Poor Butterfly

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 ropes 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.

“Peters,” he said, “I’m not staying around to get myself killed or spend the remainder of my life behind steel bars. I’ve spent my life playing everything from minstrel shows to third-rate opera. It’s kept me alive, and that’s the way I want to stay. I signed on for this role, but the play’s getting too serious for me.”

“Cherokee, Texas,” I said.

“You’ve got all the pieces,” Raymond said.

I took a couple of unsteady steps toward him when the door at the back of the auditorium started to open. Instead of crossing the stage, I rolled behind the fallen curtain and duck-walked to the wings. I looked back to see Preston, Sunset, and a pair of uniformed cops moving down the aisle toward the stage, I got up, took off my shoes, and ran into the darkness.

Vera’s dressing room was close by. I went for it. The door was open. The lights were out. I left them that way and felt along the wall for the curtained-off closet to the right. I pushed back the curtain, went in, closed the curtain, and sat on the floor behind hanging clothes. I felt around on the floor and found a plaster head with a wig on it. I moved the head carefully, took off Charles’s frayed jacket, put it on the floor under my head, and with a groan curled into an aching ball.

I fell asleep. I don’t remember the dream very well. Koko was there. So was Winston Churchill. Raymond was dressed as a Japanese cowboy. That I remember. Then the sound of voices awoke me and then the light went on.

It wasn’t exactly bright in the closet, but I could see Raymond clearly. He sat in the corner about three feet away, looking at a spot just above my head, his suitcase in his lap. He was definitely dead. I could tell that even without the sword sticking out of his stomach.

“… so Osa Johnson said,” a woman’s voice came as I tried to quietly sit up, doing my best to ignore or overcome the pain. “She said, ‘I’ll bet the cannibal natives are wondering why we’re killing so many Japs. They know we can’t possibly eat all of them.’”

I made it to something resembling a sitting position.

“That’s very funny, Gwen,” Vera said.

“Actually,” answered Gwen, “I thought it was when I read it, but it just seems a bit stupid now.”

I could see the out lines of the two women against the cloth curtains draping the closet. Vera appeared to be sitting at her dressing table.

“It’s all right,” said Vera. “I appreciate your helping me. I … we’d better get ready. My first-act costume and wig are in the closet.”

I was propped in one corner, the dead Raymond in the other when Gwen threw back the curtain and pushed the clothes back to reveal us.

“You know what time it is?” I asked.

Gwen looked at us and gasped. Vera heard her, turned in her chair, saw me and the sword sticking out of Raymond, and screamed.

A knock at the dressing room door. Vera jumped from her chair, closed the closet curtain, and said, “Come in.”

The door opened and I heard Sunset’s voice.

“You all right?”

“I was rehearsing,” said Vera. She went up and down the scales to prove her point.

“You’re all right?” Sunset repeated.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ve got to get made up and dressed. Mr. Butler, could you stay and give Gwen a hand with my costume?”

“I’ll be outside,” said Sunset.

The door closed. Footsteps. The cloth curtain was pulled back and I looked up at Vera, Jeremy, and Gwen.

“I did not do it,” I said, nodding at Raymond. “I came in here to hide and fell asleep. When I woke up, there he was.”

Jeremy helped me up.

“I believe you,” said Vera. “Can we … I’d rather not look.…”

I stepped out of the closet and Gwen closed the curtain.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Just before six,” Gwen said, looking at her wristwatch. “Dress rehearsal is at eight.”

“We can’t leave him in there,” Vera said, pointing at the closet.

“Call the cops and I’ll be up for two murders, and spending the night with Detective Sunset, who would probably use my head for batting practice,” I said.

“I’m afraid you can’t get out of here, Toby,” Jeremy said.

I looked around the room. There wasn’t much to see.

“Dress rehearsal is at eight,” said Gwen again, looking at the closed curtain.

“Maestro Stokowski is not pleased with the compromise of using John Lundeen as Pinkerton,” said Jeremy.

“It looks as if Martin Passacaglia will be all right for opening night,” said Vera, taking Gwen’s hand. “If not, the Maestro found a tenor in Los Angeles who can be down here in a day.”

“Wouldn’t the new guy have to rehearse, block, whatever?” I asked.

“It helps,” said Vera, “but featured singers sometimes come in the afternoon of a performance, go through simple blocking, and then do it. It’s not the best way, but it’s done.”

“Looks like I’m done, too,” I said.

“No,” said Vera, touching my cheek. “I think I have an idea. Gwen, we need makeup, costumes, wigs, and men.”

“That’s always been my philosophy,” Gwen agreed.

Vera explained her plan. I’d heard better, but it wasn’t bad.

“Jeremy,” I said. “Gunther and Shelly are in Lundeen’s office. Can you get them down here?”

Jeremy nodded and moved to the door. Gwen went with him. I went back behind the curtains while they opened the door and went out. When I heard Vera lock it, I came out.

Vera’s hands were folded. She was looking at Raymond. I closed the curtains.

“That sword,” she said. “It’s the one I’m supposed to use in the last act to commit hari-kari.”

“They’ll have a backup,” I said, moving to her side and putting an arm around her.

“The police,” she said. “Maybe they’ll think I killed …”

“We’ll get Raymond out of here,” I assured her.

“I think this Erik is really going to try to kill me,” she said with a shiver that went through us both.

“You want to have Stokowski call the whole thing off?”

She went rigid. Her back went straight.

“No,” she said. “If I quit, if there is no performance, no opera, then Lorna and that poor man will have died for nothing.”

“Sounds like the war,” I said.

“Perhaps it is,” she agreed, moving to her dressing table and sitting.

I leaned over and kissed her.

“Did he bleed on my wig?”

“No.”

“Why … who killed that poor man?”

“The why I know,” I said. “He knew who killed Lorna and who’s been playing Phantom. He wasn’t a harmless old bat. He was an actor hired, blackmailed, or bribed into helping our Erik, but he didn’t count on killing.”

“Now he’s dead,” she said. “These are very trying circumstances in which to give a performance.”

“I’ll give you that,” I said, grimacing as I leaned against the dressing table.

“You’re in pain?” She touched my cheek.

“Maybe just a little,” I admitted.

It was hard to carry on a tender conversation with a skewered corpse in the closet and the police outside the door looking for me. Luckily, Gwen came knocking within fifteen minutes.

“It’s me,” she said. “Are you decent? The policeman is being kind enough to help me with the costumes.”

I knew a hint when I heard one. I went back in with Raymond. He was still dead. The door opened and Gwen said. “Right over there.”

“Sure,” said Sunset. Then he left and the door was closed and locked.

When I came out this time, Gwen was piling wigs and a big leather box on the dressing table. A stack of silly-looking costumes was on the floor.

Another knock at the door. This time it was Jeremy, Shelly, and Gunther. When the door was locked, Gunther moved to Gwen’s side and patted her hand. Shelly looked at the room in confusion; Jeremy leaned back against the door, arms folded.

“What’s going on?” Shelly inquired, adjusting his glasses.

I moved to the closet and pushed open the curtain.

“I think he’s dead, Toby,” Shelly said seriously.

“I think so, Shel,” I agreed.

“I don’t care to be around dead people,” said Shelly, beads of sweat now clear on his forehead. “Especially ones with big knives in them.”

“None of us do,” I said, closing the curtain.

“Why couldn’t we meet upstairs where there aren’t any dead people?” Shelly asked. “This place looks like the stateroom scene in A Night at the Opera.”

“That’s just what it is, Shel,” I said.

Vera explained her plan. We were all going to get dressed as Japanese, complete with wigs and makeup. Even Raymond. Then at curtain time we’d all come streaming out and sweep right past. Sunset and his cavalry.

“I don’t like it,” said Shelly, “I don’t look Japanese.”

“You will when Gwen and I finish with you,” said Vera. “We haven’t much time.”

Finding costumes for Shelly, me, and Raymond proved easy. Jeremy and Gunther were the big problems. Gwen managed a transformation of Gunther, but Jeremy proved too great a task. They gave up.

While we dressed, I got the information that would make sense out of most of what was going on.

Shelly had found Snick Farkas in front of the Opera after looking around the neighborhood for hours. Farkas had camped on the steps, five-dollar bill in hand, watching Souvaine’s troops while he waited for someone to tell him how to buy a ticket. Shelly had told him there were no tickets for the dress rehearsal but he could get him in. Farkas had been more than happy to come.

“He’s sitting in the back row,” said Shelly, shifting his cigar stub so Gwen could apply makeup to his cheeks.

Gunther’s information was even more valuable and came in a rectangular envelope he handed to me.

