Poor Butterfly (13 page)

“Deacon Ortiz was very forgiving,” I said, “but he was so elated at my sudden conversion that he fell over a lion.”

“Cryptic,” said Souvaine. “You have a gift for the parable.”

“Get your ass away from my car or you’re dog meat,” I snarled, reaching for the handle.

Souvaine smiled sweetly, put his hands up, and moved away from the Crosley.

“I’m sure that if you let yourself listen to us, you’d find our cause just,” he said. “Let me help you. Let us help you.”

“Okay,” I said, getting into the Crosley and opening the window. “How do I get to Las Lindas Road?”

“You are within a mile of it,” he said with a put-upon smile. “Back that way three blocks and then right for another four or five blocks.”

“Thanks,” I said, turning the ignition key. “You don’t seem particularly concerned about Deacon Ortiz and the lion.”

“The Lord will do what the Lord will do,” he said.

As I turned the car around, I heard the wail of an ambulance heading toward the Opera.

I
picked up an armed forces relay of one of last summer’s Yankees—White Sox games on the radio. I didn’t remember the game. I urged the Crosley forward and tried not to think. DiMaggio hit a double to drive in two runs in the eighth, and the announcer was going wild.

I got lost, or the Reverend Souvaine had given me bum directions.

I drove through streets that smelled of bodies, gasoline, and Mexican food. If your nose was good, you could also smell the grease of frying kielbasa. The smell seemed right for the people of the street, mostly dark-skinned and Latin but with a few older, round pink-white faces and heavy bodies. I passed stores with signs in Polish, including Slotvony’s Meat Shop, which sported a white sign in crayon announcing that blood soup was on sale today.

Finally, I blundered onto Las Lindas, spotted the address, and was looking for a place to park when a figure staggered out in front of my Crosley. I was going slow, the car was small, and his brain was parked on another planet or he would have been dead when I hit him. I pulled in next to a fire plug, pulled my .38 out of the glove compartment, stuck it in my pocket, got out, and moved over to the guy I had hit.

“You okay?” I asked, helping him up.

He smelled fragrant, but he was thin and easy to lift.

“I’m disoriented,” the guy said.

“I know how you feel,” I said, fishing into my pocket, one-handing my wallet and pulling out a bill. It was a five. What the hell. I put it into his hand.

“Been disoriented since ’36,” the street guy said. “How long is that?”

“Six years,” I said.

The guy shook his head and reached down for a frayed blue shoulder bag.

“I’m straight on the time of day,” he said, his hands still trembling. “But damned if I can get the years straight. You gave me a bill?”

“A five,” I said.

“You don’t look so good yourself,” he said, trying to focus on me.

Somewhere down the alley some kids laughed, not at us but at some joke behind a fence.

“Deacon Ortiz tried to kill me,” I said.

“Never trust the church,” he said, sitting on the curb and looking at the five-dollar bill.

“Sure you’re okay?” I asked.

“I’m alive,” the guy said. “And I’ve got five bucks. Sometimes when you don’t expect it, life is good for a few hours.”

“Amen,” I said.

“Wait” he said as I turned to walk toward Lorna’s address. “I know you.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Your name’s Peters,” he said. “Before I lost touch, I worked at Santiago’s gas station in Encino.”

“Farkas?” I asked. “I was thinking about you the other day.”

“Small world,” he said, looking up at the sky. “Few minutes ago I see Samson and now you. Remember Santiago?”

I remembered him but I didn’t want to think about it now. I’d picked up a few dollars riding shotgun at Santiago’s Shell Station in Encino. Things were relatively quiet on the ten-to-midnight shift one night. A fat couple walking down the street pushing a grocery cart they’d stolen from Ralph’s started to fight about who-knows-what. I watched them as I sat sipping Pepsi on a rickety lawn chair in front of Santiago’s station, listening to “Amos ‘n’ Andy” on the radio while a wiry ex-con named Snick Farkas pumped gas. Farkas was the guy who loved classical music. Said he’d memorized twenty operas in prison. Volunteered to sing them to anyone who would listen. No one would listen.

