Stuart Kaminsky - Dancing in the Dark

“Anita,” I said, putting down my sandwich. “How the heck have you been? You look terrific.”

“You look pretty much the same,” she said, eyeing me. “A few more kicks in the face. A few more pounds. Eat your food before it gets too cold.”

I ate and shook my head in an isn’t-it-a-small-world shake.

“So. .” I said with a mouthful of tuna, “how the heck have you been?”

“Life story fast?” she asked, leaning forward.

“Sure,” I said.

“Married Ozzie Shaw. Remember him?”

“Football team, straight A’s?”

“That’s him,” she said with a grin.

“How is he?”

“Dead,” she said. “That’s why I’m grinning and happy to be on my feet behind a counter hauling grease.”

“I gather it was a less than happy union.”

“Liar, womanizer, hitter, shiftless. And those were his good points.”

I smiled, keeping my mouth shut as I chewed, and looked over at the man with the extra-thick neck. He was still shoveling.

“We had one kid, Lonny,” she said. “Here.”

She reached under her apron and came up with a pocket-sized cardboard folder. She took out a photograph and slid it forward next to the plate.

There was the Anita Maloney I knew. I didn’t recognize Ozzie, who had his arm around her shoulder. The kid standing between them was maybe five or six.

“Cute,” I said, sliding the photograph back. “Ozzie changed.”

“That’s not Ozzie,” she said, putting the photograph back. “That’s Charlie, Lonny’s husband. He’s in the army. Prisoner of war. Japs. The boy is my grandson, Mal.”

“Great-looking kid,” I said.

“That’s not the end of my story,” she said with a smile that suggested much more. “But we’ll save that. What’s your short-and-sweet tale? I heard you married Anne Mitzenmacher. How’s your brother?”

“Anne and I were married and divorced, no kids,” I said, dipping fries in ketchup and wondering how I’d escape. “And Phil’s a captain with the L.A.P.D. Three kids.”

“You still a cop? I heard you were a cop.”

“Not for a long time,” I said. “I’m a private investigator.”

“Like Mike Shayne?”

“A little,” I said, looking at my wristwatch.

“You got a card? I’ve got something you might help with.”

I found a withered edged card in my wallet and handed it to Anita. She looked at it and put it into the pocket of her white uniform. There was no check and I didn’t want to wait for one. I pulled out two bucks, plenty for the drink, sandwich, and salve, and the most generous tip Anita Maloney was likely to get in her entire career, at least from a sober customer.

“Generous,” she said, picking up the bills and my plate.

“You know where I can get some potatoes?” I asked.

“Potatoes?”

“Five pounds.”

Anita shrugged and disappeared into the kitchen. I exchanged looks with the eating machine. Anita was back almost instantly with a paper bag.

“This is about five pounds,” she said, handing the bag to me. “Thirty cents.”

“Thanks, Anita,” I said, reaching into my pocket for change.

“You left more than enough,” she said, holding up the two dollar bills. “Maybe we can get together some time and talk about Glendale,” she said. “Here, I’ll write down my phone number.”

She pulled out a pencil and scribbled her name and number on a napkin and handed it to me.

“It’d be fun,” I said, folding the napkin and stuffing it into my pocket.

“I clean up real good,” she said.

“That makes one of us,” I said over my shoulder, heading for the door. “Take care, Anita.”

The eating man’s stomach gurgled. He pulled out a red-and-white package of Twenty Grand cigarettes and looked around for matches.

Getting back into my Crosley was as close to hell as a human is likely to get. My rear end wept with electric bursts. I drove home trying not to think about the pain or about Anita Maloney. There had been a thirtieth reunion of my high-school class not long ago. I hadn’t gone. I told myself I never had anything in common with my classmates and I hadn’t liked Glendale High. I knew now that I didn’t want to look at their faces, to see dopey Gregg Lean with no hair and a big belly, and Anita Maloney, without saying a word, telling me to go look in the mirror.

I was back at Mrs. Plaut’s boardinghouse and halfway up the stairs when I heard behind me, “Mr. Peelers.”

I turned with a smile, paper bag in hand.

“Mrs. Plaut.”

“My manuscript.”

“I’ll finish it this afternoon. Here are the potatoes you wanted.”

“Needed, not wanted,” she said, meeting me halfway and taking the bag in her thin arms. She smelled the potatoes and, satisfied, looked up at me.

“I will go to my chambers now,” she said, “and listen to Tommy Riggs and Betty Lou and Elmer Davis and ‘The Week’s War News.’ By then I would think you will have finished my chapter.”

“You are too generous, Mrs. P.,” I said.

“Sarcasticisms?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

My voice must have dropped from the usual scream with which I normally addressed Mrs. Plaut because she answered with, “I can rewind my own clocks, thank you. I have since the Mister died, and I’ll probably find a way to do it after I die.”

“I’d bet on it,” I said. “Mrs. Plaut. How old would you say I am?”

“How?. .”

“Old.”

“Young,” she said. “Everybody looks young. You look maybe a little older than most. Sixty.”

“I’m not even fifty,” I said.

“Fifty, sixty, what’s the difference,” she said with a shrug, turning her back on me and heading down the stairs, potato booty in hand, humming “Glow Worm.”

I headed to my room, pushed open the door, and went to my cupboard. Dash was sitting in the open window, ignoring me, fascinated by something in the yard.

“Hello to you too,” I said, fixing myself a very generous bowl of Kix and milk even though I wasn’t hungry. “Care to join me?”

Dash turned to look at me and the Kix and then turned back to the apparently fascinating show in the yard.

I ate cereal standing and read Mrs. Plaut’s manuscript, page by page. It began:

Aunt Bess had an uncommon fondness for Cousin Leo. Uncommon. They were not kin. Aunt Bess was married to Uncle Seymour who sold junk to Indians. He was very bad at selling junk to Indians. He got into the business too late. By the time he heard about it and moved West, the Indians had considerable experience in being sold junk. As it was, some of the Indians sold the junk they had bought from white men back to Uncle Seymour. Should you conclude by this that Uncle Seymour was not acute, you would be right. Uncle Seymour had a son by the name of Leo who had been born to Uncle Seymour’s first wife, Hannah, who, it is reported, had a left eye that looked no place that much made sense. So, my mother’s sister Bess who was no Disraeli but neither was she a fool washed her hands of Uncle Seymour and ran away to Mexico with Cousin Leo who was pleasant to look at but not much higher of sense than Calvin Burkett who everyone knows is and will ever be an idiot boy. Uncle Seymour did not follow them. Instead, he took his junk wagon and headed to Texas where he was certain to find someone less acute than the Indians.

In Mexico, Aunt Bess and Cousin Leo built a cabin near Juarez with an eye toward raising corn and chickens and children. This in spite of the fact that Aunt Bess was a full fifty-five years of age and Cousin Leo someone in the vicinity of twenty. No one, not even his own father, knew for sure and apparently the age of Cousin Leo was of no interest to any member of the family until I began these researches.