Butterfly Man. Lew Levenson

for her in a big way.

      The lean narrow face of Zarah the mind reader rose mistily before Ken's eyes.

      "You are thinking of life and love," boomed Zarah's rich resonant voice. His eyes were piercingly black and his skin sallow. Even on this noonday street, he wore his morning dress and his turban.

      "I see you walking," he said. "I like to talk to you, young man. You dance so beautifully and you are always so serious."

      "You liked my dance?"

      "I think you are magnificent." His voice lowered, his lips close to Ken's ear: "In costume, you must be so beautiful."

      "In costume?"

      "I should like you to visit me in my home in San Diego sometime. I show you a Spanish gown … ah, I wore it myself at the Chateau Richard in Van Nuys at the ball last season. A little alteration and it would become you so much better."

      "How do you know?"

      "La Lowell …"

      Ken's heart thumped at the name. Zarah was smiling at Ken's embarrassment. "Pierre Fortand, he made my gowns. He told me."

      "Told you what?"

      "I know, too, you quarrel with him. I do not know him. I only know of him. They say he is very recherché; I do not know." Ken was unable to speak. "You will pardon me," continued Zarah, "if I bring back unhappy memories. I am a very terrible mind reader or I would not be ​here in San Bernardino. You are a very wonderful dancer. You will go far. Have you had lunch?"

      "No," said Ken.

      "I know a charming little tea-room nearby; the host is a lovely fellow. Will you be my guest?"

      Curious that he should have met an acquaintance of Pierre Fortand's the moment that Anita left him to his own devices! Zarah was, of course, Mexican. Ken decided that Zarah had seen him leave the theatre and had followed him to the park.

      He liked Zarah, who had been everywhere … from the Faroe Islands to Zanzibar. He liked Bobby Glenn, the handsome platinum blond boy whose Pagan Tea Room seemed strangely incongruous, hiding as it did in the basement of a private house on a side street. Zarah's interest in him, he decided, was quite natural. In show business, as Anita had said, all men are brothers.

      He told Anita about his lunch with Zarah later that day. "The old dog." She laughed. "Watch out for him." She was feeling much better, she said. But she would go to bed early—right after the show.

      "Try Zarah tonight." She drew the corners of her lips down in a mocking grimace. "Make a date with him."

      As they danced the waltz, he saw Zarah's eyes watching him from the wings.

      "You are holding me too tight," whispered Anita. He swung about, she flew from his arms in her forever surprisingly bird-like flight. She returned to his arms. He danced close to her again, body arched into body. They began to spin, around, around and around in an intoxicating whirl. As they pivoted off-stage, he managed to brush ​his lips upon her cheek. She appeared not to notice and a moment later they were again on-stage, acknowledging the applause. As the curtain fell, he turned. She was gone.

      At the stage entrance, on the way to their dressing-room, he saw her. She was talking to a man. In the dim light he could not discern the man's features, but as he turned, he heard his own name.

      Ed Feinberg, loose-lipped, heavy browed, a little bald spot at the crown of his broad flat head, appeared.

      "Hello, Mr. Feinberg," said Ken.

      "Come here, schlemiebl. Do you know? You was very good tonight—I think maybe I book you for about four solid weeks through the state. If you keep working very hard and I get good reports, maybe a week or two even in 'Frisco and maybe a club spot in L. A."

      "That's great," Ken said, all smiles.

      Anita's lips drooped. "Perfect," she said in an expressionless tone.

      Her eyes faced Ken's. "I've gotta take a little run-out powder tonight, Kenneth. Mr. Feinberg and I, we got a little jabbering to do about terms and such things—"

      "Yeh—I'd like you to chaperone us," said Feinberg, "but I only got a roadster and it ain't got no rumble seat."

      "That's okay with me," Ken said. "I got sorta a date with … Zarah."

      He returned to the hotel at half past two. He had had but one drink. Zarah had passed out and Bobby Glenn was putting him to bed when Ken left the Pagan Tea Room.

      The night clerk unlocked the front door for him.

      "Miss Rogers home?" Ken asked.

      "Oh, yes, sir, since about one o'clock."

      ​He climbed the stairs.

      As he crossed the corridor, he made a hasty decision. The only way out, he concluded, was to go to her unexpectedly, catch her when she was off balance, take her by storm, love her plenty, get it over with.

      The odor of the corridor revived sensations of the night before. Here was her door. On the other side, a shabby room, a miserable bed. Her body lay there on that bed, her familiar body drawn fine by ceaseless rehearsing. She would be sleeping. He would wake her. She would call, "Who's there?" and he would reply, "Ken," and she would admit him.

      With knuckles folded, he lifted his hand to rap.

      The blurred voice of Ed Feinberg came indistinctly through the thin wood. "Don't go drinking any more of that gin, doll," the agent was saying. "You can't see where I am now. I'm here, doll, on this chair. That's it. Easy now … easy … you'll break the chair in two. Here … I'll take the glass. There … Mm, but you're pretty … there."

      "Poppa," he heard Anita murmur, "my Eddie, poppa, aw poppa … one teenie, weenie one more."

      Fingers held in his ears, Ken fled from the corridor and down the stairs.

      A glazed lamp … a narrow door. Ken, head low, moved straight ahead, walking until he should tire himself out. A Mexican, slant eyes betraying his partially oriental blood, brushed Ken's elbow. Dark street, another glazed lamp, a man standing against the wall urinating.

      Ken moved on. A pawn shop, a farmacia, another street.

      He could feel his young feet aching. He stopped. If he ​walked much farther he would lose his way. He laughed bitterly. This, then, was the end of love.

      He retraced his steps. The same slant-eyed Mexican moved toward him, passed him. The first glazed lamp shone above a narrow green door. Ahead of him was the second glazed lamp.

      From ebony darkness came a woman, blonde, frail, in a scanty black dress. She cut across his path.

      "Hello, buddy," she said.

      He stopped.

      "Lookin' for a good time?"

      Her eyes were shot through with blood, sharp lines cut her face, converging at the corners of her mouth. On her lip was a tiny sore.

      "No, I'm not." He strode on.

      "Guess I made a mistake, Kewpie," she cackled, her words evaporating in a thin high laugh.

      Ken's long legs moved in wide strides, but the laugh seemed to follow him, even to the threshold of his hotel.

      The motor bus sped westward on the valley road. Soon they would be back in Los Angeles.

      "You're no longer a child, darling," Anita said. "I can tell by the way you act."

      "I know it," Ken said. "That's why I'm going to tell you I know you had Feinberg in your room the other night."

      "And you didn't break down the door?"

      "I didn't."

      "Why not?"

      "I didn't care."

      "You lie, you idiot."

      "No … I'm telling the truth."

      ​Her