Dancing in the Dark

Chapter Twelve: I’m Gonna Dance Out Both My Shoes

The Mozambique looked like it was designed by an alcoholic art director who had worked one too many B pictures with Jon Hall. The green walls were covered with bad paintings of jungle animals and trees but it was hard to see them. The lights were always down and dim at the Mozambique, to give it atmosphere and to cut down on the cleanup. The bar was long and dark wood. There were half-a-dozen tables and four red-leatherette booths. Beyond the tables was a platform on which Lou Canton sat at a piano, playing “After You’ve Gone” for a weeping woman who was nursing a drink at one of the tables.

“Wow,” screamed Sidney, the ancient cockatoo, when I moved to the bar.

“Wow to you, Sid,” I said, sitting on a stool.

Lester Gannett, owner and bartender, rushed over to me. “Pevsner-”

“Peters,” I corrected.

“I don’t care what your name is now. Just get the hell out, okay? Last time you were in here my tenor was murdered and I had five hundred dollars’ damage from a riot you started. Time before that, when you were still a cop, your partner jumps on the stomach of a customer.”

Lester’s complexion was bad. He needed some sunlight and decent food.

“I think you’re getting scurvy, Lester,” I said.

“I’m not gettin’ scurvy. I’m gettin’ scared. Pev. . Peters. Come on.”

“Gotta talk to Lou,” I said. “I owe him money.”

“Give it to me. I’ll give it to him. I gotta tell you the truth here. You make me nervous.”

“How’s Jeannie?” I asked. Jeannie was Lester’s teenage daughter. Last time I had been in the Mozambique, Jeannie had been picking up sailors and getting them to buy drinks from dad.

“Fine,” Lester said with a sigh. “She’s startin’ college up in San Francisco. Okay. One drink. One drink. On me. You take care of your business with Lou and you get out. Pepsi, right?”

“You got it, Lester. How’s Lillian?” Lillian was Lester’s wife. Before the war Lillian had played the customers at the bar. But time had caught up with her and the iced tea in the highball glass had been turned over to Jeannie.

“Lillian,” Lester sighed, pouring me a Pepsi. He nodded at the woman at the table listening to Lou.

“Lillian?” I asked, turning to get a better look at the woman.

Lester nodded again. Time had passed Lillian Gannett and left her standing in its tire tracks.

I picked up my drink and started toward the little bandstand.

“Peters, come on. Do me a favor. The before-dinner trade starts coming in in a few minutes.”

I ignored him and moved to the table where Lillian Gannett was looking deep into her drink. It was dark and had a cube in it but I was sure it wasn’t iced tea.

Lou looked at me and launched into a downbeat version of “We’re in the Money.”

Lillian looked even worse up close. Her hair was going white at the roots and needed brushing. The pores on her cheeks were uncovered by powder and were large, probably from too much barroom darkness and too many packs of Camels. She looked up at me.

“Got the wrong girl, soldier,” she said. Her eyes were the greenest I had ever seen. She still had that.

“Got the right woman, Lil,” I said.

She did her best to focus on my face. “The nose,” she said. “You were a cop.”

“Pevsner. Tobias Pevsner,” I reminded her.

She looked toward her husband at the bar. Lester was setting up a pair for a couple of old guys in overalls who had just come in.

“Lester would rather not see you,” she said.

“I finish my Pepsi, give Lou some money I owe him and I’m out of here.”

Lou was humming along with the piano now. He was playing something I didn’t recognize.

“Don’t correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t I pick you up one night, back in. . maybe ’30? You were gonna get married. Lester was busy. We went to. .”

“It was my partner who was getting married. I didn’t get married till a few years later.”

“But you and I did. .”

“Yeah,” I said. “We did, Lil.”

“You could be Jeannie’s father,” she said, looking at me as well as she could.

“No,” I said. “Jeannie was already nine or ten.”

Lillian pursed her lips, shrugged, and took another drink.

“To fading memories,” she said.

“To fading memories,” I said, finishing my Pepsi and nodding to Lou.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lou said, standing at the piano and touching his thin, dyed mustache to be sure it was still there, “there’ll be a short break. When I return, I’ll be taking requests. And remember, at eight tonight, the world-renown chanteuse Miss Evelyn will be on this very stage to sing her greatest hits.”

Lou wandered back through the curtains and disappeared. No one applauded. Lillian did not even look up.

“I’ll see you around, Lillian,” I said, touching her shoulder.

“Any afternoon, same place,” she said. “Jeannie’s going to college.”

“I know,” I said.

“Lester’s trying to get my niece Holly to work the bar. Her husband’s on the night shift at Lockheed.”

“Good luck,” I said.

I took the short step up to the stage and followed Lou through the curtains. There was a door beyond. I opened it and made my way to Lou’s dressing room and home. He was sitting in front of the mirror adjusting his hair. He looked up at me.

“It’s a living,” he said, his eyes looking in the general direction of the stage he had just left.

I took out my wallet and handed him two twenties and four singles.

“Generous,” he said.

