Эд Макбейн - Barking at Butterflies and other stories

“No, sir. Not since I came on, sir.”

“And when was that?”

“I came on at midnight, sir.”

“And you didn’t take anyone up to the eleventh floor all night?”

“No, sir.”

“What is it?” David heard a voice ask, and he looked past his father to the opposite end of the hallway where Mrs. Shavinsky had opened her door and was looking out. “What’s all the noise about?” she said. “Do you realize what time it is?” She was wearing a big flannel nightgown with red roses strewn all over it, printed ones. Her hair was in curlers.

“I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Shavinsky,” David’s father said. “We didn’t mean to awaken you.”

“Yes, well you did,” Mrs. Shavinsky said, as pleasant as always. “What’s going on?”

“Someone rang our bell,” his mother said.

“Good morning, Mrs. Shavinsky,” David said.

“Good morning, young man,” Mrs. Shavinsky said. “It is far past your bedtime.”

“I know,” David said. “We’re up to catch the bell ringer.”

“Did you say someone rang your bell?” Mrs. Shavinsky asked, ignoring David and looking up at his mother.

“Yes. Monday night, and now again.”

“Well, who was it?” Mrs. Shavinsky asked.

“That’s what we don’t know,” David said. “That’s why we’re all here in the hallway.”

“It was probably some D-R-U-N-K,” Mrs. Shavinsky said.

“No, it wasn’t no drunk, ma’am,” Oscar said. “I didn’t take nobody up here.”

“Then why would anyone want to ring your bell at three-thirty in the morning?” Mrs. Shavinsky asked, and no one could answer her.

Later, David’s mother kissed his cheeks and the tip of his nose and his forehead and hugged him tight and tucked him in.

Mrs. Shavinsky told him about her demitasse cups the next day, and when he hinted that he didn’t believe such a collection existed, she asked him to wipe off his feet and come into the apartment. The apartment smelled of emptiness, the way a lot of apartments smell when there is only one person living in them. She had her demitasse collection in a china closet in the dining room. David told her it must be fun to have a big dining room table like the one she had, and then he looked at her demitasse collection, which was really quite nice. She had about thirty-seven cups, he guessed. Four of them had gold insides. She said they were very valuable.

“How much do they cost?” he asked her.

“You should never ask anyone that,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because it is impolite.”

“But you told me they were valuable, Mrs. Shavinsky.”

“They are,” she said.

“Then why is it impolite to ask how much they cost?”

“It’s not only impolite,” she said, “it’s impertinent as well.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Shavinsky,” he said.

“They cost several thousand dollars,” she said. Her voice lowered. “Do you think the bell ringer is after them?” she asked.

“After what, ma’am?” he said.

“After my demitasse cups?”

“I don’t think so, ma’am,” he said.

“Then why would he ring your bell at three-thirty in the morning?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Shavinsky, but it seems to me if he was after your cups he would ring your bell. Maybe he’s after our cups.”

“Do you have a valuable collection of demitasse cups?” Mrs. Shavinsky asked.

“No, ma’am.”

“Then how, would you please tell me, could he be after your demitasse cups, if you do not even own demitasse cups?”

“I meant our coffee cups. In the kitchen.”

“Why would he want those?” Mrs. Shavinsky asked.

“Maybe he likes big cups of coffee,” David suggested, and shrugged.

Mrs. Shavinsky wasn’t sure whether or not he was making fun of her, which he wasn’t, so she kicked him out.

That night, the doorbell rang at one o’clock in the morning.

David was asleep, but his father was still awake and watching the news final on television. The doorbell rang and David’s father leaped out of bed at the first ring and ran down the long corridor to the front door and pulled open the door without saying a word. There was no one there.

“Damn it!” he yelled, and woke up the whole house.

“What is it?” David’s mother called.

“Damn it, there’s no one here,” his father said.

“What is it, Mister Ravitch?” Helga called from her bedroom.

“Oh, go to sleep, Helga,” his father said.

David was awake by this time, but he knew better than to ask his father any silly questions. He just lay in bed watching the ceiling and realizing the doorbell had rung again, and his father had gone to answer it again, and again there was no one there. Through the wall separating his bedroom from his mother’s, he heard his father going into the room and getting into bed, and then he heard his mother whisper, “Don’t be upset.”

“I am upset,” his father whispered back.

“It’s probably just someone’s idea of a joke.”

“Some joke.”

“He’ll grow tired of it.”

“He’s got Helga scared out of her wits.”

“She’ll survive.”

“How the hell does he disappear so quickly?” his father whispered.

“I don’t know. Try to get some sleep, darling.”

“Mmm,” his father said.

“There.”

“Mmmmm.”

While David was investigating the hallway the next day, Mrs. Shavinsky’s black housekeeper came out with the garbage. Her name was Mary Vincent, but David was not sure whether Vincent was her last name or just part of her first name, the way “Ann” was part of his mother’s “Lois Ann.” What he was doing as Mary Vincent came out with the garbage was pacing off the number of steps from the stairway in the service alcove to the front doorbell.

“What are you doing, David?” Mary Vincent said.

“There are fifteen paces,” he said. “How long do you think it would take to run fifteen paces from our door back to those steps?”

“I don’t know. How long would it take?”

“Well, I don’t know, Mary Vincent. But whoever is ringing the doorbell manages to disappear before we can open the door. If he doesn’t use the elevator, he must use the steps, don’t you think?”

“Unless this here’s an inside job,” Mary Vincent said.

“What does that mean? An inside job?”

“Somebody in the apartment.”

“You mean somebody in our apartment?”

“Could be,” Mary Vincent said, and shrugged.

“Well, that would mean just my family.” David paused. “Or Helga.”

“I didn’t say nothing,” Mary Vincent said.

“Why would Helga want to ring the doorbell in the middle of the night?”

“I didn’t say nothing,” Mary Vincent said again. “All I know is she was mighty angry while your mother and you was away in France and she had to stay here and work, anyway, without no kind of a vacation.”

“But she is getting a vacation, Mary Vincent. Mother asked her if she wanted to take her vacation when we went away or in August sometime, and Helga said August.”

“That ain’t what she told me right here in this hallway, David.”

“When was this?”

“When we was putting out the garbage.”

“I mean when .”

“When you and your mother was in France.”

“Well, that sure sounds mighty strange to me,” David said.

“It sure sounds mighty strange to me, too,” Mary Vincent said, “that somebody would be ringing your doorbell in the middle of the night.”

“I don’t even see how Helga could manage it,” David said.

“Her bedroom is right close to the service entrance, ain’t it?”