ask me why I was carrying a pillow. It wasn’t more than a mile, and walking was better than trying to get back in the Crosley. I went to the movies by myself, sat on the pillow, and saw
“War wound acting up,” I said.
“I’ve still got a piece of metal shaped like a small fish in my back from the Marne,” he said sympathetically.
I picked up a couple of hot dogs at The Pup and brought them home to share with Dash. Mrs. Plaut hadn’t touched the manuscript that still lay in front of her door. I went to my room, gave Dash a dog without the bun, dropped my pants and underwear carefully, and did my best to swab the salve on my behind. At first it hurt. It stung. It cried. It made me wish I could say something in Indian that even Gunther might now know but that would be the major verbal attack in the long and violent life of Kudlap Singh, the Beast of Bombay. I danced around the room for a few minutes and it began to feel better. In about five minutes, I felt well enough to get stomach-down on my mattress to listen to Milton Berle and “We, the People.” Mrs. Lou Gehrig was the guest.
Then I listened to “Amos and Andy.” Kingfish was taking it easy at home when his wife, Sapphire, came in and complained about the Kingfish not earning a living. She threatened to leave him unless he found a way to buy a car. Kingfish and Andy joined forces to make the investment. Before they got six blocks from the dealer in their 1926 Overland Roadster, the car broke down and they opened the trunk. There Andy and Kingfish found a body. Lawyer Algonquin J. Calhoun told them to sell the car. They tried to stick Shorty the barber with it, but he couldn’t drive. Eventually, they discovered that the body was a mannequin. The boys had escaped the electric chair.
The world was right again.
I went to bed early and slept badly. Because of my bad back, I’m not supposed to sleep on my stomach, but I had no choice. Sometime in the night I got up, staggered to the bathroom in the hall, bare-assed and not caring even though Mrs. Plaut had one female roomer, Miss Reynal, a pretty enough woman, a little younger than myself but too skinny to rouse my interest. I wiped the salve off my throbbing behind, made it back to my room unseen, placed a pillow beneath me, and eased myself onto it, facing the ceiling. Not good, but better than the alternative.
I slept and dreamed of my senior prom. Everyone there was a kid but me. I was the same me I saw in the mirror every morning. I didn’t belong at a senior prom with Anita Maloney, who looked the same as she had on that warm May night thirty years ago. Everyone was looking at me, everyone but Anne, who was a girl again and dancing with Koko the Clown, who gave me a big, lecherous open-mouthed grin and a wink.
I woke up with Dash sleeping on my chest, my tongue twice its normal size, and my behind still screaming.
The next day, Friday, I took the pillow from my sofa, the one that had “God Bless Us Every One” sewn in red on it, placed it on the seat of my Crosley, and found that I could drive with less discomfort than I had the day before. With Shelly, Pook Hurawitz, and Jerry Rogasinian as backup, I returned to the Monticello Hotel for a final try at convincing Luna Martin that Fred Astaire wasn’t coming, not ever.
As it turned out, it wasn’t necessary to convince her.
Chapter Four: Dancing on the Ceiling
I stood in the middle of the finely polished white floor and placed Pook behind me on the left and Jerry on the right, after paying them both up front and assuring them that there was no danger.
While we waited, Jerry reminded me that he had been trained in Shakespeare in Fort Worth, and I was suitably impressed. Pook said he had an audition in Culver City for a Roy Rogers movie at one.
Lou Canton shuffled in a few minutes after us, carrying a small metal toolbox in one hand and a folder of sheet music under the other arm.
“Lou,” I said. “I told you I’d call if I needed you.”
Lou continued toward the bandstand.
“You said today. I’m here today. You pay today.”
He began setting up and I decided to deal with Lou later.
Another five minutes and Shelly showed up. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, adjusting his glasses and stumbling toward me.
He was wearing denim pants, a blue work shirt, and a brown leather flight jacket that was at least a size too small for him. It was Shelly’s tough-guy attitude. When he was close enough to see Pook and Jerry, Shelly stopped cold.
“Are these?. .” he whispered to me so that his voice echoed through the room.
“No, this is Pook and Jerry. They’re with us.”
Jerry shook his head in disbelief. Pook gave me a what’s-he-playing-comic-relief? look.
“Shelly’s the perfect decoy,” I said to Pook and Jerry. “They see us and we’re just what they expected. They see Shelly and they get scared. He must be something special. Nothing else explains his being with us.”
“Thanks, Toby. Great teeth,” Shelly said, admiring the actors. “Who’re we?. .”
“Woman named Luna Martin and a man named Arthur Forbes,” I said, watching the doors. “Stand over there, Shel.”
I pointed in the general direction of the bandstand, where Lou had the top of the piano open again. “They didn’t fix it,” he groaned. “How can I play on this? You want rinky-dinky ragtime, I’ll give it, but forget quality here.” He stood up, toolbox in his hands, and headed for the door. “I’ll be back,” he said. “I’ll fix it myself and charge you.”
I didn’t try to stop him.
Shelly set himself up in front of the bandstand and turned, looking out at us with his best scowl. He pulled a fresh cigar from his jacket pocket and put it into the corner of his mouth. He was doing his Al Capone, but it was coming out as a nearsighted Lou Costello. Then it hit him.
“Arthur For-Fingers Intaglia? The one who cut Stew Edelstein’s fingers off and fed them to his German shepherds?”
“He wasn’t convicted,” I said. “Wasn’t even charged for that.”
“Because Stew put his hands through the opening of his steering wheel, started the car with his teeth, and headed for Key West,” Shelly said, looking at Jerry and Pook, his face in putty panic.
From the hallway beyond the closed doors, we suddenly heard the sounds of an argument-a woman’s shrill voice, but no words.
I looked at Pook and Jerry. They were character actors, but not in Thomas Mitchell’s salary category. They were looking scared and starting to wonder if they both had immediate auditions at Republic.
“Toby,” Pook said after exchanging a meaningful look with Jerry. “You didn’t tell us. .”
“Look,” Shelly broke in, stepping off the bandstand. “I just recalled. I’ve got a patient waiting. .”
It was then that the double doors of the ballroom flew open and Luna Martin in white silk dress swept in, her hair wild, her eyes wide, her breasts heaving. She looked at us and came straight for me, swaying, heels clacking- showing me, I thought, that she had indeed learned the fox-trot. I didn’t notice the blood on her neck till she stood before us, held out both hands, and melted to the floor, her dress clinging, her hair billowing out on the marble. It was an entrance worthy of applause but nobody clapped. I moved to Luna’s side.
“Who did this?” I asked, kneeling.
She looked up at me, pointed at Shelly, and closed her eyes forever.
“Hey,” said Shelly, hurrying toward us, “I didn’t kill her. Never saw her before this second.”
“She dead?” asked Jerry, moving toward me.
I nodded.
“A looker,” said Jerry.
