And I do mean dance with a capital D.
People hit the dance floor the moment the band-a twelve-member, all-male outfit named Latin Expression-finished tuning up and struck the first note of the first number. Thanks to Ralph Ames, I've been in enough Mexican restaurants to have a nodding acquaintance with mariachi music, which generally sounds to me like Polish polka with a south-of-the-border twist. And the words "salsa dancing" had made me think that what I was in for was a group of round, sausage-shaped guys wearing sombreros and glitzy Cisco Kid costumes. Wrong.
These were good-looking young men in white shirts, splashy up-to-the-moment ties, and double-breasted suits. The two backup singers were as energetic and as well orchestrated as the Supremes. The three singers belted their hearts out in what sounded to me like Latino-beat rock, and I never understood a single word-for two reasons:
Number one: Everything except the between-song patter was in Spanish. Listening to it reminded me of a disastrous recent date with Alexis Downey where I had been force-fed a Chinese-made art flick. Alexis had assured me in advance that we were attending a must-see film with some of her friends and that she knew I was going to love it. I didn't come close to loving it-I didn't even like it, and I don't think English subtitles would have helped.
Number two: The music Latin Expression played at the Ballard Fire House was far louder than the small space could accommodate, which made it much too loud for me. I remember telling my mother once long ago that you can't have too much bass. Latin Expression proved me wrong. The deafening roar of the bass guitar thrummed in the tabletop and shivered the back of my chair. The decibel level may have turned my ears to mush, but it didn't seem to faze the dancers.
They were there to dance, and dance they did. To every single song. There was none of this phony hanging back and waiting to see who would go first, or if the band would play fast tunes or slow ones or something in-between. People grabbed partners and headed for the dance floor as soon as the first note blasted through a pair of two-story-high collections of speakers stacked in the front corners of the room.
Sue and June were old hands at this. Within minutes they both saw people they knew and recognized from other salsa-dancing venues. Guys stopped by the table long enough to shout dancing invitations to the two women. Soon both my tablemates were led onto the crowded floor, where they danced their hearts out to numbers that could have been rumbas or sambas or tangos or some variation on all of the above. Fortunately, no one asked me to dance.
Everyone seemed to be having a good time. Everyone but me. Somewhere in the middle of the third number, someone turned on a red-and-yellow rotating spotlight that flashed across the gyrating figures on the dance floor and then splashed directly into my eyes. I was already tired, and blinking to dodge the flashes of light almost put me to sleep-in spite of the ear-shattering volume.
In other words, salsa dancing wasn't my favorite. And it was odd to realize that a culture so alien to me was thriving right there in the middle of Ballard-what was once strictly white-toast Ballard-only blocks from the apartment where I had lived as a boy growing up. Times do change.
I was truly lost in a crowd, a fifth wheel. While musical numbers followed one after another, I sat there all by myself with no one to talk to and nothing to do but watch. To keep myself occupied and awake, I tried putting all the little pieces together: salsa dancing and Sobibor. Two murders and a hit-and-run. Thousands of gold teeth and a gold wrench. And Nazi toy soldiers standing in rows.
The sudden thought hit me with the force of a lightning bolt and left me feeling sick and shaken. What about those damn soldiers? I wondered. What if they weren't made of lead at all? What if they, like Bonnie Elgin's wrench, were made of solid gold?
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I was torn. On the one hand, I didn't want to miss the meeting with Lorenzo. On the other, I couldn't wait to get my hands on one of those soldiers in the basement of the Gebhardt house on Culpeper Court. Even considering it was almost eleven, I was sure Else would let me examine the soldiers for myself. Checking the metal content wouldn't require the professional services of someone like the crime lab's Janice Morraine. Just hefting them would be enough to tell me what I wanted to know. Or else I could scrape off some of the paint and see whether or not there was gold concealed beneath the enamel.
My distress must have showed. June Miller came back to the table for a sip of 7-Up. She offered reassurance and counseled patience. "They'll be here pretty soon," she said. "Maria gets off work around eleven."
There was no point fighting the music and trying to yell out an explanation. That was hopeless. Against my better judgment, I slouched deeper into my chair and listened to the boom of a complicated conga-drum solo. From then on, though, with my mind still working overtime, I kept one eye on the door. My vigilance was rewarded when, through the haze of cigarette smoke, I spotted a man and a woman who paused just inside the doorway.
The two of them, a man in his thirties and a somewhat younger woman, entered the room cautiously, as though they expected the Ballard Fire House to be furnished with armed land mines rather than tables and chairs. The man looked like a young Cesar Romero. He wore gray slacks, an open-necked white shirt rolled up at the sleeves, and no tie. Walking with a noticeable limp, he went to the nearest corner and sank into a seat directly in front of the stacked speakers.
Great, I thought. We'll never be able to talk there.
The woman, presumably his sister Maria, appeared to be several years younger. Her dark hair, crinkled as if newly loosened from tight braids, fell almost to her waist. She stood near the door, surveying the room with quick, nervous glances that betrayed her anxiety. Eventually, she must have spotted June Miller. That wasn't difficult, since June's blond hair glowed like a pillar of yellow flame among the other, mostly dark-haired dancers. As soon as June smiled and waved, the young woman turned to the man and nodded.
June had given me strict orders not to approach either one of the newcomers until she personally cleared it with them. What I did do, however, was make my way, between songs, onto the dance floor, where I reclaimed Sue Danielson from the apparently pleasant clutches of a young Latino man with whom she had danced several dances.
The man spoke little or no English, but he danced with the verve and flair of a professional. Invariably, he had returned Sue to our table with a courtly bow to her, and with a politely deferential nod to me as well. I did my best to return the favor when he relinquished Sue to me on the dance floor, but he seemed genuinely mystified when, instead of dancing away with her, I dragged her back to our table.
"They're here?" she asked.
"Just came," I answered. "Maria's the young woman standing just to the left of the door. Her brother's seated at the table right in front of the speakers."
"Should I go get June?"
"She said for us to stay put, remember?"
June had spent much of the evening dancing with a balding gentleman who must have been close to sixty and who seemed to be the most capable dancer in the room. While I squirmed with impatience, a laughing and unconcerned June Miller danced two more interminable numbers with her smooth-move partner. Just when I was about to go cut in on him as well, the band finally took what I considered a well-deserved break.
Instead of returning to our table, however, June hurried over to the new arrivals. After a moment's conference with Maria, June turned and beckoned to Sue and me.
Carrying what little remained in our three drinks, we threaded our way across the room. As we neared the table, I was surprised, as I often am, by how closely the Identi-Kit artist had managed to capture Lorenzo's likeness.