Poor Butterfly (3 page)

“I’ll call,” I said, moving to the door.

Shelly grunted.

Before I left the Farraday Building, I went to the office of Jeremy Butler, poet and former pro wrestler, who had for years fought the blight of bums and dirt that threatened to return the Farraday to the jungle.

Jeremy still put in his hours, but since his marriage to Alice Pallas, who almost matched him in size and strength, the Farraday had ceased to be his child. Alice was, in fact, pregnant, a phenomenon of some discussion in the Farraday since Jeremy was sixty-one years old and Alice, though she would not reveal her age, was certainly well over forty-five. I had attempted during one recent phone call to inspire Anne with Alice’s example. Anne had hung up on me. Neither Alice nor Jeremy were in their office-apartment. It was still raining, but not hard, when I stepped out on Hoover and headed for No-Neck Arnie’s garage on Ninth, where I parked my Crosley.

I made a deal with Arnie for a tankful and a ten-gallon can of gas for the trunk. It was black market, but this was an emergency. The gas would get me to San Francisco and back. Arnie opened the hood and gave the Crosley the okay for the trip. I gave him ten bucks. That left me twenty-four bucks.

The rain had stopped but the sky was still gray and grumbling when I left Dash in the car while I bought a wool sports jacket with zipper pockets at Hy’s for Him, the Beverly Boulevard branch, for $4.99 plus tax. I picked up a pair of hot dogs from a stand shaped like a hot dog, ate one—dripping a minimum of mustard on the seat—and gave the other to Oash, who tore into it.

Ten minutes later I was parked in front of Mrs. Plaut’s boarding house on Heliotrope. I went up the steps to greet my diminutive ancient landlady, who sat on a wicker chair, pencil in hand, writing on a lined pad. I had no doubt that the tome on which she labored was the massive history of the Plaut clan. It had become my responsibility to read and critique the manuscript; Mrs. Plaut was under the impression that I was alternately an exterminator and an editor. It was easier to live with Mrs. Plaut’s delusions than to try to alter them. Mrs. Plaut had decided long before I met her not to accommodate herself to reality. All in all, she probably had the right idea. She looked up at me, down at Dash, and into the sky.

“Mr. Peelers,” she said. “Rain and cats.”

“Rain and cats,” I agreed, taking a few steps across the porch. My goal was simple. Get to my room. Pack my few belongings, say good-bye to Gunther Wherthman if he was home—or leave him a note—and then head for San Francisco with Dash.

“Inspiring,” she said with a deep sigh, tucking her pencil behind her ear, placing her pad of paper on the porch swing, and folding her hands on her flower-print dress. “I do not want your cat to eat my bird.”

“He won’t,” I said.

“If your cat eats my bird, or attempts an assault upon my bird, I shall be forced to take the Mister’s gun and demise him.” She looked down at Dash with a smile.

“We understand,” I said.

“No, Mr. Peelers,” she corrected. “
You
understand and it is
your
responsibility. The cat understands very little. The cat is only a bit less dim than the bird.”

“I’m going to San Francisco on business,” I said. “I’ll be gone for a while.”

She tilted her head toward me and adjusted her hearing aid.

“To San Francisco,” she repeated. “I was in San Francisco during the great earthquake. Mr. Spencer Tracy and Miss Jeanette MacDonald did not have the facts straight in their film. It was not Mrs. O’Leary’s cow that started the earthquake. Mrs. O’Leary’s cow started the fire in Chicago at an earlier time. But that is neither here nor there. Your Number Nine sugar stamp is good for three pounds till Tuesday. I assume you will have no use for it”

“I’ll give it to you,” I said, opening the door.

“I’ll take it,” she said. “And I will make Empire cookies or one of the cakes from Miss Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ new
Cross Creek Cookery
book, which Mr. Hill gave me for my birthday. Some people remember birthdays.”

“Mrs. Plaut” I said, letting Dash move in ahead of me. “Mister Wherthman and I gave you a new Aivin radio with headphones for your birthday.” Mrs. Plaut’s date of birth varied with her moods and memory. She had at least two birthdays each year, one in the spring and one at random times in the fall or winter. Her most recent birthday had been November 14, which, coincidentally, is my birthday.

