Stuart Kaminsky - Dancing in the Dark

I parked about half a block from the Farraday, eased out of the Crosley, and headed down the street past trios and quartets of uniformed soldiers and sailors, some of them with smiling young and not-so-young women. A pair of Latin zoot-suiters were leaning against the wall to the right of the entrance to the Farraday. They were talking earnestly to Juanita the seer, who had an office on the fifth floor just below mine and Shelly’s.

Juanita is a bejangled psychic with a few years behind her. She wore clothes that Carmen Miranda would find too flamboyant, but she disdained turbans. Juanita had lost a husband back in New Jersey. I think he died. Or, she might simply have misplaced him on the subway. “Alex could still be riding up and down to Coney for all I know,” Juanita had once said to me, fingering a silver earring the size and shape of Baja California.

Juanita had discovered her powers early and given in to them only after two husbands and a quarter of a century as a housewife. Juanita was good at reading tea leaves, coffee grounds, toenails, the palm of your hand, and the top of your head. “All show,” she had confided to me once in a whisper. “It either comes to me in a flash, like that, or nothing. But clients like a show. This is Los Angeles, right?”

Since it was, I had nodded.

The problem with Juanita’s insights was that you couldn’t really figure out what they meant till it was too late.

I tried to step past Juanita and the two Mexicans.

“Pain,” she suddenly said, turning to me. “You’re in pain.”

“How you doing, Juanita?” I said.

Juanita was painted for Indian wars or serious seeing into the future. Her mouth was as red as a stoplight and her eyebrows as dark as tomorrow. Her perfume was as sweet and heavy as a Chunky candy bar. I glanced at the zoot suits. They looked me up and down and weren’t impressed.

“I’m doin’ great, Tobe, but you’ve got a pain. Not the knees.”

“His ass,” one of the zoot-suiters said.

“He a seer too?” I asked.

“No, man,” the zoot-suiter said. “I just see the way you walking. Like when I was a kid and my old man whooped me with a stick.”

“Your ass hurts, Toby?” Juanita said softly, with some concern.

“You asking or telling?”

“Both,” she said. “This is Vic and Jose. They’re brothers. They come to me. I tell them stuff. They give me stuff. Barter. It’s coming back as a means of exchange.”

“We got to get going,” one of the brothers said impatiently.

“Then you should have come on time,” said Juanita, her back to him. “Besides, you don’t have any place to go. Your evening and the night are uncharted, though there is a woman named, I think. .”

“Forget it,” the Mexican said nervously. “We’re goin’. We’ll see you soon, Juanita.”

The brothers adjusted their wide-brimmed hats, looked at my less-than-Cary Grant clothes, and departed. Juanita didn’t turn to watch them go.

“I’ve got to get going,” I said.

She took my right hand and looked into my eyes. “You’ve been dancin’?” she asked.

“Question?”

“No,” she said. “You’ve been dancin’. I used to dance when I was married to Alex. Nothing fancy. A few steps. I liked it. Alex was a good dancer, if you can imagine that.”

Not having known Alex, I could not imagine it.

“More death, Tobe,” she said, squeezing my hand and shaking her head. “Dancers are dead. That make sense to you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve really got to go, Juanita.”

“Watch the fourth dancer,” she said. “The third dancer is fire and death. Victim and killer. The fourth dancer is the one you’re looking for.”

“Juanita, I don’t want to know any more.”

“I can’t stop,” she said as a couple passed us. The young man was in civilian clothes. The woman was a WAC. They tried not to look at us in the doorway of the Farraday but we were a compelling sight.

“My curse,” Juanita said. “Can’t stop telling people their future. You should know that by now. How’d you break your car window?”

“It’s not broken,” I said.

“Forget it,” she said, giving me a smile and a playful punch in the arm. “I think I’ve got something you’ll like. A woman from your past will come to you, a woman of beauty. There was a rejection in the past but she will bring hope to the future.”

“Anne?” I said.

“Anne?”

“My former wife. She’s supposed to marry Preston Stewart.”

“The actor?” Juanita said.

“How many Preston Stewarts can there be?”

“In Hollywood, dozens,” she said.

“So, they won’t get married?” I asked, feeling like an idiot.

“How should I know?” she said with a jangling shrug.

“How should. . forget it. I’ve got to get going.”

“Suit yourself,” Juanita said, letting my hand go. “See Jeremy.”

“I was going to.”

“Good,” she said, looking down the street. “I’m going. Cass Daley’s on the ‘Bing Crosby Music Hall’ tonight. John Scott Trotter and his orchestra are going to do a patriotic medley. I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff.”

And she was gone.

The inner lobby door of the Farraday was locked. A sign over the panel of office names said, “After 6:00 P.M. please call the person you are here to see on the phone. They will come down and let you in.”

The sign was part of Jeremy’s patient and never-ending struggle against the walking wounded and winos looking for a corner to curl up in for the night. It was tough to come running down five or six flights to let in a client, and some of the tenants who worked late had taken to taping the inner door open which, since the telephone was constantly being stolen, was probably not a bad idea.

Tonight, the inner door was locked.

I used my key, went in, and listened to my footsteps echo across the tiled inner lobby. I liked the sound and the lingering smell of Lysol. The Farraday was evening silent. The dim shadowy night-lights were on. The baby photographer had probably folded his tripod and headed to what he called home. The talent agent on three had dropped his stack of photos of the untalented and unwary into his ragged briefcase and headed across Main for a round or ten of drinks. If any of the tenants remained, I couldn’t hear them.

I moved past the iron bars of the unpredictable elevator and started to climb the stairs.

“Toby?”

I looked up seven flights. Jeremy Butler was standing at the railing in front of his apartment, the only apartment in the building.

“It’s me, Jeremy,” I said, continuing to climb and wondering whether I should have taken a chance on the elevator from hell. Stairs were not a good idea for my sensitive rear.

“I heard the door open,” he said.

“I was coming to see you,” I said, pulling myself up by the railing.

“You are hurt?”

“You’ve got it,” I said, halfway up the second floor. “Remember that stuff you used on my back, the stuff you used when you were wrestling?”

“Of course.”

“Think that’ll help a sore rear end?”

“Yes,” Jeremy said. “Take the elevator.”

I took his advice and pressed the elevator button on the second floor. Two decades later the elevator arrived. I pulled back the grille and took the scenic century-long ride up to the eighth floor. From the elevator I could see as we passed the sixth floor that the lights to Shelly’s and my office were out.

When I finally reached the eighth floor and opened the grille, Jeremy had gone back into his apartment. His door was ajar. I followed the light and knocked.

“Come in,” Jeremy said. “Alice took Natasha to her cousin’s in Monterey for a few days.”