Lawrence Block - Manhattan Noir

In the beginning, I just used to dance. I tried a striptease, but it wasn’t a success. As the boss says, you have to have tits for that, and I wasn’t about to go silicon. So I stuck to the cage, or pole, because gams I’ve got. I’d come up with costumes for variety, like a see-through cheongsam with the waist-high slit, the Suzie Wong look? Oh well, I guess you are too young. Anyway, that was a big favorite. The act didn’t come about till much later .

I don’t remember exactly when Ron and I stopped dancing together.

What is it you want to know, kid?

Shortly after Audrey’s comeback, things started going badly for Ron.

He didn’t let on at first, laughing off problems and carrying on as if he were eternally onstage. First year, his agent was slow about returning calls. He talked about getting another.

Then, even friends in the business stopped returning calls, and his agent only had truly awful gigs, like the commercial where he had to wear a cow costume and tap dance around these giant milk bottles. I told him it was just the times, that the economy sucked and things were bound to get better. There were still occasional road shows in Alabama or someplace. We’d saved a little money, which was enough to live on, because I was a careful housekeeper, although Ron teased, calling me stingy.

Then I lost my job, it was tough finding another, and yadda, yadda, you know the rest. But back then on 42nd Street, they always needed fresh girls.

By daylight, Times Square was seedy, but not terrible.

Reminded me of Wanchai back home. When I was thirteen, I used to hang out on Lockhart Road after school. The mama-sans would stand around posing, fat old broads with painted masks and too-tight cheongsams. They’d catcall passing American sailors, pointing at the curtained doorways. It was like watching a show, somewhere very far off-Broadway, right at the edge of the grid. I gawked and giggled with my friends until they shooed us away.

Don’t know where I found the guts to walk into the biggest joint that day. Looking good helped, and I could still dance. They hired me right off. I was nervous the first night. It was a Tuesday. Place was dead except for a bunch of geezers in the corner. “Pretend you’re in a movie,” one of the girls told me. “That way, you’re not flesh.”

Ron was mad, but kept quiet because we needed the cash. After the first three months or so, he relaxed when he saw I always came straight home. “Just a job, I guess,” he’d say. I never expected him to dance, never breathed even the slightest hint, though he would have been terrific. He was way too fine for all this.

If only he’d kept going.

The kid. He looks a little like Ron.

You’re leaving town tomorrow? Getting married?

Ron went away, oh, ages ago .

Before he left home that winter afternoon, he claimed he was tired of the whole damned thing, said I would have been better off with Bogart. I didn’t get what he meant because I was running late for work.

In the morning, they found his tap shoes on the Brooklyn Bridge, his wallet and wedding band inside them. All I remember is, it was the day before he turned forty.

See you, kid. Good luck with the writing and all. Hey, what’s your name? I’ll look for your book someday.

So that’s the end. No one listens after the story’s over.

I cried myself to sleep for months afterwards. Ron kept me going, gave me hope, made me feel I was as good as any star despite my life. “Audrey Hepburn doesn’t hold a candle to you,” he’d say. He filled up my heart with so much love I thought it would burst. What more could a girl want?

Crying over Ron made me remember Mother. They would have adored each other. There were days I thought about going to join them both. Every night, I’d get up onstage and dance to whistles and catcalls, or the dead space of labored breathing, and I’d be okay. But away from here, alone in daylight, the space in my heart became immensely empty and bare. Tears cascaded from some mysterious source, against my will, until the day ended and night returned again.

And then one day, I’m not sure when or why, I just stopped crying.

Dancing’s been a kind of life. You get used to it. It’s better than hammering away at a noisy electric typewriter, mucking with carbons, hoping the cartridge won’t run out halfway. Plus no office politics. Girls who dance, they’ll be friends or leave you alone, whatever you want. Independent types. I like that.

The boss was good about things. Kept me on after Ron died, mostly because he felt bad for me. But business is business, and let’s face it, I was over thirty and this place is about fresh girls. So I came up with the cigar. He was skeptical, but gave it a whirl. I was a big draw. After the lighting incident, we moved on to vegetables. These were fine except for dai-kons, because those taste bad raw. But the boss was right.

Variety is spice, so out I strutted on spikes, hiked up the skirt, sucked in, spat out, and caught each tubular from between the legs, shoved each one between the lips, and crunched, hard, the pale, peeled daikon being the finale. Like juggling, with dance.

When I turned forty a few years back, the boss and girls gave me this big party. I look pretty good for my age. You can’t see the lines unless you look close. Makeup works. The girls come and go while I hang on. You have to keep going.

The act keeps me going. These days, we need to be careful. There’s less you can get away with. Mood of the times; a conservative feel’s in the air. That’ll blow over, like disco. Besides, it’s time to think about retiring. Economy’s improving. Ballroom’s hot again and there are gigs at shopping malls and the Y. I could do those. You don’t need to be either young or brilliant to foxtrot or jitterbug. All you need is a partner.

It was a silly way for Ron to exit. I would have supported us forever. He was all the home I wanted, even on those days when he couldn’t get out of bed. If only he hadn’t given up. He would always have been my star.

Show time. Feet hurt.

Funny Face is on later. That’s my favorite. Yes, it is just an earlier Fair Lady , except she does the actual singing. Astaire’s supposed to be this famous fashion photographer who turns plain-jane bookworm Audrey into a top model. Naturally, they fall in love, and their wedding day is the grand finale.

Astaire dances delightfully, and Audrey wears the most delicious dresses. Story’s hilarious. I love it where she’s all in black, among the Parisian pseudo-intellectuals, dancing past their stony faces. And the corny ending makes me laugh. Fred’s way too old for her, of course, and the plot’s quite impossible. But in the movies none of this matters, because it’s always a perfect match, made only the way those can be, in heaven, and never on earth.

C HARLES A RDAI ,a lifelong New Yorker, spent his first thirty years living either at 51st and Second or 52nd and First, before packing the Conestoga and lighting out for the wilds of 10021. His first novel, Little Girl Lost (written under the pen name Richard Aleas), was nominated for both the Edgar and Shamus awards. Ardai is also the cofounder and editor of the award-winning pulp-revival imprint Hard Case Crime.

C AROL L EA B ENJAMIN ,once an undercover agent for the William J. Burns Detective Agency, a teacher, and a dog trainer, is the author of the Shamus Award-winning Rachel Alexander mystery series, as well as eight acclaimed books on dog training and behavior. Recently elected to the International Association of Canine Professionals Hall of Fame, she lives in Greenwich Village with her husband and three swell dogs.