“Be that as it may be. You will please take my recently finished chapter and place it in my hands upon your return with beneficial comments and criticism,” she said. “That will be your part of the bargain.”

I wasn’t sure what her part of the bargain was, but I nodded in agreement. I hurried up the stairs and moved past the room of Mr. Hill the postman, past my own room, to the room of Gunther Wherthman.

Gunther is a little person, three feet of Swiss dignity. He is my best friend. I knocked. No answer. Gunther usually worked in his room, translating a variety of languages into English. Dash and I went into my room. It wasn’t much but I liked it. I had a hot plate in the corner, a sink, a small refrigerator, some dishes, a table and three chairs, a rug, a bed with a purple blanket made by Mrs. Plaut that said G
OD
B
LESS
U
S
E
VERY
O
NE
in pink stitching, and a sofa with little doilies on the arms that I was afraid to touch. On my wall was a Beech-Nut Gum wall clock that was never more than five minutes off.

I wrote a note to Gunther telling him I was going and asking him to take care of Dash and wind the clock. I knew Gunther wouldn’t mind. Dash reminded him of a cat he’d had as a kid in Bern.

I packed what I had clean, which wasn’t much. My one suit was slightly crumpled and not too dirty. I had a white shirt I’d only worn twice since the last washing, and three ties, all dark, one with a scorch mark on it that might be taken for a Scottish crest by a drunk.

I gave Dash some water. Gunther had told me not to give Dash milk. Milk, he said, was bad for cats. Gunther was usually right. I supposed it was some truth known only to Swiss midgets. I don’t know what milk does to people, but I had enough left in the refrigerator for a bowl of cereal. I pulled out what was left of my Kellogg’s Variety Package. It was a toss-up between Pep and Krumbles. I took the Krumbles.

I considered getting the mattress off the floor and back on the bed. I can’t sleep in a real bed. Too soft. Bad back. I asked Dash’s advice. He had none. I pulled the mattress up on the bed and checked the clock on the wall. It was getting late.

On my way out, I gave Mrs. Plaut my sugar stamps and she gave me her manuscript chapter, reminding me to guard it with my life.

“The chapter deals with my Cousin Pyle and his ilk,” she said. “Therefore, it is especially precious.”

She also warned me about loose women, cold weather, and something that sounded like “Crolly Beans.”

The sun came through the clouds low on the horizon as I hit Sunset and headed for the highway and San Francisco.

E
ven under a bright morning sun, the San Francisco Metropolitan Opera Building looked like a tired old stone monster with sagging shoulders. It was in the wrong place, outside of downtown, within sight of the shipyards, tucked between a rotting warehouse that looked like a windowless airplane hangar and an empty lot with a peeling black-on-white sign yawning that this choice property was available for immediate development.

I parked behind a black limo in front of the building. A chauffeur about my size in gray uniform leaned against the car, his cap on the hood. He was reading a dime detective magazine, which now cost fifteen cents. A couple of men and a woman in overalls were patching holes in the dozen stone steps that led up to the main door of the building. They tried to pay no attention to the two old women and a man on the sidewalk carrying signs and walking patrol.

I read the signs as I moved toward the Opera. It was easy; all three turned their signs toward me. The closest, held up by an ancient rickety woman with a maniacal grin, read:
NO WAGNER, NO JAP OPERA.
The second old woman’s sign read:
NO SYMPATHY, NO QUARTER FOR THE JAPANESE.
The old man, in full suit and tie, a few wisps of unruly white hair dangling down his furrowed forehead, held up the final sign, which read:
BUTTERFLY UNDERMINES AMERICAN RESOLVE. KILL JAPS, DON’T LOVE THEM.

“Sir,” said the old man, “are you an American?”

“I’m a private detective,” I replied, moving past them and up a few steps.

“That is an evasion,” he shouted. “Reverend Souvaine says there is no room for evasion. Our nation is at war with a godless enemy.”

“Amen,” chorused the old lady picketers.

I went up the rest of the steps to the main door to the building. I stood for a few seconds trying to follow the twists and curls of the design covering the recently repainted wooden doors, then I went in.

I’d spent the night in one of the shacks they called motels out on the Pacific Coast Highway. Hundreds of these motels with cute names had sprung up on California highways and back roads since the war had started up. The second little pig had built a more sturdy home than the cabin of the California Palms Motor Hotel I had slept in the night before. Even with the windows closed and my radio playing Horace Heidt, I couldn’t drown out the trio battling in Spanish in the next cabin. They fought till about three in the morning. Horace Heidt had long since put his baton away, and I had taken a shower in brownish, not very hot water.

So, I’d had little sleep. When I’d shaved a few hours ago, I was reasonably satisfied. My hair was reasonably short, with just enough gray in the sideburns to suggest I had been around long enough to know what I was doing. The battered nose and worn face indicated my knowledge of life hadn’t come from books, and my new jacket with the zippered pockets suggested that, while I wasn’t in on the latest styles, I could afford to keep out the Northern California cold.

I could tell as soon as I entered the dark entrance hall that the Opera building was bigger than it looked from the outside. I stood, letting my eyes adjust to the sudden change in light. Somewhere deep inside, far away, a woman’s voice echoed in song. An orchestra brassed behind her.

“Like the sound of a finger run gently around the rim of a delicate English wineglass containing a perfect cabernet,” a deep voice said in the darkness.

My eyes were adjusting, but I didn’t look around for him. Instead I examined the walls, the ceiling that went up four stories. There were windows, high on the wall. They were papered over but light was coming through. I began to make out corners.

“Nice voice,” I said.

“Hers or mine?” he said, stepping out of a deep shadow.

He was big, rather overweight, maybe my age. His dark hair was long, almost to his collar, and combed straight back. He was wearing a pair of dark pants and a dark sports jacket. A yellow polo shirt added color to his outfit. As he stepped closer, his hands clasped together as if he were about to launch into a solo, I could see his dark, smooth face. The little black beard and thin mustache made him look a little like a pudgy Mandrake the Magician. There was something familiar about the face.

“You recognize me perhaps?” he said.

“You’ve been in the movies,” I said, putting my hands in the unzipped side pockets of my new jacket.

“
A
movie,” he said, stepping still closer, “and …
shhh
.” He held a ringed finger up to his lips to stop our conversation as the faraway voice of the woman rose, quivered. A smile crossed the man’s face. His eyes closed. His head weaved. He was a ham. The aria ended. The woman’s voice stopped.

“A movie,” he resumed. “I’ll sing again.”

“You will?”

He chuckled. “
I’ll Sing Again
was the name of the movie. I am Giancarlo Lunaire. Or at least I was Giancarlo Lunaire for twelve seasons, fourteen albums, and one very disastrous movie. Now I am, as I was born, John Lundeen.”

He put out a hand and I shook it. I felt the metal of his rings cold against my fingers and saw the even line of large white teeth.

“You are, I am assuming, Toby Peters?”

“I am.”

“Good, I wouldn’t like to think I was wasting all this charm on a building contractor. Come. The Maestro is expecting you at …”

“… ten,” I supplied.

“Then we have a few minutes,” he said, an arm around my shoulder, leading me down a corridor. He guided me to a wall and threw a switch. The place lit up. It looked like someone who had seen too many movies set in France before the Revolution had decorated it with vanilla frosting.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Lundeen said, sweeping his hand to invite me to take the whole thing in.

“Yeah,” I said.

He led me down the corridor and pointed out curls and designs, little plaster figures nestled in niches papered with cherubs, and bare-breasted women carrying urns on their shoulders.

“This magnificent edifice was created by Samuel Varney Keel in the 1860s and seriously damaged in the 1906 earthquake. It was used as a storage warehouse until I convinced a group of patrons to reopen it. See those busts up there? The one with the broken nose?”