Poor Butterfly tp-15

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “I know,” I said, knocking at Vera’s door.

  Her “Come in” had an undertone of urgency. I went in and closed the door.

  Passacaglia had Vera pinned to the wall. They didn’t recognize me.

  “Get out,” said Passacaglia.

  “Stay,” cried Vera. “Call the big man.”

  “Out,” Passacaglia insisted. “You are intruding on a lovers’ quarrel.”

  I stepped forward and put my hand on Passacaglia’s arm.

  “Old man,” he said. “You are about to be embarrassed.”

  I took off my cap, put it on Vera’s head, and showed Passacaglia my face.

  “Toby,” Vera said with relief.

  Passacaglia pushed away from the wall and hit me across the bridge of what was left of my nose with the back of his hand. It was a reasonably powerful clout. I didn’t reach up to check for blood. I didn’t want to mess up Charles uniform.

  “Killer,” hissed Passacaglia. “Killer of women.”

  I grinned and took a step toward him. He backed up.

  “Do not hit,” he warned, with one hand up. “Do not touch my face or my diaphragm.”

  I pushed his hand out of the way. He tried another backhand. I caught that with my shoulder and threw a short right to his stomach. He doubled over. Vera gasped behind me. Passacaglia held one hand on his stomach and threw another backhand at my face. I stepped back and slapped at his face. He turned away from the slap and it caught him on the neck. He went down gasping.

  “I told you no face, no diaphragm,” he moaned. “Are you deaf?”

  I helped him to his feet and looked at Vera. The chauffeur’s cap sat at a rakish angle on her head. She looked cute as hell. I told her. She touched my cheek.

  “My throat,” croaked Passacaglia. “I … you fool. I won’t be able to sing tonight.”

  “You’ll recover,” I said.

  “Not in time,” he said, “You’ve damaged a delicate instrument.”

  His voice did have a sandpaper rasp.

  “You sound better,” I said.

  “I’ll sue you,” he said, pointing a finger at me.

  “Fear is striking my very soul,” I said. “The police are looking for me for murder and you threaten me for temporarily cancelling a tenor?”

  “Remorse,” he tried, looking at himself in Vera’s mirror. “Contrition. Apology. Is this too much to ask?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t think of anyplace else to hit you.”

  “The shoulder,” he said, voice going quickly, pointing to his shoulder. “Or you could have kicked me in the ass. Peters, you may be assured that this incident ensures that there is no way we can ever be friends or that I can even be cordial to you. I am leaving.”

  His voice was just about gone now.

  “Martin,” Vera said. “I’m sorry, but you did …”

  Passacaglia had one hand on the doorknob, the other at his neck. I knew where he was heading.

  “Martin,” I said. “We may not be friends, but we are going to make a deal. You don’t tell the cops I’m here, and I don’t make a call to your wife and tell her you’ve been trying to do some extra rehearsals with Vera.”

  Passacaglia sneered in my direction.

  “Traitor. Robber. Scoundrel. Imposter,” he rasped and left, slamming the door.

  “I think the exit line was from the chorus of Gianni Schicchi,” Vera said.

  “Puccini?”

  “Yes.”

  I kissed her. She tasted like the memory of lilacs.

  “Maestro Stokowski will be upset,” Vera said, in my arms. “We have no understudies.”

  “Let’s see what we can do about it,” I said, leading her to the door, taking my cap back and planting it on my head.

  “Which way did he go?” I asked Jeremy.

  Jeremy nodded to the left, down the corridor toward an exit sign.

  “Let’s find big John,” I said, and led the way to the stairway just outside the backstage door leading inside the auditorium. There was no one in the darkened corridor. The three of us went up the stairs and made our way to Lundeen’s office. We didn’t hear anything inside.

  I stepped back and Vera knocked.

  “Come in,” Lundeen boomed, the weight of the opera on his broad shoulders.

  He was not alone in the room. The Reverend Souvaine stood next to the broad desk facing Lundeen, who stood behind it. They were almost eyeball to eyeball-teeth, fists, and stomachs clenched.

