He Was The Worst Dancer I Had Ever Seen

A short story using one of these creative writing prompts.

He was the worst dancer I had ever seen, all lies and left feet and the charmed ignorance of a baked bean. But without doubt there was reason, full of well-seasoned perfected truths honed in the fortress of his mind. He may have moved with the grace of one without any control, but behind it all, there was method.

The first time I met him it was with his gun in my mouth. This was no euphemism. He was packing. He took it everywhere he went and he flung it around with all of the subtlety of a drunken kangaroo.

“One day it’s gonna go off” Margo quipped at him, not flustered at my quivering face.

“Never gone off yet. Not ‘less I means it to” he shouted back with stolen arrogance.

It was my first time meeting him and he put the snub of his gun straight into my face. I wondered how many people he had killed before breakfast.

I was his lawyer. And, if he would treat the man who was meant to defend him in a court of law in this manner, what would he do to others?

He frisked through my pockets and threw my phone down on the table.

“No recording devices. We’re good”

The gun slid from my mouth. As he wiped my saliva from the barrel, I sat back and began regaining my composure, the taste of gunpowder and metal still chafing on my tonsils. This was a complex brief, and I knew that he was barely going to co-operate.

He sat down opposite me, chair flipped in reverse. A tobacco pouch slowly opened on the table out of which he pulled a small bag of white powder. I pretended to pay no attention.

“Talk me through your alibi” I muttered, getting my paperwork in order.

“Well, it’s me and Margo. We were in a bar” he said, dancing around the truth as he drew lines on the table.

“What’s the name of the bar”

“Don’t think I recall. See, I had had a beer.”

He refined the line with the edge of a Mastercard that bore another man’s name.

“So, not somewhere you would usually be?”

“No”

This game of tennis was over. It was almost as though he wanted a jury to think him a liar.

“Mr. Jones, we need to construct a reasonable case that disproves the notion that you were anywhere near the Harrington Complex when the robbery occurred. Now, if we can’t actually put you anywhere else, regardless of whether you were there or not, the jury will put you at the scene of the crime in their imaginations. Work with me a little here. Tell me everything about this bar you were at. Where was it? What did you drink? Was it busy? Tell me about the bartender?”

He stood up and stretched, his limbs about to flail as though he were a contemporary dancer. He was the worst dancer I had ever seen. I was not buying his act. But somehow I needed to choreograph this ballet to convince twelve random strangers that this implausible character had not stolen a million in cash.

He rolled up a note and slid down the line, however, I pretended not to notice or even care.

“There is also the matter of the evidence that supposedly links Margo to the scene of the crime”

A silence swept through the room as his eyes danced in their sockets.

“Can’t prove nothin” Margo said, queuing up for a ride on the next line.

For a split second, I felt like explaining to Margo how proof works, particularly when there is evidence. But, the taste of the gun still lingered in my mouth and I was not in a rush to piss this paycheck off quite yet, even if they were both as guilty as sin.

Margo slid down the line and joined Mr.Jones on whatever planet he was currently on. These lost causes would be lucky if they ever got out to spend a dime of their missing millions. Now, I would walk out right now if this was any other case. If these were any other people, I would not hesitate in telling them to find a new lawyer. However, this was no normal case. I needed to make sure that they went down hard, and for the maximum sentence. especially him.

There was a time when Mr.Jones here had taught my wife to dance the tango, just before she went missing all those years ago. I could not provide concrete evidence, and it would not stand in a court of law. There was never a body. Never any leads. Just his name and a dog eaten hunch. But, now I saw him in the flesh, it turned out that he was the worst dancer I had ever seen.

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay