Stuart Kaminsky - Poor Butterfly

He moved closer, below us.

“Yes,” he said. “You recall the last line of I Pagliacci? Canio says, ‘The comedy is over.’”

“If I must die,” said Vera, “let it be in silence rather than to the sound of a second-rate baritone who has neither resonance nor soul.”

That did it. The flashlight beam probed through the glass, found us. The first shot shattered, sprayed. Bits of glass spewed, flew. Vera covered her eyes with one hand but she didn’t scream. The bullet hit the chain of metal holding the chandelier, screamed, and thudded into the ceiling. My hand tingled from the vibration of the chain. Not much time. I took a fix on where he should be and let go.

My chest brushed the outside of the glass and played a tune as I fell. I could tell almost the instant I let go that there was no chance of my landing within two yards of the man who meant to kill us.

He bellowed with delight and the building shook.

It all started on a Friday in mid-December 1942. A woman who identified herself as Lorna Bartholomew called. Behind her a dog was yapping. The woman said, “Miguelito, be quiet,” asked me if I was free to come to San Francisco immediately to take on an “assignment.” The dog kept yapping.

It was raining in Los Angeles when she called. I’d been sitting in my office in the Farraday Building, looking out the window, feeling sorry for myself. Before the war I used to sail paper airplanes out the window on rainy days and watch them fight the elements on their way to the alleyway six floors below. But paper was scarce now. Kids collected it, tied it in bundles, and brought it to school in their wagons to contribute to the war effort. SAVE WASTE PAPER a khaki-uniformed soldier on a billboard told us as we drove down Wilshire. The soldier on the billboard had his arm around a little boy whose wagon was piled high with old copies of Collier’s and the L.A. Times .

“Just one for old times,” I told Dash the cat, who sat on my desk licking the waxed paper of the dime taco from Manny’s we had just shared for early lunch. Dash was a big orange beast with a piece of his left ear missing and one eye that didn’t want to work with the other one. He’s been with me a few months now. I never thought of him as mine. I didn’t want to own a cat. I didn’t mind sharing my milk and Wheaties and cheap tacos with him, but I didn’t want responsibility for his happiness. I’ll give Dash credit. He didn’t push me. I’d met Dash on a case. He more or less saved my life.

“Watch,” I said, folding an ad I’d received the day before from a pair of optometrist brothers named Irick in Glendale who promised me better eyesight with their new lightweight glasses. I held up the work of aeronautic art for Dash’s opinion.

Dash stopped licking his paw and watched me open the window, letting in the sounds of rain and traffic on Hoover. He knew something big was up. As I sailed the plane into the rain, Dash leaped to the windowsill. His head moved and at least one of his eyes was fixed on the plane, which swayed, looped, and glided down. Dash purred and watched.

“Pretty good, huh?” I said.

The plane landed somewhere beyond the junked Chevy. An alcoholic named Pettigrew usually slept in the Chevy, but he had gone south to Mexico for the winter.

Anyway, that plane going out the window was the highlight of my week till the phone call came.

Sheldon Minck, who rented me the one-window broom closet I called an office, had stuck his head in to announce the call. Sheldon was working on a little boy when the call came. Sheldon is a dentist. If I were really the civic-minded knight I want people to think I am, I would have spent my days in front of the outer door of our offices warning away the unwary, telling them to flee with their hands held tightly over their mouths to preserve whatever remained of the enamel they prized. But the rent was low, and I couldn’t spend my life protecting an unwary public from the unsanitary creatures who lurked in thousands of offices throughout downtown Los Angeles with certificates on their walls claiming they were qualified to pull teeth, collect money from insurance companies, make you a star, tell your fortune, take your picture, find you an orange grove in Lompoc you could turn into a gold mine, or locate your lost grandmother.

Shelly, his bald head gleaming with sweat, his chubby cheeks bouncing, his Dr. Pepper-bottle-bottom glasses slipping on his nose, opened the door and pointed his cigar at me with one hand and reached over to hand me the phone with his other. We’d gotten rid of one phone in the office. Cutting overhead.

“For you,” he said. “Long distance. Frisco.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking the phone and waiting for him to back out of the room.

Shelly brushed an ash from his not very white smock and stood watching as I took the receiver.

“You have a patient, Shel,” I said, putting my hand over the mouthpiece.

“A kid,” said Sheldon, pursing his lips. “He can wait.”

Dash was still standing on the windowsill, hoping for another plane.

“I’d like some privacy, Shel,” I said.

“Privacy,” he said with a smirk to the cat, who ignored him. “Big deals going on here. Do I tell you not to come into my office when I’m working on a patient?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Okay,” he said. Behind him the kid in the chair shifted. Shelly turned, afraid that this one would get away. “I thought we were partners.”

“We’re not partners, Sheldon. I rent a closet from you.”

“Friends, then.” He pushed his glasses back and looked over his shoulder at the kid.

“Something like that,” I conceded.

Sheldon nodded, accepting the concession. “Can I tell you something? I don’t like the cat.”

“Sheldon, I’ve got a long-distance phone call,” I reminded him.

“I know,” he said. “I answered it. I don’t like any cats. I like dogs less. Can’t get their teeth clean no matter what …”

Something lit up within Sheldon Minck, D.D.S. “You know something. That gives me an idea.”

“I’m pleased, Shel,” I said. “Now can you …?”

“I can’t talk anymore, Toby. I’ve got a patient and an idea.” He departed, closing the door behind him.

“Mr. Peters?” the woman’s voice said. “Are you there?”

“Right,” I said, looking up at the cracked ceiling. “I’m sorry. Things are busy here today.”

Then she told me about the San Francisco job and asked if I could be there fast. Dash heard the dog barking and aimed a sincere hiss in the direction of the phone.

“I’ll check my calendar,” I said, and I did. I put the phone down and looked up at a three-year-old Sinclair Gas calendar my mechanic, No-Neck Arnie, had given me. It was turned to March 1939. Dash went for the downed phone and spat into it, at the dog. I pushed him away and picked up the phone again. “I can get away, but I’ll have to do some calls and postpone a few cases. You’ll have to cover all expenses and twenty-five dollars a day.”

“I …” she began.

“Make that twenty dollars a day,” I amended. “I’m giving pre-Christmas discounts, but I’ll need a fifty-dollar retainer.”

“That will be fine,” she said. “Would you like to know what this is about?”

It’s about twenty a day to a guy with fourteen bucks left, a guy who’s seriously been considering a security job at Lockheed, I thought.

“Of course,” I said.

“When can you get here?” she asked. “Pardon me.… Miguelito, be quiet.” Miguelito ignored her.

“Sunday morning,” I answered. “Where is ‘here’?”

“Oh,” she said, and put her hand over her mouthpiece. It was my turn to wait. The rain was still coming down hard and gray. This time I looked up at the photograph of me, my brother Phil, my father, and our dog, Kaiser Wilhelm. I was ten in that picture. Phil was fifteen. My mother was dead. My father soon would be. No one knows what happened to Kaiser Wilhelm.