Poor Butterfly (5 page)

“I can use the work,” I said. “And I’ll take it, but …”

“I received a call the morning after the unfortunate Mr. Wyler fell from the scaffolding,” Stokowski said. “A raspy voice, a baritone possibly, said a single word, ‘
One
,’ and hung up. Perhaps it is coincidence, but since the police will not investigate, I thought it prudent to enlist your services both to protect the production and to identify this Erik. It is my hope that nothing is amiss. Is that your automobile?”

He was pointing at my Crosley.

“Yes,” I said.

“I should like to ride in it at some point,” he said. “Giancarlo will give you what you need.”

With that he shook my hand, climbed into the back of the limo, and was gone.

“Well?” asked Lundeen.

“Twenty a day and expenses, like I told the lady on the phone,” I said, pocketing the note Lundeen had handed me. “And fifty for a retainer.”

“That is most reasonable,” he said. “Shall we go to my office and sign a contract?”

“Your word’s good enough.”

It wasn’t that I trusted Lundeen, or even Stokowski. I’ve been stiffed by the poor and the unpoor alike, but a contract with the rich doesn’t mean anything. You can’t sue them. Even if you win, you’d be behind on lawyer fees. It’s better to take your chances and give the impression that you trust people, even overweight people who sweat in cool weather.

“Thank you,” said Lundeen.

“Two quick questions,” I said. “First, you saw someone climbing up the scaffolding just before this Wyler fell?”

“A man in a black cape, which seemed odd, but this is a city of odd people,” sighed Lundeen.

“Second question. Who’s Erik?” I asked as we headed back up the steps.

Lundeen laughed, a deep laugh that made the workmen and women turn their heads in our direction.

“Erik,” he said, “was the Phantom of the Opera.”

L
undeen’s office was on the second floor, up a flight of marble stairs. It had clean windows and furniture—old, heavy furniture. He handed me fifty dollars cash, plus sixty for my first three days. I was rich. He didn’t want one but I wrote out a receipt. Now we were buddies.

Lundeen went behind his desk and sat down. I sat in front of the desk.

“Where do we begin?” he asked. “I’ve never done anything like this.”

He began to fidget with the rings on his fingers. He stopped fidgeting and reached for a cigar in the humidor on his desk.

“I don’t smoke in front of the Maestro,” he said. “Would you like one?”

“No,” I said.

He lit up and felt better. It wasn’t an El Cheapo. I could take the smell for a while.

“We begin,” I said, “with a list of everyone connected with this opera, everyone who might be a target.”

“Then you believe …”

“No,” I said. “But I’m being paid to act like I believe.”

“The list is long,” he said. “Contractors, musicians, office staff, cast, costume shop, set construction, lighting engineers. I’ll get it for you.”

“Put a check in front of the names of everyone who was here when Wyler fell,” I said. “How many people were in the building that morning?”

Lundeen thought about it, looked at his cigar, belched out smoke.

“I don’t know. A few dozen perhaps,” he said. “No, more. The orchestra, but they were together in the auditorium when it happened. I remember …”

“Cross check,” I told him. “Give me the names of everyone who was in the theater.”

“I see. Whoever was with us rehearsing couldn’t have killed Wyler.”

“Unless more than one person is involved,” I said. “The Erik note said, ‘
We
are watching.’”

“The royal ‘we,’ perhaps,” Lundeen said, pointing the cigar at me. “Or an allusion to his belief that he represents more than himself.”

“Put a few people on it. Ask who was here. Ask them who they remember being here. See if someone remembers someone being here who claims he or she wasn’t here.”

“Elimination will lead us …” he began with enthusiasm.

“… probably nowhere,” I said. “But that’s where we start. And we’ll need people here twenty-four hours a day watching and protecting while I look for our playmate Erik. That’ll cost.”

“Since we stand to lose over two million dollars if we do not open
Butterfly
to reasonably good sales,” he said, “we’ll pay for protection. Do you have a service in mind?”

