Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,54

that she was going to let it out of her sight. It sat in the messenger bag she had taken last night, which in turn was nestled inside of her capacious camera bag.

Finally, they arrived at their destination: a wide building of pink-washed stone. A sign next to the door read

DANCE ACADEMY

ONE FLIGHT UP

And next to it was an arrow pointing upward.

“Here we are,” said Emiliano as he opened the door for Jackie and led her up a winding set of stairs. As they climbed, an arresting female voice floated down to them. Although the voice sounded young, it sang of a sadness that could come only from years of experience with love and loss. On the first-floor landing, Jackie was able to see into the rehearsal room where the voice came from. She was surprised to see an exotically beautiful young woman who sang from somewhere deep in her soul.

“That’s the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard,” Jackie remarked to Emiliano. “Who is she?”

“Her name is Celia Cruz. She sings with a local band, but she’s going to be world famous one of these days. You mark my words.”

After listening, entranced, for a minute more, Jackie and Emiliano resumed their climb, and the singer’s voice was quickly replaced by the pulsating sound of mambo music coming from the next flight up.

The stairway ended at a room that appeared to take up the entire third floor. It was long and narrow and high ceilinged, with three large windows at either end that bounced sunlight off the whitewashed walls, making the room seem extra-bright.

The parquet floor, buffed to a high gloss, was difficult to see because of the dozens of couples dancing on it. At the far end of the room—the front, actually—the dance master and dance mistress mamboed together as an example for their pupils to emulate, for this was indeed the Dance Academy that had been advertised on the first-floor sign. Two more dancers—one male, the other female—circulated through the room, showing individual couples what they could do to improve their dance steps.

Jackie looked around for a band, but there was none to be seen. Instead, the music was provided by a large antique Victrola standing in one corner of the room, its megaphone-like horn broadcasting the mambo beat.

Emiliano gave Jackie a moment to take in the room, then said, “Would you like to dance?”

Jackie tried hard to cover her surprise at the invitation. Stuffed-shirt Emiliano was asking her to dance with him?

As though he had read her mind, Emiliano added, “This is just for the purpose of cover, of course.”

“Of course,” echoed Jackie with a small smile. She put her camera bag down on one of the many chairs that lined the long walls of the ballroom, then fitted herself neatly into Emiliano’s arms—which felt enjoyably muscular through the thin sleeves of his linen sports jacket—as he led her across the dance floor. To her surprise, he was an excellent dancer, although with just a hint of the stiffness that she saw now as his courtly deference to the opposite sex. In some ways, Emiliano seemed like a man from a different century entirely. She had no trouble envisioning him as Don Quixote de la Mancha paying gentle court to his Dulcinea.

As they danced in time with the mambo music, Jackie noticed something curious happening. One by one, couples melted off and drifted in the vicinity of a doorway in one corner of the ballroom that seemed to lead up to the third floor of the building. As the remaining dancers widened their steps and spread out to hide the gaps in their ranks, Jackie’s practiced eye could gauge that about half the couples in the ballroom were no longer to be seen. Where had they gone, and to what purpose? she wondered.

She didn’t have to wait too long for an answer. With one practiced movement, Emiliano had led Jackie so they were now positioned with easy access to the doorway. He stopped dancing, and Jackie felt a pang of disappointment. It was romantic being held in his arms and, for a brief moment, forgetting that there was an ulterior reason for her being here, in this room, with him.

Emiliano motioned for her to go through the doorway, but Jackie stopped to retrieve her camera bag before following him up the stairs. In case things went wrong—and Jackie had to admit to herself that in situations such as this, that was a likely possibility—she didn’t want to be