“Roger?”
“Right. Keep in touch.”
Sean and I played truck dodge from one curb to the other, leaping about inconspicuously, and ended up in the aromatic downstairs hall of the hyper-substandard brick antiquity that Laszlo Scott infested. Sean wanted to read the archaic obscenities on the walls, but I hustled him along upstairs. My main ambition was to get this whole thing over with as quickly as possible.
Laszlo’s den, third grimy floor front, sported a shiny metal door with five count them five locks of elaborately different kinds. The homemade universal key Mike’d issued me opened all of them but one, which turned out to be neither locked nor working. I began to feel a treacherous sense of confidence rising within me.
I slowly pushed the door open. It didn’t creak. This bothered me. Laszlo’s door by rights should creak. I stood there wondering about that, and Sean pushed past me into the pad.
Nothing happened to Sean, so I shrugged and followed him in. “Hello there,” I told my wrist before I even bothered to look around. “Are you there?”
“What’s happening?”
“Contact, smooth and easy. Where are you?”
“Third and 28th Street headed north.”
“Groovy. Keep in touch.”
Then I looked around. It wasn’t exactly the kind of pad I’d expected Laszlo to have, but it was obviously Laszlo’s kind of pad. The internal walls had all been torn down, not quite neatly, making the pad one huge and thickly littered room, in the midst of which stood Sean looking shocked. I got the impression he wasn’t used to dirt.
The walls were whitewashed, mostly, and decorated with Laszloish slogans in gaudy colors, like: Art is Fredom; The Cretor is The Onley True God; The Futur Belongs too the Poet — the rest being unprintable, just as poorly spelled, and pretty dull.
The windows were covered over with colored tissue paper pasted directly on the panes — the standard poor man’s stained-glass effect — which was covered over in turn by a few years’ geological accumulation of good old city filth. The light that found its way through these barriers was dim and resigned, unable to give a damn, precisely what Laszlo’s litter needed. Complete darkness would’ve been even better, aesthetically, but might’ve had some practical drawbacks.
“Well, Sean, this is a New York poet’s pad. How do you like it?”
“You mean he lives here?”
“That’s what he calls it. There’s his bed.”
It was over in the farthest, darkest corner of the mess, a bare and superannuated mattress on the floor, torn and filthy with historic dirt, surrounded by discarded bottles, beer cans, chocolate milk cartons, creme-filled cupcake wrappers, sandwich bags, used tissues, mummified corned beef sandwiches, obsolete stockings, assorted dingy female undergarments, badly used torn comic books — the enduring moldy record of Laszlo’s Village life. The place smelled of mature cat box, too, though there seemed to be no cat.
Sean clearly didn’t believe a word of this. “You say this cat’s a Poet, man?”
“That’s the general idea, baby. A genuine twentieth-century bard.”
“Oh yeah?” Sean was learning fast.
“Hey!” my left wrist suddenly demanded. “What’s happening?”
“We’re inside,” I assured him, while Sean, tiptoeing fastidiously, touching whatever he thought he had to as little as possible and wiping his fingers nervously on his Levi’s afterwards, more or less began to search the pad. The litter was six inches thick on the average, deeper in drifts, and the task before us had a lean and hopeless look.
“What the hell are you doing?” Mike insisted.
“Talking to you,” I said reasonably enough. “What’s happening?”
“We’re in Grand Central. Subject’s waiting for someone under the clock. Looks worried.”
“Great. Keep up the good work, fellah.” Sean had found a chartreuse desk minus a drawer or two, and was cheerfully ransacking it, emptying it onto the floor, creating an additional mess Laszlo was unlikely to notice.
“Are you, ah, proceeding with the exercise?” Poor Mike.
“With great viguh, sir, in spite of all but insurmountable obstacles.”
“Results?”
“Ambiguous.”
“Oh? Well, ah, keep in touch.”
“Later,” That done, I joined the hunt.
