History Literature / DancingAztecs

** When Kenny and David catch Jerry in their apartment, trying to steal their statues, each of them believes that he's a guy the other one picked up for casual sex, and tries to pretend it's no big deal even as their clearly hurt by the implications.

* UnexpectedVirgin: Felicity Tower, much to her chagrin, was raised to be too focused and can't quite get relaxed enough to encourage anyone to go that far with her until the end. She eventually loses her virginity to [[spoiler: Pedro]] after a random encounter.

* ''Literature/DancingAztecs'' features a rare version where the characters actually do have time to come up with a cover story in advance, but still fail to do so (presumably due to being nervous) while ringing a doorbell to distract the house owners so that one of their relatives can rescue her husband (who got caught breaking and entering). One of the women ringing the doorbell says they are from the League of Women Voters and the other says they are raising funds for cystic fibrosis patients. Then, in a panic, they both switch to the story the other woman is telling. The householders fail to grasp what is happening, but are left utterly confused.

The story is well-known for capturing the feel of the seventies (mixing satire and faint social commentary), and for its constantly shifting style of narration, brilliantly capturing the mood of whatever character is receiving the most focus at the time.

* AbuseMistake: Frank and Floyd are mistaken for rapists twice when Open Sports Committee members Amanda Addelford and Felicity Tower catch them in their apartments trying ton to steal statues.

* BigApplesauce: New York is described in great detail by the author throughout the search. There are also multiple, page long tangents at the beginnings of different sections that go "Everybody in New York wants to be somebody." "Everybody in New York wants to get somewhere." And "Everybody in New York wants to be somebody", with long, humorous lists of examples describing the city and its people from multiple angles.

** Mel once sold a car to a relative of Wylie Cheshire and is recognized for it while robbing Wylie’s house and trying to talk his way out.

** Likewise, when Angela is rescuing Mel from the Cheshire's, she sends her sister (along with Frank and Floyd's cousin, one of their bridge partners) to the door to provide a distraction without working out the exact cover story they'll use, so one of them starts talking as if their collecting to fight cystic fibrosis, right as the other is saying that they represent the League of Woman Voters.

* HotForTeacher: Leory and Buhhub joined the Open Sports Committee because their teacher Ms. Tower was a member as well and they liked her. She doesn't reciprocate though.
* InformedJudaism: Mel Bernstein and Open Sports Committee Member Ben Cohen are Jewish and often bring it up with their thoughts or words but aren’t too observant.

* MalignedMixedMarriage: While Jenny and Eddie (two members of the Open Sports Committee) aren't married yet, their relationship has shades of this. Their pretty happy together, but Jenny is hiding their relationship form their parents and a cop they complain to about being robbed doesn't take them seriously due to them being a mixed race couple.

** F. Xavier White's wife is convinced he's in love with his assistant, although there's nothin in the text to support this.

* RoadTripPlot: Jerry spends most of his scenes in the second half of the novel following (and falling in love with) Bobbi after she leaves her husband and is driving out of the country.

* SelfDefenseless: When Frank and Floyd decide to kidnap Many after she recognizes Frank, she tries to mace them with a can of pepper spray that she's carried in her purse for six years in case anyone tries to mug her. After six years without being used, the mace can doesn't have enough pressurization to shoot anything more than a brief trickle of white foam.

* SingleMomStripper: Jerry's one night stand from the beginning of the book, Myra is a stripper and mentions having a kid whose staying with her mother.

** Bad Death Jonesburg is practically doing a jig when he captures Frank and Floyd during their search for the statues and believes that their FBI agents and he's important enough to warrant Federal surveillance.

* AngryBlackMan: Wylie Cheshire, a former NFL linebacker whose EstablishingCharacterMoment is irritably calling a man to help him fix his punching bag because he just punched it off the wall, and reflecting that he was imaging his brother in-law's face on it.

* AbuseMistake: Frank and Floyd are mistaken for rapists twice when Open Sports Committee members Amanda Addelford Ann’s Felicity Tower catch them in their apartments trying ton to steal statues.

