Last Dance on the Starlight Pier, page 10
“Was Zave on the circuit?” I asked.
“Was he ever,” Pops answered. “Zave was—”
Uncle Jake, out of breath and grim-faced, burst in before Pops could answer.
“What the hell are you doing back? I sent you out to get right with our friends in blue.”
“It’s already too late,” Jake answered glumly. “I only made it as far as the corner when the beat cop on patrol there—who, very, very lucky for you, is a buddy of mine—put me wise. Pops, you’re gonna get raided tonight. It’s a done deal. The fix is in.”
“So undo the deal. Take the fix out. Pay the bastards off like I told you to.”
“No dice. Theater owners have got the Ladies’ Morality League up in arms. Someone’s husband is an editor at the paper. Another one’s married to a councilman. Theater owners have them all in their pocket. They got the ladies in a lather about the evils of dancing and ‘exploiting misery.’”
“Rich white ladies,” Pops hissed. “Bunch of brass-plated phonies. It’s not like any of them are gonna give my kids jobs. Feed them. Give them a bed to sleep on instead of a park bench. They just want all the suffering done out of sight where it won’t offend their fine sensibilities. Stick ’em in a Hooverville way out on the edge of town where no one can see them. Hypocrites. Worse than that gee-dee Hoover.”
Jake shrugged in agreement. I couldn’t argue either.
Pops ranted on, “And that is exactly why they need pictures for the papers of people in handcuffs getting pulled out of this den of iniquity we’re running and hauled off in a paddy wagon. So all the gee-dee hypocrites can go back to feeling superior.
“Fudge. Fudge. Fudge,” Pops muttered. Not one, apparently, to cry over spilled milk, he shifted gears and, calm as a charge nurse, said, “Oh well, it was time for me and the pros to head to Chicago anyway. When’s the raid?”
“Ten. Straight up,” Jake answered. “The cops got it scheduled with a photographer from the paper.”
“Suits,” Pops ordered, “spread the word. Horses and staff only. Tell the trainers and the sloppers first. Act natural. Don’t tip off the locals or the civilians. We gotta leave ’em something to take pictures of.”
Suits nodded and was hurrying away when Pops called after him, “Tell Zave to take a dive at half past nine. That way we can work in a good farewell. Give him a chance at a decent silver shower. God knows he won’t be taking much else away from this disaster.”
With a pointed look at Jake, he added, “None of us will.”
CHAPTER 21
“Well,” I told Uncle Jake when we were back on the floor, “this is the shortest job I’ve ever had.”
On the bandstand, Suits was whispering in the ear of each player and the emcee. They all gave nonchalant nods in response to the news about the impending raid; they’d obviously been through this drill before.
Jake sighed. “Easy come, easy go. Listen, if you need a place to stay, you’re always welcome here. Unless you’re planning to head up to Litchfield.”
“Why would I go to Litchfield?” I asked, naming Mamie’s podunk hometown way the hell up in the Panhandle that she despised and I had never visited.
“Doesn’t your mother tell you anything? She’s staying up there with your grandmother Vonda Kay. Last time she wrote—asking for money, big surprise, right?—she said that all the dust storms they been having had given her the new…? The new…?”
“Dust pneumonia,” I supplied, recalling with a shudder what we’d learned in class about the life-threatening affliction. The drought that had dried up the Great Plains was causing storms that whirled the dry earth into a choking cloud of dust so fine and so thick that it could suffocate a person caught outside. Sister T had told us about a cow that was autopsied to reveal that the poor animal’s lungs were clogged with mud.
“Right, right. Dust pneumonia. I sent her what I could, so that she could get to the hospital in Lubbock.”
I didn’t say anything and, after a moment, Jake said, “Evie, you’ve got that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“That I-Gotta-Rescue-Mamie look.”
“Jake, she’s my mother.”
“Evie, she stabbed you in the back.”
“I’m not a hundred percent certain that she was the one who sent the photos.”
“You’re not? Evie, she’s your mother and all, but, honestly, who else would do something that rotten? Plus, who else even had those clippings?”
