Dancing in the Dark

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