“Fred Astaire’s paying. That cover taxis and fixing the piano at the Monticello?”

“Covers it and more,” Lou said, pocketing the money.

“Then I’ll ask more,” I said, sitting on the edge of Lou’s bed.

He had to turn to face me. “Ask,” he said.

“When Luna Martin was killed, you were out in the hallway in front of the ballroom. Did you see her?”

“In the hall?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think so,” Lou said, biting his lower lip and trying to remember. “Ask me who played second cornet for Sam-Sam Anderson and the Hoochie Koochies in ’08 and I’ll tell you. But yesterday. .”

“Give it a try, Lou.”

“Someone went past me. A woman in white. I was thinking piano. I think there was someone with her. I think they were talking.”

“Arguing?”

“Arguing,” he said. “Maybe. I had other things on my mind.”

“You didn’t look at the guy?”

“Who remembers?”

“Thanks, Lou,” I said, getting up. “If you remember anything. .”

“It’ll be a miracle. But I do remember you said something about wanting me to meet a certain lady of age and means.”

“Mrs. Plaut,” I said.

“That, I remember,” Lou said.

There was a knock at Lou’s door and then it opened before he could say, “Come in.”

A woman, her dark hair pulled back, her lips full and very dark, stuck her head in. “No sink in my dressing room,” she said, ignoring me.

“Take it up with the management, Evelyn.”

“Management says to take it up with you.”

“All right,” Lou said. “I’ll build you a sink. I’ll build you a bath with marble. Just give me a couple of years to work on it.”

“Funny,” Evelyn said, glancing at me and retreating from the room.

“When this case I’m working on is over, I’ll introduce you to the Widow Plaut,” I said.

“A deal,” Lou said, standing and shaking my hand. For an old man, he had a strong piano-player’s grip.

Lillian was no longer at the table or even in the bar when I went back into the Mozambique Lounge. There were a few more customers, all sailors. Lester was talking to the two old guys in overalls. I waved to him and he called, “Don’t come back soon.”

It was nice to be wanted. My next stop was Huntington Beach, where my welcome might be even less enthusiastic than this one.

I stopped for gas and two grilled-cheese sandwiches at a truck stop outside of Long Beach. The notebook in my pocket was full of charges for Fred Astaire, some of which I was having trouble reading. Less than half an hour later I was at the front door of Arthur Forbes’s house, the derricks on the beach beating out like drums behind me down at the shore. There were two cars in the driveway, a black Buick and an even bigger and blacker Lincoln.

I rang. No answer. I knocked. No answer. I kept at it. I knew Carlotta Forbes was home. That is, unless she knew that her husband was dead and she was already in Los Angeles looking at the corpse and chatting with Cawelti.

The door opened. Kudlap Singh stood before and above me.

“Why aren’t you with Forbes?” I asked.

“Mr. Forbes is dead,” he said. “As you probably very well know.”

“I thought you were his bodyguard,” I said, shouting over the derricks.

“The past tense is correct. I was his bodyguard.”

“And?”

“And,” Singh went on. “This morning he told me he had an important meeting with you and Mr. Astaire. He sent me to find Mrs. Forbes. When I found her, we returned. The police were there with Mr. Forbes’s body. They informed us that you and Mr. Astaire had been taken away by their captain. Mrs. Forbes asked me to bring her home immediately. I did so.”

“Sort of ends a good job,” I said.

“Mrs. Forbes has indicated that she wishes to retain my services.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “Can I talk to the grieving widow?”

“I very much doubt it,” he said.

“Tell her I’m going to go talk to her father if she won’t talk to me.”

“I doubt if Mr. Cortona would welcome a call from you at this time,” said Singh.

I stood with my hands folded in front of me.

“I’ll see if Mrs. Forbes will talk to you,” Singh said, closing the door.

I listened to the derricks and thought I even heard the surf. I waited. Singh opened the door and stepped out of the way. I went in. He led me to the same room I had been in with Jeremy the night before. The first thing I saw was myself in the mirrored wall. Then I saw the grieving widow properly dressed in black with a veil. I also saw three men in dark suits. Two of the men were standing. The oldest man sat in a chair. He had an ebony cane in his hand and his white hair was worn in a wave. I recognized him. He was Guiseppi Cortona. His picture had been in the papers and the Police Gazette. Guiseppi Cortona was the crime boss of Minneapolis. He was supposedly meaner than his former son-in-law, Fingers Intaglia. Guiseppi was reputed to cut off appendages even more valuable and vulnerable than one’s fingers.

“You wanted to see me?” Cortona said.

“I was bluffing,” I said.

The widow pulled back her veil and took out a cigarette. One of the men in suits moved quickly to light it for her.

“Bluffing,” Cortona repeated as if the word were particularly interesting. “Bluffing about what?”

“I had some questions for Mrs. Forbes. I was afraid she wouldn’t answer them.”

“We were on our way back to Los Angeles to arrange for my son-in-law’s funeral and talk to the authorities,” Cortona said. “We were also going to look you up. A friend in the police department says you killed Arthur, you and the dancer.”

