Dancing Aztecs (22 page)

Tonight, as usual, the subway ride to the Bronx and the two-block walk to the apartment are completely uneventful, but when Mandy finishes unlocking the three locks on her apartment door and steps inside, damn if she doesn't walk smack into two burglars just climbing in from the fire escape through the living room window. (Their own breaking-and-entering noises must have kept them from hearing Mandy's unlocking noises.) “God
dam!”
Mandy yells, exulting in this promise of combat after all these years of preparedness, and paws her hand quick down into her purse.

The burglars—white men, surprisingly enough; the recession must be even worse than the television says—seem both startled and resigned at her presence, but not fearful. Both of them speaking at once—Mandy doesn't even try to listen to what they're saying—they approach her across the room, hands out in meaningless gestures. Mandy grabs the can of Mace, pulls it out of her purse, aims it at the face of one of the burglars, and just as she's about to press the button she realizes it's Frank.

Frank. A stagehand or prop man or something, one of the union men hanging around backstage. Mandy has known him for years, has seen him off and on during the runs of at least four shows. But she has never expected to find him climbing in her living room window.

She lowers the Mace can. “Frank?” she says.

Frank stops talking and stops walking and just gapes at her. The one with him also gapes at her, then turns and gapes at Frank. He looks a lot like Frank, so Mandy says, “This your brother?”

“I don't believe it,” Floyd says.

“I believe it,” Frank says. “After tonight I'm gonna believe anything.”

Floyd gives it the old college try. “Lady,” he says, “you got us all mixed up. You're thinking of some other guys.”

“You're Frank,” Mandy says, pointing a definite finger at him. “Last time I saw you was during
Lancaster Abbey.”

Frank sighs. “Amanda Addleford,” he says. “How'm I supposed to know that's Mandy?”

“Holy Christ,” says Floyd. “Isn't there anything we can
do?”

“It's done,” Frank says.

Floyd says, “But she'll call the cops! She'll turn us in! We can't just
leave
her!”

Frank gives him a weary look. “Whadaya wanna do? Kill her?”

Mandy says, “Now, just a damn minute.”

“
I
can't kill anybody,” Floyd says.

“You can't kill
me
,” Mandy informs him. “That's for
damn
sure.”

Frank shakes his head and comes to a conclusion. “We'll have to take her with us,” he says.

Mandy and Floyd both say, in unison,
“What?”

“We'll hold onto her until we get the right one,” Frank says. “Maybe Jerry or Mel or somebody can figure out what to do with her next.”

“You ain't taking
me
anywhere,” Mandy announces. Pointing the Mace can at Frank again, this time she does press the button, and a hissing sound happens. As Frank ducks back, a white foam trickles down the side of the can. The hissing fades. Six years in the purse has taken its toll; the Mace can is dead. “Well,
hell
,” Mandy says.

“By God,” Frank says, “I never thought I'd see it Somebody even unluckier than me.”

Floyd has moved to a corner of the room, and now he says, “Here's the statue.”
Pik
. “Wrong one.”

“Naturally,” Frank says. He takes Mandy's arm. “Let's go,” he says. “It's been a long day, and I want to go home.”

EXCEPT …

Wylie Cheshire was mad. He came up out of the game room and yanked at the wall phone in the kitchen in such a manner that his wife Georgia looked over at him and said, “Watch it, there, Wylie, you gone pull the phone out the wall again.”

“You shut up, woman,” Wylie said, and dialed the sporting goods store with a blunt jabbing fingertip. Then there wasn't any answer because the place was closed this hour of the night, so he broke the connection and dialed the owner's home phone instead, and when the man himself answered Wylie said, “Goddam it, Russ, this here's Wylie.”

“Well, hi, there, Wylie. How you doing, old son?”

“
I'll
tell you how I'm doin, Russ. That goddam punchin' bag busted again.”

“Busted?”

“Layin' on the floor.”

“Well, you hit it too hard, Wylie, I've told you that before.”

“It's a punchin' bag, ain't it? Well, I'm
punchin'
it.”

“I'll come over first thing in the morning,” Russ said “Nothing I can do about it tonight.”

