Walter Kist & the Seven Whorls Chapter 1

There are women who would kill for love. And there are women who would die for it. I was neither. At least, not until I met Walter Kist.

Stepping out of a cab in front of the Devonshire Hotel on one of those sunny saltwater-breezy Vancouver days, I almost tripped over a guy tying up his shoe. As I caught my balance, he stood up and I noticed his camera. It looked like a child’s toy – black plastic with a strip of turquoise on the top. This, plus his mismatched socks - one argyle, one red – gave the impression of an endearing if overgrown child.

That was Walter Kist.

Like a good boy scout he apologized and scurried to open the hotel door for me. Turning to thank him I caught a glimpse of his eyes beneath the brim of his baseball cap. Dark and mysterious, they flickered with the possibility of either great deeds or great misdeeds, and I almost forgot my weekly rendezvous in Room 712.

But I unlocked my gaze and pushed on through the lobby, for this girl was out to purchase a mansion in Shaughnessy Heights, one trick at a time, and no boy-man with dreamy brown eyes flecked with gold was going to stop me.

Had I known he was spying on me that day I would’ve smashed his little remote-controlled camera and kicked his sorry ass all the way to Osoyoos with my silver disco pumps.

As it turned out, Walter Kist became a bright ray in the dark days of my life. Like the purple light of a summer night in Spain or the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, Kist beamed pure hope and glorious inspiration. He was also the only man I would ever take a bullet for.

When a client hit me, I saw not only stars but also the light: no mansion was worth taking a beating for, not even the one I’d had my eye on. Dubbed the Mae West in the 30s because of its perfectly symmetrical double domes, it had eighteen rooms, six bathrooms, an elevator, and beautiful stained glass windows whose colours barely rivaled the fresh bruises on my face.

Letting my dreams of owning the Mae West evaporate like so much cheap perfume, I dabbed makeup over my rainbow flesh and went looking for a regular job. March‘81 came in like Fred Astaire in his shiny black tap shoes: I got accepted into the training program at The Deermont Academy of Ballroom Dance.

From hooker to hoofer in four easy weeks.

The Miss Jean Brodie of the cha cha set, Miss Abigail Deermont stood five three in stacked heels and bouffant do. Four new trainees, including me, sat before her on a Monday morning, day one of our classes in bronze dance steps and tarnished sales techniques.

“The Cincinnati Six may sound like a gang of outlaws from the Old West,” Miss D chuckled, “but it’s actually a six-step strategy designed to help you sell Lifetime Memberships at the Academy. Who can tell me where the technique was developed?”

Next to me, a former insurance salesman in a powder blue polyester suit furiously flipped through his Academy manual. In front of me, an ex beauty queen who’d chosen the dance pseudonym of Miss Toy, picked at her nail polish. Miss Deermont’s crème de la crème.

“Cincinnati?” I volunteered.

“Correct!” Miss D swirled her arms before us in arabesque abandon. “You will all become Cincinnati Sixers! Every adult who puts a ballot in the box outside our door wins six lessons.” Her eyes glowed.

“And it will be your job to teach basic bronze steps while also pumping those lucky winners for information.” Her nostrils flared like a flamenco dancer’s.

“You have five classes to find out everything about your charges’ personal lives, then on the sixth…” We waited with bated breath. “You move in for the kill.”

Miss Toy looked up from her nails and the baby-blue suit started biting his.

“With the Cin Six, you will sell lifetime memberships to lonely abject souls who long for the flight of Terpsichore!” Miss D swooped her arms as if for take off. “It costs just seven thousand dollars for a lifetime of dance lessons and Friday night socials at the Academy.” Her wings fluttered to her side and settled. “And you get five percent.”

The reality of my new job hit me like a ton of rumba shoes, and my former profession beckoned like a tart in the shadows on Davie Street. But with the five percent cash incentive and one hundred percent no bruise stimulus, I had reason enough to stick it out.

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Thank you to the fabulous actors who appear in this chapter: Aaron Schwartz, Lynn Fairweather, Anna May Henry. - MW