“I didn’t kill him,” I said.

“And the two-bit, what was his name?”

“Talbott, Willie Talbott,” Carlotta supplied.

“Willie Talbott. You didn’t kill him either. Or the blonde. .”

“Luna Martin,” Carlotta supplied impatiently. “Papa, he killed Arthur.”

“Why would I kill Arthur?”

“To get him off your client. Because he threatened to kill you. How do I know?” Carlotta said, looking around now for an ashtray for the cigarette she had barely touched. One of the two men in suits came up with one for her.

“I can’t dance,” said Cortona sadly, touching his leg. “Been like this since I was a kid. Truck got me in an alley in Palermo. Driver was a kid like me, doing a job. Only, he didn’t come out of the alley.” Cortona nodded at the two men in suits, who moved toward me as I backed up.

“I just have three questions,” I said, remembering that my.38 was on the desk of John Cawelti.

“What?” asked Carlotta.

The two guys in suits were coming on. They were both bigger than they had looked across the room.

“Who introduced Luna to your husband?”

“How should I know?”

“Two more questions and then. .” Cortona said.

“The black Buick in the driveway. That yours?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Last question,” said Cortona.

“What do you do with your old purses?”

“My old. .”

“You throw them away?” I asked.

“That’s four questions,” Cortona said. “You’re over the limit and you’re asking stupid questions.”

“I keep my old purses. I don’t throw things away. I’m a pack rat,” Carlotta said. “I hold onto my memories. And I’ll hold onto the memory of what’s gonna happen to you right now.”

“No more questions,” said Cortona, thumping his cane on the wooden floor.

I reached back for the door.

“I didn’t kill him,” I said.

“Then,” said Cortona with a shrug, “I’m making a mistake. I have made them in the past.”

I looked at Carlotta. Her veil was back down.

“An accident,” Cortona said. “You got an ocean. You got oil things. Lots of places for an accident.”

They took my arms and turned me out of the room.

“Not too long,” Cortona called. “We’ve got to get to town.”

“I didn’t do it,” I said to the two guys who walked me down the hallway and out the front door.

“We don’t care,” said the taller, heavier one on my right arm.

“Not in the least,” said the other one.

Both were dark. Both were strong. We were on the way down the front steps. Kudlap Singh, the Beast of Bombay, was at the bottom of the steps, directly in our path.

“We’re going for a walk with our friend,” the bigger guy on my right said.

“He is not your friend,” said Singh.

“We’re still going for a walk,” said the bigger guy.

“Peters is a friend to a friend of mine,” said Singh.

“That is interesting,” said the big guy, looking at his watch. “We’re in a hurry.”

“I think you should allow him to get in his car and drive away,” Singh said, barring the path.

The guy on my left arm let go and reached under his open jacket. Singh stepped forward and grabbed his wrist. The guy’s hand came out clutching a gun. The other guy let me go and went for his gun. I gave him a solid punch to the neck, usually effective and it didn’t hurt your knuckles. Both of Guiseppi Cortona’s men were on the ground. The one Singh had grabbed was clutching a broken wrist. His gun was nowhere in sight. The other guy was on his knees, gasping like an asthmatic.

“Go,” Singh said to me.

“Come on,” I said.

“I have a vehicle,” he said. “I will find other work. Perhaps the war will end soon and I’ll be able to return to India.”

The one I had punched was trying to stand. His hands were around his neck. It looked as if he were trying to strangle himself.

“Thanks,” I said.

I ran to my Crosley, got in, started it, and almost caught the bumper of the Lincoln as I made it through a narrow space between car and house. In the rearview mirror, I saw the two bad guys trying to pull themselves together. Guiseppi wasn’t going to be happy with them. They would have been better off coming with me.

Singh stood waiting till I was down the driveway and just about to hit the road. Then he turned slowly and walked around toward the rear of the house.

I found a turnoff about half a mile down the road, pulled in, parked where I wouldn’t be seen by anyone driving by, and waited. The wait was short, about two minutes. Kudlap Singh drove past in a blue coupe. He was definitely breaking the speed limit. About five minutes later, the Lincoln zipped by in a big hurry, but I got a glimpse of the guy I had hit in the neck. He was driving. The one with the broken wrist was next to him in the passenger seat, and I saw or imagined I saw Carlotta and her old man in the back.

I drove back to the Forbes house, my heart pounding in time to the oil derricks. The front door wasn’t locked. They had left in a rush, though I was sure Cortona had made at least one phone call before they piled into the Lincoln.

I found a phone on the second floor in what looked like the master bedroom: big, blue-and-white wallpaper, a bed with a dark wooden headboard the size of Rhode Island. I made two calls and started my search. It took me fifteen minutes and four rooms, but I found what I was looking for.

Forbes had said his wife was a pack rat, that she didn’t throw anything away, not a grudge, not an old dress. He was right.

I headed for my car.

I knew a few more things than I knew before I had made the trip.

The most important thing I had learned was who had killed Arthur Forbes. At least I thought I knew. I was more sure of something else. Fred Astaire’s life was in danger.