“Goddam it, Russ, I was just showin' my brother-in-law some moves.”

“You don't know your own strength, Wylie.”

“The hell I don't,” Wylie said. “I'll see
you
in the morning.” And he slapped the receiver onto its hook, glared at Georgia and her sister Faith, who were cleaning up the dinner dishes, and went back down to the game room, where Faith's no-good husband, Deke Finburdy, was admiring the Other Oscar in the trophy cabinet. “Can't get it fixed till tomorrow,” Wylie said, and drop-kicked the punching bag into the far corner of the room, near the dartboard.

“This yere's new, ain't it?” Deke was gesturing at the Other Oscar.

“Yeah, it's new,” Wylie said. He was still angry, and in no mood to talk, so he just grabbed himself another beer out of the refrigerator, dropped onto the sofa, and sulked. Damn punchin' bag.

The truth was, it was his no-good brother-in-law Deke Finburdy that Wylie really wanted to punch. A stumblebum and a ne'er-do-well, Deke had married Wylie's wife's sister on
purpose
. Just to get on the gravy train, that's all, live on Wylie Cheshire like some kind of flea. No wonder Wylie hit that punching bag too hard, with Deke around.

Now, Wylie sat drinking beer and glowering while Deke occupied himself admiring once again all Wylie's mementoes, the framed photographs and awards, the trophy case full of prizes, the signed footballs. It was all there, Wylie's four years of varsity ball down at Orambling College, his three years with the New York Giants, his six years with the Kansas City Chiefs, his two years in the Canadian Football League, and his triumphant last three years with the Cincinnati Bengals. Defensive guard all the way, one of the biggest, meanest, roughest, smartest, and all-around best linemen in pro ball.

And here were the mementoes to prove it, everything from the football he'd carried for his only touchdown (wrenching it out of Sonny Jurgensen's hands and lumbering eleven yards to the end zone with it) to the photograph of his round black unsmiling face next to the round white smiling face of Howard Cosell, the time Wylie had been guest announcer on
Monday Night Football
, four years ago, just after he'd made public his retirement.

Wylie had started brooding over the possibility that he might shoot himself a little darts—the bull's-eye
did
look something like Deke's nose—when one of the kids came down and said, “Daddy?”

Wylie gave the kid one eye. “What
you
doin outa bed?”

“There's a white man creepin around the house, lookin' in the windows.”

Wylie gave the kid both eyes. “A white man?”

“Lookin' in the windows,” the kid said.

Wylie had lived in this mostly white neighborhood for seven years without any trouble—face it, Wylie Cheshire never had any trouble
anywhere
—but since his retirement from pro ball he'd devoted himself to any number of black causes (a man has to do
something
with himself, not just lay around the house all day), and the stories he'd heard from his less muscular brothers had made him just itch to get his hands on one of them bigots. Was this to be his chance? “Which side the house?” he asked the kid.

“Back by the bedrooms.”

A peeping torn, instead of a bigot? That would be disappointing, but on the other hand any action was better than just sitting here, watching Deke paw the mementoes, so Wylie got to his feet and said, “Deke. Comere.”

Deke, an eager and obedient mutt, trotted over and said, “Yeah, Wylie?'

“Kid here says we got a peepin' torn outside.”

“Yeah?”

“What we gone do,” Wylie said, “is flank him. We treat him like an end-around, and we make him turn and run up the middle. You got that?”

“Sure, Wylie,” Deke said. He was willing, but that was about the best you could say for him.

“Okay,” Wylie said. “You go out the front door and around the left side of the house.
That
side.” He pointed, with one of those big hands. “Got it?”

“Sure, Wylie.”

“And
I'll
go out the back door and come around the other way. Let's go.”

The kid said, “Kin I come along? Kin I? Kin I?”

“You go with Deke,” Wylie told him.

“Gee, thanks!”

So upstairs they went, and off their separate ways. Wylie went out the back door without letting the screen slam, went on the balls of his feet across the patio, skipped over Georgia's rose bed, and went softly to the corner of the house, where he peeked around and in the light-spill from various windows beheld the white man jumping up and down, trying to look in the bathroom window, which was higher than the others.

