Stuart Kaminsky - Poor Butterfly

My heart soared like a bird. I could be a self-righteous thief. I could steal a bike and feel like MacArthur liberating stolen property and giving it to a deserving peasant, me. I picked the nearest bike, a man’s bike with a bad paint job. I didn’t have time to go quietly through the pile. It would have to do. I found a dirty white painter’s cap with the word ZOSH printed across the brow in nail polish or something else red, and plunked it on my head.

I wheeled the bike to the door, opened the door, and went outside. Dawn was coming fast. I could see light from the sun. I looked into the alley. No cop car. I looked back at the house behind the garage and something caught my eye. A man was standing in the second-floor window looking out at me. He was big, bearded, and naked, and he did not like what he saw. He threw open the window as I ran the bike into the alley and jumped on.

“You goddamn thief,” the man hissed, but he didn’t yell, which confirmed my belief that this bike and the others weren’t kosher. The man wasn’t shouting for help or running after me with a gun. The man was a thief, and he was taking his losses rather than draw attention to himself and his vocation.

I was pumping like crazy just in case the man in the window decided not to take his loss easily. I sailed into the street and felt a gentle push of wind off the ocean. It was a cool morning, but I took off my shirt as I rode and stuffed it under the handlebars. An overaged morning biker, head down, racing against a stopwatch in his mind.

I decided to stick to side streets. People were getting up and out of their houses and apartments. Kids were slouching bleary-eyed out to the curb to catch school buses. A truck inched past me and the guy inside hurled a bundle of San Francisco Chronicles past my head onto the front steps of a brownstone house.

I don’t know what time I hit downtown. I had no watch. I biked straight up the street, head down, pumping as hard as I could, not looking right or left. I asked an old black woman with a shopping bag how to get to the Trocadero Hotel. I found it at the bottom of a hill right next to a cable car turnaround. A couple of men and a woman were pushing a cable car to point it back up the hill.

I parked the bike against a tree. There was a good chance the bike would be stolen, but the bike was accustomed to that by now. I shoved the Zosh hat in my back pocket and put my shirt back on. It was a wrinkled mess. I looked at myself in the window of a drugstore. I was a mess of wild hair, sticking straight up from wearing the cap, and bristly gray hair on my face from not shaving. What the hell. I walked into the lobby of the Trocadero Hotel as the cable car clanged behind me to let people know it was ready to roll.

The hotel was small, the lobby narrow. A skinny old man in a dark suit was standing behind the counter drinking a cup of coffee and going through a stack of cards. He looked up at me and stopped.

“Miss Tenatti’s room,” I said.

He didn’t move.

“It’s been a tough night,” I said, reaching over to shake his hand. “I can see you recognize me. We’ve been shooting down by the wharf.”

“I …” the old man began.

“Buster Crabbe,” I said, showing my profile. “Haven’t had time to get out of costume.”

“I don’t …” the old man said, looking around for help.

“Just give Vera a call and tell her Toby is here,” I said, leaning over confidentially. “That’s our private name. You understand.”

“Private … yes, Mr. Crabbe,” he said, and picked up the phone, keeping his eyes on me.

I grinned and looked around as if I were considering buying the place.

“Miss Tenatti? Yes. Mr. Buster Crabbe is …”

“Tell her Toby,” I interrupted.

“Toby,” he corrected. “Yes. Of course.”

He hung up and looked at me.

“She said you should come right up,” he said. “Room four-fourteen. You look much different in your films.”

“Makeup,” I said, taking a step toward the elevator.

“Now or in the movies?” he asked.

I laughed falsely and stepped into the elevator. The elevator woman glanced at the desk clerk, who nodded that it was all right to take me up.

Vera was waiting for me at the open door. She was wearing a silky pink nightgown.

“You look terrible,” she said, putting her hand to her mouth and stepping back to let me in.

I went into the room, looked around for Passacaglia, and plopped on the unmade bed. From nowhere Miguelito leaped onto my chest and tried to eat one of my shirt buttons. I petted him. He didn’t bite.

“The police are looking for you,” Vera said.

“I know,” I said, my eyes closed. “You have anything to eat?”

“No … yes, some doughnuts,” she said. “But I’m starting on health food to … Lorna’s dead.”

I pushed Miguelito away and sat up as Vera handed me a dish with two doughnuts.

“She’s dead,” I agreed.

“They think you killed her,” Vera said, touching her beestung lower lip with her thumb. Her pink silk gown opened slightly at her breasts.

I downed the doughnuts.

“Anything to drink?” I asked.

“Water?”

I got out of bed and moved into the small bathroom. I filled a glass and drank five glasses of not-quite-cool water. Vera and the dog watched me. I looked at her in the mirror. She looked soft and fresh. I looked at myself. I looked like a hairy, overripe avocado.

“You have a razor?”

“Yes, in the cabinet. Fresh blades are … you’ll see them.”

I took off my shirt, opened the cabinet, found the razor, put in a blade, and shaved as we talked.

“Who would kill Lorna?” she asked.

“Rance, Johnson, and Minnie,” I said. “She told me before she died. You know them?”

“Rance, John … They’re characters in La Fanciulla del West ,” she said.

“Interesting. She also told me to shave,” I said. “I’m shaving.”

I finished, found some toothpowder, rubbed it on my teeth, washed my face, and ran my fingers through my hair. I looked in the mirror and saw something that resembled a tired me.

“I’m supposed to go to a rehearsal,” she said. “At ten. With Lorna dead … I don’t … I don’t belong here. Martin came here last night. He tried to … I shouldn’t be here. And what am I going to do with Miguelito?”

I turned to Vera. She came into my arms, her pink nightgown coming open.

“I’ll find him a home,” I said.

“Thank you. You need a little rest and I need a little comforting,” she said, starting to cry. “Would you lie down with me for just a few minutes?”

I was tired and she was far from home and she reminded me of Anne and I don’t know who I reminded her of but that’s why it happened. It was fast, sweet, soft, and interrupted by Miguelito, who didn’t know what was going on and probably wondered when Lorna was coming to get him.

I slept and dreamed of Snick Farkas sitting in Santiago’s gas station dressed in a cape and wearing a white mask. Farkas was trying to sing something to me. He was saying a name, but I couldn’t make it out, and then as I slept I remembered: He said he had seen Samson going into Lorna’s building.

When I woke up, Vera was gone and Miguelito was lying on the bed looking up at me. His ears rose when my eyes opened. I found a note from Vera saying she had to go to the final dress rehearsal, that I was welcome to stay in the room and wait for her, that I should take care of Miguelito.

It was a nice offer, and I considered room service when I couldn’t find any cash, but I had a killer to find and my neck to save. I put my shirt back on, found a leash for Miguelito, and came up with a plan.

The desk clerk pretended to ignore me when I stepped out of the elevator, but even cleaned up and shaved I didn’t look much like Buster Crabbe. I gave him a smile and moved Miguelito’s paw in a wave. The clerk pretended not to see.