Dancing Aztecs (49 page)

Hiram helped him carry the mail sack and a wooden crate marked FRAGILE over to the truck. “Thanks,” Floyd said. “See you around, Hiram.”

“Have a nice day,” Hiram said.

But where's the statue?

Frank McCann and August Corella and Chuck Harwood, an unlikely trio, were together in Chuck's apartment, where they had spent a lot of time in the last six months. “It doesn't make sense,” Frank said, for about the millionth time. “None of it makes sense.”

“There's an answer to it,” Corella told him, and ran distracted fingers through his oily hair. “
Somewhere
there's an answer to it.” Turning his embittered expression on Chuck, he said,
“You're
a goddam college professor, why don't you figure the goddam thing out?”

Chuck never bothered to answer jibes like that. As usual, he merely sighed and went on studying the list of Open Sports Committee members, with the record of what had happened to each of the sixteen statues.

Corella kept prodding. “There's only the three of us left,” he said. “Everybody else quit, so when we find it it's
ours
. A million dollars, split three ways!”

“We know,” Frank said. “But it just doesn't make sense.”

“Somewhere,” Corella said. “Somewhere.”

Pedro, naked, thinner, and yet healthier-looking than when he'd first arrived in the United States, tiptoed into the living room, his arms full of clothing. But he was only halfway to the door when Felicity, also naked, came giggling and jiggling after him, to grab him by a part that couldn't refuse and lead him back to the bedroom.

“Mother of Mercy,” moaned Pedro, “is this the end of Pedro?”

“Yes, Mr. Susskind,” said Edwardo Brazzo, “the people of my brave little country have put up with the dictator Malagua long enough. With the kind help of the American people”—he gestured gracefully toward the TV camera—“we will raise sufficient money, José here and I, to purchase the armaments we need to
liberate
our poor tortured nation!”

“That's very interesting,” said David Susskind.

But where's the goddam statue?

Mel came whistling down the stairs to find Mandy at the dining room table, reading the galleys of
The Neurotic and the Profane
. “Mm
mm
,” she said, looking up with a roguish glint in her eye. “This a
dirty
book!”

“That's what the public wants!” Mel told her cheerfully, and went out to the kitchen to smack Angela on the bottom, kiss her on the lips, and have a cup of coffee. “Terrific day!” he announced.

“Every day is, with you, lover,” Angela said, and nuzzled his neck.

“Got to get to those galleys, though,” Mel said. “I'm not sure Mandy should be reading that sort of thing.”

“Why not? She's free, black, and twenty-one.”

Mel frowned over that one, but then he let it go. Why break in on the sunshine of his existence?

The encouragement he'd received from Frank and Floyd, during that long day of reading and comments and criticism back in June, had pushed Mel over the top on the book, and damn if the first publisher he'd sent it to hadn't bought the thing! A September publication was anticipated, biggest thing on the publisher's fall list. Already Mel's coast-to-coast publicity tour was being set up, and if the book did as well as expected he'd just about be able to retire on the movie money alone. (The movie sale was already made, but escalator clauses would give him extra payments if the book made it to, and stayed on,
The New York Times
best-seller list.)

Angela said, “We got a postcard from Jerry and Bobbi yesterday.”

“Oh? Where are they now?”

“New Orleans.”

Yeah, yeah. But how about the golden statue?

In far-off Descalzo, in the capital city of Quetchyl (pronounced
Clutch
), in the dim adobe main corridor, curator Hector Ovella paused before the niche containing the Dancing Aztec Priest. Three children were making fun of it, as usual; giggling at it, prancing before it, trying to imitate its stance.

It looked so real. The finest example of José Caracha's art. And it gave just as much enjoyment to these disrespectful brats as had its predecessor. What do children care whether their plaything is gold or gilt, the original or the copy, priceless or valueless? In any event, the true original Priest long ago was flesh, and long since dead, that flesh ages ago converted to yams by the wonder of the natural order. And we eat the yams, and we are
all
the Dancing Aztec Priest.

Would Edwardo return, with Hector's share of the money? Hector sighed. He asked himself, if the situation were reversed, if
he
were in New York and Edwardo Brazzo were awaiting him here in Quetchyl, would
he
return?

How long before the museum in New York would announce its acquisition? Hector sighed again, and passed through the capering children, on toward his office. A jug of gluppe was there, under the desk.