So, just a peeping torn, after all. Then, as Wylie continued to watch, Deke and the kid came around the front corner of the house and trotted in the direction of the white man, who saw them, spun around twice, and ran directly toward Wylie. Though he didn't know it yet.

Wylie clued him in. As the white man neared the corner, Wylie jumped out, in defensive guard stance, feet planted wide, elbows up high and to the sides, forearms ready to smash, shoulders hunched forward and head hunched down. And stood there.

The white man came to a screeching halt. He threw one panic-stricken stare over his shoulder at Deke and the kid, and then tried to run around Wylie to the left. Wylie moved just enough, gave him a forearm tap, and the white man tried to run around him to the right So Wylie moved to his right and gave out with another forearm tap.

This wasn't a white man who gave up easy. This time he feinted to the left and tried the right again, and got Wylie's forehead bonking off his nose. He gave a little nasal cry at that, fell back a step, and then devoted himself full-time to feinting; left, right, left, right, never quite going anywhere. While Deke and the kid stood some distance behind him, watching the fun.

Finally, Wylie decided they'd played enough. Straightening out of the lineman stance, lowering his arms to his sides, he said, “Boy, if Alex Karras couldn't get through me, what chance you think
you
got?”

A slow learner, this white man. One last feint to the left, and he tried to go to the right again. So Wylie stuck out his arm and clotheslined him, and the white man went
wham
on his back on the lawn, and lay there for a while trying to breathe.

Deke and the kid came up then, and the kid stared fascinated into the white man's reddening face. “What is he, Daddy? Is he Ku Klux Klan?”

“We'll ask him,” Wylie said. “Soon's he catches his breath.”

Deke was frowning down at the white man, and now he said, “By golly, I do believe that's the fella sold Willy the Willys,” referring to his brother Willy, who was an even bigger good-for-nothing than Deke himself. Looking across the body at Wylie, Deke said, “
You
remember, Wylie. I went with Willy when he bought that car, that red Willys that never
did
run worth a damn, and a couple months after he bought it some fellas come around from the finance company and broke both his arms.”

“Cause he didn't make his payments,” Wylie said, remembering the incident well. His part in it had been to refuse to loan Deke's brother any money.

“He
give
'em a whole washing machine,” Deke said. “Anyway,” he said, looking down at the white man, whose face by now was
very
red, “I'm pretty sure that's the fella sold him the car.”

Wylie looked down at the red white man. “That right, fella?”

The man on the ground shook his head violently back and forth, while at the same time gargling. Apparently he was having trouble starting up his breathing machinery again. As a humanitarian gesture, Wylie tromped on his stomach a bit, to help him get started, and then the fella began to gasp and breathe and pant and flop around and generally behave like a landed trout. Wylie waited until that phase had ended, and the fellow's complexion had come pretty much down near white again, and then he reached down, grabbed a lot of shirtfront, and stood the white man on his feet. Still holding the bunched shirt, Wylie said, “You a car salesman, fella?”

“NO!”

Deke was squinting almost in the fellow's face. “I'm sure it is,” he said.

Wylie said, “You come around here to sell me a car?”

“I—I—I—”

Wylie shook him a little, to get him unstuck. “You what, fella?”

“I—I—I—heard the house was for sale!”

“You did, huh? Where'd you hear that?”

“At the gas station! Over by the Southern State!”

Wylie shook him again, out of irritation. “That's the dumbest lie I heard,” he said, “since I stopped talkin' to owners.”

Deke said, “Wylie, lemme call Willy, he can come right out and look for himself.
He'll
know if this is the fella.”

“Good idea,” Wylie said. “Come on, car salesman, let's go inside.”

“I have to leave now!”

Wylie released the shirt-front and closed his hand around the fellow's upper arm. “Let me help you change your mind,” he said.

SEQUENTIALLY …

Angela and her sister Teresa were partners now, and Teresa was dummy when the phone rang. She went off to answer it, returning a minute later to say, “It's Mel.”