“You should talk less, old man,” Forbes said evenly.
“I should move my bowels more,” said Lou. “I’m an old man, Mr. Fingers. I was married with two kids when Teddy Roosevelt got elected. I’ve played for and with the best for kings, movie stars, and, back in Detroit in ’29 and ’30, for gangsters. .”
“I said you talk too much, piano man.”
Lou shrugged and said, “You can’t threaten me. I’m too old to care. But you’re right. I talk too much. Someone fixing that piano and a few successful minutes in the bathroom can greatly improve my disposition.”
Forbes was defeated. He snorted quietly and raised his left hand. The mountain in the doorway moved and Lou shuffled toward the john.
“What was just going on?” Forbes said.
“A dance lesson. Miss Martin is a very promising student.”
Forbes looked at me with contempt.
“I’ve danced with her,” he whispered. “Don’t lie to me. I’ve got a built-in lie detector, a short attention span, and Kudlap over there, who has no sense of humor.”
“Kudlap Singh?” I asked. “The Beast of Bombay?”
Forbes nodded and looked at his watch. I had seen Singh wrestle when I was a kid. My father took me and my brother, Phil, to boxing matches about three or four times a year. Once in a while, if Man Mountain Dean or the Beast of Bombay were on the card, we would go to the Garden for a night of choreographed groaning and blood.
“He must be sixty, maybe seventy,” I said.
“You want to go shake hands with him?” Forbes said.
I looked at the Beast of Bombay and decided against trying to strike up a friendship.
“Arthur,” Luna said impatiently. “Can we go?”
“You touch her again,” he said, putting a finger very close to my left nostril, “and it’s a toss-up whether you’re playing piano with your knuckles or Kudlap rips your nose off.”
“I don’t play the piano,” I said.
“Now’s not a good time to take it up,” Forbes said raising an eyebrow.
“Arthur,” Luna said with the impatient sigh of someone trying to train a cat, “you have to touch if you are going to dance. Besides, I want Fred Astaire back. You promised, and where is he?”
“Practicing for a defense-bond show Saturday and getting ready for a war-bond drive,” I repeated. “He’ll be gone a long time, a month, maybe two. And when he comes back, he has a movie and. .”
“We’ve got tickets for the show,” Forbes said. “Wiltern Theater. When does he start giving Luna lessons again?”
It was my turn to sigh.
“Never,” I said. “He asked me to tell you that he was considering opening a Fred Astaire Dance Studio, that Miss Martin would be given a full course at no charge.” The dance studio idea had just come to me in a stroke of desperation.
“I want Fred Astaire,” she said.
“She wants Astaire,” Forbes said, closing the discussion.
“Right,” I said. “She wants him in a bed.”
Forbes’s fists clenched and his face went red.
“He’s lying, Arthur,” Luna said calmly. “Astaire just doesn’t want to teach me.”
“You know who I am?” Forbes said.
“Arthur Forbes, businessman.”
Forbes shook his head. This was going to be harder than he thought, and it might even ruin his morning.
“Dancer,” he said, putting his hand on my right shoulder. “Do you know who I am?”
“Fingers Intaglia,” I said.
“Do you know what I can do to Fred Astaire, and you?”
“I have an active imagination. And, by the way, I’m not a dancer. I’m a private investigator. My agency’s been hired to see to it that Mr. Astaire doesn’t have to give dance lessons to Miss Martin or anyone else.”
“Private inv. . you made all that up,” screamed Luna. “You made me look like a. . Arthur!”
“I’ve got to tell you, I don’t like when Luna gets upset,” Forbes said, squeezing my shoulder, his thumb expertly finding a nerve just below my collarbone. “When she is upset, she is not responsive. I want Luna happy. I want Luna responsive.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said, “but no more lessons with Fred Astaire. Let’s make it easy, shake hands, walk away, and let Mr. Astaire find Miss Martin a terrific teacher. Look at it this way, she’s had two lessons with Fred Astaire. Not many people can say that. It’s a great start and. .”
“I want Astaire,” Luna said evenly.
“She wants Astaire,” Forbes repeated.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Would you mind taking your hand off my shoulder?”
He squeezed a little harder.
“Right here, tomorrow, same time. Astaire is here. Show or no show. Bond drive. No bond drive.”
“The hell with it,” Lou said, inching past Kudlap in the doorway.
“Be quiet, old man,” Forbes said without looking back at Lou.
“Be quiet?” said Lou, moving toward us. “My disposition has not been improved by my experience in the lavatory.”
“Kudlap,” Forbes called, and the Beast of Bombay, three hundred pounds, six-four or five and a stomach as flat as Death Valley, glided toward us like a cat.
“Old man,” said Forbes as the Beast hovered over me. “I think you better leave or forget what you’re gonna see next.”
“My memory of yesterday is gone,” Lou said with a sigh, “but ask me who played bass with King Oliver in ’02 and I’ll tell you his shoe size and how he liked his okra cooked for supper. I remember one night in Detroit when I was playing with Cookie Carmichael’s band and someone who looked more than a little like you was having an argument with Kid Santini and. .”
“Shut up, old man,” Forbes said.
“Kid Santini turned up. .” Lou tried, but Forbes said, “I said shut up.”
Fingers Intaglia had a moment of doubt. He had come into the ballroom of his own hotel, expecting to pick up his girl. Instead he was facing a more than slightly wacky private detective and a what-the-hell-can-you-do-to-me old piano player. He took his hand from my shoulder. I wanted to rub where he had pressed, but I didn’t.
“Tomorrow, right here. Astaire.”
Forbes had taken a step back. He was bouncing slowly on his heels, considering his next move, when I said, “Mr. Astaire won’t. .”
“Don’t say it again,” Forbes cut in. “Something very bad will happen if you say it again. I strive for the patience of Thomas Jefferson, but I live with the temper of my sainted father, who ducked five manslaughter charges.”
I shut up.
“Can we go now?” said Lou. “I’m working tonight at the Mozambique.”
“Shut the old fool up, Arthur,” Luna said, moving to Forbes’s side and taking his arm.
“Give this message to Astaire,” Forbes said, ignoring Lou and Luna both.
I looked at Luna. She was enjoying the moment. I almost missed Forbes’s nod. I tightened up and started to turn. I was too late and the Beast of Bombay was too fast. I expected the blow to come to the kidney. Instead there was a zap, a feeling of being hit by a jolt of electricity and then pain that almost sent me to the floor.
Forbes was a professional. I had to give him that. The Beast had done something my old man had never even considered. He had spanked me. One whip of his giant hand. A second or two of humiliation followed by who knows how many hours or days of searing pain.
Luna tittered and I did my best not to fall. I started to go down anyway. Kudlap Singh held me up.
“I’ve seen this stuff before,” Lou said with a bored voice of an ancient mariner who has seen and done everything.
“Got the message, Peters?” Forbes said.
I wasn’t sure I could speak. I nodded.
“Good,” he said. “You’re gonna be sitting on pillows and taking warm baths for a while. Accidents like this happen. Astaire could be dancing in concrete shoes. Tomorrow, right here.”
Forbes walked toward the door with the air of a man who had put things in order for everyone. The Beast of Bombay looked down at me and nodded before he followed his boss out of the ballroom. Luna, still holding Forbes’s arm, smiled, patted her behind, puckered her lips, and made a kissing sound. She clicked toward the door with Forbes, swinging her red purse.