Poor Butterfly tp-15

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Poor Butterfly tp-15 Page 5

by Stuart M. Kaminsky


  Something moved behind the closed stall, something alive. The stall door went down to the floor. Hell, it was probably just a plastered plasterer taking a … I looked for something to bash him with, but there wasn’t much in the way of choice. I picked up a piece of broken wood with a semi-serious jagged end. If I unleashed a vampire, maybe I could draw some blood. I took a breath, stepped in front of the door, and kicked it open. Something moved inside, a flicker. The door banged closed and slowly started to creak open again. A large, dark butterfly fluttered past me and drifted past the single open bulb.

  I pulled myself together and went back out into the hallway. Vera was handing a glass of water to Lorna. Raymond was looking at me, one hand plunged deep in his pocket, the other holding an empty and not particularly clean-looking glass. Lundeen was seated next to Lorna.

  “Nothing in there,” I said, “but a butterfly.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Lundeen said, turning around. “Someone is trying to frighten us.

  “Doing a good job, too, from the looks of all of you,” Raymond retorted. “Got you shadow-scared. I’ve been alone in this building every day for the past thirty-four years and never saw nor heard anything except Milo, the Furs, and the Ghost till you people came.”

  “Milo and the Furs?” Lundeen asked.

  “Ghost?” asked Vera.

  “Snakes, rats,” Raymond explained. “Ghost been here since the place closed. Doesn’t bother anyone.”

  “Who paid you all those years?” I asked.

  “Providence,” said Raymond, winking at me and holding up the empty glass in a toast.

  “Providence hell,” bellowed Lundeen. “I thought the real estate company paid you. But when I have the final inventory I’m sure it will confirm … You’ve sold off all the paintings, every piece of sculpture, every vase, every chair, every …”

  “Plenty left,” Raymond said. “It was all ugly as a horse’s heinie anyway.”

  “You are fired,” Lundeen cried.

  “Ha,” said Raymond. “I repeat, ha. I could damn well say it all night and into next Tuesday. I don’t work for you. Kick me out and you won’t be able to find anything in this place. I’ve got the keys and the know-how.”

  “Lundeen,” I said. “Raymond’s not the problem.”

  “I’m getting out of here,” said Lorna, standing up.

  “I’ll take you home, Lorna,” Vera said, giving me an apologetic smile.

  I turned to the old caretaker. “Raymond, will you please escort the ladies to the front door.”

  “Certainly.” Raymond handed Lundeen the empty glass and took Lorna’s arm. Miguelito let out a single yap in Raymond’s direction and then settled back in Lorna Bartholomew’s arms. “All you gotta do is ask polite.”

  Lundeen sat deflated. I moved to the railing and watched Vera and Raymond help Lorna down.

  “Erik,” Lundeen sighed. “I tell you, Peters, the world is populated by lunatics. This war breeds fanatics. You’d think people would have enough to worry about without fixing their delusions on an opera. Why isn’t he …”

  “… or they,” I corrected.

  “Or they,” he agreed, “in the army or navy, fighting the Japanese, if they are so … I’m sorry. How would you know?”

  “Maybe I’ll find out,” I said. “Round up everyone you can find in the building and bring them back into the theater. Ask them where they’ve been for the past fifteen minutes. Ask them for the names of anyone who was with them or saw them during the last fifteen minutes.”

  “You mean workmen? Contracting people? Pull them off work? Stop construction? Are you crazy?”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I don’t know,” I answered.

  Lundeen shook his head and smiled, the smile of a martyr.

  “All right,” he said, getting up.

  I watched him sway down the stairway, then I headed back into the men’s room. I took two minutes to search it. No doors, no panels, nothing. Back in the hall I thought I heard a sound. I headed across the hallway to one of the doors marked. MEZZAMINE. I opened it and stepped into darkness and the smell of mildewed carpet.

  The theater was quiet. The door closed behind me. I stood, trying not to move, listening.

  “Poor butterfly.” The man’s voice came from above, echoing.

  I listened quietly and when he finished the song with, “you just must die, poor butterfly,” I applauded slowly, without enthusiasm.

  “You jest,” came the voice.

  “When I can,” I called out. “Did you kill the plasterer?”

  “His name was Wyler,” the voice said. “To you he was just a plasterer, but he and I were very close for a brief period.”

  “You killed him,” I said, trying to get a fix on the voice.

  “I gave him the opportunity to see if he could fly,” said the voice. “He was unable to do so. Close the doors or the butterfly dies. It would be a shame for our beautiful diva butterfly to have such a short life.”

  “Buddy,” I said, “you are a ham.”

  “On wry,” he called back and laughed.

  I wasn’t sure I got the joke. I wouldn’t have laughed even if I had.

  “I’m on a daily retainer,” I said. “Give me a run for my money so I can make it worthwhile. Don’t make it too easy to find you.”

  “We won’t,” he said. “You’ll see me soon. Ah, wait. A present before I take my leave.”

  Something whirled from the darkness under the boxes across from where I was standing. Whatever it was flew toward me. I moved to my right and the thing hit the wall of the box and clattered to the floor. I got up and looked over the railing. I thought I saw a figure, black against black. I know I heard a door close.

  I considered getting out, down the stairs and after him, but I knew I had no chance. Instead I reached down and picked up the ax Erik had thrown. The light was bad, but even in the dimness I could see there was something wet and sticky on the blade. I had a few guesses about what it might be.

  5

  It was late afternoon when Lundeen and I and a young woman named Gwen, who seemed to have no lips and eyes twice the size of normal behind thick glasses, put together the notes on where everyone in the building said they were when Lorna Bartholomew was attacked. Gwen, in addition to having no lips, had no breasts and no sense of humor. She was, Lundeen explained, a volunteer, a graduate student of music history at the University of San Francisco. Gwen was wearing a green dress with puffy shoulders and ruffles around the collar.

  We were sitting in Lundeen’s office at his conference table. Lundeen needed a shave and a new tie or a thinner neck. He kept shaking his head at the pile of papers. I had already called Los Angeles and told my “team of agents” to get to San Francisco by the next morning.

  “Gwen,” I said.

  She looked up from putting the scraps of paper into neat piles.

  “Yes,” she said, giving me her full attention.

  “You know what to do?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m checking alibis. And you want me to see who, if anyone, doesn’t have reasonable corroboration, an alibi, for the period in question. You’d like me to do the same for the period in which Mr. Wyler the plasterer died. In that case, I am to determine who was at the rehearsal.”

  Lundeen looked at the girl hopefully. Perhaps she would solve all of his problems. The police had certainly failed to solve any of them.

  After Erik had heaved the ax, Lundeen had insisted on calling the authorities. About twenty minutes later a pair of cops were ushered by Raymond into the mezzanine box where Lundeen and I were waiting. On the main floor, about forty people were gathered, waiting to find out why they had been called. The workers weren’t complaining. They were paid by the hour. Some of the opera staff were grumbling. There were no musicians around. Lundeen assured me there was no way he could have kept any musicians sitting around waiting for the police.

  The two cops asked who we were, where they could get more light, and why the au
ditorium was full of people. Raymond shuffled off to turn on the lights.

  “Old guy’s nuts,” said one of the cops, who identified himself-when urged by me-as Sergeant Preston. Sergeant Preston had a craggy face and a thin body with a little cop gut. He wore a suit and the suit was clean, but it should have been turned in to the Salvation Army for rags.

  “Nuts,” agreed his partner, a big man with a constant smile and rapidly thinning blond hair who introduced himself as Inspector Sunset. Sunset’s suit had a few years left in it.

  They listened to our story. Sunset took a few notes, enough to keep us from claiming he wasn’t paying attention. Preston listened but with no real interest. He was looking over the railing at the people below. After he’d listened to our story, Sunset looked down at the ax.

  “Never been to an opera,” Preston said.

  “I have,” said Sunset. “On the carrier Forrestall. Don’t remember what it was. We thought it was going to be scary, about bats. Fat guy sang in German.”

  “That fat guy was me,” Lundeen said. He had been sitting on one of the plush but dusty chairs. Now he stood.

  Sunset looked over at him as the full lights went on.

  “Fact?” he said.

  “You can put it in your notebook,” Lundeen assured him. “And I weighed no more than two-twenty when I gave that performance.”

  “None of my business,” said Sunset with a smile, looking down at the ax and seeing it now in better light. “Looks like blood all right.”

  “Take it in for Grunding,” said Preston, still looking over the railing. “And get their statements. Standing here looking down makes you want to give a speech. You know, I did a little singing when I was just starting on the force?”

  “Yeah?” said Sunset with genuine interest.

  “Crooning,” said Preston, turning from the railing, looking at Lundeen. “No opera.”

  “No opera?” Lundeen said. “Pity. Then we have less in common than I had hoped.”

  “Just for the police shows, kids-even got on the radio once.”

  “You think we might talk about murder, attempted murder?” I interjected.

  Preston gave me a sour look and glanced at Sunset, who shrugged as he picked up the ax with a handkerchief.

  “A man named Wyler was killed here a few days ago,” I said. “And today someone tried to kill me with that and strangle Leopold Stokowski’s assistant, Lorna Bartholomew.”

  “So you said,” sighed Preston. “Voices, butterflies, phantoms. I saw the movie. Claude Rains, Nelson Eddy. Now that’s a great singer.”

  Lundeen groaned. “Nelson Eddy is a flat baritone,” he said.

  “Sounds fine to me and the wife,” said Preston.

  “You and your wife …” Lundeen started, but I interrupted him.

  “You have witnesses, Sergeant,” I said, knowing where we would get before we got there.

  “Witnesses,” said Preston, moving back to the railing. “The plasterer fell. No one was there. The Bartholomew woman might be having her period or something and you, you’re getting paid to hear voices and find murder weapons. Five will get you ten that’s not human blood on that ax.”

  “It’s not,” Sunset agreed.

  “Show business people have imaginations,” said Preston. “I’ll give you that.”

  That was about the time Raymond returned and asked, “I miss anything?”

  “The 1930s,” I said.

  Preston chuckled. “You got a sense of humor,” he said. “I like that Let’s go, Al.”

  “Let’s … that’s it?” asked Lundeen, looking at me. “What about protection? Investiga … Why don’t you go down and question everyone?”

  “Not the way it works,” said Preston, nodding to Sunset to head for the door. “Put a little evidence together here. A body or two with a bullet or knife wound and we’ll talk business. You,” he continued, pointing at me. “Come with us for a second.”

  I followed the two cops out into the hall. Raymond started to follow but was waved back in by Sunset, who closed the door with one hand and held the ax with the other. He didn’t seem to be worrying about blood or fingerprints anymore. He lifted the ax up like a bat and began to swing at pitches from a Yankee down the hall. Preston came close enough so that I could smell his Sen-Sen.

  “Peters,” he said. “Cut the shit. Tell these people to get their publicity some other way besides finding phantoms.”

  “No shit here, Preston,” I said.

  “We wouldn’t even be here if the Captain wasn’t afraid Stokowski would raise a stink,” he said. “And I don’t want to come back. We understand each other?”

  “You want a murder,” I said.

  “It helps,” he agreed. “Aren’t you a little old for this kind of garbage?”

  “Aren’t you a little old to still be a sergeant?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Wife thinks it’s the name. You know, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. Thinks the Captain won’t put me in for a promotion because he likes making the joke. I don’t contradict the wife, but the truth is I’m a mediocre cop waiting to collect pension. That’s just between you and me, right? I don’t want trouble.”

  “Picked a strange profession,” I said.

  “Poor vocational counseling,” he agreed. “Sunset should have been a ballplayer.”

  We looked at the smiling Sunset wacking an imaginary homer into the right-field stands.

  “But he took shrapnel in his shoulder back in the Battle of Midway,” Preston whispered. “He’ll just have to settle for being a cop.”

  “Look,” Sunset said. “Mel Ott.” He set his feet wide apart and held the ax up high.

  “You see where Branch Rickey just announced that the Dodgers were paying the Phils thirty thousand for Rube Melton? I could hit Melton. I could hit any right-hander last year.”

  “I know,” Preston said. “Let’s get back to work. Crime is running rampant in the streets.”

  That had been three hours earlier. They left, Lundeen sighed, then found Gwen and went down to interview the company and workmen.

  It was a little after four when I left Lundeen, assuring him that the opera company was in good hands.

  On the way down from Lundeen’s office I listened for footsteps, butterflies, and music, but heard none.

  Raymond caught me in the lower lobby.

  “Big nose and beard, little pointy red beard,” he said, stroking an imaginary beard under his chin.

  “The Phantom?” I asked, walking on.

  “Damned right,” he said.

  “I thought you didn’t get out much?” I said.

  “Not much,” he said, gangling after me as I hit the doors to the outside.

  “That’s the description of the Phantom the opera director gives in the movie,” I said.

  “Coincidence,” said Raymond.

  “Why you wearing a shirt and tie and overalls, Raymond?” I tried.

  He looked down at himself as if this were startling news.

  “Want to look my best,” he said. “Make a good impression. Big things going on. Good-looking women. Want to keep working here when they pack up and leave.”

  “You don’t think the opera is staying?” I asked, opening the door and looking down. One of the old lady pickets was gone, but the old man and the other woman were still holding their placards high.

  “Nope,” Raymond said. “Smell funny in here to you?”

  I sniffed.

  “Plastery-like,” Raymond went on with a shiver. “Building liked itself the way it was. It was sleeping peaceful. Now they’re waking it up. It’ll get all this dust in its ducts and sneeze everyone out of here.”

  “Except you,” I said.

  “Probably,” he agreed. “I know places to get a good hold when the sneezing starts.”

  “You’re a poet, Raymond.”

  “Creativity runs in the family,” he said. “Father was a trumpet player. Got me my job here back when I came back from fighting Villa.
Goin’ to rain.”

  “Looks like,” I said. Raymond ducked back into the building, and I went down the steps right toward the old man with the placard.

  “Got a question,” I said to him when I reached the sidewalk.

  He was wary, but any attention was better than what he was getting from the departing workers. The old woman looked at me hopefully and put down her sign.

  “Got an answer,” the old man said. “And the answer is quit this place and help convince others to do the same.”

  “Wrong answer,” I said. “You mentioned a Reverend …?”

  “… Souvaine,” the old woman piped in.

  The old man gave her a look of distinct rebuke.

  “I am the on-site spokesman, Cynthia,” he said to her.

  Cynthia looked properly put in her place.

  “I’m sorry, Sloane,” she said.

  “The Reverend Souvaine is the spearhead of God in the battle against the godless,” said the old man, looking up to God with a small, knowing smile. God spat a few drops in his face.

  “Getting God and politics a little mixed up, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “They are, as the Reverend Souvaine points out, inseparable,” said the old man, looking at the woman, who nodded her approval.

  “How do I find the Reverend?” I asked.

  “He does not hide,” said the man.

  “Amen,” said the woman.

  A pair of women leaving the Opera looked over at us, then pretended to return to an absorbing conversation.

  “Where doesn’t he hide? Where do I find him?”

  “Church of the Enlightened Patriots,” replied Sloane. He reached into his back pocket and came out with a crumpled sheet of paper announcing an open meeting at the church. The date had passed, but the address and telephone number were there.

  “Think it would be a good idea to get the lady off the street and get her a glass of iced tea?” I suggested. “It’s starting to rain.”

  The man cocked his head to one side and looked at me with new eyes. The madness passed.

 

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