Dancing Aztecs by Donald E. Westlake Read Free Book Online Page B

Daily News , showing Green hopping around in oratorical frenzy during the group’s appearance before the city’s Board of Estimate. They saw the resemblance, and they loved it, and they all laughed and applauded and pointed at the statue, and then they redoubled the applause when all at once waiters came in, carrying more golden-skinned green-eyed Dancing Aztec Priests in their arms, distributing them around like after-dinner drinks, one at each and every place.
    How sweet , Bobbi thought. How dear Oscar is . (Not that she’d ever been to bed with him, nor even that he’d ever offered.) But he was just a dear sweet human being, that’s all (unlike some she could mention), and this funny crooked yellow statue was just one more example of it. She picked it up, held it in her hands, feeling the cold of it against her fingers, looking at its strained and twisted body, its green eyes throwing off sparks of light in its devil-mask face. She smiled at the statue, loving it, loving Oscar in that moment, and then she became aware again of Chuck watching her, his patronizing smile, his bland eyes, and she turned her head, saying, “Don’t spoil this one, Harwood. I mean it.”
    â€œMy darling, you can do whatever you want. I only hope you’ll come back to me when it’s all over.”
    There was no beating him, and no dealing with him. The only way to survive at all was to let him have the last word, try not to let it rankle too much, try to concentrate on other things.
    Brandy was brought out then, which helped, in tiny gold-encrusted glasses. The group toasted itself, toasted Oscar Russell Green, toasted the Other Oscars, toasted the Stokely Carmichael Memorial Squash Court and Snack Bar, and then at last it was all over. People got up from the table, moved here and there around the room, shook hands with one another, promised to keep in touch, showed one another their Other Oscars, and finally they began to depart, going down the stairs in groups of two and three, the laughter and good-fellowship continuing down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk, where smaller and smaller groups clustered, separated, regrouped, and finally moved away.
    And now, after all these years, Oscar Russell Green actually did make a pass! Bobbi couldn’t believe it. For years they’d been together, Oscar had been in their apartment, Oscar and Bobbi had been alone together a thousand times, and not once had he ever made a move. But now all at once, on the sidewalk in front of the Goddess of Heaven, he was coming on as though he meant it. “Bobbi, you’re holding the wrong Oscar to your breast,” he said, gesturing at the statue she held in both arms. And when she merely laughed that one away, he said something else. And then something else. And constantly with a bright-eyed intensity in his smile, standing a bit too close, staring at her in a meaningful way, while Chuck stood next to a nearby fireplug, pipe in gently smiling mouth, expression avuncular and indulgent. Until finally Bobbi had to place her hand on Oscar’s forearm, to say, “I want us to go on being friends , Oscar.”
    â€œ Good friends, I hope,” Oscar said. What was wrong with the man?
    And Chuck joined in, saying, “Bobbi, I have to go up to the campus for a few hours. Why don’t you and Oscar amuse yourselves?”
    Which was the last straw. “And why don’t you,” Bobbi said, “stick your prick in an electric pencil sharpener? It’ll fit.”
    â€œSee you soon,” Oscar said, a big smile on his face, back-pedaling down the block, waving like a song-and-dance man going offstage.
    The others all were gone. Bobbi and Chuck were left alone on the sidewalk. “Call a cab, you asshole,” Bobbi said. “I’ve had enough for one day.”
    Shrugging, amiable, unruffled, Chuck stepped off the curb and hailed a cab. Getting into it, Bobbi barely noticed the little white