Sean and I in record time formulated a neat set of ground rules for the search. Nothing on the floor, we agreed, was worth considering; anything carefully stashed anywhere was. That made our job 90 percent easier. Another rule prohibited putting things back where we found them, which would just be wasted time and needless charity. Working thus, we went through Laszlo’s midden with a gap-toothed rake.
It took an hour or so, during which Mike called frequently to report that Laszlo hadn’t done anything yet and ask us what we’d found.
I was getting dragged by the mess, my tiny respect for Laszlo was clear gone, when Sean yelled from the bathroom, “Hey, what’s this?”
And Mike tinned, “Chester, are you there?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” to Mike and, “Hold it,” to Sean.
“He’s gone!” Mike shrilled, buzzing the speaker.
“Where’d he go?”
“Dunno.” The fidelity was poor, but good enough to carry the embarrassed tone of Michael’s voice.
“You lost him?” Considering Mike, this was hard to believe.
“There was this ChicK, you understand?”
“Chick?”
“Yeah. She asked me for a light, and when I turned around again, he was gone.”
“Oh. A ChicK.” I thought it over, then, “Pretty?”
“Wow!”
“Figures. Well, we’ll cut out like now, okay?”
“You better.” Pause. “Oh, find anything?”
“Not particularly. Agent 002’s got something in the John, but I haven’t seen it yet.”
“Hmm. Right. Anyhow, get out as fast as you can. He may be heading back, you know. See you at the pad.”
“Roger. Keep in touch.”
Well. That was interesting, I supposed. “What’ve you got?” I yelled at Sean.
“C’mere an’ see. I cain’t tell.”
Laszlo’s john couldn’t surprise me anymore, not after the rest of the pad, but it certainly was unusual. Yeah, unusual. It looked like a cross between an explosion in a pharmacy and a condemned abattoir, just what I expected but more than I could take. Nevertheless, I took it. I’m a dedicated man now and then.
Sean was standing in the middle of all this, skitterishly shying away from anything. He was holding a medium-size brown paper sack, well-filled, over his head.
“What seems to be the matter here?”
“Dig.” He handed me the bag. It was full of crushed, dry green leaves. For a moment I felt a thrill course through me, but then I remembered Laszlo’s slimy practices.
“It’s probably oregano,” I regretted.
“Don’t smell like it,” he offered.
He was right. “Step into my office,” I suggested, and we moved back into the big room.
“I happen to have with me,” I said, pulling my trusty little pipe from my pocket, “an extremely sensitive testing device.”
“Groovy,” my faithful assistant exclaimed.
I dipped up a pipeful of Laszlo’s unknown green stuff, lit it, and inhaled deeply. “Nope,” I said after a while, “it’s not oregano.”
“What is it?”
I dropped my voice to a solemn whisper and said, “Marijuana, baby. Loathsome Laszlo’s private stash.”
“Hey, man, what a gas! Let’s cop it.”
“You want to steal Laszlo’s grass?” The idea had an appalling charm.
“Why not, man?”
“Well — he’d notice. Mike doesn’t want him to know we’ve been here.”
“Oh, man, like you know bards can’t count.”
Years ago, before we knew what Laszlo was, I’d innocently paid him twenty bucks fo
r prime spaghetti seasoning, so, “Okay, but leave some for Laszlo,” there being a kind of honor in every minority group.
“Right.”
And so we split, Sean carrying our share of Laszlo’s treasure. I closed the metal door silently, carefully relocking all five locks, and we started to tiptoe down the stairs.
Halfway down we stopped dead. There was a strange noise below us, a familiar strange noise, an absolutely Laszlo kind of noise.
“Trapped!” I cursed.
We turned and tiptoed double time back up the stairs, past Laszlo’s pad and two flights farther, all the way up to the door to the roof, which was locked from the other side.
“Yeah,” Sean whispered while I swore inventively, “trapped.” Meanwhile Laszlo loudly climbed the stairs below us. He seemed to consider each step a personal offense, and kept it no secret. He wasn’t a happy Laszlo, not at all.
He reached his landing and the Laszlo noise abated. Then there were crisp metallic noises, four sets of them: the Bard of MacDougal Street unlocking his door. This developed into a furious muffled rattling, punctuated by spurts of amateurish profanity. The rattling grew louder, and there were vigorous percussive sounds most likely made by kicking.