  “Now get out,” Lundeen shouted at Souvaine, who had the best of the moment sartorially. The reverend was wearing a near-white Palm Beach suit with a ruffled white shirt and a powder blue tie. Lundeen was wearing baggy slacks and a sloppy brown wool sweater too large even for him.

  “I came in peace to talk reason and righteousness,” bellowed Souvaine, without looking back at us.

  I hid behind Jeremy, which was easy to do.

  “You came to dictate pious lies!” shouted Lundeen. “You came like a Wagnerian Nazi in the night to stifle art.”

  “At least,” said Souvaine, “we agree about Wagner.”

  “Out,” Lundeen said, his hand sending a pile of charts flying across the room.

  “If you try to open,” said Souvaine, standing erect, “God will surely strike you with the lightning staff of the flag of the nation which he loves above all others.”

  “Fool!” bellowed Lundeen, coming around the table. “Mixer of metaphors!”

  “Overweight blasphemer,” said Souvaine softly.

  Jeremy stepped between the two men, leaving me exposed. I pulled the cap farther over my eyes and moved behind Vera. Lundeen tried to reach past Jeremy to get at Souvaine, who stood his ground.

  “Pompous swindler!” cried Lundeen.

  “Cartoon,” said Souvaine.

  “Fart!” screamed Lundeen.

  “Fart?” echoed Souvaine. “Is that the height of your creativity?”

  Lundeen growled and pleaded with Jeremy. “Let me kill him. Just a little.”

  “You have my prayers, my pity, and my warning,” said Souvaine, who paused at the door and turned to Jeremy. “And you will suffer both the wrath of the Lord and the law for the unprovoked attack you made on the Reverend Ortiz. ‘The Lord is far from the wicked; but he heareth the prayer of the righteous.’ Proverbs Fifteen, Verse Twenty-eight.”

  “It’s Verse Twenty-nine,” Jeremy corrected. “Verse Twenty-eight is ‘The heart of the righteous studieth to answer, but the mouth of the wicked poureth out evil.’”

  “You are wrong about the verse,” said Souvaine, his face turning pink.

  I wanted to put up the forty bucks in my pocket on Jeremy’s being right, but I kept my mouth shut and Souvaine went out, slamming the door. Lundeen moved back behind his desk and sat with his head in his hands.

  “Peters,” he said without looking up. “What are you doing here? The police are fluttering around the place like bats.”

  “Great disguise I’ve got here,” I said, taking off my cap. “Only the police don’t recognize me.”

  “I’m an actor,’’ said Lundeen. “Or I was. I can see through a costume, a mask.”

  With that he looked up at the three of us and swept his hand in an arc. “All these papers,” he said. “That little man and Gwen spent the night. And what was the result? Everyone still has an alibi.… Listen to me. I’m using dialogue from cheap radio shows. That’s what my life has come to. Everyone has an alibi for either the workman’s death or the attacks on Lorna. No one was unseen by someone else for at least one of the incidents. The more incidents we get, the more charts we do and the less sense it makes.”

  “Maybe it was more than one person,” Vera said.

  “Ah,” sighed Lundeen, pointing at her. “Suddenly sopranos can think. Yes, it’s a conspiracy. I’m beginning to agree with you.”

  He laughed without enthusiasm.

  “Let’s see,” he said. “Souvaine, Raymond, and I have conspired with the police. Ev
eryone is in on it, perhaps even Lorna, who was not killed by our Mr. Peters but committed suicide because she couldn’t stand the guilt and the complication.”

  “Lundeen,” I said.

  “And,” Lundeen went on, “Gwen tells me she is leaving after Butterfly, assuming we actually get to perform. I think she is running off to Los Angeles with your German midget.”

  “Gunther’s Swiss,” I corrected.

  “Swiss,” sighed Lundeen. “This is as bizarre as a Mozart opera.”

  “It gets worse,” I said.

  Lundeen looked at me and went silent.

  “There is nothing worse,” he said after a moment.

  “Martin Passacaglia can’t sing Pinkerton tonight,” I said.

  “They killed him, too?” Lundeen’s mouth fell open to reveal a limp red tongue.

  “I hit him in the neck,” I admitted.

  “You …” he began.

