Dancing Made Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 4) Read online

  But he was on the sorry side of town at that point. He laid his head on the table. “You are right. I am no good. Just take my pistol and put one right in the temple. You would do me a favor.”

  “No,” I shook my head, “I wouldn’t.”

  “The only woman I ever loved is dead,” his voice was soft, “and the cops think I am the one that killed her. What could be worse?”

  I could think of a dozen things that could be worse without even trying. I could have been all shot up, for instance. That certainly would have been worse, at least in my book.

  But I did my best to sympathize. “So, no kidding — why did you come to me? You know I didn’t take your girl away from you. You know that is not my way, and besides, it’s true that I hardly knew the girl.”

  “Yeah. I know that.” His head stayed down. “I just …” He let the sentence hang.

  “Well” — I straightened — “I’m going to stand up now and go get you a drink.”

  That got his head off the table. “Just the thing. But, Flap?”

  I hesitated. “Yes?”

  “After you get me that drink?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you help me find out who killed Janey?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. That’s what I’m really here for, see?” Heavy sigh. “Help me, Flap.”

  In his voice I could hear the echo of the loss everybody felt now that Janey was gone. I caught myself thinking about how her hair was the color of honey, and her voice was just as sweet. I hadn’t really ever spent much time with her. We’d had a few conversations over a glass or two at Easy, and she occasionally turned the house upside down with her swing dancing late nights at the club. But those few moments had made me feel she was like my kid sister. She’d had that effect on most people, I’d imagine.

  Word around town was that she never had an unkind thing to say about anybody — even Mickey at his worst. She stood by him when he was drunk and never complained.

  She also picked the numbers right at least twice a week, so she always had plenty of her own dough. She had a charmed life — up to a point, obviously.

  I’d gotten an invitation to her memorial service. She’d always wanted, it had been said, to be cremated and planted in the Botanical Garden in Piedmont Park. So it occurred to me in that odd moment that all that was left of little Janey were the long strands of blond hair on my sofa where she’d slept the night.

  “Well, since you have such a persuasive argument, not to mention such a fine firearm,” I told him, “I’d like to know who killed Janey my own self.”

  Just then there was a mighty bashing of wood and metal, and dozens of Atlanta’s boys in blue swarmed into our little haven, guns drawn, flashlights pointing, voices mean.

  “Down on the floor!”

  We obliged.

  There was an explosion of activity that involved questions about shots being fired. This was followed by handcuffs and all manner of loose accusations.

  Within the space of nine minutes I was being examined by paramedics, even though I had explained over and over again that I had no holes in me. Mickey had told everybody loud and clear that he’d tried to shoot me. He did this, as he later told me, so that the police would not take me to jail. He wanted me out and about and looking for Janey’s killer.

  So a short while later Mickey “The Pineapple” Nichols was on his way to jail for the murder of little Janey Finster. I was safe and warm at Easy, dialing the phone.

  3. Ghost Flute

  “Hello?” Her voice was gravelly.

  I smiled. “This is a switch, me waking you up with a phone call at four in the morning.”

  “Flap?”

  “I’m at the club. There’s been … an incident.”

  I could hear her sit up. “What?”

  “Got a visit from the Pineapple.”

  “Mickey?” Dally’s voice got hard. “Mickey was in my club? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. But you’ve got a bathroom door that’s not going to make it.”

  “A what?”

  “Mickey shot up the place a little.”

  “But you’re okay.” She was awake now, I could tell.

  “Yeah, not a scratch on me. He’s off to jail.”

  “It was about Janey.” Her voice was even tougher.

  “Bingo.”

  “What’s the matter? You’re awfully terse.” Beat. “You’re not alone.”

  “Right.”

  “Cops.” She knew.

  “They’d like to speak with you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I handed the phone over to an officer.

  “Ms. Oglethorpe?” He spoke calmly. “There’s been an incident at your establishment.”

  He listened.

  “Yes, ma’am.” His voice softened. “Everything’s under control.”

  More listening. A smile.

  “That’s right. We know what to do. You can just get on down to us in the —” She’d apparently interrupted him. “That’s right. The precinct house.” Bigger smile. “Yes, ma’am. I know you’ve been there before. Everybody still talks about those little ham biscuits you brought over just this last Christmas.” Nodding. “Yes. He’s right here.”

  He handed the phone back to me. “She wants to talk to you again.” One last grin. “She surely is a pistol.”

  I nodded. “Don’t I know it.”

  He was off.

  I waited until I thought he was out of earshot. “You could charm the color off a hard hat.”

  “Smooth talk for a man who’s been shot up at four in the morning.”

  “How many people do I have to convince,” I sighed, “I have not been shot up. I swear to God I’d know if I had a bullet in me.”

  “Well” — I could hear her settle back into her bed — “then why don’t you go home and get some sleep? I want you to go with me to the cops tomorrow.”

  “I’m not pressing charges.”

  “Okay. I still want you to go.”

  “I’m not pressing charges because Mickey wants me to find out who bopped Janey.”

  “Oh. That’s why he shot up my club?”