Santiago, who was over seventy and had a bad leg, had once taken a few shots at a kid who had pulled the gas-stealing trick twice. The shots had taken out windows in the stores across the street and almost hit an alderman named Blankenship, who was walking down the street with a woman he later claimed was his cousin but who everyone knew was a prostitute from San Diego. Santiago decided to call it quits, but his brother, a junior partner in the station, had talked him into trying again. Santiago had grumbled but decided to make the final try.

But things got worse. There was an increase in hold-ups of the station by frustrated kids, pre-Zoot-suiters who counted on free gas from Santiago. There had been four hold-ups in one month, all on the night shift when Santiago wasn’t there. That was when I had been hired.

The first week I was on the job Santiago insisted on hiding inside the station with his shotgun. He looked like a grizzled Mexican Gabby Hayes, right down to the game leg. His greasy Shell baseball cap cut into the illusion but didn’t kill it. Farkas pumped gas, his hooded eyes revealing nothing. I sat in the lawn chair, wearing my .38 and a gray sweatshirt over my not-so-good jeans.

About eleven that night a car full of kids pulled into the station in a 1933 Chevy. Two boys no older than fifteen got out of the car. A girl in the back seat was laughing and holding her sides. One of the boys, who was holding a sawed-off rifle, told her to shut up.

Farkas stood calmly, wiping oil from his hands. Later he told me that he was one-quarter Apache and his grandfather had taught him that he was part of the Great Oneness and would join it one day. Farkas had led a wild life before the truth of his grandfather’s words hit him, but once they did, he began to prepare himself for the Great Oneness. The night those two boys came out of the car seemed, to Farkas, a decent enough night to die.

Before either boy could say anything, Santiago, standing inside the station, blew out his own front window with a blast that rained glass on me, Farkas, the Chevy, and the robbers.

“Loco shit!” the kid with the rifle had said, ducking behind the car.

The other kid—skinny, with the eyes of someone who loved the Lady of White Powder—blinked. His cheek was bleeding from flying glass. The butt of a pistol showed from his pocket, but he didn’t reach for it.

My .38 was out before the shards had stopped raining on the gas pumps. The girl in the car wasn’t laughing anymore. The kid behind the car with the shotgun was cursing. The skinny kid in front of the car stood stunned and looked at Farkas. I looked at Farkas, too, as I held my gun on the kid. Farkas smiled a smile that said “Give it up” and I could see that the kid was giving it up, but Santiago came hobbling through his broken window. The kid with the shotgun stood up, aimed at no one in particular, and fired. The shot took out pump number two. Santiago was gurgling with joy as he fired in return, taking out the front window of the Chevy.

The kid with the shotgun jumped into the car, and I nodded at the skinny kid to climb in with him. As he reached for the rear door, the girl inside screamed and the car burned rubber and took off. The skinny kid stood wide-eyed in the driveway of Santiago’s station and watched his partner drive off. Santiago chortled with pleasure and aimed at the kid.

“Go for your gun,
ladron
,” Santiago challenged.

The dazed skinny kid looked at the mad old man in the Shell baseball cap and started to reach for the gun in his pocket.

“Hold it,” I shouted and the kid stopped.

Santiago cursed.

“I want to kill somebody,” the old man hissed. “I am unfulfilled.”

“Go home and play with yourself,” I said. To the kid I said, “Take off.”

The skinny kid scuttled off in the same direction his friend had driven.

I remembered that night, all right. I had made the mistake of telling Anne about it. I’d come home on top of the world and twenty bucks richer, ready to buy her flowers and a damn-the-Depression dinner at Chasen’s. I told her the story and she packed and said it was the end.

“I remember, Farkas,” I said. “Thanks for the memory. If the cops show up and you’re still sitting here, send them up to apartment six-D. Got it?”