His questions were too painful to consider. Instead, I said, “Jake, dust pneumonia is a life-threatening illness. I have to go to her.”
He asked the question I’d never been able to find a good answer to. “Why?”
The only answer I had to give him was “I don’t think I could live with the guilt if she died. She’s my obligation.”
Jake shrugged and, following the old trouper’s rule about never dwelling on the sad stuff, nodded at Zave and said, “Now there is a guy who can dance.”
That was an understatement. Without ever putting any weight on his injured ankle, Zave was as fluid and precise as any act I’d ever seen. The unsettling sense of déjà vu hit me again and I figured that I must have seen him perform sometime when I was on the circuit. Still, as I watched, I had the oddest feeling, not of simple recognition, but of being whirled back in time. Back to a time I desperately wanted to remember but was not able to.
As I studied him, trying to puzzle out why he seemed so eerily familiar, Pops slid in next to me and moaned, “Oh brother, not you too.”
“Me too what?”
“You’re gaga for Zave,” the promoter said.
“What are you talking about? I am not gaga for anyone. I am not the gaga type.”
It was true. I’d never been a girl who put much stock in boys being “cute” or having “animal magnetism” or any of the other dopey excuses normal girls used for turning into ninnies. There had been a few dates back at St. Mary’s, but I couldn’t allow them to go beyond hand-holding and a bit of necking. I was fighting for my future and wasn’t about to be derailed by some ridiculous crush.
“Is that so?” Pops challenged me.
“Is what so?” asked Suits, who had finished warning all the pros, floor judges, and trainers.
“She says she’s not gaga for Zave,” Pops answered.
The little trainer hooted. “You’re not? Well, then, why have you been tracking him like he was a little bunny and you’re a hungry wolf. I could see it from across the floor.”
“You need to get your eyes checked, buddy. It’s just that I am sure I know him from somewhere.”
Pops and Suit hoo-haa-ed at that. Suits batted eyelashes he didn’t have, and trilled out, “Ooo, hey handsome, don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“Nurse, you’d better get some better lines,” Pops said. “That one was old when Moses was floating in the bulrushes.”
Pops left. Suits continued snickering.
“Aw, go soak your head,” I told the trainer.
“Truth hurts,” he said, walking away. “Also, keep out of the way when the real marathoners scram out of this two-bit joint. Been nice knowing ya.”
I checked the clock: 9:28. My time with the Pops Wyatt’s Dance Spectacular would be up in two minutes when my patient took his dive. Over by the stage, Pops caught Kane’s eye and gave him a decisive nod: time to put the plan into action. That nod was telegraphed to the other two judges and three trainers.
When it reached Mel, the bandleader raised his baton and broke into a zippy “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” Like an old warhorse champing to enter the fray when he hears the bugles blow, Zave picked up his tempo to a dangerous level. He looked so much like the great dance men of my youth that he seemed naked without a top hat, tails, and a cane to tap.
Zave lit up the rafters with a smile so blissful that, for a second, I believed I was a miracle worker and I had actually cured him. In the next moment, he stepped down on his bad leg. Pain curdled his fine features as he wobbled, clinging desperately to Cleo.
The crowd sucked in its breath.
I sucked in my breath.
It was 9:30 straight up. Right on time.
Even though the timing might have been fake, Zave’s pain was absolutely real. Jaws clenched, he attempted to move. The instant he put an ounce of weight on his injured leg, however, he froze, his face gripped in a rictus of pain.
“I got you, I got you,” Cleo cooed.
“Oh, boy, folks, this looks bad,” Alonzo whispered into the mic. “Can Zave keep on going? Can he stay in motion?”
“Come on now,” Cleo coaxed, loudly enough for the crowd to hear. “We gotta move or that big goon of a judge’s gonna kick us out.”
The audience chanted encouragement. Zave, leaning all his weight on Cleo, made a tentative hop forward on his good leg. For a split second, it appeared the maneuver would work. That Zave was going to please his fans screaming for him to stay in the competition instead of taking the dive Pops had ordered.
