Dancing Aztecs by Donald E. Westlake

Author:Donald E. Westlake [Westlake, Donald E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com / Open Road
Published: 2012-03-08T09:59:56+00:00

ON THE SOFA …

Bobbi and Madge had breakfast together companionably in Madge’s living room, sunlight filtered dappling through the spider plants and avocados. Bobbi was on the sofa, with her breakfast spread before her on the coffee table, while Madge had the chair over by the television set, with her plate on a hassock. “Mmm,” Bobbi said. She ate scrambled egg. She chewed some bacon. She swallowed coffee and munched toast and went back for more scrambled egg. Madge, watching her with interested doubt, said, “How can you eat all that? Why don’t you have a hangover?”

“Because today,” Bobbi said, “I am a new woman. A totally new woman.” She drank more coffee, bit off another chunk of toast, and suddenly grinned. She giggled, with her mouth closed.

Madge made a quizzical grin. “What’s so funny?”

Bobbi chewed, chewed, chewed, swallowed, washed it all down with coffee, and laughed aloud. “I threw all Chuck’s clothes out the window!”

“So you told me last night. Several times.”

Suddenly serious, intense, Bobbi stared across the room at her friend. “I left him, Madge, I left him for good!”

“You mentioned that, too.”

Bobbi frowned. “You think he’ll be all right? What if he’s stuck in there forever, without any clothes?”

“He’s fine,” Madge said. “I phoned there this morning, and there wasn’t any answer, so he’s up and out. With his clothes on.”

“And looking for me.”

“Wouldn’t doubt it for a second.”

“Mm.” Absent-mindedly chewing, Bobbi looked around the room, organizing her thoughts, and then spied the Dancing Aztec Priest, the Other Oscar, standing on the windowsill amid Madge’s jungle, and she smiled. The Other Oscar; he had made it all possible, he had made it happen. He danced in there among the greenery, his golden skin glistening with sunlight, his green eyes vivid with intelligence, his very posture a command to do and be and move and become.

“What are you smiling at?”

“My future,” Bobbi said.

“You know what you’re going to do?”

“Absolutely. I’m going to California.”

“So you really are, huh? No morning-after second thoughts?”

“This isn’t the morning after,” Bobbie told her. “This is the morning before. The morning before my life begins.”

Madge grimaced. “Send that to the Reader’s Digest,” she said.

“I’m really going to do it, Madge.”

“Well, bully for you. Got your schedule worked out?”

“As soon as I get dressed I’ll go see Everett Coalshack at the orchestra. He can give me references and letters of introduction to people on the West Coast. And then I’ll pick up my harp and I’m off. Today.” Suddenly both ravenous and impatient, she stuffed her mouth with food and asked Madge if she had the Yellow Pages.

Madge said, “What?”

“Fumfumfumf,” Bobbi said again, then chewed quickly, slugged down some coffee to clear the way, and said, “Do you have a Yellow Pages?”

“Sure.” Getting it from the shelf under the TV, bringing it across the room, Madge said, “What’s the idea?”

“I have practically no money,” Bobbie explained. “I’ll go to the bank this morning and take out a couple hundred, but there isn’t much more than that in there, and I’m not going to Chuck for anything.

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