Dancing with the Dead (18 page)

“Not very often.”

“They say men like that don’t change,” he told her softly. “Abby says it. I say it.”

“So’s Angie say it.”

“Angie?”

“My mother. She’s forever trying to talk me into breaking away from Jake.”

“Maybe mother knows best.”

“Yeah, maybe she does.”

“Mary, why
don’t
you leave him?”

“I don’t wanna face my world without him in it, I guess. It’s more than just insecurity, though I admit that’s part of it. Maybe only a woman’d understand completely.”

“I know some women are that way about some men.”

“Was your wife like that?” She immediately wished she hadn’t asked. God, what a question!

“Sometimes, but not with me.”

Mary wondered what that meant.

“I better let you get to your supper,” Rene said. “They can suspect me of murder, but never of bad manners.”

“It’s okay, really. I’m not even hungry.”

But he was insistent. He gave her the Baton Rouge address, and she jotted it down on the flap of the cardboard box that had contained the lasagna.

“It might be a few days,” she said.

“That’s okay. Honestly, I can’t tell you what this means to me, that somebody out there understands and is willing to help.”

“Why don’t you call again when you get the stuff,” Mary said, “so I can be sure it reached you okay.”

“I will, Mary. And thanks again.”

He hung up.

She immediately phoned Romance and booked a lesson with Mel for the next evening. Ray Huggins wouldn’t mind if she took or copied some of the old dance programs in his office. She could say she wanted to look them over in preparation for the Ohio Star Ball. And if he did mind, well, she’d think of some way to copy them on the machine in the corner of his office. To help Rene. That, suddenly, was of supreme importance.

After all, he was battling odds in trying to find his wife’s killer, and maybe to prevent similar murders.

A list containing possible victims might be of immense value to him.

“S
O WHAT’S WITH YOU?”
Jake asked, when he came home from work. “You look like you hit the lottery.”

Mary shrugged. “I guess I just feel good, is all.” She thought about asking him what had happened at the warehouse then decided it was safer not to bring up the subject. Sometimes it didn’t take much to trip Jake’s detonator.

He peeled off his sweaty T-shirt, stretched elaborately, then flexed his muscles. Was this show of machismo for her? “Usually you’re in bed asleep by this time,” he said, and swaggered away toward the kitchen.

“Couldn’t sleep tonight,” she said, loud enough for him to hear. “I feel sorta nervous.”

She heard him clattering around in the kitchen. “Thought you said you felt good,” he shouted.

“People can feel two ways at the same time.”

He’d returned to the living room carrying a can of beer. Some of it had fizzed over the rim when he popped the tab, and the front of his gray workpants was spotted, as if he’d been careless going to the bathroom. He took a sip of beer, licked his lips, and stared down at her where she sat on the sofa with her hands folded in her lap. Looking down at her that way, he made her feel very small. He must know that.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he said. “I was, you know, upset with them assholes at work. If you knew what I go through at that place sometimes, you wouldn’t blame me.”

Surprised by his apology, Mary smiled. It wasn’t like Jake to admit he’d been wrong. “No harm done.” Maybe he was making progress establishing some self-control. “You want a snack or something?” she asked. “I think we got some microwave popcorn.”

“Sounds great. Lemme shower and I’ll be right back.”

She sat for a moment alone, not getting up until pipes clanked inside the walls like mysterious signals and she heard the hiss of the shower running. Then she went into the kitchen and stuck a bag of Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn into the microwave.

After yanking the tab on a cold can of diet Pepsi, she stood staring through the oven’s portholelike window, watching the paper sack expand and listening to the muffled explosions of corn kernels. The warm scent of the popcorn filled the kitchen. It was one of her favorite smells, and she knew it would waft through the entire apartment and linger. After a little over a minute, the explosions inside the inflating sack built to a constant chatter; Orville Redenbacher in there with a machine gun.

Handling the bag gingerly so she wouldn’t burn her fingers, she divided the popcorn evenly into two bowls. By the time she carried them into the living room, Jake had finished showering. He was sitting on the sofa, barefoot, and wearing a clean pair of khaki pants and a white undershirt. His black hair was tightly curled from the shower’s steam, still moist and slicked back so his hairline seemed to have receded to lend him a look of lofty intelligence. He was a handsome man, and not as bad as some; she shouldn’t have been thinking . . . what she’d been thinking.

