Stuart Kaminsky - Dancing in the Dark

I took them.

“Thanks,” I said. “Lou’s old, forgets things.”

Seidman nodded, not caring.

“You can go,” he said, taking the spool out of the open towel.

I eased past the two cops and left the Monticello. When I got outside I opened the envelope Forbes had pushed on me. It held five new hundred-dollar bills. I was in search of a storefront dance studio and a guy named Willie. I had often had less to work with, but this time I had a lot of incentive.

There were fourteen places calling themselves dance studios or ballrooms in the L.A. phone book. I went to a candy store with a stack of nickels and started phoning around, leaving the big ones for last. While I called I munched on a mound of marble halvah and watched the traffic go by on Sunset.

“Make Believe Ballroom,” came a world-weary woman’s voice on the first call.

“I’d like to talk to Willie.”

“We have no Willie,” she said.

“How about William or Bill?”

“No,” she said with a sigh. “Are you interested in dance lessons?”

“No thanks,” I said. “I just had one with Fred Astaire.”

“Give him my best,” she said and hung up.

My rear end still smarting and my stomach aching from too much halvah and a desperate need for a Pepsi, I kept dialing-Mr. Lyon’s Studio of Dance, Terpsicorean Interludes, the Royal Ballroom, Corine’s House of Dance, the Talented Two-Step, Harold Augustine’s Dance Studio, the Viennese Ballroom.

After seven tries, I’d found one Bill and a Willie. Bill turned out to be a Negro about seventy who cleaned up at the studio and other shops on the block. The conversation with Willie was even less promising. Willie was a woman. I struck Willie-gold on the eighth call.

“On Your Toes Dance Studio and College,” the man answered sleepily.

He sounded very much like the man on Luna’s wire recording.

“I’d like to speak to Willie,” I said.

“Concerning?”

“Dance lessons.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Toby Peters,” I said.

“This is William Talbott,” he said.

“I want to dance.”

“We want to teach you,” said Willie. “Who gave you my name?”

“Your name?”

“You asked for ‘Willie.’ ”

“A friend who’s familiar with your studio.”

“Took lessons with us?”

“Learned a great deal from you.”

“And recommended us?”

“You specifically,” I said lightly.

“This person’s name might not be Stella?”

“It might well be.”

“That explains it,” he said. “I’m at your service, Mr. . ”

“Peters, Toby Peters. When can we start?”

“Anytime tomorrow,” he said. “From nine in the morning till nine at night.”

“How about today?”

“Today,” he said. “Let me look.”

He shuffled some papers and I waited. I had a feeling his answer would be-

“You’re in luck. We have a cancellation this afternoon at two.”

“Can we make it one?” I asked.

“Ah. . that will be difficult, but I can make a few shifts and changes to accommodate a new student.”

“Thank you.”

“You know how to get here?”

The address was on Western, not far from Melrose.

“I’ll be there at one.”

We hung up. It was eleven-thirty in the morning. If I hurried, I could get to the On Your Toes Dance Studio and College and catch Willie when he wasn’t on his toes.

I called my office. Violet answered, “Sheldon Minck, Creative Dentistry without Pain.”

“And Toby Peters, Private Investigator,” I said.

“Dr. Minck said I shouldn’t give your name,” Violet said.

“Put Dr. Minck on the phone.”

“He doesn’t want to talk to you, Mr. Peters,” she whispered. “I wish you’d come here quick. He just sits in his dental chair looking at his fingers.”

“I’ll get there as soon as I can, Violet. Anything else?”

“You got a call from. . a Miss Anita Maloney. She left a number. You want it?”

Maybe Anita wanted to go to another prom or she remembered I had borrowed two bucks from her on prom night. Violet gave me her number. I wrote it in my notebook even though I had it scrawled on a napkin somewhere in my pocket.

“And a Mr. Forbes called saying you should give him a call as soon as you checked in.”

I heard a distinct background groan from Shelly Minck. I took Forbes’s number.

“That it?” I asked.

“You owe me two dollars,” she said.

“The fight,” I remembered.

“Ortiz in a TKO over Salica in the eleventh. Double or nothing on the Bivins-Mauriello fight tomorrow?”

“Odds today?”

“Bivins is still five-to-six.”

“You get Bivins. I get Mauriello. My ten to your two. You lose and we’re even.”

“Okay,” she said brightly. “If Dr.-”

She was cut off by the phone being wrenched from her hand. The frantic voice of Sheldon Minck came crackling.

“My fingers are my life,” he said, nearly weeping. “I’m like a. . like a harpist, or an exterminator.”

“What is so special about an exterminator’s fingers?”

“You try using a Flit can with paws,” Shelly said.

“No one is going to cut off your fingers,” I said. “I talked to Forbes. All that was for show. He tried to hire me to find out who killed Luna.”

“I didn’t do it,” Shelly cried.

“Until you said that I didn’t suspect you.”

“Said what?” Shelly screamed.

“I’m kidding, Shel,” I said. “Your fingers are safe and I don’t suspect you.”

“You’re lying to make me feel better.”

“I’m not lying, Shel, but your fingers might be in trouble if you don’t tell Violet to say my name when she answers the phone. We have an agreement.”

“I’ll tell her,” he said reluctantly. “You sure I’m-”

“I’m sure, Shel.”

“Then I can have Violet go down to Manny’s and pick up some tacos.”

“What has one thing got to. . right, Shel. You can have Violet pick up some tacos. Good-bye.”

I hung up and retrieved my Crosley from Cotton Wright, the parking attendant at the Monticello, and gave him a buck tip, which I marked in my expense book along with the cost of parking.

“You a veteran?” Cotton asked as I eased gently onto the pillow I had taken from my room at Mrs. Plaut’s boardinghouse.

“No, Cotton. You asked me that a few days ago.”

“What did you answer?”

“No. I wasn’t a veteran then and I’m still not.”

“You know I’ve got a piece of metal in my head from the war?”

“I know, Cotton,” I said, turning on the ignition.

“Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it hums. Sometimes I don’t even notice.”

“What are the best times?” I asked.

“When it hums,” he said.

I pulled out of the lot with a wave at Cotton and headed down Sunset, bound for Western. I turned on the radio and through the static learned that the Japanese had captured Hinajong in Northern Hunan in their drive southward over the Yangtze. On the other hand, the Chinese were making gains in Burma. I also learned that more meat rationing was coming April 1. Mrs. Plaut would be on me for that. I wondered whether Anita Maloney could come up with ground beef as easily as she came up with potatoes.

There was a small parking space only a car the size of a Crosley could love right near the corner of Western and Melrose. I backed into it, trying not to turn my body too painfully to look over my shoulder. When I was parked, I opened the door and eased out, my rear end a massive, low-level electric shock. But, all in all, it felt better than it had the day before.

The On Your Toes Dance Studio and College was not a storefront. It was in a small office building. I found it listed in the directory in a dark, white-tiled lobby the size of a small rest room. The white tile was seriously cracked, and the black-on-white list of offices and renters was badly in need of some letters. Next to the building directory was a yellowing poster that read, “Save Cooking Fats and Grease.”