A piece of ComicLiterature by Creator/DonaldWestlake. ''Dancing Aztecs'' follows 70's petty crook Jerry Mianelli, a small time crook who is hired to bring a crate of copies of the priceless Dancing Aztec statute out of an airport before they go through customs (one of the statues has been replaced with the real one). Due to receiving instructions in the Spanish alphabet, Jerry takes the wrong crate. Seeing the panicked reactions of his employers, he figures out what is going on and, aided by his three brothers-in-law, sets out to steal the real statute for himself. Unfortunately, it turns out that the sixteen statutes were given out as prizes to the Open Sports Committee, a minor Civil Rights group that recently succeeded in their goal of bringing a squash court to Harlem. Jerry and his partners, Jerry's clients, and Wally (a swimming pool salesman having an affair with one of Jerry's sisters who stumbles across their plan) all scramble to try and find and test (via breaking) the sixteen statues to find the real one.

* BananaRepublic: The country the statute comes from is an impoverished, South American military dictatorship.

* BestFriendsInLaw: Mel, Frank and Floyd are the husbands of Jerry's two sisters, and Frank's brother respectively, and the four get along pretty well, run various scams together and are equal partners in the statute hunt.

** While fleeing the house of Bud Beemis after checking his statute, Mel runs into Eddie and Jenny, who are just going on a road trip with their statues (which kept Frank and Floyd from finding them at their house), with the narration even calling this the kind of coincidence that no Hollywood movie would try to get away with.

** Both Jerry and Chuck figure out the whole switch with the statues (Jerry from the reactions of the people he delivers the wrong crate to, and Chuck due to his own knowledge of the statute from a teaching job, and due to realizing no one would bother stealing worthless copies) fairly quickly.

* GottaCatchThemAll: The sixteen statutes (one of which is priceless, while the others are copies it was smuggled into the country with), the owners of which are all developed characters, and naturally, the main characters don't find the statue anywhere near their first try.

* KnowWhenToFoldEm [[spoiler: Everyone but Chuck, Corella and Frank has given up interest in the statute by the epilogue, with Jerry and Bobbi being the first to do so, with Jerry noting that too many people were involved and demanding equal shares to really make it worth pursuing anymore]].

** When Kenny and David catch Jerry in their apartment, trying to steal their statutes, each of them believes that he's a guy the other one picked up for casual sex, and tries to pretend it's no big deal even as their clearly hurt by the implications.

* RageBreakingPoint: After having already been cheated by Corella throughout the statue hunt, and forced to go through some humiliations, Krassmier physically attacks him in a rage after [[spoiler: Bobbi's statute turns out to be a fake and no one can figure out which -if any- of the other fifteen statues as the real one]].

* SiblingTeam: Frank and his brother Floyd work together for most of the statute hunt.

* SuitWithVestedInterests: Victor Krassmier, a museum trustee (and Corella's partner) who "let himself" be negotiated into paying a high price for the statute when he was one of the ones selling it.

* WhamLine: The bit setting up the later InternalReveal, while discussing [[spoiler: Bobbi's statute]].
-> [[spoiler: To look at him, nobody would think he was at all valuable, and in fact he is not. He's the wrong one, he's made of plaster. What? That's right, he's a copy, he isn't gold at all, everybody's chasing the wrong statue. ''One'' of the sixteen statutes handed out to the Open Sports Committee is the real one, worth over a million dollars, bu not ''this'' one. This one is worth twenty bucks. Someone has made a mistake]].

* HappilyFailedSuicide: Maleficent White's suicide attempt is interrupted by the arrival of Frank and Floyd, causing her too faint. When she wakes up, she believes that [[spoiler: the damage to the statue they'd come to check]] is a divine sign not to kill herself and to commit to fixing her marriage with Xavier rather than wallowing about it.

* AbuseMistake: Frank and Floyd are mistaken for rapists twice when Open Sports Committee members Amanda Addelford catch them in their apartments after a statute.