“I could bring my staff up from Los Angeles,” I said, rubbing my chin, thinking about a bonus.

“Fine.”

“We’re a little unorthodox,” I warned.

“So is an opera,” Lundeen said, now rubbing his rings while he continued to puff at the El Perfecto.

“Let’s say one week through opening night. Flat fee of five hundred dollars above what you’re already paying me. If we have to go longer, we’ll talk about it later.”

“Sounds most reasonable.”

“I’ll get on it. Now I’d like a tour and an introduction to anyone around.”

Lundeen walked me through the dark palace, through closed-off wings, into dark rooms filled with racks of costumes, props, and ancient light stands. Rows of dressing rooms, rehearsal rooms, offices, rooms filled with books, walls covered with paintings and posters demonstrated the master touch of old man Keel, who never knew when too much was too much. We passed some people working, painting, sweeping, but the dozen or so of them were lost in the vastness of the place.

“Impressive,” I said.

“Expensive,” Lundeen sighed. “It’ll take years to fully restore it. The last opera performed here was
La Forza Del Destino
in 1904.”

“Al Capone liked that one,” I said as we walked.

“Al Capone?”

I didn’t elaborate. I changed the subject.

“What was your specialty?” I asked as we moved into a hallway behind the stage that seemed to be in good shape and well lighted.

“Rossini, Massenet, Bizet, some Mozart, Puccini,” he said. “I did a very credible Pinkerton in
Madame Butterfly
on a national tour in 1934, but I was considered too light, my voice too popular, for Wagner or even Verdi. I regretted the loss of Verdi, but not of Wagner. That I considered a blessing. Here.”

We stopped in front of a dressing room door. There were voices behind it. Lundeen knocked. A woman said, “Come in.”

In we went.

Vera Tenatti was seated in front of a mirror on a dressing table, one of those mirrors with bulbs around it. Almost all the bulbs were working. A copy of
Woman’s Day
lay on the table in front of her. Two cute white dogs looked up at her from the cover. The opera diva wasn’t looking at the dogs. She was staring at herself, and she didn’t look pleased by what she saw. An older woman in a dark suit, slender, blond—the woman who had led Vera off the stage—sat next to her, petting the little dog, who began yapping at me.

“Lorna Bartholomew, Vera Tenatti,” Lundeen said, closing the door behind him. “This is Toby Peters, the investigator we’ve hired.”

Lorna stood with a cool hand and a smile. She was polite, handsome, and somewhere else. The dog snapped at my hand.

“I talked to Mr. Peters on the phone,” she said, releasing my hand. “I’m glad you could come. This is Miguelito. He’s a miniature poodle with a very delicate temper.”

“Charmed,” I said.

“Vera?” Lorna touched the young woman’s shoulder. The touch woke Vera from her fascination with her image and she turned.

“I’m fat,” she said.

“I’m Peters,” I said. “And you’re not fat.”

She looked at herself in the mirror again and repeated, “I’m fat.”

“Occupational hazard,” sighed Lundeen. “It takes a strong body, lungs to project. The body must be maintained like a fine instrument. There are no thin cellos. A thin cello would have no depth.”

“It would be a violin,” said Vera. “I would rather be a violin than a cello.”

“I think you’re cute,” I said. “And you’ve got a great voice.”

She turned from the mirror to look at me. I was telling the truth. She knew it. The smile was grateful.

“Mr. Peters simply wants to meet everyone,” Lundeen explained. “And to know if you remember where you were and who you saw last week when that workman died.”

I pulled my pencil and small spiral notebook out of my pocket, ready to start putting things together.

“We were here,” said Lorna, reaching for a black purse on the dressing table and fishing out a pack of Tareytons. “Stoki was here. A few plasterers, the orchestra, the principals. No chorus.”

“The crazy old man,” Vera added.

“Crazy old man?” I asked.

“Raymond,” Lundeen said. “He came with the place. Caretaker. Knows where everything is. He was here before the place closed down in 1905. Makes little sense. He was with Lorna and me when Wyler fell. The three of us saw the man in the cape.”