The instant his hurt foot touched down, however, the pain caused him to lurch off-balance. Flailing, he tried to grab on to Cleo. But it was too late. Cleo tilted for a moment beneath his weight, then he slid from her arms.
Cleo wailed theatrically while attempting to haul Zave back up before Kane could see him. In the bleachers, the men groaned and the women shrieked. Pops lowered his forehead into his palm, pantomiming defeated frustration. On the other side of the floor, Kane faked not being aware of Zave sprawled on the floor.
In spite of being in on the charade, I leaned forward, ready to help my patient, but Pops grabbed my arm and ordered, “Let him bring some heat.”
Kane glanced at Pops and Pops gave him one solemn nod.
For a split second, I saw sadness flash across the floor judge’s face. Instead of a scowling brute, in that moment, Kane resembled a preacher or a poet, a sensitive soul saddened by the injustices of the world. When he pivoted back around, however, he wore his familiar expression of mustache-twirling villainy as he descended upon Zave.
The crowd was on its feet, booing and hissing.
Kane delighted in the vitriol. Milking the moment for all it was worth, he loomed over Zave. With officious self-importance, Kane began counting Zave out. His arm a cleaver hitting a chopping block, he counted off with an agonizing slowness, slamming his hand on the floor with each number.
“One. Two. Three.”
With one, final, resounding slap, Kane crowed, “Ten. You’re out, Pretty Boy.”
CHAPTER 22
Pops, his arms lifted to the heavens like a Roman emperor in the Colosseum calling for silence, strode to his downed gladiator. He knelt down and made a show of talking to Zave. Then, wearing his most serious, most judicious face, he pretended to reach the foregone verdict, snapped his fingers, and a couple of the male trainers sprung forward, lifted Zave onto a cot, and hoisted him above their heads like Cleopatra on a palanquin.
A collective sigh of mourning went up from the crowd. Solemn as a preacher at a funeral, Alonzo intoned the words “Zave, everyone’s favorite, is leaving us. But don’t worry, folks,” he assured the wailing crowd while the trainers and I slowly bore the fallen hero away. “Your golden boy will be coming right back out to thank you for the support you have shown him over these past weeks just as soon as our highly trained team of medical experts looks him over.”
“Team of medical experts.” I guessed that was me.
The instant the door swung shut behind us, the trainers put the cot down in the hallway.
“You need to take him to a hospital,” I told Pops.
“Yeah, and we ‘need’ a new president, but neither of those things are gonna happen tonight.”
“Mr. Wyatt,” I said in my best head nurse voice, “Zave’s ankle could very well be broken. It has to be x-rayed.”
“Zave,” Pops asked his star. “Whudda ya choose? An x-ray or a silver shower?”
“Nurse,” he started, attempting to focus on me, but his pupils, constricted before, were pinpoints now. I bent down closer. Zave’s breath smelled of licorice, the telltale scent of paregoric, a liquid tincture of opium heavily flavored with anise to hide its bitter taste. Mothers rubbed a tiny amount of the stuff on their babies’ gums to ease the pain of teething. Addicts drank it by the bottleful to ease the pain of living.
I tried to break through the opiate haze that had allowed Zave to continue dancing so long and stated slowly, “Zave, you might have a broken ankle that could leave you with a permanent limp if it is not treated.”
“Nurse,” Zave answered, smiling and slurring his words like a cocky drunk. “What I have for sure, no ‘might’ about it, is some empty pockets. If I don’t do that farewell, I’m gonna starve to death a hell of a lot faster than I am ever going to die of a limp.”
The trainers huddled around us laughed. From the gym area, Alonzo’s amplified voice rang out. “I’ve just been told that Zave is back there right now arguing with the team of doctors that Pops brought in. And do you know why?”
The crowd’s answer echoed back to us. “Why?”
“Because all those pointy-head know-it-alls with all their ‘scientific knowledge’—”
To my astonishment the audience interrupted Alonzo to boo “scientific knowledge.”
“Well, those so-called experts are trying to tell Zave that he can’t come back out and say good-bye to all of you.”