  “He just wanted to get my attention.”

  “And he did.”

  The policemen were beginning to clear out. The one who’d spoken with Dally wandered back my direction.

  “We’d like you to lock up now, Mr. Tucker, and get you on home, if you don’t mind. I’ll see you back to your place, if you like.”

  Before I could make a smart counteroffer, I heard Dally’s voice in my ear. “Be nice. Let him see you home — for my sake. Get some sleep. Call me in the morning.”

  I nodded. “Who am I to skip the path of least resistance?”

  She hung up.

  I set the phone down on the bar.

  The policeman stared at me. “You remember when Ms. Oglethorpe brought us those ham biscuits Christmas Eve?”

  I lifted my head. “Who do you think helped her carry them in?”

  “I thought that was you.” He nodded, then he looked at the floor. “You Ms. Oglethorpe’s boyfriend?”

  “Me? Naw.”

  Still not looking at me. “What are you then?”

  “I,” big old heavy breath, “am too tired to explain it.”

  He took a second, then he looked up at me. “Well, be good to her, hear? She’s the closest thing we’ve got to an angel — at least on this street.”

  I looked at him good for the first time. He was only a kid, maybe not that long out of high school. Maybe he was far away from home. Maybe he still wasn’t used to gunshots at 4:00 A.M., and hookers slicing each other up over five dollars, and guys with five-dollar nicknames who killed people with hand grenades. Maybe Dally’s ham biscuits were the closest thing to home he’d had in a while.

  “I’d say amen to that.”

  He seemed to be satisfied with my answer. We shoved off. He followed me as I drove the short distance home and waved when I went in. I was in bed by
four-thirty.

  *

  Now, ordinarily that would have been the end of a relatively average day for yours truly, but just as I was nodding off, the phone rang again.

  I grabbed at it. “Who’s calling me at this time of night?”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I tried calling earlier, but there was no answer.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “Is this Mr. Tucker? Flap Tucker?”

  I opened my eyes. “Don’t make me ask for the third time.”

  “It’s Irgo Dane, here.”

  “Irgo Dane?” That made me sit up. “The bass player?”

  “Do you know me?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

  “I’ve heard you play.”

  Irgo Winfred Dane was, in my humble opinion, the finest bass player in the South. Played with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Opera Orchestra, and also alongside the finest jazz singers in town. He could flat play anything. He was known around town as something of an oddball, but for his kind of genius you make allowances, in my book.

  I managed to get myself up on one elbow. “You sat in once with my band — a long time ago, back in the old days.” He’d played “Big Noise from Winnetka.”

  “I did?” He sounded almost shy about it. “Please forgive me, I play with so many people …”

  “Don’t apologize.” I cleared my throat. “God. I wouldn’t expect you to remember. But it was a big night for me.”

  “How very kind of you to say so.”

  “So you’re calling me?”

  “Oh. Yes, I am. You … now I’ve got you on the phone, I don’t quite know what to say.”

  “Start with the topic of the call.”

  “Well. That would be my niece.”

  “What about her?”

  “Well, you found her body this morning, I believe.”

  Stop the presses. “That girl hanging from the lamppost by the park this morning was your niece? Are you sure?”

  “Fairly certain. I’ve been with the police all day.” A moment of silence. “I could barely stand to look at her face, I doubt I could have told anything from that mess … they used her fingerprints to identify the body. I’m afraid I wasn’t really much help at all.”

  “I see. Well.” Trying to clear my head. “How would you know I had anything to do with finding her? I left before the police got there.” Joe had found the body. Let him stay with it until the police came, that had been my thinking.

  “You do know a Mr. Adder.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “He was the one —”

  “Wait.” I had to stop him. “How would you know him?”

  “Well,” he was beginning to sound very tired. “I live close to the park, and on occasion I’ve found Mr. Adder in my gazebo. When it rains, mostly. I give him coffee, and he sometimes does a little yard work for me, you know. He needs the money, you see.”

  “And so Joepye told you that I found your niece?”

  “Well, actually he said he’d found her, then contacted you. He said you were the man to help me.”

  I rubbed my face. “What kind of help were you looking for exactly? This is a police case.”

  “They only think of my niece as another dirty street person.” Sigh. “But she was just a little girl. I was just remembering, as a matter of fact” — his voice was getting hoarse — “about her third birthday. I gave her a Raggedy Ann doll, an antique. It was quite expensive, even then. She didn’t know, of course. She sleeps with it to this day. She told me on the phone only last month when we talked at Christmas.” Silence. “It’s very difficult for me to think of that same girl as … what the police think she was.”

  “They probably think she was a prostitute.”

  If I’d been less tired, that wouldn’t have come out so rough. But he took it well enough.

  “She probably was.” His voice was thick. “But she wanted to get out of that life.”

  “She did?” I wondered if they’d been close enough to discuss any of that.

  “I’d assume so, wouldn’t you? She was just a little girl.”

  “Yeah.” I let out my breath. “She was kind of like a little girl, I guess.”

  “What would make a person do something like that, something so horrible, to a little girl?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Dane. I don’t know what makes people do anything.”