“Want another beer?” she asked.

He shook his head no.

She got her Pepsi can from the kitchen, then sat down next to him on the sofa with her bowl of popcorn, her legs tucked beneath her. As she often did, she seemed to see herself and her surroundings from above. She and Jake side by side on the couch, Mr. and Mrs. Domestic.

Jake had switched on the TV. They sat munching popcorn and watched the end of an old movie starring Edward G. Robinson as a crime kingpin holed up on some sort of island near Florida. A hurricane was involved.

“Know why everyone thought that little kike Robinson was so tough?” Jake asked.

Mary contorted her tongue to work a kernel from beneath it, then said she had no idea.

“ ’Cause
he
thought he was tough. Look at him. Don’t he look just like somebody’s tailor or accountant?”

Mary couldn’t remember the CPA at work ever snarling at her the way Robinson did, but she simply nodded.

“Goes to show, it’s what
you
know you are that’s important,” Jake said wisely, slipping his arm around her.

“I guess,” Mary said, her breath catching as he gave her a squeeze. She thought it might not be best for some people to really know themselves too well.

After Robinson was dead, Jake switched off the TV and took her into the bedroom.

He made love to her gently that night, not playing rough until near the very end. Through it all she lay quietly and submissively, still tasting popcorn.

And it was morning and the alarm was warbling.

“Jesus!” Jake said groggily. “Turn that fucking thing off!”

Though she was only half awake, Mary groped blindly until her hand closed on the vibrating plastic clock. She pressed the button that quieted the alarm, and the clock suddenly lost life in her hand and silence hummed in the room.

She struggled out of bed and walked stiff-legged into the bathroom, then stood beneath the shower, letting the needles of water wake her all the way.

Jake remained sleeping soundly while she got dressed in the dim bedroom to the lazy rhythm of his breathing. She took time for a breakfast of a piece of toast with strawberry jam on it, and a cup of coffee.

She was about to leave the apartment when Jake appeared in the kitchen doorway, wearing only his Jockey shorts and yawning. “Want me to walk you down to your car?” he asked.

“Why would you want to do that?” She put the jam jar in the refrigerator.

“I mean, after what was done to your front door, and the bird on your car aerial outside Casa Loma, I figured it might be wise.”

“Nothing like that’s happened lately,” Mary said. “Anyway, you’re still in your underwear. I better get to work, Jake.”

She was almost out of the kitchen when sharp realization made her stop and turn to face him.

She said, “I never told you about the dead bird.”

He looked startled and seemed to snap fully awake. “Oh, I guess Angie musta mentioned it.”

“When’d you talk to Angie?”

“Hell, I dunno.”

“I never told Angie, Jake.” And she was sure he hadn’t heard about it from any of the dancers; he didn’t know any dancers. Fred? No, before walking to her car that night, she’d seen Fred driving away from Casa Loma with the blond woman.

She watched Jake, reading the guilt on his face, knowing the look so well. “Jesus, Jake—you!”

“Listen, Mary—”

She felt like hurling herself at him, beating him with her fists. Reacting as he would react. But she didn’t move. “Why would you do those sick things?”

“Because they
were
sick, don’t you see? I wanted you to be scared, think you were threatened by some psycho so you’d feel the need for protection and take me back. Maybe it was wrong, but I did it for us, Mary. And it worked. It
did
work.”

“That isn’t why we’re back together, Jake.”

“Think about it before you jump to any conclusions, Mary. You’ll understand my point of view.”

“I want you gone for good when I come home, Jake. Outa here!”

He took a step toward her. Instead of retreating she moved toward him, surprising both of them.

“I’ll go to the police, Jake. I filed a complaint about the door, and I can tell them about the rest. They’ll haul you into court, send you to a goddamn mental hospital.”

He smiled, but there was more fear than confidence in it. “Are you gonna do that, Mary?”

