Jitterbug by Loren D. Estleman Page A

counter at D.J. Healy when he came in with a stack of order forms and had directed him to the manager’s office. His collegiate good looks appealed to many different kinds of women; he knew by the way her professional smile stretched a couple of notches at the corners when she spoke to him that she was his to take out for the asking, and probably to bed. She was a thin blonde with a nose that tilted up like Myrna Loy’s. She told him she had applied to the department store hoping to model fashions, but she was an inch too short. Since she couldn’t see a future making tracer bullets at King Seeley’s she took a job squirting perfume on fat women from St. Clair Shores, rich Grosse Pointe women doing their shopping mostly at Lord’s and Gately’s. All this he had found out over a plate of veal served San Francisco style at Lelli’s. He found her loathsomely boring. If he weren’t sensitive about being seen too often alone at movies—the fifth-column shrink at the Light Guard Armory had asked him, in a tone that suggested curiosity rather than routine, if he was a homosexual—he would have made some excuse and taken her home. Now they were walking among the patrons, trickling out of the baroque interior of the Michigan Theater, she clinging to his arm, he fishing in a pocket of his pleated civilian slacks for his keys. It was a warm June night, late but not long past dark on the extreme western edge of the Eastern Time Zone. Big Band blare spilled out the open windows of cruising cars, scattered fireflies struck blue-green sparks in the dark between streetlamps. Now and then Erma switched her hips to a snatch of “In the Mood” or “Song of India.” He bet she was a jitterbug. He hadn’t taken a girl dancing since before Pearl Harbor. He considered it improper to expend so much energy in wartime to no good result.
    “Someone told me once I looked like Taylor. I didn’t believe her.” He watched her out of the corner of his eye.
    She leaned away from his arm to squint at his profile. “You were right.” She huddled back in. Her chunky heels made an irritating clacking noise on the sidewalk.
    He probed. “It could have been worse. She might have said Humphrey Bogart.”
    “He doesn’t look so bad. I thought he was handsome in The Roaring Twenties. He wore pretty suits and he wasn’t as short as Jimmy Cagney. Anyway I don’t see why all the girls like Robert Taylor. Van Johnson is much better looking.”
    “I can’t picture him.”
    “He was dreamy in The Human Comedy. Piles and piles of wavy blond hair. You’re blond, aren’t you? It’s hard to tell with all that stuff you put on.”
    He resisted the impulse to smooth back his hair. He never put on a hat when he was wearing civvies. “I only go to war movies.”
    “Oh, this was about war. It all took place in a small town, and the war kept coming and taking people away. I think small towns are quaint. My uncle and aunt used to have a cabin on Houghton Lake and we’d stop in small towns along the way and have a soda.”
    He wondered if her uncle and aunt hoarded ration stamps.
    “Where should we go now?” she asked. “Sammy Kaye’s playing at the Eastwood Gardens. I love Ishkabibble.”
    “Ishkabibble’s with Kay Kyser.” He unlocked the door on the passenger’s side of his Nash and opened it for her. “Don’t you have to be at work early?’
    “Tomorrows Saturday, silly. Don’t tell me you’re running out of steam.” She swung into the seat, flashing a Copper-toned calf with a seam drawn up the back with eyebrow pencil. At least she didn’t hoard nylons.
    He slid under the wheel and checked his hair in the rearview mirror. It looked glossy black under the domelight.
    “I’ve been on my feet all day. I’ll take you someplace for dessert.”
    “Carl’s?”
    “Closed by now.” He punched the starter. “Roma’s Cafe stays open late sometimes. Depends on who’s there.”
    “Roma’s, then.” She commandeered the mirror to