“You will find in the envelope the playbill for the performance of La Fanciulla del West on March 15, 1936,” said Gunther. “However, the event never came to pass. I called the office of the newspaper in Cherokee, Texas, which I got from the information operator. A woman named Esther Trosow, who serves as editor, read to me the news item of that day. It seems there was an unfortunate incident. A person who played a bartender in the production was killed. The company was gone before the sheriff, a man named Pyle, could investigate fully. Citizens were upset that they did not get their money back.”

“How’d you get this?” I asked, opening the envelope and trying not to wrinkle the rubber bald pate Vera had placed on my head.

“Miss Trosow informed me that a gentleman from Cherokee who had been manager with the Wild Bill Hickok Opera House had moved to Santa Rosa and that he might have more information. With Miss Trosow’s help, I located the man, who informed me that he had kept both the clippings and the playbill for the event because it marked the end of any attempt to bring opera to Cherokee, Texas.”

“Did you look at this?” I asked Gunther, who was adjusting the sleeves on his tiny costume.

“I did,” he said.

“What?” cried Shelly, turning his head and dropping a clump of ashes on his costume.

“For starters,” I said. “The part of Minnie was sung by …”

“Supposed to be sung by,” Gunther corrected.

“Supposed to be sung by,” I amended, “Lorna Bartlett.”

“Lorna Bartholomew?” Shelly asked.

I didn’t answer.

“A man named Roger Griffith was supposed to play three parts in the opera,” I went on. We all looked at the dead Raymond, who, propped in the corner, sword now removed from his chest and placed neatly in his sash, looked like John Carradine as a transvestite.

A knock at the door and a voice. “Ten minutes to dress rehearsal.”

“Thank you,” called Vera, who no longer looked like Vera but a white-faced Japanese with a pile of dark hair.

“What else?” asked Shelly, admiring himself in the mirror. He looked like an Oriental version of Fiorello La Guardia.

“There’s a picture here,” I said. “Not a good one, but a picture from the Cherokee Daily Indian, a picture of guy who was supposed to sing the lead in La Fanciulla del West.”

I passed the picture around. No one said a word. I dropped it back in the envelope and stuffed the package in my purple kimono.

Another knock and the voice. “On stage.”

“Let’s do it,” I said.

Jeremy lifted Raymond Griffith’s body with one hand and I moved behind him. Gwen, not in costume, was at the rear of the parade. Vera led us out the door. We all pretended to exercise our voices.

People, some in costume, some carrying instruments, were scurrying around. Sunset, Preston, and uniformed police were standing off to the side examining faces. Preston looked directly at me. I opened my mouth and let out a falsetto “Fa, Fa, Fa,” and kept in the middle of the crowd.

We moved onto the stage. The curtain was down. There was a thronelike chair in one corner of the Japanese home set. Jeremy and I placed the dead Raymond in the chair, and I asked Jeremy to find Farkas and sit with him. Jeremy nodded and left the stage. Gwen squeezed Gunther’s hand and moved off.

“The first scene,” Vera said to me, “is supposed to be between Pinkerton and Cio-cio-san’s maid. There’s a garden set in front of the curtain. Goro would normally come out a bit later, but Maestro Stokowski has taken some creative liberties with the story, so …”

“Got it,” I said. “You going to be okay?”

“Yes.” Vera nodded.

And she was off. Members of the chorus, all dressed as Japanese, quietly found places on the set. Some of them looked at Gunther, Shelly, and me as if we were extras lost from a road show of The Mikado.

Through the curtain, the overture began. It sounded loud, strong, sure to me. Gunther pulled me down to him to whisper, “He’s improvising. Stokowski is improvising with Puccini.”

“Sounds okay to me,” I said.

“But,” posed Gunther, adjusting his kimono, “is the proper role of the musician to render the composer’s work faithfully or to use it as a point of departure for his own creativity?”

“Beats hell out of me, Gunther,” I admitted, trying to work out how I was going to unmask a killer and get the police off my back.

“It is a conundrum,” said Gunther.

I moved to the curtain and parted it just enough to see Stokowski, eyes closed in concentration, whipping his hands frantically. Behind him I could see an audience of about a hundred for the dress rehearsal. I couldn’t see Jeremy and Farkas in the rear, but I was counting on them being there.

The overture stopped and Vera began to sing.

She sounded light, happy, a Japanese song bird singing in Italian. Lundeen came in. He didn’t sound bad either, but I had the feeling he wasn’t hitting the upper end of the role.