“Just be here when I come back and find out.” She spun around and walked fast out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her.

By the time she reached the street her heart had slowed enough so her pulse wasn’t pounding in her ears.

There was an accident involving a school bus on Grand Avenue, stopping traffic for blocks. Mary was twenty minutes late for work. “Tardy,” it had been called at Saint Elizabeth’s Primary. Probably it was still called that, and in the same accusing tone. She and the students were tardy today.

Her nerves were frayed by the time she nodded hello to Jackie Foxx and Joan the receptionist and walked into her office.

Even before she’d sat down at her desk, she saw the messages in her box. One of them was about a client who was supposed to come in and pick up an amortized loan schedule.

The other message was a request to call Dr. Keshna at Saint Sebastian Hospital.

Mary punched out the scrawled phone number, gave a hospital operator a department code, asked for Dr. Keshna, and waited through two minutes of barely recognizable Beatles music.

Finally Dr. Keshna’s lilting, gentle voice came over the phone. “Miss Arlington, I thought I should call you about the results of your mother’s tests.”

“Are they—Is she all right?”

“For the most part, yes, she is. Please don’t worry. I want to tell you, also, that she gave me permission to talk to you about this only after much persuasion on my part.”

“What about the tests?”

“There’s evidence of heavy damage to her liver and pancreas. Also there’s some heart fibrillation, probably due to alcohol ingestion over the years. She’s in no immediate danger, but I must stress to you, as I did to her, that it’s important for her to stop consuming alcohol.”

“Entirely?”

“Entirely and for the rest of her life, Miss Arlington.”

“I’m not sure she can do that.”

“I’m not, either. I know it’s difficult, but the purpose of my call is to convince you that your mother has no choice. I’m afraid irreparable damage has already been done. She’s on the threshold of some very grave medical problems. It’s my duty to try to see that she, and you, understand this.”

“I understand,” Mary said. “Does Angie?”

“I’m not sure. That’s why I thought I should talk to you.”

Mary could imagine the gentle Dr. Keshna trying to reason with Angie, when Angie didn’t want to reason. “I see. Thanks, Doctor.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Arlington.” Dr. Keshna hung up softly.

Mary sat staring at her desk, seeing nothing on it.

“Anything wrong?”

Victor, smiling down at her.

“Nothing!” she almost barked. “Everything’s fine. I’d like to be left alone, is all.”

Startled but still smiling, he backed away. She was immediately sorry she’d been so sharp with him, but dammit, why didn’t he realize she didn’t yearn for his company? Why was he always trying to insinuate himself into her life?

Indomitable, he cheerily called good-bye as he left the office. He glanced in at her as he strode past the window, swinging his right arm and attaché case like a pendulum.

Mary remembered her conversation with Jake and pushed it away from her thoughts. She didn’t have to think about Jake anymore. Didn’t have to, and wouldn’t. It was over.

That evening she drove to Romance Studio straight from work and arrived half an hour early for her tango lesson with Mel. She was relieved to see Ray Huggins relaxing in his office with his feet propped on his desk. He was wearing gray leather Latin dance boots.

As she suspected, he didn’t object at all to her making copies of programs from past competitions. He assumed she was interested in the ads for dance shoes and various paraphernalia placed by the mail order houses and dealers with booths in the vending areas. Huggins seemed pleased by her interest, and in fact offered to give her the programs.

But Mary said copies would do fine. Becky the receptionist came in to run them off on the Xerox machine, saying she’d give them to Mary after her lesson with Mel.

It wasn’t her best lesson. Mary’s body discipline broke down and twice she misread Mel’s lead. She explained to him that she was simply having an off night, but he was plainly worried. If she could have such an off night here in St. Louis, it was possible in Columbus.

When she got home there was no sign of Jake. She checked the closet, then the dresser drawers he’d used. Nothing. He’d moved out. Probably right now he was shopping for roses. It wouldn’t make any difference this time. Finally he’d done the unforgivable.

Mary sat down with the program copies and immediately sorted out the registration pages, containing the names of dancers. She slipped a rubber band around them and placed them in a large envelope she’d addressed to the Baton Rouge post office box.