“Got it,” he said, holding up the five. “They’re doin’ an opera somewhere near here sometime soon. Maybe I can find it and buy a ticket. Today’s my lucky day. Come back any time and run me over. We’ll talk about old times.”

“Old times,” I said, thinking of Anne.

I looked up at Lorna Bartholomew’s building. It was a six-story, trying to bring up the neighborhood and failing.

I stepped into the lobby foyer. An old man in a ratty gray sweater and a little badge sat on a bridge chair reading the latest issue of
Atlantic Monthly
. He didn’t look up.

“Pardon me,” I said.

He looked up.

“Bob La Follette’s worrying about prohibition making a comeback,” he said, pointing to the article on his lap. “Can you imagine with what’s going on in the world someone worrying about people drinking?”

“No,” I said. “I’d like to see Miss Bartholomew.”

“Name?” he asked.

“Peters.”

The old man nodded. I looked out into the street. No cops yet Farkas was sitting there admiring the five I had given him and remembering the good old days in Los Angeles.

“First name?”

“Toby.”

“Check,” he said, and picked up the house phone. “Peters here.”

He hung up, reached under the wooden counter, and the inner lobby door clicked open.

“Six-D,” he said. “She said you can come on up.” The old man sank back in his seat with his magazine.

The lobby was full of glass and mirror, with a cracked white tile floor. No people. The inner lobby door clicked closed behind me, and I headed for the elevator. It was waiting and open. I got in and pushed six, thinking the place was a lot like the one Anne had moved into after walking out on me.

When the elevator opened, I thought I heard a door close, but no one was in the hallway. Six-D was halfway down the corridor to my left. All the doors I passed were the same except for 6-D, which was open. I hoped Lorna had simply opened it when the old doorman called, but she wasn’t standing just inside waiting for me. I expected Miguelito to come yapping out of the shadows and go for my throat, but there was nothing.

“Lorna?” I called, stepping into darkness.

My foot hit something that went skittering across the floor.

I pulled out my :38 and got out of the light from the door.

“Lorna?” I called out again, more softly.

There was no answer. I reached for a light switch on the wall against which I was leaning, found none, and moved back to the open apartment door, there I found a switch, hit it, and turned, gun leveled into the room.

I saw that in the darkness I had kicked a lamp. The lamp didn’t belong on the floor. Neither did most of what was on the floor in the alcove and in the living room beyond. The place was a mess. A mad baboon had been let loose, or the Stanford football team had had a party. The sofa was turned over and ripped open. The radio was smashed and on its back on the floor. Two matching stuffed chairs no longer matched and probably wouldn’t be worth fixing. Even the carpeting had been torn up, but nothing had been torn up as much as Lorna, who lay sprawled on the floor.

“Lorna,” I whispered, and I thought she moved, but I didn’t go to her. Someone had answered the doorman’s call and it hadn’t been her. Whoever it was might still be here. I moved to the windows and threw open the drapes, letting in sunlight.

Then I kicked open the bathroom door. This room had been attacked, too. Medicine cabinet open, broken bottles on the floor. And the bedroom had been chewed up by a giant lawn mower while the kitchen was a swamp of food, drink, and ice cubes on the floor. The refrigerator door was open and everything, even the box of Arm and Hammer, had been pulled out and thrown to the floor or in the general direction of the sink. A dog-food dish was upside down in a corner.

Sure now that no one was there but me, I closed the front door and hurried to Lorna. I kneeled next to her and touched her face. It was cool and turning white.

“Lorna?” I asked, but the question was really
Are you alive?
Lorna’s eyelids fluttered open. She looked to her left like a disoriented newborn baby and then up at me. A trickle of blood meandered from the corner of her red mouth down her chin.

Her mouth moved, forming a word but no sound.

“He?” I asked.

Her eyes fluttered, and she looked like she was going back into her sleep.

“I’ve gotta call an ambulance.”

She grasped my hand, her fingernails cutting into the flesh of my palms. She had more to say.