When the curtain came up for the wedding party, the chorus sang, Gunther and I mouthed, and Raymond sat dead. No problems. Lundeen strolled the stage, smiling in a tight blue, ersatz navy uniform with brass buttons. He was sweating. As he passed without recognizing me, I whispered, “Ever play Samson?”

The smile fell from his face and he stopped walking and looked at me.

“How about Johnson in La Fanciulla del West?” I tried pulling the envelope out of my kimono to remove the newspaper photograph of Lundeen, looking thirty pounds thinner and two to four murders lighter. I held it up for the baritone to see. He turned into a tower of sweat and missed his cue.

There was a long pause. The orchestra stopped playing. Vera resang her line. Someone coughed.

“Giancarlo,” Stokowski’s voice came. “This is a dress rehearsal. You have just been given a cue. There is an audience waiting, an orchestra waiting.”

“I …” Lundeen began, turning to the audience.

“Snick,” I shouted. “You ever see this man before?”

From the back of the auditorium came the wavering voice of Snick Farkas. “Samson et Dalila, City of the Angels in 1938, ’39, something like that.”

“Mr. Peters,” Stokowski said above the sudden hum and rising of the crowd.

“Anyplace else?” I asked, stepping to the front of the stage.

“Yesterday,” came Farkas’ voice. “Going into that building you hit me in front of with the car. Just before you went in.”

“Mr. Peters,” Stokowski repeated. “Am I to understand that you are about to eliminate my second Pinkerton of the day?”

“Looks that way, Maestro,” I said.

“And we are to understand,” Stokowski said, playing his role perfectly, “that Mr. Lundeen killed Miss Bartholomew?”

“Right,” I said.

I could feel rather than see Preston and Sunset coming out of the wings in my direction.

“He also killed Raymond Griffith,” I said, pointing to the corpse on the throne.

That stopped Preston and Sunset, who looked at the dead man.

“And Mr. Peters,” Stokowski said, arms folded, lifting his chin at me, playing the perfect straight man. “Why did Giancarlo do these things?”

“My guess is he wants this opera to fail,” I said. “He pulled this scam on a smaller level back in Texas seven years ago. Combination of insurance scam and overselling to backers. I think someone objected to it then and got killed.”

“Madness,” cried Lundeen, arms out, walking around the stage, asking the audience for sympathy.

“Nope,” I said, pulling the bald pate off my head and scratching where it itched. “You were in it with Lorna and Griffith. I think she changed her mind when she decided maybe you weren’t just faking attacks on her. Gunther and I went over all the information on where people said they were when Wyler the plasterer died, when I was attacked, and when Lorna was attacked twice. You, Lorna, and Griffith always covered for each other. But you overcovered. All three of you said you saw a guy with a cape climbing up the scaffolding before the carpenter died. But you were seen inside the auditorium just before the death of the plasterer. I’ll bet the poor guy just fell and you made up the Phantom story.”

“But Lorna …” Lundeen pleaded.

Preston and Sunset had stopped now. Their attention was turned to Lundeen.

“Funny thing,” I said. “When I found her body in her apartment, she was covered with bruises, but not on her neck. Her neck was untouched, no marks. Only hours before, the neck was bruised and red from the Phantom’s attack on her.

“But there was no attack on Lorna Bartholomew. She rubbed makeup on her neck and came running up the stairs screaming. After the attack she wore a scarf around her neck.”

“This is ridiculous,” Lundeen said to Stokowski and the audience.

“It has the ring of dramatic authenticity,” said Stokowski, looking to his orchestra for confirmation. They nodded in agreement. The audience was discussing the situation in small groups.

“Should be easy enough to check your books, contractors, donors, to see if you stand to profit by the opera failing,” I said to Lundeen. “Gunther can do it with Gwen and …”

Lundeen looked at me at stage center, Preston and Sunset stage right, Shelly and Gunther stage left, and the orchestra and audience out in front and made his decision. He pushed Vera out of the way and leaped into the orchestra pit, crashing noisily through a kettle drum. Musicians scurried out of the way as he climbed out of the broken drum and moved toward the audience and the aisle.

Stokowski stood immobile, arms folded, as Lundeen puffed past him.

Sunset and two other cops ran to the end of the stage, heading for the stairs.

Instruments were twanging, people were screaming, feet were running, but I could clearly hear Stokowski’s voice as Lundeen turned and tried to bull past him, back to the stage. “You would take the money of musicians and war orphans!”