Hector's tongue ached.

But the
real
statue. Where
is
it?

It stood in the dark, silent, alone, cold to the touch, half-hidden among shoes and forgotten tennis rackets and the skirts of raincoats. The true gold of the body had been covered with gold paint, to make it look like an imitation of itself, but the emerald eyes had been left alone, and even in the blackness of the closet they glittered with malevolence.

Whenever Wally opened that closet, he glanced down at the corner where the statue danced, and smiled a secret smile. “Coming, Mom!” he would cry, but then he would smile again at the statue, because he could
leave any time he wanted
.

In his dreams sometimes he had already left, was in Paris or Hawaii or Rio, had money and rich clothing and charm and beautiful women. Guitar music played around him, fountains under green and rose lights splashed in the background, he had everything he wanted. But in other dreams he performed again the sequence of acts that had brought the original, the real, the golden, the million-dollar Dancing Aztec Priest here, to this closet, ready to release him at an instant's notice. In his dream:

Mel Bernstein drops Ben Cohen's worthless statue into Watty's lap and walks off. Wally carries it to his car, runs with it to his car because a vague plan has entered his mind; he will join with Mel Bernstein, will stay with that group until the real statue is found, will switch this one with the real one and make his getaway. Into his canvas bag goes the Cohen statue, and back to Mel Wally goes, and makes their pact. And carries the Cohen statue into the Moorwood house, and
finds the right one!
At once! The creature grins at him, there in that house full of dancing, laughing, drinking, eating, fucking, running, swimming,
living
people, the creature prances for Wally alone. And Wally tosses out the Cohen statue in the bag to Mel Bernstein, who runs away. Leaving Wally with the statue. Alone, with the statue. Alone.

At first he's terrified he'll be discovered, but as he moves through the house, clutching the golden figure to his chest, he realizes these people can't see him. He's invisible.
With
the Statue, he's still invisible, these swirling partygoers can't see him, never will see him. And home he runs, like a cockroach scrambling when a light is turned on. Home. Safe. Until he's ready.

That was the dream, and every time he had it Wally woke up trembling and perspiring, then almost fainting with relief to find the familiar four walls of his own room about him. And the Dancing Aztec Priest still in its corner of the closet. His passport. His escape. As soon as he was ready.

Any time he opened the closet door, for whatever reason, be always paused and looked obliquely downward, his glinting eyes and the glinting eyes of the Dancing Aztec Priest striking green fire together. Any time he wanted. It was all there waiting for him, any time he wanted.

“Coming, Mom!”

The green eyes glittered, and Wally closed the door.

Jerry opened the door of their room at the Royal Orleans Hotel and said, “How ya doin, baby?”

“Fine,” Bobbi said. “Sending postca—
mf
.”

So they kissed awhile, and then she finished the sentence: “Sending postcards to some people in the orchestra.”

“Terrific. How'd you like to spend Christmas with snow?”

“Sure. Where?”

“Winnipeg.”

“Winnipeg!”

“That's up in Canada.”

“I know where it is,” she said. “But Winnipeg? Why?”

“Why not? Christmas in Canada. Beacon has a car going there, ready to leave Thursday. I just got my dividend check from Floyd, so we can take off any time we're ready. And the great thing is, they got another car in Duluth, third of January, coming back down here! So we can have Christmas up in the north country and then get back here for the Mardi Gras. How about it?”

“I think it's wonderful,” Bobbi said. “But what about you?”

“Me? It's my idea, isn't it?”

“When do you want to go back to New York?”

He shrugged. “April, May, something like that. Wait'll the warm weather.”

She still didn't quite understand what his trucking business was all about, and in another indirect attempt to learn more she said, “But can you stay away from the business that long?”

“Floyd's doing fine without me, he said carelessly. “In fact, when we get back to the city I think maybe I'll sell Floyd the whole outfit. I was getting bored with it, anyway.”

“What'll you do instead?”

“I don't know,” he said, shrugging again. “There's always some hustle around, if you look for it. We'll work something out together, okay?”

She seemed to grin a lot these days. “Okay,” she said.

“Where you want to eat tonight?”

“With you,” she said.

Everybody in New York City wants something.

Every once in a while, somebody gets everything he wants.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1976 by Donald E. Westlake

cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

This edition published in 2011 by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com