  “… hit him in the neck. He was mauling Vera,” I said.

  “Mauling Vera,” Lundeen repeated, looking at Jeremy.

  Jeremy had no answer.

  “Toby has an idea,” Vera said softly.

  “You are a tenor who knows the part of Pinkerton?” he asked calmly, folding his hands on the desk.

  “No, but you’re a baritone who knows the part,” I said.

  “I … me … sing Pinker … You’re mad,” Lundeen said, suddenly standing.

  “You’ve got a better idea?” I asked, moving to a chair and sitting. I pulled Charles’ lunch out of my pocket, opened it, and fished out a sandwich. I think it was Spam and ketchup. I didn’t care. I was hungry.

  “I haven’t sung on stage in years,” he said. “And it’s not written for …”

  “You know the role, Mr. Lundeen,” Vera said. “And this is only the dress rehearsal. By opening, Martin will be fine.”

  “If you don’t go on, you may be kissing Butterfly good-bye,” I said.

  “The Maestro would never …” Lundeen began.

  “I think he will,” I said. “He wants this to go on. He’s a patriot, remember.”

  “A patriot who is getting a generous fee for his services. The costume would never fit me,” he tried, his eyes on Jeremy.

  “Call in your costume people,” said Jeremy. “I’ll help. Sewing is a meditation with which I am familiar.”

  “It will be a disaster,” Lundeen protested, throwing charts and graphs on the floor.

  “Consider the alternative,” said Jeremy.

  Lundeen stopped ranting and appeared to consider the alternative.

  “Yes,” he said.

  I finished the sandwich and went to work on Charles the Chauffeur’s apple.

  “That’s settled,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” said Lundeen, “but there is more to this hoary tale.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He handed the paper to Jeremy, who handed it to me. I uncrumpled it and read:

  If she sings tonight, at midnight she will be the third to die.

  Erik

  “It was pinned to my office door when I arrived this morning,” Lundeen said.

  “What does it say?” Vera said, reaching for the note.

  I considered keeping it from her but it was her life, her choice. I held it out and she took it. She read it quickly and then read it again.

  “Do you think he …?”

  “I don’t know, Vera,” I said. “But you sing and we’ll see that no one touches you.”

  “Can you guarantee that, Toby?” she asked, her large brown eyes looking down at me.

  “No.”

  “I’ll sing,” she said.

  “There’s a good chance we’ll have the Phantom before the performance,” I said. “Gunther’s following up a lead I got from Miguelito.”

  “The dog?” Lundeen asked.

  “The dog.”

  Lundeen shook his head in disbelief.

  “Ruined,” he said. “Vera, we must get on stage. We must rehearse. I’ll have to go over the blocking.”

  “Jeremy,” I said. “Stick with her.”

  Jeremy blinked once to show me that he understood. I left the room, closing the door behind me. I could hear Lundeen’s voice through the closed door calling on the phone for the costume shop.

  Something was bothering me, but I had too many pieces to put together.

  14

  Cap back on my head, stomach not quite full but satisfied, I made my way back to old Raymond’s tower. He wasn’t there. The door to the room was off its hinges and the furniture, what was left of it after Ortiz and Jeremy’s best-out-of-one match, was one step away from kindling.

  I looked around but there was nothing much to find. No clues to Raymond’s past, present, or future. I gave it up and headed back down the steps. I hit the first level down and heard a creak from behind. I looked up in time to see a barrel tottering at the edge of the top step. Someone was behind it, but I couldn’t see more than a dark shape.

  “Hold it,” I said, but he didn’t hold it. He let it go and it started klomping down. The steps were narrow, the landing a few feet across. I jumped down two steps hoping the barrel would break up or stop at the landing. It didn’t. It did pop open and begin to spit out nails.

  I tore down the stairs pursued by the barrel and a laugh above me that I didn’t like at all. I got halfway down the second narrow flight and tripped, which probably saved my life. I fell on my shoulder and tumbled faster than the barrel. I went flat at the next landing and tried to hide under the bottom stair. The barrel bounced and sailed about an inch over my head, crashing past, raining nails.

