Stuart Kaminsky - Dancing in the Dark

“I just realized,” he said, facing us. “I wasn’t supposed to come today.”

“Nobody moves. Nobody leaves and nobody speaks,” Forbes said.

We all stood quietly while Forbes knelt, touched Luna’s hair, and muttered so low that I was the only one who heard him, “You were a bitch and a half, lady, but you made me feel alive.”

He stood up, adjusted the line of his trousers, and looked at each one of us to be sure he remembered.

“I start with the little fat one,” he said, looking at Shelly, “and then the rest of you.”

Lou strode over, his portfolio tucked under his thin arm, his toolbox in the other hand.

“What do I hear, threats?” he said. “You threatening me?”

“No, just shut up and go home, old man,” Forbes said wearily before he turned and pointed to me. “You know what Luna was to me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“No,” said Forbes. “You do not. She was nothing to me. I barely knew the lady. And that’s what I plan to tell the cops. And that’s what you tell the cops.”

“Why?” said Lou. “You already said you’re gonna kill them all. You gonna kill ’em twice if they tell the cops you were bouncing the babe?”

“I told you to go home, old man.”

“I’m going home,” Lou said. “Peters, drop by with cash and hand it to me if you still have fingers.”

And Lou was gone.

“Eight floors over our heads my wife is sleeping after a long night of making my life miserable,” Forbes said. “She is why I am telling you that I barely knew Luna. Play this on my side and maybe I’ll let the three of you live. But the fat one goes.”

“Sounds like a good deal to me,” said Pook.

“Me too,” said Jerry.

“Look at him, Forbes,” I said, pointing to Shelly. “He’s a goddamn dentist.”

“She pointed to him?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Jerry helpfully.

“Enough for me,” said Forbes. “He goes and your Fred Astaire goes with him. If Luna hadn’t got this thing in her head about Astaire. .”

He looked down at Luna once more, shook his head, and left the ballroom with Kudlap Singh two steps behind him.

“Don’t touch anything and don’t leave,” I told my quivering crew. “I’m calling the cops.”

“Forbes said. .” Jerry started as I walked toward the double doors.

“I’m calling the cops,” I repeated. “Shelly, go sit down and have a glass of water.”

“Fingers,” Shelly mumbled, looking at his hands. “Fingers. I’m a dentist. I need my fingers.”

“He said he was going to kill you,” Pook said helpfully. “Not cut off your fingers.”

“He could do both,” Shelly answered defiantly.

I went to make my call. There was a pay phone in the carpeted hallway. No sign of Forbes or the Beast of Bombay. I called the Wilshire District station and got a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize. I asked for Lieutenant Pevsner or Lieutenant Seidman. She asked me why. I said, “homicide,” and she put me through to my brother.

“Pevsner,” he answered as if someone had just jolted him from a nap and he didn’t like being jolted.

“Toby,” I said.

“I’m in the middle of something,” Phil said. “Call back.”

“Murder,” I said.

A long nothing on the other end and then a resigned sigh and, “Who’s dead?”

“Woman named Luna Martin. Ballroom of the Monticello Hotel. A few minutes ago.”

“Stay there,” he said and hung up.

I went back to the ballroom. Pook was leaning against a wall, arms folded. He glared at me when I came in. Jerry and Shelly were sitting on the edge of the bandstand. Jerry wouldn’t meet my eyes. Shelly would. He pointed at me and said, “You are going to get me killed. I volunteered to help you and you are going to get me killed.”

“No one is going to kill you, Shel,” I said.

“And who’s going to stop him?” Shelly said, trying to keep his glasses on his nose. “These actors? Gunther, who’s two feet tall?”

“Gunther’s out of town,” I said. “And he’s more than three feet tall.”

“Ah, so you’re going to keep me alive with a full supply of fingers? Comforting,” he said, turning to Jerry, who ignored him. “I can sleep nights now. Toby Peters is on the case.”

The four of us waited, trying not to look at the beautiful corpse, until Phil, Steve Seidman, and two uniformed officers showed up twenty minutes later.

Phil, a block of a man with short steely-gray hair, came in first. His tie was loose and his jacket was open, but reasonably pressed. My sister-in-law, Ruth, saw to that. There was a look of annoyance on Phil’s face that looked uncannily like the look on his face in the photograph in my office. Steve Seidman, a thinning-haired scrawny man, was four or five steps behind Phil, as he had been since they had become partners two decades earlier. Phil waved the uniformed cops back to the double door and moved to the body.

“Luna Martin,” he said, looking down at her.

“Right,” I said, nodding to Seidman.

“Girlfriend of Fingers Intaglia,” Phil went on.

“A fact which everyone seems to know with the possible exception of Mrs. Intaglia,” I said.

“What happened?” Phil said.

“We got here about. .” I began, but Phil cut me off with, “Not you and not the crying dentist. You.” He pointed to Pook.

“Jerry and I have nothing to do with this,” Pook said. “Peters hired us to come here this morning and look tough. We’re actors. A few minutes after we got here this woman staggers in, points to him, and falls dead right there.”

“I don’t know her,” Shelly protested, crossing his heart.

“Well,” said Phil to Seidman, “if the dentist crosses his heart, he must be telling the truth. Go home, Minck. You’re clear.”

Shelly looked at me hopefully.

“He’s being sarcastic, Shel,” I said.

Shelly groaned.

“Just the four of you here?” said Phil.

“Five,” I said, pointing to Luna.

“Six,” Pook amended. “The old piano player.”

“I’m corrected,” Phil said, moving to the table and sitting.

“What about Intaglia?” Shelly said, looking at me, Pook, and Jerry.

“What about him?” Phil said, pouring himself a glass of no-longer-iced water.

“He was here with a Jap giant,” Shelly said. “He threatened to kill me, to kill us all, to kill Fred Astaire.”

“Dentists have access to all kinds of drugs,” Seidman said wearily.

“I’m not. . I don’t take drugs,” Shelly cried. “Tell them, Toby.”

“He doesn’t take drugs,” I said.

“Was Intaglia here?” Phil asked.

“Arthur Forbes and a man named Kudlap Singh came in right after Luna,” I explained.

“And they left?” Phil asked.

“They left,” I agreed.

“Steve,” Phil said.

“Check,” said Steve.

It didn’t take more when you’ve worked with someone almost every day for two decades. Seidman herded Shelly, Pook, and Jerry over to the bandstand. Then he took them individually up to the piano, where he interviewed them in a whisper the others couldn’t hear.

“The piano player?” asked Phil.

“He took a cab back to Glendale,” I said. “He’s over eighty.”

“What are you doing here, Toby?” my brother asked, rubbing his forehead.

“I was supposed to give Miss Martin a dancing lesson,” I said.

Phil looked at his palms and then rubbed them together. “There’s almost nothing I can say to that,” he said, “but it’s my job, so I’m going to try. You’re a private investigator, not a dance teacher. Besides that, you can’t dance.”

“I faked it,” I said. “Fred Astaire gave me some tips.”

“Fred Astaire.”

“Shelly was right. Fred Astaire hired me to get Luna Martin to stop demanding that he teach her to dance. And when Luna Martin has a boyfriend like Fingers Intaglia. .”