunch at the Goddess of Heaven. The brandy after the presentation of the Other Oscars had tasted sooo good, had made him feel sooo easy, and had disappeared from the little glass sooo-oooo fast, that he had known right away the relinquishing of the reins of Leadership had begun, and he had stopped off in the phone booth near the restaurant’s cash register to put his wife Nayamba wise. “Time to visit your mama, girl. The black tornado has just been sighted.”

  “Have a good time, Oscar,” she said, and hung up without another word.

  Having finished his Distant Early Warning, Oscar said farewell to his troops on the sidewalk out front, making an abortive pass at Bobbi Harwood en passant, which was the first time he’d ever made a play for her. (Aside from the fact that he was always faithful to Nayamba, except while drinking, Oscar had kept away from Bobbi before this because one of the basic qualities of the Leader is that he show no favoritism.) But Bobbi was having none of that, so away went Oscar, homeward bound.

  Home was an apartment on West 127th Street, way over near the Hudson River, in one of a group of brick tenement buildings that had been taken over by a neighborhood committee, refurbished inside, and turned into moderate-rental apartments. Having an in with several members of the committee, Oscar had managed to leapfrog over the waiting list, and had a nice three-and-a-half at the top rear, with a narrow view northward and a pretty good view of the Henry Hudson Parkway to the west.

  Stopping at the apartment only long enough to leave the Other Oscar atop the bedroom dresser, Oscar had returned to the overworld and had patronized a number of bars and liquor stores before staggering homeward once more, the demands of leadership long forgotten. Trying to drink cheap port wine from the bottle and climb stairs at the same time, he made his way to his door, fumbled with his keys, unlocked his way in, and heard noises from the bedroom.

  Hello? Oscar clutched the wine bottle to his chest and staggered with swift purpose to the bedroom, where he found two white men just about to climb out the window onto the fire escape. And one of them had the Other Oscar!

  “Hey!” the first Oscar cried.

  The two white men stared at him in utter panic. “Oh, no!” one of them cried. “F-f-f-feet,” stuttered the other one, “d-d-d-do your stuff.” And yet he didn’t move, he just stood where he was, blocking the window.

  “That’s mine!” Oscar shouted, pointing the wine bottle in surprise and outrage at the Other Oscar. Wine sloshed. “You gimme that!”

  The man with the statue abruptly turned, trying to shove his frozen partner out of the way so he could get out the window.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Oscar yelled, and threw the wine bottle. More wine sloshed. The sound of breaking glass was followed by the sight of Oscar’s window disintegrating. Both halves; the thieves had raised the bottom half and Oscar’s bottle had therefore crashed through both thicknesses of glass.

  “Goddam! Goddam! Goddam!” Oscar ran at the burglars, and started wrestling with the one who had the statue, a big red-faced white man, with staring eyes and bad breath.

  “Here!” yelled the white man, and tossed the statue over Oscar’s head to his partner. “Run, Floyd!”

  Floyd ran. Instead of running out the window, though, he ran over the bed, and Oscar caught him before he reached the bedroom door.

  After that, the whole thing degenerated into some sort of idiotic schoolyard game, with the two white men tossing the statue back and forth to one another while Oscar played monkey in the middle. And they kept shouting at one another all the time: “Floyd! Floyd!” “Frank! Frank!”

  It came to an end at last when Oscar tackled Frank as he was just about to catch Floyd’s lateral. The Other Oscar zoomed past them both, whacked into the wall, fell to the floor, and broke its right leg.

  Floyd and Frank and Oscar all scrambled for the fumble, and it was Floyd who came up with the main part, while Frank emerged with the Other Oscar’s right leg from knee to toe, the statue’s uplifted leg, which had snapped off clean.