  I got to my knees and touched the parts of me that might be broken. I was still operating. Charles’ uniform was dead, punctuated by flying nails and splintered stairs, but I wasn’t. I was damned mad. The laughter above me had stopped, but I went up. I was hurting, but the hell with it.

  “Laugh, you clown,” I shouted. “I’ve got one for you that’ll put you in stitches.”

  I could hear the barrel come to a crash somewhere. I stopped. Silence. And then the sound of footsteps above. I went up the steps two or three at a time. Whoever was above me was scrambling now. I kept coming. When I made it to the landing in front of Raymond’s sanctuary, I stopped. There was no one in the room, no place to hide, no place to go.

  Listen, I told myself. Don’t even breathe. Listen. Out on the bay a foghorn blew. I waited and then heard a creak to my right, near the window in Raymond’s room. I moved to the dirty window and saw that it was open a crack. I pushed and leaned out in time to see a cape disappearing around a corner of the tower. If he could do it, so could I. I climbed out the window, found a foothold, a narrow brick-width stone ledge, and started after the Phantom. I held tight to the bricks, kissed them, and didn’t look down, but I knew down was a long way off. A piece of ledge cracked under my foot. I told myself to take it easy. I turned the corner. No one was there. I kept inching and found another open window. I was about to plunge through when a flying bust of some Greek came sailing past my nose. I ducked, holding onto the window ledge, expecting someone to cut off my fingers. Instead, I heard footsteps moving away from the window. I went over the edge and back into the building, tumbling onto my side. I sat listening, letting my eyes get used to the darkness again, and then I got up and went after the sound of heels hitting wooden floors. I didn’t know where the hell he was going, but we weren’t going down. My hands touched curtains, metal rails. Sounds echoed and the guy in front of me hummed.

  “You want singing?” I shouted. “I’ll sing.”

  I bellowed out “The Love Bug Will Get You If You Don’t Watch Out” and what I could remember of “Minnie the Moocher” and bumped into a door. I shut up, found the handle, stepped through, and almost fell a hundred feet to the stage below. I teetered on the edge of a small platform beyond the door, looking for something to grab. I was reaching for a rope and going forward when he pushed me from behind. My hands caught one of the ro
pes and held. I turned my head for an instant to see a flash of cape as the door I’d tripped through closed.

  I considered calling for help. Someone might hear me, but I didn’t think anyone could get up here before my grip slipped. I started down the rope, not knowing where it would end. I found out fast. I ran out of rope with a forty-foot fall below me. The red velvet stage curtains were touching my face. I grabbed for a fold, caught it with one hand, and did the same with the other. There was nothing to climb, nothing to use, and not much strength left in my fingers.

  I closed my eyes, felt my stomach go, and a musty breeze brush my face. I had time to think that I had either let go of the curtain and was falling, which I didn’t believe, or that the curtain had torn from my weight and was falling with me, which I did believe. I stopped with a jerk, lost my grip, and fell backward on the stage.

  When I opened my eyes, I found myself looking up at Raymond Griffith.

  “That is one dangerous way to have yourself a good time,” he said. “I can tell you that. I didn’t let you down you’d have been creamy mushroom soup.”

  I sat up and looked at him. He was bedecked in overalls and a clean shirt. A cardboard suitcase sat next to him.

  “You are going somewhere?” I asked, trying to stand but shaking too much.

  “Distant horizon,” he said. “Time I moved on. Forty years is enough to spend in one place, my mother used to say.”

  “Why would your mother say that?” I asked.

  “Maybe she said four years,” he answered with a shrug.

  “I don’t want to be ungrateful, Raymond,” I said. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to stay till after tonight’s performance.”

  “I’ve seen Madame Butterfly,” he said. “Think I saw the U.S. of A. premiere. Didn’t like it much. I’ve seen a lot.”

  “I’ll bet you have,” I said. “Ever see La Fanciulla del West?”

  Raymond’s idiot yokel mask dropped. “Sorry you saved me?”

  “No,” he answered in a voice I’d never heard from him. “Sorry you ask too many questions.”

  He picked up his suitcase, turned, and headed for the far wings.

  “Hold it,” I called, rising on wobbly legs.