Pausing only to let the audience jeer on cue, Alonzo continued to whip them into a frenzy. “But Zave told them to stick their fancy degrees where the sun don’t shine. He told them that nothing and no one was going to stop him from coming back out and saying thanks to all of you generous souls who have shown him so much friendship. So much support. So, well, dang it, I’ll just come right out and say it, so much love.”
The emcee’s voice trembled with a mawkish belligerence. “That’s right, you heard me, ‘love.’ I am not embarrassed to say that what you folks have shown that kid is love. You’re like the family he never had. And now, like all the rest of us who weren’t born with a silver spoon in our mouths or an oil well in our backyard, he is facing the toughest times he has ever had to face.”
Since it was clear that Zave wouldn’t be going to a hospital or anywhere else other than back to his fans, I cupped his toes in my hand. In spite of the heat, they were chilly. I loosened the wrap on his ankle to ensure good circulation.
“You know,” Zave told me, propping himself up on his elbows, “I don’t really need a pedicure, but I sure could use a little help with my hair before I go back out there. Anybody got a comb?”
Suits handed one over.
Zave took the comb and held it out to me. “No mirror, you mind? Just smooth it down a little? If I go out there looking like a hobo, that silver isn’t gonna rain down the way it should.”
His black hair glinted blue beneath the hall lights and was so thick that the part I cut into it showed up as the finest of white lines. I combed the flicks and flips down into neat furrows, patting the most rebellious hanks into place with my hand.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Pops ordered impatiently, and the trainers hoisted the cot up. I stepped back. This was the end of the marathon road for me. Like Uncle Jake, I, too, would now have to disappear into the night.
But Zave reached his hand down and took mine. His hand felt so inexplicably right in mine that it was as though I had held it before. “Nurse, I need you. Come with us.”
“Go, go, go,” Pops commanded, shooing me into the procession. “The more medical this looks, the better.”
A wave of applause and foot stomping bludgeoned us as we stepped through the doors. An armchair draped with a blanket to resemble a throne waited on the free-throw line. The trainers lowered Zave onto it. I stood by and looked as primly “medical” as I could.
“There he is, folks,” Alonzo announced. “Your favorite. Your champion. Like all the rest of us, our pal Zave has hit a bit of a rough patch, a little oil skid on the road of life. Every one of us here knows what that’s like. But he’s a fighter, gang, that much I can guarantee you. Zave’s a scrapper just like all of us. Ain’t nothin’ and no one’s gonna hold Zave down for long. Or any of the rest us, for that matter. Am I right?”
The crowd of down-but-never-outers roared out its conviction that every single one of them would also be back up and swinging again in no time and I understood what Pops had said about a hero who could give them hope.
Sounding as though he was fighting back tears, Alonzo went on, “We don’t want to do it, Zave doesn’t want to do it, but our team of doctors gives us no choice. We’ve got to say good-bye tonight to this brave man. So, let’s make darn sure that we don’t turn him out into the night with nothing to show for all the hours he worked so hard to bring some joy and happiness into our lives. Let’s make doggone certain that our hero Zave gets the classy send-off he deserves. To help us, Zave’s beloved partner Cleo has a special song.”
When Cleo took the stage, her cheeks were slick with tears and she looked as woebegone as Mamie ever had when she was playing a tragic Lillian Gish silent movie heroine.
The Melody Makers edged into a lugubrious version of “The Sunny Side of the Street” with a schmaltzy sax dragging them through an intro so soppily funereal, I would have laughed if, in spite of knowing exactly how the strings were being pulled, I wasn’t swallowing back a hot pool of tears.
Cleo and Zave stared at each other with a bond that made every one of us ache for the love we’d lost. The love we’d never had. The love we never would have. Their eyes locked and Cleo began to sing for her fallen partner. For all of us.
Cleo’s voice might not have been the greatest, but for that song, that moment singing about a man who pulled her out of the shade and into the sun, it was the best in the world. Cleo had something better than perfect pitch or a world-class voice. She had something that no amount of training or talent could ever give a person. Onstage, behind a mic, Cleo had It. Cleo could connect. She had the magic power to unlock and touch the secret, yearning heart in every single one of us.