Lundeen ignored the Maestro, which proved to be a mistake. Stokowski threw a straight right at the company manager, who was thrusting out an arm to push him aside. The punch caught Lundeen’s cheek. Lundeen turned on Stokowski, who hit the massive baritone in the nose with a right cross, following with an uppercut to the neck. Lundeen tried to level a punch at Stokowski, but the conductor beat him to it, throwing a solid left to the other’s stomach. The punch split the seam of the hastily stitched uniform, and a rip up the side showed a hairy white leg.

“I’ve been in brawls with photographers, critics, the police, and musicians around the world. No baritone is a match for me,” Stokowski said triumphantly, glancing back to be sure the audience had caught his performance. They had and were applauding.

I had my arms around Vera, watching. Sunset reached the platform and got a hand on Lundeen’s pants’ leg. Fighting off Stokowski with one hand, Lundeen kicked with his foot. The already torn pants came off in Sunset’s hand.

Letting out the bellow of a wild ape, Lundeen, in what was left of his Pinkerton uniform, leaped back into the orchestra pit and through the door under the stage through which most of the musicians had beat a retreat.

The cops went after him. Preston was the last one through the door. He paused a beat to look up at me and shake his head.

It should have been the end, but it wasn’t. The end is never really the end. The end is just where you decide to stop telling the story.

They didn’t catch Lundeen, which, considering his physical condition, said little for the efficiency of the wartime San Francisco Police.

“Lot of places to hide,” Preston said, coming back to Vera’s dressing room, where I was taking off my makeup. “We’ve got the place surrounded, exits covered. We’ll make a room-by-room search in the morning. You can pick up your wallet, gun, and car at the station.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Come after ten,” he suggested. “Sunset gets off at eight, and I don’t think you want to run into him again.”

“After ten,” I agreed.

“Lot of things we can shut you up for,” said Preston. “Moving Griffith’s corpse, pulling the sword out of him, escaping from legal custody. Long list, but my chief doesn’t want to see that Flores lawyer again. He’s filed a defamation suit against the police department.”

“I’ll give Lundeen that,” I said. “He got me a good lawyer when I needed one.”

“Yeah,” sighed Preston. “We’ll be happy if you’re out of town by noon tomorrow and you don’t visit us again. It’s a big country. I’ll take San Francisco. You can have the rest.”

“Sounds like a good deal.”

“It is,” he said. “We’re clearing out the building. Twenty minutes. Out the front. No costumes. Single file.”

He left us alone. Ten minutes later we met Shelly, Jeremy, Gunther, and Gwen in the front lobby. They were talking to Stokowski, who greeted Vera and me with a sad shake of his head.

“You would have been fine,” he told her, taking her right hand in both of his. “I hope you were paid in advance.”

“No,” Vera said.

“I was. Always get paid in advance,” Stokowski said.

“Maybe we can still …” Vera began.

“I’m afraid,” Stokowski said with a sigh, “I must get back to New York. A crisis. Rumblings over my choice of music. Toscanini is doing battle for me, but I fear his heart is not in defending modern composers. Mr. Peters, I’m afraid a check will not be forthcoming for your services.”

“Let’s call my services a donation to art and culture,” I said.

“I admire the gesture,” he said with a bow. “I’ll absorb the loss of Charles’ uniform.”

And he was gone.

“The man has good teeth,” said Shelly.

“You should have told him, Shel,” I said.

We agreed to meet in the late morning for breakfast at a place near Vera’s hotel. Gunther, Jeremy, Shelly, and Gwen left single file through the main door.

Outside on the steps the Reverend Adam Souvaine was bullhoming to a crowd of about twenty, claiming victory for God, America, and the Church of the Enlightened Patriots. There were “Hallelujahs” and “Amens” and even a few cries of “Past the ammunition.”

“See them emerge,” Souvaine said, pointing up at us. His eyes, blazing with triumph, met mine. I looked at him steadily and smiled. He turned away and continued, “Like rats. The rotting edifice will crumble like the walls of Jericho, the temples of Babylon. God and his instruments, the Enlightened, will be ever alert whenever the Nazi snake or the yellow godless horde dare stick their heads above ground into the clean sunshine of America.”

More shouts. The ancients danced and Vera bent her head to my ear.

“I’ll call my agent tonight,” she whispered, taking my hand. “Maybe I’ll have a few weeks or even more. I’ve never really seen Los Angeles.”

“I’ll show it to you,” I offered.

“My makeup case,” she exclaimed suddenly. “I left my makeup case in my dressing room.”

We hurried back to get it, and that almost got us killed.