* ArentYouGoingToRavishMe: Felicity Tower thinks this, a little (although she is fairly terrified) when Frank and Floyd arrive for her statute.
* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: Mel and Angela, after a night of talking things over once her affair is revealed.
* BananaRepublic: The country the statute comes from.

* BigFriendlyDog: Bud Beemis's pet Great Danes [[ThemeNaming Hamlet and Ophelia]].
* TheBrute: Earl, to Corella.
* ButtMonkey: Just about everyone besides Jerry and Bobbi, by the end of the novel.

* CampGay: Open Sports Committee members Kenny and David.
* TheCassandra: Bubbuh telling Leroy how he's convinced that he doesn't think all of the "celebrities" Leroy is recognizing at the funeral are the real people.

* CoattailRidingRelative: Wylie believes that his brother in-law married his sister just to get on the gravy train.

** Mel once sold a car to a relative of Wylie Cheshire and is recognized for it while robbing his house.

* DoYouWantToHaggle: Bud Beemis and Corella have a couple scenes of this over his statue.
* TheDriver: Earl, to Corella.
* ExactEavesdropping: Wally overhears about the statute while hiding from Mel (whose wife he was sleeping with) and then goes after it himself.

** Maleficent White, when contemplating suicide, makes sure to leave a note so that her husband and the woman she believes he's sleeping with won't be accused of murdering her, with the narration lamp shading how it's amazing that she didn't have to read a romantic tragedy novel to come to that epiphany.

* HonestyIsTheBestPolicy: Jerry telling Bobbi the truth turns out this way.

* InformedJudaism: Mel Bernstein and Open Sports Committee Member Ben Cohen.

* MistakenForGay: Pedro and his partners, due to having a hushed conversation in the lavatory together prior to the hijacking.

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Harlem gangster Jeremiah "Bad Death" Jonesburg.
* NobleBigot: Arguably Frank and Floyd.

* SiblingTeam: Frank and Floyd, for most of the statute hunt.

* TheStoner: Chuck Harwood. The appendix even calls him a pothead.

* ThoseTwoGuys: Leroy and Bubbuh.

** The reason Corella claims to be a mafia member.

* WealthyPhilanthropist: Open Sports Committee member Dorothy Marwood, who also throws some wild parties.

* WorthyOpponent: Bad Death Jonesburg claims to feel this way boat rival gangster Mole Mouth Dudnershaft (who he is rumored to have killed himself) and insists on throwing him a lavish funeral.

* BigFriendlyDog: Bud Beemis's pet Great Dane's [[ThemeNaming Hamlet and Ophelia]].

A piece of ComicLiterature by Creator/DonaldWestlake. ''Dancing Aztecs'' follows 70's petty crook Jerry Mianelli, a small time crook who is hired to bring a crate of copies of the priceless Dancing Aztec statute out of an airport before they go through customs (one of the statues has been replaced with the real one). Due to receiving instructions in the Spanish alphabet, Jerry takes the wrong crate. Seeing the panicked reactions of his employers, eh figures out what is going on and, aided by his three brothers-in-law, sets out to steal the real statute for himself. Unfortunately, it turns out that the sixteen statutes were given out as prizes to the Open Sports Committee, a minor Civil Rights group that recently succeeded in their goal of bringing a squash court to Harlem. Jerry and his partners, Jerry's clients, and Wally ( a swimming pool salesman having an affair with one of Jerry's sisters who stumbles across their plan) all scramble to try and find and test (via breaking) the sixteen statues to find the real one.

* BananaRepublic: The country the statute comes from is

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: There are sixteen members of the Open Sports Committee, four members of the "Mianelli mob", Corella and his two henchmen, Krassmier, Wally, the three South Americans, various family members and a whole lot of others.

* SocietyMarchesOn: Racial slurs are used a bit too casually by modern standards, and the level of airport security is obviously pre-911.

