Poor Butterfly Read Free Page B

had for years fought the blight of bums and dirt that threatened to return the Farraday to the jungle.
    Jeremy still put in his hours, but since his marriage to Alice Pallas, who almost matched him in size and strength, the Farraday had ceased to be his child. Alice was, in fact, pregnant, a phenomenon of some discussion in the Farraday since Jeremy was sixty-one years old and Alice, though she would not reveal her age, was certainly well over forty-five. I had attempted during one recent phone call to inspire Anne with Alice’s example. Anne had hung up on me. Neither Alice nor Jeremy were in their office-apartment. It was still raining, but not hard, when I stepped out on Hoover and headed for No-Neck Arnie’s garage on Ninth, where I parked my Crosley.
    I made a deal with Arnie for a tankful and a ten-gallon can of gas for the trunk. It was black market, but this was an emergency. The gas would get me to San Francisco and back. Arnie opened the hood and gave the Crosley the okay for the trip. I gave him ten bucks. That left me twenty-four bucks.
    The rain had stopped but the sky was still gray and grumbling when I left Dash in the car while I bought a wool sports jacket with zipper pockets at Hy’s for Him, the Beverly Boulevard branch, for $4.99 plus tax. I picked up a pair of hot dogs from a stand shaped like a hot dog, ate one—dripping a minimum of mustard on the seat—and gave the other to Oash, who tore into it.
    Ten minutes later I was parked in front of Mrs. Plaut’s boarding house on Heliotrope. I went up the steps to greet my diminutive ancient landlady, who sat on a wicker chair, pencil in hand, writing on a lined pad. I had no doubt that the tome on which she labored was the massive history of the Plaut clan. It had become my responsibility to read and critique the manuscript; Mrs. Plaut was under the impression that I was alternately an exterminator and an editor. It was easier to live with Mrs. Plaut’s delusions than to try to alter them. Mrs. Plaut had decided long before I met her not to accommodate herself to reality. All in all, she probably had the right idea. She looked up at me, down at Dash, and into the sky.
    “Mr. Peelers,” she said. “Rain and cats.”
    “Rain and cats,” I agreed, taking a few steps across the porch. My goal was simple. Get to my room. Pack my few belongings, say good-bye to Gunther Wherthman if he was home—or leave him a note—and then head for San Francisco with Dash.
    “Inspiring,” she said with a deep sigh, tucking her pencil behind her ear, placing her pad of paper on the porch swing, and folding her hands on her flower-print dress. “I do not want your cat to eat my bird.”
    “He won’t,” I said.
    “If your cat eats my bird, or attempts an assault upon my bird, I shall be forced to take the Mister’s gun and demise him.” She looked down at Dash with a smile.
    “We understand,” I said.
    “No, Mr. Peelers,” she corrected. “ You understand and it is your responsibility. The cat understands very little. The cat is only a bit less dim than the bird.”
    “I’m going to San Francisco on business,” I said. “I’ll be gone for a while.”
    She tilted her head toward me and adjusted her hearing aid.
    “To San Francisco,” she repeated. “I was in San Francisco during the great earthquake. Mr. Spencer Tracy and Miss Jeanette MacDonald did not have the facts straight in their film. It was not Mrs. O’Leary’s cow that started the earthquake. Mrs. O’Leary’s cow started the fire in Chicago at an earlier time. But that is neither here nor there. Your Number Nine sugar stamp is good for three pounds till Tuesday. I assume you will have no use for it”
    “I’ll give it to you,” I said, opening the door.
    “I’ll take it,” she said. “And I will make Empire cookies or one of the cakes from Miss Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ new Cross Creek Cookery book, which Mr. Hill gave me for my birthday. Some people remember