Under cover of this racket Sean whispered, “Hey, man, did you do something to that other lock?”
Clatter bang.
“Other lock?”
“You know, man. They was five locks, only one of ’em didn’t work. Remember?”
Thunderbash clamorbang cuss!
“Oh Christ,” I admitted. “You’re right.”
“You locked it?”
“I locked it.”
Sean and I huddled at the top of the stairs, waiting. It didn’t seem likely that Laszlo’d come upstairs and find us, but considering Laszlo, that wasn’t much security. I became acutely conscious of the rustling paper bag in Sean’s hand. That could take some explanation. It might be easier just to slug him, but Mike wouldn’t approve. Too inelegant, he’d say. Too crude.
Suddenly Laszlo fell silent, except for a thin low mutter that was probably his detailed opinion of the situation. Sean and I held our breaths. Laszlo’s muttering grew louder, and there were footsteps approaching. Complications threatened to set in.
Laszlo climbed up two flights, to the landing half a flight below where we were huddled in the insufficient darkness. He stopped before a door in plain sight of us, stood fuming for a moment, then rapped abstract invectives on the door.
Sean and I were paralyzed. This was clearly a situation out of which no good could come. All Laszlo had to do was turn around and we’d be had. He was bound to wonder why we were lurking around his pad, and we could count on him to think the worst — especially since he’d be right.
He rapped again. No answer.
“Why me?” he wondered bitterly. “What have I done? Why do these things have to happen to me?”
I could’ve told him, but it didn’t seem wise.
“It’s a plot, that’s what it is. They’re out to get me, that damn Anderson and all his stinkin’ crew. I know what’s going on here. Oh yeah, I know where it’s at, baby.” Louder rapping. “I’ll show them bastards.” Further rapping.
I felt better already, but, “Hello there,” said the wrist radio into one of Laszlo’s silences: transistorized instant traitor I squelched the gadget before it could say any more, but too late.
“Who’s there?” Laszlo panicked in anger, revolving like a paranoid top. “Who said that?”
Sweating foolishly, I pretended to be invisible. Doubtless Sean played some such desperate game as well.
Laszlo stopped twirling, his silly-putty nose aimed straight at us. “All right,” he snapped in a scared falsetto, “I see you. Come down here. Come on.”
“Okay,” whispered something in me that was half stubbornness and half humiliation, “I’ve been caught by Laszlo Scott, fair and square, but I’ll be damned if I’ll cooperate. If he wants me, let him come and get me.” So I sat rock-still and didn’t make a sound. Being pretty much stuck behind me, Sean had no choice but to do the same.
“Quit stalling,” Laszlo said with less conviction than before. “Come on down here.”
We didn’t move. Presently Laszlo said something commonplace and foul and stomped ungracefully away. We heard his cloddish feet descend two flights; we heard him rattling his door again; we heard him clomp the rest of the way downstairs to the ground floor, and we heard him slam the front door, hopefully behind him.
Still we did not move. Very gradually we realized that somehow Laszlo hadn’t really seen us after all. This was very strange, for Sean was wearing a white shirt and the stairwell wasn’t really all that dark.
But we didn’t hang around to work it out. As soon as we understood that Laszlo’d actually split for someplace, we tiptoed cautiously but swiftly down the stairs. (I was getting sick of all this tiptoeing. My green suede boots weren’t made for it, and my feet were starting to hurt.)
At the street door, Sean — -whom Laszlo conveniently didn’t know — poked his head outside to reconnoiter, keeping his left hand and Laszlo’s verdant treasure safely out of sight.
“It’s cool,” he announced, and out we went, looking so exactly nonchalant and casual we were almost invisible to ourselves.
We got home five minutes after Mike, and Sean instantly abandoned himself to Sativa again while I tried to explain to the irate M. T. Bear why I hadn’t responded to his last radio signal, why it took us so long to get home, and why we found nothing more significant than the bulging paper bag. Mike liked his plots to work the way he meant them to.
