John Lutz - Dancing with the Dead

“You okay?” Benson asked.

“Sure. Where’d you say you were parked?”

“Right here.”

They’d come to a small parking lot surrounded by a tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. The attendant’s booth was dark, but the driveway gate was open and there were half a dozen cars on the dimly lighted lot. The nearest streetlight appeared to be burning out, casting a wavering, sickly orange glow over the angled cars. A wind gusted through the lot, seeming to make the streetlight flicker, sending debris and crumpled newspaper skittering in tight circular patterns. Miniature young cyclones full of bluff and bluster, as if boasting they might grow and destroy the city.

“Which car?” Mary asked.

“The dark one near the back.” Still gripping her elbow, he led her toward a black or midnight blue compact parked near the alley and back driveway of the lot. He’d simply described it as dark. Funny he wouldn’t know the exact color of his own car.

She was about to ask about that when he said, “Why’d you choose tango as your main dance?”

“It’s the one that seems to come most naturally to me.”

“I can see why. It’s a sexy dance. There was a time not so long ago when it was banned by the Catholic church.”

“I know.”

“But then the church has had its head up its ass all through history. Hey, you’re not Catholic, are you?”

“Not as good a one as I oughta be.”

“You and so many others.” He threw back his head and she thought he was going to laugh, but he simply stared straight up at the night sky, as if searching for some meaning in the stars. What now, Mary wondered? Would he ask for her astrological sign?

“Tango comes natural to me, too,” he told her, looking at her again. “But I guess you think I’m feeding you a line, like I’m one of those human vipers that hang around places where there’re vulnerable women dancing.”

“No, why shouldn’t I believe you?”

“ ’Cause you’re a beautiful woman and I got you alone at last, and, in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re opposite sexes.” He broke stride and grinned down at her. “Pretty good reasons, huh?”

“Not good enough, though.” Keep it light, a joke. It wasn’t so bad being called a beautiful woman. “Anyway, I thought we’d settled that one.”

He didn’t answer.

She felt the chill of the wind skimming over the blacktop, heard the rustle of stirring dust and paper. Lonely sounds. The glow of victory and alcohol receded, and for the first time that night she was slightly afraid. All alone, opposite sex… what kind of talk was that from Benson?

But she knew what kind.

They stopped walking near the car, and his arms snaked around her, pulling her to him and pressing her tight against his body. Pain raged through her side. “Lemme show you a new tango step,” he whispered in her ear. He sounded amused, and that frightened her badly.

“Not this,” she pleaded. “Please! I wanna go back to the hotel.”

“Aw, why not make your big night complete?” he asked, his lips brushing her cheek. She smelled the alcohol on his warm breath and struggled desperately to get free, but he squeezed her tighter and made a clucking sound in her ear, as if chastising her for being a naughty girl. “You know you wanna do this, Mary. We’ve both known it all evening, so why make things difficult? Why make trouble?”

Jake! Duke! Christ, she hated Duke!

“Some things are destined to be, Mary. People can’t help themselves.”

He was right. She knew he was right!

Then she noticed the black car’s license plate. Iowa. Benson had said he was from Minnesota. It wasn’t his car at all. He’d tricked her to get her alone!

The world began to darken and collapse in on Mary, crushing every part of her.

“Mary, Mary…” Benson was crooning.

“You!”

Another man’s voice. From the direction of the street.

Benson released her and stepped back, staring toward the driveway.

In the shadows near the attendant’s booth, a darker shadow moved.

Benson wiped his arm across his mouth and glared down at Mary, weighing his options. His bared teeth flashed his fear, and perhaps hatred.

He said, “Fuck it!” and backed away from her. “You can goddamn walk back to the hotel.”

“Hey, buddy! Hey, you!”

“Screw you, pal!” Benson screamed, and he wheeled and ran out the back of the lot and down the dark alley. She heard his desperate footfalls long after the night had swallowed him.

The shadowy figure melted away from the wall and was moving toward her. “You okay?”

“Yes, I think so. Thanks! Thank you!”

Then she realized there was something familiar about the way the man walked.

“You just relax now, Miss Arlington.”

She was sure he couldn’t see her plainly in the darkness, yet he knew who she was. He must have been watching her and followed her from the hotel, then Spectrum. She knew, but she didn’t want to admit, what that meant.

His built-up shoe dragged like sandpaper as he stopped and stood crookedly in front of her. “I was watching you dance earlier,” he said. “Thought you was a sight to see. If anybody deserved a pair of my shoes, you did.”

She almost thanked him, but said nothing. She couldn’t have spoken if she’d tried. Fear had taken root in her throat and threatened to cut off her air. There were only half a dozen places that offered an adequate selection of ballroom dance shoes for sale, and they did most of their business by mail. Albert Spangle would know the names and addresses of almost every ballroom competitor in the country, and he had an obviously innocent reason for attending various competitions, setting up his vending booth and selling dance shoes. He could research and select his victims at his leisure, and the only known connection between him and them would be the legitimate one of merchant and customer, the same connection he had with hundreds of dancers. If he was a murder suspect, so were the many other merchants who sold shoes, gowns, tuxedos, and a wide range of other dance accessories. It was perfect camouflage for a killer. Something in Mary turned cold and shriveled.

“That man do harm to you?” Spangle was asking.

“No,” she managed to breathe.

“He sure tried, though.” He was grinning knowingly. “You can’t trust nobody, Miss Arlington. ’Course, you did lead him on. I seen you.”

She willed herself to back away, but fear held her fast. Her feet were embedded in the blacktop. “Lead him on? How? I only had a few drinks with him, danced a few times.”

“I mean at the competition. I seen you in your black dress, the skirt slit up the side, shaking your hips.”

“Dancing. I was only dancing.”

“Sure was. I watched you tango, how you had your cunt right up against that fella’s leg.”

Dear God, it was beginning in earnest, the verbal dance she knew would end in her death. “But that’s the way it’s done in tango.” Even as she spoke, she knew he wanted her to protest. “The other dancers were doing it, too.”

“That ain’t much of an excuse now, is it? Other people doin’ it? Hear that one all the time. Even Jesus wasn’t the only one crucified, now, was he? And them wayward of Sodom and Gomorrah thought the same, like all of them that done the devil’s dance. Delilah and witches and warlocks. Ain’t history fulla such excuses by the worst people?”

“I… guess so.” He wasn’t making sense, but could she have expected him to be rational?

“It’s the way of the wicked, to wrap themselves in the deeds of others. Sin and abortion and abomination. But the godless reap the whirlwind.” He moved closer, his grin widening and going lewd, his teeth yellow in the flickering dimness. “It comes to that, always.”