“I’d like to meet Raymond,” I said.

Lundeen nodded. Since Lorna was standing and smoking, Lundeen took the opportunity to sit in the chair she and Miguelito had vacated. The wooden piece cringed under his weight but held.

“There were others,” Lorna said. “But who remembers? We were rehearsing.”

“Vera was in the middle of her second act solo,” Lundeen added. “And Martin was …”

“Martin?” I asked.

“Passacaglia, the tenor,” Lundeen explained. “He was in his dressing room, I think.”

“He wasn’t on stage,” Lorna confirmed. “But neither was Pepe, the … who remembers?”

I put my notebook away.

“Do you need me for anything more?” Lorna said, looking into my eyes as she petted Miguelito. It was a Lana Turner line. She handled it so well I couldn’t tell if she was being polite or encouraging.

“Not now,” I said. “I’d like to talk to Miss Tenatti first.”

Lorna shrugged a suit-yourself shrug. “John knows how to reach me,” she said, putting out her cigarette in a glass ashtray near Vera’s elbow.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Vera.”

She touched the girl’s shoulder. Vera touched the older woman’s hand and patted Miguelito’s head. The dog liked it. Lorna departed.

“I do not like that dog,” Lundeen muttered.

“He’s a sweet dog,” Vera said.

“I can pick it up on my own from here,” I told Lundeen.

“Good. I’ll be in my office most of the night,” Lundeen said, moving to the door. “Do you think you can find your way back there?”

“I’m a detective,” I reminded him.

He smiled and was gone.

“I’ve got some questions,” I said to Vera, sitting in the now available chair and taking my notebook out again.

She shrugged and looked at me. Her eyes were wide, brown, and very deep.

“Yes.” She gave me her attention.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Twenty-nine,” I said, writing in my notebook.

“Thirty-two,” she amended.

I nodded, erased and wrote.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Fifty.”

“Fifty,” she repeated.

“Forty-six,” I said.

She laughed. It was a solid, beautiful, musical laugh.

“Where did you learn to sing?”

“St. Louis,” she said. “I’ve been singing since I was four. You want to know my real name?”

“Sure.”

“Vera Katz.”

“Mine’s Tobias Pevsner.”

“Really?” she said, showing interest. I nodded and she went on. “My mother was a singer. Local, light opera. My father was, is a music professor at Washington University. That’s my life. Sing and get fat.”

“You’re not fat,” I demurred. “You’re very pretty and voluptuous.”

She blushed.

“Brothers, sisters?”

“I was the only one. You?”

“A brother,” I said. “Big, mean, a cop. You know what’s going on here?”

“I’ve heard,” she said with a shrug.

“You afraid?”

“No. Yes. A little. This is my big chance.” She looked at herself in the mirror again. “Are there pudgy … voluptuous Japanese women?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Maestro Stokowski says I should eat health food. I don’t like health food. I like to cook. Look.”

She opened the
Woman’s Day
to a page with a folded corner.

“There are these great recipes for inexpensive cuts of meat,” she said with enthusiasm, holding up a spread with six black-and-white pictures of plates of food. “Breaded fried tripe. Liver loaves. Brains in croustades. Heart patties.”

“Let’s get a cup of coffee and a carrot sandwich someplace,” I suggested.

She looked at me differently now. “My father’s fifty-two,” she said.

“How old’s your husband?”

“Don’t have one.”

“Boyfriend?” I asked.

She shook her head no, but the no was not emphatic.

“Martin has taken me out to dinner twice,” she said.

“The tenor.”

“Yes,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s … and he has a wife in New York.”

“How about that carrot sandwich?”

She nodded and smiled, a smile like the full moon.

It was a great moment. It would have been nice to hold onto it for a few seconds longer, but the scream ended it—a scream that seemed to cut through a dream, like the sound that wakes you from a deep sleep, a sound you’re not quite sure is in the room or in your imagination. I looked at Vera. Her eyes had gone wide. She’d heard it, too.