“Apparently,” he said when he’d digested my report, “Laszlo missed his connection at Grand Central.”
“He wasn’t very happy,” I agreed.
“So you’ll have to start tailing him tomorrow.”
“Oh.” That again.
But the time had become five o’clock, and we felt justified in calling it a day. This left us gloriously free until the morning, because it was Monday night, the Village sabbath, and all the entertainment coffeehouses were closed, and nothing, praise God, was happening. We could all use a little nothing happening. So we settled down to sample Laszlo’s grass.
An hour or something later we all nobly admitted that just this once we had to admire Laszlo’s taste. We were all absurdly pacified.
“Man,” I drawled for all of us, “I’m stoned. All I want to do now is move as little as possible. Wow.”
“Oh yeah,” Sativa languidly remembered, “I forgot.”
“That’s cool,” Mike said. “What’d you forget?”
“She can’t recall,” Sean answered, but:
“Oh no,” she corrected. “Somebody called. While you were away. I’ll remember in a… oh yeah, Harriet called.”
The rest of us groaned. We dearly loved Harriet, but only in conservative doses and never on the phone. She could burn up an hour saying good morning.
“What,” I queried bravely, “did she want?”
“It’s her anniversary. She and Gary the Frog have been living together for seventeen and a half weeks Tonight. Isn’t that sweet?”
“Better him than me,” said Mike. “Better her than me, too, come to think of it.”
“Well, I think it’s sweet. And they’re having a party tonight to celebrate.”
“Forewarned,” I uttered, “is forestalled.”
“Right,” Sativa gleamed. “And we’re all going.”
That produced the finest stunned silence our pad had heard since Mike’s third-last mistress announced that she was pregnant. (It turned out that she wasn’t pregnant at all, and that Mike didn’t do it anyway, but for a while there our atmosphere was very oddly charged.)
I recovered first. “A,” I insisted, “I do not go to parties. Ever.”
“But…”
“B. If I did go to parties, I still wouldn’t go to parties where Gary the Frog and Harriet were likely to appear.”
“But, Che
ster…”
“C. I didn’t accept the invitation, wouldn’t’ve accepted the invitation, and didn’t authorize you — sweet little songbird though you may be — to accept it for me.”
“But I promised!”
“D. I’ve had a hard day and I want to rest.”
“You and Michael are the guests of honor.”
“E. What with one thing and another, I can barely move at best and have no eyes for that crosstown hike to Harriet’s seventh-story loft.”
“We can take a taxi.”
“And F, I do not go to parties. Ever.”
“You said that before.”
“It’s still true, and it goes for Mike and Sean, too. Right?”
“Right!”
“But I gave Harriet my word…”
“Sorry about that, love. You’re free to join the gruesome orgy if you wish, but the rest of us aren’t leaving this house, and that, my sweet, is where it’s at.”
It’s kind of refreshing, now and then, to exercise authority in your own home.
9
FROM THE very beginning, the party was as horrid as I knew beforehand it would have to be. The guests, more than a hundred, were just about evenly divided between people I didn’t want to see and people I didn’t want to see me. The loft was too hot, too narrow, too crowded, too dark, too smoky, and stank to high someplace of elderly cat box… There were, furthermore, two low-fi sets, one at each end of the loft, each blasting a different record I’d never have listened to otherwise, plus an atrocious and overstuffed rock-n-roll gang abusing megawatt amplifiers at about midway through the loft, plus everybody shouting to be heard above it all. Untold numbers of guests were extravagantly overdue for baths. Other hordes of guests were shakily holding foul-colored drinks ready to spill on the nearest available me. A few guests, most definitely the wrong ones, had already reached the disrobing stage, and some weren’t limiting their efforts to themselves.
And just in case we were somehow able to withstand all this, the creature that opened the door and let us in was Laszlo Scott.
“Well, well, well,” he ad-libbed, “Chester the Great and Michael the Cross-Eyed Bear. You might as well come in; it can’t make any difference now.”
The Butterfly Kid Page 7