  “Well, I’d like to know.” His voice was weaker, but also somehow weirder. I didn’t think much of it — at the time. “Could you find out for me?”

  “What?”

  His voice got stronger again. “The police might find out who killed her. I mean, if they don’t, I’d like you to help with that too. But I want you to find out why this happened. I want to understand it better. I want to understand what that note meant, the note pinned to her body.”

  “Look, Mr. Dane” — I shifted in bed — “usually, there aren’t the kind of clear answers like you’re looking for. The person who did this, they’re probably just nuts. There’s no real rhyme or reason to a murder like this. I mean, the police …”

  “You have to help me. I don’t know what else to do.”

  I stared out the window. The January moon was low and white, like a ghost in the tree limbs. I thought about that bass solo he’d played with our band so many years ago. That solo — that memory — it seemed like something I needed to pay him back for.

  “All right, Mr. Dane. Let’s meet for lunch. Mary Mac’s, one P.M.”

  “Yes.” Big sigh on the other end of the line. “Good. Thank you, Mr. Tucker.”

  “What was her name, your niece?”

  “Hepzibah. She was named after the sister of Yehudi Menuhin.”

  “Hepzibah? What did you call her?”

  “Beth.” I could barely hear him. “Most people called her Beth. She played the flute, Mr. Tucker. Did I tell you that? She played very well. And she was studying dance.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Dane.”

  “This is everyone’s loss, Mr. Tucker. My niece is dead, and a lifetime of people will never get to know what a wonderful child she was — so beautiful, such talent, so very bright.”

  Outside, the moon was sinking lower. I could barely see it over the windowsill.

  “Good night, Mr. Dane.”

  “Good night, Mr. Tucker.”

  Just as I hung up, a wood dove sitting in the tree where I’d seen the ghost of the moon called out several notes. They were silver, flutelike notes, and they hung like mist in the air even after the notes themselves were gone and the dove had flown away.

  4. Remembrance of Things Past

  I was up by eleven the next morning, but not because I wanted to be.

  I picked up the offending appliance and stared at it, but that didn’t make any difference. The thing just kept on ringing.

  So I finally answered. “I’m thinking of having this phone disconnected.”

  “Wouldn’t help.” Dally’s voice was wide-awake. “I’d just come over and bang on your door.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Beautiful morning outside. Unfortunately I’m inside staring at a bathroom door that’s definitely shot to hell.”

  I tried to sit up. “I told you.”

  “You sound a little sleepy there, pal.”

  “Yeah. When I got home last night? I got another call.”

  “A phone call?”

  “Irgo Dane.”

  “The bass player?” Her voice softened. “You’re kidding.”

  “Himself. And you’ll never guess why he was calling.”

  “At four-thirty in the morning.”

  “Right.” I nodded. “Perhaps you’ll recall my little adventure with Joepye yesterday morning?”

  “The kid hanging in the park.” Softer still. “Hard to forget that image.”

  “Tell me. Anyway, the kid? She was Dane’s niece.”

  “No.”

  “That’s what he said.”


  She sounded like she was sitting down. “And why would he lie about a thing like that?”

  “Right. I’m meeting him at Mary Mac’s for lunch. Care to join us?”

  “What time?” She hadn’t paused for even a breath.

  “One.”

  “Okay.” She was moving again, I could tell. “One it is. We can go to the police station after that.”

  “Dally?”

  “Hmm?”

  “He wants to hire me to find out why somebody did that to his niece. Dane does.”

  “Well, that figures.” She laughed. “So that makes Mickey shooting up my place to get you to find out who killed little Janey, and Dane calling you in the wee hours to ask you to find out about his niece. You certainly lead an interesting life these days.”

  “See you at lunch.”

  *

  Only a three-block walk down Ponce de Leon from the Fabulous Fox, Mary Mac’s Tea Room may be the last one of its kind left in the country. Packed at lunchtime every day, it conveys many of the best things about a South that’s mostly gone.

  I don’t mean gone with the wind either. It took more than a breeze to take out my city. It took Sherman burning it to the ground and a horde of invading infidels salting the earth for the next one hundred years. It took an army of Sherman’s grandson-businessmen turning my city into a second-rate convention center and a first-rate example of downtown decay. The symbol of the city may be the phoenix, but its emblem could just as well be the weasel. Not that I’m against business — in its place. I just lament the way business does business around here.

  Still, Mary Mac’s was packed with businessmen when I got there a little before one, so you’d at least have to say they knew where to eat. The noise of the crowd was as soothing to me as the sound of ocean waves.

  I had just gotten my heavy overcoat off when the hostess raised her eyebrows at me. “Hey there, Flap. You all by yourself today?”

  “Naw.” I shook my head. “Dally’s coming. And we have a guest.”

  She nodded. “By the window?”

  I headed for the table. “Absolutely.”

  I sat and stared out the window. I watched the traffic go by, hoping to get some of the pictures from the previous night’s sleep out of my head. Try as I might, the image of that body swinging in the chilly air kept alternating with the sleeping face of Janey Finster in my mind.