  Oscar, prepared to go on fighting on this front if it took all winter, suddenly found himself with a bunch of guys who didn’t want to play any more. Floyd and Frank looked at one another, looked at the broken parts in their hands, and all at once lost interest. “Sorry, fella,” Frank said, handing over the snapped-off shin. “Nothing personal,” Floyd said, placing in Oscar’s other hand the rest of the statue. And, while Oscar stood there gaping, they proceeded rapidly but in an orderly fashion out the broken window and down the fire escape and away.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Oscar said. When he closed the window, the rest of the glass fell out, but he locked it anyway. Then he went off to phone the local liquor store that delivered.

  FURTHERMORE …

  Bud Beemiss was not the type August Corella liked to do business with. A soft self-satisfied drone like financier Victor Krassmeier was best, and failing that Corella had no objection to dealing with another tough guy like himself; they could talk the same language, they’d both know where they stood. In a way, Beemiss combined both types, but the result was new, and a lot more difficult.

  The house was rambling Colonial-style set amid rolling parkland, and the maid who’d let them in had showed them to a booklined study. “Not bad,” Earl said, apparently referring to everything, the maid, the house, the room, even the books.

  Not good either, Corella thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. He waited for Beemiss, already knowing this wouldn’t be easy.

  Then Beemiss himself bounced into the room, and was even worse than Corella had expected. His pullover shirt, beltless slacks, and rope-soled shoes were the most intimidating kind of casual. He had the neat, tanned, round, fleshless head of a man who takes very good care of himself, and the cheerful blue eyes and wide smile of a man who never gives anything away. He had a glad-hander’s version of Krassmeier’s board-room toughness, but some stink of the street still clung to him. “Hiya, fellas,” he said, flicking the door closed and striding across the room. “What can I do for you?”

  The subject of this interview was going to be power; that was plain enough. And Corella was determined to get his own claim for dominance in first. “It isn’t what you can do for me, Beemiss,” he said, in his toughest style. “It’s what I can do for you.”

  Beemiss’ smile turned lopsided, but not with apprehension. He looked merely annoyed that he’d been taken away from whatever he’d been doing—six laps in the pool, maybe, or dyeing his brown hair. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I suspect this is a matter to be taken care of at the office.”

  If you start tough, stay tough. “Well take care of it here,” Corella said. “It’s about this Open Sports Committee.”

  From the sudden glint in Beemiss’ eyes, Corella knew the man had picked up a sudden wrong impression. He probably thought this was political, right-w
ing tough guys leaning on a liberal. What he started to say confirmed that idea: “Gentlemen, there’s no point talking about differences be—”

  “You got a statue today,” Corella said. He had no time for misunderstandings.

  Which stopped Beemiss cold. He frowned at Corella, with nothing to say.

  So Corella went on: “Sixteen statues. Shipped to you from down in South America.”

  Beemiss shook his head. “I confess, gentlemen,” he said, “I’m at a loss.”

  “We know about those statues.” Corella let a wintry smile appear on his lips and then fade away. “It’s our job to know about them.”

  “Your job?”

  “You weren’t supposed to get that shipment.”

  Beemiss was leaning forward slightly, as though he would understand the words better if he could hear them better. “I wasn’t?”

  “You were supposed to get a different shipment,” Corella told him. “Friends of mine were supposed to get that shipment.”

  A sudden knowingness altered Beemiss’ expression, and he leaned back again, nodding, calculating. “I see.”

  Good. He’d picked that up fast, much faster than someone like Krassmeier would. Corella said, “My friends want their shipment.”

  “Yes, I suppose they do.” Beemiss was being slow, careful, thinking things over. He still wasn’t afraid.

  Corella said. “My friends realize it’s an inconvenience, so they’ll put out cash money, and you people can get something better instead.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah. They’ll pay uhh …”—and Corella hesitated, Beemiss and the house combining to force him to revise his initial offer upward—“… four thousand for the statues.”

  “Four thousand.” The pale blue eyes glinted. “Apiece?”

  Beemiss mustn’t be allowed to get away with jokes. “Four thousand for the whole shipment,” Corella said. “And peace of mind.”

  Beemiss cocked an ear. “What was that?”

  “These people, my friends. They’re not your ordinary businessmen.”