* BavarianFireDrill: Jerry's main source of income [[SocietyMarchesOn obviously pre-911]] involves just driving up into the airport, pretending to be a licensed freight hauler and being let on through. He then proceeds to rob various shipments, or pick up items that are being smuggled and can't go through customs.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dancing_aztecs.jpg]]

* DidNotThinkThisThrough: The three men selling the statue to Krassmier and Corella, threatened with exposure due to the delaying of their payment (once the statue is lost) decide to hijack a plane, fly to America, then sneak away and go find Krasmier. The plane they hijack doesn't have enough fuel to make it to America in one trip. Forcing them to stop and refuel several times, giving the media time to get interested in the case add ensuring a large neigh police presence to make just sneaking away into the crowd once the plane finally gets there impossible.

* GenreSavvy: Both Jerry and Chuck figure out the whole switch with the statues (Jerry form the reactions of the people he delivers the wrong crate to, and Chuck due to his own knowledge of the statute from a teaching job, and due to realizing no one would bother stealing worthless copies) fairly quickly. Maleficent White, when contemplating suicide, makes sure to leave a note so that her husband and the woman she believes he's sleeping with won't be accused of murdering her, with the narration lamp shading how it's amazing that she didn't have to read a romantic tragedy novel to come to that epiphany.

* FairForItsDay: The books isn't free of stereotypes, and Jerry, Frank and Floyd all use a few slurs, but the various minority characters are well-developed, and the racism is portrayed as relatively silly, unenlightened, and not really personal, with part of Jerry's character development coming from how the hunt exposes him to how these different kinds of people can live different, happy lives than the one he's taken for granted for so long. And then there's the fact that Westlake (who was of Irish descent) also pokes a little fun at Irish stereotypes in the book.

* TalkToTheFirst: Corella's enforcer decks the confused guy who gave Jerry the wrong instructions as he tries to figure out his mistake.

* WorthyOpponent: Bad Death Jonesburg claims to feel this way boat rival gangster Mole Mouth Dudnershaft (who he is rumored to have killed himself) and insists on throwing him a lavish funeral.
* YourCheatingHeart: Angela had an affair with Wally, swimming pool salesman, and Floyd obnoxiously hits on other women despite being married.

-> [[spoiler: To look at him, nobody would think he was at al valuable, and in face he is not. He's the wrong one, he's made of plaster. What? That's right,, he's a copy, he isn't gold at all, every body's chasing the wrong statue. ''One'' of the sixteen statutes handed out to the Open Sports Committee is the real one, worth over a million dollars, bu not ''this'' one. This one is worth twenty bucks. Someone has made a mistake]].

* FairForItsDay: The books isn't free of stereotypes, and Jerry, Frank and Floyd all use a few slurs, but the various minority characters are well-developed, and the racism is portrayed as relatively silly, unenlightened, and not really personal, with part of Jerry's character development coming from how the hunt exposes him to how these different kinds of people can live different, happy lives than the one he's taken for granted for so long.

* KnowWhenToFoldEm [[spoiler: Everyone but Chuck, Corella and Frank has given up interest in the statute by the epilogue]].

* AbuseMistake: Frank and Floyd are mistaken for rapists twice when women catch them in their apartments after a statute.

* BestFriendsInLaw: Mel, Frank and Floyd are the husbands of Jerry's two sisters, and Frank's brother respectively, and the four get along pretty well and are equal partners in the crime ring.

The story is well-known for capturing the feel of the seventies, and for its constantly shifting style of narration, brilliantly capturing the mood of whatever character is receiving the most focus at the time.

* HotForTeacher: Leory and Buhhub joined the Open Sports Committee because their teacher Ms. Tower was a member as well and they liked her.

* MostWritrsAreWriters: Bud has a business as a literary agent (although he doesn't do that much work to get the books published) but has been writing a book of his own, which various characters think is good after finding out about it.

* SingleMomStripper: Jerry's one night stand Myra.

* UnexpectedVirgin: Felicity Tower, much to her chagrin, was raised to be too focused and can't quite get relaxed enough to encourage anyone to go that far with her until the end.